BLA

451

BLE

manufacture of blankets is chiefly confined to Witney in-Oxford-shire . Some attribute a great part of the excellency of Witneyblankets to the abstersive nitrous water of the river \V indrush,wherewith they are scoured.

Blanket, tossing in a, a ludicrous kind of punishment, ofwhich w'e find mention in the ancients, under the denominationsagutio. Martial describes it graphically enough. “ Ibis ad ex-cusso, missus ad astra, sago.”

BLANQU1LLE, in commerce, a small silver coin currentin Morocco , and on the coast of Barbary, worth about threehalfpence.

BLAl’SIGONIA, [/SxseirTO, to hurt, and ym, brood,) a kindof disease, or defect in bees, when they neglect, or fail to pro-duce young, being wholly employed in making honey.

BLARE, in commerce, a small copper-coin of Bern , nearlyof the same value with the ratz.

BEAS1A, Leather-cup, in botany, a genus of the crypto-gamia hepatic* class and order. Male solitary ; imbedded in thefrond; female no calyx; capsule imbedded in the frond, oblique,one-celled, with a tubular mouth ; seeds numerous, very small.There is one species, B. pusilla, a native of England.

BLASPHEMY, [blasphemia or blasphcmium,'] in writers ofthe middle age, denotes simply the blaming or condemning of aperson or thing. The word is Greek, from /Sxaimu,

Ltdo. Among the Greeks to blaspheme was to use words of evilomen, or that portended something ill, which the ancients werecareful to avoid, substituting in lieu of them other words of softerand gentler import, sometimes the very reverse of the propc-rones. The term is peculiarly restrained to reproachful wordsspoken of the Deity . Augustin says, “JJm vulgo blasphemia nonaccipitur nisi mala verba de Deo dicere.” According to Lind-wood, blasphemy is an injury offered to God , by denying thatwhich is due and belonging to him ; or attributing to him what isnot agreeable to his nature.

Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. Divines are notagreed with respect to the nature of the sin thus denominated(Mat. chap. xii. ver. 31.) and the grounds of the extreme guiltascribed to it. Dr. Tillotson maintains, that it consisted in ma-liciously attributing the miraculous operations, which Christ per-formed by the power of the Holy Ghost, to the devil. Dr.Whitby refers it to the dispensation of the Holy Ghost, whichcommenced after our Lord’s resurrection and ascension ; and thosewere guilty of the crime who persisted in their unbelief, and blas-phemed the Holy Ghost, representing him as an evil spirit. Thecrime was unpardonable, because it implied a w ilful opposition tothe last and most powerful evidence, which God would vouchsafeto mankind, and precluded the possibility of a recovery to faithand repentance. The Bercans reckon this sin to be nothing elsebut unbelief.

Blasphemy, Laws respecting. By the Mosaic law. blas-phemy was punished with death ; Levit. chap. xxiv. ver. 13—16.Also by the civil law; Novel. 77. By a statute of king WilliamIII. the calling in question the existence of God , or of anv of thepersons of the Trinity, or the authority of Scripture, or the” DivineProvidence, is made penal: for the first offence, imprisonmenttill satisfaction given by public repentance in sack-cloth ; for thesecond, a fine ot a year’s valued rent of the real estate, and 20thpart of the personal estate; and the trial in both these cases iscompetent to inferior judges. The punishment of the third offenceis death, to be tried only by the justices.

BLAST, any forcible stream of wind or air, excited by themouth, bellows, or the like.

Blast, in agriculture and gardening, is otherwise called ablight,These blasts or blastings are by some supposed owing to cold ; byothers to the want of a due supply of sap ; by others to ascendin'*fumes of the earth ; by others to sharp winds and frosts, imme-diately succeeding rains.

Blasts, among miners. See Damps.

BLASTING, among miners, a term for the tearing up of rocks,which they find in their way, by gun-powder. The method ofdoing it is*this : they make a long hollow of a large gun-barrel inthe rock they would split; this they fill with gun-powder ; thenthey firmly stop up the mouth of the hole with clay, except atouch-hole, at which they leave a match to lire it. A small ouan-tity of powder by this means produces great effects.

l’LASTOLOGY, [from bud, and xq-v, I gather,] the

regular and stated pruning of vines.

Bl.ATTA, Cock Roach, or Black Beetle, a genus of in-sects, order hemiptera. Head inflected towards the breast ; an-tenna-, or feelers, hard; elytra and wings plain; breast smooth,roundish, and terminated by an edge or margin ; fee’, proper forrunning; two small horns above the tail. There are 47 species ;they wander about by night in quest of food, and secret themselvesby day.

B. Americana is of an iron colour, and the hind part of thebreast is white. The wings and elytra are longer than its body.It is found in America and the South of France . See Plate VI1.

B. Orientaeis is of a dusky ash colour, has short elytra, withan oblong farrow in them. 'Phis species is frequent in America .They get into chests, &c. and do much hurt to cloaths ; they in-fest people’s beds in the night, bite like bugs, and leave a veryunsavory smell behind them. They avoid tlie light, and seldomappear but in the night. The female resembles a kind of cater-pillar, as it has no wings ; she lays an egg of about one-halt thebulk of her belly.- They eat bread, raw or dressed meat, linen,books, silk-worms and their bags, &c.

BEABEUREN, a town of Germany in Suabia .

BLAVET, a river and a sea-port of France .

BLAYE, an ancient and strong town of Guientie, in France ,17 miles N. of Bourdeaux. Lon. 0. 35. W. Lat. 45.7. N.

BLAZING Star, a comet. See Astronomy, and Comet .

BLAZONING, or BLAZONRY, in heraldry, the decypher-ing the arms of noble families. The word originally signified theblowing or winding of a horn ; and was introduced into heraldry asa term denoting the description of things borne in arms, w ith theirproper significations and intendments, from an ancient custom theheralds, who were judges, had of winding a horn at justs andtournaments, when they explained and recorded the atchievementsof knights. See Heraldry.

BLEACHING, the art of whitening vegetable or animal sub-stances. In the present advanced state of the linen and cottonmanufactures of Great Britain and Ireland, the art of bleaching isone of the most interesting and important. Its object is to reduceflax, cotton, wool, or the threads or cloths manufactured fromthem, to a state of perfect whiteness. To attain this end, oils,metallic oxides, earthy impregnations, resins, and other animal,vegetable, or mineral particles, containing any colouring matter,must be discharged from the texture of the substances manufac-tured. The colouring matter of animal and vegetable substancesis found to be essentially different. It does not appear, that thisdifference was known to’ the ancients, hence they used the samekind of operation in both cases; but the moderns use a differentprocess in each. Under the old system, the process of bleachinglinen is divided into six parts, viz. 1. Steeping and milling; 2.Bucking and boiling; 3. Alternate watering and drying ; 4. Sour-ing; 5. Rubbing with soap and warm water ; and 6. Starching andblueing.

1. Steeping and Milling. As soon as the cloth, which isintended to be bleached, has been sorted into parcels of an equalfineness, each parcel is latched, linked, and then steeped. In thisoperation the linens are folded up distinctly, and laid in a largewooden vessel; into which is thrown, blood-warm, a sufficientquantity of water, or equal parts of water and ley, w hich has beenused to whiten cloth only, or water with rye-meal or bran mixedwith it, tHl the whole is thoroughly wet, and the liquor rises overall. A cover of wood is then laid over the cloth, and securedwith a post between the boards and the joisting,’to prevent thecloth from rising, during the fermentation which ensues. Aboutsix hours after the cloth has been steeped in warm water, andabout 12 in cold, bubbles of air arise ; a pellicle is formed on thesurface of the liquor, and tfie cloth swells when it is not presseddown. This effect continues from 36 to 48 hours, according to-the warmth of the weather; about which time the pellicle or scumbegins to fall to the bottom. But before this precipitation happens,the cloth must be taken out, and the proper time for taking it outis when no more air-bubbles arise. After steeping, the cloth iscarried to the putstock mill, to be freed of all its loose foulnesses.There can be nothing contrived to answer the purpose so effec-tually as this mill. Its motion is easy, regular, andVafe. Whileit presses gently, it turns the cloth ; which is continually washed

with