Page:Cyclopaedia, Chambers - Supplement, Volume 1.djvu/490

 C E D

C E G

fajid men into the field. &Zy, Hift. de la Conq. du Mexiq'.ie ap. Bibl. Univ. T. 23. p, 202.

CAZIMI, among the Arabian afbonomers, denotes the center ur middle of the fun. A planet is faid to be in cazimi, when it is not dirtant from the fun either in longitude or latitude above 17', or the aggregate of the femi diameter of the fun's difk and that of the planet.

This amounts to the fame with what is other-wife called in cgrdefolis, or in the fun's heart, which pafTes for a dignity and fortitude of a planet, equal to that of being in its own houfe ; whereas in other cafes, a planet's conjunction with the fun is held detrimental, or a diminution to it; as the fun, by his fu- perior power, is fuppofed to abforb the virtue of the planet, and even fcorch or burn it up. JVolf. Lex. Math. p. 327. Vital Lex. Math. p. 98.

CKANIDES, or Ceantides, in natural hiftory, aname given by many of the antients to the ftone more generally known under the name of enchymonites. It was the fame with our (parry incruftarions on the walls and roofs of fubterranean ca- verns ; and, from the opinion of the times, that thefe ftones Brought forth young ones, which was founded on their find- ing little ones daily produced among them, it became acuf- tom to give this internally to women in labour, as a thing that would, by a fort of fympathy, baflen the time.

CEDAR, cedrus, in botany, the name of a genus of trees, the chara&ers of which are thefe : the flower is of the amentaceous kimi, confuting of a great number of little leaves, furnifhed with a number of apices: this is the male flower. The fruit which srows on other parts of the tree is a roundifh berry, containing angular kernels, which have each oblong feeds. To this it is to be added, that the leaves rcfemble thofe of cy- prefs. The fpecies of cedrus enumerated by Mr. Tourncfort,are thefe :

1. 1 he greater cyprefs-leav'd cedrus., with yellow berries.

2. The middlc-fizcd cyprefs-leav'd cedrus, with very large berries ; and, 3. The tall Spanifh cedrus, with large black ber- ries. Tourn. Lift p. 5JJ8.

This tree is of great beauty, and bears the openeft expofures fo well, that it is a wonder it is not more cultivated inEngland. The cones of this tree are brought us from the Levant, and if preserved entire, will keep their feeds many years : thefe cones are to be fplit open, and the feeds picked out with the fingers : thefe are to be fown and propagated in the fame man- ner as the firs. See the article Fir. Only that when the plants bet* in to fhoot ftrong, the leading fhoot generally inclines to one fide, and muft therefore be fupported by tying it to a flake driven upright by its fide.

Thefe trees fpread greatly, and the ends of their branches bent! i tic; down, they mew very beautifully their upper furface, which looks like a green carpet, and as it plays in the wind makes a very elegant appearance, and is therefore a fine tree for planting on an eminence to terminate a vifta. They thrive heft of all in a poor foil, and are of very quick growth, as appears very plainly by thofe fine ones in the phyfic garden at Chclfea, which were planted in the year 1683, and were then only two foot high, and in the year 1736 were above ten feet in the girth, at two feet above ground. Miller, Gard. Diet, in voc. Gedar, in building, &c. a denomination given to a fpecies of the wood of the cedar-ticc, famous for its duration and incor- ruptibility.

1 he tree which bears it, is that popularly called by us the ce- dar of Lebanon, by the antients cedrus magna, or the great cedar, alfo ccdrelatc, xe^eAwItj, and fometimes the Phoenician or Syriac cedar, from the country where it grows in greater} per- fection. PHn. Hift. Nat. 1. 24. c. 5. Fab. Thef p.5r4.Trev Dict.Univ.T. 1. p. 1529. voc. cedre. Gorr. Med. Defin. p.zig. It is a coniferous ever-green, of the bigger fort, large and tall, bearing large roundifh cones, of fmooth fcales, {landing erect, the leaves being final], narrow, and thick fet. They fometinus counterfeit cedar, by dying wood of a reddifh hue ; but the fmell difcovers the cheat, that of true cedar be- ing very aromatic. In fome places the wood of the cajou tree paries under the name of cedar, on account of its reddifh co- lour, and Its aromatic fmell, which fomewhat refembles that of fantal.

Cedar wood is reputed almoft immortal and incorruptible, a prerogative which it owes chiefly to its bitter tafte, which the worms cannot endure. For this reafon it was, the antients made ufe of cedar tablets to write on, efpecially for things of importance, as appears from that cxprcifion of Perlius, Et Cedro dtgna locutus. Perf.Szt. 1. v. 42.

A juice was alfo drawn from cedar, with which they fmeered their books and writings, or other matters, to preferve them from rotting ; which is alluded to by Horace * : By means of which it was that Numa's bocks, written on papyrus, were prefcrved entire to the year 53--, as we an; informed by Pliny b. ['■Herat. ArsPoet. v. 331. b PHn. Hift. Nat. 1. 12. c. 13. Fab. Thef. p. 514.] SeeCEDRiA.

Solomon's temple, as well as his palace, were both of this wood. That prince gave king Hiram feveral cities for the cedars he futniihed him on thofe occafions. Cortes is faid to have erected a palace at Mexico, in which were 7COO beam: of cedat, - ir.ott. of them 12& feet long, and 12 in circumfe-

rence, as we are informed by Herrera. Pome tell us of a cedar felled in Cyprus 130 foot long, and 18 in diameter. It was ufed for the main malt tn the galley of king Demetrius. Le Rruyn aflures us, that th ■ two h-ggeft he faw on Mount Lebanon meafurtd one of them 57 palms, and the ether 47 in circumference. 7're*. Ditit. p. 1529, feq. Calm. Diet. Bib. T. 1. p. ^70.

In the temple of Apollo at Utica, there were cedar timbers of near 2000 years old ; which yet were nothing to that beam in an oratory 01 Diana at Saguntum in Spain, laid to have been brought thither 200 years before the deftruction of Troy. Cedar is of fo dry a nature, that it wilt not endure to be fattened with iron nails, from which it ufually fhrinki, lb that they commonly faften it with pins of the fame wood. The cedar brought from Barbadoes and Jamaica is a fpurious fort, of fo porous a nature, that the wine will leak thro' it. That produced in New-England is a lofty grower, and makes excellent planks, and flooring that is ever'afting. They min- gle their houfes with it, and ufe it in all their buildings. This is the Oxycedrus of Lycia, which Vitruvius defcribes as having its leaves refembling thofe of cyprefs. Evelyn. Sy\v. c. 21. §. 14. The cedar of Greece and Afia was no other than a fmaller kind of juniper, vviiich having prickly leaves, was by fome called oxycedrus, and the common juniper was at that time called alfo by the name of cedar. TheLycian cedar of the Greeks was this juniper kind ; but the ccdrium and cedrelsum, which were a kind of pitch and an oil feparated from it by melting, were not prepared from this cedar, but from the Syrian cedar, which was a larger fhrub, and refembled the cyprefs, and therefore was confounded with that tree, being called by fome the wild cyprefs. The cedrium was always made from this fpecies ; but the oleum de coda, or code oil, was made from the fruit of the oxycedrus, or prickly-leav'd juniper, called cedar by the Greeks, and growing in their own country. The fhittim and the almug mentioned in fcripture, are ufually fuppofed to have been kinds of cedar.

Johnflon, in his dendr agraphia, is of opinion, that pitch w 7 as antiently made of cedar, as well as of the pine and fir, grown old and oily. Bp. Berkeley, Siris, feet. i3.

Cedar cups, a fort of wooden ware brought from the Weft- Indies. They are made out of the wood of the baltard cedar, and appear of a very clofe and firm grain ; but they are really fo porous, that when any liquor is pour'd into them, it runs out at the bottom.

CEDILLA, in the Spanifh and French languages, denotes a fort of fmall c, to the bottom of which is affixed a kind of virgula, as c, to denote that it is to be pronounced like f. The cediila is called by fome of our printers a ceceril. It is ufed before the vowels a, o, and u ; as in bracos, choca, com- menca, lecon, deca, &rc. In the Spanifh, it is fometimes ufed at the beginning of a word, as in camarra, curzar, &c. Trev. Diet. Univ. T. j. p. 1529. Stepb. Span. Diet, in voc. Mem. deTrev. 1707. p. 1.265.

CEDRELATON, in botany, a name given by Pliny to an ima- ginary tree, and faithfully copied by many authors. The word feems evidently formed of cedrus, the cedar, and elate, the fir-tree ; and hence the original author of the blunder has defcribed it as a large and high cedar, with few branches : and thofe who have copied from him, have defcribed it as bcino-of a middle nature, between the cedar and fir. It is eafy to trace Pliny up to his original authors in his botanical account ; and by doing this, in the prefent cafe it is found, that there never was any tree at all called by this name by the authors whom he follows ; but that the whole is an error, founded on his read- ing in fome of them cedrelaton inftead of cedrelaicn, a name by which all the antient Greeks have called the oil of cedar. Pliny taking this for the name of a tree, fays, tl at the feed was like the cyprefs, and the tree higher than any other cedar. He mentions it in another place alfo, and fays, that it yields the cedria, or a peculiar kind of pitch, called oil of cedar by fome. Pliny, 1. 25. c. 3.

CEDRIA, Ktfyx, a reiinous liquor ifliting from the great cedar tree, or cedar of Lebanon. The word is alfo written cedrium, xt$%iw, and cedrinum, xt$gi*or.

Cedria, when good, yields a ftrong fmell, is tranfparent, of a thick fatty confiftence, fothat in pouring it out, it does not fall too faft or freely, but equally drop by drop. It is ponefTed of two oppofite qualities, viz. to preferve dead bodies, by its drying and confuting fuperfluous moifture, without dama-nno- the folid parts; and to putrify the foft and tender parts of liv- ing bodies, without exciting any pain. Trev. Diet. Univ. T. 1. p. 1530. Savar. Diet. Comm. T. 1. p. 596. Muland, Lex. Alch. p. 137.

The ccdr.a is properly the tear of the cedar. Some call it the gum, others the pitch of the cedar. The fame denomination is alfo given to the cedrelaon, or oil of the cedars, which dif- fers little from the refin, except that it is of a thinner confift- ence. Gorr. Med. Defin. p. 219. voc. jm^iov. CaJ}. Lex. Med. p. 153. Fab. Thef. p. 514.

CEGINUS, inaRronomy, a fixed ftar of the third magnitude, in the left moulder of bootes. See Bootes, Cyei. and Suppl. Its longitude, according to Hevelius, for the year 170c, was r>° 26' 4", and its latitude northern 49" '(,-'47". Some alfo give this denomination to the ftar otherwise calltd

cepbeu «