AES 



spikes or flowers, which appear in May, 

 with the intexmixUire of large leaves, ex- 

 hibit a noble appearance. The most eli- 

 gible situation for these trees is in lawns 

 and parks, where they may be planted 

 singly, and where their fruit will be ser- 

 viceable to the deer, who are fond of it. 

 This tree is of quick growth ; and in a 

 few years it will afford a good shade in 

 summer, and yield plenty of flowers. 

 Trees, raised from nuts, have in 12 or 14 

 years become large enough to shade two 

 or three chairs with their branches, which 

 in the season are covered with flowers. 

 But the trees are of short duration, and 

 the wood is of little value. It serves, 

 however, for water-pipes, turners' ware, 

 and fuel : and for these uses it is worth 

 the charge of planting, and should be 

 felled in November or December. The 

 horse-chestnut has been employed in 

 France and Switzerland for the purpose 

 of bleaching yarn; and it is recommend- 

 ed in the Memoirs of the Society of Berne, 

 Vol. II. part 2, as capable of extensive 

 use in whitening not only flax and hemp, 

 but silk and wool. It contains an astrin- 

 gent saponaceous juice, which is obtained 

 by peeling the nuts, and grinding or rasp- 

 ing them. They are then mixed with hot 

 rain or running water, in the proportion 

 of 20 nuts to 10 or 12 quarts of water. 

 Wove caps and stockings were milled in 

 this water, and took the die extremely 

 well ; and successful trials were made of 

 it in fulling stuffs and cloths. Linen 

 washed in this water takes a pleasing 

 light sky-blue colour; and the filaments 

 of hemp, steeped in it some days, were 

 easily separated. The author of the me- 

 moir, above referred to, imagines, that if 

 the meal of the chesnut could be made 

 into cakes or balls, it would answer the 

 purposes of soap, in washing and fulling. 

 The sediment, after infusion, loses its bit- 

 ter taste, and becomes good food for fowls 

 when mixed with bran. The Edinburgh 

 College have admitted the horse-chesnut 

 into their Pharmacopoeia of 1783, on the 

 recommendation of Dr. Gardiner, who 

 says that three or four grains of the pow- 

 der, snuffed up the nostrils in the evening, 

 operate next morning as an excellant ster- 

 uutatory, and thereby proves very benefi- 

 cial in obstinate inflammations oftheeyes. 

 A patent was granted in 1796, to Lord 

 W. Murray, for his discovery of a method 

 of extracting sturch from horse-chesnuts. 

 The second species, or yellow-flowered 

 horse-chestnut, is a native of North Caro- 

 lina, was cultivated with us in 1764, and 

 flowers in May and June. 



The third species, or scarlet horse- 

 chestnut, rises to the height of twenty 

 feet without much extending its branch- 

 es ; its bark is smooth, and the leaves, 

 which are opposite, on long, red petioles, 

 are of a light green. 



The common horse-chestnut is propa- 

 gated by sowing the nuts, after preserv- 

 ing them in sand during the winter : but 

 the scarletis propagated by grafting it up- 

 on stocks of the common horse-chestnut. 



The American species are : JE paria ; 

 J. flava; JE. macrostachya ; and JE. achi- 

 nata. Of the last there are two varieties, 

 A. the glabra, and B. the pallida. 



JETHUSA, in botany, a genus of the 

 Pentandria Digynia class and order, and 

 belonging to the natural order of Umbel- 

 late or Umbelliferze : the calyx is an uni- 

 versal spreading umbel, and the partial 

 is also spreading, but small ; having no 

 universal involucre, and the partial one 

 placed on the outside, and consisting only 

 of three very long 1 , linear, pendulous leaf- 

 lets, and the proper perianthium scarcely 

 observable : the universal corolla is nearly 

 uniform, with all the floscules fertile, and 

 the partial has the petals bent in, heart- 

 shaped, and unequal: the stamina are 

 simple filaments, with roundish anthers; 

 the pistillum is an inferior germ, and the 

 styles are reflex, with obtuse stigmas : 

 it has no pericarpium, and the fruit is 

 roundish, streaked, and bipartite : the 

 seeds are two, roundish, streaked, except 

 on a third part of the surface, which is 

 plain. There are four species, the prin- 

 cipal is JE. cynapium, common fool's pars- 

 ley, or lesser hemlock, which is a common 

 weed in fields and kitchen-gardens, and 

 in a slight degree poisonous. It is easily 

 distinguished when in flower, in July and 

 August, from true parsley and chervil; 

 by the three narrow pendent leaflets of 

 the involucre, placed on the outer part 

 only of the umbel, and by its being a much 

 humbler plant than either of the others. 

 The leaves also, in an earlier state, are of 

 a different form and a darker hue, and, 

 when bruised, emit in a slight degree a 

 disagreeable venomous smell. The safest 

 way to avoid dou t or danger is to culti- 

 vate the curled parsley. Most cattle eat 

 it, but it is said to be noxious to geese. 



AETIOLOGY, that branch of physic 

 which assigns the causes of diseases ; in. 

 this sense we say the aetiology of the small 

 pox, dropsy, &c. 



JETIOLOGT, in rhetoric, is deemed a 

 figure of speech, whereby, in relating an 

 event, we, at the same time, unfold the 

 causes of it. 



