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the medusa, or sea-blubber, is sufficient for this supply. See Me-dusa . Content with this simple food, it pursues no other animal,leads an inoffensive life in its element, and is harmless in propor-tion to its strength to do mischief. The sword-fish is the whale’smost terrible enemy. (See Xiphias.) “ At the sio;ht of this littleanimal,” says Anderson, “ the whale seems agitated in an extra-ordinary manner; leaping from the water as if with affright;wherever it appears, the whale perceives it at a distance, and fliesfrom it in the opposite direction. 1 have been myself,” continueshe, “ a spectator of their terrible encounter. The whale has noinstrument of defence except the tail: with that if endeavours tostrike the enemy ; and a single blow taking place won hi ell'eclual-ly destroy its adversary : but the sword-fish is as aelive as the otheris strong, and easily avoids the stroke^; then bounding into theair, it fails upon its great subjacent enemy, and endeavours notto pierce it with its pointed beak, but to cut with its toothed edges.The sea all about is seen dyed with blood, proceeding from thewounds of the whale ; while the enormous animal vainly endea-vours to reach its invader, and strikes with its tail against the sur-face of the water, making a report at each blow louder Ilian thenoise of a cannon.” In calm weather, the fishermen lie upontheir oars as spectators of this combat, until they perceive thewhale at the last gasp: then they row towards him ; and his enemyretiring at their approach, they enjoy the fruits of the victory.This account, however, is different in several respects from thatcommonly given by seamen; who report, that a fish called theThresher, (a species of Squaius,) is in league with the sword-fish ; and that the former keeps on the back of the whale, whilethe latter wounds it underneath in the belly, which occasions himto rise to the surface of the water, and to give the thresher an op-portunity of assisting in the combat. T ills he does by throwinghimself into an erect posture ; and like a boy tumbling neck overheels, falls down with astonishing force on the back of his prev:And thus they go on till the poor whale is destroyed. The gram-pus, and other large fishes of the cetaceous order, are attacked anddestroyed by the same enemies in a similar manner. The whalehas another desperate enemy, a kind of shark, of different sizesfrom one to three fathoms; so voracious, that it tears large piecesof flesh from the w hale, as if they had been dug with shovels. Atthe first discovt ry of Greenland , whales nol being used to be dis-turbed frequently, came into the very bays, and were accordinglykilled almost close to the shore ; so that the blubber being cutoff, was immediately boiled into oil on the spot. The ships, inthose times, took in nothing but the pure oil and the whalebone,and all the business was executed in the country: by which meansa ship could bring home the product of many more whales thanshe can according to the present method of conducting this trade.The fishery also was then so plentiful, that they were obliged some-times to send other ships to fetch off the oil they had made, thecjuantitv being more than the fishing-ships could bring away. Buttune and change of circumstances have shifted the situation of thistrade. 'The ships coming in such numbers from Holland, Den-mark , Hamburgh, and other northern countries, all intruders uponthe English, w ho were the first discoverers of Greenland , thewhales were disturbed ; and gradually, as other fish often do, for-saking the place, were not to be killed so near the shore as before;but are now found, and have been so ever since, in the openingsa id space among live ice, where they have deep water, and wherethev go sometimes a great many leagues from (lie shore. Thewhale fishery begins in May, and continues all Jupe and July : butwhether the shipshave good or bad success, they must come away,and get clear of the ice, by the end of August: so that in themonth of September at farthest they may be expected home; buta ship that meets with a fortunate and early fishery in May, mayreturn in June or July. For the manner of taking Whales, SeeWhale .Fishery.
BALAGAT, or RA LAG ATE, a province of the Mogul em-pire , the largest of the three that compose the kingdom of Deccan.
BALAGNA, a province of Corsica.
BALAGTElt, a city of Spain, in Catalonia , five miles N. E.of Lerida . Eon. 1.0. it. Lat. 41. 55. X.
BALAK , [pSs, Ileb. i. e. a destroyer,] the son of Zippor, akingof the Moabites, w ho alarmed at the success ol the Israelites , andjealous of their prosperity, sent for Balaam , and bribed him tocurse them. His transactions with that prophet, with his repeated
VOL. i.— no. k-1.
entreaties to Balaam , and his repeated disappointments, are re-corded in Numbers xxiii and xxiv.
BAEAMIH’AN, or PADAMBUAN, a strong trading-townof Java. '
BALANCE, [balance, Fr. biianx, Lat.] in mechanics, an in-strument used principal!)' for determining the difference of weightin heavy bodies. It is of several forms. 'The balance now gene-rally used, consists ot a lever or beam suspended exactly in themiddle, having scales or basons hung to each extremity. Thelever is called the jugum or beam ; and (he two moieties thereof oneach side, the axis, the bvachia or arms. The line on which thebeam turns, or which divides its brachia, is called the axis ; andwhen considered with regard to the length of the brachia, is es-teemed a point only, and called the centre of the balance : thehandle w hereby it is held, or by which the whole apparatus is sus-pended, is called trutina: and the slender part perpendicular tothe beam, whereby either the equilibrium or preponderance' ofbodies is indicated, is called the tongue of the balance.
Balance, Ancient or Roman, called also the statera Ro-mana, or steel-yard, (Plate X. li". S,) consists of a lever or beam,moveable on a centre, and suspended near one of its extremities:the bodies to be weighed are applied on one side of the centre;and their weight is shewn by the division marked on the beam,w here the weight, which is moveable along the lever, keeps thesteel-yard in cquilibrio.. This balance is still frequently used inweighing heavy bodies.
Balance, Assay, a very nice balance used to determine ex-actly the weight of minute bodies ; (see Plate X. fig. y.) '['hisshould be made of the best steel, and of the hardest kind; be-cause that metal is not so easily spoiled, with rust as iron ; and itis-more apt than any other to take a perfect polish, which at (he-same time prevents the rust. The structure ot the assayer’s scaleis little ditlerenl from that of common scales, excepting in nicetyand smallness. The longer the beam of it is, the more exact muvthe weight of a body be found ; however; ten or twelve inch.es area sufficient length. Let the thickness of it be so little, that twodrachms may hardly be hung at either of its extremities without itsbending; for the largest weight put upon it seldom exceeds onedrachm. 'This balance is suspended on a moveable brass or coppersupport, which consists of a pedestal, and of a column set uponit about L’O inches high, at the top of which comes out at rightangles an arm one inch long. At the extremity of this arm, puta small pulley three lines in diameter, another at the lop of thecolumn, and a third near the bottom of it ; all which pullies mustturn very easily on their axes. At the distance of one inch anda half below the upper arm, let another arm one inch anda half long come out of the column at right angles, having a holethrough it two lines long, a quarter of a line broad, and placedperpendicularly below the pulley of the upper arm, to receivea small plate, one inch and a half long; and of such breadth andthickness, as that it may freely move up and down, and vet nothave too much play within the. hole. This plate must also have asmall hook at each extremity. And as such a balance will hardlystandstill in the opeu air, and becomes false when spoiled villidust ; it must be put together with its support, into a small ease asrepresented in fig. y, having glasses, a, a, a, at top, and all roundit, that yon may see what is within.
Balance, Deceitful, or that which cheats by the inequalityof its brachia, is founded on the same principle as the steel-\ard.Let there be, for example, a balance so constructed, that both thebrachia with their scales shall equiponderate, but that the lengthof the one arm shall be to that of the other as ten to nine, lathis case, a weight of nine pounds put into the longest arm will,counterpoise one of ten pounds put into the shorter one: but thecheat is immediately discovered by shifting the weights from onescale to the other: in which case the balance will no longer re-main in cquilibrio.
Balance, Hydrostatic, an instrument contrived to deter-mine accurately the specific gravity of both solid and fluid bodies.It is constructed in various forms. We shall describe that whichappears to be the most accurate.—VCG, (rig. 10,) is the stand orpillar of this- hydrostatic balance, which is to be fixed in a table.From the top A, hangs, by two silk strings, the horizontal bar BB,from which it is suspended by a ring ?, ihe fine beam of a balanceb; which is prevented from descending too low on either side by5 B U uf