Page:Cyclopaedia, Chambers - Supplement, Volume 2.djvu/22

 MAR

■' tomes a fruit compofed ufuaUy of two, fometimes of three capfules, which are terminated by a foliaceous wing, and contain roundifh feeds.

The fpecies of Maple enumerated by Mr. Tournefort, are thefe : i. The greater Maple, called the white mountain Maple, and by fome the plane tree. 2. The common great

■ Maple, with variegated leaves. 3. The mountain great Maple, with deep green leaves, refembling thole of the pla- tanus. 4. The great Maple, with rounder and lefs jagged leaves, fuppofed to be the Italian opulus of fome authors. 5. The common or final! Maple. 6. The trifoliate Maple. 7. The bindweed leaved climbing American Maple, with flowers of a fcarlet and gold colour. 8. The citron-leaved climbing American Maple, with blue fpiked flowers. 9. The

. purple-flowered climbing American Maple, with pfeudo-aca- cia leaves. "Town. Inft. p. 615-

The feveral forts of this tree are eafily propagated by fow- ing the feeds, foon after they are ripe, in an open bed of common earth, covering them about half an inch thick with light fandy earth. The fpring following they will appear above around, and will grow to a foot high the firft fummer. About'the Michaelmas following they are to be removed, and planted at three feet diftance, in which place they may remain four years ; and at that time they will be large enough to plant out into the places they are to ftand in. The great Maple commonly,, though very improperly called the jycamarc-tree, is raifed very eafily in this manner, and is a very valuable tree for gentlemen who have plantations near the fea, as it bears the fpray of the fait water very well, and will defend all the reft if planted behind them. The Virginian kinds may be propagated, either thus by fowing, or by laying down the young branches early in the fpring, giving them a little Hit at a joint, by which means they will take fufficient root in a twelve-month to be tranf- plaiited out. Miller's Gard. Diet.

Maple Sugar; a kind of fugar made from a fpecies of the Maple called by A'lonncur Sarazin, Acer canadenj'e facchari- ferum fruclu mhiori. Mr. Sarazin, a phyfician at Quebeck, intending to enquire at large into the nature of this fort of fugar, obferved that there were four fpecies of Maple com- mon in the places where it was made, all which he fent over to the garden at Paris. One of thefe fpecies, diftinguifhed from the reft by the fmallnefs of its fruit, is called the fugar Maple ; this grows to fixty or eighty foot high, and its juice, which is very redundant in the months of April and May, is eafily made into a very good fugar. They procure this juice from the tree by piercing a hole into the trunk, and placing vefiels to receive it: This juice, being evaporated, yields about one twentieth part of its Own weight in pure fugar. A rniddlc-nzcd tree, of this fpecies, will yield fixty or eighty pints of this juice, without receiving any damage as to its growth ; and much more than this may be drawn, but then the tree manifeftly fuffcrs for it.

Mr. Sarazin obferved fome very remarkable particulars in regard to the faccharinc quality of this juice, without which it never had it in the proper perfection, t. The tree at the time that the juice is drawn out, mint have its bottom co- vered with mow; and if it is not naturally fo, the Indians know fo well the neceflity of it, that they always bring fnow from elfewhere, and heap it up round it. 2. This fnow mult, afterwards be melted away by the fun-fhine, not gra- dually thawed by a warm air. 3. There mult have been a frofty night before the opening the hole in the trunk. It is remarkable that thefe circurnftances are fuch as cuftom and experience alone could have pointed out, fince they feem contrary to reafon ; and fo it is in many of the operations in chemiltry, where the molt feemingly rational means fail, while thofe which fhould feem quite contradictory to reafon fucceed. It is obferved, that if thejuice of the Maple be not in a condition to become faccharinc while the fnow lies at its root unthawed, that it almoft immediately becomes fo on the melting of the fnow, and its penetrating into the earth. Mem. Acad. Par. 1730.

MARACANA, in zoology, the name of a bird of the parrot kind, but larger than the common fpecies, and covered all over with bluifh-grcy feathers. It is very common in the Brafils.

The natives alfo call another bird of the parrot kind by the fame name, which is of a fine green on the head, neck, and back, but the crown of the head looks a little bluilh ; the tail is mixed of red and a bluifh-grecn ; the under part being red, as is alfo the under part of the wings ; at the ori- gin of each wing, it has alfo a red fpot ; and on each fide of the head a brown one. The noife this bird makes, is oe, oe, oe. Marggrave's Hift. Brafil.

MARANA, in botany, a name by which fome authors have called the ftramomum, or thorn apple, a plant kept in fome gardens. Ger. Emac. Ind. 2.

MARATHRUM, in botany, a name by which fome authors have called the common fcemculum or fennel. Id. ibid.

MARBASIS, in botany, a name given by fome to a kind of plant which they fay climbed up trees, and there hung down from their branches in form of long jointed and naked fila- ments.

M A R

The word feems to be only a corruption of the- word ana- bafis of Pliny, which he calls alfo ephedra, and gives the fame characters to. It fhould feem that this is all an error, that no plant, fuch as they defcribe, ever exiflcd, but that the whole was founded on this : The hippuris, or borfetail, was diltinguifhed by having naked and llender (talks full of joints ; it thence became natural for the Greeks to call by the fame name any thing that was in like manner compofed of fuch long and naked filaments ; and the common ujnea, or hairy tree mofs, which hangs down from the branches of large foreft trees, is more like a horfe's tail by far than the plant commonly fo called is : it is not wonderful, therefore, that it fliould be called by the fame name.

The Greeks, from the watery places in which the common horfetail ufually grows, called it ephydron ; and this word mif-fpelt feems to have made the ephedra of Pliny in this place. If this was found hanging from the branches of trees, and no body had ever mentioned its growing on the trees themfelves, it is no wonder that fo carelefs a writer as Pliny fhould defcribe it as growing on the ground near the roots of trees, and climbing up their trunks, and then hanging down from their branches in form of horfes tails. This feems to account for the whole that Pliny has left us concerning this plant ; and it is very evident, that the com- mon ufnea, or hairy tree mofs, very well agrees with his defcription of the ephedra and anabafis, though no other plant docs. He fays it hangs down from the large branches in form of numerous hairy threads, which are naked or wholly without leaves. The Marbajh of the antients feems, there- fore, to mean our ufnea. See the article Usnea.

MARBLE, Marmor, (Cycl.) in natural hiftory. Marbles make a peculiar genus of foflils, the characters of which are thefe: They are bright and beautiful ftoncs, compofed of fmall feparate concretions, moderately hard, not giving fire with ftcel, and fermenting wjth and foluble in acid men- ftrua, and calcining in a flight fire.

By thefe characters the Marbles, properly fo called, are dif- tinguifhed from the porphirics and granites, which are pro- perly ftones of a very different kind, being compofed of very different particles, and exhibiting contrary properties. See the article Porphiritis, i?c.

The Marbles arc a genus of bodies fuppofed to be very well known, becaufe feen every day, and in common ufe ; but they are in reality, not with it and ing that, perhaps one of the molt confided, and leaft undcrftood of all the bodies of this kind. The people who work upon them, know nothing more of them than that this, will, and that will not receive a polifh in a high degree ; and that this may be worked, and another refufes the tools ; and the men of feience have con- fidercd them even lefs than thefe. _

The Marbles were one of thofe fets of bodies that the an- tients vere well acquainted with, and it may give no fmall light into their true hiftory, to pay a ftriit attention to what they have left us concerning them, and enquire which of thofe in ufe among them are known to us, and which loft, and by what names we now call their Au- gujlewn, "Tiberianum, Luculleum, and the reft. This may ferve to give a certain account of what they knew, and per- haps may point out to the builder, ftatuary, and phyfician, fome new ufes, at leaft new to us, of many of them. Hill's Hift. of Foff. p. 461. Seethe article Luculleum, Augusteum, t3V.

/Egyptian Marble, a name given by our artificers to a very beautiful green-and-white Marble, greatly in ufe among us, and brought in great quantities from Egypt and other places. It was alfo in frequent ufe, and in great efleem among the Romans, who received it alfo from Egypt, and diftinguifhed too lightly two kinds of it, from the different difpofition and order of its variegations, and honoured them with the names of two of their emperors in whofc reign they were firft: brought into ufe. Thefe were the inarinor Augujleum and Tiber iannm. Thofe pieces in which the variegations were waved and thrown into arches and circular figures, they called the Augnjlan, and thofe which were marked with more diffufed and fcattered veins, they called the Tlberian. Thefe were the whole differences between the two ; and if we were to acknowledge different fpecies from fuch diffe- rences as thefe, we muit allow almoft as many different fpe- cies as we fee blocks of Marble. Hill's Hift. Foil", p. 482, This kind of Marble, in all its appearances, is, tho' a very beau- tiful yet a very rude, irregular, and various mafs. It is of a firm compact texture, and moderately heavy, and may be pro- perly called a green Marble variegated with white, for tho^e are its two confpicuous colours ; but it lias thefe mixed in fo great a variety as to afford lights and fhades of a vaft num- ber of degrees of colours. It has befides thefe, alfo many other variegations of a dufky colour approaching to black. It is very bright and glittering when frelh broken, and vari- oufly fo in its various parts. In the white parts it is brighter! of all, and the other colours are more lucid as they are paler, or nearer approach to the white. It has, however, among its other particles, fome of a very beautiful green foliaceous talc. The whole is capable of a good polifh, and is com- mon