B L E 
the means of happinefs; a gift; an advantage ; a benefit. 
—A juft and wife magistrate is a blejfing as extenfive as the 
community to which he belongs ; a bljjing which includes 
all other blejjings whatfoever, that relate to this life. At- 
terbury. —Divine favour.—Honour thy father and mother, 
both in word and deed, that a blejfing may come upon thee 
from them. Ecclus. —He fliall receive the blejfing from the 
Lord, Pfal. —The Hebrews, under this name, often un- 
derftood the prefents which friends make to one another; 
in all probability, becaufe they are generally attended with 
blcjfings and compliments both from thole who give and 
thofe who receive. Calmet. —And Jacob faid, Receive my 
prefent at my hand ; take, I pray thee, my blejfing that is 
brought to thee. Genejis. 
BLES'SINGTON, a town of Ireland, in the county of 
Wicklow, a borough, which fends two members to the 
Iriffi parliament: five miles fouth-weft of Naas, and twen¬ 
ty north-weft of Wicklow. 
BLEST, preterite and participle; 
Peace to thy gentle fliade, and endlefs reft ! 
Blejl in thy genius, in thy love too, blejl. P°p e - 
BLES'TIUM, anciently a town in Britain. Now Old. 
town, not far from Hereford. 
BLESTRIS'MUS, f. [from to throw about. J 
A reftlefs toiling of the body, as in a fever or phrenfy. 
BLE'TA. A word ufed by Paracelfus to fignify white, 
and applied to urine when it is milky, and proceeds from 
a difeafe of the kidneys. 
BLE'TERIE (John Philip Rene de la), born at Rennes, 
entered early into the congregation of the oratory, and 
was there a diftinguiihed profeflor. The order againft 
wigs occafioned his quitting it; but he retained the friend- 
fhip and efteem of his former brethren. He went to Paris, 
where his talents procured him a chair of eloquence in 
the college royal, and a place in the academy of belles 
lettres. He publifhed feveral works, which have been 
well received by the public, i. The Life of the Emperor 
Julian, Paris, 1735, 1746, 1 into, a curious performance, 
well written, and diftinguiftied at once by impartiality, 
precifion, elegance, and judgment. 2. The Hiftory of the 
Emperor Jovian, with Tranflations of fome Works of the 
Emperor Julian, Paris, 1748, 2 vols. 121T10. a book no 
lefs valuable than the former, by the art with which the 
author has feleCted, arranged, and eftablifhed, faCts, and 
by the free and varied turns of the tranllator. 3. A Tranf- 
lation of fome Works of Tacitus, Paris, 1735, 2 vols. 
i2mo. The Manners of the Germans, and the Life of 
Agricola, are the two pieces comprifed in this verfion, 
which is equally elegant and faithful. Prefixed is a Life 
of Tacitus, which is alfo worthy of this writer, by the 
ftrength of its fentiments, and the animation of its ftyle. 
4. Tiberius, or the Six firft Books of the Annals of Ta¬ 
citus, tranflated into French, Paris, 1768, 3 vols. nmo. 
3. Letters occafioned by the Account of Quietifm given 
by M. Phelypeaux, 1733, i2mo. 6. Some Differtations 
in the Memoirs of the Academy of Belles Lettres, well 
efteemed. The abbe de la Bleterie died, at an advanced 
age, in 1772. He was a man of learning, attached to re¬ 
ligion, and his morals did not belie his principles. 
BLE'TONISM, f. a faculty of perceiving and indi¬ 
cating fubterraneous fprings and currents by fenfation. 
The term is modern, and derived from M. Bleton, who 
for fome years excited univerfal attention by his pollening 
the above faculty, which feems to depend upon fome pe¬ 
culiar organization. Concerning the reality of this extra¬ 
ordinary faculty, there occurred great doubts among the 
learned. But M. Thouvenel, a French philofopher, feems 
to have eftablifhed the faCt, in two memoirs which he has 
publifhed upon the fubjeCh He was charged by the king 
with a commiffion to analyfe the mineral and medicinal 
waters in France ; and, by repeated trials, he had been fo 
fully convinced of the capacity of Bleton to affift him with 
efficacy in this undertaking, that he folicited the miniflry 
to join him in the commiffion. The following is a ftrong 
Vol. III. No, 119, 
B L E 109 
inftance in favour of bletonifm. “ For a long time the 
traces of feveral fprings and their refervoirs, in the lands 
of the abbe de Vervains, had been entirely loft. It ap¬ 
peared, neverthelefs, by ancient deeds and titles, that thefe 
fprings and refervoirs had exifted. A neighbouring ab¬ 
bey was fuppofed to have turned their waters for its be¬ 
nefit into other channels, and a law-fuit was commenced 
upon this fuppolition. M. Bleton was applied to : he 
difeovered at once the new courfe of the waters in quef- 
tion : his difeovery was afeertained, and the law-fuit was 
terminated.” 
Many are prejudiced againft bletonifm, becaufe they 
look upon the fails on which it is founded as inexplicable. 
But M. Thouvenel afligns principles upon which the im- 
preffions made by fubterraneous waters and mines may be 
naturally enough accounted for. Having afeertained a 
general law, by which fubterraneous electricity exerts an 
influence upon the bodies of certain individuals eminently 
fufceptible of that influence, and ftiovvn that this law is 
the fame, w hether the eleCtrical aCtion arifes from currents 
of warm or cold water, from currents of humid air, from 
coal or metallic mines, from fulphur, and fo on, he ob- 
ferves, that there is a diverfity in the phyfical and organi- 
cal impreftions which are produced by this electrical ac¬ 
tion, according as it proceeds from different foffile bodies, 
which are, more or lefs, conductors of eleCtrical emana¬ 
tions. There are alfo artificial procelfes, which concur 
in leading us to diftinguiffi the different focufes or con¬ 
ductors of mineral eleCtricity ; and in thefe procelfes the 
life of eleCtrometrical rods deferves the attention of phi- 
lofophers, who might perhaps, in procefs of time, fubfti- 
tute in their place a more perfeCt inftrument. Their phy¬ 
fical and fpontaneous mobility, and its eleCtrical caufe, are 
demonftrated by indifputable experiments. 
On the other hand, our author proves, by very plaufible 
arguments, the influence of fubterraneous eleCtrical cur¬ 
rents, compares them with the eleCtrical currents of the 
atmofphere, points out the different impreftions they pro¬ 
duce, according to the number and quality of the bodies 
which aCt, and the diverfity of thofe which are aCted upon. 
The ordinary fources of cold w ater make impreftions pro¬ 
portional to their volume, the velocity of their currents, 
and other circumftances. Their ftagnation deftroys every 
fpecies of eleCtrical influence ; at leaft, in this date they 
have none that is perceptible. Their depth is indicate*! 
by geometrical proceffes, founded upon the motion and 
divergence of the eleCtrical rays; but there are fecond 
caufes which fotnetimes diverfify thefe indications, and 
occafion feetning errors. Thefe errors, however, accord¬ 
ing to our author, are only exceptions to the general rule ; 
exceptions which depend on the difference of mediums 
and lituations, and not on the inconftancy or incertitude 
of the organical, fenlitive, or convulfive, faculties of the 
bletonift. 
All the hot fprings in France, traced by our author from 
the places where they flow to the places where their for¬ 
mation commences, (fometimes at a diftance of fifteen 
leagues,) led him conftantly to maffes of coal ; where 
they are collected and heated in bafons of different depths 
and dimenfions, nourifhed by the filtration of lakes and 
the courfe of torrents, and mineralized by faline, ful- 
phureous, metallic, and bituminous, fubftances, in the na¬ 
tural furnaces where they are heated, or in the ftrata 
through which they flow. 
The luft, and the mod Angular and important pheno¬ 
menon, which our author met with, in the courfe of his 
experiments, muff not be here omitted. Over the veins 
of iron mines alone, the eleftrometrical rods aflame a mo¬ 
tion of rotation diametrically oppofite to that which they, 
exhibit over all other mines. This phenomenon takes 
place with the fame dillinCfion when iron and other metals 
are extracted from their mines, anddepolited underground. 
But the mod remarkable circumftance in this diitinCtive 
aClion of thefe metals is, that it has a uniform and con- 
ftant direction from eaft to weft in all metals, iron ex - 
F f t ceptedj 
