WATS (Gilbert), D. D., a learned divine, born in Yorkshire, and educated at Lincoln College, Oxford, where he became a fellow, and D. D. He translated lord Verulam's Treatise De Augmentis Scientiarum, 4to., and Davilla's History of the Civil Wars in France. He died in 1657.

WATSON (Henry), an eminent surgeon, born at London in 1702. He became famous as a lecturer on anatomy, and was chosen surgeon of Westminster Hospital. He published an Account of the Absorbents of the Urinary Bladder, and some papers in the Philosophical Transactions. He died in 1793, aged ninety-one.

WATSON (John), F. S. A., an English divine, born at Presbury in Cheshire, in 1724; and educated at Brazen Nose College, Oxford, where he became a fellow. In 1769, after several inferior promotions, he became rector of Stockport; and in 1770 chaplain to the earl of Dysart. He was twice married, and was made a J. P. for Cheshire and Lancashire. His chief work was his History of Halifax, 1775. He died March 14th, 1783, while preparing for the press A History of the Earls of Warren and Surrey, aged fifty-nine.

WATSON (Dr. Robert), an elegant historian, was born at St. Andrew's, in Scotland, about 1730. He was the son of an apothecary there, who was also a brewer. Having gone through the usual course, at the school or university of that city, he went first to the university of Glasgow, and afterwards to that of Edinburgh. He pursued his studies with ardor, eight hours every day during the rest of his life. An emulation began to prevail of writing pure and elegant English. Mr. Watson studied the principles of grammar; and by these, with the authority of the best English writers, formed a course of lectures on style, and another on rhetoric; and in Edinburgh he met with the approbation and friendship of lord Kames, Mr. Hume, and other men of learning. At this time he had become a preacher; and, a vacancy happening in a church at St. Andrew's, he offered himself a candidate, but was disappointed. Mr. Rymer, who then taught logic in St. Salvador's College, being in a very infirm state of health, Mr. Watson purchased the succession to Mr. Rymer's place; and, with the consent of the other masters, was appointed professor of logic. He obtained also a patent from the crown, constituting him professor. The study of logic, in St. Andrew's, had been till now confined to syllogisms, modes, &c. Mr. Watson prepared and read to his students a course of metaphysics and logics on the most enlightened plan. By his History of Philip II. Dr. Watson attained a considerable degree of celebrity; and his History of Philip III., published after his death, has added to his fame. Of this last performance, however, he only lived to complete the first four books. The last two were written by the editor of his MSS.

WATSON (Thomas), M. A., a nonconformist divine of the seventeenth century, educated and graduated at Emanuel College, Cambridge. He became minister of St. Stephen's, Walbrook, during the republic, but was ejected in 1663. He wrote A Body of Divinity; and A Course of Sermons on the Assembly's Catechism, in one volume, folio, and other tracts on theology. He died in 1673.

WATSON (Sir William), M. D., and F. R. S., an eminent botanist, born and educated at London about 1700; and bred au apothecary. In 1738

he married, and began business. In 1741 he was admitted F. R. S.; to whose Philosophical Transactions he communicated many valuable papers. In 1745 he was honored with the Copley medal for his discoveries in electricity. In 1757 he was created M. D., by the universities of Halle and Wirtemberg. In 1762 he was appointed a physician in the Foundling Hospital; and in 1784 a Fel. Reg. Col. In 1786 he was knighted. Ile died in 1787. His Tracts on Electricity make one

vol. 8vo.

WATSON (Richard), D. D., a late celebrated English prelate, was born at Heversham in Westmorland, in 1737. His father was a clergyman, and master of a free grammar school, where the son received his education, until in 1754 he became a sizar of Trinity College, Cambridge. Here he was at once distinguished for his intense application to study, and for the singularity of his dress, which consisted of a coarse mottled Westmorland coat, and blue yarn stockings. He regularly took his degrees, became a college tutor, and in 1760, obtained a fellowship. In 1764 he was elected professor of chemistry, when he first applied himself to the study of that science, and with great success, as appears from the five volumes of Chemical Essays which he subsequently published. On the death of Dr. Rutherforth, in 1771, he became regius professor of divinity. He distinguished himself by a display of his political opinions, in a sermon preached before the university on the anniversary of the Revolution, entitled The Principles of the Revolution Vindicated. A short time previous to this, Dr. Watson appeared with advantage in the field of controversy as the opponent of Gibbon, to whom he addressed a series of letters, entitled an Apology for Christianity. The patronage of the duke of Rutland was exerted to obtain his promotion to the see of Llandaff in 1782; and he was permitted to hold at the same time the archdeaconry of Ely, his professorship, and other preferments. Shortly after, he addressed to the archbishop of Canterbury an unacceptable letter containing a project for equalizing the value of church benefices. In 1785 he published a collection of Theological Tracts, in 6 vols. 8vo. The following year he experienced a large addition to his income by the bequest of a valuable estate from Mr. Luther, of Ongar in Essex, one of his Cambridge pupils. During the illness of the late king, in 1788, bishop Watson, in a speech in the house of lords, strongly defended the right of the prince of Wales to the regency, in opposition to Mr. Pitt. He never obtained any farther promotion. In 1796 the bishop appeared a second time as the defender of revealed religion, in his Apology for the Bible, designed as an answer to Paine's Age of Reason; and in 1798 published An Address to the People of Great Britain, in which he animadverted on the danger which threatened this country, in common with other parts of Europe, from the influence of those principles which had occasioned the Revolution in France. Gilbert Wakefield, having published a reply to this address, was prosecuted for sedition, and sentenced to imprisonment; but bishop Watson took no part whatsoever in the proceedings. Though he always continued to be the advocate of liberality; his fears from the ascendancy of French principles were strongly expressed in a publication which he issued under the title of The Substance of a Speech intended to have been

WAVED, in heraldry, is said of a bordure, or any ordinary, or charge, in a coat of arms, having its outlines indented in manner of the rising and falling of waves: it is used to denote that the first of the family, in whose arms it stands, acquired its honor by sea service.

WAVELITE, in mineralogy. Color grayishwhite. Imitative and crystallised, in very oblique four-sided prisms, flatly bevelled on the extremities, or truncated on the obtuse lateral edges. Shining, pearly. Fragments wedge-shaped. Translucent. As hard as fluor spar. Brittle. Specific gravity 2.3 to 2.8. Its constituents are, alumina 70, lime 14, water 26.2.-Davy. It is said to contain also a small quantity of fluoric acid. It occurs in veins along with flour spar, quartz, tinstone, and copper pyrites in granite, at St. Austle in Cornwall. At Barnstaple in Devonshire, where it was first found by Dr. Wavell, it traverses slate clay, in the form of small contemporaneous veins. It has been found in rocks of slate-clay near Loch Humphrey, Dumbartonshire.

They gave us food which may with nectar vie ; And war that does the absent sun supply. Roscom. All the magistrates, every new or full moon, give honour to Confucius with bowings, wax candles, and incense. Stillingfleet.

He formed the reeds, proportioned as they are, Unequal in their length, and waxed with care; They still retain the name of his ungrateful fair. Dryden. Their manners war more and more corrupt, in proportion as their blessings abound. Atterbury.

A fontanel in her neck was much inflamed, and many war-kernels about it.

Wiseman.

War consists of an acid spirit of a nauceous taste, and an oil, or butter, which is emollient, laxative, and anodyne.

Arbuthnot..

WAX, or BEES' WAX, in natural history, a firm and solid substance, moderately heavy, and of a fine yellow color, formed by the bees from the pollen of flowers. See APIS, and BEE. The best sort is that of a lively yellow color, and agreeable smell, somewhat like that of honey; when new, it is toughish, yet easy to break; but by age it be comes harder and more brittle, loses its fine color and in a great measure its smell.

Proust contends that the bloom on fruit is real wax; and that it is wax spread over leaves, which prevents them from being wetted, as on the cabbageleaf. He likewise finds it in the fecula of some vegetables, particularly in that of the small houseleek, in which it abounds. Huber, however, asserts, from his observations, that the wax in bee-hives is an artificial production, made by the bees from honey; that they cannot procure it unless they have honey or sugar for the purpose; and that raw sugar affords more than honey.

It was long considered as a resin, from some properties common to it with resins. Like them, it furnishes an oil and an acid by distillation, and is soluble in all oils; but in several respects it differs sensibly from resins. Like these, wax has not a strong aromatic taste and smell, but a very weak smell, and, when pure, no taste. With the heat of boiling water no principles are distilled from it; whereas, with that heat, some essential oil, or at least a spirituous rector, is obtained from every resin. Farther, wax is less soluble in alcohol. If wax be distilled with a heat greater than that of boiling water, it may be decomposed, but not so easily as resins can. By this distillation, a small quantity of water is first separated from the wax, and then some very volatile and very penetrating acid, accompanied with a small quantity of a very fluid and very odoriferous oil. As the distillation advances, the acid becomes more and more strong, and the oil more and more thick, till its consistence is such that it becomes solid in the receiver, and is then called butter of wax. When the distillation is finished, nothing remains but a small

quantity of coal, which is almost incombustible.

Wax cannot be kindled, unless it is previously heated and reduced into vapors; in which respect it resembles fat oils. The oil of butter of wax may by repeated distillations be attenuated and rendered more and more fluid, because some portion of acid is thereby separated from these substances; which effect is similar to what happens in the distillation of other oils and oily concretes: but this remarkable effect attends the repeated distillation of oil and butter of wax, that they become more and more soluble in alcohol; and that they never acquire greater consistence by evaporation of their more fluid parts. Boerhaave kept butter of wax in a glass vessel open, or carelessly closed, during twenty years, without acquiring a more solid consistence. It may be remarked that wax, its butter, and its oil, differ entirely from essential oils and resins in all the above-mentioned properties, and that in all these they perfectly resemble sweet oils. Hence Macquer concludes that wax resembles reacid; but that it differs essentially from these in sins only in being an oil rendered concrete by an the kind of the oil, which in resins is of the nature of essential oils, while in wax and in other analogous oily concretions (as butter of milk, butter of cocoa, fat of animals, spermaceti, and myrtle-wax), it is of the nature of mild unctuous oils, that are

not aromatic, and not volatile, and are obtained from vegetables by expression. It seems probable that the acidifying principle, or oxygen, and not an actual acid, may be the leading cause of the solidity, or low fusibility of wax. Wax is very useful, especially as a better material than any other for candles.

Wax may be deprived of its natural yellow disagreeable color, and be perfectly whitened, by exposure to the united action of air and water, by which method the color of many substances may be destroyed.

The art of bleaching wax consists in increasing its surface; for which purpose it must be melted with a degree of heat not sufficient to alter its quality, in a caldron so disposed that the melted wax may flow gradually through a pipe at the bottom of the caldron into a large tub filled with water, in which is fitted a large wooden cylinder, that turns continually round its axis, and upon which the melted wax falls. As the surface of this cylinder is always moistened with cold water, the wax fall ing upon it does not adhere to it, but quickly be comes solid and flat, and acquires the form of ribands. The continual rotation of the cylinder carries off these ribands as fast as they are formed, and distributes them through the tub. When all the wax that is to be whitened is thus formed, it is put upon large frames covered with linen cloth, which are supported about a foot and a half above the ground, in a situation exposed to the air, the dew, and the sun. The thickness of the several ribands thus placed upon the frames ought not to exceed an inch and a half; and they ought to be moved from time to time, that they may all be equally exposed to the action of the air. If the weather be favorable, the color will be changed in the space of some days. It is then to be re-melted and formed into ribands, and exposed to the action of the air as before. These operations are to be repeated till the wax is rendered perfectly white, and then it is to be melted into cakes, or formed into candles. Wax is composed, according to MM. Gay Lussac and Thenard, of

by the ladle: the wicks being prepared, twelve of them are tied by the neck at equal distances, round an iron circle suspended over a large basin of copper tinned, and full of melted wax: a large ladleful of this wax is poured gently on the tops of the wicks, one after another, and this operation is con tinued till the candle acquire its destined bigness: with this precaution, that the three first ladlefuls be poured on at the top of the wick; the fourth at the height of three-fourths, the fifth at one-half, and the sixth at one-fourth, to give the candle its pyramidal form; though we should think a conical mould would make the form more accurately pyramidal. Then the candles are taken down, kept warm, and rolled and smoothed upon a walnut tree table, with a long square instrument of box, smooth at the bottom. 2. As to the method of making wax candles by the hand, they begin to soften the wax by working it several times in hot water, in a narrow but deep caldron. A piece of the wax is then taken out, and disposed by little and little around the wick, which is hung on a hook in the wall by the extremity opposite to the neck; so that they begin with the big end, diminishing still as they descend towards the neck. In other respects the method is nearly the same as in the former case; only, in the former case, water is always used to moisten the various instruments, to prevent the wax from sticking; and in the latter oil of olives, or lard, for the hands, &c. The cylindrical wax candles are either made as the former, or with a ladle, or drawn.

WAX CANDLES, DRAWN, are so called, because they are actually drawn in the manner of wire, by means of two large rollers of wood, turned by a handle, which, turning backward and forward several times, pass the wick through melted wax contained in a brasen basin; and at the same time through the holes of an instrument, like the pierced drawing irons used for drawing wire, fastened at one side of the basin.

WAX, SEALING, or SPANISH WAX, is a composition of gum lac, melted and prepared with resins, and colored with some suitable pigment. There are two kinds of sealing wax in use; the one hard, intended for sealing letters, and other such purposes; the other soft, designed for receiving the impressions of seals of office to charters, patents, and such written instruments. The best hard red sealing wax is made by mixing two parts of shell lac, well powdered, and resin and vermilion, powdered, of each one part, and melting this combined powder over a gentle fire; and, when the ingredients seem thoroughly incorporated, working the wax into sticks. Seed lac may be substituted for the shell lac; and, instead of resin, boiled Venice turpentine may be used. A coarser, hard, red sealing wax, may be made, by mixing two parts of resin, and of shell lac, or vermilion and red lead, mixed in the proportion of one part of the vermilion to two of the red lead, of each one part; and proceeding as in the former preparation. For a cheaper kind, the vermilion may be omitted, and the shell lac also, for very coarse uses. Wax of other colors is made by substituting other coloring matters for vermilion, as verditer for blue, ivory black for black wax. For uncolored, soft sealing wax, take of bees' wax, one pound; of turpentine, three ounces: and of olive oil, one ounce; place them in a proper vessel over the fire, and let them boil for some time; and the wax will be then fit