644 



HARTZ HARVEY. 



solid animal substances in general ; so that the ar 

 tides denominated spirit of hartshorn and salt of 

 hartshorn, though formerly obtained only from the 

 horns of different species of deer, are now chiefly pre- 

 pared from bones. The former of these, which is a 

 volatile alkali of a very penetrating nature, is an 

 efficacious remedy in nervous complaints and fainting- 

 fits ; and salt of hartshorn has been successfully pre- 

 scribed in fevers. The scrapings or raspings of the 

 horns, under the name of hartshorn shavings, are 

 variously employed in medicine. Boiled in water, 

 the horns of deer give out an emollient jelly, which 

 is said to be remarkably nutritive. Burned hartshorn 

 is employed in medicine. The horns of the stag are 

 used, by cutlers and other mechanics, for the handles 

 of knives and cutting instruments of different kinds. 

 HARTZ ; the most northerly mountain chain ol 

 Germany, from which an extensive plain, interrupted 

 only by some inconsiderable hills, stretches to the 

 North sea and the Baltic. The Hartz, though sur- 

 rounded by a low range of hills, forms a separate 

 mountainous chain, seventy miles in length and 

 twenty to twenty-eight miles in breadth. The Hartz, 

 properly speaking, commences in the east, in Mans- 

 feld, passes through Anhalt-Bernburg, the counties 

 of Stolberg, Hohenstein and Wernigerode, a part of 

 Halberstadt and Blankenburg, Brunswick-Wolfen- 

 buttel and Grubenhagen, and terminates on the west, 

 at the town of Seesen, comprising an extent of 1350 

 square miles, and embracing forty towns and 

 numerous villages, with 56,000 inhabitants, belong- 

 ing principally to Hanover. The Hartz is divided 

 into the Upper and Lower, in a double sense. In 

 the wider sense, the Brocken, the loftiest summit of 

 the chain, forms the line of separation. The Upper 

 Hartz lies west of the Brocken, and is the most ele- 

 vated, extensive, and rich in minerals ; the Lower 

 Hartz lies on the east of the Brocken, and is superi- 

 or in the beauty of its scenery. The same summit is 

 also the dividing point of the rivers; those on the 

 east empty into the Elbe ; those on the west, into the 

 Weser. There are several ranges of mountains in 

 Germany, that are much higher than the Hartz ; as, 

 for instance, the German Alps, the Riesengebirge 

 and the Schwartzwald (Black Forest). The Brock- 

 en, the highest summit of the Hartz, is 3489, or, ac- 

 cording to some accounts, 3435 feet high ; next to 

 this are the Bmchberg (2755 feet), the Wormberg 

 (2667 feet), and the Ackermannshohe (2605 feet). 

 That part of the Hartz which includes the Brocken, 

 with the neighbouring high summits, consists entirely 

 of granite ; then come the hills of the second rank, 

 formed of greywacke, in which the ores are chiefly 

 found ; at their foot lie the Floetz hills, known under 

 the name of the Vorhartz. The climate, particular- 

 ly of the Upper Hartz, is cold. The frost continues 

 till the end of May, and appears early in September, 

 accompanied by snow; and even in June, night frosts 

 are not uncommon. The warm weather lasts only 

 about six weeks, and the snow upon the highest 

 peaks selloin disappears before June ; fires are kept 

 up, even in mid-summer. The Hartz is wooded 

 throughout, even to the top of the Brocken (the Han- 

 overian part alone contains 286,363 acres of forest). 

 On the Brocken itself stand firs dwindled into dwarf 

 trees. Upon the less lofty hills, several sorts of de- 

 ciduous trees are found intermingled with the ever- 

 greens, and the Floetz hills are covered with the- fin- 

 est oaks, beech, and birch. The hills also abound in 

 wild berries, in truffles and mushrooms, in medicinal 

 plants, Iceland moss, and fine pastures ; and in sum- 

 mer, immense herds of neat cattle, sheep, goats and 

 horses graze here. In the Upper Hartz. little grain 

 is raised, except oats ; in the Lower Hartz, the pro- 

 ductions are more various. The woods furnish a 



great quantity of game, such as stags, roe-bucks, 

 foxes, wild boars, wild cats, &c. But the wealth of 

 the Hartz consists in its forests and valuable mines. 

 The latter furnish some gold (on account of its rarity, 

 ducats were formerly coined, with the inscription 

 Ex auro Hercyniee) ; in the Rammels-berge, grea* 

 quantities of silver, iron, lead, copper, zinc, arsenic, 

 manganese, vitriol, granite, porphyry, slate, marble, 

 alabaster, &c. The gross produce of the Hanove- 

 rian mines is but little over the expenses ; but they 

 support the greatest part of the inhabitants of the 

 Hartz. The towns of the Upper Hartz are entirely 

 open. In addition to the establishments for carrying 

 on the mines, the objects of curiosity in the Hartz are 

 the Brocken, with its prospect; the horse-track 

 (Rosstrappe), the wildest and most beautiful part of 

 the Hartz, near the village of Thale ; the different 

 caves, as those of Baumann, Biel, Schwartzfeld, the 

 romantic Selkenthal, with the Maiden's Leap, and 

 the Bath of Alexis ; the wild Ockerthal, &c. A 

 wide plain on the summit of the Brocken, is the place 

 of the annual rendezvous of all the witches and spirits 

 of Germany, of which Goethe has made such a noble 

 use in his Faust. It is on the Brocken, also, that 

 the wild huntsman of the Hartz is supposed to dwell. 

 The spectre of the Brocken is an image of the specta- 

 tor, of a magnified and distorted shape, reflected 

 from an opposite cloud under particular circum- 

 stances. See the Taschenbuchfiir Reisende in den 

 Hartz, by Gottschalk (2d edit., Magdeburg, 1817). 



HARVEY, WILLIAM, an English physician, cele- 

 brated as the discoverer of the circulation of the 

 blood, was born at Folkstone, in Kent, April, 2, 1578, 

 and, in 1593, removed to Caius college, Cambridge. 

 At the age of nineteen, he went abroad for improve- 

 ment, and, after visiting France and Germany, he 

 staid some time at the university at Padua, where 

 Fabricius ab Aquapendente, and other eminent men, 

 were professors of the medical sciences. He took 

 the degree of M. D. in 1602, and, returning to Eng- 

 land, obtained a similar distinction at Cambridge. 

 Having settled in London, in 1604 he was admitted 

 a licentiate of the college of physicians, and three 

 years after, a fellow. In 1615, he was appointed to 

 read lectures at the college, on anatomy and surgery; 

 and, in the course of tlus undertaking, he developed 

 the discovery which has immortalized his name. It 

 was not till 1620, that he gave publicity to his new 

 doctrine of the circulation of blood, by his treatise 

 entitled Exercitatio anatomica de Motu Cordis et San- 

 guinis in Animalibus. In a prefixed address to the 

 college of physicians, he observes, that he had fre- 

 quently, in his anatomical lectures, declared his 

 opinion concerning the motion of the heart and the 

 circulation of the blood, and had, for more than nine 

 years, confirmed and illustrated it by reasons and 

 arguments grounded on ocular demonstration. It 

 speedily excited the attention of anatomists in every 

 European school of medicine ; and the theory of Har- 

 vey having been triumphantly defended against all 

 objections, attempts were made to invalidate his 

 claim to the discovery ; but it is now admitted, that 

 whatever hints may be found in the writings of his pre- 

 decessors, Harvey first clearly demonstrated the sys- 

 tem of sanguineous circulation, and thus produced one 

 of the greatest revolutions in medical science. Harvey 

 was appointed physician extraordinary to James I., 

 and, in 1632, physician in ordinary to king Charles, 

 by whom he was much esteemed. Adhering to the 

 court party, on the occurrence of hostilities, he at- 

 tended his majesty on his removal from London. He 

 was with him at the battle of Edgehill, and afterwards 

 at Oxford, where, in 1642, he was incorporated M. 

 D. In 1651, he published his Exercitationes de 

 Generations Animalium (4to.). This curious work 



