TRA 
TRA 
but the signs of the alternate terms, begin- 
ning with the second. From which it fol- 
lows, that if any equation is given, and you 
change the signs of the alternate terms, be- 
ginning with the second, the new equation 
will have roots of the same value, but with 
contrary signs. 
TRANSIT, in astronomy, signifies the 
passage of any planet, just by, or over a 
fixed star, or the sun, and of the moon in 
particular, covering or moving over any 
planet. See Venus. 
TRANSITION, in rhetoric, is of two 
sorts. The first is when a speech is intro- 
duced abruptly without express notice 
given of it; as when Milton gives an ac- 
count of our first ancestors evening devo- 
tions. 
“ Both turn’d, and under open sky ador’d 
The God that made both air, sky, earth 
and heaven. — 
Thou also mad’st the night. 
Maker omnipotent, and thou the day !” 
The second sort of transition is, when a 
writer suddenly leaves the subject he is 
upon, and passes unto another, from which 
it seems ditferent at first view, but has a 
relation and connection with it, and serves 
to illustrate and enlarge it. 
TRANSITIVE, in grammar, an epithet 
applied to such verbs as signify an action 
which passes from the subject that does it, 
to or upon another subject which receives 
it. Under the head of verbs transitive, 
ome what we usually call verbs active and 
assive; other verbs, whose action does 
not pass out of themselves, are called neu- 
ters, and by some grammarians, intransi- 
tives. 
TRANSMISSION, in optics, &c. the 
act of a transparent body passing the rays 
of light through its substance, or sutFering 
them to pass ; in which sense the word 
stands opposed to reflection. Transmission 
is also frequently used in the same sense 
with refraction, by which most bodies, in 
transmitting the rays, do also refract them. 
For the cause of transmission, or the reason 
why some bodies transmit, and others re- 
flect the rays. See Opacity. 
TRANSMUTATION, the act of trans- 
forming, or changing one nature into an- 
other. Nature, Sir Isaac Newton ob- 
serves, seems delighted with transmuta- 
tions: he goes on to enumerate several 
kinds of natural transmutations ; gross 
bodies, and light, he suspects, may be mu- 
tually transmuted into each others and 
adds, that all bodies receive their active 
force from the particles of light, which 
enter their composition. For all fixed 
bodies, when well heated, emit light as 
long as they continue so; and again, light 
intermingles itself, and inheres in bodies, as 
often as its rays fall on the solid particles of 
tbo.se bodies. Again, water, which is a 
fluid, volatile, tasteless salt, is by heat trans- 
muted into a vapour, which is a kind of air, 
and by cold, into ice, which is a cold trans- 
parent brittle stone, easily dissolvable, and 
this stone is convertible again into water by 
heat, as vapour is by cold. 
Transmutation, in alchemy, denotes 
the art of changing or exalting imperfect 
metals into gold or silver. This is also call- 
ed the grand operation, and, they say, is to 
be effected with the philosopher’s stone. 
See Alchemy. 
Transmutation, in geometry, denotes 
the reduction or change of one figure or 
body into another of the same area or soli- 
dity, but of a different form : as a triangle 
into a square, a pyramid into a parallelepip- 
ed, &c. In the higher geometry, transmu- 
tation is used for the converting a figure 
into another of the same kind and order, 
whose respective parts rise to the same di- 
mensions in an equation, admit of the same 
tangents, &c. If a rectilinear figure be 
transmitted into another, it is sufficient that 
the intersections of the lines which compose 
it be transferred, and the lines drawn 
through the same in the new figure. If the 
figure to be transmuted be curvilinear, the 
points, tangents, and other right lines by 
means whereof the curve line is to be de- 
fined, must be transferred. 
TRANSOM, among builders, denotes 
the piece that is framed across a double 
light window. 
Transom; among mathematicians, signi- 
fies the vane of a cross-staff, or a wooden 
number fixed across, with a square whereon 
it slides, &c. 
Transom, in a ship, a piece of timber 
which lies athwart the stern, between the 
two fashion-pieces, directly under the gun- 
room-port. 
TRAN SPAREN C Y, in physics, a quality 
in certain bodies whereby they give passage 
to the rays of light, in contradistinction to 
opacity, or that quality of bodies which 
renders them iihpervious to the rays of 
light. See Opacity. 
TRANSPOSITION, in algebra, the 
bringing any term of an equation over 
