IMP 
IMP 
IMP 
7 
Imperfect flowers, those otherwise 
called stam ineous. 
Imperfect numbers, such whose ali- 
quot parts, taken together, do either exceed 
or fall short of that whole number of which 
they are parts: they are either abundant or 
deficient. 
IMPERSONAL verb, in grammar, a 
verb to which the nominative of any certain 
person cannot be prefixed ; or, as others de- 
fine it, a verb destitute of the two first and 
primary persons. 
IMPETUS, in mechanics, the force with 
which one body impels or strikes another. 
IMPLICATION, is where the law implies 
something that is not declared by parties in 
their deeds and agreements; and when our 
law gives any thing to a man, it gives impli- 
citly whatsoever is necessary for enjoying the 
same. 4 Black. 200. 
An implied contract is such, where the 
terms of agreement are not expressly set forth 
in words, but are such as reason and justice 
dictate, and which therefore the law presumes 
that every man undertakes to perform. Id. 
An implication cannot be intended by 
deed, unless there are apt words, but other- 
wise iu a will. Brownl. 153. 
IMPORTATION, the act of bringing 
goods into a country from foreign parts. It 
has generally been considered, that for any 
country to carry on a profitable trade, it is 
necessary that the value of the goods sent out 
of it should be greater than that of the ar- 
ticles imported: this, however, is a very er- 
roneous axiom, unless it is understood with 
great limitations. All articles of merchan- 
dize, imported merely for re-exportation, 
and also such as are used or worked up in 
our own manufactures, are far from being 
hurtful to our commerce; and may even, in 
many respects, be deemed of equal profit 
with our own native commodities. It is 
therefore an excess of such importations 
alone as are either for mere luxury or mere 
necessity, or for both together, which is dis- 
advantageous to the country, and not such 
importations as, like many of ours, consist of 
raw silk, Spanish wool,' cotton wool and 
yarn, mohair, flax and hemp, oils, potasses, 
dyeing stuffs, naval stores, &c. either used in 
our ship-building, or worked up in our ma- 
nufactures, a principal part/ of which are for 
exportation: neither can our importations of 
Last India goods and colonial produce, which 
are chiefly designed to be afterwards export- 
ed, be deemed unprofitable, but are, on the 
contrary, some of the most lucrative branches 
of our foreign trade. 
The following statement of the total value 
of tire imports of England, in the year 1354, 
furnishes a curious comparison with their 
present magnitude. 
1831 fine cloths, at 61. per cloth, 
which, with the customs, £. s. d. 
come to - - 11,083 12 0 
397f hundred weight of wax, at 
40v. per hundred weight, 
which, with the customs, 
come to - - 815 7 5 
1829a tons of wine, at 40v. per 
ton, which, with the customs, 
come to - - 3,841 19 0 
Linen-cloth, mercery, grocery, 
and all other wares - 22,943 6 10 
On which the customs were 285 18 3 
At this period, and for a long time after, 
foreigners were the principal importers of 
goods in this country ; and as it was thought 
that many of them, after disposing of their 
merchandise here, returned with the value 
iu money to their own country, which was 
deemed a serious injury, many laws were 
made against carrying out of the realm any 
gold or silver, either in coin, plate, or bullion; 
and merchant strangers were compelled to 
give security that they would lay out all the 
money they received tor the wares they im- 
ported, in English merchandize to be export- 
ed. These injudicious restrictions have been 
long since done away ; and excepting the 
prohibition of some foreign manufactures, 
the import trade of this country is probably 
as free as the regulations necessary to secure 
the payment of heavy duties on almost every 
article of trade will admit. 
Total official value of the imports of Great 
Britain in the year 1800. 
Port of London - £ 18,843,172 2 10 
The outports - 9,514,642 11 10 
England 
Scotland 
28,357,814 14 8 
2,213,790 11 8 
East Indies and China. 
In 1801 £ 5,424,441 
1802 5,794,906 
1303 6,348,887 
1804 5,214,621 
1805 
30,570,605 6 4 
All other parts. 
£ 27,371,1 15 
25,647,412 
21,643,577 
23,986,869 
24,273,451 
The official value of the imports of Ireland 
in the year 1805, was 5,982,194/. 19.9. 9 d. 
IMPOSSIBLE roots, in algebra. To 
discover how many impossible roots are con- 
tained in any proposed equation, sir I. New- 
ton gave this rule, in his Algebra, viz. : Con- 
stitute a series of fractions, whose denomina- 
tors are the series of natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 
4, 5, iVc. continued to the number shewing 
the index or exponent of the highest term of 
the equations, and their numerators the same 
series ot numbers in the contrary order; and 
divide each of these fractions by that next 
before it, and place the resulting quotients 
over the intermediate terms of the equation ; 
then under each of the intermediate terms, if 
its square multiplied by the fraction over it, 
be greater than the product of the terms on 
each side of it, place the sign -f ; but if not, 
the sign — ; and under the first and last term 
place the sign -}-. Then will the equation 
have as many imaginary roots as there are 
changes of the underwritten signs from -f- to 
— , and from — to So for the equation 
x 5 — 4.v 2 -j- 4r — 6 = 0, the series of frac- 
tions is A, A, A; then the second divided by 
the first gives A or A, and the third divided 
by the second gives also ; hence these quo- 
tients placed over the intermediate terms, the 
whole will stand thus, 
T T 
x 3 — 4x 2 + 4x — 6. 
+ + — + 
Now because fhe square of the second 
term multiplied by its superscribe^ fraction, 
is *A>x 4 , which is 'greater than 4x 4 , the pro- 
duct of the two adjacent terms, therefore the 
sign -f- is set below the second term; and be- 
cause the square of the third term multiplied 
by its overwritten fraction, which is less 
than 24a; 2 , the product of the terms on each 
side of it, therefore the sign — is placed un- 
der that term ; also the sign -f- is set under 
the first and last terms. Hence the two 
changes of the underwritten signs -f- -{ 
+, the one from -j- to — , and tire other from 
— to -{-, shew that the given equation has 
two impossible roots. 
When two or more terms are wanting to- 
gether, under the place of the first ot tiie 
deficient terms write the sign — , under 
the second the sign -j-, under the third — , 
and so on, always varying the signs, except 
that under the last of the deficient terms 
must always be set the sign when the 
adjacent terms on both sides of the deficient 
terms have contrary signs. As in the equa- 
tion, 
*' + *-v 4 * * * + £ ~ o, 
_j_ _j 1 — _j_ 
which has four imaginary roots. 
The author remarks, that this rule will 
sometimes fail of discovering all the impos- 
sible roots of an equation, for some equations 
may have more of such roots than can be 
found by this rule, though this seldom hap- 
pens. 
Mr. Maclaurin has given a demonstration 
of this rule of Newton’s, together with one 
of his own, that will never fail. And the 
same lias also been done by Mr. Campbell. 
See Phil. Trans, vols. 34 and 35. 
'Phe real and imaginary roots of equations 
may be found from the method of fluxions, 
applied to the doctrine of maxima and mi- 
nima ; that is, to find such a value of x in an 
equation, expressing the nature of a curve, 
made equal to y, an abscissa which corre- 
sponds to the greatest and least ordinate. 
But when the equation is above three dimen- 
sions, the computation is very laborious. See 
Stirling’s Treatise on the Lines of the Third 
Order. 
IMPOSTHUME, the same with abscess. 
See Surgery. 
IMPRESSING men. The power of im- 
pressing seamen for the sea service, by the 
king’s commission, has been a matter of some 
dispute, and submitted to with great reluc- 
tance, though it has very learnedly been 
argued by sir Michael Forster, that the prac- 
tice of impressing, and granting power to 
the admiralty for that purpose, is oi very an- 
tient date, and has been continued by a re- 
gular series of precedents to the present time, 
whence he concludes it to be part of Ihe 
common law. The difficulty arises hence, 
that no statute has expressly declared this 
power to be in the crown, though many of 
them very strongly imply it. The stat. 2 
R. If. c. 4. speaks of mariners being arrested 
and retained for tiie king’s service, as of a 
thing well known and practised without dis- 
pute, and provides a remedy against the run- 
ning away. 
By stat 2 and 3 P. and M. c. 16, if anv 
waterman who uses the river Thames, shall 
hide himself during the execution of any 
commission for pressing for his majesty’s ser- 
vice, he is liable to heavy penalties. By stat.. 
5 Eiiz. c. 6. no fisherman shall be taken by 
the queen’s commission to serve as a mari- 
ner; but the commission shall be first brought 
to two justices of the peace, inhabiting near 
the sea-coast where the mariners are to be 
taken, to the intent that the justices may 
Total 
38,970 3 6 
