300 



COFFEE COHESION. 



fee K coining every day into more general use. 

 This will be apparent from the following table, in 

 which the increase in the consumption of coffee in 

 Great Britain within ten ye;ir> i> \ery striking, hav- 

 ing risen from seven million pounds iinnually, to 

 twenty-two million pounds. Much of this increase 

 may be attributed to the material reduction on the 

 duty on coffee which took place in 1825. From 1820 

 to 1824, the rates of duty were on British Plantation 

 coffee Is per Ib. ; on East India, Is 6d, and on Fo- 

 reign, 2s (id. From 1825, the rates were reduced to 

 i <l on British Plantation ; 9d on East India, and Is 

 3d on Foreign coffee. By the reduction of duty, as 

 will be seen, the revenue on coffee lias been greatly 

 increased. 



TABLK 



OF THK CONSI'MFTIOX OF COFFEE IN GREAT BRITAIN, FROM 1820 TO 

 1831 INCLUSIVK, WITH THE KKVK.VUK DERIVED FROM IT. 



In England and the United States of America, 

 coffee, almost always, is badly made. The coffee- 

 houses in France, it is well known, are places which 

 afford much opportunity for interesting observation. 

 In the south of France, they are still more frequent- 

 ed than in the north. The different cafes of the pa- 

 lais royal in Paris are famous : the cafe des mille co- 

 lonnes is one of the most splendid. The cafe des la 

 paix contains a small theatre. In the cafe des 

 avevgles, every evening, blind men and women of 

 the hospice des quinze-vingts play and sing. Those 

 coffee-houses, in France, where smoking is allowed, 

 are called estaminets, which is also the name, of the 

 beer-houses in Holland. One of the greatest attrac- 

 tions in French coffee-houses is the limonadiere, a wo- 

 man who sits in an elevated seat, to attend to the sale 

 of the refreshments. She is generally very pretty, 

 and is dressed with much taste. With genuine 

 French tact, she represses all improper freedoms. 

 The coffee-houses in London are poor. 



In the East, the coffee-houses, or rather booths, 

 form a very essential part of the social system ; all 

 men of leisure assembling there. In these places are 

 also to be found the famous story-tellers, who repeat 

 long tales to attentive hearers, who show their inter- 

 est by exclamations of " God save him ! Allah de- 

 prive him of his eyes !" &c., or utter warning cries 

 to alarm the hero when danger awaits him. It often 

 happens, that the story is broken off, and continued 

 the next day. There is a highly interesting manu- 

 script in the royal library at Paris, in Arabic, entitled 

 the Support of Innocence. It relates to the lawful- 

 ness of using coffee. The author is Aljeziri Alhan- 

 bali. Of this De Sacy gives an account, and extracts 

 in his Chrestomaihie Arabe (vol. i., p. 441). It ap- 

 pears that a question arose, whether coffee was to be 

 included among the intoxicating beverages which the 

 Koran prohibits ; and the manuscript proves that it is 

 not. There are many other interesting matters in 

 these extracts. The sheikh, the writer of the manu- 

 script, proves that the use of coffee was first intro- 

 duced by a famous skeikh, imam, mufti, and scholar of 

 Arabia Felix, called Dhabani, about the year 870 of 

 the Hegira. In Egypt, the drinking of coffee seems 

 to have been at first regarded almost as a religious 



ceremony. The devotees, who introduced it there, 

 assembled for the purpose of enjoying it on Monday 

 and Friday evenings, when it was handed round with 

 great solemnity, accompanied with many prayers, and 

 ever and anon witli exclamations of " There is no 

 God but God !" There are also mentioned, in the 

 manuscript above cited, two different methods o* 

 making coffee, one called buniyya,in which the grain 

 and husk are used together, and another called kislm- 

 riyya, in which the husk is used alone. Many ser 

 mons against coffee-drinking are extant, written at 

 the time hen it was introduced into Europe; as 

 there are also many sermons against smoking. We 

 recollect having read the following passage in ;in old 

 sermon : " They cannot wait until the smoke of the 

 infernal regions surrounds them, but encompass 

 themselves with smoke of their own accord, and 

 drink a poison which God made black, tliat it might 

 bear the devil's colour." 



COFFIN. Coffins were used by the ancients only 

 to receive the bodies of persons of the highest distinc- 

 tion. Even at the present time, they are not used 

 in the East, either by Mohammedans or Christians. 

 The modern Jews do not use coffins, but only two 

 boards, between which the corpse is tied. But in 

 Egypt, coffins seem to have been used in ancient 

 times universally. They were of stone, wood, or a 

 kind of paste-board made by gluing cloth together. 

 Coffins among Christians were probably introduced 

 with the custom of burying. See Bury ing-Grounds. 

 It lias been often proposed that they should be made, 

 with a hole opposite the place of the mouth of the 

 body, so as to allow breathing, in case of revival. 

 Of course, it would be necessary, at the same time, 

 to let the coffin stand for some days in a convenient 

 place, as is the custom in many parts of Germany. 



COFRA DE PEROTA; a mountain of Mexico; 

 Ion. 97 8' W. ; lat. 19 45' N. It is 13,414 feet 

 above the level of the gulf of Mexico. The Mexi- 

 can name of this mountain is Nauhcampapetl ; the 

 English, the Four parts or the Smiare mountain. It 

 is evident that the mountain has been a volcano, and 

 is formed of basaltic porphyry. 



COGNATES ; the relations by the mother's side. 



COHESION is that force which preserves in union 

 particles of a similar kind. Its action is seen in a 

 solid mass of matter, the parts of which cohere with 

 a certain force which resists any mechanical action 

 that would tend to separate them. In different bodies, 

 it is exerted with different degrees of strength, and 

 is measured by the force necessary to pull them 

 asunder. According to Sickingen, the relative cohe- 

 sive strength of the metals is as follows: 



Gold, 150,955 



Silver,. . l!M),77l 



Platina, . . 2t:2,3(il 



Copper 304.GUO 



Solt iron, . . 362,027 



Hard iron, 55Q,880 



Cohesion in liquids is very much weaker, the parts 

 being disjoined with much more facility ; and in sul>- 

 stances existing in the aerial form, it is entirely over- 

 come, the particles, instead of attracting, repelling 

 each other. 



Cohesion in bodies is weakened or overcome by 

 two general causes by the repulsion communicated 

 by caloric, or by the attraction which may be exerted 

 by the particles of one body on those of another. 



Caloric communicated to a solid body separates its 

 particles to greater distances, as is evident from the 

 enlargement of volume which it produces. By thus 

 increasing the distances, the force with which the at- 

 traction of aggregation or cohesion is exerted is di- 

 minished ; it the heat be carried to a sufficient ex- 

 tent, the cohesion is so far weakened, that the body 

 passes into the liquid form ; and, if carried still far- 

 ther, the attractive force is entirely overcome, rej uJ 



