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art of foretelling the events of life, by inspecting the hand, beeDivination.

CHIRON, the son of Saturn and Pliillyra, a famous personageof antiquity ; styled, by Plutarch, in his dialogue on music, Thevise Centaur. Sir Isaac Newton places his birth in the first ageafter Deucalion’s deluge, lie is said to have been born in Thes-saly among the Centaurs, who were the first Greeks that had ac-quired the art of breaking and riding horses : whence the poets,painters, and sculptors, have represented them as compounds ofman and horse ; and perhaps it was at first imagined by theGreeks, as it was by the Americans, when they first saw cavalry,that the horse and the rider constituted the same animal. Chironwas represented by the ancients as one of the first inventors ofmedicine, botany, and chirurgevy ; a word which some etymo-logists have derived from his name. The ancients attribute tohim several writings; among which, according to Suidas, are‘VmSmxs, precepts, in verse, composed for the use of Achilles ;and i7r7n«T;ix 0, > a medical treatise on the Discuses incident toHorses and other quadrupeds. Eabricius gives a list of the worksattributed to Chiron ; discusses the claims which have beenmade for others to the same writings; and gives him a distin-guished place in his catalogue of ancient physicians.

CIIIRONIA, in botany, a genus of the monogynia order, andpentaiidria class of plants; natural order, Rotoceai. Corollavheel-shaped ; pistil declining downwards; stamina placed inthe lube of the corolla ; anthenc in their last stage spiral ; seed-case bilocular. It has ten species, natives of the Cape of GoodHope.

CH1RONIUM, in medicine, a great nicer very difficult tocure.

CHIRONOMI, actors who performed without using words, bythe motions of the hand.

CfllRONOMlA, or CHIRONOMY, in antiquity, the artof representing any past transaction by the motion of the hands.This made a part of liberal education ; it had the approbation ofSocrates, and was ranked by Plato among the political virtues.

CH1ROTIIESIA, [from %fis, the hand, and to lay,]

the imposition of hands in conferring priestly orders.

CHIROTONIA, or CHIROTONY, [from x“? a| 'd t°stretch forth,] in antiquity, the stretching forth, or holding up ofhands, in electing magistrates, &c.

CI1IRURGEON. See Surgeon.

CHISEL, [ciseau, Fr. of scissum, Lat.] an instrument withwhich wood or stone is pared away.

Chisels, or Chissels, are also used in carving silver work,such as buckles, spoons, &c. There are chissels of differentkinds; though their chief difference lies in their different sizeand strength, as being all made off steel well sharpened and tem-pered ; but they have different names, according to the differentuses to which thev are applied.—T he chissels used in carpentryand joinery are, 1. The former ; which is used first of all, justafter the work is scribed. 2. The pairing-chissel ; which lias afine smooth edge, and is used to pare off or smooth the irregu-larities which the former makes. 'Phis is not struck with a malletas the former is, but is pressed down by the workmen. 3. Theskew-former ; is used for cleansing acute angles with the pointor corner of its narrow edge. 4. Tim morlise-chissel is narrow,but very thick and strong, to endue hard blows, and it is cut to avery broad basil. Us use is to cut deep square holes in the woodfor mortises. 5. The gouge, is a chissel with around edge ; oneside whereof serves to prepare the way for an augre, and theother to cut such wood as is to be rounded, hollow ed, &c. 6.Socket-chissels, are chiefly used by carpenters, &c. have theirshanks with a hollow socket at top, to receive a strong woodensprig, fitted into them with a shoulder. These chissels are dis-tinguished, according to the breadth of the blade, into half-inchchissels, three quarters of an inch chissels, Ac. 7. The ripping-chissel ; is a socket-chissel of an inch broad, having a blunt edge,with no basil. Us use is to rip or tear two pieces of wood asun-der, by forcing in the blunt edge between them.

C HlS LEY" Land, in agriculture, a soil of a middle naturebetween sandy and clayey land, with a large admixture ofpebbles.

ClllSME, a sea-port of Natolia.

CIHTCOMR, a town near Ibberton, Dorsetshire,

CIllTIlURST, N.W. of Midhurst,Sussex.

Vol, i.— no, 44.

CHITMAN, nearChittingley, Sussex.

CHITON, [from x‘ r6V , a coat of mail,] in zoology, a genusof the class and order vermes tesfacea:. Shell plated, consistingof many parsts lying upon each other transversely. There aretwentv-eight species, common on the shores of Scarborough,Aberdeen, and Lochbroom.

CJIITOR, a city of Italy, in Piedmont, on the \’o, 10 milesN. of Turin.

Chitor, ft province of India, subject to the Great Mogul.

Chitor, the capital of the province. J t lies 25(i miles N. E.of Surat.

CllITRO, atown of European Turkey, seated on the bay of.Salonichi, in Macedonia. Lon. 22. 35. E. Lat 40. 20. Is 1 .

CI1ITTEDROOG, a town of Indostzn, in the kingdom ofMysore.

CHITTENDEN, a county in the Slate of Vermont, boundedon the N. by Canada.

CHITTIM, in ancient geography, according to Lc Clerc,Calmet, and others, was the same w ith Macedonia, peopled bykittim, the son of Javan and grandson of Noah.

CHIVALRY, [chctalcriCjYt. knightood, from checal, a horse ;as eques in Latin.] 1. Knighthood ; a military dignity. 2. Thequalifications of a knight; as valour ; dexterity in arms. Theterm is used to express the peculiar privileges, obligations, andturn of mind, with all the other distinguishing characteristics ofthat order of men, who flourished in Europe in the dark ages, dur-ing the vigour of the feudal systems of government, under thename of Knights, or Knights Errant. According to some this in-stitution look its rise from the crusades ; but according to othersit gave occasion to that enterprise. Chivalry, though founded incaprice, and productive of extravagance, had a very considerableinfluence in refining the manners of Europe, during the 12th,13th, 14th, and 15th centuries. The objects of this romantic in-stitution were, to check the insolence of overgrown oppressors, tosuccour the distressed ; to rescue the helpless irom captivity; toprotect or to avenge women, orphans, anu ecclesiastics, who wouldnot bear arms in their own defence; to redress wrongs, and to re-move grievances. Valour, gallantry, and religion, were blendedin this institution ; men were trained to knighthood by long pre-vious discipline ; they were admitted into the order by solemni-ties, no less devout than pompous. Every person of noble birthcourted the honour; it was deemed a distinction superior to roy-alty, and monarchs are found to have received it from the hands ofprivate gentlemen. These various circumstances contributed torender a w himsical institution of substantial benefit to mankind.See Robertson’s Ilist. of Charles V. vol. i. p. 82, See.

Chivalry, in law, is a tenure of service, whereby the tenant isbound to perform some noble or military office to his lord ; and is-either regal, when held only of the king; or common, such as-may be held of a common person as well as of the king ; the for-mer is properly called serjeantv, and the latter eseuage.

C1ILUN, or CI1EVAN, in Hebrew antiquity. We meetwith this word in the book of Amos, cited in the Acts of the Apos-tles. St. Luke has the passage thus: “ Ye took up the taber-nacle of Moloch, and the star of your god Remphrn, figures whichye made to worship them.” The import of the Hebrew is as fol-lows : “Ye have borne the tabernacle of your kings, and the pe-destal, the chiun, of yonr images, the star of your gods, which yemade to yourselves.” The Septuaginl in all probability readRepham or Revan, instead of Chiun or Che van, and took the pe-destal for a god. Some say that the LXX, who made their trans-lation in Egypt, changed the word Chiun into that of Remphanbecause they had the same signification. M. Basnage, in hisJewish Antiquities, after a good deal upon Chion or Remphan,concludes that Moloch was the sun, and Chion, Chium, or Kein-plian, the moon.

CHIUSI, a city of Italy, in Tuscany, of Etruria, 35 miles S.E. of Sienna.

CH HIT AYE, a town of Asiatic Turkey, the capital of Na-tolia Proper, 75 miles E. of Bursa.

CIILAMYS, in antiquity, a military habit worn by the ancientsover the tunica.

CHEOEIA, in antiquity, a festival celebrated at Athens inhonour of Ceres, to whom under the name K>.on, i. c. grass, theysacrificed a ram.

CHLORA, a genus of the monogynia cider, and octandria8 P oils*-