The Cabbala is properly the oral law of the Jews, delivered down by word of mouth from father to son; and it is to these interpretations of the written law that our Saviour's censure is to be applied, when he reproves the Jews for making the commands of God of none effect, through their traditions.

CABBALISTS, the Jewish doctors, who profess the study of the cabbala. In the opinion of these men, there is not a word, letter, or accent in the law, without some mystery in it. The Jews are divided into two general sects; the Karaites, whe refuse to receive either tradition or the talmud, or any thing but the pure text of scripture; and the rabbinists, or talmudits, who, besides this, receive the traditions of the ancients, and follow the talmud. The latter are again divided into two other sects; pure rabbinists, who explain the scripture, in its natural sense, by grammar, history, and tradition; and cabbalists, who, to discover hidden mystical senses, which they suppose God to have couched therein, make use of the cabbala, and the mystical methods above mentioned.

CABECA, or CABESSE, a name given to the finest silks in the East Indies.

CABIN, in the sea language, a small room or apartment, whereof there are a great many in several parts of a ship, particularly on the quarter-deck, and on each side of the steerage, for the officers of the ship to lie in. The great cabin is the chief of all, and that which properly belongs to the captain or chief commander.

CABINET, the most retired place in the finest part of a building, set apart for writing, studying, or preserving any thing that is precious. A complete apartment consists of a hall, anti-chamber, chamber, and cabinet, with a gallery on one side. Hence we say, a cabinet of paintings, curiosities, &c.

CABINET, in natural history. This term is applied, with some latitude, to any small or select collection of natural curiosities, without regarding whether the articles it comprises be contained within a cabinet or not. Thus, for instance, it is not unfrequent with us to speak of cabinets of animals, cabinets of birds, of fishes, reptiles, and other similar articles, as a mode of expressing such an assemblage of natural history, as may not be of sufficient importance to deserve the epithet of a museum. The word cabinet, in its usual acceptation with the naturalist, is not therefore confined solely to the boxes,

press, or chest of drawers, in which articles of curiosity are contained, but implies at once both the repository itself, and the articles arranged in it.

Cabinets of fossils, shells, and corals, have the drawers sometimes divided for this purpose into small compartments, by means of an inner frame work, that lets into the bottom of the drawer; but trays of various sizes, made either of card or pasteboard, have a much neater appear ance, and are preferred by many, as being more commodious, and more easily shifted from one part of the drawer to another, as the addition of new acquisitions in any particular tribe or genus may require. Nothing can be more desirable than to have the cabinets well made, that the drawers may slide with perfect ease in their proper recesses in the press. The drawers should fit so close, when shut up, as to preclude the entrance of dust of any kind. The cabinet itself should be also placed in a dry situation, as there are few articles of natural history that are not affected in a greater or less degree by an excess of damp, or even heat. The drawers are uniformly made shallow, the bottom of each is lined with cork, and the top is covered with glass, through which the insect may be seen, without being exposed to the air, or accidents that would arise from their being touched by the incautious spectator.

Cabinets for insects are built of various sizes, from those which contain ten or a dozen drawers to others that include above a hundred. They are usually of mahogany, but it is immaterial whether they be made of mahogany or wainscot; some have them of cedar, but seldom of deal, or any other wood of a soft texture. The drawers may be from fifteen to thirty inches in length, the same, or nearly the same, in breadth, and about two or three inches in depth. The cork with which the bottoms are lined must be chosen as free from cracks and holes as possible; it should be also glued into the drawers, to prevent its warping, and be filed or cut very level; and after this the irregularities on the surface of the cork should be rubbed down with pumicestone, till the whole is rendered perfectly smooth, before the paper is pasted over it. The paper should be of a fine smooth and even grain, but neither very stout nor highly stiffened with size, lest it should turn the points of the pins, when placing the insects in the drawers. The top of every drawer must be cover

and is cultivated in England, but has never yet produced flowers. C. suaveolens, sweet-scented cacalia, has a perennial creeping root, sending out many stalks; these rise to the height of seven or eight feet, are streaked, quite simple, and ternated by corymbs of white flowers; the peduncles above the ramifications have bristle-shaped bractes scattered over them, which are smooth. It is a native of Virginia and Canada; flowering in August, and ripening its seeds in October. The roots which have been cast out of the Chelsea gardens have been carried by the tide to a great distance, and lodg. ed on the banks of the rivers, and fastened themselves to the ground, where they have increased so much as almost to appear as if they were natives. C. articulata, jointed stalked cacalia, is an elegant plant, smooth and glaucous, of an unpleasant flavour: stems many, fleshy, round, upright, but weak, marked with scars from the fallen leaves, and painted with lines of a deep green; florets twenty-five, a little longer than the calyx, white, with border acute, and spreading much; anthers dark purple; stigma bifid, yellow; seeds linear, crowned with a white sessile egret. Found at the Cape of Good Hope. It flowers in November.

CACAO, the chocolate tree, in botany. See THEOBROMA.

CACHRYS, in botany, a genus of the Pentandria Digynia class and order. Natural order of Umbellatæ. Essential character: fruit subovate, angular, suberous, cortical. There are five species, of which C. libanotis, smooth-seeded cachrys, has a thick fleshy root like fennel which runs deep into the ground, sending out several narrow pinnate leaves, ending in many points; between these arises a smooth jointed stalk, about three feet high, which is terminated by large umbels of yellow flowers. Native of Sicily. C. tenuifolia, five-leaved cachrys: root perennial, fleshy, gratefully aromatic, with branches an inch thick, a cubit in length, covered with a smooth bark; umbels almost a span in diameter, consisting of from sixteen to twenty rays, about two inches in length; flowers yellow. Native of Montpellier, flowering in May.

CACTUS, in botany, a genus of the Icosandria Monogynia class and order. Natural order of Succulenta. Cacti, Jussieu. Essential character: calyx oneleafed, superior, imbricate; corolla manifold; berry one-celled, many-seeded. There are twenty-seven species. This genus consists of succulent plants, per

manent in duration, singular and various in structure; generally without leaves, having the stem or branches jointed; for the most part armed with spines in bun. dles, with which, in many species, bristles are intermixed. The bundles of spines are placed on the top of the tubercles in the C. mammillaris, smaller melon thistle, which is tubercled all over, and produces its flowers between the tubercles. In C. melocactus, great melon thistle, or turk's cap, the spines are ranged in a single row on the ridge of the ribs when it is cut through the middle, the inside is found to be a soft, green, fleshy, substance, very full of moisture. The flowers and fruit are produced in circles round the upper part of the cap. C. pitajaya, torch thistle, or torch wood, is upright, and grows to the height of eight or ten feet. The flower is whitish, very handsome, but has scarcely any smell; it is half a foot in diameter, and blows in the night. The fruit is of the form and size of a hen's egg, of a shining scarlet colour on the outside; the pulp is white, fleshy, sweet, eatable, full of small black seeds. C. grandiflorus, great flowering creeping cereus; and C. flagelliformis, pink flowering creeping cereus, are the same with those already mentioned, except that the stems are weak, and cannot support themselves; they therefore seek assistance, and throw out roots from the stem like ivy. C. moniliformis, necklace Indian fig; the branches are jointed, and very much flatted; the bundles of apines or bristles are scattered over the surface, and the flowers are produced from the edge of the branches. C. phyllanthus, spleenwortleaved Indian fig, has the branches much thinner, and may be fairly denominated leaves; they are indented along the edge, and the flowers come out singly from the indentures. The fruit in some of the sorts is small, like currants, but in most it is large, and shaped like a fig; whence their name of Indian fig. These singular plants are all natives of the continent of South America and the West Indian islands.

CADENCE, in music, according to the ancients, is a series of a certain number of notes, in a certain interval, which strike the ear agreeably, and especially at the end of the song, stanza, &c. It consists ordinarily of three notes. Cadence, in the modern music, may be defined, a certain conclusion of a song, or of the parts of a song, which divide it, as it were, into so many numbers or periods. It is when the parts terminate in a chord

or note, the ear seeming naturally to ex pect it; and is much the same in a song, as the period that closes the sense in a paragraph of a discourse. See MUSIC. CADENCE, in rhetoric and poetry, the running of verse or prose, otherwise called the numbers, and by the ancients ρυθμος.

CADENCE, in dancing, is when the several steps and motions follow, or correspond, to the notes and measures of the music.

CADENCE is used as a military term, and implies a very regular and uniform method of marching, by the drum and music; it may not, says a good writer on this subject, be improperly called mathematical marching; for after the length of the step is determined, the time and distance may be found.

CADET is a military term, denoting a young gentleman who chooses to carry arms in a marching regiment as a private man. His views are, to acquire some knowledge of the art of war, and to obtain a commission in the army. Cadet differs from volunteer, as the former takes pay, whereas the latter serves without any pay. There is a company of gentlemen cadets maintained at Woolwich, at the King's expense, where they are taught all the sciences necessary to form a complete officer.

CADI, or CADHI, a judge of the civil affairs in the Turkish empire. It is generally taken for the judge of a town; judges of provinces being distinguished by the appellation of mollas.

CADIA, in botany, a genus of the Decandria Monogynia class and order. Es. sential character: calyx five-cleft; petals five, equal, obcordate, legume, many. seeded. There is but one species; viz. C. purpurea, purple flowered cadia, is a shrub rising to the height of three feet. The leaves are pinnate, coming out alternately; leaflets from 15 to 30 pairs, linear, retuse, the nerve ending in a little point. The corolla is rose coloured, or rather the colour of a peach blossom; legume somewhat less than a span in length, containing eight or ten seeds. It is a native of Arabia,

CADUCI, in botany, the name of a class of plants in Linnæus's Methodus Calycina, consisting of plants of which the calyx is a simple perianthium, supporting a single flower, or fructification, and falling off either before or with the petals. It stands opposed to the Persistentes, in the same method, and is exemplified in mustard, sinapi, and ranunculus. The term

caducous is expressive of the shortest period of duration, and has different acceptations, according to the different parts of plants to which it is applied. A calyx is said to be caducous, which drops at the first opening of the petals, or even before, as in the poppy. Petals are caducous, which are scarcely unfolded before they fall off, as in the meadow rue; and such leaves have obtained this denomination as fall before the end of the summer.

CADUS, in antiquity, a wine vessel of a certain capacity, containing a 80 amphore, or firkins, each of which, according to the best accounts, held nine gal. lons.

CÆCUM, or CoсUM, in anatomy, the blind gut, or first of the large intestines. See ANATOMY,

CÆNOPTERIS, in botany, a genus of the Cryptogamia Filices. Generic character: fructifications in submarginal lateral lines, covered with a membrane gaping on the outside. There is but one species; viz. C. rhizophylla, common peduncle or rachis, round, brown, and smooth, elongated at the tip, leafless; bulbiferous rooting; partial peduncles green, flatted, sometimes winged. Fructifications in short, solitary, lateral lines, beginning at the nerve towards the base of the pinnules, and covered with an entire scariose brown membrane. Native of the island of Dominica.

CÆSALPINA, in botany, a genus of the Decandria Monogynia class and order. Natural order of Lomentaceæ. Leguminosa, Jussieu. Essential character: calyx five parted, the lowest segment longer, and slightly arched; stamen woolly at the base; petals five; legume compressed. There are eight species, of which C. elata is a tree with bipinnate leaves of seven pairs; the leaflets fifteen pairs, quite entire, minute; flowers large, and of a yellow colour; filaments very dark purple, villose at the base. It is a native of India. C. pulcherrima, the Barbadoes flower fence, rises with a straight stalk ten or twelve feet high: it is covered with a smooth grey bark it divides into several spreading branches at the top, arched at each joint with two short, strong, crooked spines. The branches are terminated by loose spikes of flowers, which are sometimes forined into a kind of pyramid, and at others they are dispos ed more in form of an umbel. The peduncle of each flower is nearly three inches long. The petals are roundish at the top they spread open, and are beau

tifully variegated with a deep red or orange colour, yellow, and some spots of green, and have a very agreeaole odour. This beautiful plant is a native of both Indies. It is planted in hedges to divide the lands in Barbadoes, whence it has the name of flower-fence.

CÆSAR, in Roman antiquity, a title borne by all the emperors, from Julius Cæsar to the destruction of the empire. It was also used as a title of distinction for the intended or presumptive heir of the empire, as king of the Romans is now used for that of the German empire. This title took its rise from the surname of the first emperor, C. Julius Cæsar, which, by a decree of the senate, all the succeeding emperors were to bear. Un der his successor, the appellation of Augustus being appropriated to the emperors, in compliment to that prince, the title Cæsar was given to the second person in the empire, though still it continued to be given to the first; and hence the difference betwixt Cæsar used simply, and Cæsar with the addition of Imperator Augustus.

CESARIAN section, in midwifery, a chirurgical operation, by which the fetus is delivered from the womb of its mother, when it cannot be done in the natural way

See MIDWIFERY.

ČESULIA, in botany, a genus of the Syngenesia Equalis, Receptacle chaffy; seeds involved in the chaff; calyx threeleaved. Two species viz. C. axillaris, a native of the East Indies, and C. radicans, a native of Guinea.

CÆSURA, in the ancient poetry, is when, in the scanning of a verse, a word is divided, so as one part seems cut off, and goes to a different foot from the

verses of twelve or thirteen syllables, the cæsure must always be on the sixth; in verses of ten, on the fourth; and in those of twelve, on the sixth; verses of eight syllables must not have any ca

sure

CÆTERIS paribus, a Latin term, often used by mathematical and physical wri ters, the words literally signifying “the rest, or the other things, being alike, or equal." Thus we say, the heavier the bullet, "cæteris paribus," the greater the range: i. e. by how much the bullet is heavier, if the length and diameter of the piece, and the quantity and strength of the powder be the same, by so much will the utmost range or distance of a piece of ordnance be greater. Thus also, in a physical way, we say, the velocity and quantity of the blood circulating, in a given time, through any section of an artery, will, "cæteris paribus," be according to its diameter, and nearness to or distance from the heart.

CAILLE (NICHOAAS LEWIS DE LA,) in biography, an eminent French mathematician and astronomer, was born in the diocese of Rheims in 1713. His father having quitted the army, in which he had served, amused himself in his retirement with studying mathematics and mechanics, in which he proved the happy author of several inventions of considerable use

to the public. From this example of his father, our author, almost in his infancy, took a fancy to mechaincs, which proved of signal service to him in his maturer years. At school he discov ered early tokens of genius. He next came to Paris in 1729, where he studi ed the classics, philosophy, and mathematics. He afterwards studied divinity in the College de Navarre, with the view embracing the ecclesiastical life, but never entered into priest's orders. His turn for astronomy soon connected him with the celebrated Cassini, who procured him an apartment in the observatory: where, assisted by the councils of this master, he soon acquired a name among the astronomers. In 1739 he was joined with M. Cassini de Thury, son to M. Cassini, in verifying the meridian through the whole extent of France; and in the same year he was named professor of mathematics in the College of Mazarine. In 1741 he was admitted into the Academy of Sciences, and had many excellent papers inserted in their memoirs; besides which, he published several useful treatises, viz. Elements of Geometry, Astronomy, Mechanics, and Optics. He also