324 ROMEE....ROSE WOOD....ROSICRUCIANS.

Its length is seven hundred and thirty feet; the breadth five hundred and twenty; and the height, from the pavement to the top of the cross which crowns the cupola, four hundred and fifty feet. The Pantheon has stood more than eighteen hundred years; it was originally erected to the honor of all the gods: but is now dedicated to the Virgin Mary. About one half of the exter. nal circuit of Vespatian's amphitheatre still remains at Rome; the whole is computed to have been capable of containing eighty-five thousand spectators. The Vatican, near St. Peter's church, is said to contain about four thousand and four hundred apartments. For curious monuments in architecture, painting, and sculpture, Rome is still the mistress of the world: in other respects she is fallen into contempt.

ROMEE, the name of an operation among the Otaheiteans, for the cure of bodily pains, particularly the rheumatism; an operation far exceeding the flesh brush, or any external friction. It is thus performed: a number of persons lay themselves down together, placing the diseased in the midst of them; when they begin to squeeze him, for a quarter of an hour or more, with both hands over his body, but more particularly on the parts complained of, till his bones are ready to crack, and his flesh becomes almost a mummy; repeating the operation from time to time till the cure is perfected. Captain Cooke, whilst among those islanders, was afflicted with a rheumatic pain extending from the hip to the foot. At their request he repeatedly underwent the operation of the romee, and was quite cured.... Cooke's Voyages.

ROSE WOOD, a tree that grows in China, and furnishes the most beautiful and durable wood used by the Chinese artists. It is of a very dark colour, striped and variegated with delicate veins, which have the appearance of painting. It is used for making different pieces of furniture, which are in greater request and fetch a greater price, than those which are varnished.... Winterbotham.

ROSICRUCIANS, a sect of visionary philosophers

ROYAL CANAL...RUMFORD's KITCHEN. 325

and chemists, in Germany, of whom the modern illuminees seem to have been the genuine offspring. Christian Rosencruez is said to have founded this order, in the fourteenth century; who pretended to have derived his wisdom from the East, particularly from Egypt and Fez. In 1614, the Rosicrucians published a book in the German language, entitled "The Universal and General Reformation of the World," &c. They professed several singular dogmas respecting the Christian religion, which they were thought, in reality, to disbelieve. They asserted that human life was capable of prolongation, like a fire kept up by combustible matter; and to their faithful votaries and followers they promised abundance of celestial wisdom, exemption from disease, and an immortal state of ever-blooming youth.

ROYAL CANAL, a celebrated canal which reaches from Canton to Pekin, in China, and which forms a communication between the southern and northern provinces. This work is eighteen hundred miles in length; and its navigation no where interrupted but by the mountain Meiling, where passengers are obliged to travel thirty or forty miles over land. In this canal a number of others terminate, which stretch out into the country, and form a communication between the neighboring towns, cities, and villages.... Winterbotham.

RUMFORD'S KITCHEN, a famous kitchen at Munich, in Bavaria, for feeding paupers; instituted and managed by Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford; from whose publication the following particulars are stated. 1. The food used, as found by experience to be the cheapest, most savory, and most nourishing that could be provided, was a soup composed of pearl-barley, pease, potatoes, cuttings of fine wheaten bread, vinegar, and salt and water, in certain proportions. 2. The number of persons who were fed daily from this kitchen was, at a medium, in summer, about one thousand, and in winter, about twelve hundred. 3. The whole work of the kitchen was performed, with great ease, by three cook maids. 4. The daily expense for fire wood amounted to no more than four pence half penny sterling; although pine wood was seven shillings the cord, D d

326

RUNNEMEDE....RUSSIA.

and oak more than double that price. 5. The total daily expenses of providing food for twelve hundred persons, was only one pound fifteen shillings and two pence half penny sterling; this sum divided by 1200, making the daily expense of victualling each person, a mere trifle more than one third of a sterling penny, and considerably less than a cent.... Rumford's Essays.

RUNNEMEDE, a celebrated place, situated between Windsor and Staines, in England. Here King John, after a debate of some days, signed and sealed (June 19, 1215,) the famous Magna Charta, or Great Charter; which secured very important privileges to every order of men in the kingdom; and ordained, in particular, that no king of England should thereafter presume to levy any tax, tallage or exaction, without the consent of the parliament. Long afterwards, in the reign of Henry III. the bishops and abbots stood round the Great Charter, whilst it was reading in parliament, with burning tapers in their hands, and denounced the sentence of excommunication against every one that should thenceforth dare to violate that fundamental law. ....Stuart, Bishop Porteus.

RUSSIA, a vast empire, partly in Asia, and partly in Europe; bounded on the north by the Frozen Ocean; on the south by Great Tartary, the Caspian Sea, and Persia ; on the east by the north Pacific Ocean; and on the west by Sweden, Poland, and Lapland; extending in length, according to Mr. Tooke, besides reckoning the islands, above nine thousand two hundred miles, and in breadth two thousand and four hundred miles. It is more than three times as large as the ancient Roman empire in its greatest extent; but then the dominions of the Romans consisted of the finest and most productive countries in the whole world. The inhabitants of Russia form at least eighty distinct nations, as well in their lineage, as in their manners and language, entirely different from each other. There is no part of the world where inland navigation is carried through such an extent of country as in Russia; it being possible in this empire, to convey goods by water, four thousand four hundred and seventy-two miles, from the frontiers of China to Peters

burgh, with an interruption of only sixty-six miles ; and from Astracan to the same capital, through a space of one thousand four hundred and thirty-four miles; a tract of inland navigation almost equal to one fourth of the circumference of the earth. Russia is more than twice as large as all Europe.... Tooke, Philips, Carr. Russia contains a population of forty-six millions; of which forty-three millions are in European Russia. It has an annual revenue of fifteen millions sterling, with provisions cheap and taxes light. Its military force, including such a select body of militia, as, since the year 1806, has been kept in constant readiness to take the field, is about eleven hundred thousand. In Tooke's history of Russia, or rather of the reign of Catharing II. it is stated that, according to the census taken at several times, the increase of the population of Russia appeared to be as follows: In the year 1722, fourteen millions; 1742, sixteen millions; 1762, twenty millions; 1782, twentyeight millions; 1788, thirty millions. So that it seems the population of Russia has more than trebled in ninety years, and has increased by more than one third in the last twenty-four years. In the ratio of the increase of the population of Russia in the last twenty-four years, it will amount to a hundred millions in a little more than half a century hence.

S.

SABLE, a small animal, valuable for its fur. About

the beginning of October, the Chinese Tartars take their departure to hunt sables, clad in short close garments of wolf skins; their heads are covered with caps of the same, and their bows are suspended at their backs. They take with them several horses loaded with sacks of millet and their long cloaks made of foxes' or tigers' skins with which they defend themselves from the cold during the night. The sable skins of this country are valuable; but the obtaining them exposes the hunters to extreme dangers and fatigues. The most beautiful skins are put apart for the emperor; the rest are sold

328 SAHARA....SALMON....SALMON TROUT.

high, even in the country, being immediately bought up by the Mandarins and merchants.... Winterbotham.

SAHARA, called the Great Desert, an ocean of sand in Africa, presenting a surface equal in extent to about one half Europe. The great body, or western division of this sand ocean, comprised between Fezzan and the Atlantic, is from north to south, from seven hundred and fifty to eight hundred miles, and double that extent in length. It is without doubt the largest desert in the world it abounds with salt-mines, whence the neighboring nations are supplied with salt. On the edge of this great desert,wells are dug to an amazing depth, and water mixed with fine sand, springs up suddenly, and sometimes fatally to the workmen. The people call this abyss of sand and water, the sea below ground...Park.

SALMON, a fish of superior quality. These fish are chiefly found in high northern latitudes; they are plenty in the north-easterly parts of Massachusetts, and particularly in the district of Maine; but are now found in no river of the United States, whose mouth is southwardly of that of Connecticut river. Indeed we are told that when Captain Henry Hudson first discovered the river in New-York that bears his name, he found in it a plenty of salmon; but it must have been a long time since these fish made their last visit to the waters of the Hudson. In the rivers of Kampschatka, as related in Cooke's voyages, their numbers are immense, and they swim with such velocity that the water is greatly agitated with their motion. Three feet and an half is their usual length in those rivers, and they are more than proportionably deep; their average weight being from thirty to forty pounds. It is credibly reported that salmon, in ascending rivers, will leap to the top of cataracts of several feet in height; a circumstance in which they exceed perhaps every other fish that swims.

SALMON TROUT, a fish that in its form, dimensions, and appearance, very much resembles the salmon; but the meat is of a finer grain, and of a more delicate taste and flavor. This trout is found in lake Champlain, and in the rivers and ponds which are con