WIR 
club-shaped; styles none; berries four or 
eight, obovate. There are three species. 
WIRE dramng, the art of drawing out 
long bars of nfietal, by pulling it through 
holes in a plate of steel, or other fit metallic 
compound. In order that a wire may be 
drawn, it is requisite that the metal should 
have considerable tenacity. Gold, silver, 
iron, steel, copper, and their compounds, 
are most commonly used in the arts. The 
process is of considerable simplicity. A 
number of holes, progressively smaller and 
smaller, are made in a plate of steel, and 
the pointed end of a bar of metal being 
passed through, one of them is forcibly 
drawn by strong pinchers, so as to elon- 
gate it by the pressure arising from the 
j'e-action of the ^greased hole: this is the 
wire ; and it is again passed in like manner 
through another bole a little smaller; and, 
by continuing the process, the wire has its 
length increased, and its diameter diminish- 
ed, to a very great degree. The largest 
wire may be nearly an inch in diameter, and 
the smallest we have seen was about one- 
thouSandtli part of an inch ; but we are 
assured, that silver wire has been made one- 
fifteen-hundredth of an inch in diameter. 
The size of these small wires may be ascer- 
tained from the weight of a known measure 
of length, and the specific gravity of the 
metfll. Or, less correctlj', the wire may be 
wound round a pin, and the number of 
turns counted which make a given length. 
Wires are drawn square, and of other 
figures in their sector. In particular they 
are drawn grooved, so that any small part 
will form the pinion of a clock or watch 
work. 
As the violent action of the drawing plate 
renders the wire hard and brittle, it is ne- 
cessary to anneal it several times during 
the course of drawing. Very small holes 
are made by hammering up the larger, and 
the point, in very thin wire, is made by roll- 
ing or crushing the end by a smooth bur- 
nishing tool upon a polished plate. 
It is said that soft steel is as good for the 
wire-drawer’s plate as that which is hard, 
or as the compound material which comes 
from France in wire plates, and is highly 
esteemed. This has not been yet chemi- 
cally examined. 
Wire of Lapland. The inhabitants of 
Lapland have a sort of shining slender sub- 
stance in use among them on several occa- 
sions, which is much of the thickness and 
appearance of our silver wire, and is there- 
fore called, by those who do not examine 
WIT 
its structure or substance, Lapland wire. 
It is made of the sinews of the rein-deer, 
which being carefully separated in the eat- 
ing, are by the women, after soaking in wa- 
ter, and beating, spun into a sort of thread, 
of admirable fineness, and strength, when 
wrought to the smallest filaments ; but when 
larger, is very strong, and fit Lor the pur- 
poses of strength and force. Their wire, 
as it IS called, is made of the finest of these 
threads, covered with tin. The women do 
tliis business, and the way they take is to 
melt a piece of tin, and placing at llie edge 
of it a horn with a hole through it, they 
draw these sinewy threads, covered with 
the tin, through the hole, which prevents 
their coming out too thick covered. This 
drawing is performed with their teeth : and 
there is a small piece of bone placed at the 
top of the hole, where the wire is made 
flat, so that we always find it rounded ob 
all sides t»ut one, where it is flat. This 
wire they use in embroidering their clothes 
as we do gold and silver; they often sell it 
to strangers, under the notion of its having 
certain magical virtues. 
WIT, a faculty of the mind, consisting, 
according to Mr. Locke, in the assembling 
and putting together of those ideas, with 
quickness and variety, in whicli any resem- 
blance or congruity can be found, in order 
to form pleasant pictures and agreeable vi- 
sions to the fancy. This faculty, the same 
author observes, is just the contrary of 
judgment, which consists in the separating 
carefully from one another, such ideas 
wherein can be found the least difference, 
thereby to avoid being misled by similitude 
and affinity, to take one thing for anotlier. 
It is tlie metaphor and allusion, wherein, 
for the most part, lies the entertainment 
and pleasantry of wit, which strikes so 
lively on the fancy, and is therefore so ac- 
ceptable to all people, because its beauty 
appears at first sight, and there is required 
no labour of thought to examine what truth 
or reason there is in it. The mind without 
looking any farther, rests satisfied witli the 
agreeableness of the picture, and the gaiety 
of the imagination ; and it is a kind of af- 
fi ont to go about do examine it by the se- 
vere rules of truth or reason. Wit is also 
an appellation given to the person possess- 
ed of this faculty; and here the true wit 
must have a quick succession of pertinent 
ideas, and the ability of arranging and ex- 
pressing them in a lively and entertaining 
manner ; be must at the same time have a 
great deal of energy and delicacy in his sea- 
