VANDELLIA, in botany, a genus of plants belonging to the class didynamia and order angiospermia. The calyx is subquadrifid; the corolla ringent; the two exterior filaments proceed from the disc of the lip of the corolla; the anthere are connected; the capsule is unilocular and polyspermous. There is only one species known, viz. V. diffusa. VANDER-LINDEN (Henry), professor of divinity at Franeker, was born in 1546; and suffered much for his attachment to the Reformation: in favor of which he wrote. He died in1614. VANDER-LINDEN (John Antonides), grandson of the preceding, was born at Enckhuysen in 1609, and educated at Leyden. He graduated at Franeker in 1630, and in 1639 was made professor of physic in that university. In 1640 he went to that of Leyden. He wrote many medical works, and died in 1664. VANDERMEER (John), a famous Dutch painter, who excelled in sea pieces: he was drowned in 1691, aged sixty four. VANDER-MEULEN (Anthony Francis), a Flemish painter, born at Brussels in 1634. He painted the battles of Louis XIV., and married a daughter of the famous Le Brun. He died at Paris in 1690. VANDERMONDE (Charles Augustus), M.D., a native of Macao, in China, born in 1772. He became an eminent physician, and was appointed censor royal at Paris, where he died in 1762. His chief works are, 1. Essai sur la Maniere de Perfectionner l' Espece Humain, 2 vols. 12mo.; 2. Dictionnaire de Sante; 3. Dissertation Anatomique. VANDERMONDI, a late celebrated French mathematician, born at Paris in 1735, famous for his love of science, and infamous for joining the Terrorists. He died in 1795. VANDERVELDE (Adrian), an eminent painter, born at Amsterdam, in 1639. His works are rare and highly valued. He died in 1672. VANDERVELDE (Isaiah), an eminent painter; his battles are esteemed. He died at Leyden in 1630. VANDERVELDE (John), brother to the above, an eminent engraver. VANDERVELDE (William), brother to Isaiah, and born at Leyden, was also eminent in painting sea fights. He came over to London, got a pension, and died in 1693. VANDERVELDE (William), son of the above, excelled his father, and died in London, in 1797. VANDERVENNE (Adrian), a painter born at Delft, in 1589. He excelled in scenes of humor. so easy, and natural a manner of painting, that Titian himself was hardly his superior; and no other master could equal him in portraits. He then went to England, when his superior genius soon brought him into great reputation; and, above all, he excelled in portraits, which he drew with an inconceivable facility, and for which he charged a very high price. For some of them he received 400 guineas a-piece. He soon found himself loaded with honors and riches. Hc married a daughter of lord Ruthven, earl of Gowry. His house was so frequented by persons of the greatest quality that it rather resembled the court of a prince than the lodgings of a painter. He died in 1641, and was buried in St. Paul's. It was said he left £40,000. VANDYCK (Philip), another eminent painter, born at Amsterdam, in 1680. He died in 1752. VANE, n. s. Belg. vaene. A plate hung on a pin to turn with the wind. A man she would spell backward; If speaking, why a vane blown with all winds. VANE (Sir Henry), son of Sir Henry Vane, secretary of state to Charles I., was born in 1612, and educated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford. He then went to Geneva, where he became a republican; which led to a quarrel with his father, who was a rigid loyalist. He then sailed to New England, whence he returned in 1637, and during the civil war took an active part against the king. He, however, boldly opposed Cromwell's usurpation, for which Oliver imprisoned him. In 1662 he was tried and beheaded for high treason. He wrote some books, in the spirit of the times. VANE, a thin slip of bunting hung to the masthead, or some other conspicuous place in the ship, to show the direction of the wind. It is commonly sewed upon a wooden frame called the stock, which contains two holes whereby tc slip over the spindle, upon which it turns round as the wind changes. VANIERE (James), a French Jesuit, a Latin poet, born in 1664. He wrote an admired poem, entitled Predium Rusticum; Paris, 1736, 12mo. He died at Toulouse, in 1739. VANILLA, n. s. Fr. vanille. A plant. The fruit of those plants is used to scent chocolate.— Miller. When mixed with vanillios, or' spices, chocolate acquires the good and bad qualities of aromatic oils. Arbuthnot on Aliments. VAN'ISH, v. n. Fr. evanouir; Lat. vanesco. To lose perceptible existence; pass away; pass from sight. High honour is not only gotten and born by pain and danger, but must be nursed by the like, or else vanisheth as soon as it appears to the world. Sidney. -Into the air; and what seemed corporal Whither are they vanished? Melted as breath into the wind. VANDYCK (Sir Anthony), a celebrated painter, born at Antwerp in 1599. After giving several early proofs of his excellent genius, he became the disciple of the illustrious Rubens. From this celebrated master he received not only instruction in his art, but was by his generosity enabled to go to Rome. Having staid a short time there, he removed to Venice, where he attained the beautiful coloring of Titian, Paul Veronese, and the Venetian school, which appeared from the many excellent pictures he drew at Genoa. After having spent a few years He cut the cleaving sky, abroad, he returned to Flanders, with so noble, And in a moment vanished from her eye. Shakspeare. Milton. All these delights will vanish. That spirit of religion and seriousness, by which and a spirit of infidelity and prophaneness started we had distinguished ourselves, vanished all at once, up. Atterbury. Pope. Pope. Law. "Tis an old maxim in the schools, That vanity's the food of fools; Yet now and then your men of wit Will condescend to take a bit. Swift's Miscellany. The corruption of the world indulges women in great vanity; and inankind seem to consider them in no other view than as so many painted idols, that are to allure and gratify their passions. VAN LAER (Peter), painter, better known by his mock name of BAMBOCCIO, which see. He painted inns, shops, cattle, &c. He died in 1673. VANLOO (Charles Andrew), painter, was born at Nice in 1705, and studied under his brother John. After visiting Italy, he became painter to the king, chevalier of St. Michael, and member of the Academy of painting. He died in 1765. VANLOO (John Baptist), painter, born at Aix in 1684, and died there in 1746. VANMANDER (Charles), painter, was born near Courtray in 1548. His principal pictures are Adam and Eve, and the Deluge. He died in 1606. VANNES, a considerable town in the north-west of France, the see of a bishop, and the chief place of the department of the Morbihan. It is advantageously situated at the bottom of a bay interspersed with islets, about two miles and a half from the sea. It contains a population of nearly 11,000; but is in general far from well built. Vannes has two suburbs separated from it by a wall and ditch. The only public buildings are the cathedral, the hospital, the old castle, and the churches. The port admits only small vessels. The environs are pleasant. In 1800 the royalists under Georges were defeated here, by the republicans under Brune. Sixty miles south-west of Rennes, and seventy west by north of Nantes. VAN'QUISH, v. a. I Fr. vaincre. To conVANQUISHER, n. s. quer; overcome; sub VAN-SWIETEN (Gerard), a celebrated physician, was born May 7th, 1700, at Leyden. After studying at Louvain he returned to Leyden, and became the pupil of Boerhaave. În 1725 he took his doctor's degree, and published an inaugural thesis on the Structure of the Arteries. He afterwards employed himself in Commentaria in H. Boerhaavii Aphorismis de Cognoscendis et Curandis Morbis, of which the first volume appeared in 1741. Soon after he was appointed to a medical professorship at Leyden; but objections arising on the score of his religion, being a Catholic, he was obliged to resign. The empress Maria Theresa indemnified him by inviting him to Vienna, where, in 1745 he was made a professor in the university, and afterwards first physician to the empress and a baron of the empire. He was also imperial librarian, and director-general of the study of medicine in Austria. He completed his work on the Aphorisms of Boerhaave by the publication of the fifth volume in 1772. These commentaries have been translated into French and English. He enjoyed the highest reputation till his death at He was the Schoenbrunn, June 18th, 1772. author of a treatise on the Diseases of the Army; and of a work on Epidemics, the latter of which was published posthumously, by professor Stoll, 1782, 2 vols. 8vo. VANTAGE, n. s. From advantage. Gain; profit. VA'POR, n. s., v. N., &· Fr. vapeur; Lat. VAPORER, n. s. [v. a. vapor. Any thing VA PORISH, adj. exhalable; any thing VA POROUS. that mingles with the air; fume; steam; wind; vain imagination: to vapor is, to pass off in fume or steam; bully; brag: also to effuse; scatter in vapor: the derivatives all correspond. It proceeded from the nature of the vapourish place. Sandys. Shakspeare. The vaporous night approaches. Swift running waters vapour not so much as standing waters. Bacon's Natural History. Opium loseth some of its poisonous quality, if vapoured out, and mingled with spirit of wine. Bacon. If the mother eat much beans, or such vaporous food, it endangereth the child to become lunatick. Jove a dreadful storm called forth Against our navy; covered shore and all With gloomy vapours. Id. Chapman. Break off this last lamenting kiss, Which sucks two souls, and vapours both away. These are all the mighty powers You vainly boast, to cry down ours; And what in real value 's wanting, Supply with vapouring and ranting. That I might not be vapoured down by insignificant testimonies, I used the name of your society to annihilate all such arguments. Glanville. Some more subtile corporeal element may so equally bear against the parts of a little vaporous moisture, as to form it into round drops. More against Atheism. The morning is the best, because the imagination is not clouded by the vapours of meat. Dryden. To this we must ascribe the spleen, so frequent in studious men, as well as the vapours, to which the other sex are so often subject. Addison's Spectator. For the imposthume, the vapour of vinegar, and any thing which creates a cough, are proper. Arbuthnot on Diet. VAPOR, in philosophy, the particles of bodies rarefied by heat, and thus rendered specifically lighter than the atmosphere, in which they rise to a considerable height. See EVAPORATION, DAMP, GAS, &c. Many kinds of vapor are unfriendly to animal life, but the most noxious are those which arise from metallic substances. the smelting and refining of lead, a white vapor arises, which, falling upon the grass in the neighbourhood, imparts a poisonous quality to it, so that the cattle which feed there will die; and in In like manner stagnant waters impregnated with this vapor will kill fish. In some places the earth exhales vapor of a very noxious quality: such as the Grotto del Cani, and other places in Italy, where a mephitic vapor constantly hovers over the surface of the ground, proving instantly fatal to such animals as are immersed in it. In some parts of the world there have been instances of people killed, and almost torn to pieces, by a vapor suddenly bursting out of the earth under their feet. Of the aqueous vapor raised from the earth by the sun's heat are formed the clouds; but though these are commonly at no great distance from the earth, we cannot thence determine the height to which the vapors ascend. See METEOROLOGY. VAPOR-BATH, in chemistry, a term applied to a chemist's bath or heat, wherein a body is placed so as to receive the fumes of boiling wa ter. It consists of two vessels, disposed over one another in such manner as that the vapor raised from the water contained in the lower heats the matter enclosed in the upper. It is very comand the drawing of spirit of wine. modious for the distilling of odoriferous waters, VAPOR-BATH, in medicine, is used when a sick person is made to receive the vapors arising from some liquid matter placed over a fire. Vapor-baths are very commonly used in Russia and other northern countries, not for any medical purpose, but as a luxury. Males and females are described as going promiscuously into close rooms or stoves heated to a very high degree with steam; and, after luxuriating for some time under the hands of the attendants who rub them down, they rush out into the air, or even plunge into cold water. VAR, a department of France, forming the dered by the country of Nice on the east, by the south-east extremity of the kingdom, and borMediterranean on the south, and by a part of the Alps on the north. Branches of these mountains extend into the north and north-east divisions of this department; so that it is in general rugged and uneven, the only extensive levels being along the coast. The rivers descending from these mountains are the Var, Verdon, Esteron, and Artubi, along with a number of smaller streams. The climate varies, being in some parts bleak even in this southern latitude, in others mild and warm; but in several districts of the low ground the air is infected by vapors from stagnant water. The corn raised is not equal to the consumption; imports are paid for by wine, brandy, and vinegar, all of which are made in quantities from the grape. The pastures are good only in particular spots. The animals chiefly reared are sheep, goats, and asses; and the sheep are sent in summer, like the merinos in Spain, to mountain pasture. Honey and wax are exported. Of minerals, in whatever variety they may exist, hardly any have been worked except coals. The manufactures are of insignificant amount; the chief article is silk. The fisheries along the coast are considerable. This department has an extent of about 2900 square miles, and a population of 285,000. It is on the whole a backward part of France. The commen language is a dialect, composed of French with a mixture of Italian. It is subject for judicial proceedings to the royal court of Aix, and is divided into four arrondissements, viz. Toulon, Brignolles, Grasse, and Draguignan. The last, though a small place, is, from its central situation, the capital of the department. It was at St. Tropez, in this department, that Buonaparte embarked for Elba, in May, 1814, and at Cannes, near its eastern extremity, that he relanded on the 1st of March following. VARESE, an inland town of Austrian Italy, in the Milanese, situated on the river Verbano, near a lake called Varese. It has 7000 inhabitants, who cultivate, manufacture, and trade in silk. It is twenty-seven miles W. N. W. of Milan, and has in its vicinity a number of villas, and an elegant modern palace situated on an 'eminence, surrounded by pleasant gardens and fountains. The lake of Varese is a fine expanse of water. VARIABLE, in geometry and analytics, is a term applied by mathematicians to such quantities as are considered in a variable or changeable state, either increasing or decreasing. Thus the abscisses and ordinates of an ellipsis, or other curve line, are variable quantities; because these vary or change their magnitude together, the one at the same time with the other. But some quantities may be variable by themselves alone, or while those connected with them are constant: as the abscisses of a parallelogram, whose ordinates may be considered as all equal, and therefore constant: also the diameter of a circle, and the parameter of a conic section, are constant, while their abscisses are variable. See FLUXIONS. VARIATION OF THE COMPASS is the deviation of the magnetic or mariner's needle from the meridian or true north and south line. On the continent it is called the declination of the magnetic needle, which is a better term. At the period when the polarity of the magnet was first observed in Europe, whether originally, or as imported from China, the magnetic direction, both in Europe and in China, was nearly in the plane of the meridian. It was therefore an inestimable present to the mariner, giving him a sure direction in his course through the pathless ocean. But by the time that the European navigators had engaged in their adventurous voyages to far distant shores, the deviation of the compass needle from the meridian was very sensible even in Europe; and it is somewhat surprising that the Dutch and Portuguese navigators did not observe it on their own coasts. The son of Columbus positively says that it was observed by his father in his first voyage to America. It is certain that Gonzales Oviedo and Sebastion Cabot observed it in their voyages. But the deviation of the compass from the meridian was not then allowed by mathematicians. Pedro de Medina at Valladolid, in his Arte de Naviggar, published in 1545, positively denies the variation of the compass. But, so soon after as 1556, Martin Cortez, in a treatise of navigation, treated it as a thing completely established, and gives rules and instruments for discovering its quantity. About the year 1580 Norman published his discovery of the dip of the needle, and speaks largely of the horizontal deviation from the plane of the meridian, and attributes it to the attraction of a point, not in the heavens, but in the earth, and describes methods by which he hoped to find its place. To the third, and all subsequent editions of Norman's book (called the new attractive), was subjoined a dissertation by Mr. Borroughs, on the variation of the compass, in which are recorded the quantity of this deviation in many places; and he laments the obstacle which it causes to navigation by its total uncertainty previous to observation. Observations were made from time to time, and published in the subsequent treatises on navigation. But in 1635 the mariners were thrown into a new and great perplexity, by the publication of a Discourse Mathematical on the Variation of the Magnetical Needle, by Mr. Henry Gillebrand, Gresham professor of astronomy. He had compared the variations observed at London by Burroughs, Gunter, and himself, and found that the north end of the mariner's needle was gradually drawing more to the westward, and it has been found to deviate more and more to the westward ever since, as may be seen from the following little table in Waddington's Navigation. London. 1778 Philosophical Trans. 22 11 The celebrated Halley recommended the matter in the most earnest manner to the attention of government; and, after much solicitation, obtained a ship to be sent on a voyage of discovery for this very purpose. In this vessel he repeatedly traversed the Atlantic Ocean, and went as far as 50° S. lat. See his speculations on this subject in the Philosophical Transactions, 1683 and 1692. Having collected a prodigious number of observations made by others, and compared them with his own, he published in 1700 a synoptical account of them in a very ingenious form of a sea chart, where the ocean was crossed by a number of lines passing through those planes where the compass had the same deviation. Thus, in every point of one line there was no variation in 1700; in every point of another line the compass had 20° of east variation; and in every point of a third line it had 20° of west variation. These lines have since been called Halleyan lines, or curves. This chart was surely very valuable; yet the author himself pointed out objections to it. He stated that the change of variation was very different in different places, and in the same place at different times; and confessed that he had not dis covered any general principle by which these changes could be connected. But the chart was of immense use; although it become gradually less valuable, and in 1745 was exceedingly erroneous. This made Messrs. Mountain and Dodson, fellows of the Royal Society, apply to the admiralty and to the great trading companies for permission to inspect their records, and to extract from them the observations of the variations made by their officers. They got all the assistance they could demand; and, after having compared above 50,000 observations, they composed new variation charts, fitted for 1745 and 1756. Cortes ascribed the variation of the needle to the attraction of an eccentric point, and Bond thought this point was placed not in the heavens, but in the earth. This notion made the basis of the famous Theory of Magnetism of Dr. Gilbert of Colchester, published about A. D. 1600: he asserted that the earth was a great magnet, and that all the phenomena of the mariner's compass were the effects of this magnetism. He showed at least that these phenomena were precisely such as would result from such a constitution of the earth; that is, that the positions of the mariner's needle in different parts of the earth were precisely the same with those of a small magnet similarly situated with respect to a very large one. Although he had made more magnetic experiments than all that had gone before him put together, still the magnetical phenomena were but little known till long after. But Gilbert's theory (for so it must be truly esteemed) of the magnetical phenomena is now completely confirmed. Dr. Halley first imagined that the north pole of the great magnet or load-stone which was included in the bowels of the earth was not far from Baffin's Bay, and its south pole in the Indian Ocean south-west from New Zealand. But he could not find any positions of these two poles which would give the needle that particular position which it was observed to assume in different parts of the world; and he concluded that the great terrestrial load stone had four irregular poles (a thing not unfrequent in natural loadstones, and easily producible at pleasure), two of which are stronger, and two weaker. When the compass is at a great distance from the two north poles, it is affected so as to be directed nearly in a plane passing through the strongest. But if we approach it much more to the weakest, the greater vicinity will compensate for the smaller absolute force of the weak pole, and occasion considerable irregularities. Dr. Halley endeavours to account for the change of variation by supposing this internal magnet not to adhere to the external shell which we inhabit, but to form a nucleus or kernel detached from it on all sides, and to be so poised as to revolve freely round an axis, of which we hoped to discover the position by observation of the compass. The philosopher will find nothing in this ingenious hypothesis inconsistent with our knowledge of nature. Dr. Halley imagined that the nucleus revolved from east to west round the same axis with the earth. Thus the poles of the magnet would change their positions relatively to the earth's surface, and this would change VOL. XXII. the direction of the compass needle. The great Euler undertook to ascertain the position of the needle in every part of the earth. But he found the four poles would engage him in an analysis which would be excessively intricate, and has contented himself with computing for two only; observing, that this supposition agrees so wellwith observation, that it is highly probable that this is the real constitution of the terrestrial magnet, and that the coincidence would have been perfect if he had hit on the due positions of the two poles. He places one of them in lat 76° N., and long. 96° W. from Teneriffe. The south pole is placed in lat. 58° S., and long. 158° W. from Teneriffe. These are their situations for 1757. Euler has annexed to his dissertation on the thirteenth volume Mem. R. A. Berlin, a chart of Halleyan curves suited to these assumptions, and fitted to the year 1757. Since then, another large variation chart has been published fitted to a late period; but it is unaccompanied by authorities. The daily variation of the compass was first observed by Mr. George Graham in 1722 (Philosophical Transactions, No. 383), and reported to the Royal Society of London. It usually moves (at least in Europe) to the westward from 8 A. M. till 2 P. M., and then gradually returns to its former situation. The diurnal variations are seldom less than 0°5', and often much greater. Mr. Graham mentions (Philosophical Transactions, No. 428) some observations by a captain Hume in a voyage to America, where he found the variation greatest in the afternoon. This being a general phenomenon has also attracted the attention of philosophers. The most detailed accounts of it to be met with are those of Mr. Canton, in Philosophical Transactions, vol. li., part 1, p. 399, and those of Van Swinden, in his Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism. From the observations of Mr. Canton, it appears that, although there be great irregularities in this diurnal change of position of the mariner's needle, there is a certain average which is kept up with considerable steadiness. The following was the average of greatest daily change of position in the different months of the year, observed in his house, Spital Square, in 1759. January 7' 8" May 13' Sep. 11′ 43′′ February 8 58 March 11 27 June 13 21 8 Oct. 10 36 April 12 26 Y |