Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 20.djvu/89

* VERANDBYE. 63 rior, in 1731, erepted Fort Saint Charles on the Lake of the Woods in 1732, and in 1733 estab- lished Fort <le 111 Rciue on the site of Porta{,'e La Prairie, near Lake Winnijief,'. His sulwequent expeditions extended as far west as the Rocky Jlountains and as far north as the Forks of llie Saskatehewan River, where lie built Fort Dauphin in 1749. VEKATRINE (from Lat. vnrtlrum, helle- bore). A mixture of all-;aloids occurring in ceva- dilla (the dried fruit of Asagra^a ollieinalis) and in other veftclable products. Ccvadilla is the source from wiiieh it is most readily obtained. From this it is obtained by extracting the seeds with alcohol, evapm-ating the extract, treating the residue with Avater, filtering, adding am- monia to the filtrate, and sejiarating and purify- ing the prccipilated veratrine. In a state of purity, veratrine is a pale gray amorphous pow- der, without odor, but, even in the most minute quantity, powerfully irritating to the nostrils, sometimes producing dangerous fits of sneezing. It is strongly and persistently bitter, and highly acrid; insoluble in water, sparingly soluble in spirit and ether, but readily in diluted acids. Heated with access of air, it melts to a yellow liquid, and at length burns away, leaving no residue. In France it is much used as an in- ternal remedy for pneumonia and acute rheuma- tism, and for the latter its efileacy is well es- tablished. It is chiefly employed externally in the form of an oleate, or ointment, for neuralgic affections and for scrofulous diseases of the joints. It is an extremely acrid and violent poison, and must be prescribed with great care. VERATRUlVr. See Hellebore. VERAZZANO, va'ra-tsa'no. See Verraz. o. VERB (Lat. verhum. word: connected with Lith. tvardas, name, OPruss. icird.i, word, Olr. for, says, Goth, wa-urd, OHG. v-ort, Ger. IT'orf, AS., Eng. v:ord). In grammar, a word denoting an assertion or ■declaration. Of the eight so- called parts of speech (see Grammar), the verb is one of the four primitive ones, the others being the noun (q.v.), the pronoun (q.v.), and the interjection (q.v.). In most languages, especially in those of the Indo-Germanic and Semitic groups, the verb is sharply distin- guished from the noun not only Iiy its func- tion, but by its inflection (q.v.)." On the other hand, the verb possesses certain affinities with the noun and the adjective, particularly in the infinitives and participles, which are nouns and adjectives respectively in form, but verbs in force. Furthermore, in manv languages, as in ancient Egyptian and the Vei of the Mande Negro group, there is no distinction in inflection between the noun and the verb, as Egyptian mrh-n, 'I fill;' meh-fen, "ye fill;' peni-a. 'my house;' per-ten, 'your house;' Vei i-ro. 'thou sayest;' mv-ro, 'we say;' i-fa, 'thy father;' mu- fa. 'our father.' Certain remnants of this iden- tity .seem to survive even in Indo-Germanic, as Latin amamini. 'be ye loved.' a participle (com- pare the Greek passive participle in -/xemt and the Sanskrit in -nmna). and the occasional occurrence even in Latin of a direct object of a noun, as the Plnutine r/iiid tihi Iianc iurfiofit. 'why do yon touch her?' In the American In- dian languages the verb tends to absorb within VERBENA. itself the objects and the pronouns, as in the Tarascan /hj/w-xi, 'to wash;' hopo-ku-ni, 'to wash the hands;' hopo-ndu-ni, 'to wash the feet;' hopo-iu/ari-iii, 'to wash the face.' The verb is normally inflected for mood, tense, voice, person, and number, and in some language-groujis, as in Semitic, for gender. The number of all these categories may vary greatly in different lan- guages, and numerous sub-conjugations, as causative, reflective, negative, and passive, are also found. In English, as in the other languages of the Indo-Germanic group, veriis are conventionally divided into transitive and in- transitive, the former class requiring an oliject, and the verbal force of the latter being complete in itself. The mood of a, verb denotes the de- gree of certainty of its action, while the tense expresses the time of action. If a verb forms its tenses according to one of the usual systems in a language, it is said to be regular,' as in English love, loved, but otherwise it is called irregular, as swim, swam, swum. A verb is said to be active, passive, or middle (reflexive, de- ponent) in voice if the subject is an actor, or is the recipient of an action by another, or performs an act which affects himself. Person denotes whether the subject is the person or per- sons speaking, or spoken to, or spoken of, and number shows whether the suliject is one, or more than one. Auxiliary verbs are those which are necessary to comiilete the meaning of other verbs, especially in the formation of periphrastic tenses and moods, and impersonal verbs are those which, apparently at least, have no subject. Consult: Fr. ^Uiiller, Grundriss der ttprach- toissensehaft, vol. i., part i. (Vienna, 1876) ; Von der Gabelentz, Spracliirisfienschnft (2d ed., Leip- zig, 1901); Brugmann, Vergleichende Gram- matik der indogermanischen Sjrraclien, vol. ii. (Strassburg, 1889-92): Delbriick, Verrjlciclwmle Si/ntux der indogermanischen 8prachen, vol. ii. (ib., 1897); Sigwart, ImpcrsuiKtlkii (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1888) ; Zimmern, Vergleichende Grammatik der semitischen Sprachen (Berlin, 1897). VERBECK', GuiDO Fbidglim (18.30-98). A Dutch-American missionary to .Japan. He was born in Zeist, Holland, was educated there in the Jloravian Seminary, at the Utrecht Poly- technic, and after going to New York, in ]8o'2, at Auburn Theological Seminary, where he grad- uated in 1859. although his early training had been for a technical career. In the same year he went as a missionary of the (Dutch) Re- formed Church in America to Nagasaki, .lajian, whence he was transferred in 1868 to Tokio. There from 1869 to 1873 he was superintendent of teachers and instruction in the foreign de- partment of the Imperial I^niN'ersity, having entered the employ of the governmental educa- tional service in 1863. He returned to mission- ary work in 1879, was prominent in the trans- lation of the Bible into Japanese, taught ( 1891- 98) in the Meiji Gakuin, and was a very suc- cessful and tactful missionary. He made many important translations, mostly legal, in behalf of the Japanese Government, and wrote a Hislori/ of Proteslntit Missions in Japan (1883). Con- sult Griffis. Vrrhecl- of -In pan (New York, 1900). VERBENA, VERVAIN (Lat., foliage, herb- age, sacred bough, plant used as a cooling rem-