THE FARMER AT HOME. 139 



t iis color, and we may remark, that this custom was observed by all 

 t le nations of antiquity. 



EAGLE. A bird of prey, of the genus falco, of which there are 

 s 3veral species. It is said to be the swiftest, strongest, and boldest of 

 1 11 birds. The eagle has a long hooked beak, yellow scaly legs, thick 

 c rooked talons, a short tail, and a very keen sight. The wings of the 

 s?a-eagle extend seven feet. The eagle, as a bearing in a coat armor, 

 i 3 reckoned as honorable among the birds, as the lion is among the 

 ] leasts. The bald eagle is the national emblem of the United States 

 <f North America. 



EARTHQUAKES. Shaking or vibrations of the ground are 

 Called earthquakes. They are sometimes accompanied by rents 

 and rocking or heavings of the surface, so as to overthrow buildings, 

 and swallow up towns and large tracts of country. They are 

 attended with a terrible subterranean noise, like thunder, and some- 

 dmes with an eruption of fire or water, smoke or wind. They are 

 occasioned by an electrical action between the atmosphere and some 

 deep substrata ; or the sudden formation of gaseous matter beneath 

 the surface of the earth by internal volcanic fires. The great earth- 

 quake of 1755 extended over a tract of at least 4 ; 000,000 of square 

 miles. It appears to have originated beneath the Atlantic ocean, the 

 waves of which received almost as violent a concussion as the land. 

 Its effects were even extended to the waters in many places where 

 the shocks were not perceptible. It pervaded the greater portions of 

 the continents of Europe, Africa, and America ; but its extreme vio- 

 lence was exercised on the southwestern parts of the former. Lisbon, 

 the Portuguese capital, had already suffered greatly from an earth- 

 quake in 1531 ; and, since the calamity of 1755, has had three such 

 visitations, 1761, 1765, and 1772, which were not however attended 

 by equally disastrous consequences. This earthquake was also felt 

 at Oporto, Cadiz, and other parts of Europe, and equally severe in 

 Africa. A great part of the city of Algiers was destroyed. In many 

 places of Germany the effects of this earthquake were very per- 

 ceptible ; but in Holland the agitations were still more remarkable. 

 The agitation of the waters was also perceived in various parts of 

 Great Britain and Ireland. At sea, the shocks of this earthquake 

 were felt most violently. Among other catastrophes, the captain of 

 the Nancy, frigate, oft' St. Lucas, felt his ship so violently shaken, 

 that he thought she had struck the ground, but on heaving the lead, 

 found she was in a great depth of water. 



EARTHS. The earths that are of the most consequence to the 

 agriculturist as constituting arable soils, are silica, lime, alumina, 

 magnesia, oxyde of iron, and some few saline substances as sulphate 

 and phosphate of lime. The arable soils or earths are produced by 

 the decomposition of the rocks which form the basis of our globe, and 

 their quality is depending on the proportion in which the several 



