coal is a powerful antiseptic: consequently it has lately become a practice to char casks, or to burn charcoal in them, before filling them with water for a sea-voyage; by this means, it is said, water may be kept sweet during the longest voyage, There is one property of charcoal, that ought to be universally known: it is its wonderful power of consuming respirable air. Mr. Lavoisier found that one pound of charcoal, in burning, actually consumed two pounds nine ounces of oxygen, or vital air. Hence the extreme danger, or rather almost inevitable death of persons sleeping in a close room with burning charcoal by the bed-side.

and valuable science. Within the last sixty years its empire has been wonderfully extended. There is scarcely an art of human life which it is not fitted to subserve; scarcely a department of human inquiry or labor, either for health, pleasure, ornament, or profit, which it may not be made in its present improved state, eminently to promote. To the husbandınan this science furnishes principles and agents of inestimable value. It teaches him the food of plants, the choice and use of manures, and the best means of promoting the vigor, growth, productiveness, and preservation of the various vegetable tribes. To the manufacturer chemistry has lately become equally fruitful of instruction and CHARGE. In gunnery, the quantity of gun-assistance. In the arts of brewing, tanning, dyeing, powder and ball wherewith a gun is loaded. The and bleaching, its doctrines are important guides. rules for charging large pieces in war are, that the In making soap, glass, pottery, and all metallic piece be first cleaned or scoured within side; that wares; its principles are daily applied, and are the proper quantity of powder be next driven in capable of a still more useful application, as they and rammed down: care being taken, that the become better understood. Indeed, every mepowder in ramming be not bruised, because that chanic art, in the different processes of which heat, weakens its effect; that a little quantity of paper, moisture, solution, mixture, or fermentation is hay, lint, or the like, be rammed over it: and that necessary, must ever keep pace in improvement the ball or shot be intruded. If the ball be red-hot, with this branch of philosophy. To the physician a tampion, or trencher of green wood is to be this science is of still greater value, and is daily driven in before it. The weight of the powder growing in importance. He learns from it to comnecessary for a charge is commonly subduple pro- pound his medicines, to disarm poisons of their portion to that of the ball. force, to adjust remedies to diseases, and to adopt general means of preserving health.

Charge, in heraldry, is applied to the figures represented on the escutcheon, by which the bearers are distinguished from one another.

CHARIOT. A covered four-wheeled carriage, suspended on leathers or springs, drawn by two or more horses, and having only back seats; whereas a coach has both back and front seats. Chariots are of great antiquity; but coaches are of modern invention. A few centuries ago, there were but two even at Paris, one of which belonged to the queen, and the other to Diana, natural daughter of Henry II. In England, as low as queen Elizabeth's time, the nobility of both sexes attended her in processions on horseback; and she herself used to ride out upon a pillion, behind her prime minister. Chariots were anciently used for war, rather than for pleasure. The war chariots used by the ancient Britons, were open vehicles drawn by two or more horses, with scythes at the wheels, and spears at the pole.

CHEESE. In rural economy, is composed of coagulated milk, which has undergone a chemical process, combined with the mechanical operation of a powerful press, usually employed to expel the serum or whey, which would otherwise retain it in a nearly fluid state, and as such produce decomposition. The quality, and as such the value, of cheese generally depends on the nature of the milk employed, which varies considerably in different places. There is likewise a kind of medicated cheese made by intimately mixing the express juice of certain herbs, as sage or mint, with the curd, before it is formed into a cheese. The Laplanders manufacture a species of cheese of the milk of their reindeer, which is not only of great service to them as food, but also for a variety of other purposes connected with domestic economy.

To the student of natural history chemistry furnishes instruction at every step of his course. To information. By means of this science alone can the public economist it presents a treasure of useful he expect to attack with success the destroying pestilence, and to guard against other evils to which the state of the elements gives rise. And to the successful prosecution of numberless plans of the philanthropist, some acquaintance with the subject in question seems indispensably necessary. Finally, to the domestic economist this science abounds him to make a proper choice of meats and drinks; with pleasing and wholesome lessons. It enables it directs him to those measures with respect to food, clothing, and respiration, which have the best tendency to promote health, enjoyment, and cheapness of living; and it sets him on his guard against

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any unseen evils, to which those who are ignorant of its laws are continually exposed. In a word, from a speculative science, chemistry, since the middle of the eighteenth century, has become eminently and extensively a practical one. an obscure, humble, and uninteresting place among the objects of study, it has risen to a high and dignified station; and instead of merely gratifying curiosity, or furnishing amusement, it promises a degree of utility, of which no one can calculate the consequences or see the end.

The object of chemistry is to ascertain the ingredients of which bodies are composed,—to examine the compounds formed by those ingredients, and to investigate the nature of the power which produces these combinations. The science therefore naturally divides itself into three parts: a description of the component parts of bodies, or of elementary or simple substances as they are called, -a description of the compound bodies formed by the union of simple substances,-and an account of CHEMISTRY. Is an instructive, interesting, the nature of the power which produces these com

binations. This power is known in chemistry by the name of affinity, or chemical attraction.

themselves into two classes. Those which belong to the first class are of too subtile a nature to be By simple substances is not meant what the an- confined in any of the vessels which we possess. cient philosophers called elements of bodies, as fire, They do not sensibly affect the most delicate balair, earth, and water, nor particles of matter incapa-ance, and they have received therefore the name ble of farther diminution or division. They signify of imponderable bodies. The second class of bodies merely bodies that have never been decomposed, may be confined in proper vessels, may be exhibited or formed by art. The simple substances of which in a separate state, and their weight and other proa body is composed are called the constituent parts perties may be determined. They have received of that body; and, in decomposing it, we separate the name of ponderable bodies. The imponderable its constituent parts. If, on the contrary, we divide bodies at present supposed to exist are four, light, a body by cutting it to pieces, or even by grinding heat or caloric, electricity, and magnetism. The it to the finest powder, each of these small particles first three are intimately connected with chemistry, will consist of a portion of the several constituent but magnetism has with it no known connexion. parts of the whole body: these are called the integrant parts. Compound bodies are formed by the combination of two or more simple substances with each other.

CHESS. A very difficult game, performed with little round pieces of wood, on a board divided into sixty-four squares. Each side has eight men, consisting of a king, queen, two knights, two bishops, and two rooks or castles, besides eight pawns or foot soldiers; which are all moved according to certain rules.

Attraction is that unknown foree which causes bodies to approach each other. Its most obvious instances are, the gravitation of bodies to the earth; that of the planets towards each other, and the attractions of electricity and magnetism. But that attraction, which comes under the more immediate CHESTNUT TREE. A tree that is common in cognizance of chemists, subsists between the parti- the United States, and highly valuable both for its cles of bodies; and when it operates between parti- timber and fruit: it sometimes grows to a prodieles of the same species, it is called the attraction gious size. In the Gentleman's Magazine, of 1770, of cohesion, or the attraction of aggregation; but we are told of a Spanish chestnut, measuring fiftywhen between the particles of different substances, seven feet in circumference, which grows in Glouit is called the attraction of composition, chemical cestershire in England. It is supposed by Evylin attraction, or chemical affinity. The attraction of and Bradley to have been planted in the reign of cohesion, then, is the power which unites the in-king John, from mention of it in records of that antegrant particles of a body: the attraction of com- tiquity; and if so, it must have been about six hunposition that which combines the constituent parti-dred years old. According to Dr. Howel, the facles. When particles are united by the attraction of cohesion, the result of such a union is a body of the same kind as the particles of which it is formed; but the attraction of composition, by combining particles of a dissimilar nature, produces compound bodies quite different from any of their constituents. If, for instance, you pour upon a piece of copper, placed in a glass vessel, some of the liquid called nitric acid (aqua fortis) for which it has a strong attraction, every particle of the copper will combine with a particle of acid, and together they will form a new body, totally different from either the copper or the nitric acid. If you wish to decompose the compound which you have thus formed, present to it a piece of iron, for which the acid has a stronger affinity than for copper; and the acid will quit the copper to combine with the iron, and the copper will be what the chemists call precipitated, that is to say, it will be thrown down in its separate state, and reappear in its simple form. In order to produce this effect, dip the blade of a knife into the fluid, and when you take it out you will observe that, instead of being wetted with a bluish liquid like that contained in the glass, it will be covered with a thin coat of copper.

The simple substances were said very lately to amount to more than fifty in number, but since the truly interesting and very important discoveries of Sir Humphrey Davy, and other eminent chemists, it is scarcely possible to say what substances are not compound bodies. But it will be most conducive to science to consider all those substances as simple, which no mode of decompounding has yet been discovered. Simple substances naturally divide

mous chestnut tree of Mount Etna is one hundred and sixty feet in circumference, but quite hollow within; which, however, affects not its verdure; for the chestnut tree, like the willow, depends upon its bark for subsistence, and by age loses its internal part. In the cavity of this tree the people have constructed a commodious house, which they use for various purposes: it is called the tree of a hundred horses, as so many may at one time be sheltered under its boughs. The wood of the chestnut tree (says St. Pierre) is never attacked by insects, and is excellent for wainscoting. A judgment (he adds) may be formed of the beauty and of the duration of its wood, from the ancient wainscoting of the market of. St. Germain, in France: whereof the joists are of a prodigious length and thickness, and perfectly sound, though more than four hundred years old.

CHILBLAIN, in Surgery. Is a local disorder arising from cold. When the body is exposed to cold, it acts in a more immediate manner upon its surface, where it first excites a kind of coysipelatous inflammation of the skin, which becomes red and painful. When the operation of the cold is violent and long continued, the skin becomes pale and insensible, an uncommon degree of anxiety and languor is produced, and at last an unconquerable inclination to fall asleep; which, if the patient does not resist it with all his powers, bring on a complete asphyxia and insensibility, that finally terminates in death. Persons who are obliged to expose themselves to extreme cold, ought, therefore, in order to avoid the impending danger, particularly

from the very principle on which smoke rises at | immortalized in odes, and her fair resemblance all in a chimney, that the higher it rises the less is magnificently illuminated on fans, screens, &c. for the force that drives it, and the slower it must move, the admiration of posterity. The poorer classes and consequently the more room it should have to are engaged in various menial offices, while those move in, whereas in the usual way it has less. of rank employ their time in music, smoking, and Chimneys, therefore, should be built as nearly per- other accomplishments. A lady of fashion is of pendicularly as possible; they ought to be free course supposed guiltless of any manual labor, and from all roughness on the inside; and a few inches consequently, the nails are permitted to acquire an wider at the top than at the base. This would enormous length, particularly that of the little fineffectually prevent smoking; and might be so ger. These ladies smoke much, and their pipes, managed as not to interfere with the form of the usually formed of slender bamboos, the bowl of exterior. silver, or white copper, and mouthpiece of amber, or valuable stone, are in many instances singularly elegant. The pieces of bamboo used for the stems, are valuable according to the regularity and beauty of the wood, the evenness of the joints, and clearness of the bore. For those in which these various excellences are in great perfection, high prices are given.

CHINA PAPER. The Chinese, for making paper, use the bamboo reed, the cotton shrub, the bark of the kou-chee, and of the mulberry tree; also hemp, the straw of wheat and rice, the cods of the silkworm, and several other substances, the greater part of which are unknown in this manufacture in Europe. Most of the Chinese paper is very susceptible of moisture; dust easily adheres to it, and worms insensibly get into it: but their paper is much superior to ours in softness, smoothness, and the extraordinary size of the sheets; it being no difficult matter to obtain, from certain manufactories, sheets thirty or forty feet in length.

CHINCHILLA. This interesting animal, which produces the well known fur passing under that name, is a species of Field Mouse, and is common in the high plains of Chili and Peru. It is about nine inches in length, and has a tail about half the length of its body. It sits upon its haunches, and takes its food in its paws like a squirrel. It feeds chiefly upon bulbous roots.

CHINESE WALL. The great wall between China and Chinese Tartary, has long been deservedly an object of admiration. Its extent is one thousand five hundred miles, passing over several mountains, some of which are nearly a mile in height. It also passes over valleys, and even wide rivers, by means of arches. It is thirty feet high on the plain, and from fifteen to twenty, when carried over rocks and elevated grounds. The top is paved with flat stones, and is of such a breadth in many places that six horsemen can ride abreast upon it.

It has been computed that this enormous fabric, would furnish materials sufficient to surround the earth, in two great circles, with two walls, each of them six feet high and two thick. It has also been calculated, that all the houses in Great Britain, supposing them to amount to the number of one million eight hundred thousand, and to average two thousand cubic feet of masonry, would not be equivalent to the solid contents of this immense building. The date of this wall is not well known; but is supposed to have been completed two hundred and fourteen years before the Christian era.

Music is a favorite recreation, and guitars of various kinds, with other musical instruments of extraordinary shape and tone, are indispensable appurtenances to the boudoir of a Chinese belle. În such trifling employments, the life of these imprisoned beauties glides away with little variation, while that of the lower classes, is one perpetual scene of labor and exposure. They perform not only all those offices which are assigned to them in other countries, but on them and their children principally devolves the task of navigating the multitudes of small boats which cover the Chinese rivers. They are the moving power of these floating houses, for such in fact they are; born and dying in them, never living on shore, and possessing nothing but their boats and the contents. The women, from the continual exposure to sun and wind, become very dark, lose all that soft listlessness of expression, and delicacy of form, for which the higher classes are distinguished, and resemble in their exterior another people. They acquire masculine strength and manners, and from early habit become perfectly inured to the laborious occupation of rowing or sculling the heavy boats in which they live.

Women of the poorer classes show themselves without the least reserve in all public places, but no female whose means permit it, ever goes abroad except in a palanquin or sedan chair, most of which are furnished with curtains, which effectually conceal the occupant. In fact, so few of the Chinese women have any pretensions to personal beauty, according to our idea of it, and those who have, are so covered with paint, that, further than as objects of curiosity, they have few attractions for a foreign eye. The hair is always remarkably neat, generally very long and abundant, and dressed in a most elaborate manner, ornamented with gold or silver bodkins, and flowers, such as the Indian jasmine, which are delightfully fragrant, and disposed with much taste and effect.

Those who are blessed with the celebrated small feet, invariably outrank the other females of the CHINESE WOMEN. Females in China do family, who are unhappy enough to have their exnot hold that rank, or enjoy those privileges which tremities flourishing in a state of nature. The cusin more cultivated nations, are conceived to be their tom of compressing the feet, which has so long due. The Chinese women are generally very ig- been supposed to originate in the jealousy of Chinorant, their instructions being principally in domes-nese husbands, is, in reality, but in imitation of a tic affairs. A learned lady is so uncommon, that certain queen of China, who, being ordered to bind her attainments are a theme of admiration; she is up her feet in the smallest possible compass, to

please the fancy of her lord, was, of course, immediately imitated by the ladies of her court, and it thus became a standing custom.

The excess to which the compression is carried by many, is perfectly wonderful. Some of the females are so mutilated by this horrid custom, as to be unable to walk any considerable distance; and when compelled to make the effort, which is painful and difficult, they find a stick, or the shoulder of a servant maid, a necessary support.

their devotion to his service. In the progress of the feudal system, these vassals, in imitation of their chief, assumed the power of conferring arms on their sub-vassals, with a similar form of mysterious and pompous ceremony.

The candidate for this distinction, accompanied by his sponsors and his priests, passed the night previous to his initiation in watching his arms, and in the duty of prayer. The next morning he repaired to the bath, the water of which was intended The revulsion of blood to the feet, when the to serve as an emblem of the purity of his profesbandages, which confine the limb are removed, is sion. He then walked to the nearest church, clothsaid to be perfectly insupportable; and no less pain-ed in white garments, and presented his sword to ful is the unnatural confinement of the growing the minister officiating at the altar, who returned it limbs of young children, who suffer this inhuman to him with his benediction. After taking the actorture for the sake of fashion. We are informed, customed oaths to his sovereign, or feudal chief, he that it is necessary to watch them closely during was invested by the attendant knights and ladies growth, as the pain they endure from the bandages, with the various parts of his armour. The sovefrequently induces them, when unobserved, to tear reign then rising from the throne, conferred upon them off, in order to obtain relief. A sister who him, while kneeling, the honor of knighthood, by possesses a pair of these miserable looking feet, en- giving him three strokes with the flat part of a joys, as we have observed above, a higher rank in drawn sword upon his shoulders or neck. He then the family, in consideration of such insignia of fash- saluted the young warrior, and pronounced these ionable preeminence. The effect of the process is words-"In the name of God, of St. Michael, and found to be a premature appearance of age, and St. George, I make thee a knight-be brave, bold, decrepitude, which is materially aided by marriage, and loyal." contracted at a very early age. Those whose feet Chivalry, though considered, commonly, as a wild have not been subjected to this operation, are ob- institution, the effect of caprice, and the source of served to fail sooner, it is true, than the females of extravagance, certainly had a very serious influence temperate climates, but preserve their youthful ap-in refining the manners of European nations. The pearance long after the charms of their envied companions are faded.

feudal state was a state of almost perpetual war, rapine, and anarchy; during which, the weak and unarmed were exposed to insults or injuries. The power of the sovereign was too limited to prevent these wrongs, and the administration of justice too feeble to redress them. The most effectual pro

The size of these curious feet varies from four inches to the usual length of the female foot, as in some, from carelessness, they have no impediment presented to their growing in length, and are only very much compressed. Those on which the band-tection against violence and oppression, was often aging has been carefully performed, are scarcely any longer than when first confined. The toes are turned under the sole, and the point of the foot is terminated by the great toe, which alone preserves a resemblance of the original forın.

found to be that which the valor and generosity of private persons afforded. The same spirit of enterprise which had prompted so many gentlemen to take up arms in defence of the oppressed pilgrims in Palestine, incited others to declare themNumbers of poor women, who have been re-selves the patrons and avengers of injured innoduced in circumstances, are hourly observed in the cence at home. streets, lamed and tormented, by these only remain- When, too, the final reduction of the Holy Land ing badges of their former rank, and many of them under the dominion of infidels put an end to these scarcely covered, and all suffering from the accu- foreign expeditions, the latter was the only employmulated miseries of want and deformity. ment left for the activity and courage of adventurWe have heard Chinese fathers speak of this cus-ers. To check the insolence of overgrown optom in terms of reprehension, but urged the preva-pressors; to rescue the helpless from captivity; to lence of the custom, and the ridicule to which those who neglect it are exposed, as an excuse for its continuance.

CHIROLOGY. The language of the fingers, or the art of making one's self understood by means of the hands and fingers. It is an important means of communication for the deaf and dumb.

CHIVALRY. Chivalry arose naturally from the condition of society in those ages in which it prevailed. Among the Germanic nations, the profession of arms was esteemed the sole employment that deserved the name of manly or honorable. The initiation of the youth to this profession was attended with peculiar solemnity and appropriate ceremonies. The chief of the tribe bestowed the sword and armour on his vassals, as a symbol of

protect, or to avenge women, orphans, or ecclesiastics, who could not bear arms in their own defence; to redress wrongs, and to remove grievances, were deemed acts of the highest prowess and merit. Valor, humanity, courage, justice, honor, were the characteristic qualities of chivalry. To these was added religion, which mingled itself with every passion and institution during the middle ages, and by infusing a large portion of enthusiastic zeal, gave them such force as carried them to romantic excess.

This singular institution, in which valor, gallantry, and religion, were so strangely blended, was wonderfully adapted to the taste and genius of martial nobles; and its effects were soon visible in their manners. War was carried on with less ferocity, when humanity came to be deemed the ornament of knighthood, no less than courage. More gentle