PHCENIX PHOSPHORESCENCE. 



537 



pirates, and they gradually extended their voyages 

 to the remotest countries. They bartered the pro- 

 ductions of one country for those of another. They 

 discovered the manufacture of glass, wool and purple, 

 and executed all kinds of mechanical works. Their 

 situation would lead the Phoenicians to trade parti- 

 cularly in the Mediterranean. Cyprus was their 

 nearest landing-place ; thence they extended their 

 voyages to Greece and the Grecian islands. In 

 Rhodes and Crete they established colonies. But 

 when the Greeks themselves became a powerful and 

 commercial people, the Phoenicians turned to the 

 northern coasts of Africa. Here, as in Sicily and Sar- 

 dinia, they founded colonies, by means of which they 

 traded to the interior of Africa, and with which they 

 always continued on good terms. But their trade to 

 Spain was the most important. Here they found 

 gold, iron, silver, tin and lead. The preserved fruits 

 of the south were an important article of commerce. 

 Gades (Cadiz), the most celebrated of their colonies, 

 was the limit of their voyages in the Mediterranean, 

 and the beginning of the more distant voyages in 

 the Atlantic. They sailed northerly to the Cassite- 

 rides, Tin islands (the Scilly isles and Britain), and 

 into the North sea, as far as the mouth of the Rhine. 

 On the western coast of Lybia they must have visited 

 and peopled the island of Madeira and the Fortunate 

 islands (Canaries). Their trade to Ophir, on the 

 Arabian gulf, and on the Persian gulf, perhaps as far 

 as Ceylon, was less important and of shorter duration. 

 Their circumnavigation of Africa is uncertain. They 

 traded also in goods brought to them in cara- 

 vans from the interior of Asia and Africa. For a 

 long time their trade was entirely by barter ; for the 

 Numidians, not the Phoenicians, are considered to 

 have stamped the first coins. They invented, or at 

 least improved, ship-building. They used rudders 

 and sails, and followed, by night, the course of the 

 stars. The invention of letters and arithmetic has 

 been attributed to them, and they probably had consid- 

 erable astronomical and mechanical knowledge. On 

 the other hand, poetry and the higher branches of men- 

 tal cultivation were not pursued by them. Of their 

 writings nothing is preserved to us. Their language 

 belongs to the Canaanite branch of the Semitic 

 family, and is little understood. Their religion was 

 polytheism, with the worship of images, and human 

 sacrifices. Their chief god was called by the Greeks 

 Cronos (Saturn), by the Hebrews Baal or Bel, also 

 Adonis (Lord), whose worship spread into Greece 

 and Egypt (Osiris). Their principal goddess was 

 Baaltis (Isis), or Astarte, or Astaroth, called by the 

 Greeks Aphrodite (Venus). In Tyre, Melcarth 

 (Hercules) was worshipped as a local deity, and his 

 worship extended thence to other countries. The 

 Phoenicians likewise worshipped the Cabiri. The 

 character of this commercial people was not very 

 high among the ancients. For further information 

 respecting Phoenicia, see Heeren's works, eleventh 

 volume, 1824. 



PHCENIX ; a Greek coin, lately introduced, and 

 equal to the sixth part of a dollar. 



PHCENIX ; a wonderful Egyptian bird, about the 

 size of an eagle, with plumage partly red, and partly 

 golden. This bird is said to come from Arabia to 

 Egypt, every 500 years, at the death of his parent, 

 bringing the body with him, embalmed in myrrh, to 

 the temple of the sun, where he buries it. According 

 to others, when he finds himself near his end, he 

 prepares a nest of myrrh, and precious herbs, in 

 which he burns himself : but from his ashes he revives 

 in the freshness of youth. From late mythological 

 researches, it is conjectured that the phoenix is a sym- 

 bol of a period of 500 years, of which the conclusion 

 was celebrated by a solemn sacrifice, in which the 



figure of a bird was burnt. His restoring his youth 

 signifies that the new springs from the old. Every 

 thing which more than sixty authors have related of 

 this bird Strabo, Lucian, Pliny, Plutarch, Herodotus 

 and others, and all the researches of the French and 

 Italians may be found in Ant. MetraPs work Le 

 Phenix, ou iOiseau du Soleil (Paris, 1824). 



PHONETIC (from tftaiiu, I speak) ; a term applied 

 to written characters which represent sounds, as a, b, 

 in contradistinction to ideographic characters, which 

 express ideas ; e. g. the Chinese signs of a hand and 

 a skin, to signify tanner : For further information 

 on this subject, see the articles hieroglyphics, Chinese 

 Language, and Writing; see also Philology, and 

 Palenque. 



PHONOLOGY. See Philology. 



PHORCUS, OR PHORCYS; son of Pontus and 

 Terra, or, according to others, of Neptune and the 

 nymph Thesea, was the father of many sea-monsters ; 

 for instance, the Gorgons, and the Hesperian dragon; 

 according to some, also of Scylla and Thoosa, whom 

 his sister Ceto bore to him. 



PHOSPHORESCENCE is the property which 

 certain bodies possess of becoming luminous without 

 undergoing combustion, as when we rub or heat 

 them, or in consequence of the action of the living 

 principle or of decomposition. Two pieces of quartz 

 emit light on being rubbed together. Light is seen 

 in breaking lumps of sugar. A variety of blende 

 (sulphuret of zinc), on being scratched with a knife, 

 emits a fine yellow light. In the year 1C63, Mr 

 Boyle observed, that the diamond, when slightly 

 heated, rubbed, or compressed, emitted a light al- 

 most equal to that of the glowworm. The most 

 complete account we possess of the phosphorescence 

 of minerals is that furnished by doctor Brewster. 

 He obtained his results by placing fragments of the 

 bodies examined upon a thick mass of iron heated a 

 little below redness, or introducing them into a 

 pistol barrel similarly heated. The following table 

 presents some of his results : 



Name of the Min- 



eralt. 

 Fluor spar, 



Z=T: p b ' 



Calcareous spar, 



Apatite, 



Arragonite, 



Harmotome, 



Topaz, 



Rubellite, 



Petalite, 



Anatase, 



Colour of the Min- 

 erals. 

 pink, 



urple, 



iluish white, 

 white, 

 transparent, 

 pink, 



dirty white, 

 colourless, 

 white and bluish, 

 reddish, 

 reddish white, 

 dark brown, 



Colour of the 



Light. 

 green, 

 bluish, 

 blue. 



white sparks, 

 yellowish, 

 yellow, 

 reddish yellow. 



do. 



bluish, 

 scarlet, 

 bright blue, 

 reddish yellow. 



The phosphorescence of anatase is entirely different 

 from that of the other minerals. It appears suddenly 

 like a flame, and is soon over. Certain varieties of 

 fluor require no more heat than that of the hand to 

 occasion the emission of light. The phosphoric light 

 of minerals has the same properties as the direct 

 light of the sun. The foregoing are instances in 

 which it was not necessary to expose the bodies to 

 the light previous to their exhibiting phosphorescence. 

 Certain artificial compounds emit light in conse- 

 quence of the action of extraneous light. The most 

 powerful of these is the compound called Canton's 

 phosphorus. It is formed by mixing three parts of 

 calcined oyster-shells in powder, with one of flowers 

 of sulphur, and ramming the mixture into a crucible, 

 and igniting it for half an hour. The bright parts 

 will, on exposure to the sunbeam, or to the common 

 daylight, or to an electrical explosion, acquire the 

 property of shining in the dark, so as to illuminate 

 the dial of a watch, and make its figures legible. 

 It will, indeed, after a while, cease to shine ; but if 

 we keep the powder in a well corked phial, a new 

 exposure to the sun's light will restore the pnospho* 



