Page:Cyclopaedia, Chambers - Supplement, Volume 1.djvu/20

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bed muft be prepared, into which muft be plunged as many fmall pots as there is occafion for. Theie muft be firft filled with earth; and when they have flood twenty-four hours, this earth will be of a proper warmth. Then the plants are to be raifed gently out of the firft hot-bed, and planted one in the middle of each pot, and watered gently to fettle the earth to their roots. The bed is then to be fhaded with mats, till they have taken root; and after this, air muft be given them, as they are able to bear it, by railing the glaffes which co- ver the beds.

The two kinds called the locuft-tree and the water Acacia of Carolina, and the other hardier kinds, may be wholly un- covered in the hot-bed by midfummer. The firft and fecond winter, thefe fhould be flickered in a common hot-bed frame, till they are grown woody; and after this, they may be taken out of the pots in the fpring of the year, and planted in the open ground, where they arc intended to ftand; which fhould always be in a wildernefs or clump of trees, where they may be flickered from the wind, the violence of which is otherwife apt to fplit them. When they are' eight or ten feet high, they will make very vigorous fhoots, which fhould be an- nually fhortened, that the heads of, the trees fhould not be- come open and naked. They love a loofe and fomewhat moift foil.

The other tenderer kinds of Acacia fhould be kept in the hot- beds till July, and after this be expofed to the air by degrees, though the glaffes fhould not he removed from them wholly for the firft year. Thefe muft be fet in a ftove the firft and fecond winters; but when they are grown woody, they will live in a good grcen-houfe, and may be expofed in fummer, as myrtles, orange-trees, and the like. They muft be very little watered in winter; efpecially thofe which fhed their leaves.

The tendereft kinds of all, which are the true Egyptian Acacia, the branched leaved Acacia with twilled pods, and the large four-leaved Acacia with twifted pods, muft have a hot- bed of tanners bark, and muft be fhifted into larger pots, as they increafe in bulk. The earth for thefe muft be fome- what fandy; and great care muft be taken not to give them too large pots. The firft of thefe three may, when grown woody, be fet in a common ftove among viburnums, and the like; but the other two muft have a bark ftove in winter : nor fhould they be expofed to the open air in fummer, at leaft till they arc four or five years old. In winter, thefe are to have very little water; but in fummer, they require frequent refrefh- ings. Miller's Gardn. Diet.

The Chinefc cultivate thefe trees for the fake of their flowers, which they ufe in dying. They gather the feeds when perfectly ripe, and dry them in the fun, and lay them up all winter. A little before the fummer folftice, they throw them into water, and there leave thern till they begin to fhoot; they then take them out and fow them in a good fat foil, with hempfeed mixed among them. Both feeds will grow up together; and they gather the hemp at its proper time, and tye up the young Acacias to poles, to keep them upright. The fecond and third year, they, in the fame man- ner, fow hemp among them. The ufe of this is principally to defend them, while young, from the inclemencies of the weather; but after the third year they generally are ftrong enough to bear it, and are then to be tranfplanted out into proper places, where they will grow to handfome trees. Obferv. fur les Coutumes de l'Afie, p. 256. The flowers of the Acacia are ufed by the Chinefe in makino- that yellow, which, we fee, bears wafhing in their filks and fluffs; and appears with fo much elegance in their painting on paper. The method is this :

They gather the flowers before they are fully open; thefe they put into a clean earthen vefl'el over a gentle heat, and ftir them continually about, as they do the tea leaves, till they become dryifli and of a yellow colour; then to half a pound of the flowers they add three fpoonfuls of fair water, and after that a little more, till there is juft enough to hold the flowers incorporated together : they boil this for fome time, and the juice of the flowers mixing with the water, it becomes thick and yellow; they then take it from the fire, and ftrain it through a piece of coarfe filk. To the liquor they add half an ounce of common allum, and an ounce of calcined oyfter-fliells reduced to a fine powder. All is then well mixed together; and this is the fine lafting yellow they have fo long ufed. Obferv. fur les Coutumes de l'Afie, p. 242. The dyers of large pieces ufe the flowers and feeds of the Acacia for dying three different forts of yellow. They roaft the flowers, as before obferved; and then mixing the feeds with them, which muft be gathered for this purpofe when full ripe, by different admixtures of thefe, they give the different fhades of colour, only for the deepeft of all, they give a fmall mixture of Brafil wood. See Dyes, Yellow.

Mr. Geoffroy, with great probability, attributes the origin of bezoar to the feeds of this plant; which being broufed by cer- tain animals, and vellicating the ftomach by their great four- nefs, and aftrmgency, caufe a condenfation of the juices, till at length they become coated over with a ftony matter, which we call bezoard ".

Some will alfo have the Acacia to be the tree which yields the gum arable, or fenegal b. The juice we are affined by others makes the bafe of the true Catechu, or Japan earth c. 'Tis difputed whether our Acacia be the fame with that fpokc of by Diofcorides d, Pliny % and other antients. F. Har- douin r, Saracenus s , and others aflert the affirmative; Sal- mafius, Menage b, &c. the negative; maintaining that the antient Acacia, or fplna /Egyptia, from whence their medi- cinal juice was prepared, was the fame with our cajfia fiflula. The antients diftinguifhed two kinds of Acacia j the white, and the black : Sahnafius takes the latter to have been our cajfia fijiula, whofe ufe was then unknown. The ufe of the former, or white kind, he fuppofes loft to us. So that their Acacia is unknown to us, as ours to them. But this is re- fining to a great pitch. 'Tis certain Pliny's defcription, in the main, anfwers to the modern Acacia, as exadtly, per- haps, as Salmafius himfelf could at this day have defcribed it '. — [» Mem. de l'Acad. loc. cit. ' Mem. des Miff. T. 2. p. 187. c Cleyer. in Ephem. German, dec. 2. an. 4. obf. 3. p. 6. ' Diofcor. 1. 1. c. 133. c Plln. Hift. Nat. 1. 24. c. 12. < Not. ad Plin. T. 1. 1. 13. c. 10. p. 688. & T. 2. 1. 24. c. 12. p. 343. 8 Not. ad Diofcor. 1. 3. c. 15. h Menag. Orig. Franc, p. 4. i Salmaf. Exerc. ad Solin.

p. 539' fc q-]

Acacia, in antiquity, according to Du Cange, the axaxta, properly fo called, was a purple bag, filled with earth, or fand, and bore by the prince in his left hand, to remind him of his frailty and mortality; to prevent his being too much elated with his ftation 3. 'Tis queftioned, however, whether this Acacia, in the hands of the Greek emperors, be the fame with that reprefented in the ftatues of the earlier Roman ma- giftrates, as confuls, queftors, and the like. The latter ra- ther appears to have been a roll, or volume b. — [ a Codln. de Offic. Aul. Conftant. c. 6. §. 27. Du Can*. Dill', de Infer. Mv. Numifm. §. 13. p. n. Ejufd. Gloff. Grac. T. 1. p. 38. b Du Cang. DifT. loc. cit.]

ACACIANS, Acaciani, in church-hiftory, a feet, or he- refy, who denied the fon to be confubftantial, or of the fame fubftance with the father, but aliened him to be of a like, or fimilar fubftance.

They took the denomination from Acacius, bifhop of Cafarea, who flourifhed about the middle of the fourth century, whofe followers they were.

The Acacians are otherwife called Semi-Arians; though in flridtnefs, they are rather a particular feet or branch of the Semi-Arians. Mlcral. Hift. Ecclef. 1. 2. fee. 2. p. 434.

Acacians alfo denote a feci of heretics, who held the fon to be of a different, or diflimilar fubftance from the father. Thefe are more frequently called Aetians, and Anomaeans; by fome, the later or pofterior Acacians, in refpect of the former, who are hence alfo denominated the prior or former Acacians. They derive their name from the fame Acacius, who, out of oppofition to St. Cyril, as fome alledge, quitted the party of the Semi-Arians, and efpoufed that of the Anomseans. Vid. Du Pin, Bibl. Ecclef. T. 2. p. 122. Micro:!. Hift Ecclef. 1. 2. feet. 2. p. 434.

Acacians is alfo the denomination of a third feet, the fol- lowers of Acacius, patriarch of Conftantinople, towards the clofe of the fifth century, who favoured the errors of Euty- chius. Vid. Petav. Rationar. Temp. P. 1. 1. 6. p. 359.

ACADEMY, {Cycl.)— Medical Academies, as, that of the Na- turae Curiofi in Germany a; that founded at Palermo, in 1645; another at Venice, in 170 1, which meets weekly in a hall near the grand hofpital; another at Geneva, in 17 15, in the houfe of M. le Clerc. The college of phyficians at London is alfo by fome ranked in the number of Accade- mles b.

The Academy of Naturae Curiofi, called alfo the Leopoldine Academy, had its origin in 1652 c, when Jo. Laur. Baufchius, induced by the example of the Englifh, publifhed an imitation to all phyficians to communicate their obfervations of extra- ordinary cafes 5 which meeting with fuccefs, he was elected prefident : though the fociety was not fully eftablifhed, till the prefidentfhip of Jo. Mich. Fehr. Their works were at firft publifhed feparately. In the year 1670, a new fcheme was laid for publifhing periodically, a volume of obfervations every year; the firft of which appeared in 1684, under the title of Ephemerides, and has been continued under fome in- terruptions and variations of title, &c J. In 1687, the E m - peror Leopold took the fociety under his protection, granting them feveral privileges, particularly, that their prefident" fhould be Counts Palatine of the holy Roman empire c . This Academy differs from all others, in that it has no fixed refi- dence, or regular affemblies '; inftcad whereof is a kind of bureau, or office, firft eftablifhed at Breflaw, afterwards re- moved to Nuremberg-, where letters, obfervations, &c. from members and correfpondents are taken in s. The Academy confifts of a prefident, two adjuncts or fecretaries, and col- legues or members. The collegues, at their admiffion, oblige themfelves to two things; firft, to choofe fome fubjea out of the animal, vegetable, or mineral kingdom to handle, pro- vided it had not been treated of by any collegue before; the fecond, to apply themfelves to furnifh materials for the an- nual Ephemerides. Each member to bear a fymbol of the
 * • Academy^