THE FARMER AT HOME. 



relates, having thrown some of it to the hogs, observed, tkat after 

 purging them violently, they immediately grew fat upon it. This 

 made him think, that by giving his fellow monks a like dose, they 

 would be the better for it. 



The experiment, however, succeeded so ill, that they all died of 

 it ; and the medicine was thenceforward called antimony anti- 

 monk. Antimony at first was used only in the composition of paint. 

 Scripture describes it a sort of paint with which the women blacken- 

 ed their eye-brows. Its modern uses are very numerous and impor- 

 tant. It is a common ingredient in specula or burning concaves, 

 serving to give the composition a finer texture. It makes a part in 

 bell-metal, and renders the sound clearer. It is mingled with tin to 

 make it harder, whiter, and more sonorous ; and with lead, in the 

 casting of printers' letters, to render them smoother and firmer. It is 

 also a general help in the melting of metals, and especially in the 

 casting of cannon balls. It is likewise made use of for purifying 

 and heightening the color of gold. 



For a long time this mineral was esteemed poisonous. In 1566, 

 its use was prohibited by any but doctors of the faculty. It is now uni- 

 versally allowed that pure antimony in its crude state has no noxious 

 quality, and that though many of its preparations are most virulently 

 emetic and cathartic, yet by a slight alteration or addition, they lose 

 their virulence, and become mild in their operation. Its virtues in 

 the diseases of animals are greatly extolled. 



ANTIPODES. In geography, a name given to those inhabitants 

 of the globe, that live diametrically opposite to each other. The 

 antipodes lie under opposite meridians and opposite parallels, in the 

 same degree of latitude, but of opposite denominations, one being 

 north, and the other south. They have nearly the same degree of 

 heat and cold, and days and nights of equal length, but opposite 

 seasons. It is noon to one, when it is midnight to the other ; and 

 the longest day with the one, is the shortest with the other. The 

 terms upward and downward are merely relative, and signify nearer 

 to, and farther from, the centre of the earth, the common centre to 

 which all heavy bodies gravitate : wherefore, our antipodes, or the 

 people who with respect to us, seem to walk with their heads down- 

 ward, have not their feet upward, nor their heads downward, any 

 more than ourselves ; because they, like us, have their feet nearer to 

 the centre of the earth, and their heads farther from it. We all tend 

 toward the centre of the earth, in a direction from head to foot. 



APHIS. A family of insects that prey extensively on plants, 

 and are endowed with astonishing powers of reproduction, and 

 though insignificant as individuals, they are formidable in their num- 

 bers, and in most years occasion more or less loss to agriculturists. 

 They have no mouths, but are provided with beak-like suckers, 

 which they insert into plants, and feed on the juices. Almost every 



