Page:Cyclopaedia, Chambers - Supplement, Volume 1.djvu/822

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G R A

lerrated teeth. This is the orca of almofi: all the antient as "well as modern writers, and is called the loper and north caper by the people of Scotland. Sibbald gives it the name of the balana-i but he diftingui flies it from the common whale by its fmaller fize, and having teeth in both the jaws. Paulus Jovius calls it alfo capidolius. Thefe are all the names it is known by ; and that of porpejfe is fome- times ignorantly given to it, but properly belongs to ano- ther fpecies of the fame genus, the pbocana. See Pho-

'CJENA.

GRANA regta, in the materia medica, the feeds of the com- mon ricinus, called by fame pal/im cbrijli. See Ricinus. Grana 'figfa* hi the materia medica, the fruit of a fpecies of

ricinus. See Ricinus. GRANADILLA, pajjim flower, in botany, the name of a genus of plants, the characters of which are thefe. The flower is of the rofa'ceous kind, confifting of feveral petals difpofed in an orbicular form. The cup confifts of many leaves, and from this there arifes a piftil which has a fringed crown at its bale, and at its apex a tender embryo, adorned with three bodies of the fhape of nails, and with a great num- ber of ftamina underneath. The embryo ripens afterwards into a globular or oval fruit which is flefhy, unicapfular, and furniihed with feeds covered with a fort of hoods, and ad- hering to the ribs of the fruit as to fo many placentae The fpecies of granadilla enumerated by Mr. Tournefort are thefe : i. The common granadilla called the maracot and paflion flower. 2. The granadilla with three pointed leaves, and blackifh purple flowers^ 3. The granadilla with tricUfpidate leaves^ and large yellow flowers. 4. The granadilla with tricufpidate leaves, and fmall yellow flowers. 5. The granadilla with tricufpidate leaves, and an olive fafhioncd fruit. 6. The granadilla with narrower tricufpi- date leaves, and olive fhaped fruit. 7. The granadilla with fmooth narrow tricufpidate leaves, and very fmall green flowers. 8. The fHnking grandilla with a tricufpidate hairy leaf and white flower. 9. The flunking granadilla With tricufpidate hairy leaves, and variegated purple flowers. 10. The many leaved granadilla with an oval fruit. 11. The many leaved granadilla with fruit of the fhape of the colocynth. 12. The many leaved granadilla with curled flowers. 13. The ivy leaved granadilla with very fmall flowers and fruit. 14. The ivy leaved granadilla with white flowers, and hairy globofe fruit. 15. The ivy leaved granadilla with variegated leaves. 16. The granadilla of Surinam with oblong ferrated leaves. 17. The elm leaved granadilla of Surinam. 18. The granadilla with two pointed leaves, and beautiful red flowers. 19. The apple fruited broad leaved granadilla. 20. The long leaved citron fruited granadilla. 2i. The granadilla with'fmall corymbofe fruit. 22. The granadilla with androfsemum leaves, and fruit like the jujube. GRANARY (Cyd.) — In the care of public granaries, or ma- gazines of corn, one great caution neceffary, is, the lay- ing up in them fuch corn as will be leaft fubject to decay, and the fingle thing to be conlidered in this, is the laying up only fuch as is the product of hot and dry countries. In France the corn of the fouthern provinces keeps many years longer than that of the other parts of the kingdom ; and antient and modern hiftory both inform us, that the corn which is the produce of Africa, particularly of the country about Algiers and Tunis, will keep much longer than that of any other country. The Romans, in old time, an- nually imported vaft quantities of corn from Egypt ; this they found not only to produce much larger crops than fuch as was the produce of their own country, but to keep many years in their public granaries without injury. The Marquis of Santa Cruz, the author of many excellent obfervations on the politic and military ftate of different nations, obferves, that in Galicia and the Afturias the corn will hardly keep in the granaries from one year to another, and that it is the humidity it contains that rots and decays it ; and that the corn brought from Caftile will keep good many years. This corn, he tells, is the only kind they ever venture to lay up in the public granaries of Spain, and that the whole differ- ence between this and the other, is, that it grows in a country where there is lefs rain in rummer. Des Landes Trait. Phyf.

It would be eafy to import corn from Barbary in fufficient quantity, for all the feed corn of the kingdom ; and in coun- tries where the people are fubject to famine, even for the fupport of the nation ; and the advantage this African corn would have over the European, would be much greater than that of Caftile is obferved to have over the produce of the other parts of Spain. Flat bottomed vefTels, of confi- derable burthen, yet not made to draw much water, would be very proper for this fort of fervice ; and the voyage through the ftraits of Gibraltar would, at a proper feafon of the year, be fhort, and performed at fmall expence. We might thus be furniihed with feed corn, vaftly better than any we can purchafe at prefent ; and France with corn that would guard fufficiently againft the miferies of a famine, which a long war generally brings upon that nation; and if the public magazines for receiving and laying up this

corn, were erected near the mouths of the feveral larger ri- vers, the water carriage would eafily difperfe it in time of want to all parts of the kingdom.

The kingdoms of Fez and Morocco might be alfo as good marts for us, though the French are forbid trading for corn in them, on any other condition than that of exchanging military ftores for them, which they make a point of it not to do. The keeping up a good understanding with AMers and Tunis, is however of fo much confequence to us, ^hat we do not fcruple purchafing their friendfhip at this price • and we therefore might, if we pleafed, as well traffic for corn with fire-arms in Fez and Morocco, as with any other of the commodities of our country. Id. Ibid. The choice of the grain being made, and the manner of procuring it regulated, the next confideration i s how to preferve it ; for this purpofe, we have the concurrent tef- timony both of the antients and moderns, that fubterranean caverns made in a dry foil, and preferved from the ingrefsof damp air, are the propereft places. Pliny tells us, that in his time they kept corn a long time in thefe fortofftore rooms, covering the bottom with ftraw, and laying upon that the corn in the ear. We find that corn will be preferved thus very well, for five, fix, or feven years. And an acci- dent, fome years ago, difcovered a parcel of corn thus pre-

ferved at Amiens, which, though it had been laid

up a great

number of years, was found to be frefh and good, not worm eaten, not rotten, nor even mouldy. This is certainly ow- ing to the moift air having been kept out, and with it the eggs of animals, and feeds of thofe minute vegetables, which we fee in form of mouldinefs on fuch corn, as has been lefs carefully defended from the accefs of them. Experimental philofophy has proved that the air is the great fource of corruption; keep out that, and all is kept out- and the moft corruptible fubftances, fuch as meal, butter* milk, and the like, have been preferved frefh four months in the exhaufted receiver of an air pump.

The only objection to this fcheme for public granaries is the expence, but it is not proper that any but a monarch fhould undertake them; and there does not appear any way in which the public money could be better employed, than in fo general a good. They have near Grand Cairo a maga- zine of this kind, defended with good walls, and called Jofeph's granaries. It i3 not probable, that they are quite fo old as the days of that patriarch, but they abundantly- proved the utility of fuch ftorehoufes, by the vaft quantities of grain annually preferved in them.

Many parts of Africa abound with granaries of this kind They are fo many deep pits made in the folid rock the de- fcent into them is but juft large enough fora man to go down into them by, but they grow larger as foon as the perfon is in, and are ufually fquare, and from thirty to forty feet in diameter. In thefe the great men of the country preferve their corn ; they firft ftrew over the floor with ftraw, then they lay on the corn ; ftill as the heap rifes, placing a thin bed of ftraw between the corn and the fides, as they did at the bottom. In this manner they proceed till the whole cavity is filled : when this is done, they cover the mouth of the entrance with a fort of hurdle of green boughs of trees, interwoven one with another. This they cover with about two feet thicknefs of fand, and over this they raffe a ridge of earth, well beat together, in order to throw off" the rain both ways, that none may fettle on the place and foak into the magazine.

The corn thus ftored up always keeps three, four, or more years very good ; and not unfrequently the proprietor bein<r taken off by the feverity of the eaftern governments, under which they live, the magazine is forgotten, and fome ac- cident difcovering it many years afterwards, the corn is almoft always found perfectly good in it. All the care they take, in regard to the corn, is to expofe it two or three days to the fun's heat, to dry it thoroughly before they carry it into the magazine.

In the dutchy of Lithuania, and in the Ukraine, the people always preferve their corn in the fame manner in wells or pits made in dry places; but in thefe countries great pare is to be taken in the opening thefe ftore rooms ; for if people defcend into them, before they have had fufficient communi- cation with the frefh air, they are often killed bv the damps ; this, however, is eafily guarded againft, and by thefe and nu- merous other infhmces of the practice of other countries, it appears evident that the advantage of thefe fubterranean granaries overall others is very great. Id. Ibid. p. 30. Though thefe are to be recommended before all others, yet the common granaries may, with proper care, be rendered greatly more ufeful than they are at prefent. The grand caution neceflary to this purpofe is to guard againft the too great humidity, which there always is in places, where there is a great number of doors and windows. A too free accefs of the external air is alfo to be carefully guarded againft ; for this brings in with it the eggs of a vaft num- ber of different infect:;, which prey upon and deftroy the corn. A third caution is, when the corn is the produce of the country, where it is preferved, not to fill the place with the crop of one place only, but to mix the harvefts of

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