MAR
MAR
is* bran and water, Sirred together till the liquor is white A month after foaling a decoction of brimftone and favin will be very proper; and will give ftrength to the colt. After this the Mare may be put to any moderate exerrife, as harrowing, or the like, and both fhe and the colt will be the better for it ; only care is to be taken that (he do not let the colt fuck while fhe is hot. Many are of opinion, that the winter is a very bad time for a Mare to be foaling ; but though there is fcarcity of grafs, the Mare may be houfed at this time, and well fed with hard meat, and, in this cafe, it will prove better both for her and the colt ; he will be better limbed and ftronger than if bred at grafs. See the article FoAl.
M AREC A, in zoology, the name of a Brafilian fpecies of duck, much valued there at table. It is of the fhapeof our duck. Its head is grey, but has a beautiful red fpot on each fide, at the infertiun of the beak, and a whitenefs in the lower part under the eyes. Its breaft and belly are of the colour of frefh cut oak, variegated with black fpots. Its legs and feet are black. Its tail grey ; and its wings elegantly variegated with grey and brown ; but they have in the middle alarge mixture of that glolly green which we fee in the necks of our drakes. There is, befidethis, another fpecies of the Mareca, which is of a dufky olive- colour' d brown on the back, white on the throat, and grey on the breaft and belly, and very remarka- ble for the fine bright red colour of its feet. Marggrave, Hift. Brafil.
MARENA, in zoology, the name of a fifh of the harengiform kind, much approaching to the nature of the common pil-
' chard ; but differing from it in that it has not the fcrrated lon- gitudinal line under the belly, and lives in lakes, not in the ocean. It feldom arrives to more than five inches in length ; its back is blackifh, and its fides white and filvery, and its fcales are very loofe, and eafily rubbed off". It is a better tafted fifh than the pilchard, and its flefh is firmer. Wil- lughhy, Hift. Pifc. p. 229.
MARGA, Mark. See the article Marle.
MARGEN, in the materia medica, a name ufed by fome of the later Greek writers to cxprefs red coral. It is founded on an error, however, the word Margen being made from the Arabian margian, which does not fignify coral, but a purple fea wrack, or fucus, ufed in dying. See the article Margian.
MARGENSTEIN, in natural hiftory, a name given by the German writers to a fort of indurated marle, which while in the ftrata is nearly of the hardnefs of ftone ; but when laid on the furface of the earth, and expofed to the wind and rain, foon difTolves, -and enters the pores of the ground, enriching the foil to' a very great degree. We have the fame fort of ftony marle in fome parts of England, only that ours is lefs hard, and yet takes more time to break and diflolve in the air. They are both moft proper for lands of a loofe loamy nature, and keep them in heart a long time. Swedenborg, de Rebus Natural.
MARGGRAVIA, in botany, the name of a genus of plants, the characters of which are thefe : The perianthuim is com- pofed of fix fcales, difpofed in oppofite pairs, and the (mailer placed below the others. The flower is very fingular, it confifts of one petal, and is cf a conic oval form, every where whole and perfectly clofed at the mouth ; this never opens, but, when it has flood a fmall time, is -thruft off at the bafe by the other parts of the fructification. The fta- mina are numerous, fhort, and expanded filaments ; the an- thers; are large, erect, and of an oval figure ; the germen of the piftil is oval ; there is no ftyle, and the ftigma is obfolete. The fruit is a globofe berry, having only one cell, in which there are numerous very finall feeds. Befide the flowers there is fomething very fingular in the umbels of this plant : In the middle of thefe there ftand a number of oblong feflile bodies of a wonderful figure ; they are compofed of one leaf with an open mouth, and are bent downwards, and open at the bafe. Thefe are not flowers, but mere excretory glands for t the plant, thus oddly fituatcd. Linnaifjtxi. Plant, p. 282. Phonier Gen. p. 29.
MARGIAN, in botany, a name given by fome of the antient writers, particularly the Arabian phyftcians, to the plant called bv others argina or arginem. This is defcribed to be a purple lea plant. Some have fuppofed that cochineal was meant by this word, but that is an error. Others have come fomewhat nearer, in fuppofing it to be the name of coral ; but as the antients have faid that it was ufed in dying, it could not be coral ; and indeed there is no other plant that it can mean, but that fucus ufed by the Greeks in dying, and called fucus porpbyrizon, or the purple dying fea plant. See the articles Argina and Fucus.
MARIGOLD, in botany. See the article Marygold.
MARQUES de Ladre, in the manege. See the article Dull.
MARINE- Barometer. Sec the article Barometer, Cycl.
Marine Remains, a term ufed by many authors to exprefs the (hells of fea fifties, and parts of cruftaceous and other fea animals, found in digging at great depths in the earth, or on the tops of high mountains. Their being lodged in thefe places, is an evident and unqueftionable proof of the feas having once been there, fince it mult have covered thofe places where it has left its productions.
It has been a favourite fyftem with many, and particularly with the late Dr. Woodward, that all thefe marine bodies were brought to the places where they now lie, by the wa- ters of the univerfal deluge ; which, as we are informed by holy writ, covered the whole furface of the globe, and even the higheft mountains. But though this is a very ready ex- pedient to account for many of the natural phenomena, yet there are evident proofs that it cannot have been the caufe of all that is attributed to it ; and there mult neceffarily have been fome other caufe of many of thefe remains having been placed where we now find them. Neither does the opinion of fome particular authors, that partial inundations of diffe- rent places have left thefe marine bodies behind them at the recefs of the waters, feem fufficient to account for the multi- tudes of thefe remains, many of which we find thrown upon places inacceflible to fuch floods. Mora de Cruftaceis in Montib. deprehenf.
Signior Moro has attempted to account for thefe phenomena on a new plan of reafoning. He obferves, that it is the beft bafis of argument to begin from facts ; and that if we can certainly find how fome part of thefe animal remains come to be depofited at fuch great diftances from their natural re- fidence, we may very rationally conclude, that by the fame means, be they what they will, all the reft were alfo brought thither. He adds, that the earth, once the bottom of the fea, or the level furface of a plain, may be, and frequently has been, in the memory of man, raifed up into a moun- tain by fubterranean fires, earthquakes, and volcanos. He mentions the famous inftance of the new ifland raifed out of the bottom of the fea near Santorini in the year 1707, which became of a eircumference not lefs than fix miles, and of the new mountain raifed near Puzzoli in 1538, Thefe and many other like facts, prove that the origin of mountains and iflands may have been fuch, and that the matter they confift of may have been the fame with what was once the bottom of the fea ; and that the marine bodies found in thefe mountains, were fuch as were living, or re- maining of living fifh at the time when the iflands or moun- tains were fo raifed above the furface of the water which before covered it.
This is no new opinion ; but this author has fet it in a new and much ftronger light than it ever had appeared in before, by the inftances and examples he has brought in proof of it. Some have been fond of believing that the bodies we call marine remains, were never indeed any parts of living ani- mals, but that they are mere luft/s natura formed in the pla- ces where they are found ; but Fabius Columna proved this to be an error, fhewing that the fhark's teeth, or gloflbpetrse of the ifland of Malta, when calcined by a ftrong fire, yielded afhes, the fame with thofe from animal bodies, and by no means of the fame nature with thofe produced from calcined ftones.
That changes of parts of the bottom of the fea into dry land, have often been made, i3 proved not only from the late known inftances, but from the teftimonies of Strabo, Pliny, and other writers of credit : And nothing is more obvious to reafon, than that in the fudden rife of fuch parts of the bottom of the fea, all its contents, all the fhells, and other hard parts, of fifties lying there, would be carried up with it. As fome mountains and fome iflands muft have certainly been produced in this manner, it is not impofflble but that all of them may have been fo ; and there is no more than this re- quired to account clearly and evidently for all the vaft pro- fufion of marine bodies at land as we find them, without, having recourfe to the improbable means of the univerfal deluge, which for many plain reafons cannot have been the caufe ; or to the effects of particular inundations, which muft have been wholly incapable of lodging many of them there. The lodgment of fhells in the folid ftrata of mountains, is better accounted for by this fyftem of Signior Moro than -any other : And if it be anted why fome mountains afford them in great plenty, and others not at all, it will not be difficult to anfwer, by obferving, that among the mountains of the more known parts of the world, fome confift of more folid rock, and others of various ftrata of earthy and other mat- ter ; that the firft of thefe may be fuppofed primary or na- tural mountains, and the others fecondary or accidental ones i and that thefe marine remains are always wanting in the former, and ufually are found in the latter, which is a fact greatly favourable to this fyftem.
There are many difficulties attending the accounts of all au- thors of the formation of the earth, and the lodging thefe bodies in it ; nor is this laft fyftem without difficulty. The caufes here affigned as to the origin of mountains and iflands, doubtlefs have been fo in regard to fome, but fcarce to all ; and the bodies here treated of are fo numerous, in fome par- ticular places, that fcarce any account can fblve the difficul- ty of their being collected together in fo ftrange a manner.
Marine Salt. See the article Salt.
MARINELLA, in botany, a name by which fome authors have called the great p/u, or garden valerian. Ger. Emac. Ind. 2.
MARINER, the fame with feaman or failor. See the article
SAILO-R, Cycl,
MARI-
