Page:Cyclopaedia, Chambers - Supplement, Volume 1.djvu/823

This page needs to be proofread.

GRA

G R A

two as different provinces as may be, the one dry the other moift, or other wife differing as much as may be ; thus the contrary qualities of the one will prevent the deftruc~tiou of the other. Thefe are the three great rules to prevent the corrupting of corn; but when the mifchief is once begun, it will prove very difficult to flop it : all the care that can be employed fhould therefore be taken in regard to thefe.

The two great cautions to be obferved in the erecting of granaries are to make them fufficiently ftrong, and to ex- pofe them to the moil drying winds. The ordering of the corn in many parts of England is thus : to feparate it from duft and other impurities after it is thrafhed, they tofs it with fhovels from one end to the other of a long and large room; the lighter fubftances fall down in the middle of the room, and the corn only is carried from fide to fide, or end to end of it. After this they fcreen the corn, and then bringing it into the granaries, it is fpread about half a foot thick, and turned from time to time about twice in a week ; once a week they alfo repeat thefcreening it. This fort of management they continue about two months, and after that they lay it a foot thick for two months more, and in this time they turn it once a week, or twice, if the feafon be damp, and now and then fcreen it again. After about ■five or fix months they raife it to five or fix feet tlucknefs in the heaps, and then they turn it once or twice in a month, and fcreen it now and then. When it has lain two years, or more, they turn it once in two months, and fcreen it once a quarter, and how long foever it is kept, the oftner the turning and fcreening is repeated, the better the grain will be found to keep. It is proper to leave an area of a yard wide on every fide the

~" heap of corn, and other empty fpaces, into which they turn

« and tofs- the corn as often as they find occafion. In Kent they make two fquare holes at each end of the floor, and one round in the middle, by means of which they throw the corn out of the upper into the lower rooms, and fo up again, to turn and air it the better. Their fcreens are made

■ with two partitions, to feparate the duft from the corn which falls into a bag, and when fufficiently full this is thrown away, the pure and good corn remaining behind. Com has by thefe means been kept m our granaries thirty years ; and it is obferved; that the longer it is kept the more flower it yields in proportion to the corn, and the purer and whiter the bread is, the fuperfluous humidity only eva- porating in the keeping. At Zurich in Swifferland they keep corn eighty years, or longer, by the fame fort of • methods. The public granaries at Dantzick are feven, eight, or nine ftories high, having a funnel in the midft of every floor to

' let down the corn from one to another. They are built fo iecurely, that though every way furrounded with water the corn contracts no damp, and the veffels have the conve- nience of coming up to the walls for their lading. The Ruffians preferve their corn in fubterranean granaries of the figure of a fugar loaf, wide below and narrow at top : the fides are well plaiftered, and the top covered with ftones. They are very careful to have the corn well dried before it is laid into thefe ftore-houfes, and often dry it by means of ovens ; the fummer dry weather being too ftiort to effedfc it fufficiently. Phil. Tranf. N° 26.

GRANATARIUS, in middle age writers, an officer in mo- naileries who took care of the provifions. Hofm. Lex.

GRANATUS, the garnet, in natural hiftory, the name of a very beautiful gem, the colour of which is red with a bUieifh caft.

This is a gem very fubjeit to faults and blemifhes, and is of different degrees of colour in its different fpecimens, and when perfectly pure and well coloured, it is little inferior to the ruby in beauty.

It is of a middle degree of hardnefs, between the fapphireand common cryftal, and is found of various fizes, from that of alarge pin's head, to an inch in diameter; but fuch largeones are very rare, the largeft of thofe ufually found not exceed- ing a fifth of that fize. It is almoff. always found oblong, or of an irregularly rounded, and pebble like figure, and never in angular columns. Its furfaces are never fo naturally fmoothand polifhed as thofe of the ruby are, and its colour is a ftrong red, which taken in different lights, never fails to fhew the blucifh caft. Its degree of colour is very diffe- rent in the different fpecimens, and it wants much of the brightnefs of the ruby, as well in its polifhed as in its na- tive or rough ftate. Thefe are the determinate characters by which the garnet is to be known from all the other red gems. Among our lapidaries and jewellers, genuine gar- nets, according to their different degrees of colour, are known by three different names. 1 . Thegamet fimply fo call- ed ; this is the fineft and moft valuable kind. It is of a very deep blood red, with a faint admixture of blue. 2. The rock ruby. This is the name they very improperly give to the garnet, when it is of a very ftrong but not deep red, and has a fairer caft of the blue. This when pure and pcr- fedlj is an extremely elegant gem. 3. The /crane, or as they

fpeak it, thefe'rain garnet. This is the name by. which they call thofe garnets, which are of a yet brighter red, ap- proaching to the colour of native cinnabar, with a faint tinge of blue. 4, The almandine ; this is the name given to the garnet when of the fame admixture of tinge with what they call the rock ruby, but only a little paler. Hill's Hift. of Foff. p. 591.

Thefe are the names by which the more expert among out- jewellers diftinguifh the various appearances of the garnet ; and which, though to the naturalift they are but varieties of the fame ftone, yet they are to them diftin£t fpecies of gems, fince they are of feveral different values. But among the lefs judicious of thefe artificers, the names are ftrangely confounded with one another, and even with different ftones of other kinds ; the bluer amethyfts being by fome of them called rock rubies, and the deeper hyacinths forane garnets.

The antients, though they have not diftinguifhed this gem by any peculiar name, yet feem to have been very well ac- quainted with it, and mention its feveral appearances, as to its different degrees of colour, as fo many fpecies of the; carbuncle, the common name by which they called all the red gems. And their trsezenius, fandafter, and fandarefus, feem to have been only varieties of it.

Some authors, of very diftinguifhing judgments, have taken the deeper garnet to be the very fpecies of gem known by the name carbuncle by Theophraftus ; but on comparing the two ftones together, it appears plainly that the garnet^ whofe colour goes off into a blue, could never give them the idea of a lighted charcoal, or make fo true a fire colour in the fun, as the carbuncle whofe deep red goes off into a fcarlet;

Our jewellers very properly diftinguifh their garnets into Oriental and Occidental, for garnets are found both in Eu- rope and in the Eaft Indies. The Oriental ones are princi- pally from Calicut, Conanor, and Cambay ; the European ones are common in Italy, Hungary, and Bohemia. The Oriental ones are found loofe among the earth of mountains, or fands of rivers ; but the European are moft frequently found immerfed in vafl quantities in ftrata of brownifh black foft ftones interfperfed with fpangles of talc; Hill's Hift. of Foff. p. 591.

GRAND [CycL)-^-Grand days, are thofe days in the terms, which are folemnly kept in the inns of Court and Chancer,}", i. e. Candlemas Day in Hillary term, Afcenfion-day in Eafter term, St. John the Baptift's-day, in Trinity term, and All Saints day, in Michaelmas term ; which days are dies non juridici, or no days in court.

Grand Dorfal, in anatomy, the name given by Win- flow, and the other French anatomifts, to the mufcle, ge- nerally called latijfimus dorfi. By fome, the anifcalptor, and aniterjor, and by Fallopius quartus humeri.

GRANDA, one of the many names ufed by chemifts for the philofophers ftone.

GRANDGOR, is ufed in Scotland for the pox; In the Phl- lofophical Tr an factions, N°. 469 § 5. we have a procla- mation of king James the IV. of Scotland, ordering all who had this difeafe, or who had attended others under it, forth- with to repair to an ifland in the Firth of Forth. If the grandgor was the pox, and that this diftemper came into' Europe at the fiege of Naples in 1495. it mult have made a very quick progrefs to caufe fuch an alarm at Edinburgh in 1497.

GRANDO, in natural hiftory, a ftone more ufually called ehalazias. See Chalazias.

GRANITE (Cycl.)— -The Graniiesare defined to be ftones com- pofed of feparate and very large concretions, rudely compacted together of greathardnefs ; giving fire with fteel, net ferment- ing with acids; and flowly calcining in aftrona; fire. Of this genus we have only three known fpecies. 1 . A hard black and white one common in the coarfe works about London, and called by our workmen moor ftone. See MooRj?one. 2. The red, black and white one, commonly known by the name of Oriental granite, and 3. A pale whitifh red one, variegated with black and yellow. Hill's Hirt. of Foft". p. 498.

The Oriental granite of the moderns, is the ftone defcribed by the antients under the name of pyropccdlcs and fyenites, and from its extreme hardnefs and beauty, has been always greatly cfteemed. It is, when in its rough ftate, a very rude, coarfe and irregular mafs, but of a very firm and compact ftruiture, and is of a very beautiful pale red, variegated with white and black ; the red parts are of an irregular ftructure and marbly look. The white are tabular, or compofed of flat concretions^ and many of them are very bright and pellucid, others of rough furfaces, and femi- opake ; the former are compofed of a talky, the latter of an earthy cryftah The black parts are plainly foliaceous, and are compofed of a black cryftalline talc. And beiide thefe, there are in different parts of the ftone many flakes both of black and white unaltered talc. The whole is of a very An- gular hardnefs, but takes an extremely elegant and beautiful polifh. Hill's Hift. of Foff. ibid.

i*