804 E R I 
tribunal; and a regency, from whence appeals may be made 
to the elector. The municipality is compofed of an equal 
number of Catholics and Lutherans. The town is large, 
but not populous, the buildings in general in the Gothic 
flyle ; fituated on the Gera, fortified, and defended by 
two cattles, with a garrifon of imperial and electoral 
troops, it contains, befides a college, a mitred abbey, 
and feven others, four parifii churches and three chapels 
for the Roman Catholics, and eleven churches for Lu¬ 
therans, and an academy indituted for ufeful fcience ; a 
well furnilhed library, in which are feveral manufcript 
Bibles in the Hebrew characters ; and an univerfity, com¬ 
pofed of five colleges, whofe profelfors are Roman Ca¬ 
tholics and Lutherans. The territory of Erfurt is fertile, 
but wants wood : it contains, befides the capital, two 
towns, and feventy-three. villages: no miles welt of 
Drefden, and i6oeadof Cologne. Lat.30. 50. N. Ion. 
28. 37. E. Ferro. 
ER'GANE, ariver whofe waters were fabled to intoxi¬ 
cate as wine.—>A furname of Minerva. Paufanias. 
ERGE'NE, a river of European Turkey, which runs 
into the Mariza, near Demotica, in Romania. 
ER'GERS, a river of France, which runs into the Ill, 
about two miles eaft from Grifpoltheim, in the depart¬ 
ment of the Lower Rhine. 
ERGl'NUS, a king of Orchotnenos, fon of Clymenes. 
He obliged the Thebans to pay him a yearly tribute of 
100 oxen, becaufe his father had been killed by a The¬ 
ban. Hercules attacked his fervants, who came to raife 
the tribute, and'mutilated them, and he afterwards killed 
Erginus, who attempted to avenge their death by invad¬ 
ing Bceotiawith anarmy. Paufanias. —A riverof Thrace. 
Mela. —One of the four brothers who kept the Acroco- 
rinth, by order of Antigonus. Polyanus. 
ER'GOT, f. A fort of dub, like a piece of foft horn, 
about the bignefs of a chefnut, which is placed behind 
and below the pattern joint of a horfe, and is commonly 
hid under the tuft of the fetlock. 
E'RIACH.y: [Irifh] Recompence for murder.—The 
Brehon, that is their judge, will compound between the 
murderer and the friends of the party murdered, which 
profecute the action, that the malefactor fhall give unto 
them, or to the child or wife of him that is (lain, a re¬ 
compence, which they call an eriach. Spencer’s Ireland. 
ERIAM'BO, a river of Ruflia, which runs into the 
Oby, thirty miles above Obdorlkoi. 
ERI'CA,y". Gr. to break; from its fuppofed 
quality of breaking the done in the bladder.] Heath; 
in botany, a genus of the clafs oCtandria, order monogy- 
nia, natural order of bicornes, (ericas, fuff.) The generic 
characters are—Calyx : perianthium four-leaved ; leaf¬ 
lets ovate-oblong, permanent. Corolla : one-petalled, 
bell-form, four-cleft, often bellied. Stamina: filaments 
eight, capillary, inferted into the receptacle; antherae 
two-cleft at the tip. Pittillum : .germ rotindidi, fuperior; 
ttyle filiform, upright, longer than the ftamens; ftigmu 
crowned, four-cornered, folir cleft. Pericarpium : cap. 
title roundith, fmaller than the calyx, covered, four- 
celled, four-valved; partitions meeting with the futures, 
(oppoftte to the futures, G.) Seeds : numerous, very 
fmall.— Effential CharaElcr. Calyx four-leaved; corolla 
four-cleft; filaments inferted into the receptacle ; antherae 
cloven; capfuhe four-celled. ^ 
Defcription. Heaths are fmall ttirubs, or what are com¬ 
monly called underlhrubs (JuffruticesJ. Their leaves are 
very fmall, linear, lanceolate or ovate, imbricate or re¬ 
mote, entire, ciliate or ferrate, in fonte oppolite, in mod; 
whorled, in others again fcattered. BraCtes ufually tliree, 
two of which are oppcfiie. The flowers are either axil¬ 
lary or terminating, and varionfly difpofed. Corolla 
modly of a purple colour- Antherae commonly oblong, 
but fometimes linear. Germ in mod fpecies fmooth. In 
fome fpecies the antherae are awned, in others creded, in 
others awnlefs; in fome they are included within the co¬ 
rolla, in others they are projedted, or dand out beyond 
E R I 
the corolla. Hence this unwieldy genus is ccmmodiotifiy 
divided into four fedlions ; and thefe are fubdivided into 
fubordinate fedtions from the difpofition of the leaves. 
The inclufion or projedlion of the dyle alfo affords ano; 
ther divifion of the fpecies. The calyx in fome is double. 
And, ladly, the form of the corolla affids us much in dif- 
tinguifhing the numerous fpecies. The campanulate and 
ovate forms, with their feveral modifications, are the 
predominating ones. This genus has within the compafs 
of a few years rifen from negledt to fplendour. Every one 
remembers that Mr. Pope marks it with contempt, at 
the fame time that he celebrates the colour of the flowers: 
“ E’en the wild heath difplays its purple dyes.” Mr. 
Miller, fo late as the year 1768, makes mention of no 
more than five forts, four of which, as being wild, he 
configns to oblivion; the fifth, our No. 17, is an inha¬ 
bitant of the fouth of Europe; but he has not one of 
thofe beautiful natives of the Cape of Good Hope, which 
now form fo great an ornament to our green-houfes or 
dry doves. In Linnaeus’s Species Plantarum, 1762, we 
have thirty-eight forts; in Dahlgren’s Didertation, 1770, 
there are fifty-eight; which are increafed to feventy-four 
in Murray’s edition of Sydema Vegetabilium, 1784. From 
Bergius, the Supplement, &c. and to ninety-one in Thun- 
berg’s Didertation on this genus, publiflied the year fol¬ 
lowing. Our lid, by the adidance principally of the 
Hortus Kewenfis, contains eighty-three fpecies. Our fird 
acquaintance with the African heaths is from Hermann 
and Oldenland, towards the end of the lad century. The 
latter of thefe authors enumerates twenty-fix fpecies. 
Ray, in his Hidory, 1688, enumerates fifteen forts, 
which are chiefly our wild ones, and thofe from the 
fouth of Europe ; he has only one African in this lid : 
in his Dendrologia, however, 1704, he has a long cata¬ 
logue of fifty-fix African heaths, from Petiverand Pluke- 
net, but chiefly from Sherard. This is a mere enume¬ 
ration of names ; and heaths continued to be little known, 
except from the dried fpecimens in the herbariums of the 
curious, till fome of the European fpecies were imported 
into our gardens between the years 1763 and 1770; and 
the ricli harved of Africans were introduced from the 
Cape of Good Hope, by Mr. Francis Malfon, who made 
two voyages to that fpot, fo abundant in rare plants, by 
the command and at the expence of the king of Great 
Britain; fird in the years 1773, 1774, and 1775; and 
again in the years 1786 and 1787. Since thefe two pe¬ 
riods, no genus of plants has attracted more regard than 
that which is now to be deferibed. 
Species. I. Anther® awned, leaves oppofite. 1. Erica 
vulgaris, or common heath: corollas be!l-(haped, almoft 
equal; calyxes double, (the inner longer than the co¬ 
rolla ;) leaves fagittate, (imbricate in four rows, St.) 
Common heath is a foot or two in height, or more ; the 
dents brown and woody, very much branched; the 
branches inoppodte pairs, modly upright, round, downy, 
and reddidt; the branchlets fquare. Leaves nearly ovate, 
bluntidi, with a whitidi furrow, dightly hairy at the edge ; 
according to Lightfoot tetragonal, in four imbricate rows, 
the. uppermod having angles at the bale like the barbs of 
an arrow. Flowers folitary, on peduncles the length of 
the leaves, from the ttdes of the branches, dightly nod¬ 
ding, oppofite, but generally pointing one way, giving the 
branches the appearance of long bunches, but leafy Ihoots 
will be always found at the end. Seeds fix to nine in each 
cell, fub-ovate, fcrobiculate-vvrinkled, pale yellow. 
This plant, which is little regarded in warmer climates, 
is made fubfervient to a great variety of purpofes in the 
bleak and barren highlands of Scotland, and other north¬ 
ern countries. The poorer inhabitants cover their cabins 
with it indead of thatch, or elfe twid it into ropes, and 
bind down the thatch with them in a kind of lattice 
work; they alfo make the walls with alternate layers of 
heath, and a fort of cement made of black earth and draw. 
The hardy Highlanders frequently make their beds with 
it. In mod of the wedern illes they dye their yarn of a 
yellow 
