rally indicative of, and produced by, some disorder of the digestive organs.

2. The shining (Erythema læve), exhibits a uniformly smooth shining surface, and chiefly appears on the lower extremities in confluent patches. It is sometimes symptomatic of disorder of the digestive organs; occasionally attends the catamenia in delicate and irritable females, but most commonly accompanies anasarca or oedematous swellings. Under whatever circumstances anasarca occurs, so as greatly to stretch the skin, this Erythema is liable to be produced, and is often checkered with patches and streaks of a dark red and purple hue. It commonly terminates in extensive disquamation of the skin, and may be considered as merely a modification of oedematous erysipelas.

3. Marginated (Erythema marginatum) occurs in patches which are bounded on one side by a hard elevated tortuous red border, in some places obscurely papulated; but the redness has no regular boundary on the open side. The patches appear on the extremities and loins in old people, and remain for an uncertain time, without producing any irritation in the skin. They are connected with some internal disorder, and may be considered as indicative of serious and dangerous diseases.

4. Papulated (Erythema papulatum) appears chiefly on the arms, neck, and breast, in irregular extensive patches, and most frequently in females and young persons. The patches are of a bright red hue, often slightly elevated; and for a day or two before the colour becomes vivid they are rough or imperfectly papulated. The redness afterwards continues for several days; and, as it declines, assumes, in the central parts, a bluish or pale purple tinge. This variety is generally attended by a tingling sensation, passing to soreness as the colour changes; and sometimes with much constitutional disturbance, with a frequent small pulse, loss of appetite, depression of strength and spirits, watch fulness, and pains or tenderness of the limbs, but the general disorder is trifling.

5. Tuberculated (Erythema tuberculatum) is merely a slight modification of the advanced stage of the papulated. 6. Nodose (Erythema nodosum) consists of large oval patches on the fore part of the legs; the long diameter of the patch is parallel with the tibia; these patches slowly rise into hard and painful protuberances, and as regularly soften and subside in the course of nine or ten days. The red colour turns bluish on the eighth or ninth day, as if the leg had been bruised. It chiefly affects children, and particularly females, and is very seldom observed in boys. It is preceded by slight febrile symptoms for a week or more, which generally abate when the erythema appears. It is sometimes connected with the approach of the catamenia, and its premature disappearance is not unfrequently succeeded by dangerous internal disease, as inflammation of the lungs.

The primary causes of erythema are the friction of contiguous parts, especially in fat persons; the accumulation of morbid secretions and excretions on the skin, as the matter of the perspiration, of the leucorrheal discharge, of the catamenia, and of the alvine and urinary evacuations, in the adult in the course of other diseases, and in the infant in consequence of a want of proper ablution. It is also constantly produced by irritating articles of food and drink, and is the sign and the result of a disordered state of the digestive organs.

In most cases the affection disappears soon after the removal of the cause which produces it-by free ablution where it is the result of irritating matters on the skin, and its disappearance is assisted sometimes by the application of an absorbent powder to the inflamed surface, and at other times by the use of a gently stimulating lotion, as the spirit wash. When the disease is dependent on a disorder of the digestive organs, it can be removed only by the remedies proper for the removal of the stomachic, the hepatic, or the intestinal derangement. For the restoration of these organs to their sound condition, the most appropriate remedies are light diet, diaphoretics, the mercurial alteratives in combination with gentle aperients, and the mineral acids as tonics. (Bateman's Practical Synopsis of Cutaneous Diseases; Copland's Dictionary of Practical Medicine.) ERYTHRÆEA, a pretty genus of annual plants, belonging to the natural order Gentianacea, and inhabiting dry sandy places in Great Britain and other parts of Europe, especially near the sea. The species have small oval sessile

ribbed radical leaves, diminishing in breadth as they ascend the stem; a corymbose stem, a five-cleft calyx, pink funnelshaped flowers, with a short five-lobed limb, five stamens, spiral anthers, two roundish stigmas, and a linear capsule. They are all extremely bitter, and are collected by country people, under the name of centaury, as a substitute for gentian, in domestic medicine. English botanists reckon four supposed species. ERYTHRÆA CENTAURIUM, Lesser Centaury, an indigenous plant, common by way-sides and edges of fields, flowering in August, at which time it is to be collected. The whole plant is taken up; it has a square stem, with opposite entire three-nerved leaves. It is devoid of odour; the taste is strongly bitter, but not unpleasant: 100 parts of the fresh herb dry into 47; 10 pounds of the dry herb yield by a single coction 3 pounds of extract.

It contains a principle called Centaurin, which at present is known only as a dark brown extract-like mass; but which, united with hydrochloric acid, furnishes an excellent febrifuge medicine. As a bitter, it suits irritable systems better than any article of that class of medicines, and is therefore to be preferred. In other respects it has the general properties of bitter tonics.

ERYTHRIC ACID, a substance obtained by Bragnatelli from the mutual action of nitric and uric acids; by spontaneous evaporation rhombic crystals are obtained, which have first a sharp and afterwards a sweetish taste, redden litmus, become of a rose colour, and effloresce in the air. Instead of being a peculiar acid, Dr. Prout regards it as a compound of nitric and purpuric acid and ammonia.

ERYTHRI'NA, a leguminous genus of tropical trees and tuberous herbs, with ternate leaves, and clusters of very large long flowers, which are usually of the brightest red; whence the species have gained the name of coraltrees. Frequently their stem is defended by stiff prickles. They occur in the warmer parts of the Old and New World. An Indian species, E. monosperma, is said to yield gum-lac. De Candolle mentions thirty-two species; of which E. crista galli is commonly cultivated in greenhouses for the sale of its splendid blossoms.

ERYTHROGEN, a neutral crystalline fatty matter found by M. Bizio in bile altered by disease.

ERYTHRO’NIUM (Dens Canis), a pretty little bulbous plant, whose name, Englished dog's-tooth violet, is derived from the form of its long slender white bulbs, is a native of woody subalpine places among bushes and stones, in Croatia, Idria, and about Laybach; it also occurs in Switzerland, but more seldom, and is also met with in the north of Italy. It is not mentioned in the Floras of the south of Europe. Two or three varieties are known in gardens as gay hardy flowers appearing early in the spring; one with purple, a second with white flowers, and a third, elevated by some into a species, with a somewhat stronger habit of growth. ERYTHROXY'LEÆ, a group of exogenous plants, con

ERYX or ERIX, a genus of serpents separated by Daudin from Boa, and differing from it in having a very short obtuse tail, and the ventral plates narrower. The head of Eryr is short, and the characters generally would approximate the form to Tortrix, did not the conformation of the jaws place it at a distance from the last-named genus. The head, besides, is covered with small scales only. Eryx has no hooks at the vent.

Eryx Bengalensis.

ERZERU'M, ERZ-RU'M, or ARZRU'M, a town in Turkish Armenia, in 39° 57′ N. lat., and about 41° 15′ E. long, towards the eastern extremity of an extensive and fertile plain between 30 and 40 miles in length and from 15 to 20 miles in its greatest breadth. This plain is watered by the Karà Sù, or western branch of the Euphrates, which rises at its eastern extremity, and from whose banks the town is three or four miles distant. The town is very large, and is partly surrounded by an old castellated wall, with a ditch, and on its southern skirts stands a citadel encircled by a double wall flanked with towers very close to each other, and with a ditch: it has four gates, and incloses the palace of the pacha and nearly the whole of the Turkish population. But a large portion of Erzerum is unwalled, and contains the principal bazaars and khans. The houses for the most part are low, and built of wood, but the bazaars are extensive, and well supplied with provisions. Erzerum has nearly forty mosques, a Greek church, and a large Armenian chapel. In the beginning of this century the population was estimated at 100,000 individuals; and in 1827 at 130,000. But being soon afterwards occupied by the Russians, the greatest part of the inhabitants abandoned the town, the Armenians emigrating to Russia, and the Turks retiring to the adjacent parts of Asia Minor. Since its restoration to the Turks by the peace of Adrianople the place is slowly rising from its state of decay, but in 1835 its population did not exceed 15,000. We do not know if any of its numerous manufactures have been revived. Before the Russian invasion considerable quantities of silk and cotton cloth were made here, and much leather tanned; there were also some manufactures of copper vessels.

ERZGEBIRGISCHE-KREIS (circle of the Ore Mountains), a large province of the kingdom of Saxony, which takes its name from the mountains which bound it on the south and separate it from the kingdom of Bohemia. On the north it is bounded by the circle of Leipzig and by the duchy of Saxe-Altenburg; on the west by the grand duchy of Saxe-Weimar, the principality of Reuss, and the circle of Voigtland; and on the east by the circle of Meissen. It is the largest and most populous province in the kingdom, and contains an area of about 1747 square miles, on which there are 58 towns, 13 market villages, and above 700 villages and hamlets. In 1829 the population was 488,863, and it is at present estimated at about 506,000. The surface rises gradually from the borders of the Leipzig and Meissen circles, until it reaches the southern frontier and the lofty summits of the Ore Mountains. The province is intersected in all directions by offsets from those mountains, and presents a constant succession of hills and valleys. The loftiest heights in it are the Fichtelberg, at the southernmost extremity of the province, which is 3968 feet, and the Auersberg, about eleven miles north-west of the Fichtelberg, which is 3132 feet above the level of the sea. The Freiberg or Eastern Mulde, the largest river in the province, flows through its eastern districts, and the Schneeberg or Western Mulde through the western districts; the centre is irrigated by the Zschoppau, Flöhe, Pöhl, Sehm, Bockau, Chemnitz, and other streams; the Weiseritz or Westritz partially traverses the most easterly part, and the Pleisse the most westerly. There are no inland waters deserving the name of lakes, but there are a number of mineral springs, chiefly used for bathing, at Wolkenstein, Wiesa, near Annaberg, &c. The province is full of woods and forests, particularly its most elevated parts, such as the vicinity of Schwarzenberg. The average height of the Erzgebirgische Kreis above the level of the sea is estimated at 1200 feet.

In consequence of the rugged character of the surface, the hard, stony soil, and the rawness of the climate, neither agriculture nor horticulture are pursued on a scale of sufficient extent to supply the wants of the province. Oats, rye, linseed, potatoes, and a small quantity of wheat, are culti vated; these articles are also imported from Bohemia and the adjoining circle of Leipzig. There are fine and extensive pastures, particularly in the vicinity of Zwickau, Chemnitz, Augustusberg, Freiberg, and Nossen, where large flocks of sheep are kept; but cattle-breeding, on the whole, is not so actively carried on as it might be. The province is well known for its large trout, its salmon, carp, and other fresh water fish.

The very name of this part of Saxony, 'the circle of the Ore Mountains,' indicates the peculiar character of its natural riches. It abounds in mines of silver, tin, lead, iron, cobalt, &c., the first working of which is said to have taken place in the middle of the twelfth century. Their most flourishing state was in the fifteenth, when the silver mines of Schneeberg and Annaberg and the tin mines of Altenberg were discovered and opened. At the present day they afford employment, either directly or indirectly, to upwards of 200,000 persons. The largest silver mines are in the neighbourhood of Freiberg, of which the Erbisdorf alone produced 3,048,500 ounces of silver between 1769 and 1818: their number is about 200, with 540 pits (zechen); they occupy 4800 hands, and their present produce is from 375,000 to 450,000 ounces annually. The other silver mines are at Schneeberg, Schwarzenberg, Annaberg, Marienberg, &c. The most considerable tin mines are at Altenberg and Geier; others at Schneeberg, &c. No mines in Saxony produce so much iron as those of Johann-Georgenstadt: this metal is also obtained at Schneeberg, Altenberg, &c. Near Aue and Bockau, to the south of Schneeberg, in what is called the Saxon Siberia,' lie the largest

1, A flower magnifiel, without the petals; 2, a transverse section of the Ovary.

ESCAPEMENT. [HOROLOGY.] ESCARP, or SCARP, in fortification, is that side of the ditch surrounding or in front of a work, and forming the exterior of the rampart. In field-works the escarp is usually formed by cutting the earth at such an inclination as will permit it to support itself, which may be at 45 degrees with the horizon or more, according to the tenacity of the soil; and, to impede the enemy in attempting an assault, fraises or inclined palisades are frequently planted on the slope. In large fortresses the escarp is the exterior surface of the revetment wall which supports the rampart, and it is frequently formed at such an inclination that its base, measured in front of a vertical plane passing through the top of the wall and in the direction of its length, is one-sixth of the height of the wall; but engineers at present recommend both the escarps and counterscarps to be vertical, from an opinion that the action of the weather upon the brick-work will thereby be diminished. [REVETMENT.]

ESCARPMENT, a precipitous side of any hill or rock. In military operations ground is frequently scarped, as it is called, or cut away nearly vertically about a position, in order to prevent an enemy from arriving at the latter. Part of the rock of Gibraltar has been rendered inaccessible in this manner; and, in the execution of the intrenchments about Lisbon, in 1810, the British troops formed an escarpment from 15 to 20 feet high, and about two miles long, on the brow of a ridge of heights extending from Alhandra to the valley of Calandrix, in order to secure the line against an attack at that part. A similar work was executed along a ridge of hills between Mafra and the mouth of the S. Lorenzo.

E'SCHARA. [POLYPARIA MEMBRANACEA.] ESCHAROTICS (loxaporixà, from oxapów, to form a crust, or scab), are agents applied to the surface of the body, which destroy the vitality of the part which they touch and produce an eschar. This effect they occasion either by combining chemically with the animal matter, or by destroying the old affinities, and causing the elements of the part to enter into new combinations. Their action is more energetic in proportion to the degree of vitality of the part to which they are applied. They are classed under two heads, the potential cauterants, and the actual cautery: the former are chiefly chemical agents, and form new compounds with the elements of the part with which they come in contact; but some merely cause irritation and augmented absorption, and are distinguished as erodents. The actual cauterants are substances of an elevated temperature, which decompose the part which they touch, and completely destroy its organization.

The chief potential cauterants are strong mineral acids, such as the sulphuric or nitric, pure alkalics, and some metallic salts, especially nitrate of silver, or lunar caustic. These are used either to produce counter-irritation, or to remove fungous or morbid growths. Lunar caustic seems

to possess peculiar properties, and is unquestionably the most powerful direct antiphlogistic agent known. If applied in the solid state to many inflamed parts it speedily checks the morbid action, and is decidedly the best ap plication to chilblains, and in leucorrhoea. The actual cauterants are used either for their primary action, viz., the immediate destruction of the part, or for their secondary effects. The former object is rarely attempted, except tc prevent the absorption of any poisonous or contagious matter, such as the venom of a snake, or bite of a mad dog. The secondary effects are more important, and more varied according to the degree of heat of the substance applied. The first effect is pain more or less severe, a flow of blood towards the part, and more rapid performance of the process of interstitial deposition and absorption, terminating in inflammation, extending to a greater or less depth, according to the intensity of the heat, or form of the body employed. This increased action has often a salutary effect, which is frequently felt through the whole frame. Torpor and paralysis of the nervous system often disappear, and neuralgia both of the neighbouring and even distant parts is removed. Atony and laxity of the muscular system vanish, and every part displays more energy and power.

The actual cautery may be applied in a variety of ways, viz., hot water, hot vapour, moxa, and heated iron. The first of these is a very ready means of causing vesications in some diseases. In phthisis pulmonalis, or consumption, where pain is often more relieved by vesication than any other means, placing a sponge in a wine-glass, and pouring boiling water on it, then suddenly inverting the glass over the part of the chest where the pain is felt, will cause immediate vesication, followed by speedy relief. The vapour of boiling water, as it issues from the spout of a kettle, is also a convenient method of applying heat in inflammations of the joints, as in gout, morbus coxarius, and other deep-seated diseases of the bones. As the red-hot iron is now seldom used, being confined to veterinary medicine, moxa affords the best substitute, and it is very convenient, as any degree of intensity or rapidity of action can be given to it. [MOXA.]

The eschar which follows the application of the potential or actual cautery generally separates in a few days. The ulcer is then to be treated with different agents, according as it is wished to heal it or keep it open, as a farther means of counter-irritation.

ESCHEAT, from the Norman French word eschet or echet, chance or accident (a word derived from escheoir, the

old French form of the verb échoir, to fall'), is defined by Sir William Blackstone as an obstruction to the course of descent by some unforeseen contingency which consequently determines the tenure. In this case the land results back by a kind of reversion to the original grantor or lord of whom it is holden.

Escheat takes place when the tenant of lands dies intestate and without an heir: in such case the lands, if freehold, escheat to the king, or other lord of the fee; if copyhold, to the lord of the manor. Lands which have descended to the last tenant from a paternal or maternal ancestor, escheat, if there are no heirs on the part of that ancestor from whom the lands descended. Since the 1st day of January, 1834, there can be no escheat on failure of the whole blood, wherever there are persons of the half-blood capable of inheriting under 3 & 4 Will. IV., c. 106. If a bastard dies intestate and without issue, his lands escheat to the lord of whom they are held.

Escheat also takes place upon attainder for treason and murder, by means of which the blood is in law considered to be corrupted, and the attainted owner of lands rendered incapable of holding them himself, or transferring them by descent. In consequence of this extinction of heritable blood, the lands of such felons revest in the lord, except in cases of treason, when a superior law intervenes, and they become forfeited to the crown. Previously to a recent act (3 & 4 William IV., c. 106), a person could not trace his descent through another person who had been attainted; but this may now be done, provided that other person shall have died before such descent shall have taken place. [ATTAINDER.] And by the 4 & 5 William IV., c. 23, no property vested in any trustee or mortgagee shall escheat or be forfeited by reason of the attainder or conviction for any offence of such trustee or mortgagee, except so far as such trustee or mortgagee may have a beneficial interest in such property.