modern times, is matter of history. Napoleon died in excommunication, and yet a priest attended him, and the circumstance is scarcely mentioned, of so little importance is it esteemed. The Greek and Roman Catholic churches both make use of the anathema. In the latter, it can be pronounced only by a pope, council, or some of the superior clergy. The subject of the anathema is declared an outcast from the Catholic Church, all Catholics are forbidden to associate with him, and utter destruction is denounced against him, both soul and body. ANATOMY. This word is of Greek origin and means to dissect; more particularly as applied to the human frame. The dissection of other animals, and comparing them with the human body, is called comparative anatomy. The dissection of the human body was but little practised by the ancients. The old Egyptians held it in great abhorrence, and even pursued with stones those men, who, in embalming the dead, were obliged to cut open their bodies. The Greeks were prevented by the principles of their religion from studying anatomy, since these required them to bury bodies of the deceased as soon as possible. Even in the time of Hippocrates, anatomical knowledge was imperfect, and was probably derived froni the dissection of animals. The utility of anatomy is such, that no one who gives the subject the least reflection, will deny its paramount importance to the wellbeing of man. Who would trust a surgeon to amputate a limb, if he were not convinced that the surgeon was well acquainted with the structure of that upon which he operates? As, therefore, a knowledge of anatomy is essential to the education of a medical man, and most of all of a surgeon, it is evident that such knowledge cannot be obtained without practice upon dead bodies, in order that such knowledge may be acquired. Considerable repugnance, among the moderns, as well as among the ancients-among Christians as well as among heathens, has always been manifested, by the illiterate and uninformed, to the dissection of the dead; but it is sincerely hoped that, as knowledge becomes more diffused, and the conviction of its absolute necessity more generally prevails, such prejudices will in time be done away; and that, while anatomy be pursued with decency and privacy, and some restrictions removed which now prevent the obtaining of subjects, anatomical dissection will be rendered at once, and forever, legitimate, respectable, and meritorious. The study of anatomy is useful to the Christian and the philosopher as well as to the practitioner in surgery and medicine. Every part of natural science is calculated to impress the mind with the unbounded wisdom and goodness of the Deity. We cannot survey his works without being led to admire them. In admiring them we are led to aspire after the excellency in which they were conceived, and by which they are sustained. And, in no portion of his works, is this more evidently true, than in the contemplation of the human body. Nor is it easy to say, which is most wonderful; the mechanical skill displayed in every part of the skeleton; the diversified muscular power with which it is clothed and made capable of motion; or, the unceasing rapid circulation of that inward fluid, which gives life and glory to the entire fabric. Of all the different systems in the human body, the use and necessity are not more apparent, than the wisdom and contrivance, which has been exerted in putting them all into the most compact and convenient form; in disposing them so that they shall mutually receive and give helps from one another; and that all, or many, of the parts, shall not only answer their principal end or purpose, but operate successfully and usefully in a variety of secondary ways. If we consider the whole animal machine in this light, and compare it with any, in which human art has exerted its utmost skill, (suppose the best constructed ship that ever was built,) we shall be convinced, beyond the possibility of doubt, that there exists intelligence and power far surpassing what human art can boast of. One superiority in the animal machine is peculiarly striking. In machines of human contrivance, or of art, there is no internal power, no principle in the thing itself, by which it can alter and accommodate itself to any injury that it may suffer, or make up any injury that admits of repair: but in the natural machine, or animal body, this is most wonderfully provided for by the internal powers of the machine itself, many of which are not more certain and obvious in their effects, than they are above all human comprehension, as to the manner and means of their operation. Thus, a wound heals up of itself; a broken bone is made firm again by a callus; a dead part is separated and thrown off; noxious juices are driven out by some of the emunctories; a redundancy is removed by some spontaneous bleeding; a bleeding naturally stops of itself; and a great loss of blood, from any cause, is in some measure compensated by a contracting power in the muscular system, which accommodates the capacity of the vessel to the quantity contained. The stomach gives information when the supplies have been expended; represents, with great exactness, the quantity and quality of what is wanted in the present state of the machine; and, in proportion as she meets with neglect, rises in her demand, urges her petition in a louder tone, and with more forcible arguments. For its protection, an animal body resists heat and cold in a very wonderful manner, and preserves an equal temperature in a burning and in a freezing atmosphere. These are powers which mock all human invention or imitation: they are characteristics of the Divine Architect! ANCESTORS. All nations, in any way civilized, have paid respect to the memory of their ancestors. Some have gone so far as to offer them religious homage. All the Asiatic nations are proud of a long line of ancestors. The Bible abounds in genealogies, and modern travellers observe that the same pride of descent still prevails in the East. Men of rank are there frequently entertained with songs in praise of their ancestors, a custom which prevailed in Greece and Rome, and throughout Europe in the middle ages. The Egyptians are known to have paid particular attention to the bodies of their deceased relations; but no nation ever revered their ancestors in such a degree as the Chinese, whom Confucius directed to offer them sacrifice. Filial love, in fact, is one of the essential elements of the Chinese religion, politics, and domestic life. Esteem for parents and ancestors is so natural to all mankind, that many, if they quarrel, as the readiest way of insulting an antagonist, will attack the honor of his mother, the honesty of his father, or the general character of the family from which he is descended. The inhabitants of the United States, and perhaps of New England, particularly, are noted for the esteem in which they hold their progenitors. This is indeed natural, for it seldom happens that the happiness of a generation, both social and individual, is so prominently referable to a line of ancestry, as in our own case. The civil, religious, and literary institutions of this country, so frequently the subjects of eulogy, are the result of that untiring enterprize, and that manly virtue, which characterized the American pilgrims. We may well glory in such a descent. For, notwithstanding the intellectual and moral defects of the age in which they lived, and of the country from which they emigrated-defects, in which it might be presumed they would of course partake, it cannot be denied, that the first Europeans who planted themselves in this then wilderness, ranked high for what enobles the human character. ANCHOR. A heavy, strong, crooked instrument of iron, cast or dropped from a ship into the water, to retain her in a convenient station in a harbor, road, or river. Anchors were originally mere weights: at present they are intended to fasten in the ground as hooks. They are contrived so as to sink into the earth as soon as they reach it, and to hold a great strain before they can be loosened or dislodged. They are composed of a shank, a stock, a ring, and two arms with flukes. The stock, which is a long piece of timber fixed across the shank, serves to guide the flukes in a direction perpendicular to the surface of the ground; so that one of them sinks into it by its own weight, as soon as it falls, and is still preserved steadily in that position by the stock, which, together with the shank, lies flat on the bottom. In this situation, it must necessarily sustain a great effort before it can be dragged through the earth horizontally. ANCHOVY. A small fish of the herring genus. It is found in great abundance in the Mediterranean, on the coasts of England, France, and Holland, whither they come in immense shoals, like the larger herrings, for the purpose of spawning. The fishermen provide themselves with floats, upon which a fire is made, and these are placed, at different distances, over a very considerable extent of sea. The anchovies approach these lights, and collect near them in vast multitudes, when the fishermen silently surround them with their nets, extinguish the fire, and begin to beat upon the water. The frightened fish immediately endeavor to make their escape, and, rushing against the net, are caught by the meshes, which, passing over their gills, neither allow them to advance, nor retreat. The fishermen, as soon as the net appears sufficiently full, raise it, and remove the fish, and go to repeat their operations at the next light. ANCIENT EMPIRES. The most celebrated ancient empires were the Assyrian, the Chaldean, the Median, the Persian, the Macedonian, and the Ro man empire. The first empire, after the flood, was the Assyrian, whose capital was Nineveh, which was founded by Ashur, the grandson of Noah. The ambitious wars of the Assyrians during five hundred years, threw Asia into confusion. At length BabyIon of the Chaldees, from being the vassal of Nineveh, became her rival, and the seat of a new empire; and the Medes, sometime after shook off their yoke, and dispossessed the Assyrians their former masters; whose last king was Sardanapulus, the most effeminate and debauched among human beings. The transfer of empire from the Assyrians to the Medes happened about nine hundred years before the nativity of our Saviour. The famous Cyrus, whose father was a Persian, and his mother the daughter of Astyages, king of Media and sovereign over Assyria, put an end to the Chaldean empire by the conquest of Babylon; and afterwards driving Astyages, his grandfather, from his throne and kingdoms, he united Media, Assyria and Chaldea, to Persia, and thus raised the Persian empire to a prodigious greatness. The Persians, under Cyrus, within the space of thirty years, extended their conquests from the river Indus to the Mediterranean sea. About three hundred and thirty years before our Saviour's birth, Persia was conquered by Alexander the Great; and the Macedonian empire arose to a vast height of power and splendor. This empire, which was spread in Asia, Europe and Africa, was crumbled to pieces, and brought into subjection by the Romans; who extended their dominion, for a long time, over almost all parts of the known world. In the fifth century, the western Roman empire was overrun and subdued by innumerable hordes of wandering shepherds, called Goths, Vandals, and Huns, from the forests of Germany, north of the Danube. Each of these empires had been a mighty oppressor and scourge to the human race; and each, in its turn, (only the Persian excepted) has by the overruling hand of Providence, been utterly wiped off from the face of the earthf. ANCIENT LANGUAGES. Much has been said, and much may always be said, for and against the study of what are called the dead languages; such as Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, which are now only to be met with in books. Á liberal man will, perhaps, wholly join with neither the one disputant nor the other. In all cases, those who give their thoughts to the past, to the neglect of the present are to be blamed. If history is interesting; if antiquities, the documents of history, are interesting, then ancient languages must be interesting also. This agreed, the man who spends his life in studying languages, if he communicates his remarks, is by no means a useless member of the community; and if he does not, he is, so far, at least, as his study is concerned, an inoffensive one. He is, indeed, but a collector, a fitter, and polisher of the materials, with which a more lofty, but less patient genius, erects his fabric; and the passer by, no doubt, will forget the laborer while he praises the architect. All men are prone to despise the pursuits, with the use or beauty of which they are unacquainted; and it has been said, "we may be allowed to revile what we do not understand:" yet the linguist neither deserves the contempt, nor needs the compassion, of his spectators. He has his gratifications; and he may be left undisturbed in a pursuit, which will never give a rival to the merchant in his wealth, nor to the poet in his fame. dressed in a Turkish habit, and sitting behind a table three feet and a half in length, two in depth, and two and a half in height, and running on four wheels. The androides sits on a chair that is fixed to the table, on which he leans his right arm, holding in his left a pipe or rod. In this state the machine is moved about the room, that it may be inspected, internally as well as externally. Nothing however is seen, but wheels, levers, cylinders and other pieces of mechanism. All this preparation being made, the automaton is ready to play, and it always takes the first move. At every motion the wheels are heard, the figure moves its head, and seems to look over every part of the chess-board. When it checks the queen, it shakes its head twice, and thrice in giving check to the king. It likewise shakes its head when a false move is made, replaces the piece, and takes the move from the adversary, usually, although not always, winning the game. Maillardel, a native of Switzerland, has construct ANCIENT LEARNING. Interested as we are in the history of man, we cannot be indifferent to those writings which have come down to us from ancient times. If we are unacquainted with ancient learning, we can scarcely avoid error in our estimate of its value: we shall probably reverence it too much or too little. Certainly, neither ancient learning, nor any thing else that is ancient, is essential to the education of a good member of society; but it is very essential to taste, without a certain mixture of which, all the ingredients of society must soon become horribly nauseous. While, on the one hand, however, it does not appear rational to join with those who would banish an inquiry into ancient learning from among the number of human studies; it is, on the other, most undoubtedly true, that the attainments of the ancients are frequently overrated.ed several androides of unrivalled excellence. One We have availed ourselves of their discoveries; we have perceived many of their mistakes; and though we may have lost part of their lessons, and committed new errors of our own, still it is absurd to suppose that we have not surpassed them. ANDROIDES. A machine resembling the human figure, and so contrived as to imitate certain motions or actions of the living man. It is considered as the most perfect or difficult of the automata or self moving engines; because the motions of the human body are more complicated than those of any other living creature. Hence the construction of an androides, in such a manner as to imitate any of these motions with exactness, is justly considered as one of the highest. Friar Bacon and Albertus Magnus both exercised their ingenuity in the construction of androides, which appeared so wonderful to the ignorant multitude, as to draw upon their inventors the dangerous imputation of being addicted to magic. Bacon constructed a brazen figure, it is said, capable of speaking; and Albertus Magnus formed an artificial man, in the construction of which he spent thirty years of his life. This, we are told, was broken to pieces by Aquinas, who came to see it, purposely that he might boast how in one minute he had rendered fruitless the labor of so many years. It is now very common to see androides, exhibited, which are capable of imitating various actions of the human body, such as writing, drawing, playing on musical instruments, and the like. The writing androides consists of a machine resembling the human figure, placed at a table, with a pen or peneil in its hand, and paper before it. The spectator is desired to dictate any word at pleasure, which is instantly written by the androides in a fair and legible hand. All this appears very wonderful, but nothing is more easily accomplished; for the androides is placed near the partition of the room, behind which an assistant it stationed, within hearing of all that passes. It is this assistant that directs the hand of the androides, by machinery, which passes from its body, beneath the floor, into the next apartment. The celebrated automaton chess-player, exhibited, a few years since, in many of the principal cities of this country, was another instance of this astonishing mechanical skill. It was a figure as large as life, of these represents a beautiful female seated at a piano forte, on which she performs eighteen tunes. Independent of the execution of the music, which is produced by the actual pressure of her fingers on the keys, all her motions are elegant and graceful, and so nearly imitating life, that even on a near approach the deception can hardly be discovered. Before commencing a tune, she makes a gentle inclination with her head, as if saluting the auditors; and remains seemingly intent on the performance. Her bosom heaves, her eyes move, and appear as natural to follow her fingers over the keys, as if it were real animation. The hands regulate the natural tones only, for the flats and sharps are played by pedals, on which the feet operate. It is likewise to be observed, that although the instrument resembles a piano forte, it is in fact an organ, the bellows of which are blown by particular parts of the machinery. The movements of this figure are effected by means of six large springs, which, when completely wound up, will preserve their action during an hour. Twenty-five leaders or communications produce the different motions of the body, and others proceeding from the centre of motion, are distributed to the different parts of the instrument. It was valued by the builder at six or eight thousand dollars; which may in some respect prove the extent of the labor and ingenuity in framing it. Another piece of mechanism by the same artist has excited general curiosity. A figure, who is to answer to certain questions, appears seated at the bottom of the wall. He is gravely habited, personating a magician or soothsayer, and holding a wand in one hand, and a book in the other. The questions ready prepared are inscribed on open medallions, one of which is put in a drawer, standing open to receive it, which shuts with a spring, until the answer is returned. Supposing a medallion with the following question, is put into the drawer, What is it that last deserts mankind? The figure rises, bows his head, draws circles with his wand, and consults the book, which he lifts towards the face. Thus apparently having spent sometime in study, he raises his wand, and striking with it the wall above his head, two folding doors fly open, and display the answer to the question, namely, Hope. The doors close, the magician resumes his original position, and the drawer opens to return the medallion. There are twenty different medallions, all inscribed with different questions, to which different answers are given with amazing precision. These medallions are thin brass ellipses, exactly resembling each other in every respect; where the mechanism must be of extreme nicety, to make the question and answer invariably correspond. Should the drawer be shut when empty, the soothsayer rises, consults his books, shakes his head, and seats himself again; the folding doors do not fly open, and the drawer is returned empty. If two medallions are put in together, an answer is given only to one, which is the lowest. Some medallions bear a question inscribed on each side, which are both answered in succession with some certainty. ANEMOMETER. An instrument or machine for measuring the force and velocity of the wind. It derives its name from two Greek words, one signifying wind, and the other to measure. which they had lately taken in their nets. With nice execution they obeyed his orders. Every time he drew up his line, he succeeded. The cunningCleopatra, in rapturous language, extolled his art, his address, and his fortune. Acquainted, however, with his artifice, she had recourse to the ingenious stratagem of desiring one of her own attendants to dive secretly, and attach to his hook a large dried Pontian fish. At last, when pulling up the line, at the sight of the heavy salted fish, the spectators expressed their surprise by a loud laugh. Antony did not relish the joke, and seemed highly displeased. The queen observing him in this mood, immediately took him in her arms, and fondly exclaimed, "Leave, my dear general, angling, to us petty princes of Pharos and Canopus; your game is cities, kingdoms, and provinces." Among no people has this art attracted so much attention, and nowhere have so many persons of all classes, both clerical and secular, resorted to angling as an amusement, as in England, whose literin-ature is richer than that of any other country, in works relating to this sport, both in prose and verse. A similar fondness for angling exists in the United States. In both countries, England and North America, angling is followed by many sportsmen with a kind of passion. In the latter country there is a great number of rivers rich in fish, and the angler has perfect liberty to prosecute his favorite amusement at pleasure. The best months for angling are from April to October; the time of the day early in the morning, or in the evening of hot days. ANEMOSCOPE. Every contrivance which dicates the direction of the wind is called by this name. The vane upon towers and roofs is the simplest of all anemoscopes. There are some also, where the vanes turn a moveable spindle, which descends through the roof to the chamber where the observation is made. On the ceiling of this apartment a compass-card is fixed, and, whilst the wind turns the vane together with the spindle, an index, fixed below, points out the direction of the wind on a card. Some are so made as, even in the absence of the observer, to note down the changes of the wind. ANGEL. Literally a messenger; particularly, the heavenly messengers sent by God, as ministers to execute his commands. ANGEL. A gold coin, in value ten shillings, having the figure of an angel stamped upon it, in commemoration of the saying of Pope Gregory, that the English were so beautiful that they would be Angeli, not Angli, if they were Christians. ANGLE. In geometry, angle denotes the space comprised between two straight lines that meet in a point, or between two straight converging lines, which, if extended, would meet; or the quantity by which two straight lines, departing from a point, diverge from each other. The point of meeting is the vertex of the angle, and the lines, containing the angle, are its sides or legs. ANGLING. Taking fish by a hook is called angling. This art has been long known, and although we cannot trace it to its origin, yet we may see from scripture, and some of the old classic writers, that it has been a very ancient sport. The prophet Isaiah speaks of casting angles into the brooks. A very amusing story is told us, by Plutarch, of Mark Antony, who was a skilful angler. One day, while Cleopatra and he were indulging in this sport, he was unusually unsuccessful. Hurt at his disappointment in the presence of his mistress, he gave secret orders, to some of his fishermen, to dive under water, and to fasten unseen, to his hook, some of the finest and largest fishes, still alive, and ANGORA GOAT. A species of goat, so called, because found in its highest excellence, in the neighborhood of Angora, a city of ancient Syria. They are of a dazzling white color, and, in all, the hair is very long, thick, fine, and glossy; which is indeed the case with almost all the animals of Syria. There is a great number of these animals about Angora, where the inhabitants drive a trade with their hair, which is sold either raw or manufactured, into all the parts of Europe. Nothing can exceed the beauty of the stuffs which are made from the hair of almost all the animals of that country. These are well known by the name of camlet. The great antiquity of this kind of manufacture is evident; as we are told in sacred scripture, that the curtains of Moses's tabernacle were made of goat's hair, probathat of the Angora goat. ANIMAL. In natural history, an organized and living body, endowed with sensation. Minerals increase; plants grow and live; but animals have the power of locomotion, of seeking and appropriating nourishment. ANIMAL HEAT. The property of all animals, by means of which they preserve a certain temperature, which is quite independent of that of the medium by which they are surrounded, and appears rather to be in proportion to the degree of sensibility and irritability possessed by them. It is greatest in birds. The more free and independent the animal is, the more uniform is its temperature. On this account, the human species preserves a temperature nearly equal, about 96-100° Fahr., in the frozen regions at the pole, and beneath the equator; and on this account, too, the heat of the human body naked eye. All parts of the terraqueous globe, the air, the earth, and water, swarm with living crea-. tures, which are so small as to be seen only by the help of glasses. Lewenhoek reckoned up some thousands of animalcules, furnished with fins, in a single drop of water. Others have been found, whose feet are armed with claws, on the body of the fly, and on that of a flea. It is credible from analogy, that there are animals, or animalcules, feeding on the leaves of plants, like cattle in our meadows; which repose under the shade of a down imperceptible to the naked eye. ANNALS. In matters of literature, a species of history, which relates events in the chronological order wherein they happened. They differ from perfect history in this, that annals are a bare relation of what passes every day; whereas history relates not only the transactions themselves, but also the causes, motives, and springs of action. Annals require nothing but brevity, history demands ornament. ANNEALING. This is a process particularly employed in glass-houses, and consists in putting the glass vessels, as soon as they are formed, and while they are yet hot, into a furnace or oven, not so hot as to remelt them, in which they are suffered to cool gradually. This is found to prevent their breaking so easily as they otherwise would, particularly when exposed to heat. Unannealed glass, when broken, often flies into powder, with great violence, and, in general, is in more danger of breaking from a very slight stroke than from one of considerable force. An unannealed glass vessel will often resist the effect of a pistol-bullet dropped into it; yet a grain of sand, falling into it, will make it burst into small fragments, and, which is very singular, it will often not burst until several minutes after being struck. remains the same when exposed to the most extreme degrees of temperature; in fact, cold at first rather elevates, and extreme heat rather depresses the temperature of the human body. Fordyce and Blagden endured the temperature of an oven heated almost to redness, and two girls in. France entered a baker's oven heated to 269° Fahr., in which fruits were soon dried up, and water boiled. A Spaniard, Francisco Martinez by name, exhibited himself, a short time since, at Paris, in a stove heated to 279° of Fahr., and threw himself, immediately after, into cold water. Blagden was exposed in an oven to a heat of 257°, in which water boiled, though covered with oil. There is also a remarkable instance of a similar endurance of heat by the convulsionaries, as they were called, upon the grave of St. Medardus, in France. A certificate signed by several eyewitnesses, among whom were Armand, Arouet, the brother of Voltaire, and a Protestant nobleman from Perth, states that a woman named la Sonet, surnamed the Salamander, lay upon a fire nine minutes at a time, which was repeated four times within two hours, making in all, thirty-six minutes, during which time fifteen sticks of wood were consumed. The correctness of the fact stated is allowed even by those opposed to the abuses in which it originated. The flames sometimes united over the woman, who seemed to sleep; and the whole miracle is to be attributed to the insensibility of the skin and nerves, occasioned by a fit of religious insanity. These facts are the results of a law of all living substances, viz. that the temperature of the living body cannot be raised above certain limits, which nature has fixed. There is also an increased flow of perspiration, by means of which the heat of the body is carried off. The extreme degrees of cold which are constantly endured by the human frame without injury are well known, and are to be explained only by this power in the living body to generate and preserve its own heat. The greater the irritability of individuals, whether from age, sex, or peculiarity of constitution, the greater the warmth of the body: it seems also to depend, in part, upon the quickness of the circulation of the blood: thus children and small animals, whose circulation is lively, feel the cold least. The heat and the power of preserving it, differ also in the different parts of the body; those appearing to be warmest, in which there is the most copious supply of blood, as the brain, the head and neck, the lungs and central parts of the body. We see, also, that when the irritability of the body, or of any part of it, is particularly increased the heat of the part undergoes a similar change. Increased activity and motion of the body, as in walking, running, &c., and diseases of increased excitement, as fever and inflammation, produce a similar increase in the temperature of the body. All this justifies ANNUITIES. In the strict meaning of the the conclusion, that animal heat depends chiefly up- term, annuity signifies a stated sum of money payon the irritability of the body, and is thus most in-able at regular periods, and derived from a fund, or timately connected with the state of the nervous source, in which the annuitant has no further propsystem. This view is confirmed by the late exper-erty than the claim for the payment of his annuity. iments of Brodic, who ascribed this power of the living body to the influence of the brain. He destroyed the brain of a rabbit, and kept up the respiration by artificial means; but the heat of the animal regularly diminished. ANIMALCULES. Extremely small animals, generally applied to such as are not visible to the ANNOTATION. This, in matters of literature, is a brief commentary, or remark upon a book or writing, in order to clear up some passage, or draw up some conclusion from it. Thus Annotations have been written upon the Bible; and, thus the critics of the last age have made learned annotations upon all the classics. ANNUAL. An epithet for whatever happens every year, or lasts a year. Thus in Botany, plants that rise from seed sown in the spring, arrive at maturity in the summer or autumn following, producing flowers and ripe seed, and which afterwards perish in their tops and roots, are commonly regarded as annuals. Annuities are generally divided into two classes, called certain and contingent; the former meaning such as commence at a fixed time, and continue for a determinate number of years; the latter, those whose commencement, or continuance, depend on some contingency, such as the life or death of some particular person or persons. Life annuities, as they are termed, are often created by contract, whereby |