Page:Cyclopaedia, Chambers - Supplement, Volume 1.djvu/1013

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Thefpecies of fax, enumerated by Mr.Tourftefort, are thefe, i. The common manured flax. 2. The broad leaved Afri- can fax with a larger fruit* 3. The great perennial blue flowered fax with large heads. 4. The lelTer perennial blue flowered fax with fmaller heads. 5. The common wild fax, refembling the cultivated kind. 6. The hairy broad leaved blue flowered wild fax. 7. The hairy white flowered broad leaved wild fax. 8. The fhrubby yfer with fnow- white flowers. 9. The broad leaved yellow flowered wild fax. 10. The yellow flowered wild flax with round- ifh leaves. 11. The yellow flowered fax with flowers at the joints of the ftalfc. 12. The dufky yellow -flowered fhrubby fax. 13. The wild yellow tree fax of Candy. 14. The (mail broad leaved annual yellow flowered wild fax. 15. The fmall narrow leaved annual yellow flowered fax. 10. The yellow flowered feaflax. 17. The wild blue flowered fax with fharp pointed leaves. 18. The narrow leaved wild fax with large white flowers. 19. The narrow leaved wild fax with large deep blue flowers. 20. The narrow leaved wild fax with very large greyifh flowers. 21. The narrow leaved wild fax with white flowers, va- riegated with ftreaks of red. 22. The narrow leaved white flowered procumbent wild fax. 23. The letter flowered wild fax with narrow and thick-fet leaves. 24. The nar- row leaved wild fax with fewer leaves. 25. The narrow leaved wild fax with fewer leaves and white flowers. 26. The leaft wild fax with very fmall flowers, called by fome the leaft fmooth fpring chick-weed. 27. The rough leaved fax with yellow umbeliated flowers. 28. The yellow Portugal fax with fpiked flowers. 29. The narrow leaved fhrubby fax with rigid and prickly leaves. 30. The capillacious leaved Portugal fax. And 31. The larix leaved alpine fax, Taurn. Infr. p. 340. See Flax.

Xjnum carpaflum, carpafan fax, or llnnen, a term often oc- curring in the old writers, and ufed by different authors in ■very different fenfes.

The firft ufe we find made of the word, is for the exprefling a kind diflax which was finer and fmaller, as well as brighter and more glofTy than any other. Pliny ufes the word in this fenfe, and tells us that fuch flax was principally brought from Spain j and that both it, and the linnen made of it, were, at his time, called by the name carfafan : from this it became a cuftom to call all very G.nejfe# t or fine llnnen, carpafan llnnen, and the word fignified no more than deli- cate, or fine.

The modern Greeks ufe the word in this fenfe, and Suidas exprefles the fineft lumen veils by the term carpafan. The author of the Periplus marls Erythrm, who was cotempo- rary with Pliny, calls the /a.*, of which the Indian llnnens were made, carpafos ; but none of the older Greeks have the

- word. This author is not, however, to be appealed to for afcertaining the purity of the language of the antients ; for it is plain, that he has taken in many words which are not good Greek, nor ever were ufed by any author of credit, but are the mere technical terms of the tradefmen and merchants of that time.

Paufanias ufes the word carfafium llnum in a very different fenfe from all thefe; for with him it is made to exprefs the fax made of the ftone afbeftos, and the llnnen made of this, which was thrown into the fire to be cleaned. Solinus ufes the word alfo in the fame fenfe : he fays, that in Ca- ryftos there was found that kind of flax which remained unhurt in the fire; and Hieronymus Mercurialis thinks that the carbafus of the antient Romans was a word properly ufed only to fignify the carpafan flax of Paufanias, which was not to be deftroyed by the fire, and was the true llnum incombuflblle, or threads of the afbeftos ftone, or Unnm made of that material. This, however, is not the fenfe of the word in later times, for we find it evidently ufed for all linnen manufactures of whatever kind.

Caryjlium Linum, in natural hiftory, a name given by Pau fanias to the afbeftos, a woolly ftone of which clothes and paper were made, which, on being heated red-hot in the fire, were cleaned, but not confumed or injured by it. It was found plentifully, in this author's time, near Ca- ryftus, a town in the Negropont, and thence obtained its name. See Asbestos.

XjitsvMcatharticum, Purging flax, in medicine, makes a com- mon purge among the country people. It is almoit as rough as that of gratiola. See Gratiola. It is a fpecies of wild flax, and is taken in infufion in ale. A dram of the powder of the dried herb, or of the frefh leaves bruifed and formed into a bolus, will anfwer the purpofe. It is greatly recommended by fome in dropfics ; and to pre- vent its griping, they mix anife, or fome other of the car- minative feeds with it. It is given in moft chronic cafes, where people's conftitutions are ftrong enough to bear it, and often with great fuccefs.

LION, leo, in the Linu^an fyftem of zoology, makes a di- ftinci genus of quadrupeds, the characters of which are, to have two paps placed on the belly, and feet adapted to climbing. Linnai Syft. Nat. p. 35.

The head of the lion appears very large, in proportion to its body, and is the molt flefhy of the heads of all the Suppl. Vol. I.

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known animSls. Its jaw bones alfo are remarkably large; 1 he bread alfo appears very large, but this is only owinp to the great quantity of long hair that covers It, for the tter- mim is fmaller than that of moft animals of the fame fize. The tail; which is very long; appears alfo of the fame thick- nefs all the way; but this is wholly owing to the growth of the hair. The tail itfelf is largeft at the bale, and thence goes taper to the point ; but the hair being very fhort near its bate, and continuing to grow longer all the way, as that decreafes in thicknefs; is fo exaftly proportioned in this growth, that it always gives the whole tail this regular appearance. See Tab. of Quadrupeds, N° I. The long hair that grows about the neck and breaft, and makes what is called the mane of the lion, only differs from the hair of the reft of the body in length, having no greater thicknefs, or rigidity, like that of the manes of other ani- mals. The claws of the lion have no cafes, as Pliny pre- tends that they have, for the animal to withdraw them into in walking; but Plutarch, Solinus, and fome others, are much more in the right, in faying that the lion draws them up backwards when he walks, and places them clofely among the articulations of the toes.

It is certain that the laft joint but one of every toe in this creature has a peculiarly eafy joint for motion, and by means of this the laft joint, with the claw that is affixed to it, are very readily drawn up, and hid upon the foot, and placed wholly out of the way of being hurt in walking. This creature, therefore, does not put the extremities of its toes to the ground in walking, but the termination of each toe, as to its touching the earth, is the joint of the laft piece with the laft but one. This drawing up of the laft joint of every toe, by means of which each claw is hid be- tween the toe it belongs to, and the next, is the effect of a ligament, which in its natural ftate is fo fhortened, as to keep them in this pofition ; and it is only by the aflion of a very ftrong mufcle, that this joint can be pulled down- ward, when the claws are to be ufed, the ligament before- mentioned always drawing them naturally into their firft pofition again, as foon as the force of that mufcle is over. The lion has fourteen teeth in each jaw, four incifores, four canine, and fix molares. The ineifofes are fmall, the ca- nine are unequal in fize, two being very large, and two very fmall ; the large ones are an inch and half long, and are the only ones that the antients allowed to be canine teeth. The molares alfo are irregular in fize, the anterior ones being very fmall, the others large, and terminated by three or four points, forming a fort of flower de luce. Ariftotle, jHian, and others, fay that the neck of the lion is all compofed of one unjointed bone. It appears indeed very rigid in this creature, but this does not proceed from fo ftrange a caufe, but is found owing to this, that the fpinofe apophyfes of the vertebras of the neck are long, and fatten- ed together by extremely ftrong and rigid ligaments. The tongue of the lion is very rough and rigid, being co- vered with a great number of prominences of a hard mat- ter, refembling that of a cat's claws, and thefe are much in the ftiape of thofe claws, and nearly of the fame fize, the bafe of each being a round flefhy prominence on the furface of the tongue.

The eyes of the lion are clear and bright, even after the creature is dead. The common obfervation that this crea- ture deeps with its eyes open, is founded on this, that it has a very thick membrane lodged in the greater canthus of the eye, which it can extend over the whole eye upon oc- cafion, as birds do their membrana niClitans, and thus will have no occafion to ftiut its eye-lids, in order to exclude the light. It is very remarkable, that the common cat has all the Angular ftrufture of the feveral parts as the lion has, its claws, feet, tongue, and eyes, being of the fame kind, and its internal parts bearing as ftrong a refemblance. The heart of the lion is greatly larger than that of any other creature of the fame fize, being fix inches long, and four in diameter, in the largeft part, and terminating in a very fharp point. The brain is as remarkably fmall ; and the comparifon of this with the great quantity of brain in a calf, and purfuing the obfervation through feveral other creatures, as to the proportion of brain they have, it does not appear that a fmall quantity of brairi is a mark of folly, but ufually of great fubtlety, and of a cruel difpofition. Mcmoires pour PHiftoire des Anim. p. 5. The French, when they had once a fick lion, attempted to recover him from his ficknefs by fuch foods as nature never intended him, that is, by the tender and pure flefh of youno- animals, without any of the external coat. They gave him young lambs dead alive for this purpofe ; but nature not having given this animal the fubtlety to flea his food, and the hair, wool, feathers, &c. being as neceffary to thefe beads of prey with the flefh, as that flefh itfelf, the new food bred too much blood, and proved a worfe diieafe than that he had before, fo that he foon died. Pitjicld's Hift. Anim. LlON-pucenn, in natural hiftory, the name given by Mr. Reaumur to a genus of worms which dedroy the pucerons in the fame manner that the formica Ico does the ants.

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