Page:Cyclopaedia, Chambers - Supplement, Volume 1.djvu/591

 DEM

that with force fufficient to take with it the very bottom of the ocean, and to carry it upon land.

In this cafe it is much more difficult to fay how Noah and his family could be preferved, than how all other creatures were deftroyed : fuch a fhock would change the length of the day and year, and alter the axis of the globe according to the obli- quity of the incidence of the ftroke, and its direction in rela- tion to the axis. That fome fuch thing as this has at fome time happened, appears very probably from this, that the earth in jts prefent ftate feems but the ruins of a former world, in which we every where find fuch animal bodies as lived before this De- luge? either in their own ftate, or petrified. It may be objected to this fyftem, that fuch a fhock as is here fuppofed to occafion the Deluge? muft have brought on that cataftrophe inftantaneoufly, and all at once, not gradually as it is faid to have happened ; and therefore that tho' there are the evident remains of fuch a {hock in the petrified animal bo- dies found in flone, &c, yet this may have happen'd before the formation of the world into its prefent ftate long before the time of Noah. It is probable alto, that fuch another fhock may be at fome time necefiary, in order to render this earth fufficiently fruitful in vegetables, which are either immediately or mediately the food of all animals. The parts about the fur- face being fuppofed to petrify and harden in time, and that fuch a concuifion will in. fine be necefTary in order to bury them, and to bring up a fofter and more nouriming matter to cover the world, which mull; be the cafe in a fhock and over- flowing of this kind ; as the fhock would loofen and fufpend in the water all the upper part of the globe, and the heavieft mat- ter out of this fubfiding firft, muft leave the lighten 1 for the ]aft fettling, or that which will make the upper coat of the new formed world, which would then be fit for all vegetable .productions. Philof. Tranf. N" 383. p. 120.

DELVIN, in natural hiftory, a name fometimes given by the miners in Cornwall to that fort of talky flone or flate, which they more generally call killas; but in fome places, asatLow- ancowiggan, they u(e it as the name of a coarfe, but very hard ftone in which the ore lies. The ore is tin, and is con- siderably rich there, but the hardnefs of this ftone makes it difficult to be got out.

DEMARCHUS, Att^p^©-, (Cycl) in antiquity, an appella- tion given to the chief magiftrate of the city Neapolis. Pitifc. Lex. ant. in voc.

DEMETRIA, Ai]*mi£/«, in antiquity, a feftival in honour of Ceres, called by the Greeks Demeter? JMmrtip. It was ufual on this occafion for the worfhippers to lafh themfelve* with ■whips made of the bark of trees, and called (Avporfoi. Pott. Archsol. Grsec. 1. 2. c. 20. T. 1. p. 379.

Demetria was likewife the name of another feftival celebrated by the Athenians in honour of Demetrius Poliorcetes, and was the fame with that afterward called Dionyfia. Pott. loc. cit.

DEMI-CROSS, an inftrument ufed by the Dutch to take the fun's altitude, or that of a ftar at fea ; but inftead of which ■we ufe the crofs-ftaff or fore-ftafr". The Demi-crofs is of this figure :

A

The ftaff A G is graduated eafily, being only a line of whole tangents, whofe radius is EB, the length of the crofs piece or tranfum. It hath three vanes ; a horizontal vane, as A j a fight vane, as H ; and the made vane, as E. When the vanes are on the ftafF and crofs piece, to take the fun's altitude, hold the inftrument with the tranfum as upright as you can, and looking through the fight vane, as H, look for the horizon through the flit in the horizon vane, and then Aide the crofs piece or tranfum to and fro, till you make the made of the vane at E to fall at the fame time upon the flit of the horizon vane, and alfo at A ; then are the degrees cut on the ftafF, by the edge of the crofs piece, the fun's altitude required. But to take the height of a ftar; you muft remove the hori- zon vane A, and put it on the end G, and transfer the fight vane H to A ; then holding up the inftrument as before, look- ing through the fight vane, fee for the horizon through the horizon vane, and for the ftar by the fhade vane, Aiding the tranfum to and fro, till the horizon and ftar are both feen by their refpedtive vanes, and then the tranfum will cut the de- grees of the ftars Altitude on the ftaff, allowing about 8 or 10 minutes for your height above the level of the water, as muft be done in all fuch cafes. DEMIDITONE, in mufic, is ufed by fome for a third minor. Suppl. Vol. I.

DEN

DEMI-HAQUE. See Hargjjebuss, Cycl.

DEMISE (6>7.)— Demise of the King does not difcontinue any writ or procefs. Vid. Stat. 1 Ed. 6. cap. 7. §. 1, 2, 3. Nor does it determine any commiflion civil or military, or great office of ftate, but they {hall continue in force for fix months after the fovereign's Dnnife? unlefs made void by the next fuc- cefibr. Stat. 7 & 8 Wil. 3. c. 27. fea. 21. 1 Ann. Stat. I. cap. 8. 6 Ann. c. 7. fed. 8.

Neither is a parliament thereby determined till after fix months* 7 & 8 Will. 3. c. 15.

Nor is a defendant, who hath pleaded to an information, obli- ged to plead to it again. But he may plead again upon requeft made to the Court, within five months after the Demife. 4&t 5 Will. & Mar. c. 18. fe& 7.

DEMOISELLE, the Dancing Bird, a long-leged and long-neck- ed bird of the ftork kind, a native of Numidia. It is remark- able for its jumping or dancing in its walk. See Tab. of Birds, N? 40.

DEMONIUS Lapis, in natural hiftory, a name given to a ftone famous among the writers of the middle ages for a number of imaginary virtues, fuch as rendering people victorious over their enemies, and the like. All the defcription they have left

. us of it is, that it was variegated with two colours laid in lines fo as to reprefent a rainbow. It was probably an agate.

DEMULCENTS, Demulcentia, in pharmacy, are medicines which render the acrimonious humours mild. This they do by obtunding or fheathing their fliarp particles. Mid. Blancard. Lex. Med. in voc.

DEN, a fyllable added to the names of places, and fhews their - fituation to be in a valley, or near woods, as Tenterden, Bid- denden? &c. The word is Saxon Den? i. e. Vallis? or Locus fyhejlris.

DENDRACHATES, in natural hiftory, the name by which the ancients called that fpecies of agate we know by the name of the Mochcajhne. See Tab. of Foffils, Clafs 5. This in its natural ftate is only a whitifh femi-pellucid ftone, very beautifully vem'd with a fine milky white ; but its great beauties are certain accidental delineations in black, which re- prefent in a rude and irregular, but a very elegant manner, trees, mofles, fea-plants, and a number of other beautiful fi- gures. Many, have fuppofed thefe to be real moifes, £sV. lodg'd in the fubftance of the ftone, but there is no foundation for this opinion ; and nothing indeed can be more abfurd, fince compleat and beautifully tufted oak trees are frequently delineated there of lefs than an inch in height. Thefe figures are in black, and the fubftance of the ftone being white, they are feen to a very great advantage. Their true hiftory is no more than this: the ftone is fubject, like our common flints, to imperceptible cracks and flaws, into which the fleams and effluvia from minerals, and other foffile bodies, continu- ally pervading the whole ftru&ure of the earth, find their way, and perhaps in fome cafes water itfelf has been at fome time in them : either water or thefe vapours, we well know, may be naturally enough tinged with black, or capable of leaving a black tinge on the furfaces of the bodies they have long remained on ; and thefe finding their way into the natu- ral cracks or fmall crevices of th; ftone, have from the fides of thefe infinuated themfelves farther and farther into the mafs, and run into branched figures ; or the water where-ever inclu- ded has, as the mafs of the ftone fhrunk and contracted in the drying, fpread and diffufed itfelf into the various detach'd fi- gures we fee ; for all the delineations we find in thefe ftones may be referr'd either to thefe loofe detached figures or cloudy fpots, or to thofe which evidently arifc from the fides of fome long cracks or fiflures.

That water is continually to this day getting into thefe natural crevices of ftone, and diffufing itfelf beyond their natural li- mits in irregular, and often in beautifully branched figures, we fee in many of our gravel-pits, where many of the larger flints and pebbles being ftruck eafily fall ta pieces at thefe cre- vices, the fides of which are always either wet, or plainly marked with waters having once been there ; and if from thefe we trace the lefler cracks, we {halt ufually find num- bers of figures imperfectly refembling the delineations in the agates, and the very fame often alfo on their furfaces, merely the effect of mineral effluvia.

On the furfaces of the natural crevifes of our feptaria, or lu- dus Helmontii of the harder kinds, we often alfo meet with what authors call dendrite, or fuliginous delineations of trees, which are of the very fame kind with thofe of this agate, and are fo far from being inferior to them in beauty, that they even greatly excel them ; nay, fo low and poor a fubftance as common chalk is not without them, but is frequently found beautifully marked with branches, trees, ftars, and a thou- fand other figures like thofe formed by pulling afunder two le- vigating ftones with the fine matter between them, or the {hooting of falts in chemical vefTels, or the figures of hoar-froft on our windows. Hill's Hift. Foil", p 473.

DENDRANATOMY, a term ufed by Malpighi and others to exprefs the difledtion of the ligneous parts of trees and fhrubs, in order to the examining their ftru&ure and ufes: Galen has ufed the fame word, and taken fome pains to difcover fome of the fubjects of thefe refearches. There is a very remarkable 9 C analogy