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primary ones, called by way of eminence planets, are those which revolve round the sun as a centre; and the secondary planets, more usually called satellites or moons, are those which revolve round a primary planet as a centre, and constantly attend it in its revolution round the sun. The primary planets are again distinguished into superior and inferior. The superior planets are those farther from the sun than our earth; as Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, the Georgium Sidus, &c., and the inferior planets are those nearer the sun than our earth, as Venus and Mercury. See AsTRONOMY, Index.

PLANETARIUM, an astronomical machine, so called from its representing the motions, orbits, &c., of the planets, agreeable to the Copernican system. See ASTRONOMY.

PLANETARY SYSTEM is the system or assemblage of the planets, primary and secondary, moving in their respective orbits, round their common centre the sun. See ASTRONOMY, Index.

Lat. planus and

PLAN'ISPHERE, n. s. sphere. A sphere projected on a plane: a map of one or both hemispheres.

PLANK, n. s. & v. a. Fr. planche; Arm. plank; Teut. planke; Lat. planca. A thick strong board to lay with planks.

If you do but plank the ground over it will breed salt-petre. Bacon's Natural History.

The doors of plank were; their close exquisite, Kept with a double key. Chapman's Odyssey.

They gazed on their ships, seeing them so great, and consisting of divers planks.

Abbot.

Some Turkish bows are of that strength, as to pierce a plank of six inches. Wilkins.

The smooth plank new rubbed with balm.

Be warned to shun the watery way,
For late I saw adrift disjointed planks,
And empty tombs erected on the banks.

Milton.

Dryden.

Id.

A steed of monstrous height appeared; The sides were planked with pine. PLANOCON'ICAL, adj. Lat. planus and Level on one side and conical on others. Some few are planoconical, whose superficies is in part level between both ends. Grew's Museum.

conus.

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settled: a planter is, one who sets, sows, or cultivates plants; particularly applied to a cultivator of the West India colonies; one who introduces or disseminates any thing or system of things.

Plant not thee a grove of any trees near unto the altar of the Lord. Deuteronomy xvi. 21. Butchers and villains, How sweet a plant have you untimely cropt! Shakspeare. A man haunts the forest that abuses our young Id. plants with carving Rosalind on their barks. The honoured gods, the chairs of justice Supply with worthy men, plant love amongst you. The fool hath planted in his memory An army of good words.

Id.

Id. Merchant of Venice.

Truth, tired with iteration,
As true as steel, as plantage to the moon.

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A man in all the world's new fashion planted, That hath a mint of phrases in his brain. If you plant where savages are, do not only entertain them with trifles and gingles, but use them justly.

Bacon.

Planting of countries is like planting of woods: the principal thing that hath been the destruction of most plantations hath been the base and hasty drawing of profit in the first years; speedy profit is not to be neglected, as far as may stand with the good of the plantation. Id. Essays.

To the planting of it in a nation, the soil may be mellowed with the blood of the inhabitants; nay, the old extirpated, and the new colonies planted. Decay of Piety. Episcopacy must be cast out of this church, after possession here from the first plantation of christianity in this island. King Charles. Towns here are few either of the old or new plantations. Heylin.

The mind through all her powers
Irradiate, there plant eyes.

Milton.

Between the vegetable and sensative province there are plant-animals and some kind of insects arising from vegetables, and seem to participate of both. Hale's Origin of Mankind. There's but little similitude betwixt a terreous Glanville's Scepsis.

humidity and plantal germinations..

Take a plant of stubborn oak,
And labour him with many a sturdy stroke.
Dryden.

When Turnus had assembled all his powers,
His standard planted on Laurentum's towers;
Trembling with rage, the Latian youth prepare
To join the' allies.
Id. Eneis.

Some peasants

Of the same soil their nursery prepare, With that of their plantation; lest the tree Translated should not with the soil agree.

Dryden.

There stood Sabinus, planter of the vines, And studiously surveys his generous wines. Id. It continues to be the same plant, as long as it partakes of the same life, though that life be communicated to new particles of matter, vitally united to the living plant, in a like continued organisation, conformable to that sort of plants.

Locke.

A planter in the West Indies might muster up, and lead all his family out against the Indians,

What do thy vines avail,

Id.

without the absolute dominion of a monarch, de- been found in England, which are accidental :scending to him from Adam. The besom plaintain, and rose-plaintain. The plaintains grow naturally in pastures in most parts of England, and are frequently very troublesome weeds. The common plaintain and ribwort plaintain are both used in medicine, and are so well

Or olives, when the cruel battle mows
The planters, with their harvest immature?

Philips.

The next species of life above the vegetable is that of sense wherewith some of those productions, which we call plant-animals, are endowed. Grew.

The Holy Apostles, the first planters of christianity, followed the moral equity of the fourth com

mandment.

Nelson.

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At morn, and lose their verdure and perfume.

Harte. PLANT, in natural history, is defined to be an organic body, destitute of sense and spontaneous motion, adhering to another body in such manner as to draw from it its nourishment, and having a power of propagating itself by seeds. See BOTANY.

PLANTAGENET, the surname of fourteen kings of England, from Henry II. to Richard III. inclusive. (See ENGLAND). Antiquarians are much at a loss to account for the origin of this name; the best derivation they can find for it is, that Fulk, the first earl of Anjou of that name, being stung with remorse for some wicked action, went in pilgrimage to Jerusalem as a work of atonement; where, being soundly scourged with broom twigs, which grew plentifully on the spot, he ever after took the surname of Plantagenet, or broomstalk, which was retained by his noble posterity.

PLANTAGO, plaintain, a genus of the monogynia order, and tetrandria class of plants. To this genus Linnæus has joined the coronopus and psyllium of Tournefort. Of these there are several distinct species, and some varieties; but, as they are rarely cultivated in gardens, we shall only mention such of them as grow naturally in Britain. Of the plaintain there are the follow ing sorts:-The common broad-leaved plantain, called waybread; the great hoary plaintain, or lamb's-tongue; the narrow-leaved plaintain, or ribwort; and the following varieties have also

known as to need no description. They are said to be slightly astringent; and the green leaves commonly applied to fresh wounds by the common people.

1. P. coronopus, hartshorn, or buckshorn plantain. There are two varieties growing in England, viz. the common buckshorn, which grows plentifully on heaths every where; and the narrow-leaved Welsh sort, which is found upon many of the Welsh mountains. The first of these was formerly cultivated as a sallad herb in gardens, but has been long banished from thence for its rank disagreeable flavor; it is sometimes used in medicine.

2. P. psyllium fleawort is found growing naturally in England, and is used in medicine. It was found in the earth thrown out of the bottom of the canals which were dug for Chelsea waterworks, where it grew in great plenty. The seeds of this species are sometimes used as they are imported from the south of France.

PLA'NTAIN, n. s. Fr. plantain; Lat. plantago. An herb: a tree of the West Indies. See below.

The toad, being overcharged with the poison of the spider, as is believed, has recourse to the plantain leaf.

I long my careless limbs to lay
Under the plantain's shade.

More.

Waller. The most common simples are mugwort, plantain, and horsetail. Wiseman's Surgery.

PLANTAIN. See PLANTAGO. PLANTAIN, LITTLE WATER, the English name of the genus limosella.

PLANTERSHIP, in the West Indies, denotes the management of a sugar plantation, including not only the cultivation of the cane, but the various processes for the extraction of the sugar, together with the making of sugar spirits. See RUM, SUGAR, and WEST INDIES.

PLANTIN (Christopher), a celebrated printer born near Tours in 1733. He settled at Antwerp, and there erected a printing-office, which was considered as the chief ornament of the town, being one of the finest printing offices in Europe. A great number of ancient authors were printed; and these editions were valued not only for the beauty of the characters, but also for the correctness of the text; Plantin having procured the most learned men to be correctors of his press. He died in 1598, aged sixty-five; and left a most sumptuous and valuable library to his grandson Balthasar.

PLANTING, in agriculture and gardening. See RURAL ECONOMY and WOODS.

PLANUDES (Maximus), a Greek monk of Constantinople, who published a collection of epigrams, entitled Anthologia, towards the end of the fourteenth century; a Greek translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses; a Life of Esop; and some other works. He suffered some persecution on account of his attachment to the Latin church.

PLASENCIA, a town in the interior of Estre

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madura, Spain, situated in a narrow, fertile valley, watered by the river Xerte. It covers a large extent of ground, is a bishop's see, and has a good but irregular cathedral, seven churches, seven convents, and a splendid mansion belonging to the Mirabel family. This town, though not, as has been supposed, the Ambracia of the Romans, is of ancient date, and has several antiquities, in particular an aqueduct of eighty arches, still in such preservation as to convey water. Inhabitants 4800. 120 miles west by south of Madrid, and fifty-two north by west of Truxillo.

PLASH, n. s. Belg. plus, plasche; Dan. PLASHY, adj.platz qu. Lat. palus? A small lake of water; a puddle; a marshy place: plashy is, watery; miry.

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soon washed off into the ditch again, and a very great part of the work undone; whereas what is laid on the top of the bank always remains there, and makes a good fence of an indifferent hedge. When the shoot is bent down that is intended to be plashed, it must be cut half way through with the bill; the cut must be given sloping, sɔmewhat downwards, and then it is to be wound about the stakes, and after this its superfluous branches are to be cut off as they stand out at the sides of the hedge.

PLASM, n. s.

Gr. λaoua. A mould; a matrix, in which any thing is cast.

The shells served as plasms or mounds to this sand, which, when consolidated, and freed from its investient shell, is of the same shape with the cavity of

the shell.

Woodward.

PLASSEY, a town, plain, and grove, near the city of Muxadah, in India, celebrated for a battle fought between the British under lord Clive, and the native Hindoos under the nabob Surajah Dowlah, in 1757. The British army consisted of about 1200 men, of whom the Europeans did not exceed 900; while that of the nabob consisted of 50,000 foot and 18,000 horse. Notwithstanding this great disproportion, however, lord Clive effectually routed the nabob and his forces, with the loss of three Europeans and twenty-six sepoys killed, and five Europeans and forty sepoys wounded. The nabob's loss was estimated at about 200 men, besides oxen and elephants.

Fr. plaster, from Latin emplastrum; Substance made of

PLASTER, n. s. & v. a. Į PLASTERER, n. s. Belg. plaster; Gr. λalw. water and some absorbent matter, such as chalk or lime well pulverised; a glutinous or adhesive salve: to overlay or apply plaster: a plasterer is one whose trade is to lay on plaster.

In the same hour came forth the fingers of a man's hand, and wrote upon the plaster of the wall.

Daniel.

A heart settled upon a thought of understanding
is as a fair plastering on the wall.
Eccles.
Seeing the sore is whole, why retain we the plaster?
Hooker.
You rub the sore,
When you should bring the plaster.

Boils and plagues

Shakspeare.

Plaster you o'er, that one infect another Against the wind a mile. Id. Coriolanus. The harlot's cheek beautied with plastering art.

Thy father was a plasterer,

Shakspeare.

PLASHING OF HEDGES, is an operation thought by some persons to promote the growth and continuance of old hedges. It is thus performed:-The old stubs must be cut off, &c., within two or three inches of the ground; and the best and longest of the middle sized shoots must be left to lay down. Some of the strongest of these must also be left to answer the purpose of stakes. These are to be cut off to the height, at which the hedge is intended to be left; and they are to stand at ten feet distance one from another; when there are not proper shoots for these at the due distances, their places must be supplied with common stakes of dead wood. The hedge is to be first thinned, by cutting away all but those shoots which are intended to be used either as stakes, or the other work of the plashing; the ditch is to be cleaned out with the spade; and it must be now dug as at first, with sloping sides each way; and when there is any cavity on the bank on which the hedge grows, or the earth has been washed away from the roots of the shrubs, it is to be made good by facing it with the mould dug from the upper part of the ditch; all the rest of the earth dug out of the ditch is to be laid upon the top of the bank; and the owner should look carefully into it that this be done; for the workmen are apt to throw as much as they can upon the face of the bank; which, being thus overloaded, is The floors of plaster, and the walls of dung. Pope.

Id.

And thou thyself a shearman. With cement of flour, whites of eggs and stone powdered, piscina mirabilis is said to have walls plastered.

Bacon.

The plasterer makes his figures by addition, and Wotton. the carver by subtraction.

It not only moves the needle in powder, but likewise, if incorporated with plasters, as we have made trial. Browne. persing or repelling the humours. Plasters, that have any effect, must be by dis

Temple's Miscellanies. Plaster the chinky hives with clay. Dryden. In the worst inn's worst room, with mat halfhung,

The brain is grown more dry in its consistence, and receives not much more impression, than if you wrote with your finger on a plastered wall.

Watts's Improvement of the Mind. Well, figure to your senses straight, Upon the house's topmost height, A closet, just six feet by four,

With white-washed walls and plastered floor.

Kirke White.

PLASTER, in pharmacy, an external application of a harder consistence than an ointment; to be spread, according to the different circumstances of the wound, place, or patient, either upon linen or leather. See PHARMACY.

PLASTER, OF PLAISTER, in building, a composition of lime, sometimes with sand, &c., to cover the nudities of a building. See PARGETING and STUCCO.

PLASTER OF PARIS, a preparation of several species of gypsum dug near Mont Martre, a village near Paris; whence the name. The best sort is hard, white, shining, and marbly. It neither gives fire with steel, nor ferments with aquafortis; but readily calcines into a fine plaster, the use of which in building and casting statues is well known. Two or three spoonfuls of burnt alabaster, mixed up thin with water, in a short time coagulate, at the bottom of a vessel full of water, into a hard lump, notwithstanding the water that surrounded it. Artificers observe, that the coagulating property of burnt alabaster will be very much impaired or lost, if the powder be kept too long, especially in the open air, before it is used; and when it has been once tempered with water, and suffered to grow hard, they cannot, by any burning or powdering of it again, make it serviceable for their purpose as before. This matter, when wrought into vessels, &c., is still of so loose and spongy a nature, that the air has easy passage through it. Mr. Boyle gives an account, among his experiments with the air-pump, of his preparing a tube of this plaster, closed at one end and open at the other; and, on applying the open end to the cement, as is usually done with the receivers, it was found utterly impossible to exhaust all the air out of it; for fresh air from without pressed in as fast as the other, or internal air, was exhausted, though the sides of the tube were of a considerable thickness. A tube of iron was then put on the engine; so that, being filled with water, the tube of plaster of Paris was covered with it; and, on using the pump, it was immediately seen, that the water passed through into it as easily as the air had done, when that was the ambient fluid.

The method of representing a face truly in plaster of Paris is this:-The person, whose figure is designed, is laid on his back, with any convenient thing to keep off the hair. Into each nostril is conveyed a conical piece of stiff paper, open at both ends, to allow of respiration. These tubes being anointed with oil, are supported by the hand of an assistant; then the face is lightly oiled over, and, the eyes being kept shut, alabaster, fresh calcined, and tempered to a thinnish consistence with water, is by spoonfuls nimbly thrown all over the face, till it lies near the thickness of an inch. This matter grows sensibly hot, and in about a quarter of an

hour hardens into a kind of stony concretion; which, being gently taken off, represents, on its concave surface, the minutest part of the original face. In this a head of good clay may be moulded, and therein the eyes are to be opened, and other necessary amendments made. This second face being anointed with oil, a second mould of calcined alabaster is made, consisting of two parts joined lengthwise along the ridge of the nose; and herein may be cast, with the same matter, a face extremely like the original.

Plaster of Paris casts from the antique are cheap, and offer a facility to the artist of studying the most beautiful productions of the great masters of sculpture without the necessity either of travelling or incurring heavy expenses; while, at the same time, the amateur is gratified by having it in his power to adorn his rooms with facsimiles of the finest productions of ancient art, which would otherwise exist only for the benefit and delight of the fortunate few.

Plaster of Paris, diluted with water into the consistence of a soft or thin paste, quickly sets or grows firm, and its bulk is thereby increased; for Mr. Boyle found that a glass vessel, filled with the fluid mixture, and closely stopped, burst when the mixture set, and sometimes a quantity of water issued through the cracks. This expansion of the plaster, in passing from a soft to a firm state, is one of its valuable properties; rendering it an excellent matter for filling cavities in sundry works, where other earthy mixtures would shrink and leave vacuities, or entirely separate from the adjoining parts.

It is probable, also, that this expansion of the plaster might be made to contribute not a little to the elegance of the impressions which it receives from medals, &c., by properly confining the soft matter, that its expansion mav force it into the minutest traces of the figure.

If finely powdered alabaster, or plaster of Paris, be put into a basin over a fire, it will, when hot, assume the appearance of a fluid, by rolling in waves, yielding to the touch, steaming, &c., all which properties it again loses on the departure of the heat; and being thrown upon paper will not at all wet it, but immediately discover itself to be as motionless as before it was set over the fire.

PLASTERER'S COMPANY, in heraldry, was incorporated in 1500. Their arms are, as in the annexed figure, azure, on a chevron gules, between a trowel and two hatchets, handles of the second; headed argent in chief, and a treble brush in base proper; a rose gules seeded or, between two fleurs-de-lis of the first. PLASTIC, adj. Gr. λasicos. Having the power to give form.

Benign Creator! let thy plastick hand Dispose its own effect.

Prior.

There is not any thing strange in the production of the formed metals, nor other plastick virtue concerned in shaping them into those figures, than merely the configuration of the particles.

Woodward's Natural History.

PLASTIC ART, the art of representing all sorts of figures by the means of moulds. This term is derived from the Gr. λaçın, the art of forming

modelling, or casting in a mould. The artist makes use of moulds to form figures in bronze, lead, gold, silver, or any other metal or fusible substance. The mould is made of clay, stucco, or other composition, and is hollowed into the form of the figure that is to be produced; they then apply the jet, which is a sort of funnel, through which the metal is poured that is to form the figures. It is thus, after much practice and attention, that the artist forms, 1. Equestrian and pedestrian statues of every kind: 2. Groups; 3. Pedestals; 4. Bas-reliefs; 5. Medallions; 6. Cannons, mortars, and other pieces of artillery; 7. Ornaments of architecture, as capitals, bases, &c.; 8. Various sorts of furniture, as lustres, branches, in every kind of metal; and in the same manner figures are cast in stucco, plaster, or any other fusible matter. Wax being a substance that is very easily fused much use is made of it. There are impressions which are highly pleasing in colored wax, of medallions, basso and alto relievos, and of detached figures; which, however, are somewhat brittle. There is also another method of taking the impressions of medals and coins, which is as follows:-They wash or properly clean the piece whose impression is to be taken, and surround it with a border of wax. They then dissolve isinglass in water, and make a decoction of it, mixing with it some vermilion, to give it an agreeable red color. They pour this paste, when hot, on the stone or medal, to the thickness of about the tenth part of an inch; then leave it exposed to the sun, in a place free from dust. After a few days this paste becomes hard, and offers to the eye the most admirable and faithful representation of the medal that it is possible to conceive: they are then carefully placed in drawers; and thousands of these impressions, may be included in a small compass. The proficients in plastics have likewise invented the art of casting in a mould papier maché or dissolved paper, and forming it into figures, in imitation of sculpture, of ornaments and decorations for ceilings, furniture, &c., and which they afterwards paint or gild. There are, however, some inconveniences attending this art; as, for example, the imperfections in the moulds, which render the contours of the figures inelegant, and give them a heavy air these ornaments, moreover, are not so durable as those of bronze or wood, seeing that in a few years they are preyed on by worms. The figures that are given to porcelain, Delft ware, &c., belong also to plastics; for they are formed by moulds, as well as by the art of the sculptor and turner; and by all these arts united are made vases of every kind, figures, groups, and other designs, either for use or ornament.

PLASTIC NATURE, a certain power by which, as an instrument, many philosophers, both ancient and modern, have supposed the great motions in the corporeal world, and the various processes of generation and corruption, to be perpetually carried on. Among the philosophers of Greece, such a power was almost universally admitted. It seems, indeed, to have been rejected only by the followers of Democritus and Epicurus, who thought gravity essential to matter, and the fortuitous motion of atoms,

which they held to have been from eternity, the source, not only of all the regular motions in the universe, but also of the organisation of all corporeal systems, and even of sensation and intellection in brutes and in men. It is evident that those men, whatever they might profess, were in reality atheists; and Democritus avowed his atheism. The greater part of the philosophers who held the existence of a plastic nature considered it not as an agent in the strict sense of the word, but merely as an instrument in the hand of the deity; though even among them there were some who held no superior power, and were, of course, as gross atheists as Democritus himself. Such was Strato of Lampsacus, who was originally of the peripatetic school, over which he presided many years with great reputation. He was the first and chief assertor of what has been termed hylozoic atheism; a system which admits of no power superior to a certain natural or plastic life, essential, ingenerable, and incorruptible, inherent in matter, but without sense and consciousness. That such was his doctrine we learn from Cicero. Cicero adds, however, that Strato, in admitting this plastic principle, differed widely from Democritus. That the rough and smooth, and hooked and crooked atoms of Democritus were, indeed, dreams and fancies, is a position which no sensible person will controvert; and surely Strato was himself as great a dreamer, when he made sensation and intelligence result from a certain plastic or spermatic life in matter, which is itself devoid of sense and consciousness. It is, indeed, inconceivable, to use the emphatic language of Cudworth, how any one in his senses should admit such a monstrous paradox as this, that every atom of dust has in itself as much wisdom as the greatest politician and most profound philosopher, and yet is neither conscious nor intelligent !'

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PLASTRON, n. s. Fr. plastron. A piece of leather stuffed, in order to receive the pushes of fencers.

Against the post their wicker shields they crush, Flourish the sword, and at the plastron push.

Dryden. To

PLAT, v. a. From PLAIT, which see. weave; make by texture.

I have seen nests of an Indian bird curiously interwoven and platied together.

Ray on the Creation.

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