N I T
out, but will difcharge a large quantity of milk, fo as to take down the inflammation and tumor in the breaft. When the fucking power of the glafs is grown weak, the hole at the fide is to be opened, and the milk poured out ; the glafs is
then to be heated again, and the hole beii
- ftc
ipped again, is
to be a fecond time applied, and fo on, till the intention is fuily anfwered. Heijlcr's Surgery, P. 1. p. i i. NippLE-Tt-w-r, in botany, &C. See Lampsana. NIQUI, in zoology, the name of a filh of the cucullus kind, approaching to the figure of that fpecies commonly called draeo, and aranem marinus, and in Englifh the weci'cr. its hea'd is large and thick, and its mouth large and without teeth. The under jaw is longer than the upper, and the an- terior part of the body js foincwhat broad, and flatted ; the hinder part, efpecially toward the tail, is rounded Its ufua! length is four or five inches ; the eyes are (mail, but they are placed, like thofe' of the crab, out of the head. It is covered with a mixt colour of brown, black, and yellow on the back and fides, and is white on the belly ; it is fpotted all over the head, back, and fides, with fmall black fpots as big as poppy feeds. It is common about the Ameri can fhores,and is eatable when the liver and gall are taken out, otherwife it is faid to be poifonous. Marggrmje's Hift. Eraf. See Tab. of Fifb.es, N° 4q. NIK, in the materia medica, a name given by the Arabian phyficians to the pigment, or colour, made from the ifati', or woad. The word is derived from the Latin nigrum, black. The colour of this pigment v, indeed, not black, but a deep blue; but we find numerous inftances of the Greeks and Latins, both ufing the proper appellatives of black for the fame colour, a deep blue. We find Tbeo- phraftus calls the fine deep blue oriental fapphires black, prelaws?, and Virgil expreffes the deep blue of the violet by the word nigra. Many of the Arabians call this plant, and the pigment, or colour, made from it, by the name nil, but that is a lefs determinate name, as they call alfo the feed of a kind of bindweed with blue flowers by the fame name. See Nil. NISAN, a month of the Hebrews, anfwering to our March, and which fomctimes takes from February, or April, accord- ing to the courfe of the moon. It was made the firft month ' of the facred year at the coming out of Egypt. This mouth jbalt he unto you the beginning >f months, it JJiail be the firft month of the year* to you. Exod. xii. 2.
It was the feven th month of the civil year. Mofes calls it
abib. The name nifan is only fince the time of Ezra, and
the return from the captivity of Babylon. Cahnet Diet. Bibl.
NISSOLIA, in botany, the name of a genus of plants, the
characters of which are thefe : the flowers, and fruit, are
the fame with thofe of the lathyrus, but the leaves fraud
iingle, and the {talks have no ciafpers, or tendrils at their ends.
There is only one known fpecies of nijjoiia, which is the
plant called by fome the fmall, one-leaved lathyrm. Jou/n.
Inft. p. 656.
NISUS, in zoology, a name by which many authors call the
accipiter fringiuarius, or fparrow-bawk. Ray's Ornithol
p. 51. See the article Ering I llarius accipiter.
Nisus is alfo a name ufed by fome old naturalifts for the ha-
liaitui, or aquila marina, called in Englifh the fea eagle, or
ofprey. Willtigbby, Ornithol p. 29.
Nisus is likewife a name given by the barbarous writers of the
middle ages to alabajhr. NITEDUl.A, in zoology, the field moufe. See Mus. NITIDUM folium, among botanifls. See Leaf. NITRE (Cy.l.) — Nitre is a fait found immerfed in imper- ceptible particles, in earthy fubftanoes, as the particles of me- tals in their ores, and is difcoverable in thefe bodies by an acrid and pungent tafte, and a fenfation of eoldnefs with which it affects the tongue : fomctimes alfo it is found na- tive, and pure, in form of an efflorefcence, or fhapclefs fait, either on its ore, or on old walls, and vields, after folution, hexacdral prifmatic cryftals.
Many have been of opinion that nitre was, in part at leaf}, an animal fait, and that where it was found on old walls, it was owing to the effluvia of animal bodies once inhabiting the place ; but we find it now in vaft quantities in fevcrai of the marly earths of the Eaft -Indies, and fome other places, which, however, though they abound with it, when they are in the naked cliffs, expofed to the air in a proper fituation, yet when dug up from any depths in the earth, the fame fub- ftances arc not found to contain any of this fait. This marly earth is frequent inChina,Perfia,and many parts of the eaft, and is cholen tor working from places where it ftands in barren cliffs, on hills facing the northern, or eaftern winds t he manner of their feparating nitre from this earth, is as fol- lows ; ,l, ey J}. |.i rge pks5 whi( , h (h coat Qver ^ ^ hj _
Jide with a (tiff and firm clay; this they fill half full of water, and into it throw the earth. When the water has flood fome days to imbibe the fait, they draw it off into other pits, defended by flight walls on all but the north-cart fide. Here the fun exhaling the water, the fait which it had imbibed, af- files itfelf to the fides of the pi, in fmall, brownifh, white, hexaedral, but very imperfect cryftals, which are what we re- ceive from the Eaft-Indies, under the name of rouah nitre
N I T
This is the way the greateft quantity of this fait is made, but it is alio procured from divers other materials, and by many other methods. In many of the eaftern nations, the ruinsof old buddings expofed to the north-cart winds, and flickered from ram, have their walls covered with efflorefcences of a ni'r ou5 (alt, which is ufually thrown with the earth into the nitre pit Earths moiftened with the excrements of animals as ;ne earths of pigeon-houfcs, and the like, all afford more or iefs nitre and, in France, vaft quantities are annually made from lime rubbifh, and the ruins of old buildings.
By which ever of thefe methods nitre is procured, it is ever in all refpedts the fame fait. Its cryftals are of a hexacdral prif- matic form, terminated by hexacdral pyramids. It difi'olves in a moderate fire, and does not flame, unlefs a coal, or fome other fulphureous body fall in. It requires near feven times Its own weight of water to diflblve it perfectly. Hill's Hift ofFoff p. 393,391,395.
This fait gives the greateft of all proofs of the e&Bs of fynthetical, or recompofn.g cbemiftry. it is firft feparatcd, or analyfcd, in the following manner : take two pounds of refined faltpetre in fine powder; pour upon it one third of its weight of oil of vitriol, and diftill it in a glafs rc . tort, in a ftrong fand beat, there will be produced a ftrono- acid fpirit of nitre, which cannot, by anv experiment, be found to participate at all of the nature of the oil of vi- triol ufed ill its preparation. Then take a pound of frefh nitre, melt it in a crucible, and throw into it, at times pieces of charcoal, till it will no longer keep in fufion with the fame degree of fire ; then encreafe the fire, and melt it
a, ; d u . th<: " p . our ". " lto a P r0 P er vefla s l«"re it to cool of itlelt I his is fixed mire, and is an alkali ; now difl'olve this fixed nitre in water, and exactly faturatc that water with the acid fpirit of nitre before diftilled, this compound liquor will, by (hireling, ftioot into true and perfect cryftals of nitre. And the experiment fucceeds as well, if a folution of pot allies, or any other fixed alkali, be ufed ' inftead of that of fixed nitre. Shaw's Lectures, p. 170. Of all the falts which afford us thofe ftron<! liquors com- monly known by the name of the mineral diflblvents fait petre, or nitre, is the only one which yields red vapours or whole fpirit rifes in form of red vapours, as toon as it is feparated by means of fire; but the reafon of this fact has never been accounted for, till Mr. Hellot explained it to the Academy at Paris, in one of his memoirs. Of the chemifts who have before treated of it, fome ima- gined that the redntfs of the vapours was owing to fome part of the fulphureous fubflances which the fait had im- bibed from the urine and dung of animals where it was formed ; others that this colour was owing to particles of (ire carried up with the vapours in their afcent. But thefe are weak conjeftures, fince, if the firft were the cafe, the mixtures of fal armoniac with common fait of vitriol, ou»ht to yield red vapours in diftillation, which never is the cafe- and, if the latter be fuppofed, it is not eafy to fay, why oil of vitriol does not arife in the fame coloured vapours- fince it requires a more violent, and longer continued fire to raife it.
Vitriol is added to nitre in the diftillations which yield thefe red vapours, and it is the firft point to be determined 111 the inveftigating this pbu-nomenon, whether the vapours owe their colour truly to the nitre, or whether they borrow it from the additional vitriol. Baldwin, Stahl, and many others are of opinion indeed, that the red vapours are ow- ing to the vitriol, and effential to it, and call them the anima nitri ; and they prove the aflirtion by the known obfervation that nitre melted with a tender white tdafs turns it to purple, or fome (hade of red; whereas nefther'alum, common fait, nor the fixed alkalis give this colour ; and it is probably fome portion of an ammoniacal urinous fait, mixed in the n'tre which gives the colour, fince fal armoni- ac will give the fame colour when fufed with glafs. What is it, however, in the fal armoniac which has this efteft > not its volatile alkali, for that is diffipated in the mixture by the firft efforts of the fire; neither can it be the acid fpirit of fea fait, fince experiment proves that it can have no fuch effect, when employed alone.
A little crocus martis, or any calx of iron, does the fame thing to glafs, and fometimes even the fmoak of the fur- nace will do it, when woods of too refinous a kind are em- ployed as fuel ; many a large quantity of what was meant for pure cryftalline glafs having been tinged red, or purple in this manner, and wholly fpoiled; and all that we carl judge on the whole, as to nitre, or fal armoniac tincrine them, is, that it is a fatty, or unfluous matter in thofe falts which produces the colour : and, in all probability, nitre contains, befide a quantity of an urinous, or ammoniacal fait a fmall quantity of a ferruginous matter, in extremely mi- nute and imperceptible particles. ■ Mr. Lemery has proved that all the fait petre made in Eu- rope has been originally an ammoniacal fait ; and indeed if nitre be rubbed for a confiderable time in a glafs mortar made warm, with a quantity of a fixed alkali fait, it will af- ford an urinous fmell. It is no t eafy to prove that all f-i armoniac contains ferrttgineous matter ; but when we con
fide*
