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quantity of liquor resembling milk, which the Indians greedily drink before the fruit is ripe, it being then pleasant, but when the nut is matured the liquor becomes sour. Some full grown nuts will contain a pint or more of this milk, the frequent drinking of which seems to have no bad effects upon the Indians; yet we should be cautious of making too free with it at first, for when Lionel Wafer was at a small island in the South Sea, where the tree grew in plenty, some of his men were so delighted with it, that at parting they were resolved to drink their fill, which they did; but their appetites had like to have cost them their lives, for though they were not drunk, yet they were so chilled and benumbed, that they could not stand, and were obliged to be carried aboard by those who had more prudence than themselves, and it was many days before they recovered. The shells of these nuts being hard, and capable of receiving a polish, are often cut transversely, when, being mounted on stands, and having their edges silvered or gilt, or otherwise ornamented, they serve the purpose of drinking cups. The leaves of the tree are used for thatching, for brooms, baskets, and other utensils; and of the reticular web growing at their base the Indian women make cauls and aprons.

NUTS. There are several kinds of nuts used as articles of diet; but they are not in general to be much recommended. They abound in oily matter, are viscid and glutinous, and are apt with many people to prove very difficult of digestion. Dr. Paris thinks it would be wise to banish nuts from our tables, for there is a fascination in them, which will lead most persons who begin to eat them, to take a quantity which the best disposed stomach cannot bear with impunity. Hoffman observes, that dysenteric complaints are always more common in those years in which the harvest of nuts is plentiful; and there is not a physician in any practice who will be inclined to doubt his statement.

running in perfect irregularity through its whole substance. It is very unctuous and fatty to the touch, when powdered, and is of an extremely agreeable smell, and of an aromatic taste, without the heat that attends that kind of flavor in most of the other species.

There are two kinds of nutmeg in the shops, the one called by authors the male, and the other the female. The female is the kind in common use, and is of the shape of an olive: the male is long and cylindric, and has less of the fine aromatic flavor than the other, so that it is much less esteemed, and people who trade largely in nutmegs will seldom buy it. Besides this oblong kind of nutmegs, we sometimes meet with others of perfectly irregular figures, but mere lusus naturæ, not owing to a different species of the tree. The longer male nutmeg, as we term it, is called by the Dutch the wild nutmeg. It is always distinguishable from the others, as well by its want of fragrancy, as by its shape: it is very subject to be worm-eaten, and is strictly forbid, by the Dutch, to be packed up among the other, because it will give occasion to their being worm-eaten by the insects getting from it into them, and breeding in all parts of the parcel. The largest, heaviest, and most unctuons of the nutmegs are to be chosen, such as are the shape of an olive, and of the most fragrant smell.

NUTRITION. In Physiology, a function common to all organized bodies, in which their various component tissues convert nutritive matter into their own substance and add it to the particles which previously entered into their composition.

The materials of nutrition are prepared by sev eral previous processes; by digestion, in which the food is altered in its qualities, and reduced to a homogeneous mass; by absorption, in which this nutritive part of the aliment is extracted and conveyed into the blood; by circulation and respiration, in which this nutritive matter is converted into blood. Nutrition is the completion of the functions of assimilation; the aliment, animalised NUTGALLS. Excrescences formed on the by the series of processes just enumerated, and leaves of the oak by the puncture of an insect rendered similar to the substance of the being which deposits an egg on them. The best are which it is to nourish, is applied to the organs, known by the name of Aleppo-galls, imported for whose waste it is to repair; and this identification the use of calico-printers and dyers. These are of the nutritive matter to our orgaus, which take it hard like wood, of a bluish color, and of a dis-up, and appropriate it to themselves, constitutes agreeable taste.

NUTMEG. In Natural History, the kernel of a large fruit, not unlike the peach, the produce of a tree called by botanists Myristica. The nutmeg is separated from its investient coat, the mace, before it is sent over to us; except that the whole fruit is sometimes imported in preserve, by way of sweetmeat, or as a curiosity.

The nutmeg, as we receive it, is of a roundish or oval figure, of a tolerably compact and firm texture, but easily cut with a knife, and falling to pieces on a smart blow. Its surface is not smooth, but furrowed with a number of wrinkles, running in various directions, though principally longitudinally. It is of a grayish brown color on the outside, and of a beautiful variegated hue within, being marbled with brown and yellow variegations,

nutrition, in which there is a real conversion of the aliment into our own substance.

The component particles of an animal body are in a state of constant change; the old ones are detached and removed by the absorbents, and their place is supplied by new matter laid down by the arteries. Until the body has attained its full size, the movement of composition predominates over that of decomposition, and all the parts increase; when the growth is completed, and there is no apparent change of bulk, they are moved and the added portions balance each other; and, as the body declines, the absorption exceeds the addition of new matter. But, at all times, there is an interior motion of the component parts. Hence the body has been compared by a French physiologist to the vessel of the Argonauts, so often repaired in the course of a long and perilous navigation, that

on her return, no part of her former materials remained. An animal body probably contains none of the same molecules at two distant periods. The experiments performed by mixing madder with the food of animals, prove most unquestionably this incessant decomposition of animated and living matter. This mixture, in consequence of a chemical affinity between the madder and phosphate of lime, dyes all the bones of a red color; when the madder is left off for a sufficient length of time, the color disappears. It is obvious, that the calcareous phosphate in the osseous system previous to the commencement of the experiment, must be gradually removed, and its place supplied by the colored earth; while this is again absorbed in its turn, after the madder is discontinued, to make room for a new uncolored deposition. If the hardest and most solid parts, apparently the most calculated to resist decay, are undergoing perpetual motion of decomposition and regeneration; there can be little doubt that this motion must be far more rapid in those, whose power of cohesion is much inferior; for example, in the fluids. In the nails, hair, and cuticle, a constant growth is so regularly observed, that it is not necessary to particularise the phenomena. The fact is not so apparent in the soft parts, although we cannot doubt of its existence. The arteries and absorbents, which they all possess, can only be subservient to these uses; and we frequently see considerable enlargement or diminution of the body or a part, when either the addition or absorption acquires an undue proponderance.

and for the materials taken away from all parts of the body by the absorbing vessels. The different substances brought into the circulating system are there converted into a homogeneous fluid, of which the composition and properties are essentially the same under all circumstances. Whether we feed on animal or vegetable matters, on one or twenty articles, whether the body is increasing or declining, no differences, or at least none of any consequence, are observed in this fluid; our organs and means of research are not at present able to detect the variations of composition, which may be reasonably supposed to arise from the circumstances just enumerated.

Like all vital processes, nutrition is subject to considerable varieties. Besides the modifications, which it exhibits from the progress of age, it may be generally increased or diminished without any affection of health. In these changes, the effect is produced only on particular tissues: the bones remain of the same size, the viscera are not altered, and probably the muscles are nearly the same; the cellular tissue and its contained fat are the parts affected. Exercise has the effect of increasing the size of the muscles.

NUTRITIOUS PARTS OF PLANTS. In Agriculture, such parts as afford the nourishment and support of animals. In this respect there is considerable diversity of different sorts of plants, as well as in the different parts of which they are constituted. Dr. Darwin has suggested that those vegetables, which approach nearest to the nature of animal bodies, are the most likely to supply the greatest proportion of the nourishing material. Hence the esculent mushrooms, the gluten of wheat or other substances, and the oils of seeds and kernels, may be placed in the first rank in this intention. And that as the chyle of all such ani

Attempts have been made to determine the period, at which the body is completely renovated; it has been supposed, that an interval of seven years is necessary for one set of molecules to disappear and be replaced by others; but this is a point hardly susceptible of any precise determination. The change goes on more rapidly in child-mals as have red blood, is supposed to be nearly hood and in youth; it is slower in mature age; similar, and to consist chiefly of sugar, mucilage, and must require a considerable time at a very ad- and oil; it may be concluded that those vegetables vanced period of life, when all the organs become which contain the largest proportion of such mafiriner, and the vital powers more languid. There terials or of such as are capable of being convertcan be no doubt that sex, habit, climate, mode ofed into them by the process of digestion, may oclife, and various other circumstances, accelerate or retard it.

cupy the next place in respect to their nutritive properties, for such animals; provided that no noxious substances be combined with such useful

These considerations render it obvious, that the notion of personal identity cannot consist in same-properties, so that they cannot be easily separated ness of the body; an animal does not consist of the same parts in the same arrangement, not only at no two distant periods, but not in two following days or even hours.

The absorbing vessels are the agents of the decomposition of our organs; they detach the old matter, and convey it into the blood, whence it is separated chiefly by the kidneys, and perhaps also by the other secretory organs. The waste of the constituent particles of animal bodies is repaired by means of homogeneous particles exactly like themselves; thus each organ is the same to all appearance, although its component parts have been entirely changed. Were it otherwise, the nature of our organs would be undergoing perpetual changes.

This function of reparation is allotted to the circulating system, which is a common receptacle for the nutritive fluid extracted from our aliments,

from them. But though this be the case with these substances, there are others that may nearly supply an equal proportion of nutriment, from their great facility of being changed into sugar or mucilage, as those which abound in farina, consisting of meal or starch, which is partly converted into sugar, and partly into mucilage, in the process of melting, as well as many others. And the sap wood or alburnum of most trees, it is likewise suggested, affords much nutritious matter in the winter months. This curious subject may be seen more fully handled in the Phytologia of the above author, where a number of interesting circumstances are brought to view on the subject.

NUX VOMICA. The fruit, or rather the seed of the fruit or berry of a large tree growing in several parts of Egypt, and in the islands of Timor and Ceylon; of a strong narcotic quality, so as to

be ranked in the number of poisons. It is round, of seed necessary to produce this effect upon a and flat, about an inch broad, and near a quarter strong dog need not be more than a scruple; a of an inch thick; with a prominence in the middle rabbit was killed by five and a cat by four grains; on both sides, of a gray color, covered with a kind | and of four persons, who perished by this drug, of woolly matter, but internally hard and tough like horn. The largest, whitest, and cleanest are the best.

The kernel discovers to the taste a considerable bitterness, but makes little or no impression on the organs of smell. It consists chiefly of a gummy matter, which is moderately bitter: the resinous part is very inconsiderable in quantity, but intensely bitter; hence rectified spirit has been considered its best menstruum.

This drug is said to be an assured poison for all animals except men. Instances are not wanting of its deleterious effects upon the human species. To dogs it proves fatal in a very short time; and it has also poisoned hares, foxes, wolves, cats, rabbits, and even some birds, as crows and ducks; and Loureiro relates that a horse died in four hours after taking a dram of the seed in an halfroasted state. Its effects, however, on different animals, and even on those of the same species, are somewhat uncertain, and not always in proportion to the quantity given. With some animals it produces its effects almost instantaneously; with others, not till after several hours, when laborious respiration, followed by torpor, tremblings, coma, and convulsions, usually precede the fatal spasms, or tetanus, with which this drug commonly extinguishes life. The mortal symptoms in human subjects are similar to those now mentioned in brutes; and from these, as well as the dissection | of dogs killed by this poison, and manifesting no injury done to the stomach or intestines, it has been inferred that nux vomica acts immediately upon the nervous system, and destroys life by the virulence of its narcotic influence. The quantity

one was a girl of ten years of age, to whom fifteen grains were exhibited at twice for the cure of an ague. Loss, however, says, that he took one or two grains of it in substance, without discovering any bad effect; and that a friend of his swallowed a whole seed without injury. Hermannus, botanic professor at Leyden, who has written expressly on it, says, that the vomic nuts of Timor and Ceylon are, for the human species, excellent sudorifics, and are also to be ranked among diuretic medicines.

NYCTALOPIA. A disorder of the eye, in which, through weakness, it can discern objects only by night, or in obscure places. This is a constitutional defect, not to be cured. Anatomists attribute it to the want of a constituent part of the animal substance, called the rete mucosum, which gives color to the complexion, hair, and eyes.

NYMPH. In Entomology, that state of winged insects between their living in the form of a worm, and their appearing in the winged or most perfect state. The eggs of insects are first hatched into a kind of worms or maggots; which afterwards pass into the nymph state, surrounded with shells or cases of their own skins; so that in reality, these nymphs are only the embryo insects wrapped up in this covering, from which they at last get loose, though not without great difficulty. During this nymph state the creature loses its motion. Swammerdam calls it nympha aurelia, or simply aurelia ; and others give it the name of chrysalis, a term of the like import; but modern entomologists prefer the term pupa to both.

OAK. The name of a tree, ranking among the largest, most inagnificent, durable, and useful; called, in botany, quercus. The growth of oak, in general, is extremely slow. The acorn, or oakcorn, is the fruit of this tree.

Both the bark and the leaves are employed in hotbeds; and the leaves are now reckoned better for this use, than the bark.

OAK LEAF GALLS. Protuberances on the leaves of the oak, formed and inhabited by insects. They appear in April, and remain till June, or longer. When opened, they are found to contain one insect only. It might appear, that the parent fly, when she had formed a gall for the habitation of her worm offspring, had placed it in an impregnable fortress: but this is not the case; for it frequently happens, that a fly which produces a worm of the carnivorous kind, pierces the sides of the gall, and deposits her egg within it. The worm, when hatched, feeds upon the proper inhabitant; and, finally, after devouring it, passes, itself, into the chrysalis state, and thence appears in the form

of its parent fly, and is seen making its way out of the gall.'

OAK BARK. The bark of the oak, which is very useful in tanning. The bark of oak trees was formerly thought to be extremely useful in vegetation. One load (Mr. Mills in his Treatise on Husbandry informs us) of oak bark, laid in a heap and rotted, after the tanners have used it for dressing of leather, will do more service to stiffen cold land, and its effects will last longer, than two loads of the richest dung; but this has been strenuously controverted. The bark, in medicine, is also a strong astringent; and hence is recommended in hæmorrhages, alvine fluxes, and other preternatural or immoderate secretions; and in these it is sometimes attended with good effects. Some have alleged that by the use of this bark every purpose can be answered which may be obtained from Peruvian bark. But, after several very fair trials, this is found not to be the case. Besides the bark, the buds, the acorns, and their cups are used; as also the galls, which are excrescences, caused by

insects, on the oaks of the eastern countries, of which there are divers sorts; some perfectly round and smooth, some rougher with small protuberances, but all generally having a round hole in them.

OAKUM. The substance into which old ropes are reduced when they are untwisted, loosened, and drawn asunder. It is principally used in calking the seams, tree-nails and bends of a ship, for stopping or preventing leaks.

OAR. A long piece of timber, flat at one end, and round or square at the other, used to make a vessel advance upon the water. The flat part, which is dipped into the water, is called the blade, and that which is within the board is termed the loom, whose extremity, being small enough to be grasped by the rowers, is called the handle. To push the boat or vessel forwards by means of this instrument, the rowers turn their backs forwards, and, dipping the blade of the oar in the water, pull the handle forward, so that the blade, at the same time, may move aft in the water. But since the blade cannot be so moved without striking the water, this impulsion is the same as if the water were to strike the blade from the stern towards the head; the vessel is therefore necessarily moved according to the direction. Hence it follows, that she will advance with the greater rapidity, by as much as the oar strikes the water more forcibly; consequently, an oar acts upon the side of a boat or vessel like a lever of the second class, whose fulcrum is the station upon which the oar rests on the boat's gunwale.

OATH. A formal and solemn pledge, by word of mouth, made in the presence of a magistrate, or other person rendered competent by the law to administer it. Oaths are taken on two very different occasions: in the first, an oath is an assertion of the truth of something which the juror, or swearer, says has happened in the second, it is a promise or vow respecting his future conduct. If the thing asserted is not true, we say that the juror has sworn falsely, and is guilty of perjury. If he that swears to pursue a certain line of conduct, fails to do so, we say that he has broken his oath; but we cannot charge him with perjury. In both these cases, however, the general form of an oath is the same: the juror consents to expect the blessings of God, only as he does or shall speak the truth, or do the thing required of him.

many professions, in which oaths are taken in such numbers, that, on the generality of persons, all their religious influence must be lost. In these cases, in truth, the law desires only a record on which to ground a prosecution, in case of falsehood: but as this end, if the law pleased, would be equally answered by any formal affirmation, it is to be lamented, that every transaction, great and trivial, moral and commercial, the life of a fellow creature, and the contents of a bale of goods, should be unnecessarily confounded together.

OATH OF ALLEGIANCE. In England, the oath which the subject takes when required to bear true allegiance to the king.

OATH OF SUPREMACY. In England, the oath which establishes the supremacy of the king over every other power, temporal or spiritual, within the realm, whereby the supremacy of the pope was renounced at the Reformation.

OATH OF ABJURATION. An oath which expressly establishes the succession of the reigning family to the throne of England, to the exclusion of the Stuart family or any other.

OATS. A grain, the peculiar food of horses, and in Scotland and the north of England, also the food of man. Oatmeal, the flour of the oats, is also much used medicinally.

OBELISK. In Architecture, is a truncated quadrangular, and slender pyramid, raised as an ornament, and frequently charged either with inscriptions or hieroglyphics. Obelisks appear to be of very great antiquity, and to have been first raised to transmit to posterity precepts of philosophy, which were cut in hieroglyphical characters; afterwards they were used to immortalize the great actions of heroes, and the memory of persons beloved. The first obelisk mentioned in history was that of Ramases king of Egypt, in the time of the Trojan war, which was forty cubits high. Phius, another king of Egypt, raised one of fifty-five cubits; and Ptolemy Philadelphus another of eighty-eight cubits, in memory of Arsinoe. Augustus erected one at Rome in the Campus Martius, which served to mark the hours on an horizontal dial drawn on the pavement. They were called by the Egyptian priests the fingers of the sun, because they were made in Egypt also to In jurisprudence, an oath answers a two-fold serve as styles or gnomons to mark the hours on purpose. It is intended to lay hold of the con- the ground. The Arabs still call them Pharaoh's sciences of men, by the solemnity of the act, and needles; whence the Italians call them aguglia, by connecting their words with their religious and the French aiguilles. One of the most comhopes; and, in a legal point of view, by its formal-mon and frequent situations in which obelisks ity to render an assertion capable of proof, and at once facilitate the punishment of perjury, and put men upon their guard against the commission of

the crime.

The scruples of those who object to oaths, from religious motives, appear to be founded upon a pious, but mistaken survey of the question. The fair interpretation of the scriptural authority they urge, is, surely, a prohibition of irreverent habits in conversation. The frequency of oaths has been argued against, with more propriety. There are

were erected was the space before a temple. Diodorus makes mention of two obelisks of Sepostris placed before a Theban temple, which were 120 cubits high. Herodotus mentions two others, 100 cubits high, one of which was erected before a temple at Sais, and the other before the temple of the sun at Heliopolis.

The Romans, in the plenitude of their power and splendor, removed many of these relics of times, then ancient, from their original situations into Italy. When that majestic empire was over

run by the barbarians most of these noble monuments were thrown down, defaced, or demolished. The exhumations made by the decree of Pope Sextus V. brought to light four of them, which were repaired by his architect, Fontana. Since that period several others have been dug up. Several obelisks have likewise been preserved at Constantinople, the most celebrated of which stood in that part of the hippodrome denominated Media Spina. On the four sides of the base of this noble monument were sculptured a variety of subjects: the bassi-relievi of the northern side have been published by Spon. At Catana, in Sicily, fragments have been discovered of two Egyptian obelisks, nost probably conveyed thither by the Romans. One has been set up again, presenting a curious appearance from its having eight faces. On the north side of Penrith, in the churchyard, are two square obelisks, of a single stone each, eleven or twelve feet high, about twelve inches diameter, and twelve by eight at the sides; the highest about eighteen inches diameter, with something like a transverse piece to each, and mortised into a round base. They are fourteen feet asunder, and between them is a grave enclosed between four semicircular stones of the unequal lengths of five, six, four and a half, and two feet high, having on the outsides rude carving, and the tops notched. This is called the Giant's grave, and ascribed to Sir Ewan Cæsarius, who is said to have been as tall as one of the columns, and capable of stretching his arms from one to the other.

OBJECT GLASS. The glass of a telescope or microscope next the object, the purpose of which is to make a picture of the object, with the rays of light so diverging as that the picture may be viewed by another glass, which fits them for distinct vision.

tion, is the observing with an instrument some celestial phenomenon, as the altitude of the sun, moon, and stars, or their distances from each other. But by this terin, mariners commonly mean only the taking the meridian altitudes, in order to find the latitude: and the finding the latitude from such observed latitude, they call 'working an observation.'

OBSERVATORY. An observatory is a term applied emphatically to buildings directed and furnished with instruments for astronomical observations. Formerly it assumed the shape of a tower or turret erected on some eminence; but in modern erections of this kind convenience and scope in regard to aspect, and solidity of structure, have been more particularly regarded.

Astronomers carry us back not only to the pyramids of Egypt, but even to the tower of Babel as originally designed for some purpose of this kind. It would appear probable that the temple of Belus was devoted to this use by the Chaldæan astronomers; as was the famous tomb of Osymandias, in Egypt. At Alexandria an observatory was built more than 300 years before the Christian era, and continued in repute for upwards of five centuries.

OCCULT. A term applied to words used to express causes whose real nature is unknown to the writers, and then adopting it as a true definition of a general cause; as caloric for the cause of heat, attraction for going together, affinity for the union of atoms, repulsion for separating, and the like; and then assuming degrees of this verbal cause, and even reasoning upon it.

OCCULTATION. In Astronomy, the time a star or planet is hidden from our sight, by the interposition of the body of the moon, or of some other planet.

The circle of perpetual occultation, is a parallel in an oblique sphere, as far distant from the depressed pole, as the elevated pole is from the horizon.

OBLATE. Flattened, or shortened, as an oblate spheroid, having its axis shorter than its middle diameter, being formed by the rotation of an ellipse about the shorter axis. The oblateness of the earth refers to the diminution of the polar axis in All the stars between this parallel and the derespect of the equatorial. The ratio of these two pressed pole, never rise, but lie constantly hidden axes has been determined in various ways; some-under the horizon of the place. times by the measures of different degrees of latitude, and sometimes by the length of pendulums, vibrating seconds in different latitudes.

OBLATION. What is laid on an altar or given at the altar by way of offering.

OBLIQUE. In Geometry, something aslant, or that deviates from the perpendicular. Thus an oblique angle is either an acute or obtuse one, i. e. any except a right one.

Oblique cases, in Grammar, are all the cases except the nominative.

OCCULT DISEASES.

Diseases, the causes and treatment of which are not understood.

OCEAN. The sea is one of the most important subjects of physical geography. The ocean, by its exhalations, which refresh and moisten the air, supports vegetable life, and furnishes the necessary supply to those valuable canals of running water, which, though constantly flowing, never become empty. Without the kindly influence of these vapors, which every moment escape from the surface of the sea, all the earth would languish like a desert; the drying up of the ocean, whether slow or rapid, would probably be sufficient to reduce all organized nature to a state of annihilation. That vast mass of water is equally useful for absorbing and decomposing a great quantity of noxious gas, and of animal and vegetable remains. The ocean too, by affording increased facilities to commerce, OBSERVATION. In Astronomy and Naviga- secures the advantages of neighborhood to nations

OBSCURITY. Where a thing is not distinctly seen, or when, owing to looseness of expression, or choice of words of uncertain sense, the intention of a writer is not conveyed to a reader with clear

ness.

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