The Corn Horsetail, E. arvense, L., one of the commonest species, is a troublesoms weed in clayey cornfields. The fructification appears in March and April, terminating in short unbranched stems. It is said to produce diarrhoea in such cattle as eat it. The Bog Horsetail, E. palustre, is said to possess similar properties. It grows in marshes, ditches, pools, and drains in meadows, and sometimes obstructs the flow of water with its dense matted roots. The fructification in this species is cylindrical, and in that of E. limosnm, L., which grows in similar situations, it is ovate in outline. The largest British species, E. maximum, L., grows in wet sandy declivities by railway embankments or streams, &c., and is remarkable for its beauty, due to the abundance of its elegant branches and the alternately green and whits appearance of the stem. In this species the fructification is conical or lanceolate, and is found in the month of April, on short stout unbranched steins, which have large loose sheaths. Horses appear to be fond of this species, and in Sweden it is stored for use as winter fodder. E. hyemale, L., commonly known as the Dutch rush, is much more abundant in Holland than in Britain; it is used for polishing purposes, and also in medicine by homoeopathic practitioners. E. variegatum, Sail., grows on wet sandy ground, and serves by means of its fibrous roots to bind the sand together. The horsetails are remarkable for the large quantity of silica they contain, which often amounts to half the weight of the ash yielded by burning them, and the roots contain a quantity of starch.
HORSHAM, a parliamentary borough and market-town of Sussex, England, is pleas intly situated in the midst of a fertile country near the source of the Arun and on the Mid- Sussex Railway, 37J miles south of London. It consists chiefly of two streets crossing each other at right angles, and a picturesque causeway leading to the church, adorned with rows of trees. Within recent years the town has under gone great improvements, and it now possesses well-paved streets and some handsome buildings. In the vicinity there are several fine mansions. Works were erected in 1865 for supplying the town with water from a well in the neighbourhood. Ths principal buildings are the parish church, often repaired, and in 1865 entensively restored, a very ancient structure in the Early English style, with the remains of Norman work, having a lofty tower surmounted by a spire, and containing several fine monuments and tombs, and two brasses ; the grammar school, founded in 1540 and rebuilt in 1840, recommended to be used as a middle class school by the Endowed Schools Commission ; the corn exchange, erected in 1766 in the Italian style, with a room for assemblies and public meetings ; the Roman Catholic chapel of St John in the Early English style, erected in 1866 at the cost of the duchess of Norfolk. A school board was formed in 1873, which, besides having the management of most of the schools previously existing, has erected new buildings in the east end of the town, at a cost of above 4000. Thera are a number of small charities, and almshouses were founded in 1842 by the Rev. Jarvis Kenrick. The town possesses a tannery, a foundry, a carriage factory, and several flour-mills. The area of the parish and parliamentary borough is 10,741 acres, and the population in 1871 was 7831.
There is a tradition which derives the name of Horsham from Horsa the brother of Hengist, who is said to have been slain in the vicinity ; others derive it from horsham, the horses meadow ; but the most probable derivation is Hurst-Ham or the Ham (village) in the Hurst (forest). The town is a borough by prescrip tion, and returned two members to parliament from the 23d year of the reign of Edward I. to the 2d of William IV., when it was deprived of one of its members. It has never been incorporated, and it is now governed by a local board.
HORSLEY, John (c. 1685–1732), a distinguished anti quary of the last century, the date and place of whose birth as well as his parentage are uncertain. The late Rev. John Hodgson, the historian of Northumberland, in a short memoir of him published in 1831, countenances the belief that he was born in 1685, at Pinkie, in the parish of Inveresk and county of Midlothian. This statement he reconciles with Horsley s subsequent history, by supposing that his father was a Northumberland Nonconformist, who had migrated to Scotland during the reign of Charles II. or James II., but returned to England soon after the Revolution of 1688. On the other hand, Mr J. H. Hinde, in " Notes " on the life of Horsley, printed in the Archceologia JEliana for February 1865, leans to the opinion that he was a native of Newcastle-on-Tyne, and the son of Charles Horsley, a member of the Tailors Company of that town, an opinion to which colour is given by some expressions of Horsley s own in the Britannia Romano,.
Horsley undoubtedly received his early education at the grammar school of Newcastle, and completed it at the university of Edinburgh, where he was admitted to the degree of master of arts on the 29th of April 1701. For years afterwards nothing seems to be known of him, though some of them must have been given to the study of theology in connexion with the body of dissenters to which he belonged. There is some evidence tending to show that Horsley " was settled in Morpeth as a Presbyterian minister as early as 1709." Mr Hodgson, however, thinks that up to 1721, at which time he was residing at Widdrington, " he had not received ordination, but preached as a licentiate," Even if he was ordained then his stay at the latter place was probably prolonged beyond that date; for he communicated to the Philosophical Transactions notes on the rainfall there in the years 1722 and 1723. Mr Hinde also shows that during these years, in addition to his other duties, whatever their nature, " he certainly followed a secular employment as agent to the York Buildings Company, who had contracted to purchase and were then in possession of the Widdrington estates." Soon after settling at Morpeth, Horsley began to supplement his professional income, probably slender, by opening a private school. The enterprise was successful. Respect for his character and abilities attracted pupils irrespective of religious connexion, one of them becoming afterwards Dean of Westminster. He likewise found time to give courses of lectures on mechanics and hydrostatics in Morpeth, Alnwick, and Newcastle ; and it was doubtless in recog nition of his scientific tastes and attainments that he was elected on the 23d April 1730 a Fellow of the Royal Society.
