Page:Cyclopaedia, Chambers - Supplement, Volume 2.djvu/338

 QU I

QU 1

QUEMI, in botany, a name ufed by fome authors for the nigel- la, or geth. Gtr. Emac. Ind. 2.

QUFRCERA, in medicine. See Epialos.

QUERCUS, the oak, in botany, the name of a genus of trees, the characters of which are thefe : the flower is of the catkin kind, and is compofed of a great number of apices affixed 10 an axis by {lender capillaments, and (landing in thick clufter-. Thefe are male or barren flowers, and the embryo fruit grows in other parts of the fame tree : thefe finally ripen into acorns furrounded with their cups, and containing a kernel which feadiiy fplits into two parts. To thefe characters it is to be added, that all the oaks havefinuated leaves. The fpecies of oak, enumerated by Mr. Tournefort, are theft 1. The broad-leaved oak, with fhort pedicles, called by au thors the male-oak. 2. The broad leaved oak, with longer pedicles, called by authors the fana'e-oak. 3. The ever-green bro.id leaved oak. 4. The common oak, with very long pe dicles. 5. The fmall sak, called the pbagu; and e/culus by thi old writers. 6. The oak, with large acorns and echinated cup<\ 7. The oak with fmall acorns and rough cups. 8. The Burgundy oak, with rough acorn cups. 9. The dwarf oak. which feldom grows to more than a foot high. *o. The woolly-leaved oak. 1 1. The fmall gall-bearing oak. 12. The dak with prickly, not woolly leaves, producing fmall galls 13. 1 he fmaller prickly-leaved cak. 14. The dwarf gall-^-. with clufteied galls. Teurn. Inft. p. 82. See Oak.

Quercus marina, the fea-oak, in botany, the name of one of the broad-leaved dichotomous fea-fucufes. It is not agreed among the late botanifts what was the fea-oak of Theophraftus ; and the moftantient botanifts, Clufius and Csefalpinus fuppofe it to have been a fpecies of the fhrubby coraline; but that feems by no means to have been the cafe, fince Theophraftus fays his fea-oak had a long, thick, and flefby leaf, whence we may much more naturally conclude )t to have been of the fucus clafs. Park, Herb. 294.. G 1378, &c. Dale, Pharmac. p. 56.

QJJERFAA, in the materia medica of the Arabians, a name given by Avifenna and others to cinnamon, when gathered with the wood of the young branches.

It was a common practice in the early times not to ftrip thi fmall bark from medicinal trees, but to cut off the little boughs and ufe them bark and wood together. This the Greeks called xylo-cinnamomum^ or woody cinnamon, and the Arabians quer- f?a, querfe, or kerfe.

QUERQUEDULA, in zoology, the name by which authors call the teal.

This is the fmalleft of all the duck kind. Its beak is black, and its head and the upper part of its neck of a reddifh brown ; but there runs on each fide of the head a green ft reak from be- hind the eyes quite to the back part, and between thefe there is a black fpot under the eyes ; there is a white line which fe- parates the reddifh colour from the green. The lower part of the neck, the fhoulders, and the fides are very beautifully riegated with black and white ftreaks. The breaft and belly are of a duffy greyifh white. The wings have fome white in them, and the legs are of a pale brown. There is a black fpot on the rump in the male, which is wanting in the femal The head alfo in that fex is lefs beautifully coloured. Ray's Ornithol. p. 290.

QuERQUEn-JLA crifata, the crejled teal, a name given by JBellonius and fome others to a fpecies of duck, remarkable for a tuft of feathers of an inch and an half long, hanging down from the back part of its head, and thence called the lifted duck ; but more known among authors by the name capo negro. Bc'l'nius de Avib. See Capo negro.

QUESTOR (Cyd.)— The queflorfhlp was called the firft ftep of honour, and the quejlors, who were generally employed in the provinces abroad, affigned to them feverally by lot, no fooner returned from their provincial adminiftration, than they took their places in the fenate ; and from that time forward, from the rank of equeftrians, or what we commonly call knights, became fenators for life. Middleton of Rom. Senate, p. 6, 7. See Senate and Senator.

QUI tarn, in law, is ufed where an information is exhibited againft any perfon on a penal ftatute at the fuit of the king, and the party who is informer, when the penalty for breach of the ftatute is to be divided between them; and the party in- forming profecutes for the king and himfelf. Finch 340.

QUICKSILVER (Cycl.)— This mineral is frequently found na- tive in the earth, in its own fluid form ; fomctimes lying in large quantities together in the accidental cavities of fton and running out in a ftream as the miners break the mane but this is lefs frequent ; its more common appearance being in fmall parcels, and often in fingle globules icarce large enough to be feen by the naked eye, lodged in great abundance in the pores of a foft foffile ftone, of a pale bluifh colour, from which it is eafily feparatcd by pounding and warning. It is alfo found in fome places lodged in the fame manner in fome of the harder ftones, and in various fpecies of earths. Tho* quickfdver be, however, often found native, yet we much more frequently find it in the form of an ore ; its par tides being penetrated by, and intimately mixed with fulphur and the concrete being by no means to be known for quick fther to the naked eye, but being a red oufs of a ftony hard

nefs, called dnnabar: and we are very fure that it Is quick- filver penetrated by fulphur that makes this ore, fince we are not only able to feparate quichfiher eafily from it; but by a mixture of q'dckfher and fulphur, we are able to make a red ftony mafs perfectly the fame with this.

The cinnabar is of a different form and appearance, accord- ing to the quantity of fulphur it contains, being ufually ftriated, and that fometimes with broader, fometimes with finer ftriie; and the quantity of qttickfdver in this is very great, the richeft maffes containing fix parts quickfdver to one of fulphur; and the poorer ufually half It is fometimes found in large and pure maffes, and fometimes in fmaller particles, lodged in dif- ferent earths and ftones. Thefe are fometimes few in number and placed feparately, and fo of little value ; but in othef maffes they are placed very thick in congeries, and are then feparatcd by pounding and waffling, and worked for quick- fdver.

Befide this pure ore of quichfiher, there is another much lefs rich ; but which is worked in fome places to confiderable ad- vantage : as the former is a mixture of quickfdver and fulphur alone, this is a mixture of thofe two, and of many other fub- ftances, and appears in form of a moderately hard ftone, ufually of a dufky orange colour ; but not rarely of a green ifh brown, and fometimes biackiffi. This has very little bright- nefs, and nothing of the ftriated texture of the cinnabar." The manner of feparating quickfdver from its ores, is by- pounding them, and waffling off the fuperfluous matter by repeated affufions of water ; then adding iron filings to the remainder, the whole i- diftilled in large iron retorts,* and the mercury comes over pure into the receiver. In fome places where the ore is very rich, they only powder it, and put it into long-necked earthen veffels, which they ftop with bundles of mofs : thefe they invert into other veftL-ls buried in the ground, and then making a fire about them, the quickfdver becomes feparated and drains through the mafs into the under- pots. Hill's Hift. of Foil: p. 627.

It is very difficult to bring qir.kfther to the great teft of the burning-glafs, by which all the other imperfect metals are eafily tried ; but with proper cautions fomething is to be learn- ed of it by this means :

If quickfdver be expofed to the focus on a piece of charcoal, on a tile, or in a coppel, the effect is the fame, it very foon is wholly diffipated in form of a thick fmoak ; but if precipitate perfe, that is, mercury calcined alone by a long digeftion on a flow fire, be placed in the focus, it feems at firft to melt and run, but immediately after is diffipated in a thick fmoak, leaving a fmall quantity of an extremely fine powder upon the tile, in form of a fhort down. This powder, on being con- tinued in the focus, finally runs together into a yellowifh glafs; in feveral parts of which there may be diftinguifhed fmall white, mining, metalline particles, which feem To bejifver. If the precipitate per fe be expofed to the focus on a piece of charcoal, it is feen to melt and run into fmall globules of pure mercury, which foon after begin to fume and are diffipated en- tirely. It appears, therefore, upon the whole, that there is in quickfdver an oil, which may be feparated by long digeftion over a flow fire ; and that the matter divefted of that, is no longer mercury, but a mere calx or a red earth, this being pro- perly the bafis of this metal ; that this calx does not vitrify in the manner of the other calxes of the metals, being too vola- latile for that, and eafily flying off in the fire; and finally, that this oil of mercury is not different from the other oils even thofe of the vegetable kind, fince common charcoal could fupply its place by means of its oil, and reftore the calx to running mercury again As to the fmall remainder of earth, after the diffipation of the calx of mercury, which run into glafs with metalline fpecks, it is much to be queftioned whe- ther it be not owing to fome impurity in the mercury. Mem. Acad. Par. j 709.

The mines of Friuli afford at prefent very large quantities of quickfther, fome native, or virgin, which they call jung-frau, and obtain either out of natural beds in the rocks, or by waffling the ore in which it lies difperfed in fmall globules; but the far greateft part is not vifible to the eye in the form of quickfdver, nor can be feparated from the ore without the help of fire. Kircher, in his Mundus fubterraneous, <»i.ves a moft frightful defcription of this mine ; but it is not more ter- rible than others of the fame kind. It is remarkable, that the entrance into it is not high up in the hills, as is ufually the cafe ; but upon a level ground, and in the ftreets of the town. This fubjeefs them to great inconveniences from water, but they have admirable machines for the draining it out a°ain. The defcent is by ladders near ninety fathoms down. There are no damps in thefe mines, but the mifchiefs of the mercury itfelf getting into the bodies of the workmen are much greater and more general, tho' not fo fudden, as the effects of the damps in our lead and coal mines, and the like places.

The elaborate ry belonging to thefe mines has furnaces capable of working fifty retorts at a time. There are generally fix- teen of thefe furnaces at work at once, fo that eiaht hun- dred retorts are the general number in conftant ufe. The retorts ftand in double rows on each fide the furnace, a row of thirteen below, and a row of twelve above.

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