WIRK GAUZE LAMP. 



WITCHCRAFT. 



by the manufacture of what is commonly known u gold wire, but which 

 if really formed of silver gilt, actual gold wire being made only for 

 filagree-work and a few other purpose*. In the ordinary mode ol 

 making gold wire, a silver rod about an inch thick is covered with 

 leaf-gold, and then extended to the required tenuity by successive 

 drawings and annealings ; the proportion of gold allowed to a pound ol 

 silver being seldom more than 140 grains, and sometimes as little as 

 100 grains. Fine gold wire is used for wrapping or twisting round 

 thread to form gold thread ; and its beauty is greatly increased, while 

 it is enabled to cover a larger surface, by flattening it between polished 

 bteel rollers. 



For making needles, cords for the woollen and cotton manufacture, 

 and various other articles into which wire is fabricated, it is necessary 

 to remove the curvature which it receives by being wound upon the 

 cylindrical or conical drum above alluded to. This is done by draw in:: 

 the wire between pins fixed in a piece of wood, and so arranged as to 

 bend the wire into a wavy line, the flexures of which gradually dimi- 

 nish until they disappear altogether, leaving the wire perfectly straight. 

 The size of wire is commonly measured by means of a gage, which 

 consists of a plate of steel with a series of deep notches or slits at each 

 edge, varying slightly from each other in width, and numbered accord 

 ing to the number given to wire of corresponding size. 



Among the many uses to which wire is applied, the manufacture of 

 wire-gauze or cloth is peculiarly interesting. Plainer kinds of weaving 

 are performed by a modification of the common loom, the coarser varie- 

 ties of woven wire-work produced being used for fences, pheasantries, 

 coarse riddles or sieves, &c. ; while the finer sorts are employed for lan- 

 terns, sieves, flour-dressing machines, paper -making machinery, win- 

 dow-blinds, Ac. Aviaries, flower-trailing, skylights, garden borders, 

 plant-guards, arbours and summer-houses, flowerbed canopies, flower- 

 stands, chairs, garden-seats, window-blinds, bird-cages, fire-guards and 

 fenders, lamps and lanterns, meat-safes, lattice for book cases and 

 windows, sieves and strainers, all are now made of wire. The property 

 which renders wire-gauze so invaluable in the safety-lamp has been 

 taken advantage of by the Chevalier Aldini for the construction of 

 wire-armour for the use of firemen, which, though very light, is in a 

 great measure flame-proof. Wire-gauze is also formed into dish-covers, 

 baskets, and other useful and ornamental articles, by pressing it 

 between moulds into the proper shape, which it retains permanently. 

 After being pressed into the required form, the articles are strength- 

 ened and neatly finished off by the addition of hoops or rings to their 

 edges before they are removed from the mould. Needle-making is one 

 of the most important applications of steel wire. Some of the finest 

 sorts of steel wire are mode into watch-springs, in which form they 

 receive an augmentation of value beyond the prime cost of the mate- 

 rial probably unparalleled in the whole range of manufacturing indus- 

 try. Of the delicate hair-like springs alluded to, which weigh only 

 one-tenth of a grain, 70,000 are required to weigh a pound ; and it has 

 been repeatedly stated, though perhaps now the statement may be 

 hardly correct, that the value of such springs is half a guinea each ; so 

 that while a pound of crude iron cost but one halfpenny, a pound of 

 these delicate manufactured articles produced from it was worth 

 35,000 guineas. One of the most elegant applications of gold and 

 silver wire is to the production of Jilagfee or Jiliyrane work. To form 

 this, fine gold and silver wire, often curled or twisted in a serpentine 

 form, and sometimes plaited, are worked through each other, and 

 soldered together so as to form festoons, flowers, and various orna- 

 ments ; and in many places also they are frequently melted together 

 by the blow-pipe into little balls, by which means the threads are so 

 entwisted as to have a most beautiful and pleasant effect. This kind 

 of work is of great antiquity, and was formerly much employed for 

 caskets, needle-cases, trinket-boxes, baskets, shrines, and various deco- 

 rations for church furniture ; but it lias in a great measure fallen into 

 disuse. Spangla, or paillettes, which are small round leaves of metal, 

 pierced in the middle, and used for ornamenting garments, are also 

 formed of wire. A piece of wire is twisted round a rod like the thread 

 of a screw, and then cut into little spiral rings, each of which, being 

 laid on a smooth anvil, is flattened by a hammer into the form, of a 

 spangle. 



An important purpose to which iron wire has been recently applied 

 U in the manufacture of ropes, which are very superior in strength to 

 those made of hump, weight for weight. An account of wire ropes is 

 given under KOPK-MAKINO, and of wire bridges under BRIDGE. 

 WIRE GAUZE LAMP. [SAFETY LAMI-.] 



WI ME- WORM, a name given by fanners to the larva: of several 

 insects injurious to various crops : they are species of the coleopterous 

 genus tlaler, popularly known as Skip-jacks, so called on account of 

 their power of throwing themselves up in the air with a spring when 

 laid upon their backs. 



The Elatcr (Agi iotri) lineatiu produces a larva which is extremely 

 injurious to oats, often appearing in great numbers and destroying 

 whole fields of com. It attacks the roots, when the leaves turn yellow 

 and die off. The Elaicr (Agrirfet) tputatnr is another destructive 

 xpecies. Its larva, like that of the last, resembles the common meal- 

 worm in appearance, and may be found at the roots of withering 

 lettuces, by destroying which plant it greatly annoys the gardener. It 

 eata the root as far as the collar, when the plant dies. Ilemcrhipoat 

 leyrllt, another insect the larva of which u called tin- wire-worm, in 



less choice in its ravages, destroying plants of all kinds. Fifty wire- 

 worms of this kind have K-eu found preying on the roots of a single 

 plant 



The wire-worm is injurious to all culinary vegetables, also t 

 various grain crops. The use of rajw-coke in powder has been i 

 mended as a manure to the ground drilled for wheat where \\ iiv-wm inn 

 abound ; but hand-picking seems to be the only effectual way of getting 

 rid of them. The mole, fowls, and above all, rooks, are their > 

 enemies ; and the last-named bird is a valuable ally of the farmer in 

 following the plough tracks to devour these mischievous larva;. 



WIT, a term which is applied to a faculty of the mind and to the 

 products of that faculty. As a faculty, it denotes not a di: 

 but certain specific modes of using or operating upon the notions or 

 images with which the mind happens to be furnished. It ranges itself 

 under the more comprehensive faculty of imagination, with \\hieh l.y 

 early writers it was generally used as synonymous; they soimtinu^ 

 used it in a sense still more general, as denoting the intellectual i 

 as distinguished from tlie will. The precise boundaries of th- 

 are too unsettled to admit of any strict definition. It may, how iv.;, 

 be described generally as consisting in the display of remote i 

 blances between dissimilar objects, or such at least as have no apparent 

 resemblance. This species of wit is exhibited in great perfection in 

 two poems of a very opposite class, the ' Hudibras' of Butler, and the 

 ' Night Thoughts ' of Young : ludicrously by Butler, to display the 

 absurdities of hypocritical pretence ; seriously by Young, to add I'c.n-e 

 and point to his reasonings in favour of religious belief and conduct. 



Other kinds of remote allusion, often without any actual similitude, 

 but suggestive to the mind, by indirect inference, to make the com- 

 parison for itaelf, are considered as wit, and produce a similar effect of 

 surprise and pleasure. 



When, instead of the remote resemblances discoverable in things 

 themselves, the different meanings of the same word are brought into 

 equivocal contact, the operation is called punning, and the product is a 

 pun. [Pus.] 



WITCHCRAFT. There is probably no age or country in which 

 there has not existed a belief in the possibility of mortal beings 

 acquiring the use of supernatural powers for the purpose of accom- 

 plishing some object of their desire, good or evil. In this, as in other 

 species of superstition, there will be more or less resemblance in the 

 manifestations, wherever or whenever they are exemplified ; but that 

 peculiar class of examples which comes under the denomination of 

 witchcraft admits of certain lines of demarcation, which may be service- 

 able in keeping the subject distinct from others. The proper field of 

 this superstition was among the Christian nations of Europe those of 

 the north more particularly. It is to be found in full maturity about 

 the middle of the 15th century, and flourished with tolerably equal 

 vigour through Catholicism and Protestantism, till it gradually <L 

 before the progress of experimental science. In its doctrinal prim-iplr- 

 it was a mischievous application of the doctrines of Christianity, being 

 held to be a manifestation of the powers of evil operating as ;n 

 nists to the authority of the Deity. It was not necessarily used to 

 accomplish evil ends, because many of the accusations of witchcraft 

 relate to acts which as ends are condemned by no known moral code, 

 but which became crimes from the means made use of. The powers 

 of evil thus employed by human beings had their personal embodiment 

 either in the Prince of Darkness individually, or in certain .-nlilunary 

 agents called imps or familiars, the messengers between the e. .nt i 

 parties, who bore in this agency of evil the same position as that occu- 

 pied by the angels in the holy hierarchy. The return given by tin- 

 human being for the use of the miraculous powers thus obtained was 

 generally his own eternal soul, which, according to a superstition enter- 

 tained by the ignorant in all countries where the immortality <>t the 

 soul is a standard doctrine, it was held to be in the power of the 

 corporeal possessor to convey in remainder, for value given in wealth, 

 luxury, power, or any other object of ordinary human desire. 11 

 the bargain in which the parties are supposed to covenant openly w ith 

 each other, each party was usually presumed to have in view the 

 secondary object of cheating the other. German romance, and, since 

 the days of Balzac, French romance, have dealt largely in the horrors 

 attending these mutual efforts of imposition, where the one ],aity is 

 struggling to recover his chances of eternal salvation the other to 

 abridge the promised rewards, or to shorten the duration of their 

 enjoyment. In its most simple aspect, the struggles of the evil . 

 cheat his victim are exemplified in the ordinary Scottish superstition 

 that he gives them money which, when they come to use it, is turned 

 into slates or other rubbish ; and the same instance is given, by way of 

 example, 'by Biensfeldius, a German author, who in 1591 pul-i 



Tractatus de Confessionibus Maleficorum.' This author, who is one 

 of the most systematic of the numerous writers on this subject, and is 

 one who, instead of venting the indignation of an excited and terrified 

 mind against the lost agents of infernal j>ower, treats all the horrors of 

 sorcery with the gravity of an analytical philosopher, tells UK that 

 ;here are three elements necessary to the accomplishment of witch- 

 craft : the divine will permitting it; the power of the devil instigating 

 and assisting the operation ; and man's corrupt will consenting to be 

 ;he instrument. It is a further general characteristic of witchcraft, 

 Jiat from the commencement of its history the agents or victims have, 

 'n the majority of cases, been females : and that in later times, when 



