BLI 



BLI 





themselves, under a sense of their total 

 dependence, and for want of regular em- 

 ployment, habits of industry will relieve 

 their spirits, and produce the most bene- 

 ficial effects on their state and character. 

 The children of this institution are com- 

 pletely clothed, boarded, lodged, and in- 

 structed, gratis. The articles at present 

 manufactured in the school are, shoema- 

 ker's thread, fine and coarse thread, win- 

 dow sash-line, and clothes line (of a pe- 

 culiar construction, and made on a ma- 

 chine adapted to the use of blind persons) 

 by the females ; and window and sash- 

 line, clothes-line, hampers, and wicker- 

 baskets, by the males. 



The success that has crowned the ef- 

 forts of the friends of this institution, 

 since its first establishment, affords suffi- 

 cient evidence of the degree in which the 

 situation and faculties of the blind are 

 capable of improvement ; and a view of 

 it in its present prosperous state must be 

 gratifying to persons of humane and com- 

 passionate feelings. Here they will not 

 find the scholars sitting in listless indo- 

 lence, which is commonly the case with 

 the blind, or brooding in silence over their 

 own defects, and their inferiority to the 

 rest of mankind; but they will behold a 

 number of individuals, of a class hitherto 

 considered as doomed to a life of sorrow 

 and discontent, and to be provided for 

 merely in alms-houses, or by donations of 

 charity, not less animated in their amuse- 

 ments, during the hours of recreation, 

 and far more cheerfully attentive to their 

 work in those of employment, than per- 

 sons possessed of sight. 



To this article we shall subjoin the fol- 

 lowing directions, given by Mr. Thick- 

 nesse, for teaching the blind to write. 

 " Let any common joiner make a flat 

 board, about 14 inches long and 12 

 wide, in the middle of which let a 

 place be sunk, deep enough, when lined 

 with cloth, to hold only two or three 

 sheets of fool's-cap paper, which must 

 quite fill up the space : over this must be 

 fixed a very thin false frame, which is to 

 cover all but the paper, and fastened on 

 by four little pins, fixed in the lower 

 board, and across the lower frame : just 

 over the paper must be a little slider, an 

 inch and a half broad, to slip down into 

 several recesses made in the upper frame 

 at a proper distance for the lines, which 

 should be near an inch asunder; and this 

 ruler, on which the writer is to rest his 

 fourth and little finger, must be made full 

 of little notches, at a quarter of an inch 

 distant from each other; and these notches 



will inform the writer, by his little fin- 

 ger dropping from notcli to notch, how to 

 avoid running one letter into another. 

 When he comes to the end of the line, he 

 must move his slider down to the next 

 groove, which may be easily so contrived 

 with a spring, to give warning that it is 

 properly removed to the second line, and 

 so on." 



BLINDS, or BtiifDEs, in the art of 

 war, a sort of defence commonly made of 

 oziers, or branches interwoven, and laid 

 across between two rows of stakes, about 

 the height of a man, and four or five feet 

 asunder, used particularly at the heads of 

 trenches, when they are extended in front 

 towards the glacis ; serving to shelter the 

 workmen, and prevent their being over- 

 looked by the enemy. 



BLINK, of the ice, in sea language, 

 that dazzling whiteness about the horizon, 

 which is occasioned by the reflection of 

 light from the fields of ice. 



BLISTER, in medicine, a thin bladder 

 containing a watery humour, whether oc- 

 casioned by burns and the like accidents, 

 or by vesicatories laid on different parts of 

 the body for that purpose. 



BLITUM, in botany, a genus of the 

 Monandria Digynia class and order. Na- 

 tural order of Holoraceae ; Atriplices, 

 Jussieu. Essential character: calyx tri- 

 fid ; petal none ; seed one, with a berried 

 calyx. There are four species, of which 

 B. capitatum is an annual plant, with 

 leaves somewhat like those of spinach ; 

 the stalk rises about two feet and a half 

 high in gardens ; the upper part of it has 

 flowers coming out in small heads at eve- 

 ry joint, and is terminated by a small 

 cluster of the same. After the flowers 

 are past, these little heads swell to the 

 size of wood strawberries, and, when ripe, 

 have the same appearance, being very 

 succulent and full of a purple juice, which 

 stains the hands. It is commonly called 

 strawberry blite, strawberry spinach, or 

 bloody spinach ; by some, berry-bearing 

 orach. Native of Switzerland, the Gri- 

 sons, Austria, the Tyrol, Spain, and Por- 

 tugal. 



B. virgatum, seldom grows more than 

 one foot iiigh, with smaller leaves than the 

 capitatum, but of the same shape. The 

 flowers are small, and collected into little 

 heads, shaped like those of the first, but 

 smaller, and not so deeply coloured. A 

 native of the South of France, Spain, Ita- 

 ly, and Tartary. Of the other species, 

 the one rises more than three feet high ; 

 the other is a very low plant, and is found 

 in Tartary and Sweden. 



