H I R 
roundifh, upright. Piftillum: germ roundifh, ftyles three, 
Ample, upright; ftigmas bifid, blunt, fpreading. Pe- 
ricarpium : capfules three, upright, keeled on the back; 
each having a tingle fpreading wing on the outfide at the 
bafe, and a double one at the tip ; not gaping. Seeds : 
folitnry, roundilh. Swartz obferves, that this genus is 
too nearly allied to Triopteris; differing in having three 
two-winged capfules, inftead of' a three-celled capfule 
with three wings.— Effential CharaElcr. Calyx five-leaved ; 
petals roundifh, on claws ; .caplule three-celled, with three 
wings ; feeds two, (folitary, Jacquin.) 
Hirapa reclinata, a fingle fpecies. It is a fmall tree, fel- 
dom exceeding fifteen feet in height, and dividing into 
round, long, Tmooth, bending and reclining, branches, 
by which it fupports itfelf on neighbouring Ihrubs ; bark 
afh-coloured. Leaves oblong, a little broader at top, 
blunt at both ends, quite entire, fmootlj underneath, hav¬ 
ing foft, decumbent, fcarcely confpicuous, hairs on the 
upper furface, and being from three to fix inches longj 
the petiole has two upright briftly ftipules at the bale. 
Common peduncles thick, very fliort and numerous, 
beautifully furround entire and very long branches, and, 
by means of twelve femioval fliort braftes, finifh in a 
quadrilocular top ; the partial peduncles being one-flow¬ 
ered, .an inch long, folitary, and therefore four to each 
common peduncle. Flowers beautiful, but without fcent, 
yellow, an inch in diameter. Native of Carthagena in 
New Spain, in woods ; flowering in June, and ripening 
the feeds in September. 
HI'RAH, [Hebrew.] The name of a man. . 
HI RAM, [Heb. exaltation.] A man’s name. 
HI'RAM, a fmall fettlement in York county, Maine. 
See New Andover. 
HIRCA'NIA, the provinces of Perfia which lie on the 
fouthern fhore of the Cafpian Sea. 
HIRCA'NIAN, adj. Belonging to Hircania. 
HIRCA'NIAN, J. A native of Hircania, an inhabi¬ 
tant of Hircania. 
HIRCA'NUS, a man’s name. 2 Mac. 
HIR'CINE, adj. [from hircus."] Belonging to the goat, 
refembling a goat. 
HIRCIP'II-US,^ [from /arcus, Lat. a goat, and pilus, a 
hair.] A man who has briftly hair, a man whofe hair re- 
fembles that of a goat. Phillips. 
HIRCISCUN'DA, /. in old records, the proper divi- 
fion of an eftate among the heirs. Scott. 
HIRCOCER'VUS, f. in zoology, a flag having the 
beard of a goat. 
HIRCOLA'TION,yi in gardening, the barrennefs of 
vines. , 
HIR'CULUS,^/! in botany. See Saxifraga. 
HIR'CUS, in aftronomy, a fixed ftar of the firft mag¬ 
nitude, the fame with Capella.— Hircus is alfo ufed by 
fome writers for a comet, encompaffed as it were with a 
mane, feemingly rough and hairy. 
To HIRE, v. a. [hypan, Sax.] To procure any thing 
for temporary ufe at a certain price : 
His fordid avarice rakes 
In excrements, and hires the jakes. Dryden. 
To engage a man in temporary fervice for wages.—They 
weigh filver in the balance, and hire a goldfmith, and he 
maketh it a god. lfa. xlvi. 6.—To bribe : 
Themetes firft, ’tis doubtful whether hir'd, 
Or fo the Trojan deftiny requir’d, 
Mov’d that the ramparts might be broken down. Dryden. 
To engage for pay : with the reciprocal word.—They that 
were full, hired out themfelves for bread ; and they that 
were hungry, ceafed. 1 Sam. ii.—To let; to fet for a time 
at a certain price. This, to prevent ambiguity, has home- 
times the particle out ; as, he hired out his houfe to ltrangers. 
HIRE, J. [hype, Sax.] Reward or recompence paid 
for the ufe of any thing. Wages paid for fervice : 
Great than! sad goodly meed to that good firp 
He thence c.epa ting gave for his pains hire. Spcnfer, 
H I R 195 
HIRE (Laurence de la), a French painter, bom at Pa¬ 
ris in i 6 o 5 . He received his firft inftruftions in the art 
from his father, Stephen de la Hire, a painter of conli- 
derable merit. He was then placed under Vout; but Lau¬ 
rence adopted a manner of his own, which raifed him to 
reputation. He painted hiltory, landfcape, and portrait, 
and was patronifed by cardinal Richelieu, and other per- 
fons about the court. He was one of the firft members of 
the Academy of Painting. Hedied at Paris in 1656. The 
churches of that city contain feveral of his greater works ; 
and in the Hotel de Ville is a large picture of his, with 
portraits of the magiftrates of the time. 
HIRE (Philip de la), a celebrated French mathemati¬ 
cian and aftronomer, born at Paris in 1640. He firft 
made himfelf known to the public as a geometrician, by 
giving the Second Part of a Treatife on Stone-cutting, 
printed by M. Boffe in 1672, in continuation of the work 
of Gerard d’Argues on the fame f ubjecft. The reputation 
which he acquired by this performance, he greatly in- 
creafed by his Nouvelle Met/wde en Geometrie pour les SeElions 
dts Superficies coniqurs & cylindriques, 1672, 4to. and his- 
treatife De Cycloide, publifhed in 1676, urao. In 1678, 
he received the honour of a feat in the Academy of Sci¬ 
ences ; and in the following year he publifhed, in one vo¬ 
lume nmo, 1. Les nouveaux Elemens des SeElions Coniques. 
2. Les Lieux Geomet*.iques. 3. La ConfruElion ou EjfeElidn des 
Equations. In the fame year, under the aufpices of the 
minifter Colbert, he commenced an undertaking, con¬ 
jointly with M. Picard, in order to collect materials for a 
more correct general chart of the fea-coaft of France than 
had been before laid down, and vifited the province of 
Bretagne, where the two mathematicians made the iurveys 
and obfervations requiiite for their defign. In 1680 they 
proceeded to the coafts of Guienne and Gafcogny ; and 
in 1681 M. de la Hire was directed to proceed alone to 
Calais and Dunkirk, in order to determine the exadt po- 
fitions of thofe places. On this occafion he took the op¬ 
portunity of meafuring the breadth of the (traits of Do¬ 
ver, from the baftion of Rifban, at Calais, to Dover caf- 
tle, which he found to be twenty-one thouland three 
hundred and fixty toifes. In 1682 he finifh fed the (hare 
afiigned to him in this undertaking, by the obfervations 
which he made in Provence. 
Upon his return to Paris, he publifhed his treatife De 
Gnomonique, i2ino. which he reprinted in 1698, with con- 
fiderable enlargements; and in the following year he was 
employed on the continuation of the famous meridian 
line, which M. Picard had begun in 1669. He was next 
employed by M. de Louvois, with other members of the 
Academy, in taking levels for the grand aquedufts which 
Louis XIV. ordered to be made to bring the waters of the 
river Eure to Verfailles. Having received from his friend 
M. Picard fome papers on levelling, with a requeft that 
he would fuperintend their publication, after making fuch 
alterations and additions as he'fhould think proper, he' 
gave them to the public in 1684, under the title of Traite 
du Nivellement de M. Picard, &c. And in the following 
year he publifhed his own grand work, entitled, ScBiones 
Conic# in novem Libros dijlribvta, folio, containing the whole 
theory of conic fections, which was confidered as an ori¬ 
ginal work, and gained the author great reputation all 
over Europe. In 1686 he fjiperintended the publication 
of Traite du Mouvement des Eaux L 3 des autres Corps fuides, 
Ouvrage pojlhume de M. Marictte ; and in 1^87 prelented the 
public with the firft edition of his Tabula Ajlronomicce, 4to. 
containing tables of the lun and moon, and the moft 
ready method of calculating eclipfes. The fecond edi¬ 
tion of this work, which appeared in 1702, was aug¬ 
mented by aftronomical tables of all the planets. His prac¬ 
tical geometry was next publifhed, under the title of 
L'Ecole des Arpenteurs, 1689, nmo. which was reprinted 
three years afterwards, with confiderable additions. About 
the year 1690, M- de la Hire was appointed a profeffor of 
the Royal College, and alfo of the Academy of Architec¬ 
ture, both which places were beitowed upon him in re¬ 
ward of his diftinguiihed merit. In 1693, he edited Fe- 
terum 
