U N D 



U N D 



luid, properly cut and prepared, tliey would be fit for cut- 

 ting in k'fs than onc-lhird of tliat time ; and confequcntly 

 the value of the land be tripled. 



In Sullex, it is remarked, that in the newly planted under- 

 woods of the firft cuttings, which are made at feven or 

 eight years' growth, the profit is little or nothing : that 

 in the iecond it is Hill inconliderable ; fo that for fourteen 

 or fixtecii years the return from young planted underwoods 

 is but trifling, which is not very encouraging to the planter 

 of fuch wood : the third is the moft profitaljle cutting, 

 as the underwood has now reached its ultimate perfeftion : 

 the fourth often equals the third ; but after this the under- 

 wood advances no more. The elfeft of the young ftandard- 

 trees is now viiibly apparent to the prejudice of the under- 

 wood, which in fixty years, if the trees be left to ftand fo 

 long, it is faid, is deftroyed. 



The application and ufes to which underwood is converted 

 in the above, and fome other diftrifts, are various ; as poles 

 .for hop-grounds, bavins, fpray-faggots for lime-kilns, 

 cord-wood for coaling, and hoops for the ufe of the 

 coopers, befides affording large fupplies of wood for fuel 

 and other purpofes of that kind. Afh is fuppofed, of all 

 the various fpecics of underwood, with the exception per- 

 haps of alder, to be the mofl profitable ; the fmalleft pieces 

 being of ufe in fome (liape or other, and fuited to a greater 

 number of purpofes than mofl other forts. But the point 

 of view in which this fort of wood is confidered as fo par- 

 ticularly valuable, is the ufe to which the fliiverers convert it 

 in quartering it into middlings, long and fliort hoops, as 

 its value in thefe ways is perfeftly well known. Birch is 

 rapid in its growth, and pays well on poor moill foils ; but 

 on all foils, where the alder is in plenty, as it forms the bcft 

 charcoal for the gunpowder-makers, it is the moft valuable 

 underwood, being converted to patten poles and powder- 

 wood. Cutting of the former is paid two fhillings for the 

 hundred in the above county ; tliey meafure in common 

 from tliree-fourths to a foot each, and tell for five-pence the 

 foot. The cutting and ftripping of the powder-wood are 

 moftly three fhillings and fixpencc the load, which is fold 

 for twenty-four fliillings. 



The value of underwoods, as in the cafe of moft other 

 produfts, has increafed here, as well as in moft other 

 places, confiderably in their price of late years. In fome 

 parts they have doubled their value in twenty years. Va- 

 rious new demands for them have been created ; fo that 

 fome think underwood lands are the moft profitable of any 

 whatever. See Woods. 



Undekwoor, Shilling of. See Larceny. 



UNDERWRITERS are perfons who fubfcribe their 

 names to policies of infurancc, and become anfwerable for 

 the funis annexed, in cafe of lofs or damage of the fhip, 

 goods, &c. thus infured by them to the owner. 



Serjeant MarfliuU obferves, that there are many rcafons 

 why an agent or broker ought not to be an infurer. He 

 becomes too much iiitereftcd to fettle with fairnefs the rate 

 of premiimi, the amount of partial lofTes, Sec. And though 

 lie ftiould not, himfelf, create any unneceftary delay or 

 obftacle to the payment of a lofs, he will not be over 

 anxious to remove tlie doubts of others. Befides, he ought 

 not, by underwriting the policy, to deprive tiie parties of 

 his unbiaffed teflimony, in cafe of difpute. For though 

 there may be no legal objedtion to his competency, as a witnefs 

 for the other underwriters, it is impoftible that his cnJit 

 fhould be altogether tree from fufpicion. The principal, in 

 ftiort, can never place any reliance in one who makes himfelf 

 an advcrfe parly, and who is, at tlie fame time, above all 

 others, in a capacity to abufc hia coiifiJcuce. 



It has been determined in general, that an underwriter 

 cannot be a witnefs in an aftion on a policy ; but if the 

 broker, who effcfts a policy, fubfcribe it himfelf, after the 

 other underwriters have fubfcribcd it, he may be a witnefs 

 for the other underwriters, if they rcleafe him from all con- 

 tribution for cofts, though an aftion be depending againll 

 him, and he has joined in a bill of equity againil the inuired, 

 for a difcovery. Marfliall on the Law of Infurance. 



UNDETERMINED, in Maihemailcs, is fometimes 

 ufed for indeterminate. 



UNDIMIA, in Surgery, the name of a kind of adc- • 

 matous tumour, the matter contained in which is glutinous 

 and ropy, like the white of an egg. 



UNDIVIDED, in Botany, applied to leaves, or other 

 parts of a plant, means that they are not lobed, cloven, or 

 branched, this term having no reference to the margin of a 

 leaf, which, when deftitute of all notches or indentations, is 

 called entire, inttgcrrimus ; the leaf itfelf being either undi- 

 vided or lobed, as it may happen. The earlier tranflators 

 of Linnaeus, fuch as Mr. Rofe, rendered folia integra, by 

 entire, and folia inlegerrinia, by very entire; which, though 

 eorrcft in language, is not the true meaning, the former 

 being fynonimous with undivided, and the latter regarding 

 tlfe margin only. 



UNDRET, in Geography, a town of Baglana ; 45 miles 

 S. of Tolnani. 



UNDULAGO, in Natural Hijlory, a name given by 

 Mr. Lhuyd to a fpecies of fungites found foffile, and ufually 

 of a fort of undulated figure. See Fuxoir,?:. 



UNDULATED Leaf, among Boianifls. See Leaf. 



UNDULATION, in ^coupes. Mechanics, Optics, &c. 

 is nearly fynonimous with Vibration; which fee. 



Dr. Young, in the illuflration and eilabhfhmcnt of his 

 theory of light and colours, ufes the term undulation in 

 preference to vibration ; becaufe vibration is generally un- 

 derftood as implying a motion which is continued alternately 

 backwards and forwards, by a combination of the mo- 

 mentum of the body with an accelerating force, and which 

 is naturally more or lefs permanent ; but an undulation is 

 fuppofed to confifl in a vibratory motion, tranfmitted fuc- 

 cefiively through different parts of a medium, without any 

 tendency in each particle to continue its motion, except in 

 confequenee of the tranfmifliou of fucceeding undulations, 

 from a diftuift vibrating body ; as, in the air, the vibrations 

 of a chord produce the undulations conftituting found. 



Dr. Young commences the explanation of his theory with 

 premifing a number of hypothefes, and with fhewing how 

 far they agree with the fyftem of Newton, and m what re- 

 fpedls they difl'er from it. He -affumes, I ft, with Newton, 

 (fee our article jEtiier,) that a luminiferous ether pervades 

 the univerfe, which is in a high degree rare and claftic. 

 2dly. Undulations arc excited in this ether, whenever a 

 body becomes luminous. 3dly. The fenfation of different 

 colours depends on the diflerent frequency of v.brations, 

 excited by light in the retina. The three hypothefes above 

 recited, and which, according to Young, may be called 

 efTential, are literally parts of the more complicated fyftem 

 of Newton. 4tlily. All material bodies are to be con- 

 fidered, with refpedt to the phenomena of light, as confift- 

 iiig of particles to remote from each other, as to allow the 

 ethereal medium to pervade them with perfeft freedi m, and 

 either to retaia it in a ftate of greater deiifity and of equal 

 elaftieity, or to conflilute, together with the medium, an 

 aggregate, which may be coi.fid red as denfei, but not more 

 elallic. Our author next proceeds to unfold and eftabhlb 

 his theory by a feries of propofilipjis, which our limits will 

 allow us merely to tranfcribe. 



Pitor. 



