882 M 1 L 
MIL'KING, f The means or operation oT drawing the 
milk from the cow or other animal. The proper milk¬ 
ing of cows is a matter of much confequence to the cow 
and dairy farmer; and more Care is neceffary in this bu- 
finefs than is generally fuppofed, in order to obtain the 
largeft poffible quantity of milk. See this important fub- 
jeCt fully treated under the article Husbandry, vol. x. 
p. 510-15. 
MIL'KINTHORP, a village in Weftmoreland, near 
Whitfield-foreft : it has a fair on the 12th of May. 
MILKOVA'IA DER'VENA, a town of Kamtchatka, 
fettled by a colony of Ruffians: fifteen miles north of 
Verchnei Kamtchatka. 
MIL'KSOP, f. A foft, mild, effeminate, feeble-minded, 
man. This word of contempt is very old in our language. 
—Of a moll notorious thief, which lived all his life-time 
of fpoils, one of their bards will fay, that he was none of 
the idle milkfpps that was brought up by the fire-iide, but 
that molt of his days he fpent in arms, and that he did 
never eat his meat before he had won it with his fword. 
Spenfer. 
Alas, fixe faith, that ever I was yfliape 
To wed a milJiJbp, or a coward ape. Chaucer. 
A milkfop, one that never in his life 
Felt fo much cold as over-lhoes in fnow. Shahefpeare. 
MIL'KY, adj. Made of milk. .Refembling milk.— 
Some plants upon breaking their veffels yield a milky juice. 
A r but knot mi Aliments. 
‘Not tafteful herbs that in thefe gardens rife. 
Which the kind foil with milky fapfupplies, 
Can move the god. Pope. 
Yielding milk : 
Perhaps my paffion he difdains. 
And courts the milky mothers of the plains. Hofcommon. 
Soft; gentle; tender; timorous: 
This milky gentlenefs and courfe of yours, 
You are much more at talk for want of wifdom, 
Than prais’d for harmful mildnefs. Shaliefpeart. 
MILKY GROT'TO, a mile diftant from the ancient 
tillage of Bethlehem, is laid to have been thus denomi¬ 
nated on occcafion of the bleffed Virgin, who let fall fome 
drops of milk in giving fuck to Jefus in this grotto. And 
hence it has been commonly fuppofed, that the earth of 
this cavern has the virtue of relloring milk to women 
that are grown dry, and even of curing fevers. Accord¬ 
ingly, they are always digging in it ; and the earth is 
fold at a good rate to fuch as have faith enough to give 
credit to the fable. An altar has been built on the place, 
fjJida church juft by it. 
MILKY HED'GE, f. The Englifix name of a fhrub 
growing on the coaft of Coromandel, where it is ufed for 
.hedging. The whole flirub grows very bulky, with nu¬ 
merous ereCt branches, which are compofed of cylindri¬ 
cal joints as thick as a tobacco-pipe, of a green colour, 
and from three to fix inches long; the joints are thicker 
than the other parts, but always give way firft on any 
accidental violence offered to the plant. When broken, 
it yields a milk of an exceffively cauftic quality, which 
blifters any part of the Ikin it touches. When the joints 
are broken off at each end, the tube then contains but 
very little milk. In this ftate Mr. Ives ventured to touch 
it with his tongue, and found it a little fweet. In the 
iiedges it is feldom very woody; but, when it is, the wood 
is very folid, and the bark grey and cracked. This plant, 
he informs us, has acquired great reputation in curing 
the venereal difeafe, on the following account; A poor 
Portuguele woman, the eldeft female of her family, had 
wrought lurprifmg cures in the molt inveterate venereal 
dilorders, even fuch as the European phyficians had pro¬ 
nounced incurable. Thefe faffs became fo notorious, 
that the lervants of the company, and efpecially their 
iurgeons, were induced t.o offer her a very conliderabig 
u r l 
premium for a difcovery of the medicine ; but flie always 
refufed to comply, giving for a reafon, that while it re¬ 
mained a fecret, it was a certain provilion for the main¬ 
tenance of the family in the prefent as well as in future 
generations. On account of this denial, the Englifh fur- 
geons were fometimes at the pains to have her motions 
without doors carefully watched; and, as they were not 
able to difcover that fhe ever gathered of any other plant 
or tree but this, they conjeCtured that the milk of this- 
tree was the fpecific employed. Mr. Ives inquired at> 
the black doflors concerning the virtues of this plant ;■ 
who all agreed, that it will cure the lues venerea, but dif¬ 
fered as to the manner of adminiftering it; fome faying 
that a joint of it fliould be eaten every morning ; others 
that the milk only fliould be dropped upon fugar; and 
then put into milk, oil, &c. and given daily to the patient. 
MILKY WA'Y , f. See Galaxy, vol. ix.—The milky 
way, or via laCtea, is a broad white path or track encom- 
pailing the whole heavens, and extending itfelf in fome 
places with a double path, but for the nxoft part with a 
Angle one. Some of the ancients, as Ariftotle, imagined* 
that this path confifted only of a certain exhalation hang¬ 
ing in the air; but, by the telefcopical obfervations of 
this age, it hath been difcovered to confift of an innume¬ 
rable quantity of fixed liars, different in fituation and 
magnitude, from the confuted mixture of whofe light it$ 
whole colour is fuppofed to be occafioned. Harris. 
Nor need we w’ith a prying eye furvey 
The diftant ficies to find the milky way: 
It forcibly intrudes upon our fight. Creech's Maniliu & 
Under the article Astronomy, vol.ii. p. 544. & feq. w'* 
had given the refults of Dr. Herfchel’s inquiries into this 
curious fubjeCt lo much at large, that we did not think it 
would have been necelfary for us to have returned to it. 
But in the Phil. Tranf. for 1814, there is a paper by the 
fame learned and indefatigable aftronomer, containing 
fome conjectures of fo new and curious a nature, that we 
cannot withhold them from the reader. 
“ The milky way (fays he) is generally reprefented in 
aftronomical maps as an irregular zone of brightnefs en¬ 
circling the heavens ; and my ftar-gages have proved its 
whitifli tinge to arife from accumulated liars, too faint to 
be dillinguilhed by the eye. The great difficulty of giving 
a true picture of it is a fufficient excufe for thofe who have 
traced it on a globe, or through the different conftella- 
tions of an Atlas Cceleftis, as if it were a uniform fuc- 
celfion of brightnefs. It is however evident, that, if ever 
it conjjled of equally-J'cattered Jtars, it does Jo no longer; 
for, by looking- at it in a fine night, w'e may fee its courle 
between the conftellations of Sagittarius and Perfeus af- 
feCted by not iefs than eighteen different fiiades of glim¬ 
mering light, refembling the telefcopic appearance of large 
eafily-refolvabie nebulae ; but, in addition to thele general 
divifions, the obfervations detailed in the preceding pages 
of this paper, authorife us to anticipate the breaking-up of 
the milky way, in all its minute parts, as the unavoidable 
confequence of the cluftering power arifing out of tlxofis 
preponderating attractions which have been fiiovvn to be 
every-where exifting in its compafs. One hundred and 
fifty-feven inllances have been given of clutters fituated 
within the extent of the milky waxy. They may alfo be 
found in Bode’s Atlas Cceleftis, whofe delineation of this 
bright zone I have taken for a ftandard. To thefe mull 
be added 68 more, which are in the lei’s rich parts, or what 
may be called the vanilhing borders of the milky waay ; for 
this immenfe ftratum of liars does not break off abruptly, 
as generally reprefented in maps, but gradually become* 
invifible to the eye when the liars are no longer fufficient- 
ly numerous to caufe the impreffion of milkinefs. Now, 
fince the liars of the milky way are permanently cxpofed 
to the aCtion of a power whereby they are irrejijiibly drauM 
into groups, we may be certain that from mere cluftering 
liars they will be gradually comprelled through fucceiiive 
llages of accumulation, more or lefs refembling the ftate 
of fome of the 263 objects by which the operation of the 
2 " cluftering 
