EMBALMING....ENGLAND.

119

arize from the same chip; and such plants, if cut down within three inches of the ground, will multiply their side shoots in proportion, and make a hedge thicker, without running to naked wood, than by any other method yet practised. If kept clipped for three or four years, they will be almost impenetrable....Encyclopædia.

EMBALMING, the preparing of the bodies of the dead so as to prevent their putrefaction. This process has been said to have been performed in Egypt, by disembowelling the dead body, washing it with the oil of cinnamon, myrrh, and other rich spices for forty days, and also by replenishing the inside with these ingredients. The body was then put into a pickle of nitre, or salt-petre, till seventy days were completed from the time they begun their operations; and, thus prepared, it would keep for centuries....Orton. The principal reason why the ancient Egyptians were so solicitous to preserve the bodies of the dead, was their belief that the soul continued with the body until the latter was putrified; for the same reason they built themselves magnificent tombs, of the most durable materials.

ENGLAND, a principal part of the kingdom and island of Great Britain; bounded on the north by Scotland, on the east by the German Ocean, on the south by the English Channel, and on the west by the Atlantic, Wales, and the Irish Seȧ; extending from 50° to 55° 40 north latitude. The rigors of winter, as well as the parching heats of summer, are felt here in a much less degree than in parallel climates on the continent; a circumstance common to all islands. While the seaports in Holland and Germany are every winter locked up with ice, those of England, and even of Scotland, are very seldom known to suffer this inconvenience.... Morse, Aikin. The names England and English began to be given to the people of South Britain, about the latter part of the ninth century. These names took their origin from the Angles, who, together with the Saxons, two nations or tribes from Germany, had overspread and conquered a considerable part of the island ; and were called Anglo Saxons.

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1.

ENGLISH NAVY....ERA....ERIC.

ENGLISH NAVY, first formed in the ninth centu ry. King Alfred may be considered as the creator of the English navy. Sensible that ships were the most natural bulwark of an island, he (about the year 880) provided himself with a naval force, and met the Danes, those terrible invaders of England on their own element. A fleet of a hundred and twenty armed vessels was stationed upon the coast; and being provided with warlike engines, and expert seamen, maintained a superiority over the enemy, and gave birth to that claim, which England has supported, of a sovereignty of the ocean......

Russell.

ERA, an account of time, reckoned from any particular period, term, or epoch. The Jews had several eras, as from the creation of the world, from the universal deluge, from the confusion of languages, from Abraham's journey to the land of Canaan, from the departure of their forefathers out of Egypt, from the building of Solomon's temple, and from the Babylonish captivity. The ancient Greeks reckoned time by Olympiads, which were public games celebrated every fifth year; the first Olympiad they placed in the year of the world 3187. The ancient Romans reckoned from the building of their city, which was in the year of the world 3113. The Christians take their era from the birth of our Saviour; this method of computing time commencing among them, about the beginning of the seventh century. The Mahometans compute their time from the Hegira or flight of their prophet, in the year of our Lord, 617 : subtracting this number (617) from the Christian year. the remainder will be the Mahometan year.

ERIC, the fine for murder in Ireland, which was levied on the criminal, and sometimes upon the community, and which varied as to the sum according to the rank of the person murdered. Accordingly, about two centuries ago, when Sir William Fitzwilliams, while lord deputy of Ireland, told Maguire, an Irish chieftain, that he was about to send a sheriff into Fermanah, which had been made a county a little before, and subjected to the English laws; Maguire replied, "Your sheriff shall be welcome to me; but let me know beforehand

ERIE LAKE....ERMINE....ESQUIMAUX. 131.

his eric, or the price of his head, that if any of my people should cut it off, I may levy the money upon the county." Somewhat similar to the Irish Eric was the custom of the ancient Grecians, in what were called the heroic ages. Homer, speaking in the person of Ajax, says, a brother receives the price of a brother's blood: fathers for their slain sons are appeased. The murderer pays the high fine of his crime, and in his city unmolested remains.”. ...Russell.

ERIE LAKE, a large lake in North America; the line between the United States and Upper Canada running through it. It is situated between 41° and 43° north latitude; and forms part of the western boundary of the state of New-York. It is from two hundred and twenty-five to two hundred and sixty miles in length, and from forty to sixty broad. It communicates, at its north east end, with Lake Ontario by the strait of Niagara. This lake abounds with excellent fish, and also with pernicious serpents. The islands and banks towards its west end are much infested with rattle snakes; and on the leaves of the large water lily, which grows here, 'covering the surface of the water, to an extent of many acres, myriads of water snakes lie basking in the sun in summer. Of the venomous serpents, which infest this lake, the hissing snake is the most remarkable, and is accounted the most deadly. See HisSING SNAKE.

ERMINE, a most beautiful little quadruped, usually about nine inches long: its body is white, the tail being always tipped with black. Some have a stripe of dark brown, or mouse colour, extending along the back, from the head to the tail; the other parts being perfectly white. The ermine is remarkable for the softness, the closeness, and the warmth of its fur. In the north of Europe and Siberia, their skins make a valuable article of commerce: they are found in some parts of the United States, particularly in Vermont.... Goldsmith, Wil

liams.

ESQUIMAUX, a race of Indians who inhabit the country north of Canada, and in the neighborhood of

M

122

ETNA....EUROPE.

Hudson's Bay; and in lowness of stature and the features of their faces, resemble the Laplanders of Europe. Few Europeans are able to endure cold, fatigue, hunger, or adversity in any shape with an equal degree of composure to that which is familiar to these savages. After being out a whole day on a hunt, exposed to the bleakest winds and most penetrating cold, (for the cold is so extreme that the ice in the rivers is eight feet thick,) and that without the least thing to satisfy the calls of nature, an Indian comes home, warms himself at the fire, smokes a few pipes of tobacco, and then retires to rest, as calm as if in the midst of plenty. Missionaries sent from the Moravian brethren, have had considerable success in converting the Esquimaux to the Christian faith.... Winterbotham. See NEW-BRITAIN.

ETNA, a famous burning mountain in the island of Sicily; about nine thousand feet in height; from sixty to seventy miles in circumference at the base; and rising in the form of a cone till it terminates in a circumference of about three miles. On the summit is the crater, or fiery abyss, more than a mile in diameter, round, and unfathomably deep. From the bottom of the mountain you ascend ten leagues before reaching its summit on the south side; and on any of the other sides, the way being not so straight, would be considerably longer. Etna has been a volcano for ages immemorial: its eruptions are very violent; and its discharge has been known to cover the earth sixty-eight feet deep. The mountain itself seems to have been entirely composed of substances that have been discharged from the volcano in its various eruptions; the flames whereof have been seen at Malta, which is sixty leagues distance. In 1755, Etna, from the crater on its summit, emitted an immense torrent of boiling water, which dashing its awful cataracts from one chain of rocks to another, at length reached the cultivated plains, which it overflowed for a number of miles; and dividing itself into several branches formed a number of deep and rapid rivers, which discharged themselves into the sea....Howell, and

others.

EUROPE, one of the four great divisions of the

EUROPEAN LANGUAGES.

123

world; bounded on the west by the Atlantic; on the north by the Frozen Ocean; on the east by Asia; and on the south by the Euxine or Black Sea, and the Mediterranean. It is about three thousand and three hundred miles in length, and about two thousand and seven hundred in breadth; and is situated between thirty-six and seventy-two degrees north latitude, lying nearly all within the temperate zone. "Although Europe" (says Reichard)" is the smallest of the four (6 great divisions in number of square miles, it has reduc"ed to its subjection a great part of the other quarters "of the world. It governs all that part of the Ameri66 can continent that has been peopled from Europe, the "United States excepted. It possesses almost all the "islands which have been discovered in the three great "Oceans, the Pacific, the Atlantic, and the Indian. It gives laws to more than half Asia, to the greater part "of the coasts of Africa, and to several interior coun"tries of considerable extent; so that nearly half of the "inhabited world bows to Europe." It cannot be, however, that Europe gives laws to half the people of Asia, though it may to more than half the territory; for China alone, over which Europe has no control, is computed to have a population of more than three hundred million.

The

EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. The languages of Europe are derived from the Latin, Celtic, Gothic, and Sclavonian. The Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and French languages are derived from the Latin. Scotch, Welsh and Irish Languages are from the Celtic. The high and low Dutch, the English, (which is also enriched with the spoils of many other languages,) the Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, and Jutlandic, are from the Gothic. The Polish, Bohemian, Russian, and several other languages of Europe, are from the ancient Sclavonian. In the English language, Doct. Johnson, in his Dictionary, has collected about forty-eight thousand words. The reverend H. Croft asserts that he has made a list of eleven thousand more, which he proposes to introduce into a new work; making in the whole fifty-nine thousand English words. In a highly celebrated work of Mr. John Horne Tooke, published in the