E L E 
ELL 
Gl3 
E L E 
reaching nearly to the ground. There must 
be tire nails on each of his fore-feet, and four 
on each of the hind ones : his head well set on, 
and carried rather high: the arch or curve of 
his back rising gradually from the shoulder 
to the middle, and thence descending to the 
insertion of the tail; and all his joints firm and 
strong. In one variety of the elephant the 
tusks point downwards, projecting only a little 
way beyond the trunk. The tusks in ele- 
phants are fixed very deep in the upper jaw ; 
and the root, or upper part, which is hollow, 
and filled with a core, goes as high as the in- 
sertion of the trunk, round the margin of the 
nasal opening of the throat; which opening is 
just below the protuberance of the forehead. 
Through this opening the elephant breathes, 
and by its means he sucks up water into his 
trunk ; between it and the roots of the 
tusks there is only a thin bony plate. The 
first or milk-tusks of an elephant never grow 
to any considerable size, but are shed between 
the first and second year, when not two inches 
in length. The time at which the tusks cut 
the gum varies considerably; sometimes a 
young elephant has his tusks at five months 
old, and sometimes not till seven. Even in 
a fetus which has arrived at its full time, 
these deciduous tusks are formed. A young 
elephant shed one of his milk-tusks the 6th of 
November, 1790; when about thirteen weeks 
old ; and the other on the 7th of December, 
when above four months old. Two months 
afterwards the permanent ones cut the gums, 
and on the 19th of April, 1791, they were an 
inch long. Another young elephant did not 
shed his milk-tusks till lie was sixteen months 
old, which proves that the time of this pro- 
cess varies considerably. The permanent 
tusks of the female are very small, com- 
pared with those of the male: and do not 
take their rise so deep in the jaw. The 
largest elephant-tusks Mr. Corse ever saw 
in Bengal, did not exceed the weight of se- 
venty- two pounds avoirdupois : at Tiperah 
they seldom exceed fifty-two pounds each. 
Both these weights are very inferior to that 
of the tusks brought from other parts to the 
India-house, where some have weighed 150 
pounds each. These, Mr. Corse suspects, 
.were from Pegu. The African elephant is 
said to be smaller than the Asiatic: yet the 
ivory-dealers in London affirm that the largest 
tusks come from Africa, and are of a better 
texture, and less liable to turn yellow 7 , than 
the Indian ones. The increase of the tusks 
arises from circular layers of ivory, applied 
internally, from the core on which they are 
formed; similar to what happens in the horns 
of some animals. See plate Nat. Hist. fig. 176. 
2. The sukotyro. That we may not 
seem to neglect so remarkable an animal, 
though hitherto so very imperfectly known, 
we shall here introduce the sukotyro. This, 
according to Niewhoff, its only describer, 
and who has figured it in his Travels to the 
East Indies, is a quadruped of a very singular 
shape. Its size is that of a large ox ; the 
snout like that of a hog; the ears round and 
rough ; and the tail thick and bushy. The 
eyes are placed upright in the head, quite 
differently from those of other quadrupeds. 
On each side the head, next to the eyes, 
stand the horns, or rather teeth, not quite so 
thick as those of an elephant. This animal 
feeds upon herbage, and is but seldom taken. 
It is a native of' Java, and is called by the 
Chinese sukotyro. This is all the description 
given by Niewhoff. The figure is repeated 
hi Churchill’s Collection of Voyages and 
Travels, vol. ii. p. 360. Niewhoff was a 
Dutch traveller, who visited the East Indies 
about the middle of the 1 6th century, viz. 
about the year 1563, and continued his pere- 
grinations for several years. It must be con- 
fessed, that some of the figures introduced 
into his works are not remarkable for their 
accuracy. 
Elephant, knights of the, an order of 
knighthood in Denmark, conferred upon 
none but persons of the first quality and 
merit. It is also called the order of St. Mary. 
Its institution is said to have been owing to a 
gentleman among the Danish croisees having 
killed an elephant, in an expedition against 
the Saracens, in 1184; in memory of which 
king Canutus instituted this order, the 
badge of which is a towered elephant, with 
an image of the Ploly Virgin encircled with 
rays, and hung on a watered sky-coloured 
ribbon, like the George in England. 
ELEPHANTIASIS, called also the lepra 
of the Arabians, in medicine, a chronical dis- 
ease, one of the two species of leprosy, which 
affects the w hole body, w’here even the bones 
as w 7 ell as the skin are covered with spots and 
tumours, which being red, at last turn black. 
See Medicine. 
ELEPHANTINE, in Homan antiquity, an 
appellation given to the books in which were 
registered the transactions ot the senate and 
magistrates of Rome, of the emperors or ge- 
nerals of armies, and even of the provincial 
magistrates ; the births and classes of the 
people, and other things relating to the cen- 
sus. They are supposed to have been so 
called as being made of ivory, though some I 
will have them to have been written on the j 
intestines of elephants. 
ELEPHANTOPUS, bastard-scabi- 
us, in botany, a genus of the syngenesia 
polygamia segregata class of plants, the com- 
pound flower of which is tubulose, consisting 
of four or five hermaphrodite and ligulated 
corolluke, with a narrow limb, divided into 
five nearly equal segments • the stamina are 
five very short filaments: the seeds are soli- 
tary, and contained in the cup, being ot a 
compressed figure, and crowned with bristly 
hairs. There are four species, herbaceous 
plants of the East and West Indies. 
ELEVATION, angle of, in gunnery, that 
comprehended between the horizon and the 
line of direction of a cannon or mortar ; or it 
is that which the chase of a piece, or the axis 
of its hollow cylinder, makes with the plane 
of the horizon. 
Elevation, in architecture, the same with 
an orthographic or upright draught of a 
building. 
Elevation of the host, in the church of 
Rome, that part of the mass where the priest 
raises the host above his head for the people 
to adore. 
ELEVATOR, the name of several mus- 
cles. See Anatomy. 
ELEVATORY, elevatorium ,. in surgery, 
an instrument for raising depressed or frac- 
tured parts of the scull, to be applied after 
the integuments and periosteum are removed. 
See Surgery. 
ELEUSINLM in-Grecian antiquity, a fes- 
tival kept in honour of Ceres, every fourth 
by some states, but by others every fifth year. 
The Athenians celebrated it at Eleusis, a 
tow n of Attica, whence the name. It was ce- 
lebrated with much ceremony, and persons 
of both sexes were initiated in it: it being 
deemed impious to neglect doing so. The 
mysteries were of two sorts, the lesser and 
the greater; of which the former were sacred 
to Proserpine, Ceres’s daughter, and the latter 
to Ceres herself. 
ELEUTP1ERIA, another festival celebra- 
ted at Plata:a, by delegates from almost all 
the cities of Greece, in honour of Jupiter 
Eleutherius, or the assertor of liberty. It 
was instituted in memory of the victory ob- - 
tained by the Grecians, in the territories of 
Plataaa, over Mardonhis, the Persian general 
left by Xerxes with a mighty army to subdue 
Greece. 
ELIGIBILITY, in the Romish canon law,, 
a bull granted by the pope to certain persons, 
to qualify them to be chosen to an office, or 
dignity, whereof they w ere before incapable 
by want of age, birth, or the like. 
ELISION, in grammar, the cutting off or 
suppressing a vow 7 el at the end of a word for 
the sake of sound or measure, the next word 
beginning with a vowel. Elisions are pretty 
frequently met with in English poetry, but 
more frequently in Latin, French, &c. They 
chiefly consist in suppressions of the a, e, and 
i, though elision suppresses any of the other 
vowels: in the following example from Virgil, 
there are three elisions : 
Phillida amo ante alias. 
ELIXIR, in medicine, a compound tinc- 
ture extracted from many efficacious ingre- 
dients. Hence the difference between a 
tincture and an elixir seems to be this, 
that a tincture is drawn from one ingredi- 
ent, sometimes with an addition of another 
to open it, and to dispose it to yield to the 
menstruum ; whereas an elixir is a tincture 
extracted from several ingredients at the same 
time. See Pharmacy. 
ELL, a measure of length, different in dif- 
ferent countries ; but the English ell is chiefly 
used in this country, which is equal to five 
quarters, or to a yard and a quarter. In Scot- 
land the ell contains 37 JL. English inches.. 
ELLIPSIS, in geometry, a curve line re- 
turning into itself, and produced from the 
section of a cone by a plane cutting both its 
sides, but not parallel to the base. See Co- 
nic Sections, and Mensuration. 
Ellipsis, in grammar, a figure in syntax, 
in which one or move words are not expressed ; 
and from this deficiency it has got the name 
ellipsis. To this figure, besides the ellipsis 
properly so called, belong apposition, synec- 
doche, asyndeton, zeugma, syllepsis, and 
prolepsis. The ellipsis is when the deficient 
word or words must be supplied from else- - 
where; as Hectoris Andromache, where uxor 
is understood; that is, Andromache Hector’s 
w’ife. 
Ellipsis, in rhetoric, a figure nearly allied' 
to preterition, when the orator, through trans- 
port of passion, passes over many things,, 
which, had he been cool, bright to have been., 
mentioned. 
ELLIPTIC, or Elliptical, something 
belonging to an ellipsis. Thus w 7 e meet with 
elliptical compasses, elliptic conoid, elliptic 
space, elliptic stairs, &c. The elliptic space 
is the area contained within the curve of the 
ellipsis, which is to that of a circle described; 
on the transverse axis, as the conjugate chain*-- 
