i]2 B L U 
BLOW'ING, with gardeners, denotes the adtion of 
flowers whereby they open and difplay their leaves. In 
which fenie, blowing amounts to much the fame with 
with flowering or bloflbming. 
BLOWN, the part. pad’, of blow. —All the fparks of 
virtue, which nature had kindled in them, were to blown 
to give forth their uttermoft heat, that juflly it may be af¬ 
firmed, they inflamed the a flections of all tliat knew them. 
Sidney. 
The trumpets deep, while cheerful horns are blown. 
And arms employ’d on birds and beads alone. Pope. 
BLOW-PIPE, f A valuable inttrument in the appara- 
ratus of modern chemiflry; for the defcription, figure, 
and applications, of which, fee the article Chemistry. 
BLGW'POINT,y. A child’s play, perhaps lik tpijhpin: 
Shortly boys (hall not play 
At fpancounter or blowpoint, but fliall pay 
Toll to lome courtier. Donne. 
BLOWTH,y. Bloom, or blofTom.—Ambition and co- 
vetoufnefs being but green, and newly grown up, the feeds 
and eftedts were as yet but potential, and in the blozuth and 
bud. Raleigh. 
BLOWZE,y A ruddy fat-faced wench. 
BLOW'ZY, adj. Sun burnt ; high coloured. 
BLUB'BER,y. The fat of whales and other large fea- 
anhnals, whereof is made train-oil. It is properly the 
adeps of the animal: it lies immediately under the (kin, 
and over the ntufcular flefh. In the porpoife it is firm 
and full of fibres, and invefls the body about an inch thick. 
In the whale, its thicknefs is ordinarily (ix inches; but 
about the under lip it is found two or three feet thick. 
The whole quantify yielded by one of thefe animals a- 
mounts to forty or fifty, fometimes to eighty or more, 
jumdred weight. The life of blubber is to furnifh train- 
oil, which it does by boiling down. Formerly this was 
performed in the country where the whales were caught; 
but of late the fifhers bring the blubber home in cafks, 
and manufadhire it here. 
To BLUB'BER, v. n. To weep in fuch-a manner as to 
fwell the cheeks: 
Soon as Glumdalclitch mifs’d her pleafingcare, 
She wept, lhe blubber'd , and fhe tore her hair. Swift. 
To BLUB'BER, v.a. To fwell the cheeks with weeping: 
Tir’d with the fearch, not finding what file feeks, 
With cruel blows fhe pounds her blubber'd cheeks. Drydcn. 
BLUB'BERED, particip. adj. Swelled; big: applied 
■Commonly to the lip: 
Thou fing with him, thou boohv ! never pipe 
Was fo profan’d, to touch that blubber'd lip. Dryden. 
BLUD'GEON,/! A fiiort flick, having one end loaded 
with lead, and ufed as an offenfive weapon. 
BLUE, adj. [blew, Sax. bleu, Fr.] One of the feven 
primitive colours of the rays of light, into which they are 
divided when refradted through a glafs prifm. See Chro¬ 
matics. 
Why does one climate and one foil endue 
The blufhing poppy with a crinifon hue. 
Yet leave the lilly pale, and tinge the violet blue? Prior. 
The principal blues ufed in painting aie Prufiian blue, 
bice, Saunders blue, azure or fmalt, verditer, ultrama¬ 
rine, &c. for the preparation of which, fee Colour¬ 
making. In dying, the principal ingredients for giving 
a blue colour, are indigo and woad. See Dying. 
BLUE-BOTTLE, f. in botany, fee Centalrea. 
BLUE-EYED, adj. Having blue eyes : 
Rife, then, fair blue-ey'd maid, rife and difeover 
Thy filver brow, and meet thy golden lover. Crajhaw. 
BLUE'FIELD’s BAY, a bay on the fouth-weft of the 
ifland of Jamaica. Lat. 18.10. N. Ion. 79.59. W. Green- 
svipji. 
B L 17 
BLUE-HAIRED, adj. Having blue hair : 
The greateft and the heft of all the main 
He quarters to his blue-hair'd deities. Milton. 
BLUE-JOHN, f. Among miners, a kind of mineral 
which has lately been fabricated into vafes and other or¬ 
namental figures. It is of the lame quality with the cu¬ 
bical fpar, with refpedl to its fufibility in the fire. It lofes 
its colour, and becomes white, in a moderate heat : the 
weight of a cubic foot of the blued kind is 3180 ounces, 
and that of the lead blue is 3140 ounces. This f’ubdance 
began fird to be applied to life about the year 1770, at one 
of the olded mines in Derbydiire, called Odin mine, pro¬ 
bably from its being dedicated to Odin the great god of 
the northern nations, at the foot of a high mountain called 
Mam Tor in Cadleton. 
BLUE'LY, adv. With a blue colour. 
BLUE'NESS,/ - . That quality of a body, as to colour, 
from whence it is called blue ; depending on inch a fize and 
texture of the parts that compofe the ftirface of a body, 
as difpofes them to reflect only the blue or azure rkys of 
light to tlie eye. The bluenefs of the fky is thus accounted 
for by De la Hire, after Da Vinci; viz. that a black bo¬ 
dy viewed through a thin white one gives the fenfation of 
blue, like the immenfe expanfe viewed through the air 
illuminated and whitened by the fun. For the fame rea- 
f’011 he fays it is, that loot mixed with white makes a 
blue ; for that white bodies, being always a little tranfpa- 
rent, when mixing with a black behind, give the percep¬ 
tion of blue. From the fame principle too he accounts 
for the bluenefs of the veins on the 1’urface of the (kin, 
though the blood they are filled with be a deep red. 
In the fame manner was the bluenefs of the fky account¬ 
ed for by many other of the early writers, as Fromondus, 
Funceius, Otto Guericke, and many others, together with 
feveral of the more modern writers, as Wolfius, Muf- 
chenbroek, &c. But in the explication of this phenome¬ 
non, Newton obfervesthat all the vapours, when they be¬ 
gin to condenfe and coalefce into natural particles, become 
firfi of fuch a magnitude as to reflect the azure rays, be¬ 
fore they can conftitute clouds of any other colour. This 
being therefore the firfi colour they begin to refledt, muff 
be that of the fined and 1110ft tranfparent {kies, in which 
the vapours are not yet arrived at a groftiiefs fufficient to 
reflect other colours. Bouguer however aferibes this 
bluenefs of the fky to the conftitution of the air itfelf, be¬ 
ing of fuch a nature that thefe fainter-coloured rays are 
incapable of making their way through any confiderable 
tradi of it. And, as to the blue (hadows which were firfi 
obferved by Buffon in the year 1742, he accounts for them 
by the aerial colour of the atmolphere, which enlightens 
thefe fhadows, and in which the blue rays prevail; vvhi 1 ft 
the red rays are not refledted fo foon, but pafs on to 
the remoter regions of the atmofphere. And the abbe 
Mazeas accounts for the phenomenon of blue fhadows by 
the diminution of light ; obferving that, of two fhadows 
which were caft upon a white wall from an opaque body, 
illuminated by the moon and by a candle at the fame time, 
that from the candle was reddifli, while the other from 
the moon was blue. 
BLUE-RIDGE, or South Mountains, a range of 
mountains, beginning in North Carolina, and crofting the 
ftate of Virginia, from north to fouth, about 2000 miles 
from the fea, and about 4000 feet in height. 
BLUFF, adj. Big; furly ; hindering : 
Like thofe whom ftature did to crowns prefer, 
Black-brow’d and bluff, like Homer’s Jupiter. Dryden. 
BLUFF-HEAD, f. Among failors. A fhip is faid to 
be bluff-headed that has an upright ftern. 
BLU'ING,yi The add or art of communicating a blue 
colour to bodies. Bluing of metals, is performed by heat¬ 
ing them in the fire till they alfume a blue colour; par¬ 
ticularly pradlifed by gilders, who blue their metals be¬ 
fore they apply the gold and filver leaf Bluing of iron, 
is 
