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ceived the idea of improving the steamengine; and, having carried it into effect, he acquired so much reputation for knowledge of mechanics, as induced him to adopt the profession of a civil engineer; and he was frequently employed in making surveys for canals and other undertakings. To facilitate his labors, he invented a new micrometer, and likewise a machine for making drawings in perspective. In 1774, he quitted Glasgow to remove to the vicinity of Birmingham, where he entered into partnership with Mr. Boulton, in conjunction with whom he carried on his improvements in the steamengine, which he brought to a high degree of perfection. (See Steam.) Here he became associated with doctor Priestley, and other philosophical experimentalists, and shared in the chemical researches which they prosecuted with so much success. He was admitted a fellow of the royal society, to whose Transactions he contributed an interesting paper, entitled Thoughts on the constituent Parts of Water, and of dephlogisticated Air, with an Account of some Experiments on that Subject; and another, On a new Method of preparing a Test-liquor to show the Presence of Acids and Alkalies in Chemical Mixtures. Mr. Watt was also a fellow of the royal society of Edinburgh; and, in 1806, he received from the university of Glasgow the honorary degree of LL. D., as a tribute to his merit as a successful laborer in the cause of science. Various inventions of great practical utility originated from his ingenuity, among which may be mentioned a polygraph, or copying machine. His death took place August 25, 1819. (See the article Watt, in the Supplement to the Encyclopædia Britannica.)

WATTEAU, Antoine; a painter of great merit, talents and industry, born in 1684, at Valenciennes. His parents, whose situation in life was very humble, with difficulty contrived to give him the instructions of a very inferior master in the country, who qualified him for the situation of a scene-painter at the Parisian opera. The genius of Watteau, however, soon carried him beyond that lowly sphere; and at length, without any further assistance, he produced a picture which gained the prize at the academy. The king, whose notice his performance had attracted, settled a pension on him, for the purpose of enabling him to complete his study of the art in Italy. The opportunities he enjoyed at Rome, and the intimate acquaintance he formed with some of the best works of Rubens and

Vandyck, whose style he afterwards more especially imitated, rescued him entirely from the disadvantages which his early penury had thrown in his way, and obtained him a great reputation, particularly for his conversational pieces, in which his heads and the attitudes of his figures are highly admired. From Rome he went to England; but the incessant application with which he devoted himself to his easel had already begun to make formidable inroads on a constitution naturally weak; and, although he succeeded in returning to France, he did not long survive, dying at Nogent, in the neighborhood of the capital, in 1721.

WATTEL. (See Vattel.)

WATTS, Isaac, an English non-conformist divine, eminently distinguished for his learning and piety, was born at Southampton, in 1674, and, after being educated there, under a clergyman of the established church, removed, at the age of sixteen, to an academy for dissenters, in London. After pursuing his studies five years with great credit and advantage, he returned to Southampton, and remained two years at home, employed in the further cultivation of his talents. In 1696, he became tutor to the son of sir John Hartopp, at Stoke Newington, near London, and, in 1702, succeeded doctor Isaac Chauncy (to whom he had previously been assistant) as minister of a dissenting congregation in the metropolis. An attack of fever, in 1712, obliged him to relinquish for a time his pastoral duties, when he obtained an asylum at the house of sir T. Abney, a London alderman at Newington; and there he resided during the remainder of his life. His literary reputation was extended by numerous works, not only on subjects immediately connected with his profession, but also on several branches of science and letters; in consequence of which he received diplomas of D. D. from the universities of Aberdeen and Edinburgh, and was generally respected by the friends of learning and virtue of all denominations. He died November 25, 1748. Among his works are Lyric Poems; Psalms and Hymns; Sermons; Philosophical Essays; a Discourse on Education; an Elementary Treatise on Astronomy and Geography; a Brief Scheme of Ontology; Logic, and a valuable supplement to it entitled the Improvement of the Mind; besides theological tracts, and various controversial pieces. (See Johnson's Lives of the Poets.)

WAVE. The common cause of waves

is the friction of the wind upon the surface of the water. Little ridges or elevations first appear, which, by continuance of the force, gradually increase, until they become rolling mountains, where the winds sweep over a great extent of water. In rounding the cape of Good Hope, waves, or rather a swell, are met with so vast that a few ridges and a few depressions occupy the extent of a mile. But these are not so troublesome to ships as a short swell with more perpendicular waves. The slope in the former is so gentle that the rising and falling are scarcely felt, while the latter, by the sudden plunging of the vessel, is often destructive. The velocity of waves has relation to their magnitude. The large waves just mentioned proceed at the rate of from thirty to forty miles an hour. It is a common error to suppose that the water itself advances with the speed of the wave; but, in fact, the form only advances: the substance, with the exception of a little spray, remains rising and falling, in the same place, with the regularity of a pendulum. When a wave, however, reaches a shallow bank or beach, the water becomes really progressive; because then, as it cannot sink directly down, it falls over forward. No wave rises more than ten feet above the general level of the water, which, with the ten feet of descent, gives twenty feet for the whole height of the wave above the next depression. A wave, coming against any obstacle, may be dashed up to a much greater elevation. For the great wave, or boar, at the mouth of some rivers, see Mascaret.

WAVELLITE; a beautiful mineral, named in honor of doctor Wavel, its discoverer. It rarely occurs in distinct crystals, which are always small. Their primary form is the right rhombic prism, whose lateral faces incline under angles of 122° 15′ and 57° 45'. Cleavage takes place with ease parallel to this form, and also parallel to its longer diagonal; lustre of the cleavage planes intermediate between pearly and vitreous; color white, passing into several shades of green, gray, brown and black; translucent to transparent; hardness equal to fluor; specific gravity 2.33. Its most usual mode of occurrence is in implanted globules; composition thin columnar; surface drusy. When these globules, which vary in size from that of a large pea to that of a pepper-corn, are broken across, the fractured surfaces exhibit a delicate asteriated appearance. Before the blow-pipe, wavellite loses its lustre and transparency, but

[blocks in formation]

It occurs at Barnstaple, in Devonshire, in small veins in clay-slate; at St. Austle, in Cornwall, in veins traversing granite, accompanied by fluor, tin-ore, and copper pyrites; in the Shiant isles, in Scotland; at Zbison, in Bohemia, in a kind of sandstone; at Amberg, in the Upper Palatinate, with brown hæmatite: finally, it occurs, in beautiful green varieties, near Cork, in Ireland.

WAVERLEY NOVELS. (See Scott, Sir Walter.)

WAVRE; a small town on the little river Dyle, in Belgium, with about 3000 inhabitants, celebrated on account of the battle fought here by the Prussians and French, on June 18 and 19, 1815. June 17, after the loss of the battle of Ligny (see Quatrebras), Blücher had taken possession of the steep heights on the other side of Wavre, to await the arrival of the fourth corps coming from Liege, and to facilitate his junction with Wellington, who had also retreated to a favorable position at Mont St. Jean. Both had agreed that Wellington should defend his position as long as possible, and Blücher should hasten to assist him. Blücher's whole army, except the third corps, was already on the march on the 18th, when Grouchy attacked Wavre, and a battle took place along the Dyle, the chief point of which was Wavre. All the corps but the third continued their march towards their important destination. (See Waterloo. The battle, which was broken off in the evening, was renewed in the morning; and general Thielemann, the Prussian commander, resolved to retire to a position two leagues distant, as the continuation of the engagement would have been useless, the news of the great victory of Waterloo having already arrived. The enemy left him unmolested. The loss of each party may have amounted to 4000 men.

WAX is a concrete, unctuous-feeling substance, which partakes of the nature of a fixed oil. It is secreted by bees in constructing their hives, and is, also, a most abundant vegetable production, entering into the composition of the pollen

of flowers, covering the envelope of the plum, and of other fruits, especially of the berry of the myrica cerifera, and, in many instances, forming a kind of varnish to the surface of leaves. It is distinguished from fat and resinous bodies by its not readily forming soaps when treated with alkaline solutions. Common wax is always more or less colored, and has a distinct, peculiar odor, of both of which it may be deprived by exposure, in thin slices, to air, light and moisture, or more speedily by the action of chlorine. The art of bleaching wax consists in increasing its surface; for which purpose it must be melted, with a degree of heat not sufficient to alter its quality, in a caldron so disposed that the melted wax may flow gradually through a pipe, at the bottom of the caldron, into a large wooden cylinder, that turns continually round its axis, and upon which the melted wax falls. As the surface of this cylinder is always moistened with water, the wax falling upon it does not adhere to it, but quickly becomes solid and flat, and acquires the form of ribands. The continual rotation of the cylinder carries off these ribands as fast as they are formed, and distributes them through the tub. When all the wax that is to be whitened is thus formed, it is to be put upon large frames, covered with linen cloth, which are supported, about a foot and a half above the ground, in a situation exposed to the air, the dew and the sun. If the weather be favorable, the color will be changed in a few days. It is then to be re-melted, and formed into ribands, and exposed to the action of the air, as before. These operations are to be repeated till the wax is rendered perfectly white, when it is cast into cakes or moulded into candles. At ordinary temperatures, wax is solid and somewhat brittle; but it may be easily cut with a knife, and the fresh surface presents a characteristic appearance, to which the name of waxy lustre is applied. Its specific gravity is 0.96. At 150° Fahr, it enters into fusion, and boils at a high temperature. Heated to redness in a close vessel, it suffers decomposition, yielding products very similar to those which are procured, under the same circumstances, from oil. It is insoluble in water, and is only dissolved in small quantities when treated with boiling ether or alcohol. It unites, by the aid of heat, in every proportion, with the fixed oils, the volatile oils, and with resin. With different quantities of oil, it constitutes the simple liniment oint9

VOL. XIII.

ment and cerate of the pharmacopoeia. Wax, according to John, consists of two different substances, one of which is soluble, and the other insoluble, in alcohol. To the former the name of cerin has been given, and to the latter that of myricin. One hundred parts of wax are composed of

Carbon,
Oxygen,
Hydrogen,

(See the article Bee.)

80.4

8.3

11.3

WAX FIGURES. In ancient Greece, wax was used for impressions of seals, for encaustic (q. v.) painting, and for a varnish for marble walls and statues. There was, also, a distinct class of artists, called puppet-makers by the Greeks, and sigillarii by the Romans, who worked only, or chiefly, in wax. Figures of beautiful boys, in wax, often adorned the bed-rooms of the Greeks. The subjects most frequently represented in wax, however, belonged to the vegetable kingdom, being branches, fruits, flowers, wreaths, &c. It was customary to construct a little garden of flower-pots and fruit-baskets, in every house, in honor of Adonis, at the time of his feast; but, as this was celebrated so early in the year that even in Greece it was difficult to find flowers and fruits, wreaths, cornucopiæ, fruits, &c., of wax, were used as substitutes. In sorcery, also, wax figures were employed; and Artemidorus tells us, in his work On Dreams, that waxen wreaths in dreams foreboded sickness and death. The notorious Heliogabalus set dishes of wax before his guests, to tantalize them with representations of all the luxuries in which he revelled. At present, wax is used for imitations of anatomical preparations, or of fruits: it also serves the sculptor for his models and studies; also for little portrait figures, in basso rilievo. The latter can be executed with delicacy and beauty; but wax figures of the size of life, which are often praised for their likeness, overstep the proper limit of the fine arts. They attempt to imitate life too closely, which, in contrast with their ghastly fixedness, has a tendency to make us shudder. In the genuine work of art there is an immortal life, in idea, which speaks to our souls without attempting to deceive our senses. (See Copy.) The wax figure seems to address the mortal in us: it is a petrified picture of our earthly part. The line at which a work of art should stop, in its approach to nature, is not distinctly marked; but it cannot be over

stepped without affecting us disagreeably. In Florence, all parts of the human body are, at present, imitated, in colored wax, for the study of anatomy. More than thirty rooms, in the palace, are filled with these wax preparations; also plants are found there, imitated to deception, in wax. Exact imitations, in wax, of vegetable productions do not produce the same unpleasant emotions as wax images of men and animals, because they have, by nature, a more stationary character. The first idea of forming figures of wax of this kind was conceived by Nones, of Genoa, an hospital physician, in the seventeenth century. He was about to preserve a human body by embalming it; but, not being able to prevent putrefaction entirely, he conceived the idea of having the body imitated, as accurately as possible, in wax. The abbate Zumbo, a Sicilian, who understood nothing of anatomy, but was skilled in working in wax, imitated the head of the body so perfectly, under the direction of Nones, in colored wax, that many who saw it took it to be the real head. Zumbo secretly made another copy, and went with it to France, where he pretended to have invented the art. He soon died. De Nones then had the whole body perfectly copied by a Frenchman named De Lacroix. In 1721, La Courege exhibited similar figures in Hamburg; and, in 1737, others were publicly sold in London. The works of Ercole Lelli, Giovanni Manzolini and his wife, which were formerly preserved in the institute of Bologna, and were thence carried to Paris, were remarkably fine. Beautiful figures in wax, made by Anna Manzolini, are preserved in Turin and Petersburg. She died in 1755. More modern artists in this line, in Italy, are L. Calza, Filippo Balugani, and Ferrini. The celebrated Fontana, in Florence, carried this art to a high degree of excel lence. He received so many orders that he employed a large company of anatomists, model-cutters, wax-moulders and painters. Yet he generally confined himself to representations of the intestines. Vogt, in the university of Wittenberg, used, in his lectures, wax preparations, in imitation of the fine branches of vessels. Pinson, and, at a later period, Laumonier, at Rouen, distinguished themselves in this department, in France. The composition for this purpose consists of four parts wax, three parts white turpentine, and some olive-oil or hog's lard, suitably colored. The bulk of the figure is formed with the hands: the finer parts are made with instruments of various

forms: some figures are cast. The moulds ought to be of gypsum, and consist of many pieces, covered inside with oil. The wax is poured into a hole at the feet, and the whole is then thrown into cold water, that the wax may be separated the more easily. A composition, of which sculptors form their first models, consists of sixteen parts wax, two parts Burgundy pitch or shoemaker's wax, and one part hog's lard; or of ten parts wax, one turpentine, as much shoemaker's wax, and as much hog's lard. This is melted by a slow fire, and afterwards well stirred and strained, so as to expel all the air. A composition of wax and other substances is very proper for impressions of figures cut in stones. It is prepared thus:-an ounce of virgin wax, melted slowly in a copper vessel, and a drachm of sugar candy pounded well, half an ounce burnt soot, and two or three drops of turpentine. The wax is warmed if a cast is to be taken, and the stone, having been a little moistened, is pressed on it. Gem-cutters use this composition.

WAX-MYRTLE, or BAYBERRY (myrica cerifera); a low, spreading shrub, common along the coast from Maine to Louisiana. The leaves are lanceolate, with a few indentures towards the extremity, and sprinkled with resinous dots. The bark and leaves, when bruised, emit a delightful fragrance. The berries are as large as a pepper-corn, and, when ripe, are covered with a whitish-green wax, which is collected by boiling them: the fat then melts out, floats at the top of the water, and may be skimmed off. When congealed, it looks like tallow or wax, but has a dirty-green color. It is therefore melted again, and refined, by which means it acquires a fine and pretty transparent green color. It is dearer than common tallow, but cheaper than wax. A bushel of the berries will yield four or five pounds. This wax is used for a variety of purposes, but chiefly for making candles, which burn slowly and with but little smoke, emit an agreeable odor, and never melt and run down at the sides, like tallow and spermaceti; but, as they do not give a strong light, especially during cold weather, it is usual to add a portion of tallow. Such candles are a beautiful and economical article, and it is surprising they are not in more general request. A fine-scented and excellent soap, and also sealing-wax, are made from these berries. At present, however, little use is made of the bayberry, except in districts where the bushes are very abundant. It is often called tallow-shrub, or candleberry

tree. The flowers are inconspicuous, and are disposed in aments. (Further information is given in the article Myrtle-Wax.) WAX PAINTING. (See Encaustic Painting.)

home. Being desirous of serving his country in a military capacity, to which his natural bent was strong, he retired from civil employment in September, 1775, and raised a company of volunteers, of which he was unanimously elected colonel. In January of the ensuing year, he was appointed, by congress, colonel of one of the regiments which they had resolved to raise in Pennsylvania, and, at the opening of the campaign, received orders to join the army under general Lee, at New York. Thence he proceeded with his regiment to Canada, and shared in the unsuccessful attack upon the enemy at Three Rivers (conducted by general Thompson), on which occasion he was wounded, and distinguished himself for his bravery and good conduct in uniting and bringing off the broken troops. After the retreat from Canada, and the departure of Gates to join Washington's army, he was intrusted, by general Schuyler, with the command of the fortresses of Ticonderoga and mount Independence. Feb. 21, 1777, he was promoted, by congress, to the rank of brigadier-general. He continued in command of Ticonderoga and its dependencies until the month of May, when, in consequence of his earnest solicitations, he was allowed to join the main army, under Washington, in New Jersey, where he was immediately placed at the head of a brigade, which he made every exertion to bring into the field in the highest state of discipline. After the British retreated from New Jersey, the commander-in-chief complimented him on his bravery and good conduct. As soon as the object of the next movement of sir William Howe was developed, general Wayne, in pursuance of the directions of Washington, left his brigade under the next in command, and proceeded to Chester, in Pennsylvania, to arrange the militia who were to rendezvous there. the battle of Brandywine (Sept. 11, 1777), he commanded a division stationed at Chad's ford, for the purpose of resisting the passage of the column under Knyphausen. He maintained the contest with the utmost gallantry until near sunset, when, at length, overpowered by numbers, and perceiving the enemy, who had defeated the right column of the American army, approaching his flank and rear, he was compelled to retreat. A few days afterwards (on the 16th), Washington determined to try the fate of another battle; and, both armies being arrayed in Goshen township, Chester county, on the road leading from Philadelphia to Lancaster,

WAX, SEALING. (See Sealing-Wax.) WAYNE, Anthony, a distinguished general in the American army, was born in the township of Easttown, Chester county, Pennsylvania, Jan. 1, 1745. His father was a farmer of great respectability, and passed a long life of usefulness to his country, having frequently occupied a seat in the provincial legislature, and repeatedly distinguished himself in expeditions against the Indians. His grandfather was a warm friend of liberal principles, and commanded a squadron of dragoons, under king William, at the memorable battle of the Boyne. He emigrated to America in 1722. The subject of this sketch received a good education, though, for some time after his entrance into school, he spent much more time in planning and executing military amusements, than at his books; but, in consequence of a threat of his father to consign him to the drudgery of the farm, he applied himself assiduously to study, and, in mathematics, attained great proficiency. After leaving the Philadelphia academy, at eighteen years of age, he took up his residence in his native county, and commenced the business of a surveyor, in which he acquired great reputation and success, devoting also a portion of his time to practical astronomy and engineering. On these subjects he left manuscripts, which have obtained high commendation from adequate judges. He likewise filled some county offices, and took a very active part in the preparation for the struggle which resulted in the independence of these United States. He was one of the provincial deputies, who, early in the year 1774, were chosen by the different counties of Pennsylvania to take into consideration the alarming state of affairs between Great Britain and her colonies, and report concerning it; and a member of the Pennsylvania convention, which shortly afterwards assembled at Philadelphia, and excited powerful emulation in the other colonies. In the same year, he was chosen a representative of Chester county, in the provincial legislature, and, in the summer of 1775, was appointed a member of the committee of safety, to whom the duty appertained of calling into actual service the associators (as they were termed), and providing for the defence of the province against invasion from abroad and insurrection at

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