MAR 



MAR 



'the best cane, and which requires no 

 ether labour than what women and girls 

 can bestow, in drawing 1 off and boiling 

 the liquor ; and when skilfully tapped, 

 the tree will last many years. A tree of 

 an ordinary size yields in a good season 

 from twenty to thirty gallons of sap, from 

 which may be made from five to six 

 pounds of sugar. The tree is tapped with 

 an auger, first on the south side and then 

 on the north, and the sap will flow five 

 or six weeks, according to the tempera- 

 ture of the weather. The sugar is manu- 

 factured much in the same manner as 

 the cane sugar of the West Indies. In 

 New York and Pennsylvania many hun- 

 dred private families have long supplied 

 themselves plentifully with this sugar at 

 little expense. One instance is mentioned 

 of a family, consisting of a father and his 

 two sons, who made nearly eighteen hun- 

 dred weight in a single season. Dr. Rush, 

 who attended very closely to this subject, 

 supposes that four men, provided with 

 proper conveniences, may make in a 

 common season, of from four to six weeks, 

 40 cwt. of excellent sugar. The Indians 

 of Canada are said to have practised the 

 making of sugar for centuries ; and Eu- 

 ropeans, both French and English, have 

 been in the habit of refining it for 140 

 ; years. See SCGAR. 



MAPPIA, in botany, so called from 

 Marcus Mappus, professor of medicine at 

 Strasburg, a genus of the Polyandria Mo- 

 nogynia class and order. Essential cha- 

 racter : calyx five-parted ; corolla five- 

 petalled ; germ superior ; berry one- 

 seeded, seeds arilled. There is but one 

 species, viz. M . guianensis, a shrub, found 

 on the banks of the river Sinemari in 

 Guiana. 



MARALDI (JAMES PHILIP), in biogra- 

 phy, a learned mathematician, astrono- 

 mer, and natural philosopher, was born 

 in the year 1665, at Perinaldo, in the 

 county of Nice, which had been already 

 honoured by the birth of his matern^ un- 

 ele, the celebrated Cassini. We are not 

 informed where he received his educa- 

 tion ; but we are told that after he had 

 for some time successfully cultivated lite- 

 rature, the bent of his genius led him to 

 study the sublimer sciences, and particu- 

 larly the mathematics. Having made a 

 .considerable progress, when he was twen- 

 ty-two years of age, his uncle sent for 

 him to Paris, where he hud been settled 

 a longtime, that he might himself super- 

 intend his studies, and have the satisfac- 

 tion of witnessing the efforts of his ge- 

 nius in a country where useful and ex- 

 traordinary talents, both in natives and 

 VOL. IV. 



foreigners, were at that time much chq* 

 rished and encouraged. Under such a 

 tutor Maraldi made a wonderful profi- 

 ciency, and soon answered the most flat- 

 tering expectations which he had formed 

 of him. To his uncle he implicitly re- 

 signed the direction of his studies and his 

 manners, and conceived for him the affec- 

 tion of a son, which met with an equal re- 

 turn. When Cassini found that his ne- 

 phew's advancement in science, his ex- 

 traordinary diligence, and his accuracy, 

 had qualified him to become an useful a*s- 

 sistant in his astronomical labours, by the 

 direction of the Royal Academy of Scien- 

 ces, he associated him with himself in 

 making observations on the celestial 

 bodies. A wide field was now opened for 

 the industry and ingenuity of our young 

 astronomer. la making his observations 

 on the planets, he found that Kepler and 

 Bouillaud had incorrectly determined the 

 place of the aphelion of Jupiter. Com- 

 paring afterwards his observations with 

 those of the Chaldean astronomers, made 

 in the third century before the Christian 

 era, he found that the nodes of that 

 planet had retrograded more than four- 

 teen degrees, and that owing to their 

 natural motion ; and he observed and ac- 

 counted for other phenomena in the ap- 

 pearance of that planet and its satellites. 

 After an assiduous attention to Mars, he 

 acknowledged that Kepler's theory o 

 that planet was so perfect, that scarcely 

 any thing could be added to it. He cor* 

 reeled, however, some trifling inaccura- 

 cies ; and he found that the parallax of 

 the planet was less by one second, than 

 had been determined by Cassini in 1672. 

 During almost the whole of the year 1714, 

 his observations were occupied by Saturn; 

 and he shewed how the disappearance 

 of his ring at that time confirmed the 

 iheory of Huygens. He also bestowed 

 incredible industry in perfecting the ta- 

 bles of Jupiter's satellites. The results 

 of his numerous observations he commu- 

 nicated to the Academy of Sciences, to 

 whom they afforded the greatest satisfac- 

 tion, and particularly his discovery, that 

 the eclipses of the satellites were of dif- 

 ferent durations, even when the distance 

 of their nodes was the same. He was 

 now justly considered as entitled to rank 

 with the most skilful astronomers. 



When Maraldi first applied himself to 

 the contemplatiorrof the heavens, he con- 

 ceived the design of forming a catalogue 

 of the fixed stars, more perfect and com- 

 prehensive than that of Bayer, an object 

 of the greatest utility, and of the first im- 

 portance In astronomy. For. they are 

 I i ; ... 



Ki 



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