prices of all things, fhall judge meet to impofe on the people, to pay for the subfiftence of their reprefentatives, RATIONABILI parte bonorum, in law, is a writ which lies for the widow against the executors of her deceafed husband, who deny to give her the third part of his goods after the debts and funeral charges are paid. It is obferved, that by the common law of England, the goods of a deceafed perfon, his debts being first paid, fhall be divided into three equal parts, and go to the wife, her children, and executors; wherefore this writ may be brought by the children as well as the widow. But it has been held that the writ only lies where the cuftom of the country warrants it. RATIONABILIBUS divifis, in law, a writ that is brought where there are two lords in different towns, who have fignories adjoining together, and one of them finds his wafte by little and little to have been incroached upon; then the lord on whofe ground the incroachment was made fhall have this writ against the other to rectify the bounds and divifions. In which respect it is faid by Fitzherbert, to be in its nature a writ of right. RATIONAL, reasonable. See REASON. RATIONAL is alfo applied to integral, fractional, and mixt numbers; thus we fay rational fraction, rational integer, and rational mixt number; for the explanation and doctrine of which, fee NUMBER and FRACTION. Rational is applied to the true horizon, in oppofition to the fenfible or apparent one. See the article HORIZON. Rational is also applied to quantity, ratio, &c. See QUANTITY, RATIO, &c. RATIONALE, a folution, or account of the principles of fome opinion, action, hypothefis, hænomenon, or the like. See PRINCIPLE, PHENOMENON, &c. Hence rationale is the title of feveral books. RATIONALE is also the latin name for an antient facerdotal veftment, worn by the high priest, under the old law, being a piece of embroidered Atuff, worn on the breaft, about a span square. A rationale appears to have been antiently worn by the b'fhops, under the new law; but authors are in doubt about its form; fome having it to refemble that of the Jews; others taking it to be only the pallium. See the article PALLIUM. RATIONIS os, in anatomy, a term fome times used for the os frontis. See the article FRONTIS OS. RATIPOR, a town of Bohemia, in the dutchy of Silefia, fituated on the river Oder, fixteen miles north-east of Trop paw. RATIPOR is also a city of hither India, capital of the province of Malva, fituated east long. 80°, north lat. 25°. RATISBON, a city of Germany, in the circle of Bavaria, fituated at the confluence of the rivers Danube and Regen, in east longit. 12° 5', north lat. 49°. This is a free imperial city, and here the affembly or diet of the states of the empire meets. See the article DIET. RATLINES, or as the feamen call them, RATLINS, thofe lines which make the ladder fteps to get up the fhrouds and puttocks, hence called the ratlins of the fhrouds, RATTLE, among the antients, a musical inftrument of the pulfative kind, called by the Romans crepitaculum. The tintinnabulum, crotalum, and fiftrum, were by the same esteemed only so many different kinds of rattles. See the articles BELL, CROTALUM, and SISTRUM. What we commonly call rattles now, is no more than a flick of wax in a filver handle, to which is suspended a number of little bells of the fame, or some other inetal, ferving in the hands of children to make a rattling or tinkling noise, or otherwife to play withal. 86 Rattles for children the grofs, containing twelve dozen, pay, on importation, I s. 1 d. and, on exportation, draw back IS. TOO 15 d. RATTLE SNAKE, crotalophorus, in zoology, a genus of ferpents, having fcuta that cover the whole under-furface of the body and tail, and having the extremity of the body terminated by a kind of rattle, formed of a series of urceolated articulations, which are moveable, and make a noise. See plate CCXXVIII. fig. 1. Of this ferpent, there are two fpecies, the greater one with the fcuta of the abdomen a hundred and feventy-two, of the tail twenty-one; and the leffer rattlefnake, having the fcuta of the abdomen a hundred and fixty-five, of the tail twenty-eight. The larger is a very terrible, and, at its full growth, a very large ferpent, growing to eight feet in length, with a proportionable thickness s the head is large, broad, depreffed, and of of a pale brown: the iris of the eye is red; the back is of a brown colour, with an admixture of a ruddy yellow, and variegated with a great many irregular tranfverfe lifts, of a deep black: the belly is of a palish blue; the rattle is of a firm, and as it were of a horny fubftance, and brown colour, compofed of a number of cells, which are articulated one within another, which articulations being very loofe, the included points ftrike against the inner furface of the rings they are admitted into, and make that rattling noise, when the ferpent vibrates, or fhakes its tail. This ferpent is frequent in the woods of America: the bite is fatal, but it is easy to avoid it, the creature being fluggish, moving flowly, never attacking a man unless provoked, and giving notice before it bites by fhaking its rattle. The leffer fpecies of this ferpent grows to about feven feet in length, and in moft particulars is like the former one, and its bite is equally mischievous. RATTLE-SNAKE-ROOT, the fame with the fenega, a fpecies of polygala, See the article POLYGALA. RAVA, a city of Great Poland, capital of the Palatinate of Rava, fituated fifty miles fouth-eaft of Warsaw. RAUCEDO, boarseness, in medicine. See the article HOARSENESS. RAVELIN, in fortification, was antiently a flat bastion, placed in the middle of a curtin; but now a detached work compofed only of two faces, which make a faliant angle, without any flanks, and raised before the curtin on the counterfcarp of the place. A ravelin is a triangular work, refembling the point of a baftion, with the flanks cut off. See the article FORTIFICATION. Its ufe before a curtin is to cover the oppofite flanks of the two next bastions. It is used alfo to cover a bridge, or a gate, and is always placed without the moat. There are alfo double ravelins that ferve to cover each other: they are faid to be double, when they are joined by a curtin. See the article CURTIN. RAVEN, in ornithology, a fpecies of the corvus, of the bignefs of a common hen, of a black colour, with a blue back; the head is fmall, depreffed on the crown, and flatted on both fides: the eyes are large, bright and piercing; the beak is confiderably long and thick, and fomewhat rigid on the back, and fharp at the point. See the article CORVUS, RAVENGLAS, a port town of Cumber- RAVISHMENT, in law, denotes an un- RAUVOLFIA, in botany, a genus of the RAY, in optics, a beam of light, emitted from a radiant, or luminous body. See the article LIGHT. Rays are defined by Sir Ifaac Newton, to be the leaft parts of light, whether fucceffive in the fame line, or cotempo-, rary in several lines. For that light confifts of parts of both kinds is evident, fince one may stop what comes this moment in any point, and let pafs that which comes presently after: now the leaft light, or part of light, which may be thus ftopped, he calls a ray of light. A ray, or right line, drawn from the point of concourse of the two optical axes, through the middle of the right line, which paffes by the centers of the two pupils of the eyes, is by fome called a common ray. See the article VISION, As for direct, converging and diverging rays; rays of incidence, inflection, refraction, curvature, &c. fee the articles DIRECT, CONVERGING, &c. RAY-FISH, raja. See the article RAJA. RAYLEIGH, a market-town of Effex, ten miles fouth-eaft of Chelmsford. RAYONANT, or Cross RAYONANT, in heraldry, one which has rays of glory behind it, darting out from the center to all the quarters of the escutcheon, as reprefented in plate CCXXVIII. fig. 2. RAZANT, or RASANT. See RASANT. RAZOR, a well known inftrument, used by furgeons, barbers, &c. for shaving off the hair from various parts of the body. All All razors are prohibited to be imported. RAZOR-BILL, alka, in ornithology. See the article ALKA. RAZOR-FISH, dactylus, a fpecies of folen. See the article SOLEN. RE, in grammar, an infeparable particle added to the beginning of words, to double or otherwife modify their meaning; as in re-action, re-move, re-export, &c. REACH, in the fea-language, fignifies the distance between any two points of land, lying nearly in a right line. RE-ACTION, in phyfiology, the refiftance made by all bodies to the action or impulfe of others, that endeavour to change its ftate whether of motion or reft. See the articles ACTION and MOTION, The caufe of the re-action of bodies is no other than their inertia. See INERTIA. READING, a borough-town in Berkshire, fituated forty miles weft of London, near the confluence of the rivers Kennet and Thames; it fends two members to parliament. READINGS, or various READINGS, varia lectiones, in criticiim, are the different manner of reading the texts of authors in antient manufcripts, where a diversity has arisen from the corruption of time, or the ignorance of copyifts. A great part of the bufinefs of critics lies in fettling the readings by confronting the various readings of the feveral manufcripts, and confidering the agreement of the words and fenfe. com Readings are alfo ufed for a fort of co mentary or glofs on a law, text, paffage, or the like, to fhew the fenfe an author takes it in, and the application he conceives to be made of it. RE-AFFORESTED, is where a forest, having been difafforested, is again made a foreft. See the article FOREST. RE-AGGRAVATION, in the romifh ecclefiaftical law, the laft monitory publifhed after three admonitions, and before the last excommunication. Before they proceed to fulminate the last excommunication, they publish an aggra vation, and a re-aggravation. See the article EXCOMMUNICATION. REAL, reale, is applied to a being that actually exifts, in which fenfe it coincides with actual. See the article ACTUAL. REAL, in law, is oppofed to perional. See the article PERSONAL. Thus real action is that whereby the plaintiff lays title to land, &c. See the article ACTION, &C. REAL, or CHIAPA, a city of Mexico, in North America, capital of the province of Chiapa, fituated weft long. 97°, north lat. 17°. REALEIO, a port-town of Mexico, in the province of Niacaragua, fituated on the bay of the Pacific Ocean, in weft long. 91° 30', north lat. 12°. REALGAR, rifigallum, in the materia medica, a name whereby the fandarach has been a long time known in the fhops. It has been alfo attributed to the factitious red arfenic. See the articles SANDARACH, and ARSENIC. REALISTS, realifte, a fect of school philofophers, formed in oppofition to the nominalis. See NOMINALS. Under the realifts are included the fcotifts, thomifts, and all excepting the follow ers of Ocham. Their diftinguishing tenet is that universals are realities, and have an actual exiftence out of an idea, or imagination; or, as they express it in the fchools, a parte rei; whereas the nominalifts contend that they exit only in the mind, and are only ideas, or manners of conceiving things. REALITY, realitas, in the fchools, a diminutive of res, thing, first used by the fcotifts, to denote a thing which may exift of itself, or which has a full and abfolute being of itself, and is not confidered as a part of any other. REALM, regnum, a country which gives its head, or governor, the denomination of a king. REALMONT, a town of France, in the province of Languedoc, fituated thirtytwo miles north-east of Toulouse. REAR, a term frequently used in compofition, to denote fomething behind, or backwards, in respect of another, in oppofition to van: thus, in a military fenfe, it it used for the hind part of an army, in oppofition to the front. For the rearguard, rear-half files, rear-line, rearrank, and rear-admiral, fee GUARD, FILE, LINE, RANK, and ADMIRAL. REASON, ratio, a faculty, or power, of the mind, whereby it diftinguishes good from evil, truth from falfhood; whereby man is diftinguished from beafts; and wherein it is evident he greatly furpaffes them or reafon is that principle whereby, comparing feveral ideas together, we draw confequences from the relations they are found to have. See the article REASONING. Some define reafon to be the compre henfion of many principles which the |