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annual feast of Bacchus in the city of Elis; the glass tomb of Belus, which was full of oil, and which, when once emptied by Xerxes, could not again be filled; the weeping statues, and the perpetual lamps of the ancients, were all the obvious effects of the equilibrium and pressure of fluids. Although we have no direct evidence that the philosophers of antiquity were skilled in mechanics, yet there are indications of their knowledge, by no means equivocal, in the erection of the Egyptian obelisks, and in the transportation of huge masses of stone, and their subsequent elevation to great heights in their temples. The powers which they employed, and the mechanism by which they operated, have been studiously concealed; but their existence may be inferred from results otherwise inexplicable; and the inference derives additional confirmation from the mechanical arrangements which seem to have formed a part of their religious impostures. When, in some of the infamous mysteries of ancient Rome, the unfortunate victims were carried off by the gods, there is reason to believe that they were hurried away by the power of machinery; and when Apollonius, conducted by the Indian sages to the temple of their god, felt the earth rising and falling beneath his feet like the agitated sea, he was, no doubt, placed upon a moving floor capable of imitating the heavings of the waves. The rapid descent of those who consulted the oracle in the cave of Trophonius; the moving tripods which Apollonius saw in the Indian temples; the walking statues at Antium, and in the temple of Hierapolis; and the wooden pigeon of Archytas,-are specimens of the mechanical resources of the ancient magic. But of all the sciences, optics is the most fertile in marvellous expedients. The power of bringing the remotest objects within the very grasp of the observer, and of swelling into gigantic magnitude the almost invisible bodies of the material world, never fails to inspire with astonishment even those who understand the means by which these prodigies are accomplished. The ancients, indeed, were not acquainted with those combinations of lenses and mirrors which constitute the telescope and the microscope; but they must have been familiar with the property of lenses and mirrors to form erect and inverted images of objects. There is reason to think that they employed them to effect the apparition of their gods; and in some of the descriptions of the optical displays

which hallowed their ancient temples, we recognise all the transformations of the modern phantasmagoria. It would be an interesting pursuit to embody the information which history supplies respecting the fables and incantations of the ancient superstitions, and to show how far they can be explained by the scientific knowledge which then prevailed. This task has, to a certain extent, been performed by M. Eusebe Salverte, in a work on the occult sciences, which has recently appeared; but, notwithstanding the ingenuity and learning which it displays, the individual facts are too scanty to support the speculations of the author, and the descriptions are too meagre to satisfy the curiosity of the reader.*

NEFF, Felix; a young Protestant clergyman, who devoted his life to the preaching of the divine word to the scattered inhabitants of the dreary regions called the High Alps of France. He received a tolerable education from the pastor of the village, near Geneva, in which he was born. He learned the trade of a nursery gardener; but his passion for romantic adventure made him enter as a private soldier in the service of Geneva, in 1815. At sixteen, he published a valuable little treatise on the culture of trees. Within two years after he became a soldier, he was made a sergeant of artillery, in consequence of his theoretical and practical knowledge of mathematics. He at length quitted the army to devote himself to theological studies. He first assumed the functions of a pastor-catechist, and was ultimately called to the duties which he was so anxious to undertake, by one of those Independent congregations of England whose ministers are received in the Protestant churches of France. He was ordained in London, in 1823, and, within six months after, was appointed pastor of the department of the High Alps. In order to visit his various flocks, the pastor had to travel from his fixed residence, twelve miles in a western direction, sixty in an eastern, twenty in a southern, and thirty-three in a northern; and Neff persevered, in all seasons, in passing on foot from one district to another, climbing mountains covered with snow, forcing a way through the valleys,

* We must caution the young reader against some of the views given in M. Salverte's work. In his anxiety to account for every thing miraculous by, natural causes, he has ascribed to the

same origin some of those events, in sacred histo ry, which Christians cannot but regard as the re sult of divine agency.

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choked up by the masses of rocks that were hurled down by the winter's storm, and partaking of the coarse fare and imperfect shelter of the peasant's hut. His first attempt at improving his people was to impart an idea of domestic convenience. Chimneys and windows to their hovels were luxuries to which few of them had aspired, till he taught them how easy it was to make a passage for the smoke, and to procure admittance for the light and air. He next convinced them that warmth might be obtained more wholesomely than by pigging together in stables, from which the muck of the cattle was removed but once during the year. He taught them, also, how to cultivate their lands to advantage, and the proper remedies to be used in cases of sickness. He improved their manners, which had been so savage that the women had not been permitted to sit at table with their husbands or brothers, but stood behind them, and received morsels from their hands. He labored hard to diffuse knowledge among them; and, with a view of providing proper teachers for these isolated tracts, he persuaded a number of young persons to assemble, during the most dreary part of the year, when they could not labor in the fields, and to work hard with him in the attainment of knowledge, which they were afterwards to spread among their neighbors. His unremitting labors finally destroyed his health, and he was obliged to quit the inclement district in which he had accomplished so much good. He lingered for some time in a debilitated state, and at length died at Geneva, April 12, 1829.

NEPHRITIS. (See Kidney.) NEPTUNIAN HYPOTHESIS. (See Geology.)

NEW GUERNSEY. (See Egmont Island.) NEW SARUM. (See Salisbury.) NEWT; an obsolete name for a species of small lizard. (See Lizard.) NIEPER. (See Dnieper.) NIGHT-JAR. (See Goat-Sucker.) NONIUS. (See Vernier.) NOTE TIRONIANE. (See Abbreviations.) NUSHIRWAN. (See Persia.) NUTCRACKER. (See Nuthatch.)

0.

OBSTETRICS (See Midwifery.) OGDEN, Matthias, of New Jersey, a brigadier-general in the army of the U. States, was among the earliest and most

decided of those who assumed arts to resist the arbitrary measures of the motner country. He joined the provincial army at Cambridge, and soon afterwards ac companied Arnold in his long and toil some march to Canada. At the siege of Quebec, he was wounded, and carried from the engagement. On his return, he was invested with the command of a regiment, and retained it until the conclusion of the war, after which he was promoted to the rank of brigadier. He was a man of great liberality and amiableness of character. He died at Elizabethtown, New Jersey, March 31, 1791.

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OIL PLANT. (See Sesamum Orientale.) ONAGER. (See Ballista.) ORCHARD BIRD. (See Oriole.) ORLANDO. (See Roland.) ORNITHORYNCHUS. (See Platypus.) ORR, Hugh, was born January 13, 1717, at Lochwinioch, in the county of Renfrew, Scotland. He was educated a gunsmith and house-lock filer; and at the age of twenty came to America. One year he resided at Easton, Massachusetts, and the next he removed to Bridgewater. There he built a shop, and set u the first trip-hammer in that part of the country, where he was for several year the only maker of edge tools, of whic he manufactured many sorts. In 1748 he made five hundred muskets for the province of Massachusetts Bay, and, during the revolutionary war, commenced anew the manufacturing of arms. concert with a French gentleman, he set up a foundery for the casting of cannon. These were cast solid and bored: most of them were iron; a few were brass. A great quantity of cannon-shot was also cast at the same furnace, and, together with the cannon, formed a valuable acquisition to the country at that period. Besides spreading the manufacture of edge tools through various parts of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut, Mr. Orr originated the business of exporting flax-seed from the part of the country in which he resided, and proba bly gave the first impulse to the manufacturing of cotton. For several years, he was elected a senator for the county of Plymouth, and enjoyed the intimacy and confidence of governor Bowdoin. He died in December, 1798, in the eightysecond year of his age. In private life, he was exemplary; and his attachment to his adopted country was pure and ardent.

OSBORN, John, was born at Sandwich, Massachusetts, in 1713, and graduated at Harvard college in 1737, where he was

distinguished for his Latin verses, and his talent for mathematical investigations. After leaving the university, he resided some time at his father's house, at Eastham, in a state of irresolution as to the career he should pursue; but at length, in compliance with the wishes of that parent, he turned his attention to theology, with the design of obtaining a license to preach, and delivered a sermon before an association of the neighboring clergy in Chatham, which commanded their applause by its ingenuity, though its orthodoxy was not altogether perfect. Having subsequently undertaken the study of medicine, he duly qualified himself for practice, and settled as a physician in Middletown, Connecticut. About that period, he married. He died May 31, 1753, at the age of forty. A short time previous to his death, he wrote to his sister that he had "lingered along almost two years a life not worth having," in consequence of an illness, which was the effect of a fever, and which terminated his existence. Of the effusions of his muse, his Whaling Song is best known. An elegiac epistle, written to one sister on the death of another, is also deserving of mention. In disposition, he was mild and cheerful.

OWLER. (See Alder.)

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PACOS; a variety of llama. (See Llama.) PALMISTRY. (See Chiromancy.) PAMPELMOES. (See Shaddock.) PANTOGRAPH. (See Silhouette.) PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. It is not our purpose to go at all into the history of the much-agitated question of parliamentary reform, nor to touch upon the course of argument pursued by its opponents and its advocates. But having already given a view of the English constitution as it was, we shall now give merely the statistics of the acts for amending the representation of England, Scotland and Ireland. We shall only premise, that when the whigs came into power, in 1830, they found themselves not very securely seated; and, as a measure likely to strengthen their influence, the long-talkedof subject of parliamentary reform was revived. On the 1st of March, 1831, the ministerial plan of reform in the representation was accordingly brought forward by lord John Russell; and, after a debate of seven days, leave was given to

bring in three bills for reforming the representation of England, Scotland and Ireland. After a debate of two days, the second reading of the bill for England was carried by a majority of 302 to 301, on the 22d. April 18, on the motion of lord John Russell, that the house resolve itself into a committee on the reform bill, general Gascoyne moved, that, in the opinion of the house, the number of representatives for England and Wales (which, by the bill, would be seventy less than before) ought not to be diminished. This motion being carried against ministers, after a debate of two nights, by a majority of 299 to 291, parliament was dissolved on the 22d. The new parliament assembled on the 14th of June; and, on the 24th, lord John Russell obtained leave to bring in a bill for reforming the representation. This bill, which, in many respects, differed from the former, and in which, in particular, the diminution of the number of members was abandoned, finally passed the house, after long and warm debates, on the 21st September, by 349 to 236, but was rejected by the lords by a vote of 199 to 158. On the 20th of October, the parliament was prorogued; and, being again opened on the 6th of December, lord John Russell, for the third time, introduced a reform bill, which passed the commons on the 23d of March: in the lords, however, ministers being left in the minority, on a motion to amend by lord Lyndhurst (May 7), earl Grey advised the creation of such a number of new peers as was necessary to carry through the bill, tendering his resignation as the alternative. The latter was accepted; and lord Wellington made an ineffectual attempt to form a ministry. The whigs were, therefore, reinstated (May 18th), with the assurance of having the necessary means of carrying the measure The bill then passed the lords by a vote of 166 to 22, a portion of the opposition having withdrawn their resistance, rather than force ministers to make a large creation of new peers ; and, on the 7th of June, it received the royal assent. Separate acts were passed for amending the representation of Scotland and that of Ireland. By the act for England, the county members, or knights of the shire, were increased from 94 to 159, as appears from the following table, in which we shall take occasion to give the results of the census of 1831, taken since the greater part of this work was prepared.

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Besides the great change thus effected in equalizing the distribution of members in the counties (as each county before returned two knights, except Yorkshire, which returned four), the qualifications of the voters were also modified, so as to extend the elective franchise to every male person in actual occupation of a freehold for life, or of lands, or tenements of copy-hold (see the article Tenure, in the body of the work), of the clear yearly value of not less than ten pounds above all rents and charges. The following tables will show the changes which have been made in the representation of cities and boroughs. From an examination of these tables, it will appear that fifty-six rotten boroughs have been wholly disfranchised; thirty boroughs have been deprived of one member; and one borough (Melcombe Regis and Weymouth) of two members; twenty-two boroughs have been created in England,

which return two members each; nineteen boroughs returning one member each. Besides taking away the right of election from a stone wall in one place, from a green mound in another, and a ruined house in a third, and vesting it in large, or, at least, in tolerably numerous constituencies in new boroughs, the act has introduced something like uniformity in the qualifications of the voters of the old boroughs and cities, and extended the elective franchise from close corporations, or privileged bodies, to the citizens at large. It gives the right of voting in the elections to every male person of full age, not subject to any legal incapacity, who occupies, in the city or borough, as owner or tenant, any house, ware-house, counting-house, shop, or other building, of the clear yearly value of not less than ten pounds, provided such person shall have paid the poor rates and assessed taxes.

Boroughs disfranchised by the Reform Act.

All these boroughs (Higham Ferrers excepted, which returned but one member) formerly sent two members each to parliament.

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