SoS'' 
R I C' 
R I P 
II I F 
out. They are afterwards put up for use as 
wanted, or for exportation. 
Castor oil is obtained either by expression 
or by decoction. The first method is prac- 
tised in England; the latter in Jamaica. It 
is common first lo parch the nuts or seeds in 
an iron pot* over the fire; but this gives the 
oil an empyreumatic taste, smell, and colour; 
arid it is best prepared inthefollowing manner: 
.A large iron pot or boiler is first prepared, and 
half-rilled with water. The nuts are then 
beaten in parcels in deep wooden mortars, 
and after a quantity is beaten, it is thrown 
into the iron vessel. The fire is then lighted, 
and the liquor is gently boiled for two hours, 
and kept constantly stirred. About this time 
the oil begins to separate, and swims on the 
top, mixed with a white froth, and is skimmed 
off" till no more rises. The shimmings- are 
heated in a small iron pot, and strained 
through a cloth’. When cold, it is put up in 
jars or bottles for use. 
Castor oil, thus made, is clear and well 
flavoured, and if put into proper bottles will 
keep sweet for years. The expressed castor 
oil soon turns rancid, because the mucilagi- 
nous and acrid parts of the nut are squeezed 
out with the oil. On this account the pre- 
ference is given to well-prepared oil by de- 
coction. An English gallon of the seeds 
yield about two pounds of oil, which is a 
■great proportion. 
Before the disturbances in America, the 
planters imported train oil for lamps and 
other purposes about sugar-works. It is now 
fpund that the castor oil can be procured as 
cheap as the fish oil of America. It burns 
clearer, and has not any offensive smell. This 
oil, too, is fit for all the purposes of the 
painter, or for the apothecary in ointments 
and plasters. As a medicine, it purges with- 
out stimulus, and is so mild as to be given to 
infants soon after birth. All oils are noxious 
to insects, but the castor oil kills and expels 
them. It is generally given as a purge after 
using the cabbage-bark some days. 
The ricinus Americanos grows as tall as a 
little tree, and is so beautiful that Miller says 
it deserves a place in every curious garden, 
and he planted it himself at Chelsea. It ex- 
pands into many branches; the leaves are 
sometimes two feet in diameter, and the stem 
as large as a middle-sized broom-staff: to- 
wards the top of the branch it has a cluster 
of flowers, somewhat resembling a bunch of 
grapes; the flowers are small and staminous, 
but on the body of the plant grow bunches 
of rough triangular husks, each containing 
three speckled seeds, generally somewhat less 
than horse-beans ; the shell is brittle, and 
contains white kernels of a sweet, oily, and 
nauseous taste. From this kernel the oil is 
extracted ; and if tiie medicine should be- 
come officinal, the seeds may be imported at 
a reasonable rate, as the plant grows wild and 
in great plenty in all the British and French 
American islands. 
Of the ricinus communis, there are. a great 
many varieties; all of them line majestic 
plants, annual, or at most biennial, in this 
country ; but in their native soil they are said 
to be perennial both in root and stem. They 
are propagated by seeds sown on a hotbed, 
and require the same treatment as other ten- 
der exo'ics. 
TICKETS. ' See Infancy. 
RICOTIA, a genus of the siliquosa order, 
In the tetradvnamia class of plants, and in 
the natural method ranking under the 39th 
order, siliquosse. The sitiqua is unilocular, 
oblong, and compressed, with plain valvules. 
There is one species. 
RIPE, in the sea language, is a term va- 
riously applied : thus, a ship is said to ride, 
when her anchors hold her fast, so that she 
does not drive by the force either of the wind 
or tide. A ship is s .id to ride across, when 
she rides with her fore and main yards hoisted 
up to tiie hounds, and both yards and arms 
topped alike. She is said to ride well, when 
she is built so as not to overheat herself in a 
head-sea, the waves over raking her from 
stem to stern. To ride athwart, is 10 ride 
with her side to’ the tide. To ride betwixt 
wind and tide, is to ride so that the wind has 
equal force over her one way, and the tide 
the contrary way. If the wind has more 
power over the ship than the tide, she is said 
to ride wind-road, or to ride a great wind. 
RIDEAU, in fortification, is a small ele- 
vation of earth, extending lengthwise on a 
plain, and serving to cover a camp, or to give 
an advantage to a post. Rideaus are also 
convenient for those who would besiege a 
place, and serve to secure the workmen in 
their approaches to the foot of a fortress. 
RIDERS, in a ship, are large timbers, both 
in the hold and aloft, bolted on to other tim- 
bers to strengthen them, when the ship is 
discovered to be too slightly built. 
RIDING-CLERK, one of the six clerks 
in chancery, who, in his turn, annually keeps 
the eontrolment-books of all grants that pass 
the great seal that year. 
1UENS ARREAR, in law, is a plea used 
in an action of debt, for arrearages of ac- 
counts, by which the defendant alleges, that 
there is nothing in arrear. 
RIFLE, a fire-arm which has the inside of 
its barrel cut w ith from three to nine or ten 
spiral grooves, so as to make it resemble a 
female screw, varying from a common screw 
only in this, that its grooves or rifles are less 
deflected, and approach more to a right line ; 
it being now usual for the grooves with which 
the best rifled barrels are cut, to take about 
one w hole turn in a length of thirty inches. 
The number of these grooves differs accord- 
ing to the size of the barrel and fancy of the 
workman ; and their depth and width are not 
regulated by any invariable rule. 
Rifles are said to have been known as far 
back as the middle of the sixteenth century. 
See Plate Rifle, &c. tig. 1, which represents 
a cast taken of the inside of a rifle-barrel 
thiity inches long and JL of an inch in dia- 
meter, and in which the grooves take one 
turn in the whole length, "it will of course 
be observed, that the ribs in the drawing 
represent the grooves in the rifle. The me- 
thod of loading them is as follows: 
When the proper quantity of powder 
(one drachm avoirdupois) is put down at 
the muzzle, and a piece of calico or linen 
is gently rammed down over it as a wad, a 
circular piece of strong calico is greased on 
one side, and laid on the mouth of the piece 
with the greased side downwards; and a bul- 
K t of the same size as the bore of the piece 
before the grooves were cut, being placed 
upon it, is then forced gently down the bar- 
rel with it ; by which means, the calico in- 
closes tiie lower half of the bullet : and by 
its interposition between the bullet and the 
groove*, prevents the lead from being cut 
by them, and by means of tiie grease slide* 
cow n, without its being necessary to use 
any cioient a forts, v •. n would destroy the 
circular shape of the bullet. 
In order lu understand the cause of the 
superiority oi a ride-barrel gun over one with 
a smooth barrel, it will be necessary to refer 
to xVir. iv.ouis’s discovery of tiie cause of 
the irregularities which occur in the flight of 
projectiles from smooth barrels, which we 
shall give in his own words, tracts on Gun- 
nery, p. 1S6, &c. 
“ Aimoat every projectile, besides the 
forces w e have hitherto considered, namely, 
its gravitation, and that resistance of the air 
which directly opposes its motion, is affected 
by a third force which arts obliquely to its 
motion, and in a variable direction ; and 
which consequently deflects tire projectile 
from its regular track, and from the vertical 
plane in which it began to move ; impelling it 
sometimes to one side, and sometimes to the 
other, occasioning thereby very great ine- ' 
qualities in the repeated ranges of the same 
piece, though each time loaded and pointed! 
in the same manner ; and this force operat- 
ing thus irregularly, I conceive to be the] 
principal source of all that uncertainty and 
confusion in the art of gunnery, which hath 
hitherto been usually ascribed to tiie difi'e-1 
rence of powder. The reality of this force,' 
and the cause which produces it, will, I hope, ; 
appear from the following considerations. ] 
“ It will easily be granted, I suppose, that i 
no bullet can be discharged from the pieces 
generally in use, without robbing against 
their sides, and thereby acquiring a whirling] 
motion as well as a progressive one. And as] 
this whirl will, in one part of its revolution, 
conspire in some degree with the progres-j 
sivc motion, and in another part be equally] 
opposed to it, the resistance of the air on. 
tiie tore part ot the bullet will be hereby af-j 
fee ted, and will be increased in that part] 
where the whirling motion conspires with the 
progressive, and diminished where it is op-* 
posed to it. And by this means the whole 
effort of the resistance, instead of being in a 
direction opposite to the direction off the 
body, will become oblique thereto, and will' 
produce tho^e effects already mentioned. If' 
it were possible to predict tire position of the’ 
axis round which tire bullet should whirl, and 
if that axis were unchangeable during the’ 
whoie flight ot the bullet, then the aberrations 
ot the bullet by this oblique force w ould be in 
a given direction, and the incurvation pro* 
chtced thereby would regularly extend the 
same way, from one end of its track to the 5 
oilier. For instance: if the axis of the whirl 
were perpendicular to the horizon, then tiie 
deflection would be to the right or left; if; 
that axis were horizontal, and perpendicular 
to the direction ot the bullet, then the defied 
tion would be upwards or downwards. But 
as the first position of this axis is uncertain J 
and as it may perpetually shift in tire coursS 
ot the bullet’s flight, the deviation of the 
buiiet is not necessarily in one certain di- 
rection, nor tending to the same side in one 
part of its track that u does in another ; buff 
it more usually is continually changing the 
tendency of its deflection, as the axis, round 
which it whirls, must frequently shift its por 
sition to tiie progressive motion by many 
inevitable accidents.” 
