and answers the double purpose of assisting the groom in the operation, and saving his hand from injury from the horse's teeth. In its use it should be carefully covered with cloth, to prevent the tongue of the animal from being lacerated. BALM, S. The sap or juice of a shrub, remarkably odoriferous, and of healing qualities; any valuable or fragrant ointment; anything that soothes or mitigates pain. BALSAM, S. A thick fluid soluble in spirit of wine. dispensed in veterinary practice are these:Balsam of Canada.-A strong dieuretic used in chronic cough and diseases of the lungs. Balsam of Copaiba, or Capivi.-Possesses similar properties to that of Canada. Balsam of Friars.-Now called Tincture of Benjamin, an excellent traumatic. Balsam of Gilead.-Similar in its properties to Copaiba. Balsams are a kind of resinous juice, united with some of the extractive matter of the various plants they are obtained from, in combination with an essential oil. All the balsams are occasionally in use in veterinary medicine, and were formerly in very high estimation, for their supposed salutary action in chronic diseases of the lungs. They were also considered as a sovereign vulnerary for abraded urinary passages. It is the modern doctrine to think their efficacy overrated, and which is probably in some respects true, particularly as regards their expectorant qualities: nevertheless they are far from being inert; on the contrary, they appear to act favourably in some instances, as a warm terebinthinated stimulant. The principal balsams BALSAMIC, a. Unctuous, mitigating. BAMBOO, S. An Indian plant of the reed kind. Balsam of Peru.-A stimulant; used externally to irritable ulcers. Balsam of Tolu.-Same properties and uses as Peru. Balsam of Sulphur.-An expectorant; in inflammatory coughs, however, its use is dangerous.-Outlines of Vet. Art.-White. BANDALEERS, S. Small wooden cases covered with leather, each of them containing powder that is a sufficient charge for a musket. Obs. BANDOG, (Canis Villaticus,) s. A mastiff. BANDY, s. A club turned round at bottom for striking a ball. BANE, S. Poison, mischief. BANK SWALLOW, RIVER SWALLOW, BANK MARTIN, or SAND SWALLOW, S. This is the smallest species of British Swallow; length four inches and three quarters. The whole upper parts of the plumage are of a mousecoloured brown; the upper parts white, except across the breast, which is brown; legs dusky, a little feathered behind; bill dusky; irides hazel. The Bank Swallow is not near so plentiful, and is more local than the other species.-Montagu. BANTAM, S. The Bantam, a well-known small breed, | originally from India, is chiefly valued for its grotesque figure and delicate flesh. being good nurses, as well as good layers. Sir John Sebright, M.P. for Herts, is one of the chief amateurs of this breed. Sir John's breed are beautifully striped and variegated. In addition, there is a South American variety, either from Brazil or Buenos Ayres, which will roost in trees. They are very beautiful, partridge-spotted and streaked; the eggs small, and coloured like those of the pheasant; both the flesh and eggs are fine flavoured and delicate.-Moubray. There has been lately obtained a variety of bantams, extremely small, and as smooth legged as a game fowl. From their size and delicacy, they are very convenient, as they may always stand in the place of chickens, when small ones are not otherwise to be had. They are also particularly used for sitting upon the eggs of partridges, and pheasants, BAR, S. A piece of wood laid across a passage to hinder entrance; a bolt to fasten a door; any obstacle; a rock or bank at the entrance of a harbour; anything used for prevention; a moveable piece of timber used in the menage to teach horses to leap. BARB, S. Anything that grows in the place of the beard; the points that stand backward in an arrow. BARB, v. To jag arrows and fishing-hooks. BARB, S. A Barbary Horse. Vide ARAB and HORSE. BARBADOES TAR, S. A bituminous substance of strong diuretic power. BARBED, a. Bearded ; jagged with hooks. The Barbel is one of the coarsest fishes. In England they are deemed the worst of fresh-water fish, and seldom eaten but by the poorest sort of people, who sometimes boil them with a piece of bacon to give them a relish. The roe is very noxious, affecting those unwarily eating it with a vomiting, purging, and a slight swelling. The Barbel takes its name from the barbs, or wattels, at his mouth. They begin to run up the rivers in March and April. When they spawn, they keep together in companies, making holes in the gravel wherein they cast it. a remarkable strong spine, sharply serrated; with which it can inflict a severe wound on the uncautious handler, and do much damage to the net. The side fin is straight; the scales are not large, and of a pale gold colour, edged with black; the belly white, the tail is a little bifurcated, and of a deep purple. It is sometimes found three feet in length, and weighing eighteen pounds. According to the accounts in the Elements of Natural History, it is met with from two to fifteen feet long, grows quickly, is very tenacious of life, and lives to a great age. If there be any difference in the taste of their flesh, they are most in season the latter end of the summer; but in fact they are not worth noticing, except for the sport the angler derives from the catching of them, and which from their being so strong and determined a fish when hooked, is very great.-Daniel. The head of the barbel is smooth; the nostrils are near the eyes; it has a leather mouth, which is placed below; on each corner is a single beard, and another on each side of the nose; the shape is long, round, and handsome; the dorsal fin is armed with BARGE, S. A boat for pleasure; a boat for burthen. BARGER, S. A river-keeper; the manager of a barge. BARK, 8. The rind or covering of a tree; a small ship. BARK, v. To strip trees of their bark; to make the noise which a dog makes. BARK, PERUVIAN, or CHINCHONA, S. A tonic and frebrifuge medicine. Its effects upon the horse are trifling; it is useful chiefly in diabetes. There are three qualities, pale, red, and yellow. The first is best. BARK OAK, S. An excellent substitute for Peruvian. BARLEY, S. A grain of which malt is made. BARM, S. Yeast; the ferment put into drink to make it work. BARN, 8. A place or house for laying up any sort of grain, hay, or straw. BARNACLE, S. A kind of shellfish which attaches itself to timber floating at sea; a bird, vide BERNACLE. BAROMETER, S. A machine for measuring the weight of the atmosphere, and the variations in it, in order chiefly to determine the changes of the weather. then expect a continuance of fair weather to follow. Barometer.-There is no instrument now more generally used for ascertaining the coming weather than the barometer. It may how- In fair weather, when the mercury falls ever be remarked, that it is more from its much and low, and thus continues for two or rising or falling, than from its height or low-three days before the rain comes, then expect ness that we are to infer fair or foul weather. Generally speaking, the rising of the mercury pressages clear fair weather, and its falling, foul weather; as rain, snow, high winds, and storms. In very hot weather, the falling of the mercury indicates thunder. In winter the rising indicates frost, and in frosty weather, if the mercury fall three or four divisions, there will follow a thaw; but in a continued frost, if the mercury rise, it will snow. When foul weather happens soon after the falling of the mercury, expect but little of it; and on the contrary, expect but little fair weather when it proves fair shortly after the mercury has risen. In foul weather, when the mercury rises much and high, and so continues for two or three days before the foul weather is over, a great deal of wet and probably high winds. The unsettled motion of the mercury denotes uncertain and changeable weather. The words engraved on the register plate of the barometer, it may be observed, cannot be strictly relied upon to correspond exactly with the state of the weather; though it will in general agree with them as to the mercury rising and falling. When the thermometer and barometer rise together in summer, with rain in large drops, a wholesome state of the atmosphere is at hand. A great and sudden rising of the barometer, that is to say, a great accession of atmospherical pressure, will, in some persons, occasion a slight temporary difficulty of hearing and tingling in the ears, similiar to that which is experienced in descending from high mountains, or from the air in balloons.-Foster. D BARREL, S. A round wooden vessel to be stopped close; a vessel containing liquor; anything hollow, as the barrel of a gun; a cylinder. Barrel-making has occupied the attention of gun manufacturers from the first invention of fire-arms to the present time. Experiments in the material as well as the construction of barrels, have been extensively tried by the artists of every country. A gradual and progressive improvement was the result, until the stub-barrel of the present day has superseded every other kind, and seems to have reached the utmost perfection that human ingenuity can accomplish. The peculiar formation of barrels at different periods, and by different artists, will be interesting to sportsmen generally. Spanish barrels have always been held in great esteem, as well on account of the quality of the iron--which is generally considered the best in Europe-as because they possess the reputation of being forged and bored more perfectly than any others. It should be observed, however, that of the Spanish barrels, those only that are made in the capital are accounted truly valuable; in consequence of which a great many have been made at other places, especially in Catalonia and Biscay, with the names and marks of the Madrid gunsmiths. They are also counterfeited at Liege, Munich, &c.; and a person must be a good judge not to be deceived by these spurious barrels. These barrels were formerly in such high repute, that the price of them was enormous. Those of Belen, Fernandez, and Bez, sold in France for a thousand livres, or £43 15s. ; while the barrels of artists of lesser name produced three hundred, or £13. sterling. After the barrels of Madrid, those of Bustindui and St. Olabe, at Placentia, in Biscay, and of Jean and Clement Pedroesteva, Eudal Pous, and Martin Marechal, at Barcelona, are the most esteemed; these usually sell in France for eighty French livres, or £3. 10s. sterling. used in France, and still less in England, their awkward form and their great length and weight being strong objections to them, especially since they have begun to make their pieces so very light and short in these countries; and from our own experience of the Spanish barrels, we are convinced that the avidity with which they are sought after by some persons, and the extravagant prices that are given for them, proceed more from a fancied than from any real superiority they possess over those made in this country. * * The Spanish gunsmiths pique themselves upon the very high polish they give to the inside of their barrels. We have our doubts about the advantage derived from this, and are still of opinion that if a barrel is so smooth as not to lead, it is better to take it as it comes from the hand of the manufacturer, than allow the gunsmith to practise any farther operation upon it. In support of this opinion, Mons. de Marolles informs us, that he has seen a barrel rough from the borer throw a charge of shot deeper into a quire of paper, than another barrel that was highly polished within, although the length, the bore, and the charge, were the same in both. The canons a ruban, or riband barrels, of the French, very much resemble the English twisted barrels. The process pursued in their formation is very troublesome, and seems to possess no countervailing advantage. A plate of iron about the twelfth part of an inch in thickness is turned round a mandril, and welded its whole length in the same manner as a plain barrel: upon this small and light barrel, which is called lining, a stripe or plate of iron, about an inch in breadth, and bevelled off at the edges, is Almost all the barrels made at Madrid are rolled in a spiral direction, by means of succomposed of the old shoes of horses of mules, cessive heats-this spiralis termed the riband, collected for the purpose. They are all and its thickness must correspond with the welded longitudinally, but instead of being part of the barrel it is to constitute. As a forged in one plate or piece, as in other coun- riband of sufficient length to cover the lining tries, they are made, like the English twisted from one end to the other would be very diffibarrels, in five or six detached portions, cult to manage, it is formed in several pieces, which are afterwards welded one to the end and so soon as one piece is nearly rolled on, of another, two of them forming the breech another is welded to the end of it, and the or reinforced part of the barrel. We may operation continued until the whole of the form some idea of the very great purity to lining is covered. The edges are bevelled so which the iron is brought in the course of much, that one edge overlaps the other about the operation, when we are told, that to make a quarter of an inch. When the riband is a barrel, which, rough from the forge, weighs all rolled on, the barrel is heated by two or only six or seven pounds, they employ a mass three inches at a time, and the turns of the of mule-shoe iron, weighing from forty to spiral united to each other and to the lining forty-five pounds; so that from thirty-four by being welded in the same manner as a to thirty-eight pounds are lost in the heat-twisted or plain barrel, but requiring ings and hammerings it is made to undergo before it is forged into a barrel. Notwithstanding the great reputation of the Spanish barrels, however, they are little more care and accuracy in the operation. It is afterwards bored, so that almost the whole of the lining is cut out, and scarcely anything left except the riband with which it machinery, until it coalesces, and becomes was covered. Lazarini barrels, so called after the maker, were formerly celebrated throughout the greatest part of Europe. They were very long, and of a very small calibre. Lazarini lived at Brescia, about a hundred and fifty years ago. He did not forge these barrels himself, but he finished them with great accuracy, and ornamented them in a rich and elegant manner. At the time, however, when these barrels were in high estimation, there were numerous counterfeits bearing the name and mark of Cominazzo, and it requires some acquaintance with the genuine barrels not to be deceived by the spurious ones. The true Lazarini are now to be found only in the repositories of the curious. The vanity of possessing something that is singularly curious, the false idea that whatever is expensive must necessarily be good, and sometimes, though rarely, the laudible desire of improvement, have all in their turns been the causes of a variety of experiments made in the manufacture of barrels. An artist in London, who wrought a great deal of Spanish iron, forged barrels from old scythes, from wire, from needles, and a great many other articles suggested by the whim of the customers-who made barrels with a lining of steel, and formed others with a double spiral of steel, and iron alternately-confessed after these numerous trials, that "stub iron wrought into a twisted barrel is superior to every other." Whenever steel was employed, he found that the barrel neither welded nor bored so perfectly as when iron alone was used. The English stub barrels are deservedly celebrated for their superior elegance and strength, as well as for the accuracy with which they throw their ball or shot. The iron employed in them is formed of stubs, which are old horse-shoe nails, procured from country farriers, and from poor people who gain a subsistence by picking them up on the great roads leading to the metropolis, these are originally formed from the softest, toughest iron that can be had, and this is still farther purified by the numerous heatings and hammerings it has undergone in being reduced from a bar into the size and form of nails. They cost about ten shillings the hundred weight, and twenty-eight pounds are required to make a single barrel of the ordinary size. A hoop of iron about an inch broad, or six or seven inches diameter, is placed perpendicularly, and the stubs, previously freed from dirt by washing, are neatly piled in it, with their heads outermost on each side, until the hoop is quite filled and wedged tight with them, the whole resembling a rough circular cake of iron. This is put into the fire, until it has acquired a white heat, when it is hammered either by the strength of the arm, or by the force of one solid mass of iron. The hoop is then removed, and the heatings and hammerings repeated, until the iron, by being thus wrought and kneaded, is freed from every impurity, and rendered very tough and close in the grain. The workmen then proceeds to draw it out into pieces of about twentyfour inches in length, half an inch or more in breadth, and half an inch in thickness. : Damascus barrels are thus described by Hawker I saw the process of making them, the mixture of iron and steel for which is beat out in long bars, and then, previously to being wound round the anvil, twisted by a kind of turning lathe, (similar to wringing clothes when wet), and then beat flat again. Although these are by far the dearest barrels that are made, yet the price of one in Birmingham is very trifling, viz. :Forging Boring and grinding - £1 10 0 05 0 0 11 0 1 On boring of barrels there has been much diversity of opinion; and if Colonel Hawker's theory be correct, the bore should not be perfectly cylindrical. With respect to the common sized guns, which are usually made for the sports of the field, there are two good ways of boring; the one is, to leave a cylinder for about threefourths of the barrel, (always taking care, however, to preserve a tightness for a little friction just where the shot first moves), and let the remaining part be gradually relieved to the muzzle. For instance; suppose a barrel to be two feet eight inches long, we would say (beginning at the breech end) about six inches tight, twenty-one inches a cylinder, and the remaining five inches relieved to the muzzle. All this must be done with the most delicate possible gradation, and in so small a degree, that even some gunmakers could scarcely discover it. How natural, then, is it, that many sporting authors should be so far deceived, as to fancy the best guns are bored a true cylinder, and therefore, argue in its favour. This relief has the effect of making the gun shoot as close as it can do, compatibly with the strength and quickness required, which should however, be increased as much as possible by the best constructed breechings. The other plan is, to make the barrel regularly tighter all the way down, so that, in firing, the shot goes progressively easier as it approaches the muzzle. All this relief |