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even trailing his body, and seldom makes a fruitless expedition. When he leaps the wall, or gets in underneath it, he ravages the court-yard, puts all the fowls to death, and then retires quietly with his prey, which he either conceals under the herbage, or carries off to his kennel. In a short time he returns for another, which he carries off in the same manner, but to a different place. In this manner he proceeds, till the light of the sun, or some movements perceived in the house, admonish him that it is time to retire to his den.

the same, only they are more frequently practised | He chooses his time with great judgment and disby the fallow-deer. cretion. He conceals both his route and his deThe roe-deer is inferior to the stag and fallow-sign. He moves forward with caution, sometimes deer both in strength and stature; but he is endowed with more gracefulness, courage, and vivacity. His eyes are more brilliant and animated. His limbs are more nimble; his movements are quicker, and he bounds with equal vigor and agility. He is likewise more crafty, conceals himself with greater address, and derives superior resources from his instincts. Though he leaves behind him a stronger scent than the stag, which increases the ardor of the dogs, he knows how to evade their pursuit, by the rapidity with which he commences his flight, and by numerous doublings. He delays not his arts of defence till his strength begins to fail him; for he no sooner perceives that the efforts of a rapid flight have been unsuccessful, than he repeatedly returns upon his former steps; and, after confounding, by these opposite motions, the direction he has taken, after intermixing the present with the past emanations of his body, he, by a great bound, rises from the earth, and, retiring to a side, lies down flatly between the horns, tears out its eyes, which torupon his belly. In this immovable situation, he often allows the whole pack of his deceived enemies to pass very near him. The roe-deer differs from the stag in disposition, manners, and in almost every natural habit. Instead of associating in herds, they live in separate families. The two parents and the young go together, and never mingle with strangers. The females commonly produce two fawns, the one a inale and the other a female. These young animals, who are brought up and nourished together, acquire a mutual affection so strong, that they never depart from each other. In a week or two after birth the fawns are able to follow their mother. When threatened with danger, she hides them in a close thicket; and, so strong is her parental affection, that, in order to preserve her offspring from destruction, she presents herself to be chased.

Hares possess not, like rabbits, the art of digging retreats in the earth. But they neither want instinct sufficient for their own preservation, nor sagacity for escaping their enemies. They form seats or nests on the surface of the ground, where they watch, with the most vigilant attention, the approach of any danger. In order to deceive, they conceal themselves between clods of the same color with that of their own hair.

In Kamtschatka, the animals called gluttons employ a singular stratagem for killing the fallow-deer. They climb up a tree, and carry with them a quantity of that species of moss of which the deer are very fond. When a deer approaches near the tree, the glutton throws down the moss. If the deer stops to eat the moss, the glutton instantly darts down upon his back, and, after fixing himself firmments the animal to such a degree, that, whether to put an end to its torments, or to get rid of its cruel enemy, it strikes its head against the trees till it falls down dead. The glutton divides the flesh of the deer into convenient portions, and conceals them in the earth to serve for future provisions. The gluttons on the river Lena kill horses in the same manner.

With regard to Birds, their artifices are not less numerous nor less surprising than those of quadrupeds. The eagle and hawk kinds are remarkable for the sharpness of their sight, and the arts they employ in catching their prey. Their movements are rapid or slow, according to their intentions, and the situation of the animals they wish to devour. Rapacious birds uniformly endeavor to rise higher in the air than their prey, that they may have an opportunity of darting forcibly down upon it with their pounces. To counteract these artifices, nature has endowed the smaller and more innocent species of birds with many arts of defence When a hawk appears, the small birds, if they find it convenient, conceal themselves in hedges or brush-wood. When deprived of this opportunity, they often, in great numbers, seem to follow the hawk, and to expose themselves unnecessarily to danger, while in fact, by their numbers, their per

The fox has, in all ages and nations, been celebrated for craftiness and address. Acute and cir-petual changes of direction, and their uniform encumspect, sagacious and prudent, he diversifies his deavors to rise above him, they perplex the hawk conduct, and always reserves some art for unfore- to such a degree, that he is unable to fix upon a seen accidents. Though nimbler than the wolf, single object; and, after exerting all bis art and adhe trusts not entirely to the swiftness of his course. dress, he is frequently obliged to relinquish the He knows how to ensure safety, by providing him- pursuit. When in the extremity of danger, and self with an asylum, to which he retires when dan-after employing every other artifice in vain, small ger appears. He is not a vagabond, but lives in a birds have been often known to fly to men for settled habitation and in a domestic state. The protection. This is a plain indication that these choice of situation, the art of making and render- animals, though they in general avoid the human ing a house commodious, and of concealing the race, are by no means so much afraid of man as avenues which lead to it, imply a superior degree of rapacious birds. of sentiment and reflection. The fox possesses these qualities, and employs them with dexterity and advantage. He takes up his abode on the border of a wood, and in the neighborhood of cottages, Here he listens to the crowing of the cocks and the noise of the poultry. He scents them at a distance.

The ravens often frequent the seashores in quest of food. When they find their inability to break the shells of muscles, &c. to accomplish this purpose they use a very ingenious stratagem. They carry a muscle, or other shell-fish, high up in the air and then dash it down upon a rock, by which

means the shell is broken, and they obtain the end | used then to advantage in attacking certain castles; they had in view.

The woodpecker is furnished with a very long and flexible tongue. It feeds upon ants and other small insects. Nature has endowed this bird with a singular instinct. It knows how to procure food without seeing its prey. It attaches itself to the trunks or branches of decayed trees; and, wherever it perceives a hole or crevice, it darts in its long tongue, and brings it out loaded with insects of different kinds. This operation is certainly instinctive; but the instinct is assisted by the instruction of the parents; for the young are no sooner able to fly, than the parents, by the force of example, teach them to resort to trees, and to insert their tongues indiscriminately into every hole or fissure.

ARTILLERY. In its original signification, was a particular name for the bow and arrow; but subsequently extended to all engines for throwing arrows, stones, or other missile weapons. In modern times, the word is usually employed as a generic term for great guns, their ammunition and appurtenances; or as a distinctive name for the troops trained exclusively to their management. Those branches of knowledge which an artillery officer ought to acquire, are sometimes barbarously termed artillery. The field artillery of the ancients appears to have been always very simple. It consisted chiefly of the bow and arrow, the sling and the dart. These also seem to have been the only missile weapons used in attacking walled towns during the earlier ages of antiquity.

If the assailants failed in surprising a place, and were prevented, by the nature of the fortification, from bursting open the gates, or scaling the walls, their only mode of attack was a tedious blockade. Of this we have a memorable instance in the siege of Troy. In Homer's account of the siege, there is no mention of any engines, either to batter the walls, or to enable the besiegers to pass over them. The Greeks were consequently obliged to blockade the place during the long period of ten years.

As society advanced in civilisation, science lent her aid to the warrior. The balista, catapulta, onager, and various other engines, were invented for the attack and defence of fortified places. The effects which authors mention as produced by these engines, are fitted to excite a high idea of their powers. We are informed, that the ancient artillery discharged immense beams of wood and stones weighing several hundred weight, by which whole ranks of men were crushed at once, and that the most solid walls, or the best compacted engines, were incapable of withstanding their force. A remarkable instance of the efficacy of the ancient artillery occurred during the siege of Syracuse by the Romans. Archimedes, by the discharge of immense stones, destroyed, before it could reach the walls, a great machine which Marcellus advanced against the city, and so galled the besiegers by his inventions, that they converted the siege into a blockade.

The earliest instance of the use of artillery in the field of battle is by the English at the battle of Cressy in 1346. "In the year 1347," says a French author, "these terrible arms were not employed in France against men: the French had, in 1338,

but they would blush to employ them against their own likeness. The English, undoubtedly, less humane, conquered us, and employed them at the celebrated battle of Cressy, which took place between Philip de Valois and Edward the Third, king of England, who was so wicked and perfidious, and who gave so much trouble to the troops of the former; and it was chiefly to the terror and confusion occasioned by the cannon, which the English used for the first time, and which they had posted on a hill near the village of Cressy, that the French owed their defeat." From this first use of field artillery a new æra commenced in the art of war.

Mortars, a kind of short cannon, with a wide bore, and a narrow chamber for the charge of powder, were invented about 200 years later than cannon. At their first invention they were employed in throwing large stones and red-hot balls. They were subsequently applied to the throwing of bombshells, or hollow balls, filled with powder, to which a match is adapted of such a length as may burst the shell shortly after it has lighted on the object. The precise period at which this application was made of the mortar is not exactly known. It is generally attributed to a native of Venlo, in 1588; but there is reason to believe that its origin was at least fifty years earlier. The shell forms a most destructive weapon in the attack and defence of fortified places. Those parts of the works which are completely protected from the direct, or even enfilading fire of the cannon, are yet exposed to the action of the bomb. The chief defect of the mortar is, that its elevation can be little varied, and that changes in its range must be chiefly produced by variations in the charge. This defect was remedied by the invention of the howitzer, a long time after the mortar. It has a chamber similar to that of the mortar, and, like it, throws a shell loaded with powder; but its length, the position of its trunnions, and the carriage on which it is mounted, resemble those of the cannon. As it can be fired at any elevation, it is one of the most useful pieces of artillery. At high elevations it serves the purposes of a mortar, and, at low elevations, its ball first acts as a cannon-ball, and then as a bomb-shell. It is also easily moved from place to place by an army.

One of the latest improvements in artillery is the shell invented by colonel Shrapnel: it is filled with musket-balls, and a weak charge of powder, which, when it has arrived within a short distance of its object, merely bursts the shell, without dispersing its contents: the musket-balls, being thus disengaged, soon separate, but, retaining their former impulse, still move forward, and act on the enemy's line like a discharge of musketry.

ARTIST. In a general sense, a person skilled in some art; or, according to Mr. Harris's definition, a person possessing an habitual power of becoming the cause of some effect, according to a system of various and well-approved precepts. In this sense, we say, an excellent, a curious artist. The preeminence is disputed between ancient and modern artists, especially as to what relates to sculpture, painting, and the like. At Vicenza, we are told of a privilege granted to artists, like that of clergy in England; in virtue of this, criminals adjudged to death save their

lives, if they can prove themselves the most excel-meals, even rub their mouths with it, in order to lent and consummate workmen in any useful art. stimulate their appetite. It is sometimes used by This benefit is allowed them in favorem artis, for our own cooks, but in very minute quantity, in place the first offence, except for some particular crimes, of garlic. In many parts of Arabia and Persia, of which coining is one. The exception is just, asafoetida is much esteemed as a remedy for various since here the greater the artist, the more dangerous internal diseases, and even as an external applicathe person. Artists are persons who practise those tion to wounds. With us, it is considered a powerarts which must necessarily be combined with a ful medicine in several disorders. It has been considerable degree of science, distinguishing them applied, with success, in the cure of hooping-cough from such as are properly artisans or mechanics. and worms; and in flatulent colicks, it has, in many Artists are particularly those who study and effect cases, afforded great relief. It is imported in maswhat are termed the polite arts, i. e. painting, sculp- ses of various sizes and forms, and of yellow, ture, and architecture, to which may be added brown or bluish color, sometimes interspersed with engraving. It appears that all civilized nations in roundish, white pieces. The plant, from the root every age have produced artists, and that with a of which asafoetida is produced, grows in the moundegree of excellence, generally answerable to their tains which surround the small town of Disguum, civilisation and opulence. In every nation where in Persia; and, at the season when it is collected, the arts have flourished, the artists have made but the whole place smells of it. The upper part of the rude essays, and by degrees they have been nurtured roots, which are sometimes as thick as a man's leg, up to excellence, except in such instances where rises somewhat above the surface of the ground. they have been transplanted, as from Greece to Rome. The harvest commences when the leaves begin to It is universally acknowledged respecting statuary decay; and the whole gathering is performed, by and architecture, that ancient Greece has produced the inhabitants of the place, in four different journeys the best artists in the world; their works, which to the mountains. The demand for the article, in have escaped the ravages of time, are the standing foreign countries, being first ascertained to be sufmonuments, of their fame, and are still considered ficient to repay the trouble of collecting it, the as the models of perfection; there is, however, an persons employed proceed to the mountains in uncertainty whether their painters were equally companies of four or five each. It is stated that a skilled with their statuaries. With some reason, single ship is exclusively devoted to transporting the many judicious persons have supposed they were bulk of this commodity to the ports in the Persian not; while others contend, that so much excellence gulf; and that, when smaller parcels are carried, it produced in one branch must have contemporary is usual to tie them to the top of the mast. artists, who would excel in the other also. While we cannot doubt of the genius of the Grecian artists, and of their ability to produce works of excellence, yet it may not be allowed, that this argument will be found to be so conclusive as it may at first appear, since Chinese and Indian models are found in a more perfect state than either their drawings or paintings. When the Goths overran Italy, the arts were destroyed; and, with Grecian architecture, painting and sculpture lay in one common grave forgotten, until they revived under some artists in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, who ought not to be named as artists, but for the succeeding effects to which their efforts prepared the way, and in a short time after produced Michael Angelo, Raphael, Correggio, Titian, Algardi, Bernini, &c. painters, sculptors, and architects, to whose works the living artists are almost as much indebted as these illustrious characters were to the ancient monuments they dug from the ruins of old Rome.

ASAFOETIDA. Is a resinous gum, procured from the root of a large umbelliferous plant which grows in the mountains, of some parts of Persia. The leaves of this plant are nearly two feet long, doubled-winged, and have the leaflets alternate. The flowers are small, and the seeds oval, flat, and marked with three longitudinal lines. No one, who has ever smelt the peculiarly powerful and garliclike odour of asafoetida, can well forget it. If exposed to the air, but particularly when heated, it will pervade every apartment of a house. Notwithstanding this, it constitutes a favorite seasoning for food with the inhabitants of many parts of the east. The Indian Banians, who never eat animal food, use it in almost all their dishes, and, before their

ASBESTOS. A mineral consisting principally of silex and magnesia, with a small proportion of alumina, lime, and iron. It is a greenish brittle substance, unctuous to the touch, and somewhat elastic. Its fibres exposed to the violent heat of the blowpipe, exhibit slight indications of fusion; though the parts, instead of running together, moulder away, and part fall down, while the rest seem to disappear before the current of air. Ignition impairs the flexibility of asbestos in a slight degree. According to Herodotus, the Egyptians made a cloth of this substance, which they used for the purpose of wrapping up the bodies of the dead. Pliny says, he had seen napkins made of it, which, being taken foul from the table after a feast, were thrown into the fire, and by that means were better scoured than if they had been washed in water. But he mentions its principal use being for the making of shrouds for royal funerals, so that the ashes might be preserved distinct from those of the wood, whereof the funeral pile was composed.

Castagnatta, a superintendant of mines in Italy, is said to have carried the manufacture to such perfection, that his asbestos was soft and tractable, much resembling lamb-skin dressed white: he could thicken and thin it at pleasure, and thus either make it into a very white skin or into paper. His method of preparing it is thus described: the stone is laid to soak in warm water; then opened and divided by the hands, that the earthy matter may be washed out. The ablution being several times repeated, the flax-like filaments are collected and dried; being most conveniently spun with an addition of flax. Two or three filaments of the asbestos are easily twisted along with the flaxen

thread, if the operator's fingers are kept oiled. The cloth also, when woven, is best preserved by oil from breaking or wasting. On exposure to the fire the flax and the oil burn out, and the cloth remains pure and white. The shorter filaments which separate in washing the stone, may be made into paper in the

common manner.

ASCETICS. A name given to certain fanatics in the primitive church, who pretended to purify the soul by severe penances and mortifications. They had their name from aux "I exercise," and their origin, according to Mosheim and Jortin, from an absurd attempt to rival the austerities of some of the Greek philosophers; and began to make their appearance during the second century. This, however, appears to be but a very imperfect account of their origin, which can evidently lay claim to much higher antiquity, as it seems to be coeval with superstition itself, and to be founded on a principle universally admitted in human nature. No maxim appears to have been more generally received than this, that some expiation was necessary to purify the soul from sin. This notion arose either from a consciousness of guilt, or from conceiving the Deity to be cruel and implacable, or from some obscure intimation respecting an atonement, which has been represented by sacrifices and various other rites, ever since the world began. We need not be surprised then, that this notion, so universally received, should have given rise to the austerities and mortifications of the ascetic life, which, to the unenlightened mind, must appear more natural expiations of guilt than sacrifices themselves: for surely it seems much more reasonable, that the offender himself should suffer, than that the punishment of his guilt should be transferred to another. Sacrifices scarcely have a meaning, except when they are regarded as typical or emblematic: but men ignorant of any more effectual remedy, might naturally enough suppose, that their own sufferings would expiate their transgressions.

and almost worshipped as a deity, by the whole surrounding country. He gained so much reputation by this super-human excellence, that he became the head of a sect, which produced some disciples who rivalled the fame of their founder; and which, to mark the stagnation of human intellect, continued in vogue for upwards of five centuries. (Mosheim, vol. ii. ch. 3.) Thus, after men had no longer an opportunity of signalizing their zeal by suffering death in defence of their faith, they contrived a kind of voluntary martyrdom, and inflicted upon themselves more pains and penalties than pagan cruelty had ever invented.

That these absurdities and abominations may not be fixed on Christianity, we shall proceed to show that they prevail in all their force, where its influence has never been felt, and its name never heard. They have obtained from time immemorial in India, and are still displayed in their full extent. By a strange coincidence, we often find the same mortifications practised in the East, which disgraced the dark ages of Europe, and which either point to a common origin, or indicate a greater uniformity in human folly, than we thought consistent with its endless variety.

Some of the Indian Fakirs make a vow never to sleep night nor day; and this vow they contrive to keep sometimes for many years, till the sleep of death surprises them. Others make a vow to keep their hands continually extended above their heads, and never to take them down, even on the most urgent occasions. In this situation they remain day and night, summer and winter, exposed to the stinging of the flies, and determined to perish with hunger, rather than use their hands to feed themselves: indeed they very soon lose the use of them; for the joints contract a stiffness, by this unnatural position, which renders it quite impossible to bring their hands below their heads. All these maniacs are complete Gymnosophists, without any covering but what nature affords. In this state they are regarded by the infatuated natives, as saints of the highest eminence.

We can mention one of true British growth, who may dispute the laurel with the Fakirs of India. About the beginning of the twelfth century, lived St. Godric. He had always an iron shirt next his skin, and wore out three by constant use. He mingled ashes with his flour; and lest this should be too luxurious a repast, he kept the bread formed of this composition, four months before he used it. In winter he would pass whole nights at his devotions, up to the neck in water. The temptations which he essayed from evil spirits in the form of beautiful damsels, obliged him to curb evil thoughts, by rolling himself naked in briers; and he improved the wholesome discipline, by pouring brine into the wounds.

According to this view of the subject, we must not look for Ascetics merely among the corrupters of Christianity, but may expect to find them in every nation, and under every denomination of religion. Christianity, indeed, from the many excellent precepts which it inculcates, respecting selfdenial, and the correcting of the sinful passions, may easily be perverted into a system of ascetic doctrines; but its genius is so repugnant to this idea, that it is the only religion which expressly condemns all attempts to expiate sin by our own mortifications. As this principle, however, is so deeply rooted in human nature, it cannot be uninteresting to trace some exhibitions of it as it has actually appeared in practice; and since wisdom is too rare to afford many edifying examples, we must make the most we can of the follies of the world. The prince of the Ascetics, was the renowned pillar saint, Simeon ASP. A very small kind of serpent, peculiar to Stylites, a native of Syria. He lived thirty-seven Egypt and Libia, the bite of which is deadly. Its years on the top of a pillar, at the imminent risk of poison is so quick in its operation, that it kills his neck; gradually increasing the height of his pil- without a possibility of applying any remedy. lar as his soul became more sublimated, and his Those that are bitten by it are said to die within body more capable of existing in his aerial habita- three hours, by means of sleep and lethargy, withtion. He rose gradually from six to forty cubits; out any pain; wherefore Cleopatra chose it as the and when once he attained this grand climacteric easiest way of despatching herself. of columnar sanctity, he was regarded as an oracle, [

ASPARAGUS. A genus of the monogynia order | in Albania, and in the island of Barbadoes, where and hexandria class of plants; in the natural method it is called Munjack. It is there dug out of strata ranking under the eleventh order sarmentaceæ. of earth at different depths, and in a great measure The calyx is quinquepartite; the three inferior supplies the place of coal. If the veins are either petals are bent outwards; the berry has three cells, on or near the surface, scarcely any vegetable and contains two seeds. There are thirteen spe- grows in the vicinity. It is likewise found in sevecies; but the only one cultivated in the gardens is ral parts of Europe. There are two large pits on the common asparagus, with an upright herbaceous the south side of a mountain near Neuenberg; and stalk; bristly leaves, and equal stipula. The other on searching into the opposite side of the mountain, species are kept only for the sake of variety. The the same substance was found at the like depth. plants being raised from seed, after having acquired a period of three or four years' growth, produce proper sized asparagus, of which the same roots furnish an annual supply for many years, continuing to rise in perfection for six or eight weeks in the summer season, the shoots afterwards run up to stalks and flowers, and perfect seeds in autuinn. But besides the crop raised in the summer season, it may also be obtained in perfection during the winter, and early in the spring, by the aid of hot-beds. Asparagus is always three years at least, from the time of sowing the seed, before the plants obtain strength enough to produce shoots of due size for the table; that is, one year in the seed-bed, and two after being transplanted, though it is sometimes three or four years after planting before they pro-in hot dry weather, the surface liquefies to the duce good full-sized shoots. But the same bed or plantation will continue producing good asparagus ten or twelve years, and even endure fifteen or twenty years. However, at that age the shoots are generally small, and the whole annual produce inconsiderable.

But some of the most extraordinary collections of asphaltum in the whole world, is an entire lake, or rather plain of it in the island of Trinidad. This is called the Tar Lake by the English, and La Bray by the French, from its resembling common pitch, and supplying its place for shipping. The situation of the lake is to the leeward side of the island, on a cape or headland projecting into the sea, and elevated from 80 to 100 feet above its surface. There is no higher land on the same side of the island; and on approaching the cape, we are sensible of a strong sulphureous smell even at ten miles distance. Its first aspect is that of a lake of water, in color and appearance; but when closely viewed, it seems a plain as smooth as glass. As

depth of an inch, it cannot then be walked over, owing to its adhesive quality. The lake is of a circular form, about three miles in circumference, but its depth is not yet ascertained: no other stratum has hitherto been found below it. Though it appears perfectly smooth, if viewed in its dry state, some yards from the edge, the surface is intersected ASPHALTUM. JEW'S PITCH. A kind of bitu- by numerous chasms and fissures, all anastomosing men, solid, and generally of a brownish black color. together. Each ridge or undulation of the fissures It is somewhat unctuous to the touch, though it is from four to six feet asunder from the next, and does not stain or adhere to the fingers. When laid from two to ten feet deep. Their size continually on hot iron it swells, but does not properly liquefy, varies, and one of eight or ten feet to-day may toand discharges much smoke in combustion. It is morrow be entirely closed up, or others will open easily ignited; and when the flame is extinguished, where there was a solid mass of pitch. It is thence a light spongy coal remains behind, which by conjectured, that the pitch itself floats, or is supfurther combustion leaves a small quantity of ashes. ported on a lake of water below. The sides of the This substance is found in different parts of the fissures are convex, inclining downwards, and they world; and from what we can collect, there seems are full of pure water abounding with small fish. to be some difference in its nature according to the The sides incline downwards, and unite at the place from which it is taken; for the descriptions bottom. The general appearance of the whole has of it, as occurring on the spot, at least so far as con- been compared to the angular figures on a tortoise cern its external character, are not invariably coin-shell. The surface of the asphaltum yields only to cident.

the blow of an axe; but at the depth of a foot it is a Asphaltum was well known to the ancients. little softer. An oily substance is contained in its Strabo and Diodorous speak of the uses to which cells: it is very friable, and when liquid of a jet that found in the Dead Sea was converted. Ac- black. Some parts of the surface are covered with cording to the former, a solid mass, sometimes thin and brittle scoriæ. The soil for a considerable extending to three acres in size, and at other times, distance around this lake consists of cinders and less than one, rose on the surface once a year. burnt earth, and where otherwise, it is strongly arSeen at a distance, it resembled a kind of island: gillaceous, and extremely fertile. Every part of and the inhabitants in the neighborhood having the country within thirty miles seems formed by descried it, went out on rafts, which they loaded the convulsions of subterraneous fire; and liquid with asphaltum cut from the mass with hatchets. bitumen is found to the thickness of two inches, in Its rising was preceded for twenty days by peculiar small round holes and fissures in many parts of indications; such as a bituminous odour, and nox- the neighboring woods, as also in places more reious vapors disseminated far around. At present, mote. it appears like large lumps of earth floating on the surface, which, when driven on shore, are collected by the Arabs, who divide it with the Pacha of Damascus. Their own portion is also purchased by him, either for money or stuffs useful to them. Asphaltum is found in large masses at Avlonia

The veins of asphaltum sometimes take fire accidentally, and are extinguished with much difficulty. In the parish of St. John's, in Barbadoes, a slave roasting potatoes on the side of a hill, accidentally set fire to a small vein near the surface, which remained burning slowly, and almost imperceptibly,

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