RIF 
cies, viz. R. grandis, a native of Montser- 
rat. 
RICINUS, in botany, a genus of the 
Monoecia Monadelphia class and order. 
Natural order of Tricoccae. Euphorbias, 
Jussieu. Essential character : calyx five- 
parted ; corolla none ; male, stamens nu- 
merous : female, styles three, bifid ; cap- 
sule three-celled ; seed one. There are 
six species. 
RICOTL-V, in botany, a genus of the 
Tetradynamia Siliquosa class and order. 
Natural order of Siliquosae, or Cruciformes. 
Cruciferae, Jussieu. Essential character : 
silique one-celled, oblong, compressed, with 
flat valves. There is but one species, viz. 
R. aegyptiaca, Egpytian ricotia. 
RIDE, 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 said to ride across, 
when she rides with her fore and main 
yards hoisted up to the hounds, and both 
yards and arms topped alike. She is said 
to ride well, when she is built so as not to 
over-beat herself in a head-sea, the waves 
over-raking her from stem to stern. To 
ride athwart, is to ride with her side to the 
tide. To ride betwixt wind and tide, is to 
ride so as 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 
tile tide, she is said to ride wind-road, or to 
ride a great wind. And she is said to ride 
a-portoise, when the yards of a ship are 
struck down upon the deck. 
RIDER, is a schedule, or small piece of 
parchment, added to some part of a record ; 
as when, on the third reading of a bill in 
Parliament, a new danse is added, that is 
tacked to the bill, on a separate piece of 
parchment, and is called a rider. 
RIDING, armed, with dangerous and 
unusual weapons, is an offence at common 
law. 
RIFLE, a fire-arm, which has the inside 
of its barrel cut with from three to nine or 
ten spiral grooves, so as to make it resem- 
ble 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 whole turn in a 
length of thirty inches. The number of 
these grooves’ differ according to the size 
of the barrel, and fancy of the workman ; 
and their depth and width are not regu- 
, RIF 
lated by any invariable rule. Tlie method 
of loading them is as follows : when the pro- 
per quantity of powder (one drachm avoir- 
dupois) 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, aqd 
laid on the mouth of the piece, with the 
greased side downwards ; and a bullet of 
the same size as the bore of the piece be- 
fore 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 the lower half of the bullet ; and, by 
its interposition between the bullet and the 
grooves, prevents the lead from being cut 
by them, and, by means of the grease, 
slides down, without its being necessary to 
use any violent efforts, which would destroy 
the circular shape of the bullet. In order 
to understand the cause of the superiority 
of a rifle-barrel gun over one with a smooth 
barrel, it will be necessary to refer to Mr. 
Robins’s discovery of the cause of the irre- 
gularities which occur in the flight of pro- 
jectiles from smooth barrels, which we shall 
give in his own words, “Tracts on Gun- 
nery,” p.l96, &c. “Almost every pro- 
jectile, besides the forces we have hitherto 
considered, namely, its gravitation, and that 
resistance of the air which directly opposes 
its motion, is affected by a third force 
which acts obliquely to its motion, and in a 
variable direction ; and which, conse- 
quently, deflects the projectile from its re- 
gular track, and from the vertical plane in 
which it began to move; impelling it some- 
times 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 point- 
ed in the same manner ; and this force, ope- 
rating 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 the differ- 
ence of powder. The reality of this force, 
and the cause which produces it, will, I 
hope, appear from tlie following consider- 
ations : ‘ It will easily be granted, I sup- 
pose, that no bullet can be discharged from 
the pieces generally in use, without rubbing 
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 progressive motion, and in ano- 
ther part be equally opposed to it, the re- 
sistance of the air on the fore-part of the 
