CUR 
CUR 
CUR 
472 
and if a current sets directly against the ship’s 
course, then the motion is retarded in pro- 
portion to the velocity of the current. 
Hence it is plain, l. If the velocity of the cur- 
rent be less than that of the ship, then the 
ship will get so much ahead, as is the dif- 
ference ot these velocities. 2. If the velo- 
city ot the current be greater than that of 
the ship, then the ship will fall so much astern 
as is tlie difference of these velocities. 3. If 
the velocity of the current be equal to that 
of the ship, then the ship will stand still, the 
one velocity destroying the other. 
If the current thwarts the course of a ship, 
then it not only lessens or augments her ve- 
locity, but gives her a new direction ; com- 
pounded of the course she steers, and the 
setting of the current. Suppose a ship sails 
by the compass directly south, 90 miles in 24 
hours, in a current that Sets east 45 miles in j 
the same time : required the ship’s true j 
course and distance, it is evident that the j 
ship will run upon the diagonal of a parallelo- J 
gram, ot which the sides are 96 and 45 : the 
length of this diagonal is found to he 100 
miles, equal to v /yo ; 'q_ 45 -. See Naviga- ! 
TiON. | 
CL BRIERS. No currier shall use the i 
•trade of a butcher, tanner, 6c c. or shall curry j 
skins insufficiently tanned, or gash any hide 
of leather, on pain of forfeiting tor every hale 
or skin, 6s. 8 d. If any currier do not curry j 
leather sent to him, within 16 days between! 
Michaelmas and Lady-dav, and in eight days 
at other times, lie shall 011 conviction thereof 
forfeit 51. 12 Geo. II. c. 25. Every currier' 
•or dresser of hides in oil, shall annually take ■ 
•out a licence from the commissioners of offi- 
cers of excise. 
CURRYING, the method of preparing | 
leather with oil, tallow, &c. The chief busi- ; 
ness is to soften and supple cows’ and calves’ 
skins, which make the upper-leathers and 
quarters of shoes, coverings of saddles, 
coaches, and other articles which must keep ! 
■out water. 1. These skins, after coming from 
the tanner’s yard, having many fleshy fibres , 
On them, the currier soaks them some time, 
in common water. 2. He takes them out, 
and stretches them on a very even wooden 
horse ; then with a paring knife, he scrapes 
off the superfluous llesh, and puts them into 
soak again. 3. He puts them weton a hurdle, 
and tramples them with his heels, till they be- 
gin to grow soft and pliant. 4. lie soaks 
them in train oil, which, by its unctuous qua- 
lity, is the best liquor for this purpose. 5. He 
spreads them on large tables, and fastens 
them at the ends. Then, with the help of 
an instrument called a pummel, which is a 
thick piece of wood, the under side of which is 
full ot furrows crossing each other, he folds, 
squeezes; and moves them forwards and back- 
wards several times, under the teeth of this 
instrument, which breaks their too great 
-stiffness. This is what is properly called 
currying. The order and number of these 
operations are varied by different curriers, but 
the material part is always the same. 6. After 
the skins are curried, there may be occasion to 
colour them The colours are black, white, 
red, yellow, and green: the other colours 
are given by the skinners, who differ from 
curriers in this, that they apply their colours 
on the flesh side, the curriers on the hair 
side. In order to whiten skins, they are rub- 
bed with lumps of chalk, or white lead, and 
aiterwards with pumice-stone. 7. When a 
skin is to be made black, after having oiled 
and dried it, he passes over it a puff dipt in 
water impregnated with iron ; and after this 
first wetting, he gives it another in a water 
prepared with soot, vinegar, and gum arabic. 
These different dyes gradually turn the skin 
black, and the operations are repeated till it 
is of a shining black. 'I he grain and wrinkles 
which contribute to the suppleness of calw s’ 
and cows’ leather, are made by the reiterated 
folds given to the skin in every direction, and 
by the care taken to scrape off all hard parts 
on the coloured side. 
CURSING and swearing, an offence 
against God and religion, and a vice of all 
others the most extravagant and unaccount- 
able, as having no benefit or advantage at- 
tending it. By the last statute against this 
crime, 19 Geo. II. which repeals all former 
ones, every labourer, sailor, or soldier, pro- 
fanely cursing or swearing, shall forfeit l.v. ; 
every other person under the rank of a gen- 
tleman, 2s\ ; and every gentleman or person 
of superior rank, 5.y. to the poor of the parish; 
and on a second conviction double; and for 
every subsequent offence treble the sum first 
forfeited, with all cuarges of conviction ; and 
in default of payment, shall be sent to the 
li*use of correction for 10 days. Any justice 
of the peace may convict upon his own hear- 
ing, or the testimony of one witness; and any 
constable or peace-officer, upon his own 
hearing, may secure any offender, and carry 
him before a justice, and there convict him. 
If the justice omits his duty, he forfeits 5/. 
and the constable 40s. -And the act is to be 
read in all parish- churches and public chapels 
the Sunday after every quai ter-day, on pain 
of 5/. to be levied by warrant from any jus- 
tice. Besides this punishment for taking 
God’s name in vain in common discourse, it 
is enacted, by stat. 3 Jac. I. c. 21. that if in 
any stage-play, interlude, or show, the name 
of the Holy Trinity, or any of the persons 
therein, be jestingly or profanely used, the 
offender shall forfeit 10/. one moiety to the 
king, and the other to the informer. 
CURS1TOR, an officer or clerk belong- 
ing to the chancery, who makes out original 
writs ; of these there are 24 in number, and 
to each are allotted several counties. 
CURSOR, in mathematical instruments, is 
any small piece that slides : as the piece in 
an equinoctial ring-dial that slides to the day 
of the month; the little label of brass divided 
like a line of sines, and sliding in a groove 
along the middle of another label, represent- 
ing the horizon in the analemma; and like- 
wise a brass point screwed on the beam-com- 
passes, which may be moved along the beam 
for the striking of greater or less circles. 
CURTATE distance, in astronomy,'' the 
distance of a planet from the sun to that point 
where a perpendicular let fall from the planet 
meets with the ecliptic. 
CURTEYN, curtana, in the British cus- 
toms, king Edward the Confessor’s sword, 
borne before the prince at coronations, its 
point is said to be broken off, as an emblem 
of mercy. 
CURTIN, Curtain, or C'ourtin, in 
fortification, is that part of the rampart of a 
place which is betwixt the flanks of two bas- 
tions bordered with a parapet five feet high, 
behind which the soldiers stand to fire upon 
the covered way and into the moat. As it is 
the best defended of any part of the rampart, 
besiegers never carry on their attacks against 
the curtain, but against the faces of the bas- 
tions, because of their being defended only 
by one flank. 
CURTISA, a genus of the tetrandria mo- 
nogynia class and order. The calyx is four- 
parted; petals four ; drupe superior, roundish, 
succulent, with a four or five ceiled nut. There 
is one species, a tree of the Cape. 
CURVATURE of a line, is the peculiar 
manner of its bending or flexure, by which 
it becomes a curve of such and such peculiar 
properties. 
Any two arches of curve lines touch each 
other when the same right line is the tangent 
of both at the same point; but when they are 
applied upon each other in this manner, they 
never perfectly coincide, unless they are si- 
milar arches ot equal and similar figures; and 
the curvature of lines admits of indefinite va- 
riety. Because the curvature is uniform in a 
given circie, and may be varied at pleasure 
in them by enlarging or diminishing their 
diameters, the curvature of circles serves 
lor measuring that of other lines. 
Of all the circles that touch a curve in 
any given point, that is said to have the same 
curvature with it, which touches it so close- 
ly, that no circle can be drawn through the 
point of contact between them : and this 
circle is called the circle of curvature; its 
centre, the centre of curvature; and its semi- 
diameter, the ray of curvature belonging to 
the point of contact. As in all figures, recti- 
linear ones excepted, the position of the tan- 
gent is continually vary ng, so the curvature 
is continually varying in all curvilinear 
figures, the circle only excepted. As the 
curve is separated from its tangent by its 
curvature, so it is separated from the circle^ 
of curvature in consequence of the increase 
or decrease of its curvature; and as its cur- 
vature is greater or less, according as it is 
more or le§s inflected from the tangent, so 
the variation of curvature is greater or less, 
according as it is more or less separated from 
the circle of curvature. 
When any two curve lines touch each 
other in such a manner that no circle can 
pass between them, they must have the same 
curvature ; for the circle that touches the 
one so closely that no circle can pass be- 
tween them, must touch the other in the 
same manner. And it can be made appear, 
that circles may touch curve lines in this 
manner; that there may be indefinite degrees 
of more or less intimate contact between the 
curve and the circle of curvature; and that 
a conic section may be described th.<t shall 
have the same curvature with a given line at 
a given point, and the same variation of a 
curvature, or a contact of the same kind with 
the circle of curvature. The rays of curva- 
ture of similar arcs, in similar figures, are in 
the same ratio as auv homologous lines of 
these figures, and the variation of curvature 
is the same. 
CURVE, in geometry, a line which, run- 
ning on continually in all directions, may be 
cut b) one right line in more points than one. 
In a curve, the line AD (See PI. Miscel. 
fig. 28), which bisects all the parallel lines 
MN, is called a diameter, and the point A, 
where the diameter meets the curve, is called 
the vertex; if AD bisect all the parallels at 
