Page:Cyclopaedia, Chambers - Supplement, Volume 1.djvu/650

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«nd drive them into the narrow part where they cannot

They are, from this place, taken one by one, and led to the ftable, each between two tame Elephants bred for that pur- pofe, the points of whofe long teeth are cut ; and thefe, it the wild Elephant be trouUefome, will lay hold of his trunk with theirs, and beat him with their teeth. A man, fitting upon each of the tame Elephants, direfts them by a ftaft with a hook at the end, with which he occafionally touches their heads, and orders them as he pleafes, without bridle, or any other furniture. When they are brought into the ftable, they are led between two potts, with flakes put athwart be- fore their breads, and under their bellies, and are fo tied that they cannot ftir, nor lie down upon the ground, for, if per- mitted to lie down, they would become forrowful, and retufe to eat, and would die. They arc here fed with the trunks of plantains, a food they much delight in, and when they have been kept thus about fix weeks, they become tame enough for file. If not fold at that time, they feed them about fix weeks longer in the ftable with coco-leaves, and they are, at the end of that time, perfeflly tame as a fpaniel, and will eat grafs with the oxen in the fields. Phil. Tranf. Numb. 277. I. I.

The Elephants of Ceylon have been fo long hunted, that they now know man for their mortal enemy, and feldom fail to feize upon and kill him wherever they meet him ; but if a man lie upon the ground, and pretend to be dead, they never meddle with him. Several people have, in this ifland, lain aileep while Elephants paffed by them, and. fome have only pretended fleep, and a perfect ftillnefs has always been found to preferve them, even tho' the creature came up to examine them.

Elephant Caterpillar, a name given, by fome authors, to a fpecies of infect, commonly known in Ireland by the name of Connough worm, and fuppofed to be poifonous to cattle which feed on it. See Connough Warm.

Elephant'* Nafe, or Elephant's Neufe, as it is called by the Dutch, is a fpecies of the acus, or needle fifli, caught in the Eaft Indies, fo called from the refemblance of its fnout to the trunk of an Elephant. It is a very fingular fpecies, the lower jaw running out into a very long and fharp-pointed fpinc. It is round bodied, and beautifully variegated with fpots, and has en each fide a green line running from head to tail. It is caught in fait waters. Ray's Ichthyogr. app. p. 4.

ELEPHANTOPUS, in botany, the name of a genus of plants, the characters of which are thefe : The cup is an involucrum, compofed of three broad and fharp-pointed leaves, this is large and permanent, and contains feveral flowers. Within this ftands the common cup, which always contains four flowers, and is of an oblong imbricated figure, compofed of fquamma of an oblong and fubulated figure, and prickly at the ends. Thefe ftand erect, and there are four of them longer than the reft, and equal one to another. The flower is com- pound and tubular, and is compofed of either four or five final! flowers, each of which confifts of only one petal, and is of a ligulated form, and has a narrow mouth flightly di- vided into five fegments. The ftamina are five very Ihort and capillary filaments, the anthers are of a cylindric figure, and tubulate. The germen of the piftil is oval and coronated. The ftyle is capillary, and of the length of the ftamina ; and the ftigmata are two, and are (lender, and ftand open. The cup remains unaltered, after the flower is fallen, and contains the feeds, which are fingle and compreffed, and crowned with a feries of fhort hairs or briflles. L'mnai Gen. Plant.

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ELE ITARI, in the materia medica, a name ufed by fome au- thors for the common fmall cardamom of the fhops. Hort. Mai. B. 11. p. 9.

ELEVATIO, in profody, the fame as arfts. See Arsis, Cycl.

ELEVATOR (Cycl.) — Elevator Airs naji, in anatomy, a name given by Cowper to one of the mufcles of the nofe, cal- led by Winflow the tranfverfalis, or inferior llaris, and by Albinus the compreflbr naris. Coflerius has defcribed it under the name of the parvus nafi mufculus, and Fallopius under that of mufculus alius carneus nafi, and Riolanus by that of alius externus nafi.

Elevator Humeri, in anatomy, a name given by fome authors to a mufcle, now generally known under the name of the deltoides. See Deltoides.

ELEUTHERIA, EtoBijia, in antiquity, a feftival in honour of Jupiter Eleutherius, i. e. the affertor of liberty : It was kept at Platsea; from almoft all the cities of Greece. This folemnity was inftituted upon the defeat of Mardonius, the Perfian General, in the territories of Platffiffi, and was held every fifth year, and great prizes appointed to be contended for.

The PJatjeans had an anniverfary folemnity, called Eleutherla, kept in memory of thofe that had valiantly loft their lives in defence of their country's liberty. For the ceremonies ob- ferved at it, fee Pott. Archaal. Grcec. 1. 2. c. 20. T. 1. p. 388. feq.

The Samians had another feftival of this name, in honour of 8

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the god of love. And fiaves, when they obtained their liberty were wont to keep a ftated holy-day in remembrance of the happy day on which they were made free. Potter, loc. cit.

ELFS Arrows, a name given by the people of fome parts of Scotland, to certain ftone weapons which they find, and which had been in ufe before tools and weapons of iron were ufed there. It is not only in Scotland that thefe are found, but in America, and many other places alfo. They are ftiled by fome ceraunia, and thunder-bolts, and are fuppofed to have fallen from the clouds in ftorms of thunder j others, not lefs erroncoufly, fuppofe them to be natural foflils ; but their true origin is from the workmanfhip of man, out of common flints and other itones. It is probable that they firft broke large flints to pieces, and then fele£ting fuch of thofe fragments as were of the neareft approach to the fhape they wanted, they finifhed the forming them to their minds, by breaking of? their angles, and hewing their edges with other itones of the hardeft kinds they could get ; in this manner they formed them into the heads of arrows, and other fuch things, and we at this day find fuch evident marks of that rude kind of rude workmanfhip upon them, that this cannot be doubted. Thofe arrow-heads found in Scotland and Ireland are of a mixed grey and brown colour, like thofe of fome of the northern parts of America, that being the colour of the flints in thofe places, as appears by breaking them. Thofe of the Ladrones iflands are ufually of a ycllowifh colour, and thofe of many parts of America are of the fame appearance. Others feem to partake of the nature of the onyx, or agate, having beeu hewn out of itones of that kind. Some of thefe are deeply bearded, others not at all fo ; and bcfide the fhort and broad ones, which are the moft common kind, and were the heads of their common arrows, fome are found which are much longer, and have been the heads of javelins ; fome alfo are broad and flat, and have ferved as the heads of hatchets. In Perthfliirc fome red ones are found, which have the appearance of the heads of fmall arrows. Brown and coarfe itones are found in New England, wrought into the heads of axes, and into wedges. Very fmall arrow-heads, made out of a talky Affile ftone, are found in Virginia and Barbadoes. Thefe were more eaflly made than any of the others, but they could be of lefs ufe, being not capable of fo fharp an edge as the finer and more homogene itones. In Ireland the brown- ifh flint they are made of is almoft as pellucid as an onyx, and there feems to have been more work beftowM upon them there than in any other part of the world, fome of them be- ing very nicely fhaped, and finely bearded all along the edges,

Stones have been found in Tufcany fhaped into hatchet heads, and thefe are generally very hard and. heavy, containing iron, and being of the nature of a coarfe emery j and in the ifland of Guacu, one of the Ladrones, it is common to find (tones of an oblong figure, thick in the middle, and tapering to- ward each end to an edge, fo as to form a fort of double edged hatchet-head. Thefe are always made out of a beauti- ful ftone, of the jafper kind j its ground is red, and it is va- riegated very beautifully with white and blue. It is fuppofed that the inhabitants had been ufed to employ thefe as (tones to throw out of their flings, with which they are faid to have been very dexterous, and to have done great mifchief. Wood- ward's Cat. Foil Vol. 2. p. 52.

ELHANNE, in botany, a name given by fome authors to the liguftrum asgyptiacum, or eaftern privet. J. Baubinc, vol. j,

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ELICA Paflmum, in natural hiftory, a name given by the peo- ple of the Eaft Indies, to a kind of red orpiment, found very frequently in that part of the world, and given internally, af- ter calcination, in intermitting fevers.

ELICE, orHELicE, in botany, a name by which the antient Greek writers have fometimes called the willow, tho' its more general name among them is Hea. Hefychius gives many inftances of the willow being called Helice. The names of this tree have generally been fuppofed to be all derived from its quick growth. Its original name in the Greek Hea, from lUctiy to go fwiftly. The Latin falix has alfo generally been fuppofed to be derived a faltendo, from its riling up in height, by jumps at a time as it were. But this feems forced and er- roneous, the prefent name Elke was derived from E;\*a, to draw, the lightnefs of the wood of this tree recommending it to the Greeks for their making carriages of all kinds of it. This, Theophraftus tells us, was the principal ufe made of it in his time, and from this word Elke, the Latin felix and falix feem to have been derived.

The changing the termination e into x is nothing uncommon among thefe authors, for the maftich of the Greeks was ori- ginally turned into maftix in the Latin, the Delphici into into Delphix, and fo on of the reft of the like kind. As to the adding an S in the beginning, nothing was more common among the Latins in their derivatives, the S?*o? of the Greeks was made the /ulcus of the Latins, the vm» Jylvz r and fo of many other words.

ELIDRION, a word ufed, by the earlier writers in medicine, in feveral very different fenfes ; fome ufmg it as the name of maftich, others of rhapontic, and others of crude mercury.

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