of its stripes, as well as the fineness of its shape and limbs, excels all the other quadrupeds (of Africa), either of the wild or tame kind.

Modern Univer. Hist. vol. xiv. p. 78.

3557. [Job vi. 6.] The Eastern people often make use of bread, with nothing more than salt or some such trifling addition, such as summer-savory dried and powdered. See RUSSEL'S Hist. of Aleppo, p. 27.

3558. [Job vii. 5.] While a person has the small-pox, it is observable, that the tiger, however voracious, will not touch him.

Captain HAMILTON.

3559. [ 19. Let me alone till I swallow down my spittle This is, among the Arabs, a proverbial saying to the present day; by which is understood, "Give me leave to rest after my fatigue."

See Biblical Researches, vol. i. p. 84.

3560. [Job ix. 9.] He has made Ursa Major, and the star called the heart of Scorpio, and the Pleiades, and the most secret parts of the South.

Essay for a New Translation, part ii. p. 59.

In twenty-five thousand nine hundred and twenty years, the fixed stars appear to perform their long revolution

eastward.

The practice of observing the stars began, with the rudiments of civil society, in the country of those, whom we call Chaldeans; from which it was propagated into Egypt, India, Greece, Italy, and Scandinavia, before the reign of SISAC or SA'CYA, who by conquest spread a new system of religion and philosophy from the Nile to the Ganges about a thousand. years before Christ. (Works of Sir W. JONES, vol. i. Pp. 115, 283, 348.)- Arcturus, rising in September, ushers in the Autumnal quarter. Orion makes its first appearance in December, at the commencement of Winter. The Pleiades lead the Spring; and, during Summer, Sirius and four others issue successively from the chambers of the south.

3561.

There are in all only sixteen fixed stars besides the sun, (supposed to he one of them), that can indisputably be accounted of the first magnitude; of which four are Extra Zodiacum; viz. Capella, Arcturus, Lucida Lyræ, and Lucida Aquilæ, to the north; four in the way of the moon and planets, viz Palilicium, Cor Leonis, Spica, and Cor Scorpii; and five to the southward, that are seen in England, viz. the foot and right shoulder of Orion, Sirius Procijon, and Fomalhaut; and there are three more that never rise in our horizon, viz. Canopus, Acharuâr, and the foot of the Centaur (Abs. Phil Trans. R. S. vol. vi. p. 458.) — The adventurous Idumeans, who first. gave names to the stars, and hazarded long voyages in ships of their own construction, could be no other than a branch of the Hindoo race, under the name of Phenicians.

As this order was carried into execution with every mark of horror and cruelty, it soon became most shocking to see so many living people with their teeth and noses resembling the skulls of the deceased.

Asiat. Research. vol. ii. p. 187.

3566. [Job xix. 20.] The winds from the eastward, in passing over the snowy mountains and dry sandy deserts of Thibet in Tartary, come divested of all vapor or moisture, and produce the same parching effect as the hot dry winds in more southerly situations. The natives say, a direct exposure to those winds occasions the loss of their foreteeth; and our faithful guide, says Mr. ROBERT SAUNDERS, ascribed that defect in himself to this cause. We escaped, he adds, with the loss of the skin from the greatest part of our faces. Abs. Phil. Trans. (1789), p. 546.

3567. [ 24.] The Indians use an iron style for writing on palm-leaves. (BARTOLOMEO, by Johnston, p. 70.) The Antients used wax-tablets to write their first thoughts on, as the wax easily admitted obliteration. There is in the cabinet of Herculaneum, an edged instrument for this kind of writing, rounded off at one end. - The tablets there have on the edges a thick rim of silver; but the wood of them is burnt to a coal.

WINCKELMAN's Herculaneum, p. 110.

perceive its approach at a distance; and, in general, have time to avoid it, or turn out of its ways, as it generally extends but to a moderate breadth. However, when it is extremely rapid, or very extensive, as sometimes is the case, no swiftness, no art, can avail; nothing then remains, but to meet death with fortitude, and submit to be buried alive with resignation. GOLDSMITH'S Hist. of the Earth, &c. vol. i. p. 363.

3570. [Job xxiv. 5.] The most remarkable property in wild asses is, that after carrying the first load, their celerity leaves them, their dangerous ferocity is lost, and they soon contract the stupid look and dullness peculiar to the assinine species. It is also observable, that these creatures will not permit a horse to live among them; and if one of them happens to stray into the places where they feed, they all fall on him, and, without giving him the liberty of flying from them, they bite and kick him till they leave him dead on the spot. ULLOA'S Voy., by Adams; 4th. Edit. vol. i. p. 301.

3571. [—8.] Those Arabs who cannot afford a tent, spread out a cloth on four or six stakes; and others spread their cloth near a tree, or endeavour to shelter themselves from the heat and the rain in the cavitics of the rocks. NIEBUHR, Voy. en Arabie, tom. i. p. 187.

3572. [- 16.] Such houses were built of mud, or at best of sun-dried bricks.

Το

3569. [Job xxii. 10, 11.] Of all those terrible tempests that deform the face of Nature, and repress human presumption, the sandy tempests of Arabia and Africa, are the most terrible, and strike the imagination most strongly. conceive a proper idea of these, we are by no means to suppose them resembling those whirlwinds of dust that we sometimes see scattering in our air, and sprinkling their contents upon our roads, or meadows. The sand-storm of Africa exhibits a very different appearance. As the sand of which the whirlwind is composed, is excessively fine, and almost resembles the parts of water, its motion entirely resembles that of a fluid; and the whole plain seems to float onward, like a slow inundation. The body of sand thus rolling, is deep enough to bury houses and palaces in its bosom travellers who are crossing those extensive deserts,

3573. [Job xxvi. 7.] He hangeth the earth on nothing ; -the constricting mixture of ethers.

PENROSE, Let. xvi. WHISTON, in his Prælect. Phys. Mathem. Prop. lxxxviii. Corol. 2 says, the common Centre of Gravity of things in this world, being only a Mathematical Point, is plainly a Nothing.

3574. [Job xxviii. 18. Rubies] Dr. Hide shews, that the Chaldee Jews mention the loadstone in their eldest private writings; and that the Arabians understood its uses.

This stone is six times mentioned in Scripture, by the name Peninim (Hebr.).

See HUTCHINSON's Confusion of Tongues,

p. 117.

N. B. Peninim is the Hebrew word, here translated rubies.

3575. [Job xxviii. 25. To make the weight for the winds] By barometrical observations, taken every hour from the latitude of 1 degree north to I degree south, it appears, that the combined actions of the sun and moon produce a flux and reflux of the atmosphere, causing in the barometer the variation of a line and of the English division, which supposes a rise and fall in the atmosphere of about a hundred feet while the combined action of the sun and moon, according to Mr. Bernoulli, causes an elevation in the sea at the equator of only seven feet.

ΤΟ

PEROUSE'S Voyage round the World, vol. ii. pp. 518, 523.

He weigheth the waters by measure] The fluid part of the contents of the earth, its perpetual oscillation, its excess of quantity over the solid parts, its uniform opposition to the solid parts (all the LAND having water for its antipodes), seem to indicate that the principle of the earth's rotation is a consequence of the peculiar disposition and adjustment of its component parts. The oscillations of the waters necessarily change constantly the centre of the earth's motions, and force it to perform its daily motion round that centre, being at once an effect of the motion, the cause of its continuance, and also the cause of the centrifugal impulse. For this impulse or force, we have the oscillation of the vast Pacific ocean, ten thousand miles over, besides the Atlantic of three thousand, and the vast seas round the south pole, adapted in that situation to increase the centrifugal force when the earth is in its perihelion. — An excess of water or oscillation in either hemisphere, as in our southern hemisphere, and an excess of land or defect of oscillation in the other hemisphere, as in our northern hemisphere, will occasion corresponding increases and decreases of centrifugal force and motion, producing an obliquity of the ecliptic, and leading to all the varied phenomena of the seasons. In the months of November, December, and January, the earth is at its nearest distance from the sun, and the centripetal force is then the greatest; but in these months the direction of the forces is in the southern hemisphere, where we find a vast excess of oscillating fluid;and of course the tides, or oscillations, become equal to the increased centrifugal force required to counteract the increase of centripetal force, and the eartly ascends from its perihelion, till the pressure towards the sun gets the better of the centrifugal force, and then the earth descends from its aphelion. According to this hypothesis, the centripetal force throughout the universe, particularly that towards the sun in our system, is caused by a substratum, fluid, or medium, that fills infinite extension, something like

the ether of Newton; and which, pressing every extraneous substance from every side, is the common agent by which are mechanically and necessarily effected all the phenomena of gravitation.

The above theory supposes a centripetal impulse arising from the pressure of the substratum, or subtle medium filling all space, which inclines the planetary bodies mechanically towards each other, on their near sides, by a very slight and finely diminished force; and which is counteracted by a centrifugal force, created by a rotative motion; which again is itself a consequence of a nicely adjusted arrangement of the integral parts of the masses with respect to density and fluidity. It states the result of the combined forces to be a progressive motion of all the 'systems of bodies round their common centres of motion, such as we observe in the solar system, and such as doubtless exists in every system in the universe, whether of separate bodies of planets and satellites - of suns, comets, and planets - of suns among themselves or of systems of suns in regard to each

other.

--

See Month. Mag. for Oct. 1811, pp. 209, 214.

3576. [Job xxix. 7.] The people of quality in Asia, cause carpets and cushions to be carried wherever they please, inorder to repose themselves on them more agreeably. See No. 2908. CHARDIN.

3577. [Job xxx. 22.] The life of man is here beautifully compared to a transitory sand-storm. At Waadi el Halboub, says BRUCE, we saw in the desert prodigious pillars of sand at different distances, sometimes moving with great celerity, and then stalking with a majestic slowness: at intervals we thought they were coming in a few minutes to overwhelm us; again they would retreat so as to be almost out of sight. Their tops, reaching to the very clouds, often separated from their bodies, and were then utterly dispersed in the air. Sometimes they were broken near the middle, as if struck with a large cannon shot. About noon they began. to advance upon us with considerable swiftness, the wind being very strong behind them. Eleven of them ranged along side of us about the distance of three miles. The greatest diameter of the largest appeared at that distance as if it would measure ten feet. These phantoms of the plain before four o'clock in the afternoon, had all of them fallen to the ground and disappeared. On an ensuing day similar pillars were again seen; but thicker, and apparently containing more sand. The sun shining through them, exhibited

-

3578. [Job xxx. 31. Organ] Hugab, which the Chaldee renders abuba. Now abub in its primary sense signifies an ear of corn; and in its derivatives abuba, anbuba, and ambubaja, it comes to denote progressively in the lapse of ages, a corn-pipe, a reed, a sonorous tube of wood, brass, or other metal. See among Dr. GREGORY'S Posthumous Tracts, that entitled "What time the Nicene Creed began to be sung in the Church," p. 48, &c.

3579: [Job xxxi. 26-28.] In Africa, on the first appearance of the new moon, which the Negroes look upon to be newly created, the Pagan natives, as well as Mahometans, say a short prayer; and this seems to be the only visible adoration which the Kafirs (unbelievers) offer up to the Supreme Being. This prayer is pronounced in a whisper; the party holding up his hands before his face its purport is to return thanks to God for his kindness through the existence of the past moon, and to solicit a continuation of his favor during that of the new one. At the conclusion, they spit on their hands, and rub them over their faces.

MUNGO PARK's Travels, p. 271.

3580. [ 36. I would - bind it as a crown to me] When the Mogul, by letters, sends his commands to any of his governors, those papers are entertained with as much respect as if he himself were present; for the governor, having intelligence that such letters are come near him, himself, with other inferior officers, ride forth to meet the messenger that brings them: and as soon as he sees those letters, he alights from his horse, falls down ou the earth, then takes them from the messenger, and lays them on his head whereon he binds them fast: then returning to his place of public meeting, he reads and answers them. See Exod. xiii. 16. Deut. vi. 8.

See No. 2186.

Sir T. ROE'S Embassy, p. 453.

3581. [Job xxxii. 19.] Aub, in general, signifies to

3583. [Job xxxvii. 6.] Thus it should seem, in Job's time, snows fell in Arabia, that is, toward the thirtieth degree of North Latitude. St. PIERRE's Studies of Nature, vol. i. p. 223.

3584. [9.] Mr. SAVARY speaking of the southern wind, which blows in Egypt from February to May, says, torrents of burning sand roll before it, the firmament is enveloped in a thick veil, the sun appears of the color of blood, and sometimes whole caravans are buried by it in the trackless

waste.

3585. [ 10.] The water at the bottoms of all deep lakes is constantly at the same temperature (that of 41 degrees Fahrenheit), summer and winter, without any sensible variation. — I have hopes, says Count RUMFORD, of being able to shew why all changes of temperature, in transparent liquids, must necessarily take place at their surfaces. - In a Paper read before the R. S. February 2d, 1804, he combats the hypothesis of modern chemists respecting the materiality of heat, contending that caloric is nothing more than the motion of constituent particles of bodies among themselves: an hypothesis,' says he, 'of antient date, and which always appeared to me to be very probable'.

(― By a transparent fluid, he explains himself to mean such a one as admits the calorific and frigorific rays, emitted by hot and by cold bodies, to pass freely through it, without obstructing their passage, or diminishing their intensities'.)

-The rapid undulations,' he argues, occasioned in the surrounding ethereal fluid, by the swift vibrations of the hot body, will act as calorific rays on the neighbouring colder solid bodies; and the slower undulations, occasioned by the vibrations of those colder bodies, will act as frigorific rays on the hot body; and these reciprocal actions will continue, but with decreasing intensity, till the hot body, and those colder bodies which surround it, shall, in consequence of these

actions, have acquired the same temperature, or until their vibrations have become isochronous.'

Phil. Trans. 1804, p. 25.

of cold, Scorpio ?

and drought of the star called the heart of

Essay for a New Translation, part ii. p. 59.

3586. [Job xxxvii. 18.] In the year 1663, James Gregory of Aberdeen in Scotland published in his Optics the first idea and figure of a reflecting telescope, without being able to find in his own country a workman capable of executing it aright. Abbe PLUCHE.

3592. [Job xxxviii. 31.] "Will it be in thy power to unite the brilliant stars, the Pleiades; and to dissipate the attraction of the Arctic Pole." - The Antients had observed seven stars in the Pleiades. Six only are now perceptible. The seventh disappeared at the siege of Troy. Ovid says, it was so affected by the fate of that unfortunate city, as from grief to cover its face with its hand. This passage in Job seems to presage such disappearance. St. PIERRE's Studies of Nature, vol. ii. p. 53.

3593. [Job xxxix. 6.] The food of the wild asses is the saltest plants of the deserts, such as the atriplex, kali, and chenopodium; and also the bitter milky tribes of herbs. They also prefer salt water to fresh. Hence the propriety of Bochart's rendering what we have translated "barren land," salt places. BINGLEY.

3594. [9-12.] The (single-horned) Rhinoceros is said to run with great swiftness, and from his strength and impenetrable covering, is capable of rushing with resistless violence through woods and obstacles of every kind; the smaller trees bending like twigs as he passes them. The Asiatics sometimes tame and bring these animals into the field of battle, to strike terror into their enemies. They are, however, in general so unmanageable, that they do more harm than good; and in their fury it is not uncommon for them to turn on their masters.

The single-horned Rhinoceros is a native of several parts of India; as well as of the islands of Ceylon, Java and Sumatra. It is also found in Ethiopia.

BINGLEY'S Animal Biography, vol. i. pp. 116, 118.