Page:Cyclopaedia, Chambers - Supplement, Volume 1.djvu/590

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DEL

which much refemblcs the Dolphin in many refpe£s, has alfo been indifcriminately called by the fame name with that fifli. The name Parous marinus, a fca-hog, porco pefce, and as we fpeak it, PorpeJJe, and the fruer fckwe'm of the Dutch, all being, tho' indifcriminately, names of the phoc^ena, properly called the Porpeje, and the Delphinus or Dolphin. It would be well however if naturalifts, and indeed all who write or fpeak on thele fu ejects, would keep up the proper diftinflions, always ufing Delphinus as the name of the Dolphin, and phooena and the Englifh name Porpejfe only as the names of that other fifh diftin£tively from the Dolphin.

The difference between the two is, that the Dolphin has a much longer fnout or nofe, flicking out fomewhat in form of a goofe's bill, and is in the whole a longer, flenderer, more flefhy, and lefs fat fifh, and is the larger of the two. The Phocana or Porpejfe is fatter, fmaller, broader back'd, and has a more obtufe and fhorter fnout. See the article Phoc jena. The Dolphin is a cetaceous fifh, covered with a fmooth, but very tough and firm skin; its body is long and round- ed, and its back prominent; its nofe long, and rounded at the end ; its mouth very large, but {hutting very nicely and exactly ; its teeth fmall and fharp, and placed like the teeth of a comb; its tongue broad and ferrated ; its eyes large, but fo cover'd with the skin that the pupil only appears. Its eyes are placed near the angle of the mouth ; and behind thefe are its ears, or auditory paflages, which are very fmall. Above the fnout it has a double pipe, by wh'ch it throws out the wa- ter neceffarily taken in with food. It has two fharp finsjoin'd like the fhoulders of a human body to the mufcles, which move them. In the middle of the back it has alfo one fin, which is partly cartilaginous and partly bony, but has no fpines or prickles. Its back is black, and its belly white, the flefh is blackifh, and it has regular lungs in its breaft of a more tough confidence than thofe of quadrupeds. Thefe fifh are fup- pofed to live a great number of years. The figures of them on fome antique marbles and coins, which reprefent them crook- ed, are unnatural ; and have been conceived originally by per- fons who had feen them playing about on the furface of the water, in which cafe they fometimes deceive the eye, and ap- pear crooked : from thefe probably our fign-painters took their idea of the Dolphin. They are an extremely fwift fifh in fwimming, and are able to live a long time out of the water, tho' they can continue but a little while under it without air; hence they are fometimes taken up dead by fifhermen in their nets, having been fuffbeated by being forcibly kept under water : they have been known to live three days on dry ground. milughby, Hift. Pifc. p. 30. DELTOIDES (Cycl.) —This is a very thick mufcle, covering the upper part of the arm, and forming what is termed the frump of the fhoulder. It is made up of eighteen or twenty fmall fingle mufcles in an oppofite fituation in refpect to each other, and united by middle tendons, fo that taken all together they form feveral penniform mufcles. The outer furface ap- pears almoft wholly flefhy, but on the inner we fee the feveral tendons. All thefe fmall mufcles are formed and difpofed fo, as to make a confiderable extent at the upper part ; from whence they contract: gradually in breadth, till they end in a thick ftrong tendon, by which the whole mufcle is terminated in a point.

Above, it is fixed in the whole inferior labium of the fpina fca- pulse, in the convex or long edge of the acromion, and in the third part of the anterior edge of the clavicle next that apo- phyfis ; it furrounds the angle formed by the articulation of thefe two bones by a particular flope and fold contrived for that purpofe: from thence it runs down above one third of the length of the os humeri, where it is inferted by a thick ten- don, in the large mufcular rough impreffion below the bony ridge, which goes from the great tuberofity of the head of the bone, and forms the higheft border of the groove in that part of the bone.

This mufcle may be diftinguifhed into three principal portions, one of which is fixed in the fpine of the fcapula, one in the acromium, and one in the clavicle: thefe are feparated from one another by a fmall quantity of fat, or a cellular fubftance, chiefly near the bafts of the mufcle. The middle or ftrongeft portion runs down almoft directly to its infertion in the os hu- meri ; the lateral portions feem to end fooner : but that is on- ly becaufe they turn inward toward the bone, and thereby form the biggeft and thickeft part of the tendon ; the anterior or clavicular portion fends off fome fibres to the bone before it reaches the tendon. The portion fixed in the fpine of the fcapula fends backward a thin aponeurofis, which is strengthen- ed by another tendinous or ligamentary feries of fibres. This aponeurofis is fixed in the bafis of the fcapula below the fpine, and from thence is extended toward the inferior angle. The other feries begins at the fpine, and ends near the fame angle at the beginning of the inferior cofta. Thefe, together with the great tendon, feem to contribute to the formation of the ten- dinous expanfion which covers the mufcles of the arm. This mufcle at its upper part joins the infertion of the trape- zium, and below that of the brachials. Anteriorly it joins the pectoralis major, being diftinguifhed from it only by a fmall

DEL

line of fat, or of a cellular fubftance, and a fmall vein called the ccphalica. It covers the head of the os humeri, and ad- heres to the capfular ligament of the joint, and likewife covers the infertion of the pedtoralis major. IVmJIvw's Anatomv p. 178. Deltoide Leaf, among botaniits. See Leaf. DELUBRUM, in roman antiquity, a temple with a large fp 3ce of confecrated ground round it. Vid Pitifc. Lex. Ant. in voc See the articleTEMPLE, Cycl, DELUGE (Cycl.) — The moil full and exprefs accounts which we have of the univerfal Deluge are in the holy fcriptures ; yet when we confider thefe carefully, they feem to contain onlv a fmall part of that amazing ftory, and for the want of more circumftances leave us in the dark as to many points, and give us caufe to wonder at the reception and agreement of the ani- mals in the ark, and at its prelervation in that immenfe ocean ■ efpecially at that time when God caufed the winds to blow to dry up the waters, particularly when it firft came to the ground. All the objections however that have been, or can be ftarted in regard to this hiftory, leave us no room to doubt the reality of the event. We are well allured that there once was fuch an univerfal Deluge, which overfpread the whole furface of the earth, and the marine bodies found in all parts at land fufficient- ly prove that all parts were once covered with water. Whether we allow that thefe parts of the earth have arifen out of the fea, or that the fea has at fome time rifen up to them, there are immenfe difficulties in the way of either fyftem, and the fcriptures give us no light into the cafe. The burfting open of the fountains of the great deep, which is given as one of the caufes of this flood, muft have been by far the greateft, for the raining forty days could be of little confe- quence toward the drowning of the world j for fuppofing it to rain as much in one day as it does with us in a whole year, this is only about forty inches depth, and therefore forty days of fuch rain could only cover the whole furface of the earth with about twenty-two fathom of water ; and this would only be fufficient to drown the low lands next the fea, but the much greater part of the furface of the earth would efcape. What is meant by the fountains of the abyfs being broken up, and the opening of the windows of heaven, feems not fo eafy to be underftood, but is intended to indicate the waters of the Delug e, which was, according to the Mofaic philofophy, from the letting in of the waters above the firmament, men- tioned Gen. i. 7. by the windows of heaven ; and the riling up out of the ground of the waters under the earth, fpoken of in the fecond commandment ; or, as fome chufe to under- stand it, by the overflowing of the fea rifmg upon the land, which is exprefled by the breaking up of the fountains of the great deep, according to their fenfe of the word. Upon the whole we may reafonably conclude, that by one of thefe expreffions is meant an extraordinary fall of waters from the heavens, not as rain, but in one continued body ; as if the firmament fpoken of by Mofes to fuftain the fupra-aerial fea had been broken in, and at the fame time the ocean flowed in upon the land, fo as to cover all with water. This cataftrophe could not have been eftefied in the common way of underftanding the accounts of it, but by an increafe of the waters, and as the withdrawing the flood afterwards muft in that cafe have been effeaed only by the again annihilating thofe waters, the fyftem feems to labour under more difficulties than any other which has been advanced. A change of the center of gravity about which the center of the fea is formed, feems not an improbable conjecture, till it appears that this center of gravity was the natural refult of the materials of which the globe of the earth is compofed, and by no means alterable while the parts of it remain in their pre- fent pofition : and belides, this fuppofition could not drown the whole globe, but only that part of it toward which the center of gravity was changed, leaving the other hemifphere all dry.

Dr. Burnet's hypothefis is full of infufliciencies, and contra- dicts not only the phyfical principles of nature, but alfo the account given of the Deluge in the holy fcriptures more than any other fyftem that has been advanced, notwithftanding the feeming agreement he finds between them. And Dr. Hook's opinion of the compreffion of a fhell of earth into a prolate fpheroid, thereby prefling out the water of an abyfs under the earth, may very well account for drowning two oppofite zones of the globe ; but the middle zone being by much the Greater part of the earth's furface, muft by this means be raifed higher from the center, and confequendy ariie more out of the water than before.

Dr. Halley refolves it into the fliock of a comet, or fome other fuch tranlient body. The great agitation that muft have been occafioned by it in the fea, he obferves, would be fuificient to account for ail thofe ftrange appearances of heaping vaft quan- tities of earth and high cliffs upon beds of ihells, which once were the bottom of the fea, and railing up mountains where none were before : fuch a fhock as this impelling the folid parts would occafion the waters, and all fluid fubftances that were unconfined as the fea is, to run violently with an impetus to- ward that part of the globe where the blow was received, and

that