They all feem to be the rude fragments of primitive mountains, feparated from the great continent in the lapfe of time. The principal island is eleven or twelve, miles in length, and about three in breadth. It is in the form of a crefcent, and confifts of a ridge of peaked hills. Its latitude, as calculated from a meridional obfervation, is 8° 40′ north from the equator; and its longitude, according to a good chronometer, is 105° 55' eaft from Greenwich.

"The English had a fettlement on Condore until the beginning of the prefent century, when fome Malay foldiers in their pay, in refentment for fome unjustifiable treatment, murdered their fuperiors, with the exception of a very few who efcaped off the island, where no Europeans have fince refided. At the bottom of the bay was a village fituated close to a fine fandy beach, with a long range of cocoa-nut trees before it, and it was defended from the north-eaft fea by a reef of coral rocks, within which was good anchorage for small vef fels, and an eafy landing for boats. A party went on fhore from Lord Macartney's fquadron, with the precaution, however, of being armed, as large canoes were efpied within the reef, which might have been Malay pirates. Several of the inhabitants came to the beach, and with the appearance of much urbanity of manners welcomed them on shore, and conducted them to the houfe of their chief. It was a neat bamboo cabin, larger than the reft. The floor was elevated a few feet above the ground, and ftrewed with mats, on which were affembled as many men as the place could hold. It was apparently on the occafion of fome feltival, or pleasurable meeting. There was in one of the apart. ments an altar decorated with images, and the partitions hung with figures of monftrous deities; but the countenances and deportment of the people conveyed no idea of religious awe, and no perfon was feen in the pofture of prayer or adoration. A few spears stood against the wall with their points downwards, together with fome matchlocks and a fwivel gun. The drefs of thofe people was compofed chiefly of blue cotton worn loofely about them; and their flat faces and little eyes denoted a Chinese origin or relation. Several long flips of paper, hanging from the ceiling, were covered with columns of Chinese writing. One of the miffionaries, who was of the party, could not, however, in any degree, understand their converfation; but when the words were written, they inftantly became intelli. gible to him. Though their colloquial language was altogether different from what is spoken in China, yet the characters were all Chinese; and the fact was clearly afcertained on this occafion, that those characters have an equal advantage with Arabic numbers, of which the figures convey the fame meaning wherever known; whereas the letters of other languages denote not things, but elementary founds, which combined variously together, form words, or more complicated founds, conveying different ideas in different languages, though the form of their alphabet be the fame.

"The inhabitants of Pulo Condore were, it seems, Cochin Chinese, with their defcendants, who fled from their own country, in confequence of their attachment to one of its fovereigns, dethroned by feveral of his own fubjects. It was propofed to purchase provifions here; and the people promifed to have the fpecibed quantity ready, if poffible, the next day, when it was

Pulo,

tion

intended, if the weather fhould be favourable, to land the invalids. The next morning was fair in the begin. Punctua ning; and a party of pleasure was made from the Hindoitan to a small ifland clofe to Pulo Condore. They were fcarcely arrived upon it when the weather began to lower; and the boat fet off on its return, in order to reach the fhip before the impending storm should begin.

"With difficulty it reached the fhip; and as foon as the weather became fair, meffengers were dispatched on fhore to receive and pay for the provifions promised. When they arrived at the village, they were aftonished to find it abandoned. The houfes were left open, and none of the effects, except fome arms, that had on the firft vifit been perceived within them, or even of the poultry feeding about the doors, were taken away. In the principal cabin a paper was found, in the Chinese language, of which the literal tranflation purported, as nearly as it could be made, that the people of the iftand were few in number, and very poor, yet honeft, and incapable of doing mischief; but felt much terror at the arrival of fuch great fhips and powerful perfons, especially as not being able to fatisfy their wants in regard to the quantity of cattle and other provifions, of which the poor inhabitants of Pulo Condore had scarcely any to fupply, and confequently could not give the expected fatisfaction. They therefore, through dread and apprehenfion, refolved to fly to preferve their lives. That they fupplicate the great people to have pity on them; that they left all they had behind them, and only requested that their cabins might not be burnt; and conclude by proftrating themselves to the great people a hundred times."

"The writers of this letter had probably received ill treatment from other ftrangers. It was determined that they fhould not continue to think ill of all who came to vifit them. On their return they were perhaps as much furprised to find their houfes ftill entire, as their visitors had been who found they were deferted. Nothing was difturbed; and a fmall prefent, likely to be acceptable to the chief, was left for him in the principal dwelling, with a Chinefe letter, fignifying that the fhips and people were English, who called merely for refrethment, and on fair terms of purchase, without any ill intention; being a civilized nation, endowed with prin ciples of humanity, which did not allow them to plunder or injure others who happened to be weaker or fewer than themselves."

PULO Lingen, another of this cluster, is likewife a confiderable island, remarkable for a mountain in its centre, terminating in a fork like Parnaffus; but to which the unpoetical feamen below the name of affes ears. Every day prefented new islands to the view, displaying a vaft variety in form, fize, and colour. Some ifolated, and fome collected in clusters. Many were clothed with verdure; fome had tall trees growing on them; others were mere rocks, the refort of innumerable birds, and whitened with their dung.

PUNCTUATION, in grammar, is an art with which we have fa'd, in the Encyclopadia, that the ancients were entirely unacquainted. Candour obliges us to confefs that this was faid rafhly. A karned writer, in the Monthly Magazine for September 1798; who fubfcribes J. WARBURTON, has proved, we think completely, that the art is not wholly modern; and we

fhall

.tion.

ers.

Pundua fhall lay his proofs, in his own words, before our read"Some fpecies of paufes and divifions of sentences in fpeaking and writing must have been coeval with the * Qui pri. knowledge of communicating ideas by found or by fymmus periodum et cobols. Suidas fays, that the period and the colon were lon mon- difcavered and explained by Thrafy macus, about 380 ftravit. Sui- years before the Christian æra. Cicero fays, that das de Thra-Thrafy macus was the first who ftudied oratorical num. Jymacho. bers, which entirely confifted in the artificial ftructure Orat. § 33. of periods and colons. It appears from a paffage in Rbet. Lib. Ariftotle ‡, that punctuation was known in his time. The learned Dr Edward Bernard refers the know

+ Cicero

iii. c. 5.

Bern Or terat tab. 30. edit. z689.

bis erud. Li

*Cic. de Orat. 1. iii.

ledge of pointing to the time of that philofopher, and fays, that it confifted in the different positions of one fingle point. At the bottom of a letter, thus, (A.) it was equivalent to a comma; in the middle (A) it was equal to a colon; at the top (A') it denoted a period, or the conclufion of a sentence.

"This mode was eafily practifed in Greek manu. fcripts, while they were written in capitals. But when the fmall letters were adopted, that is, about the 9th century, this diftinction could not be observed; a change was therefore made in the scheme of punctuation. Unciales literas hodierno ufu dicimus eas in vetuftis codicibus, quæ prifcam formam fervant, ac folutæ funt, nec mutuò colligantur. Hujus modi litera unciales obfervan tur in libris omnibus ad nonum ufque fæculum-Montf. Palæog. Recens. p. xii.

"According to Cicero, the ancient Romans, as well as the Greeks, made ufe of points. He mentions them under the appellation of librariorum nota; and in feve. ral parts of his works he fpeaks of interpuncta claufula in orationibus,' of claufule atque interpunda ver borum,' of interpunctiones verborum,' &c.

"Seneca, who died A. D. 65, exprefsly fays, that $26. ibid. Latin writers, in his time, had been used to punctua7. Orat. pro Murana, tion. Nos t, cum fcribimus interpungere confuevimus.' $25. Muretus and Lipfius imagined that these words alluded Sen. Epift. to the infertion of a point after each word: but they certainly were mistaken; for they mult neceffarily refer to marks of punctuation in the divifion of fentences, because in the paffage in which these words occur, Seneca is fpeaking of one Q. Haterius, who made no panfes in his orations.

40.

"According to Suetonius, in his Illuft. Gram. Vale. rius Probus procured copies of many old books, and employed himself in correcting, pointing, and illuftrating them; devoting his time to this and no other part of grammar. Multa exemplaria contra&a emendare, ac diftinguere et adnotare curavit; foli huic, nec ulli præterea, grammatices parti deditus.

"It appears from hence, that in the time of Probus, or about the year 68, Latin manuscripts had not been ufually pointed, and that grammarians made it their bu finefs to fupply this deficiency.

"Quintilian, who wrote his celebrated treatise on

"Elius Donatusf published a treatise on Grammar §in the 4th century, in which he explains the diftinctio, the media diftin&io, and the fubdiflindio; that is, the ufe of a fingle point in the various pofitions already men. tioned.

"Jerom*, who had been the pupil of Donatus, in his Latin Verfion of the Scriptures, made ufe of certain diftinctions or divifions, which he calls cola and commata. It has, however, been thought probable, in that thefe divifions were not made by the addition of & any points or ftops; but were formed by writing, in Pt. one line, as many words as conftituted a clause, equivalent to what we diftinguifh by a comma or a colon. Thefe divifions were called criza or phuara; and had the appearance of fhort irregular verfes in poetry. There are fome Greek manufcripts ftill extant, which are written in this manner †.”

Mr Warburton fays, that the best treatise upon punc- Mf tuation that he has feen, was published fome years ence by an anonymous author, and dedicated to Sir Clifton b Wintringham, Bart. With that treatife we are not acquainted; but we do not think that the art of punctuation can be taught by rules. The only way to acquire it is to obferve attentively how the moft perfpicuous writers difpofe of their periods, colons, femicolons, and commas. This will make us acquainted with the importance of each; and then every writer, who knows his own meaning, muft be capable of pointing his own pages more correctly than any other man.

PYRAMIDOID, is fometimes used for the parabolic fpindle, or the folid formed by the rotation of a femiparabola about its base or greatest ordinate. See PARABOLIC Spindle.

PYRITES. See MINERALOGY in this Suppl.In the third volume of Mr Nicholfon's Philofophical Journal, we have a method of making artificial pyrites, which we fhall give in the words of the author.

"I impregnated water (fays he) very ftrongly with carbonic acid, and introducing fome iron filings, I continued the impregnation for a day or two, and afterwards allowed the water to ftand in a well corked bottle for fome days, till the acid had taken up as much iron as poffible. I then poured it into an aerating appara tus; threw up the hepatic gas from fulphuret of potash and fulphuric acid; and after having agitated the water till it had got a good dofe of the gas, I poured the water into a large bafon: this was in the evening, and next morning when I looked at it I found it covered with a pretty thick film of a moft beautiful variegated pyrites. I had fo little of it, that the only proof I had of its being this fubftance was, that it was ignited on its being placed on a hot poker."

QUADRATURE,

27.80 35.80 24 C 32D +. -7.27.80 15.80 23.80 31.80 39.80' 7. All these new feries, it is evident, converge fomewhat swifter than by the powers of 85. For in the firft feries, which has the floweft convergency, the coefficients. ,, &c. are each of them less than 1; fo that its convergency is fomewhat swifter than by the powers of 80.

16

759

“8. But another advantage of these new feries is, that the numerator and denominator of every term except the firft, in each of them, is divifible by 8; in confequence of which, the arithmetical operation by them is much facilitated, the divifion by 80 being exchanged for a divifion by 10, which is no more than removing the decimal point. Thefe feries, then, when the factors which are common to both numerators and denominators are expunged, will ftand as below (each of which ftill converging fomewhat quicker than by the powers of 80), and we fhall have the circumference of a circle

whofe diameter is 1,

ture

Quene

QUADRATURE Lines, or Lines of Quadrature, are two Qu'r lines often placed on Gunter's sector. They are marked with the letter Q, and the figures 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, -10; of which denotes the fide of a fquare, and the figures denote the fides of polygons of 5, 6, 7, &c. fides. Alfo S denotes the femidiameter of a circle, and 90 a line equal to the quadrant or 90° in circumference.

QUADRIPARTITION, is the dividing by 4, or into four equal parts. Hence quadripartite, &c. the 4th part, or something parted into four.

QUADRUPLE, is four-fold, or fomething taken four times, or multiplied by 4; and fo is the converse of quadripartition.

QUART, a meafure of capacity, being the quarter or 4th part of fome other meafure. The Englif quart is the 4th part of the gallon, and contains two pints. The Roman quart, or quartarius, was the 4th part of their congius. The French, betides their quart or pot of two pints, have various other quarts, diftinguished by the whole of which they are quarters; as quart de muid, and quart de baiffeau.

QUARTILE, an afpect of the planets when they are at the diftance of three figns or 90° from each other; and is denoted by the character.

QUELPAERT, an ifland lying in the mouth of the channel of Japan, and fubje&t to the king of COREA (See that article Encycl.) Till the last voyage of La Peroufe, this ifland was known to Europeans only by the wreck of the Dutch fhip Sparrow-hawk in 1635. On the 21st of May 1787, the French Commodore made this island, and determined the fouth point of it to be in Lat. 33° 14' north, and in Lon. 124° 15′ eaft from Paris. He ran along the whole fouth eaft fide, at fix find an inland which affords a finer afpect; a peak of leagues diftance, and fays that it is fcarcely poffible to

about a thousand toifes, which is vifible at the diftance
of eighteen or twenty leagues, occupies the middle of the
land, of which it is doubtless the refervoir; the land
gradually flopes towards the fea, whence the habitations
appear as an amphitheatre. The foil feemed to be cul-
tivated to a very great height. By the affiftance of
glaffes was perceived the divifion of fields; they were
very much parcelled out, which is the ftrongeft proof
colours, from the different ftates of cultivation, render-
of a great population. The very varied gradation of
ed the view of this ifland ftill more agreeable. Unfor
tunately, it belongs to a people who are prohibited
from all communication with strangers, and who detain
wrecked on these coafts.
in flavery those who have the misfortune to be ship
the fhip Sparrow-hawk, after a captivity of eighteen
Some of the Dutchmen of
years there, during which they received many baftina-
does, found means to take away a bark, and to cross
to Japan, from which they arrived at Batavia, and af.
terwards at Amfterdam.

QUEUE D'ARONDE, or Swallow's Tail, in fortification, is a detached or outwork, whofe fides spread or open towards the campaign, or draw narrower and closer towards the gorge. Of this kind are either fingle or double tenailles, and fome horn-works, whofe fides are not parallel, but are narrow at the gorge, and open at the head, like the figure of a fwallow's tail. On the contrary, when the fides are lefs than the gorge, the work is called contre queue d'aronde.

QUEUE

Rachitis.

RACHITIS, RICKETS (See MEDICINE-Index, Encycl.), is a disease fo formidable to children, that we believe no parent will think the following abftract of Bonhomme's memoir on the nature and treatment of it too long even for this Supplement.

The change which the bones undergo in this diforder, has long been attributed to the action of an acid on their fubitance; but this fuppofition was grounded on mere conjecture and remote analogy. Bonhomme holds the fame opinion on better grounds; and the principal notions which conftitute the bafis of his memoir are the following:

1. According to him, the nature of the rachitic diforder arises, on the one hand, from the developement of an acid approaching in its properties to the vegetable acids, particularly the oxalic; and, on the other, from the defect of phofphoric acid, of which the combination with the animal calcareous earth forms the natural bafis of the bonee, and gives them their folidity. Whence it follows, that the indication refulting from this propofition, if once adopted, would be, that the treatment of rachitis muft depend on two principal points, namely, to prevent the developement of the oxalic acid, and to re-establish the combination of the phofphoric acid with the basis of the bones to which they owe their folidity. 2. The author proves, by experiments and obfervations, in the first place, that alkaline lotions of the parts affected with rachitis contribute to their cure; next, that the calcareous phosphate taken internally is really tranfmitted by the lymphatic paffages, and contributes to offification; and, laftly, that the internal use of calcareous phosphate, whether alone or combined with the phosphate of foda, powerfully contributes to reftore the natural proportions in the fubftance of the bones, and accelerate the cure of rachitis.

With regard to the author's endeavours to prove that the calcareous acid is wanting in the bones of thofe who are disordered with rachitis, and that the developement of oxalic acid contributes to the difeafe, we must not conceal that his memoir contains views rather than abfolute proofs of these two pofitions. He declares, himself, he was not provided with the neceffary means to establish an exact and complete analyfis. He therefore prefents his ideas, in this refpect, merely as conjectures approaching to the truth.

The effect of the action of acida upon bones was before known; that is to say, that when deprived of cal careous phosphate, and reduced to the gelatinous parenchyma which forms one of their elements, they lofe

Hence it was Rachitis.

their confiftence, and become flexible. already conjectured by various physicians, that the rachitis was the effect of a peculiar acid.

A difpofition to acefcence in the firft paffages is obfervable in all infants. The odour which characterizes this acefcence is often manifeft in their breath, and even their perfpiration. The bile corrects this difpofition ; but in general the bile is wanting in rachitic infants. It does not colour their excrements, and the acids accordingly are developed in a very decided manner. They difturb the circulation, and attack and foften the bones. As it is by defect of animalization that these acids develope themselves, it follows that their character is analogous to the fermentefcible vegetable acids, and more or lefs to the oxalic acid; and that, on the contrary, the animal acid or phosphoric acid ceases to be formed, and to unite with the animal calcareous earth; whence they are deprived of the principle of their folidity. This is the theory of Citizen Bonhomme.

In order to establish this doctrine upon precife expe. riments, it was requisite to analyfe rachitic bones comparatively with those of healthy individuals of the fame age; and as it is known that the urine of rachitic fubjects depofites a great quantity of a fubftance of fparing folubility and earthy appearance, it would have been advantageous to have joined a complete analysis of this urine and its fediment. Citizen Bonhomme, not being provided with the means fufficient to make these ana lyfes, and being befides of opinion that fuch rachitic bones as are deftroyed by this malady exift in a progreffive ftate of change, which might render their analyfis fcarcely fufceptible of comparison, limited himself to a collection of fome of the moft remarkable phenomena of the urine, of the aged, the adult, and infants in the healthy ftate, of infants in the rachitic ftate, and of patients after the perfect cure of this diforder. From thefe obfervations he has deduced several important refults.

It is known, that when the utire contains difengaged phosphoric acid, as happens to aged individuals, and in fome peculiar circumstances of the fyftem, if lime water be poured in, there is a speedy depofition of calcareous phosphate. It is alfo known, that when a folution of the nitrate of mercury is poured to the fresh urine of adults, a 1ofe coloured precipitate is formed, which is a phofphate of mercury produced by the decompofition of the phosphates contained in the urine. Thefe two proofs are therefore extremely proper to afcertain the prefence of phofphoric acid, whether free or combined,