Barning, have had a late attempt to establish the opinion, that thefe destroying internal fires are caufed in the entrails of the body by inflamed effluvia of the blood; by juices and fermentation in the ftomach; by the many combustible matters which abound in living bodies for the purposes of life; and, finally, by the fiery evaporations which exhale from the fettlings of fpirit of wine, brandies, and other hot liquors, in the tunica villofa of the ftomach and other adipose or fat membranes; within which thofe fpirits engender a kind of camphor, which in the night-time, in fleep, by a full respiration, are put in a stronger motion, and are more apt to be fet on fire. Others afcribe the cause of fuch perfons being fet on fire to lightning; and their burning fo entirely, to the greater quantity of phosphorus and other combustible matter they contained. For our own part, we can by no means pretend to explain the cause of fuch a phenomenon: but for the interefts of humanity we with it could be derived from fomething external to the human body; for if, to the calamities of human life already known, we fuperadd a fufpicion that we may unexpectedly, and without the leaft warning, be confumed by an internal fire, the thought is too dread

ful to be borne.

BURNING, or Brenning, in our old cuftoms, denotes an infectious disease, got in the ftews by converfing with lewd women, and fuppofed to be the fame with what we now call the venereal disease.

In a manuscript of the vocation of John Bale to the bishopric of Offory, written by himself, he speaks of Dr Hugh Weston, who was dean of Windsor in 1556, but deprived by Cardinal Pole for adultery, thus: "At this day is leacherous Wefton, who is more practifed in the arts of breech-burning, than all the whores of the ftews. He not long ago brent a beggar of St Botolph's parish." See STEWS.

BURNING, in Antiquity, a way of difpofing of the dead much practised by the ancient Greeks and Romans, and ftill retained by feveral nations in the Eaft and West Indies. The antiquity of this custom rifes as high as the Theban war, where we are told of the great folemnity accompanying this ceremony at the pyre of Menæacus and Archemorus, who were cotemporary with Jair the eighth judge of Ifrael. Homer abounds with funeral obfequies of this nature. In the inward regions of Afia the practice was of very ancient date, and the continuance long: for we are told, that, in the reign of Julian, the king of Chionia burnt his fon's body, and depofited the ashes in a filver urn. Coeval almoft with the first instances of this kind in the eaft, was the practice in the western parts of the world. The Herulians, the Getes, and the Thracians, had all along obferved it; and its antiquity was as great with the Celta, Sarmatians, and other neighbouring nations. The origin of this custom feems to have been out of friendship to the deceased: their afhes were preferved as we preserve a lock of hair, a ring, or a feal, which had been the property of a deceased friend.

Kings were burnt in cloth made of the asbestos stone, that their afhes might be preferved pure from any mixture with the fuel and other matters thrown on the funeral pile. The fame method is still observed with the princes of Tartary. Among the Greeks, the body was placed on the top of a pile, on which were thrown di

vers animals, and even flaves and captives, befides un- Eurning. guents and perfumes. In the funeral of Patroclus we find a number of sheep and oxen thrown in, then four horfes, followed by two dogs, and laftly by 12 Trojan prifoners. The like is mentioned by Virgil in the funerals of his Trojans ; where, befides oxen, fwine, and all manner of cattle, we find eight youths condemned to the flames. The first thing was the fat of the beasts wherewith the body was covered, that it might confume the fooner it being reckoned great felicity to be quickly reduced to afhes. For the like reason, where numbers were to be burnt at the fame time, care was taken to mix with the reft fome of humid conftitutions, and therefore more easily to be inflamed. Thus we are affured by Plutarch and Macrobius, that for every ten men it was customary to put in one woman. Soldiers ufually had their arms burnt with them. The garments worn by the living were alfo thrown on the pile, with other ornaments and prefents; a piece of extravagance which the Athenians carried to fo great a height, that fome of their lawgivers were forced to reftrain them, by fevere penalties, from defrauding the living by their liberality to the dead. In fome cafes, burning was exprefsly forbidden among the Romans, and even looked upon as the higheft impiety. Thus infants, who died before the breeding of teeth, were intombed unburnt. in the ground, in a particular place fet apart for this purpose, called fuggrundarium. The like was practifed with regard to those who had been struck dead with lightning, who were never to be burrt again. Some say that burning was denied to fuicides.-The manner of burning among the Romans was not unlike that of the Greeks; the corpfe, being brought out without the city, was carried directly to the place appointed for burning it; which, if it joined to the fepulchre, was called buflum; if feparate from it, ufrina; and there laid on the rogus or pyra, a pile of wood prepared on which to burn it, built in shape of an altar, but of different height according to the quality of the decealed. The wood ufed was commonly from fuch trees as contain most pitch or rofin; and if any other were used, they fplit it for the more eafy catching fire: round the pile they fet cypress trees, probably to hinder the noisome fmell of the corpfe. The body was not placed on the bare pile, but on the couch or bed whereon it lay. This done, the next of blood performed the ceremony of lighting the pile; which they did with a torch, turning their faces all the while the other way, as if it were done with reluctance. During the ceremony, decurfions and games were celebrated; after which came the offilegium, or gathering of the bones and afhes; also washing and anointing them, and repofiting them in urns.

BURNING, among furgeons, denotes the application of an actual cautery, that is, a red-hot iron inftrument, to the part effected: otherwise denominated cauterization. The whole art of phyfic among the Japanese lies in the choice of places proper to be burnt: which

are varied according to the difeafe. In the country of the Mogul, the colic is cured by an iron ring applied red-hot about the patient's navel. Certain it is, that fome very extraordinary cures have been performed accidentally by burning. The following cafe is recorded in the Memoirs of the academy of sciences by M. Homberg. A woman of about 35 became subject to a headB 2

ach

Eurning. ach, which at times was fo violent that it drove her out of her fenfes, making her fometimes ftupid and foolish, a other times raving and furious. The feat of the pain was in the forehead, and over the eyes, which were inflamed, and looked violently red and fparkling; and the most violent fits of it were attended with naufeas and vomitings. In the times of the fits, she could take no food; but out of them, had a very good ftomach. Mr Homberg had in vain attempted her cure for three years with all kinds of medicines: only opium fucceeded; and that but little, all its effect being only the taking off the pain for a few hours. The rednefs of her eyes was always the fign of an approaching fit. One night, feeling a fit coming on, he went to lie down upon the bed; but firft walked up to the glafs with the candle in her hand, to fee how her eyes looked: in obferving this, the candle fet fire to her cap: and as fhe was alone, her head was terribly burnt before the fire could be extinguished. Mr Homberg was fent for, and ordered bleeding and proper dreffings: but it was perceived, that the expected fit this night never came on; the pain of the burning wore off by degrees; and the patient found herself from that hour cured of the headach, which had never returned in four years after, which was the time when the account was communicated. Another cafe, not lefs remarkable than the former, was communicated to Mr Homberg by a phyfician at Bruges. A woman, who for feveral years had her legs and thighs fwelled in an extraordinary manner, found fome relief from rubbing them before the fire with brandy every morning and evening. One evening the fire chanced to catch the brandy fhe had rubbed herself with, and flightly burnt her. She applied fome brandy to her burn; and in the night all the water her legs and thighs were fwelled with was entirely discharged by urine, and the swelling did not again return.

BURNING-Buh. See Busн.

BURNING Glafs, a convex glafs commonly fpherical, which being expofed directly to the fun, collects all the rays falling theron into a very small space called the focus; where wood or any other combustible matter being put, will be fet on fire. The term burning-glafs is also used to denote thofe concave mirrors, whether composed of glafs quickfilvered, or of metalline matters, which burn by reflection, condenfing the fun's rays into a focus fimilar to the former.

The use of burning-glaffes appears to have been very ancient. Diodorus Siculus, Lucian, Dion, Zonaras, Galen, Anthemius, Euftathius, Tzetzes, and others, atteft, that by means of them Archimedes fet fire to the Roman fleet at the fiege of Syracufe. Tzetzes is fo particular in his account of this matter, that his defcription fuggefted to Kircher the method by which it was probably accomplished. That author fays, that "Archimedes fet fire to Marcellus's navy, by means of a burning glafs composed of small square mirrors moving every way upon hinges; which, when placed in the fun's rays, directed them upon the Roman fleet, fo as to reduce it to ashes at the distance of a bow shot.” A very particular teftimony we have also from Anthemius of Lydia, who takes pains to prove the poffibility of fetting fire to a fleet, or any other combustible body, at fuch a distance.

That the ancients were also acquainted with the ufe

of catoptric or refracting burning-glaffes, appears from Burning. a paffage in Aristophanes's comedy of The Clouds, which clearly treats of their effects. The author introduces Socrates as examining Strepfiades about the method he had discovered of getting clear of his debts. He replies, that he thought of making ufe of a burning-glafs which he had hitherto ufed in kindling his fire;"" for (fays he) fhould they bring a writ against me, I'll immediately place my glafs in the fun at fome little distance from it, and fet it on fire." Pliny and Lactantius have also spoken of glaffes that burn by refraction. The former calls them balls or globes of glass or crystal, which, exposed to the fun, tranfmit a heat fufficient to fet fire to cloth, or corrode the dead flesh of those patients who ftand in need of cauftics; and the latter, after Clemens Alexandrinus, takes notice that fire may be kindled by interpofing glaffes filled with water between the fun and the object, so as to tranfmit the rays to it.

It feems difficult to conceive how they should know fuch glaffes would burn without knowing they would magnify, which it is granted they did not, till towards the clofe of the 13th century, when fpectacles were first thought on. For as to those paffages in Plautus which feem to intimate the knowledge cf fpectacles, M. de la Hire obferves, they do not prove any fuch thing; and he folves this, by obferving, that their burningglaffes being spheres, either folid or full of water, their foci would be one-fourth of their diameter diftant from them. If then their diameter were supposed half a foot, which is the moft we can allow, an object must be at an inch and a half diftance to perceive it magnified; those at greater distances do not appear greater, but only more confufed through the glafs than out of it. It is no wonder, therefore, the magnifying property of convex glaffes was unknown, and the burning one known. It is more wonderful there should be 300 years between the invention of spectacles and telescopes.

Among the ancients, the burning mirrors of Archimedes and Proclus are famous: the former we have already taken notice of; by the other, the navy of Vitellius befieging Byzantium, according to Zonaras, was burnt to afhes.

Among the moderns, the most remarkable burning mirrors are thofe of Settala, of Villette, of Tfchirnhaufen, of Buffon, of Trudaine, and of Parker.

Settala, canon of Padua, made a parabolic mirror, which, acording to Schottus, burnt pieces of wood at the distance of 15 or 16 paces. The following things are noted of it in the Acta Eruditorum. 1. Green wood takes fire inftantaneously, fo as a ftrong wind cannot extinguish it. 2. Water boils immediately; and eggs in it are presently edible. 3. A mixture of tin and lead, three inches thick, drops presently; and iron and fteel plate becomes red-hot presently, and a little after burns into holes. 4. Things not capable of melting, as ftones, bricks, &c. become foon red-hot, like iron. 5. Slate becomes firft white, then a black glass. 6. Tiles are converted into a yellow glafs, and fhells into a blaskish yellow one. 7. A pumice ftone, emitted from a volcano, melts into white glafs; and, 8. A piece of crucible alfo vitrifies in eight minutes. 9. Bones are foon turned into an opaque glass, and earth into a black The breadth of this mirror is near three Leipfic ells, its focus two ells from it; it is made of copper,

one.

and

Burning and its fubftance is not above double the thickness of the back of a knife.

Villette, a French artift of Lyons, made a large mirror, which was bought by Tavernier and prefented to the king of Perfia; a fecond, bought by the king of Denmark; a third, presented by the French king to the Royal Academy; a fourth has been in England, where it was publicly expofed. The effects hereof, as found by Dr Harris and Dr Defaguliers, are, that a filver fixpence is melted in 7", a King George's halfpenny in 16", and runs with a hole in 34. Tin melts in 3", caft iron in 16", flate in 3"; a foffil fhell calcines in 7"; a piece of Pompey's pillar at Alexandria vitrifies, the black part in 50", in the white in 54′′; copper ore in 8"; bone calcines in 4", vitrifies in 33". An emerald melts into a fubftance like a turquois stone; a diamond weighing four grains lofes of its weight: the asbestos vitrifies; as all other bodies will do, if kept long enough in the focus; but when once vitrified, the mirror can go no farther with them. This mirror is 47 inches wide, and is ground to a sphere of 76 inches radius; so that its focus is about 38 inches from the vertex. Its fubftance is a compofition of tin, copper, and tin-glass.

Every lens, whether convex, plano-convex, or convexo-convex, collects the fun's rays, difperfed over its convexity, into a point by refraction; and is therefore a burning glafs. The moft confiderable of this kind is that made by M. de Tfchirnhausen: the diameters of his lenfes are three and four feet, the focus at the distance of 12 feet, and its diameter an inch and a half. To make the focus the more vivid, it is collected a second time by a fecond lens parallel to the first, and placed in that point where the diameter of the cone of rays formed by the firft lens is equal to the diameter of the fecond; fo that it receives them all; and the focus, from an inch and a half, is contracted into the space of eight lines, and its force increased proportionably.

This glass vitrifies tiles, flates, pumice-ftones, &c. in a moment. It melts fulphur, pitch, and all rofins, under water; the ashes of vegetables, woods, and other matters, are tranfmuted into glafs; and every thing applied to its focus is either melted, turned into a calx, or into smoke. Tfchirnhaufen obferves, that it fucceeds best when the matter applied is laid on a hard charcoal well burnt.

Sir Ifaac Newton prefented a burning-glafs to the royal fociety, confifting of feven concave glaffes, fo placed as that all their foci join in one phyfical point. Each glafs is about 11 inches and a half in diameter: fix of them are placed round the feventh, to which they are all contiguous; and they form a kind of fegment of a sphere, whofe fubtenfe is about 34 inches and a half, and the central glass lies about an inch farther in than the reft. The common focus is about 22 inches and a half distant, and about an inch in diameter. This glafs vitrifies brick or tile in 1", and melts gold in 30".

It would appear, however, that glafs quickfilvered is a more proper material for burning-glaffes than metals; for the effects of that speculum wherewith Mr Macquer melted the platina feem to have been fuperior to those above mentioned, though the mirror it

felf was much smaller. The diameter of this glafs was Burning. only 22 inches, and its focal distance 28. Black flint, when expofed to the focus, being powdered to prevent its crackling and flying about, and fecured in a large piece of charcoal, bubbled up and ran into transparent glafs in lefs than half a minute. Heffian crucibles, and glafs-house pots, vitrified completely in three or four feconds. Forged iron fmoked, boiled, and changed into a vitrefcent fcoria as foon as it was exposed to the focus. The gypfum of Montmartre, when the flat fides of the plates or leaves of which it is compofed were presented to the glass, did not fhow the leaft dif. pofition to melt; but, on prefenting a tranfverfe fection of it, or the edges of the plates, it melted in an inftant, with a hiffing noife, into a brownish yellow matter. Calcareous tones did not completely melt : but there was detached from them a circle more compact than the rest of the mafs, and of the fize of the focus; the feparation of which feemed to be occafioned by the shrinking of the matter which had begun to enter into fufion. The white calx of antimony, common ly called diaphoretic antimony, melted better than the calcareous ftones, and changed into an opaque pretty gloffy fubftance like white enamel. It was obferved, that the whitenefs of the calcareous ftones and the antimonial calx was of great difadvantage to their fufion, by reafon of their reflecting great part of the fun's rays; fo that the fubject could not undergo the full activity of the heat thrown upon it by the burning-glafs. The cafe was the fame with metallic bodies; which melted fo much the more difficultly as they were more white and polished; and this difference was fo remarkable, that in the focus of this mirror, fo fufible a metal as filver, when its furface was polifhed, did not melt at all.

Plate CXXXI. fig. 1. reprefents M. Buffon's burning mirror, which he with great reason supposes to be of the fame nature with that of Archimedes. It confifts of a number of fmall mirrors of glafs quickfilvered, all of which are held together by an iron frame. Each of these small mirrors is alfo moveable by a contrivance on the back part of the frame, that fo their reflections may all coincide in one point. By this means they are capable of being accommodated to various heights of the fun, and to different diftances. The adjufting them. in this manner takes up a confiderable time; but after they are fo adjusted, the focus will continue unaltered for an hour or more.

Fig. 2. represents a contrivance of M. Buffon's for diminishing the thickness of very large refracting lenfes. He obferves, that in the large lenfes of this kind, and which are moft convenient for many purposes, the thickness of the glafs in the middle is fo great as very much to diminish their force. For this reafon he propofes to form a burning-glafs of concentric circular pieces of glass, each refting upon the other, as reprefented in the figure. His method is to divide the convex arch of the lens into three equal parts. Thus, fuppofe the diameter to be 26 inches, and the thickness in the middle to be three inches: By dividing the lens into three concentric circles, and laying the one over the other, the thickness of the middle piece needs be only one inch; at the fame time that the lens will have the fame convexity, and almost the fame focal distance,

as.

Barning, rammed clofe about it. Within the pot is a brown Burnisher, water, thick as puddle, continually forced up with a violent motion beyond that of boiling water, and a rumbling hollow noife, rifing or falling by fits five or fix inches; but there was no appearance of any vapour rifing, which perhaps might have been visible, had not the fun fhone fo bright. Upon putting a candle down at the end of a stick, at about a quarter of a yard distance, it took fire, darting and flashing after a very violent manner for about half a yard high, much in the manner of spirits in a lamp, but with great agitation. It was faid, that a tea-kettle had been made to boil in about nine minutes time, and that it had been left burning for 48 hours without any fenfible diminution. It was extinguished by putting a wet mop upon it; which must be kept there for a little time, otherwise it would not go out. Upon the removal of the mop there arifes a fulphureous smoke lasting about a minute, and yet the water is very cold to the touch." In 1755, this well totally disappeared by the finking of a coal-pit in its neighbourhood.

The cause of the inflammable property of such waters is, with great probability, fuppofed to be their mixture with petroleum, which is a very inflammable substance, and has the property of burning on the furface of water.

BURNING of Colours, among painters. There are feveral colours that require burning; as,

Firft, Lamp-black, which is a colour of fo greafy a nature, that, except it is burnt, it will require a long time to dry. The method of burning, or rather dry ing, lamp-black, is as follows: Put it into a crucible over a clear fire, letting it remain till it be red hot, or fo near it that no manner of smoke arises from it.

Secondly, Umber, which if it be intended for colour for a horfe, or to be a fhadow for gold, then burning fits it for both thefe purpofes. In order to burn umber, you must put it into the naked fire, in large lumps, and not take it out till it is thoroughly red hot; if you have a mind to be more curious, put it into a crucible, and keep it over the fire till it be red hot.

Ivory alfo must be burnt to make black, thus: Fill two crucibles with fhavings of ivory, then clap their two mouths together, and bind them faft with an iron wire, and lute the joints clofe with clay, falt, and horse-dung, well beaten together; then fet it over the fire, covering it all over with coals: let it remain in the fire till you are fure that the matter enclosed is thoroughly red hot: then take it out of the fire; but do not open the crucibles till they are perfectly cold; for were they opened while hot, the matter would turn to alhes; and so it will be, if the joints are not luted clofe.

BURNISHER, a round polished piece of fteel ferving to fmooth and give a luftre to metals.

Of thefe there are different kinds of different fi gures, ftraight, crooked, &c. Half burnishers are ufed to folder filver, as well as to give a lustre.

Burnishers for gold and filver are commonly made of a dog's or wolf's tooth, fet in the end of an iron or wooden handle. Of late, agates and pebbles have been introduced, which many prefer to the dog's tooth.

The burnishers used by engravers in copper, ufually

ferve with one end to burnish, and with the other to Burnishing fcrape.

BURNISHING, the art of fmoothing or polishing a metalline body, by a brisk rubbing of it with a burnifher.

Book-binders burnish the edges of their books, by rubbing them with a dog's tooth.

BURNLEY, a town of Lancashire in England, fituated in W. Long. 2. 5. N. Lat. 51. 38.

BURNS, ROBERT, was a native of Ayrshire, one of the western counties of Scotland. He was the fon of humble parents; and his father paffed through life in the condition of a hired labourer, or of a small farmer. Even in this fituation, however, it was not hard for him to fend his children to the parish school, to receive the ordinary inftruction in reading, writing, arithmetic, and the principles of religion. By this courfe of education young Robert profited to a degree that might have encouraged his friends to deftine him to one of the liberal profeffions, had not his father's poverty made it neceffary to remove him from school, as foon as he had grown up, to earn for himself the means of fupport as a hired ploughboy or shepherd.

The expence of education in the parish-fchools of Scotland is fo fmall, that hardly any parents who are able to labour want the means of giving to their children at least such education as young Burns received. From the fpring labours of a ploughboy, from the fummer employment of a shepherd, the peasant-youth often returns for a few months, eagerly to pursue his education at the parish-school.

It was fo with Burns; he returned from labour to learning, and from learning went again to labour, till his mind began to open to the charms of taste and knowledge; till he began to feel a paffion for books, and for the fubjects of books, which was to give a colour to the whole thread of his future life. On nature he foon began to gaze with new difcernment and with new enthusiasm: his mind's eye opened to perceive affecting beauty and fublimity, where, by the mere groís peafant, there was nought to be seen but water, earth, and fky-but animals, plants, and foil.

What might perhaps first contribute to dispose his mind to poetical efforts, is one particular in the devotional piety of the Scotish peafantry. It is ftill common for them to make their children get by heart the Pfalms of David, in the verfion of homely rhymes which is used in their churches. In the morning and in the evening of every day, or at least on the evening of every Saturday and Sunday, these Pfalms are fung in folemn family-devotion, a chapter of the Bible is read, and extemporary prayer is fervently uttered. The whole books of the facred Scriptures are thus continually in the hands of almost every peafant. And it is impoffible that there fhould not be occafionally fome fouls among them, awakened to the divine emotions of genius by that rich affemblage which those books prefent, of almost all that is interefting in incidents, or picturefque in imagery, or affectingly fublime or tender in fentiments and character. It is impoflible that those rude rhymes, and the fimple artless mufic with which they are accompanied, fhould not occafionally excite fome ear to a fond perception of the melody of verfe. That Burns had felt thefe impulfes, will appear undeniably certain to whoever shall carefully perufe his Cot

Burns.