V U K 



V U L 



It refembles in figure our river trout. Its body is very 

 nearly of the fame thicknefs all the way, but it is elevated 

 a little on the back, and fomevvhat flender juft near the tail. 

 It grows to a foot in length, and to llx inches in thicknefs. 

 It is a very well-taded fi(h, and is generally dreffed with the 

 fcales on, they being not ofFenfive in eating. Margraave's 

 Hiftory of Brafil. 



UVEA, in Anatomy, the pofterior furface of the iris. 

 See Eye. 



It is called uvea, on account of its refembling the figure 

 and colour of a grape, called by the Latins oi-a. For 

 which reafon, alfo, fome have given it the name of acini- 

 form'is, from acinus. 



UVEDALIA, in Botany, received its name from Mr. 



R. Brown, ill memory of Uvedale, LL.D., the friend 



and fellow-collegian of Plukenet (fee that article), who 

 refided at Enfield, where he had a botanic garden, on the 

 old walls of which, if we are rightly informed, the Hieracium 

 murorum, from the north, is naturalized, and ftill remains. 

 His herbarium makes a part of the botanical colleftions in 

 the Britilh Mufeum, but we have no particulars of his do- 

 meftic or perfonal hiftory. We only know by tradition that 

 his name was popularly pronounced Oodle. Petiver eita- 

 blifhed, under the appellation of Uvedalia, a fyngenefious 

 genus, now funk in Polymnia (fee that article), from 

 which the fynonym Tetragonotheca, Linn. Gen. 438, Ihould 



be erafed Brown Prodr. Nov. HoU. v. i. 44c — Clafs 



and order, Didynamia Angiofpermia. Nat. Ord. Perfonate, 

 Linn. Scrophulariit, JufT. Scrophularinte, Brown. 



Efl". Ch. Calyx prifmatic, five-toothed. Corolla rin- 

 gent : upper lip two-lobed ; lower three -cleft ; its middle 

 fegment rather difiimilar, with two prominences at the bafe. 

 Anthers with divaricated lobes. Stigma flattened. Cap- 

 fule covered by the permanent calyx, of two cells and four 

 valves : the partition from the inflexed margins of the valves, 

 inferted into the central receptacle. 



A genus of herbaceous plants, with oppofite leaves. 

 Flotuer-Jlalks axillary and terminal, fingle-flowered, without 

 BraSeas. Corolla blue. Mr. Brown himfelf fufpefts it may 

 be fcarcely diftinft, in reality, from Mimulus. (See that 

 article.) He mentions no other fpecies than one from 

 New Holland, the reft, whatever they may be, are, we 

 prefume, natives of other countries ; perhaps of the Eaft 

 Indies. 



I. U. linearis. Linear Uvedaha. Br. n. i. — " Leaves 

 linear, feveral times Ihorter than the flower-ftalks." — Ga- 

 thered by Mr. Brown in the tropical part of New Hol- 

 land. 



This genus being confeffedly very near Mimulus, we 

 have not attempted to draw up its natural charafters at full 

 length. 



UVELEN, in Geography, an ifland of Ruflia, in the 

 Frozen fea ; 12 miles N. of Cape Tchukotlkoi. N. lat. 

 66° 25'. E. long. 188° 44'. 



UVELKA, a river of Ruflia, which runs into the 

 Tobol. 



UVELSKAIA, a fort of Ruflia, in the government of 

 Upha ; 56 miles W.S.W. of Tcheliabinflj. 



UvELSKAlA, Nixnei, a fort of Ruflia, in the government 

 of Upha, on the Uvelka ; 28 miles S.S.W. of Tchelia- 

 binfk. 



VUERTIER, a town of France, in the department of 

 Mont Blanc ; lo miles S.S.E. of Annecy. 



VUESCIKER, a town of Norway, in the province of 

 Chriftiania ; 32 miles E. of Chriftiania. 



VUKA, a river of Sclavonia, which runs into the Da- 

 nube, 8 miles N.W. of Illok. 



VUKOLANI, a fortrefs of China, in Chen-fi ; 27 miles 

 N. of Han-tchong. 



VUKOVITZA, a town of Sclavonia; 8 miles W. of 

 Verovitza. 



VULCAN, in Mythology, the fon of Jupiter and Juno, 

 who, on account of his deformity, was caft down from 

 heaven into the ifland Lemnos, and breaking his leg with 

 the fall, is always reprefented as lame. At Lemnos he fet 

 up the trade of a fmith, and taught the Lemnians, in re- 

 compence of the fuccours they afforded him, the nianifold 

 ufes of fire and iron : he is alfo reprefented as the manufac- 

 turer of Jupiter's thunder, and the arms of the other gods. 

 The poets defcribe him as blacke'^ed and hardened from the 

 forge ; with a face red and fiery, whilft at his work ; and 

 tired and heated after it. 



This poor god is almoft always the fubjeft either of pity 

 or of ridicule. He is the great cuckold of heaven ; and his 

 lamenefs ferve? to divert the gods. The great celeftial 

 deities feem to have admitted Vulcan among them merely to 

 make them laugh, and to be the butt of the whole company. 

 Spence's Polymetis, p. 81. 



Cicero mentions three other Vulcans : one the fon of 

 Coelum ; the fecond the fon of the Nile, acknowledged by 

 the Egyptians as their proteftor, and called Opas ; and the 

 other the fon of Menalius, who inhabited the Vulcanian ifles. 

 Banier mentions another Vulcan, more ancient than either 

 of thefc, viz. the Tubal-Cain of fcripture, who, having 

 applied himfelf to the forging of iron, as Mofes informs us, 

 became the model and original of all the reft. The Vulcan 

 of the Greeks was the god of blackfmiths, and a blackfmith 

 himfelf; accordingly Diodorus Siculus (lib. v.) gives this 

 account of him : Vulcan is the firft founder of works in iron, 

 brafs, gold, and filver ; in a word, of all fufible materials. 

 He alfo taught the ufes to which the artifts and others can 

 employ fire ; and for this reafon all thofe who work in 

 metals, or rather men in general, call fire by the name of 

 Vulcan, and offer facrifices to that god, in acknowledgment 

 of fo ufcful an invention. The fecond Vulcan above men- 

 tioned, or the fon of Nilus, was probably an ancient 

 Egyptian king ; or rather he was the moft ancient divinity 

 of the Egyptians, fince we find him in Herodotus, Syn- 

 cellus, and other authors, at the head of the divinities of 

 thefe people, unlefs we revert backwards to Tubal-Cain, or 

 to fome one of the kings of thofe countries, who fignalized 

 himfelf in the art of forging iron. 



Vulcan, the fon of Jupiter and Juno, is fuppofed to have 

 been a Titan prince, the fame, according to fir Ifaac New- 

 ton, with Thoas, king of Lemnos, whofe wife had an in- 

 trigue with Bacchus, and the huftjand foon difcovering it, 

 Bacchus contrived to appeafe him by caufing him to drink 

 wine, and creating him king of Byblos and Cyprus ; after 

 which he pafled the Hellefpont with his army, and con- 

 quered Thrace. To thefe events the poets are thought to 

 allude, when they feign that Vulcan fell from heaven into 

 the ifland of Lemnos, and that Bacchus, after having paci- 

 fied his wrath, fucceeded in recalling him to heaven. He 

 fell, it is faid, from the heaven of the gods of Crete, when 

 he departed from Crete to Lemnos to forge medals ; he was 

 reinftated in heaven, when Bacchus made him king of 

 Byblos and Cyprus ; for the courts of the princes of thofe 

 times, in imitation of that of Jupiter, were looked upon as 

 heaven. Newton's Chronology. 



As the ifland of Lemnos was very fubjeft to earthquakes 

 and volcanoes, or as the art of forging arms was invented in 

 this ifland, Vulcan is reprefented as falling into it. The 

 forges of this god were alfo eftabliflied in Mount .£tjia for 

 the fame reafon, and in the Vulcanian iflands. 



Of 



