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WESTMAN, or YVESTMONIA, an island in tlie NorthSea, on the roast of Iceland . I,on. 20 2S. VV. Lat. 63. 20. N.

WEST MAN I A, W ESTM ANLAND, or WESTMANN-I.AND, a province of Sweden , bounded on the N. by Dale-carlia; on the E. by Upland; and S. by Sudertnanlami. It is110 miles long, and 80 broad. The soil is fertile. It has richmines of copper and iron. Westerahs, or Westero', is the capital.

WESTMINSTER, a city of England, which forms the westpart of the capital of Britain , but has a government distinct fromthe rest.. The city had its name from the situation of its abbey,anciently called a minster, in respect of that of St. Paul. Thatpart properly called the city of Westminster, comprehending theparishes of St. John and St. Margaret, was once an island formedby the Thames , calledThorney Island, from the thorns with whichit was over run; and the abbey that stood in it, Thorney-abbey.See London .

WESTMORELAND, a county of England, bounded on theN. and N. W. by Cumberland ; on the S. and S. E. by York-shire ; and on the S. and S. W. by Lancashire . Its extent fromN. E. to S. is 40 miles, and its breadth from the E. projection tothat in the W. 42. It is generally divided into the baronies ofKendal and Westmoreland ; the former is very mountainous, butthe latter is a large champaign country.

Westmoreland, a county of Pennsylvania , 45 miles longfrom E. to W. and 46 broad from N. to S. It is bounded on theN. by Lycoming, E. by Huntingdon and Somerset, and S. byFayette county.

Westmoreland, a county of Virginia , bounded on the N.and E. by the Patoniac, which divides it from Maryland by KingGeorge county.

WESTPHALIA, one of the circles of Germany , of a largeextent, being surrounded by the circle of Burgundy, the AustrianNetherlands, Batavia, and the North Sea , with the circles of theUpper and Lower Rhine, and comprising many different states.The summoning princes and directors of the circle of Westphalia ,were the bishops of Munster , alternately with the electors olBrandenburg and Palatine, as dukes of Cleves and Juliers . Theair of this country is not reckoned very wholesome, and towardsthe north is extremely cold in winter. The soil in general ismarshy and barren ; yet there is some good corn and pasture-land: but (he fruit is chiefly used to feed hogs; and hence it isthat their bacon and bams are so much valued and admired.This circle, in the course of the revolutionary war, underwentvarious changes and dismemberments. According to the treatyconcluded at Paris in May 1811, it contained 825 square milesand upwards of 2,000,000 inhabitants.

WESTPORT., a sea port of Ireland , in the county of Mayo,8 miles W. of Castlebar . Lon. 9- 22. W. Lat. 13. 48. N.

WEST RAY, one of the Orkney Islands , lying 20 miles N.of Kirkwall . Its form is very irregular, as it has many bays andcapes.

WESTRINGIA, in botany, a genus of the didynamia gvm-nospermia class and order; natural order, Verticillata:. Calyxhalf, five-pleft, five sided ; corolla reversed, with four segments,the longest erect, cloven; stamens distant, the two shorter, orlowest, abortive. There is only one species, viz. W. rosmarini-fortnis, a native of New South Wales, near Port Jackson .

WETHERBY, a town of Yorkshire , W. Riding, 14 miles W.of York . Lon. 1. 20. W. Lat. 53. 57. N.

WETSTEIN, John James, a very learned German divine,born at Basil in 1693. On his admission to the ministry, he main-tained a thesis De Variis Novi Testament'! Lectionibus; in whichhe shewed that the great variety of readings of the New Testament afford no argument against the authenticity of the text. In 1730,he published Prolegomena ad Novi Testamenti Grxci EditionemAccuratissimam, &c. Some divines dreading his unsettling thepresent text, got him prohibited from officiating in the ministry ; onwhich he went to Amsterdam , where the Remonstrants nominatedhim to succeed the famous Le Clerc, then superannuated, as pro-fessor of philosophy and history. About this time he publishedhis edition of the New Testament , in two volumes folio, 1752;in which he left the text as lie found it, placing the various read-ings, with a critical commentary, underneath; subjoining twoepistles of Clemens Romanus , till then unknown to the learned,hut discovered by him in a Syriac MS. of the New Testa-

ment. Pie also published some small works. He died at Amster-dam in 1754.

WETTER, a town in Hesse-Cassel , 6 miles N. W. of Mar-purg. Lon. 26. 24. E. Lat. 50. 42. N.

WEXFORD, a county of Ireland, in the province of Munster ,38 miles long, and 24 broad ; bounded on the N. by Wicklow,on the E. by St. George’s Channel, on the S. by the AtlanticOcean, on the W. by Waterford and Kilkenny , and on the N.by Catherlough. It is fruitful in corn and grass.

Wexford, a sea-port of Ireland capital of the above county,63 miles S. of Dublin . Lon. 6. 3. W. Lat. 52, 18. N.

WEYMOUTH, a sea port of England, in Dorsetshire , incor-porated with Melcomb Regis, 130 miles W. S. W. of London .Lon. 2. 40. VV. Lat. 50. 36. N.

WHALE, in astronomy, one of the constellations. See As-tronomy.

Whale, in ichthyology. See Baljena, and Physeter.

Whales, Fishery of. See Fishery , and Baljena.

Whale-Bone, in commerce, a commodity procured from thewhale, used as stiffening in stays, fans, busks, skreens, &c. W hatwe call whale-bone, is.a horny lamina in the upper jaw of thebalarna, which supply the place of teeth, but there are none suchin the lower jaw. These laminae are commonly-called whisker-*which, split and fashioned, are the whale-bone..

WHARF, a space on the banks of a haven, creek, or hithe,provided for the convenient landing and unloading of vessels upon..'The fee paid for the landing of goods on a wharf, or for shippingthem off, is called wharfage.

W H EAT, in botany. See Triticum. The three princi-pal kinds of bad wheat are, the blighted, the smutty,^ and theworm-eaten.

Wheat, Buck. See Polygonum..

Wheat, Indian. See Zea.

WHEEL-CARRIAGES, are machines, which go upon wheelsfor the conveyance of any kind of materials. The advantage ofwheels over, sledges may be understood from the following consi-derations: 1. A sledge, in sliding over a,plane, suffers a frictionequivalent to the distance through which it moves; but if weapply to it an axle, the circumference of which is six inches, andthat of the wheels 18 feet, it, is plain, that moving the carriage ISfeet over the plane, the wheels will make but one revolution; andas there is no sliding .of parts between the plane and the wheelsbut only a mere change of surface, no friction can take placethere, the whole being transferred to the nave acting on the axle,so that the only sliding of parts has been betwixt the inside of thenave and the axle;. which, if they fit one another exactly, is nomore than six inches: and hence it is plain, that the friction mustbe reduced in the proportion of 1 to 36. Another advantage isalso gained, by having the surfaces confined to such a small ex-tent ; by which means they may be more easily kept smooth, andfitted to each other. The only inconvenience is the height of thewheel, which must in all cases be added to that of the carriageitself. It has been a matter of no little consideration, whether thewheels of a carriage ought to be small or large. Mr. Anstice ob-serves that in the overcoming of such obstacles as are commonlymet with in roads, wheels act as mechanical powers, and thereforethe size of the wheel must be regulated upon the principles of vthese powers. Thus, let the circle OTTVGL, (Plate CLXXIII.fig. 5,) represent a wheel of four feet diameter, placed on thelevel PQ, and opposed in that line by the obstacle O, which issupposed to be 7.03 inches in height; the line in which the car-riage is drawn being CT, parallel to the plane PQ. In this case theeffort applied to the carriage is communicated to the nave of thewheel where it touches the axle. This part, therefore, represents thepart of the lever to which the pow'er is applied, and is the point C inthe figure. As the turning pointis that where the wheel touches theobstacle, that must represent the fulcrum of the lever; whence thatarm of the lever will he represented by CO, which may be supposeda spoke of the wheel: and as the upright spoke CL is in the linewhich bears the whole weight from the axle, and in which it is tobe lifted ; hence that part of the circumference of the wheel whichis between the fulcrum and the upright spoke bearing on it, mustrepresent the arm of the lever which is to raise the weight. Inthis case neither the weight nor the power act at right angles totheir respective arms of the lever; so that we must represent their

s powers