species, in their size, form, and disposition. The different species proceeding from the intermixture of all these varieties, it must be obvious, must be exceedingly numerous: Scheuchzer was able to determine the existence of one hundred and fortynine species. The difference of size observable in these fossils is not less remarkable than the variety of their forms, some being found not much larger than the head of a pin, whilst others have been found as large as the top of a small table.

A peculiar appearance is observable on the surface of many of these fossils, which depends on the peculiar form of the septa which separate the chambers of the shell. These septa in the nautili are smooth, and terminate at the surface of the shell in a straight line; but in the cornua ammonis they become undulated as they extend outwardly; and in some so much so as to form, on the outer surface, deeply crenulated lines, giving the appearance of foliaceous sutures. When the cavities of the shell have become filled with stone, and the septa just mentioned have been removed, as is frequently the case, by some chemi. cal agent, the casts formed in the chambers separate, each forming a curious figured stone; these separate casts have been termed spondyloites. By the junction of these are formed the foliaceous sutures above-mentioned. The cornua ammonis were formerly called serpent-stones; the appearance which they yield of a serpent coiled having led the vulgar to consider them as petrified serpents.

The fossil cones are very few when compared with the numerous species known in a recent state: the same may be also said of the cyprææ. In both these genera the species are mostly made out more from the colour and the markings of the shells, than from the peculiarities of their form; but in the fossil shells the colours no longer exist, and of course the species in these can very seldom be presumed. The fossil volutes, as far as can be judged from their form alone, differ generally from the recent species. With respect to the genus buccinum, strombus, and murex, the number of species of the fossil shells do not appear to equal those which are known in a recent state. This is the case also, in a still greater degree, with the genus trochus. The fossil shells of the genus turbo are pretty numerous, and some of them very closely resemble those of known recent species. One fossil shell of this genus is very remarkable for its vast size, being upwards of a foot in length. The cast of another species is so large as to weigh four or five pounds. Nothing like this occurs with respect to the species of the genus helix: the fossil shells of this genus very much resemble those which are recent, and are not found of any considerable magnitude. The fossil shells of the gemus nerita by no means display so many species as the recent; but some of the fossil species far exceed the recent in size, and one in particular is twelve times the size of any known recent species. Of the genus haliotis, it is not positively determined that a single shell has been seen, which could be considered as fossil. Fossil shells of the genus patella are by no means common. Several species have, however, been found in France, in a state of excellent preservation. Some few also have been found in the cliffs at Harwich, and others, of a different species, imbedded in the lime-stone of Gloucestershire. Dentalia, apparently similar to existing species, have been found in Hamp

shire, and in some parts of France and Italy, exceedingly well preserved. In Italy also have been found specimens of serpulæ, very similar to those which are known recent; but others have been found in France exceedingly different from any known recent species.

The orthoceratites, a lapidified conical or cylindrical chambered shell, the septa dividing the chambers of which are perforated like those of the nautilus, is a genus of which not a species is known in a recent state, excepting the microscopic specimens found by Plancus in the sand of the Riminian shore. Much is wanting to complete the history of this fossil, since from the state in which the specimens have in general been found, very few, or perhaps none, have been obtained perfect. Authors have divided them into those which are straight, and those which have a spiral termination, the latter of which are considered as fossil shells of the nautilus lituus; but the extraordinary disparity of size is sufficient to shew that they can hardly be considered of the same species, the recent shell being seldom more than an inch in length, whilst the fossil is described as being sometimes the size of a man's arm.

The belemnite is a spathose radiated stone, generally conical, but sometimes possessing a fusiform figure, and contains, in an appropriate cavity at its larger end, a smaller calcareous body (alveolus) which has evidently been a concamerated shell, the septæ of which are pierced like those of the preceding fossil. These fossils are from an eighth of an inch to two inches in thickness, and from an inch to a foot aud a half in length. They are sometimes found imbedded in chalk or limestone, and sometimes in pieces of flint; but they are most frequently detached from their matrix. Various have been the opinions respecting this fossil: some have considered it as the horn of a narwhal, and others as a concretion formed in the pennicilla marina, or in some shell of the denta. lium kind. Some have even supposed it to be of vegetable origin, whilst others have considered it as entirely belonging to the mineral kingdom. But that the belemnite originally existed in the sea, is evident from its being commonly found with the remains of the undoubted inhabitants of the ocean, and that it is of an animal nature, is rendered evident by its structure. Among the concamerated fossil shells may be placed the helicites, or nummular, or lenticular stones. These are round flattish bodies; but in general of a lenticular form, both sides possessing a slight degree of convexity. On each side are sometimes seen traces of its internal structure and of its spiral formation; whilst sometimes these appearances appear to be concealed by a thicker covering. Various opinions have been entertained respecting their origin, but no doubt can exist of their having existed in the ancient ocean as a spiral chambered shell, and of their being one of those species of animals which are now lost.

Among the fossil shells which can only be here enumerated, are the rare tuberculated turrilite, or chambered turbinated shell, the orbulites, planulites, and baculites of Lamarck.

Insects of the smaller kinds are seldom found in a fossil state, the smallness of their size, and the delicacy of their structure, most probably preventing their preservation. Those which are in a state to allow any thing of their general form to be made out are consequently very few. The one which is generally found in the most perfect

condition, is that which is generally known to us as the Dudley fossil, from its being found in the neighbourhood of Dudley, in Worcestershire. Other species of this animal have been found in Wales, and in different parts of Germany. From the imperfect state in which these insects are found, little more, perhaps, can be said of them, except that the remains which have been examined shew that the covering of their body was formed by three series of thick crustaceous plates, transversely disposed in rows, the length of the body; whilst one plate served to give a covering to the head of the animal. Other remains of the smaller insects have been mentioned by different authors; but few or none appear to have been described as agreeing with any insect now known to be in existence.

The remains of lobsters and crabs are frequently found in the isle of Sheppey, and Malta. The remains of different species of these animals are also found in a compressed state in the margaceous and schistous masses of Pappenheim and Oppenheim.

The fossil remains of amphibia are very numerous, and supply us with ample exercise for inquiry and admiration. In different parts of Eugland, particularly in Somersetshire and Dorsetshire, the remains of animals apparently of the lacerta genus are frequently found; but are, as far as we are able to judge, really different from any animal which is known to us. But in no part of the world have such exquisitely fine and wonderful remains of animals of this description been found as in St. Peter's mountain near Maestricht, A most beautiful specimen of part of the jaw of the fossil animal of St. Peter's mountain was presented to the Royal Society, by professor Camper, and is now very properly exhibited in the British Museum, A wonderful specimen of the head of this animal has been also obtained from the same mountain by Faujas St. Fond; and is delineated in the elegant work which he has given to the world, descriptive of the fossil riches of that mountain. Histoire Naturelle de la Montague de SaintPierre de Maestricht.,

The plates of St. Fond, as well as the specimen of professor Camper, show that these are the remains, indubitably, of an enormous animal, different from any at present known. It must, however, be observed, that the remains of crocodiles, apparently of the same species which now exist, have also been discovered: part of the head of the Asiatic crocodile was found in very good preservation in the quarries of Altdorff.

Fossil fishes have been found imbedded in calcareous and argillaceous masses, in various parts of Germany, Switzerland, and Italy; but no where in such prodigious numbers as in the mountain named Vestena-Nuova, generally called Monte Bolca, in the Veronese; which extends in height a thousand feet above the quarry, in which are found the numerous remains of fishes; of which, specimens are to be seen in almost every cabinet of repute in Europe. The vestiges of fishes, from an inch to upwards of three feet in length, are found in these quarries, and of these several whose living analogues are said to exist in the neighbour hood of Japan, and of Brazil, occur also in Africa and America. The Abbé Fortis is of opinion that the actual descendants of the Veronian fossil fishes are now to be found in the sea which washes the shores of Otaheite. In Cerigo, (Cytherea) Alessano, Lesina, in Dalmatia, Oeningen, Pappenheim, in Aix, and in several parts of France, fossil fishes are

found in very excellent preservation. In England fossil fishes are much more rarely found than in France, Germany, or Italy.

The fossil fishes of Vestena Nuova are supposed to prove, from several circumstances, that their privation of life was sudden; some having been discovered with the head of their prey still in their mouths; and others with the remains of the. fish, which they had devoured, still in their stomachs.

The fossil remains of birds are very rarely found; although frequently mentioned and even described by different authors. Fossils very much resembling the beaks of birds are sometimes found; but these are much more probably parts of fishes. Several of those specimens which have been spoken more positively of, as petrifactions of whole birds, and of their nests, have been merely calcareous incrustations of very modern formation. Bones very much resembling the bones of birds have been found in the calcareous stone of Oxfordshire, and in some parts of France, and of Germany.

urus.

The fossil remains of quadrupeds, especially those of the larger kind, are such as must necessarily excite the attention and wonder of every curious inquirer in natural history. In various parts of this country have been traced the remains of elephants, and of other animals of considerable magnitude. In Ireland have been found the remains of deer, of a size far exceeding any now known; and in Scotland have been found the remains of the elk, as well as those of an enormous animal of the ox kind, but larger than even the In France, Germany, Italy, and indeed in most parts of Europe, remains of large animals have been found, and in both North and South America the remains of enormous unknown animals. According to Pallas, from the Tanais to the continental angle nearest to America, there is hardly a river in this immense space, especially in the plains, upon the shores or in the bed of which have not been found the bones of elephants and of other animals not of that climate. From the mountains by which Asia is bounded, to the frozen shores of the ocean, all Siberia is filled with prodigious bones; the best ivory (fossil) is found in the countries nearest to the arctic circle, as well as in the eastern countries, which are much colder than Europe, under the same latitude; countries where only the surface of the ground becomes thawed during summer.

The number of bones which have been discovered of the rhinoceros is very considerable, not only in Siberia, but in Germany, and in other parts of Europe: and in the opinion of St. Foud, founded not only on the discoveries of Pallas and others, but on his own observations made on the immense collection of Merck, jcined with that of the landgrave of Hesse Darmstadt, are of the species with double horns. An entire body of an animal of this species, still possessing the skin, fat, and muscles, bas been dug up near the river Willioni, in the eastern part of Siberia, from under a hill, which is covered with ice the greatest part of the year. St. Fond states, in confirmation of the above opinion, that another head obtained by Pallas from Siberia ; one existing in the cabinet of the elector of Manheim; and another in the cabinet of Merck, are all apparently similar to the head of the doublehorned rhinoceros of Africa.

This circumstance, so contradictory to the opinion he had formed, of these remains of large animals having been brought by floods from the eastern parts of the globe; and which opinion was

confirmed by discovering that no remains of the African crocodile had been traced in Europe; led him to further research, by which he found reason to suppose that, in fact, the rhinoceros, which corresponded with all the fossil remains which he had seen, was the rhinoceros of Sumatra. By ascertaining this circumstance the difficulty was removed, since Sumatra being separated from the peninsula of India merely by the straits of Malacca, this animal might also have formerly existed there.

Much awaits to be ascertained with respect to fossil remains of elephants, of which considerable numbers have been found in various parts of England, France, Germany, and Italy; but no where so abundantly as in Siberia. In America, indeed, the remains of an unknown species of this animal are also very abundant. There appears to be only two species of elephants now in existence; one (the Asiatic) being distinguished by its grinders being divided into transverse and nearly parallel plates, and the other (the African) having these plates disposed in lozenge-like forms.

The elephantine remains which have been found in Siberia have been supposed to have belonged to no existing species; for though the teeth are formed of plates disposed parallel to each other, as in the Asiatic, these plates are said to be thinner, and consequently more numerous; but this distinction is by no means established. The remains of elephants discovered in this country seem referable, in most instances, to the Asiatic.

With respect to the elephant whose remains have been found in America, the tooth of which differs essentially from all known fossil or recent species, in having its crown cuspidated and covered with enamel, there exists at present every reason for supposing it to be of a species now extinct. The generally adopted opinion that this animal was of a carnivorous nature is by no means established; but is indeed contradicted by the assertion that the stomach of one of these animals has been found filled with vegetable matter. One of these aninials, with its flesh, skin, and hair, has been lately found in Siberia.

The remains of an animal of an enormous size has been found at Paraguay, at no great distance from the river Plata, which being properly arranged, has been formed into a skeleton and placed in the cabinet of natural history at Madrid. This animal, twelve feet in length and six in height, is distinguished, as well as by its general form, by the largenesss of its claws; on which account, Mr. Jefferson, who has described some remains of a similar animal in the Philosophical Transactions of Philadelphia, has named it the megalonyx. The celebrated Cuvier has arranged this animal with the sloths; but Faujas St. Fond, concluding that an animal so enormous was never intended to climb the trunks of trees, thinks he should not be thus classed; and wishes him to be held, as it were, in reserve, until some discoveries should supply us with more satisfactory notions respecting its nature.

In various parts of Scotland, and of France; in Tuscany, the Veronese, and in North America, have been found the fossil remains of some animal which has been supposed to be a variety of the urus of Julius Cæsar, or of the bison. But these horns, which are of very considerable size, the bone of each horn exceeding two feet in length, appear to have belonged to a different species of animal from any which is at present known. The observations which have been made on these fos

sils, particularly by the liberal and industrious Faujas St. Fond, give great reason for believing that two species of animals have existed bearing horns of this enormous magnitude. These re mains are found to exist in Siberia along with the bones and horns of the rhinoceros, and with bones and teeth of the mammonthean elephant of Siberia.

To the fossil remains already mentioned may be added the animal incognitum of Symore in Languedoc; the enormous elk found in the mosses of Ireland; the gigantic tapir, found at the bottom of the black mountains of Languedoc; the bears, of two species, now unknown, found in Bareith; and the numerous animals of unknown species, which the indefatigable Cuvier is perpetually discovering in that mine of fossils, the quarries of gypsum near Paris.

This excellent writer will not allow the mammoth to belong in any respect to the elephant family; he refers it to a different genus, which he has named mastodonton. In the third volume of the Annales, he gives an account of bones which he had found included between the strata of gypsum, in the above plaster quarries, which after a very ample detail of the head, the various parts of which he had been enabled perfectly to replace, he concludes that no well-informed naturalist would deny that these bones belonged to an herbivorous animal of the order of pachydermata (formed from the bruta and belluæ of Linnéus), and of a genus between the tapir and the rhinoceros. As little could he deny, says he, that no such animal has yet been discovered among the living tribes on the surface of the earth. He gives to this genus the name of palæotherium, expressive of its great antiquity. Further research into the remains of which the plaster quarries about Paris contain so many specimens enabled him to discover another genus similar to the former, but without canine teeth, which he has distinguished, indicating this inoffensive structure anoplotherium. In each of these genera he distinguished several species, as the magnum, medium, minus, commune. It is very extraordinary, therefore, that while the whole order of known pachydermata, or thick-skinned quadrupeds, amount to not more than six, the elephant, tapir, hog, hippopotamus, daman, and rhinoceros, we should already have traced out three genera that are lost, the palæotherium, anoplotherium, and mastodonton, besides various species, of the mineralized remains of man no well-attested instance is known. In a cavern, indeed, in the Mendip hills, some human bones have been found invested with stalactite; but these appear to be but of modern existence. Scheuchzer published an essay describing a supposed skeleton of a man, which was undoubtedly the remains of some large fish.

It appears obvious, however, from what has actually been discovered, that a considerable num ber of species, kinds, and perhaps orders, of animal, vegetable, and mineral materials, have been lost for ages, and consequently that the general state and inhabitants of the earth have undergone some very remote and very considerable change: and it appears equally obvious, that such change must have been produced by some such event as the Noachic deluge, the book of nature thus bearing evidence to the truth of the book of revelation. And nothing moreover is clearer than, judging from the general nature of the fossil materials of the antideluvian world which have reached us, or at least are known to have reached

us, that the postdiluvian world has a very high comparative advantage, is actually richer, and to a considerable extent, in valuable productions, and is much more fitted for the necessaries and even the comforts and luxuries of civilized life. The direct conclusion of these remarks then is, that in dependently of the accomplishment of any other important purpose, by the revolution of a former world, one grand object appears to have been attained; such a modification and arrangement of the seeming ruin as produced the regeneration of a world stored, in its deepest recesses, with substances calculated to promote the comfort of man; to tempt him to the exercise of his innate powers; to furnish him with the means of maintaining his dominion over the animals around him; and even to urge him to a change from the savage to a civilized state. Another world rises from the overwhelming flood, composed of the fragments of the former, which appear to be blended together, in an apparently disordered and incongruous mass. But after the lapse of a small period of time the constituent parts of the newly-formed world are discovered to be arranged according to those wise laws which the great Creator had decreed from the beginning. The surface again teems with animal and vegetable life; and the fresh creation, enriched by the amelioration of its materials, obtains an increase both in its stock of utility and beauty. (See Natural History. Plates LXXX. For all which we are indebted to the liberality of Mr.

LXXXII. LXXXIV. CVIII. CXIII. CXV.

Parkinson.

ORYZA. Rice. In botany, a genus of the class hexandria, order digynia. Calyx, glume two-valved, one-flowered; corol twovalved, nearly equal, growing to the seeds. One species, supposed to be a native of Ethiopia, but now propagated in different parts the four quarters of the globe. It affords many varieties, of which the following are the chief. Common rice: cut six or eight months after planting.

of

Early rice ripens and is cut the fourth month after planting.

Dry or mountain rice: the paddy of the Hindus; grows in mountains and other dry soils.

:

Clammy rice with large, glutinous, very white seeds; will grow well in both dry and moist soils.

These plants may be increased by seeds in the early parts of spring. The seeds should be sown in a hot-bed, and when the plants appear, they should be transplanted into pots filled with rich light earth, and placed in pans of water which should be plunged into a hotbed; and as the water wastes it must be renewed from time to time. The plants must be preserved in a stove all the summer; when towards the end of August they will produce grain, which will ripen tolerably well, provided the autumn prove favourable.

It is probable, however, that the mountainrice, which endures a very considerable degree of cold on the tops of the loftiest hills of Hindu, and grows in the midst of snow, might be

naturalized to our own climate.

Rice is the principal food of the inhabitants in all parts of the East; where it is boiled and

eaten, either alone or with their meat. Large quantities of it are sent annually into Europe, and it meets with a general esteem for family purposes. The Javanese have a method of making puddings which seems to be unknown here, but which is not difficult to be practised. They take a conical earthen pot which is open at the large end, and perforated all over: this they fill about half full with rice, and putting it into a larger earthen pot of the same shape, filled with boiling water, the rice in the first pot soon swells, and stops the perforations so as to keep out the water; by this method the rice is brought to a firm consistence, and forms a pudding, which is generally eaten with butter, oil, sugar, vinegar, and spices. The Indians eat stewed rice with good success against the bloody flux; and in most inflam matory disorders they cure themselves with only a decoction of it. The spirituous liquor called arrack is made from this grain. Rice grows naturally in moist places: and will not come to perfection, when cultivated, unless the ground be sometimes overflowed, or plentifully watered. The grain is of a grey colour when first reaped; but the growers have a method of whitening it before it is sent to market. The manner of performing this, and beating it out in Egypt, is thus described by Hasselquist. They have hollow iron cylinby a wheel worked with oxen. drical pestles about an inch diameter, lifted A person sits between the pestles, and, as they rise, pushes forward the rice, whilst another winnows and supplies fresh parcels. Thus they continue working until it is entirely free from chaff. Having in this manner cleaned it, they add one-thirtieth part of salt, and rub them both together, by which the grain acquires a whiteness; then it is passed through a sieve, to separate the salt again from it. In the island of Ceylon they have a much more expeditious method of getting out the rice; for in the field where it is reaped they dig a round hole, with a level bottom, about a foot deep, and of corn. Having laid it properly, the women eight yards diameter, and fill it with bundles drive about half a dozen oxen continually round the pit; and thus they will tread out forty or fifty bushels a day. This is a very ancient method of treading out corn, and is still practised in Africa upon other sorts of grain.

OS. See BONE and MOUTH.

OSACA, a large town of the island of Niphon, in Japan, with a magnificent castle.

It has a harbour, and is one of the most commercial places of Japan. The hours of the night are proclaimed by the sound of different instruments of music. Lon. 133. 45 E. Lat. 35. 20 N.

OSBECHIA, in botany, a genus of the class octandria, order monogynia. Calyx four-cleft, with a ciliate scale between the lobes; corol four-petalled; anthers beaked; capsule inferior, four-celled, surrounded by the truncate tube of the calyx. Two species; natives of Ceylon and China.

OSCHATZ, a town of Upper Saxony, in

OSCI, a people between Campania and the country of the Volsci, who assisted Turnus against Æneas. Some suppose that they are the same as the Opici. (Virg.).

OSCILLA, small images of wax or clay made in the shape of men or women, and consecrated to Saturn, to render him propitious. The word is sometimes used to signify a kind of masks scooped from the bark of trees, and worn by the performers of comedy in the ruder ages of Rome. In this sense we find it in Virg. Geo. ii. 386. It also signifies little heads or images of Bacchus, which the countrymen of old hung upon trees, that the face might turn every way, out of a notion that the countenance of this god gave felicity to themselves, and fertility to their vineyards. An allusion to this opinion and custom is also found in Virgil, Geo. ii. 388.

OSCILLATION. s. (oscillum, Latin.) The act of moving backward and forward like a pendulum.

OSCILLATION, in mechanics, the vibration, or reciprocal ascent and descent of a pendulum. See PENDULUM.

It is demonstrated, that the time of a complete oscillation in a cycloid, is to the time in which a body would fall through the axis of that cycloid, as the circumference of a circle to its diameter; whence it follows, 1. That the oscillations in the cycloid are all performed in equal times, as being all in the same ratio to the time in which a body falls through the diameter of the generating circle. 2. As the middle part of the cycloid may be conceived to coincide with the generating circle, the time in a small arch of that circle will be nearly equal to the time in the cycloid; and hence the reason is evident, why the times in very little arches are equal. 3. The time of a complete oscillation in any little arch of a circle, is to the time in which a body would fall through half the radius, as the circumference of a circle, to its diameter; and since the latter time is half the time in which a body would fall through the whole diameter, or any chord, it follows that the time of an oscillation in any little arch, is to the time in which a body would fall through its chord, as the semicircle to the diameter. 4. The times of the oscillations in cycloids, or in small arches of circles, are in a sub-duplicate ratio of the lengths of the pendulums. 5. But if the bodies that os cillate are acted on by unequal accelerating forces, then the oscillations will be performed in times that are to one another in the ratio

compounded of the direct subduplicate ratio of the lengths of the pendulums, and inverse subduplicate ratio of the accelerating forces. Hence it appears that if oscillations of unequal pendulums are performed in the same time, the forces accelerating these pendulums must be as their lengths; and thus we conclude, that the force of gravity decreases as we go towards the equator, since we find that the lengths of pendulums that vibrate seconds are always less at a less distance from the equator. 6. The space described by a falling body in any given time, may be exactly known; for finding, by experiments, what pendulum oscillates in that time, the half of the pendulum will be to the space required, in the duplicate ratio of the diameter of a circle to the circumference. 7. If the length of a pendulum be 39 inches, it will perform one oscillation in a second, in the latitude of London.

OSCILLATION (Centre of). See CENTRE. OSCILLATORY. a. (oscillum, Latin.) Moving backward and forward like a pendu lum (Arbuthnot).

O'SCITANCY. s. (oscitantia, Latin.) 1. The act of yawning. 2. Unusual sleepiness; carelessness (Addison).

O'SCITANT. a. (oscitans, Latin.) 1. Yawning; unusually sleepy. 2. Sleepy, sluggish (Decay of Piety).

OSCITATION. s. (oscito, Latin.) The act of yawning (Tatler).

OSCULA, in anatomy, a term used for the orifices, or openings of the lesser vessels.

OSCULATION, in geometry, is used for the contact between any given curve and its osculatory circle; that is, the circle of the same curvature with the given curve. See CURVATURE, and CURVE.

OSCULATORY CIRCLE, in geometry, is used chiefly by foreign mathematicians for the circle of curvature; that is, the circle having the same curvature with any curve at any given point. See CURVATURE.

OSCULATORY PARABOLA. See PARABOLA.

OSCULATORY POINT, the point of contact between a curve and its osculatory circle. See CURVATURE.

OSERO, or OSORO, an island tn the gulf of Venice, belonging to the Venetians, having that of Cherso to the N. to which it is joined by a bridge. The capital is of the same name, with a bishop's see. Lon. 15. 30 E. Lat. 45. 0 N.

OSEY, an island in Blackwater Bay, neat Malden, in Essex. It is covered with wild fowl at certain seasons; and here the coal ships for Malden unload their cargoes.

OSIANDRIANS, a sect among the Lutherans, so called from Andrew Osiander, a celebrated German divine.

Their distinguishing doctrine was, that a man is justified formally, not by the faith and apprehension of the justice of Jesus Christ, or the imputation of our Saviour's merits, accord ing to the opinion of Luther and Calvin; but by the essential justice of God.