OBE 
counteraét the magical operations of the other; but if no 
fuch perfon can be found, he falls into a decline under the 
inceflant horror of impending calamities, The flighteft 
painful fenfation in the head, the bowels, or any other part, 
as well as any cafual lofs or hurt, confirms his apprehenfions, 
and he believes himfelf to be the — vidtim o 
morbid habi€ of body, and gradually finks into the grave. 
gro, who is taken ill, inquires of the obeah-man the 
@aufe of his ficknefs, whether it will prove mortal or not, 
and how long it will be before he either dies or recovers. 
The oracle generally afcribes the diftemper to the malice of 
fome pusilla perfon, and advifes to fet Obi for him; but 
The Obi is ‘fall ae of a ae of eran moft 
of which are ey ae in the oars law, paffed in 17 Oy 
with a view to its fu on, viz. blood, feathers, parrots’ 
beaks, dogs’ teeth, allig ators’ ah broken bottles, grave- 
dirt, rum, and egg- fi or a further apres of this 
fuperttitious Data fee Edwards’s Hift. of the Weft 
ndies, vol. 
’s Raven, j in Geography, | a river of America, in 
Tenneffee, which ru outh-weft into Cumberland anal 
290 miles from its aout the ee of the ftre 
Cumberland river is thus hi anh een = large veffels. 
OBED » or DACH, a of the duchy of 
Stiria; 9 are S.W W. of. Judenbur =, 
OBEDIENCE, Oneprentia, is fometimes oe in the 
Canon Law, for an office, or the adminiftration o 
In ncient Cu uftoms, obe. dientia was ufed in de general 
for iat thing that was ee the monks, by the abbot. 
OBEDIENCE to Parent. ee 
B SIE A, in a more reftrained es was oie 
to the farm ‘belonging to the abbey, to w 
were fent vi gufdem | edientia, mre to look fer 
or colle@ the ia ts. 
were called cbedien 
OBEIDIA, in co apy. a town of Afiatic Turkey, 
7 aa province of Diarbekir, on the Khabur; 80 miles E. 
oO 
OBELIAS, among the ancients, a kind of {mall cakes, 
which were toafted on little fpits, and ferved at table as a 
defert, to oe eaten dipped in {weet wine, called paffum. 
OBELISCOTHECA, in Botany, fo called by “Vail- 
lant, on account of the uadrangular, a and fomewhat pyra- 
midal, cafes for the feeds, formed = the f{cales of the 
See RupBeEckia. 
he farm, 
Hence, alfo, thofe rents ‘themfelves 
accurately named by late authors polytha- 
lamium, and ales, and by Klein tubulus marinus coz- 
* €ameratus. 
OBELISK, Osztiscus, a Fh praca Seat pyramid, very 
flender, and high ; raifed as ornament, in fome public 
place, or to thew fome ftone ofe enornous fize ; 5 and frequently 
charged with infcriptions, and hieroglyphic 
Borel derives the word from the Greek obras, @ fpity 
OBE 
-_ Spindle, or even a kind of long javelin. Pliny fays; 
e Egyptians c cut their obelifks in form of fun-beams ; 
ond that in the Phoenician language, the word obelifk fig- 
nifies ra 
The Egyptian priefts called nae Rousse the fun's 
ngers; becaufe they ferved as ftyles ark 
the hours on the ground. A 
needles: whence the Italians call them aguglia ; 
ron ie nel s needles. See CLEOPATRA’S Needles aad 
LE 
RIA. 
The diffe rence between obelifks and pyranftds, according 
to fome, confifts in this, that the latter have large bafes, 
houg ence onfift in 
obelifks are to be all of a piece, or confift of d fingle ftone ; 
and le mids of feveral. 
and a half, on eti 
thicknefs, or diam t te 
greater than three- pucks, of that a 
aa ki a. . monument appears to have been very an- 
ent 3 and, are told, was firft made ufe of to tranf{mit 
o potterity ie principal als of philofophy, which 
were engraven on them in hieroglvphic charaGters, In after 
times they were ufed to immortalize the ations of hea, 
and the memory of perfons beloved. 
The firft obelifk we know of was that raifed by Ss 
king of Egypt, in the time of the Trojan war. It w 
ding to Herodotus, alae 
20,000 men in the buildin Phius, another king of Egypt, 
raifed one of 45 ea 5 a tolemy Phila <p dene ache. 
of oe cubits, in memo ane See Por 
guftus erected an 
Manto which ferv 
dial, drawn on the pav 
- Ki rcher econ a routes obelifks, celebrated above 
lexandria, that of the Bar 
ob elifk at Rome, in the Ca ampus 
a 2 oo the hours on an horizontal 
ahut, o 
Calius, and that of Pam 
One of the ufes of shelifce among the ancients was to 
nd we meridian altitudes of the fun, at different times of the 
Hence they 
f the aati of the Vatican, of M. 
phyl 
a level pavement af ftone, equal in breadth to the breadth of 
the obelifk itfelf, and equal in length to its fhadow at neon, 
upon the fhortett day ; that‘s to fay, that its length was to 
the height of the obelifk, almoft as 22 to 10, and that under 
this pavement, there were properly let in parallel rulers of 
brafs, whofe diftance from the point, dire€tly under the apex 
of the obelifk, were refpectively equal to the length of the 
fhadow thereof at noon, on the feveral days of the year, as 
the fame lengths decreafed from the fhortett day to the 
longeft, and again increafed from the longett day to the 
fhorteft. Vide Phil. Tranf. N° 482. art. 5. vol. xiiv. p. 365, 
where we alfo find fome remarks by Mr. Fo 4 
douin's Amendment of a Paffage in Pliny’e s Natural Hiftory, 
lib, a, fe&. 74. Edit. Parif. 1723. fol. about the length of 
the 
