4 
J A T 
I, C O 
styles; the capsule is triloeular, with one seed 
in each cell. There are nine species, of 
which the most remarkable are : 1. T he cur- 
cas, or English physic-nut, with leaves cor- 
date and angular, Ps a knotty shrub growing 
about iOor 12 feet high. The extremities 
of the branches are covered with leaves; and 
the flowers, which are of a green herbaceous 
kind, are set on in an umbel fashion round the 
extremities of the branches, but especially 
the main stalks. 'These are succeeded by as 
many nuts, whose outward tegument is green 
and husky, which being peeled off discovers 
the nut, whose shell is black, and easily crack- 
ed ; this contains an almond-like kernel, di- 
vided into two parts, betweed which separa- 
tion lie two milk-white thin membranaceous 
leaves, easily separable from each other. 
These have not only a bare resemblance of 
perfect leaves, but have in particular every 
part, the stalk, the middle rib,' and transverse 
ones, as visible as any leaf whatsoever. 2. The 
gossvpifolia, cotton-leaved jatropha, or belly- 
ache bush, the leaves of which are quinque- 
partite, with lobes ovate and entire, and glan- 
dular branchy bristles. The stem, which is 
covered with a light-greyish bark, grows to 
about three or four feet high, soon dividing 
into several wide-extended branches. From 
among these rise several small deep-red pen- 
tupetalous flowers, the pistil of each being 
thick-set at the top with yellow farinaceous 
dust, which blows off when ripe. These 
flowers are succeeded by hexagonal husky 
blackish berries, which, when ripe, open by 
the heat of the sun, emitting a great many 
small dark-coloured seeds, which serve as 
food for ground doves. 3. The multifida, or 
French physic-nut, with leaves many-parted 
and polished. Tire flowers of this grow in 
bunches, umbel fashion, upon the extremi- 
ties of each large stalk, very much resem- 
bling, at their first appearance, a bunch of 
red coral: these afterwards open into small 
five-leaved purple flowers, and are succeeded 
by nuts, which resemble those of the first 
species. 4. The manihot, or bitter cassada, 
has palmated leaves; the lobes lanceolate, 
very entire, and polished. 5. The janipha, 
or sweet cassada, lias palmated leaves, with 
lobes very entire ; the intermediate leaves 
lobed with a sinus on both sides. 6. The elas- 
tica, with ternate leaves, elliptic, very entire, 
''hoary underneath, and longly petioled. See 
figures of the two last in plate 22, which ren- 
ders a more particular description unneces- 
sary. 
The root of bitter cassada has no fibrous 
or woody filaments in the heart, and neither 
boils nor roasts soft. The sweet cassada has 
all the opposite qualities. The bitter, how- 
ever, may be deprived of ils noxious quali- 
ties (which reside in thejuice) by heat. Cas- 
sada bread, therefore, is made of both the 
bitter and sweet, thus: the roots are washed 
and scraped clean, then grated into a tub or 
trough; after this they are put into a hair 
bag, and strongly pressed with a view to 
squeeze out the juice, anu the meal or farina 
is dried in a hot stone bason over the fire; it 
is then made into cakes. It also makes ex- 
cellent puddings, equal to millet. 'The scrap- 
ings of fresh bitter cassada are successfully 
applied to ill-disposed ulcers. Cassada roots 
■yield a great quantity of starch, which the 
"Brasilians export in little lumps under the 
name of tapioca. According to father, La- 
l C H 
bat, the smallest bits of manioc which have 
escaped the grater, and the clods which have 
not passed the sieve, are not useless. They 
are dried in the stove after the flour is roast- 
ed, and then pounded in a mortar to a fine 
white powder, with which they make soup. 
It is likewise used for making a kind of thick 
coarse cassada, which is roasted till almost 
burnt; of this, fermented with inclasses and 
West India potatoes, they prepare a much 
esteemed drink or beverage called ouycoo. 
This liquor, the favourite drink of the na- 
tives, is sometimes made extremely strong, 
especially on any great occasion, as a feast: 
with this they get intoxicated, and remem- 
bering their old quarrels, massacre and mur- 
der each other. Such of the inhabitants and 
workmen as have not wine, drink ouycou. 
It is of a red colour, strong, nourishing, re- 
freshing, and easily inebriates the inhabi- 
tants, who soon accustom themselves to it as 
easily as beer. 
The 6th species is the hevea guianensis of 
Aublet, or tree- which yields the elastic rosin 
called caoutchouc, or India rubber : for a par- 
ticular account of which see Caoutchouc. 
The figure we have given is copied from 
Aublet’s tab. 335, anti not from the erroneous 
plate given in the Acta Parisiana. 
JAU-RAIA. See Rajanja. 
JAUNDICE. See Medicine. 
JAW. See Anatomy. 
IBEllIS, sciatica cresses, or candy-tuft, a 
genus of the siliquosa order, in the tetradyna- 
mia class of plants, and in the natural method 
ranking under the 39th order, siliquosa'. The 
corolla is regular; thu two exterior petals 
larger than the interior ones; the silicula 
polyspermous, emarginat'ed. There are 14 
species. The most remarkable are: 1. The 
umbellata, or common candy-tuft, a well- 
known annual. 2. The amara, or hitter 
candy-tuft. 3. The sempervirens, commonly 
called tree candy-tuft. 4. The semper- 
florens, with white flowers in umbels at the 
ends of the branches, appearing at all times 
of the year. 
IBEX, in zoology. See Capra. 
IBIS. See Tantalus. 
ICE. See Water, and Cold. 
Tce-house, a building contrived to pre- 
serve ice ior the use of a family in the sum- 
mer season. It is generally sunk some feet 
in the ground in a ver$’ shady situation, and 
covered with thatch. 
ICELAND- AG ATE, a precious stone 
met with in the islands of Iceland and Ascen- 
sion, employed by the jewellers as an agate, 
though too soft for the purpose. It is sup- 
posed to be a volcanic product ; being solid, 
black, and of a glassy texture. When held 
between the eye and the light, it is semitrans- 
parent, and greenish, like the glass bottles 
which contain much iron. In the islands 
which produce it, such large pieces are met 
with that they cannot be equalled in any glass- 
house. 
ICHNEUMON fly, the name of a genus 
of flies of the hymenoptera order. r I he ge- 
neric character is, mouth with jaws, without 
tongue; antennae with more than thirty 
joints ; abdomen in most species footstalked ; 
piercer exserted, with a cylindric bivalve 
sheath. The animals of this genus provide 
for the support of their offspring in a manner 
highly extraordinary, depositing their eggs in 
the bodies of other living insects, and gene- 
rally in those of caterpillars. These eggs ih 
a few days hatch, and the young larva, which 
resemble minute v bite maggots, nourish 
themselves with the juices of the unfortunate 
animal, which however continues to move 
about and feed till near the time of its change 
to a chrysalis, when the young brood of ich- 
neumon-larva; creep out by perforating the 
skin in various places, and each spinning it- 
self up in a small oval silken case, changes 
into a chrysalis, the whole number forming a 
groupe on the shrivelled body of the cater- 
pillar which had afforded them nourishment; 
and after a certain period emerge in the state 
of complete ichneumons. 
It was the want of an exact knowledge of 
the genus ichneumon that. proved so conside- 
rable an embarrassment to the older entomo- 
logists, who having seen a brood of ichneumons 
proceed horn the chrysalis of a butterfly, could 
not but conclude that the production ot insects 
was rather a variable and uncertain operation 
of nature than a regular continuation of the 
same species. r lhe observations however of 
Swammerdam, Malphigi, Roesel, and others, 
have long since removed the difficulties 
which formerly obscured the history of the 
insect tribe. See Plate Nat. Hist. figs. 232, 
233. It is said there are no less than 415 
species of this insect. 
ICHNOGRAPHY, in perspective, the 
view of any thing cut off by a plane parallel 
to the horizon, just at the base of it. Among 
painters it signifies a description of images, 
or of antient statues of marble and copper, of 
busts and semi-busts, of paintings in fresco, 
mosaic works, and antient pieces of minia- 
ture. 
Ichnography. See Architecture. 
ICHTHYOCOLLA. See Accipenser, 
and Gelatin a. 
ICHTP1 Y OLITHUS, in natural history, 
the body or parts of a fish changed into a fos- 
sil substance. Four species are enumerated. 
The niger is found in a black slate in the 
island ot Sheppey, and various parts of Wales, 
in the mountains of Switzerland, Silesia, 
Germany, &c. impregnated with bitumen, 
pyritaceous matter, or oxide of copper. The 
fishes resemble the eel, swordfish, cod, flat 
fish, perch, roach, dace, mackrel, mullet, 
carp, & c. The albidus is found in various 
parts of England, on mount Libanus in Pa- 
lestine, in the ecclesiastical territories of Italy, 
in Sw itzerland, Bavaria, &c. 'I he fishes are 
rarely of the sea kind, but usually those that 
inhabit the fresh water. They are seldom 
found whole, but in different parts, as the 
head, gill-covers, and other bones, fins, tails, 
tendrils, or scales, in a grey slaty swinestone, 
or impressed on shistose marble, and some- 
times penetrated with bitumen. 
ICHTHYOLOGY, ix® voXo v ol > the science 
of fishes, or that branch ot zoology which 
treats of fishes. See Fish, and Comparative 
Anatomy. 
ICONOCLASTS, in church history, an 
appellation given to those persons who in the 
eighth century opposed image-worship, and 
still given by the church ot Rome to all Chris- 
tians who reject the use of images in religious 
matters. • - 
ICOSAHEDRON, in geometry, a regular 
solid, consisting of 20 triangular pyramids. 
