1052 USQUEBAUGH 



of manganese and clay. It occurs in beds with brown jasper in the island of Cyprus. 

 It is used by painters as a brown colour, raw or burnt. 



UNGUENTS. The name given by engineers to the greases applied to the bearing 

 parts of machinery. Unguents should be thick for heavy pressures, that they may 

 resist being forced out ; and thin for light pressures, that their viscidity may not add 

 to the resistance to motion. Ranking. 



UNION GOODS. Cloths of a mixed character, as of flax and jute, or cotton and 

 jute. 



UPAS TREE. The Antiaris toxicaria, one of the order to which the bread-fruit 

 tree belongs. Fabulous tales have been told of its poisonous nature ; if wounded, 

 a juice exudes which, when introduced into the human system, produces vomiting, 

 purging, and finally death. 



URANITE. Two varieties of this mineral are known : the one is Copper -uranite, 

 or Torbemite, a phosphate of uranium and copper; and the other, Lime-uranitc, or 

 Autunite, a phosphate of uranium and lime. 



URANIUM is one of the rare metals, and was first discovered by Klaproth in 

 1786 in the mineral called pechblende, which was, previously to this, mistaken for an ore 

 of zinc. He called it Uranium after the planet discovered by Herschel about the same 

 time. The ores of uranium are few ; the principal being, Pechblende (pitchblende), a 

 brownish or velvet-black mineral, which is essentially a proto-peroxide of uranium. 

 It occurs in veins with ores of lead and silver in Saxony, and with tin in Cornwall. 

 Uranite, a phosphate of copper and uranium, occurs in France ; and is found of great 

 beauty near Callington and near Eedruth in Cornwall. Samarskite and urano- 

 tantalite contain oxide of uranium with yttria and niobic acid. Johannite, uran-vitriol, 

 or sulphate of uranium. Zippeitc, sulphate of sesquioxide of uranium. Uranochre, 

 an earthy yellow impure oxide of uranium. 



The metal itself can only be obtained by the intervention of potassium or sodium, 

 in the same manner as magnesium. It is a black coherent powder, or a white mal- 

 leable metal, according to the state of aggregation. It is not oxidised by air or water, 

 but very combustible when exposed to heat. It unites also with great violence with 

 chlorine and with sulphur. M. Peligot admits three distinct oxides of uranium, and 

 two other compounds of the metal and oxygen, which he designates as suboxides. 



Protoxide, UO. This is a brown powder, sometimes highly crystalline. 



Proto-sesquloxide ; black oxide ; U 4 5 , or 2UO + U 2 S . This oxide was formerly 

 considered as the protoxide, and is produced whenever either of the other oxides are 

 strongly heated in the air. 



Sesquioxide, U 2 3 . This is the best known and most important of the oxides. It 

 forms a number of beautiful yellow salts ; its colour, when prepared by heating the nitrate 

 to 480 in an oil-bath till no more nitrous fumes are disengaged, is a chamois yellow. 

 It may be obtained from pitchblende. 



The only application of uranium is to enamel-painting and glass-staining ; the prot- 

 oxide giving a fine black colour, probably by absorbing oxygen and becoming black 

 oxide, and the sesquioxide a delicate yellow. 



Uranium has been found in a G-erman blue pigment used by paper-hanging manu- 

 facturers : it contained both copper and uranium. 



URANIUM YEXiXiOW. Uranate of soda, used as a yellow colour for porcelain 

 painting. 



URAO. See NATRON. 



UREA. This is one of the principal constituents of urine, being always present 

 in it, but in variable quantities ; the average quantity in healthy urine is about 14 or 

 15 parts in 1,000 of urine, but of course this varies from several circumstances, as 

 in disease, drinking a large quantity of liquid, &c. The urine passed the first in tho 

 morning gives a fair estimate of the quantity of urea yielded by the urine of an 

 individual. It seems to be the principal form in which the waste nitrogenous com- 

 pounds of the body are eliminated from the system. As this animal product has no 

 direct use in the arts, the reader maybe referred to "Watts's ' Dictionary of Chemistry,' 

 or to any modern treatise on Animal Chemistry. 



USQUEBAUGH (Irish). A name given to whisky occasionally, but usually 

 applied to a liqueur prepared from whisky, or some other ardent corn-spirit. The 

 following liqueurs, as being of a similar character, are named here. Kirschwasser is 

 obtained in Switzerland and in some parts of France, from bruised black cherries 

 fermented and distilled. Maraschino is a similar liqueur, prepared also from a 

 peculiar kind of cherry growing in Dalmatia. Noyau and several analogous liqueurs 

 are flavoured with an essential oil, containing more or less hydrocyanic acid and 

 often with that derived from bitter almonds, tho kernels of peaches, apricots, &c., 

 or from the leaves of laurels. Some of these compounds come under the denomina- 

 tion of tinctures; such, for instance, as Curacoa, which is prepared by digesting 



