.§84 O C E 
Aft of taking pofleflion.— Spain bath enlarged the bounds 
of its crown within this laft iixfcore years much more 
than the Ottomans: I fpeak not of matches or unions, 
but of arms, occupations, invafions. Bacon. —Employ¬ 
ment ; bufinefs.—In your mod bufy occupations, when 
you are never fo much taken up with other affairs, yet 
now and then fend up an ejaculation to the God of your 
falvajdon. Waite. —'Trade ; calling; vacation.—He was of 
the fame craft with them, and wrought; for by their oc¬ 
cupation they were tent-makers. Acts xviii. 3. 
The red peffilence Hrike all trades in Rome, 
And occupations peril'll. ShakeJpeare's Coriol. 
OC'CUPATIVE, a<]. Pofleffed, ufed, employed. Scott. 
OC'CUPIER, f. [from occupy.'] A poffeffor ; one who 
takes into his pofleflion.—If the title of occupiers be good 
in a land unpeopled, why lliould it be bad accounted in 
a country peopled thinly ? Raleigh.— One who follows 
any employment.—Thy merchandife, and the occupiers 
of thy merchandife, fhall fall into the midlt of the leas. 
Ezcli. xxvii. 27. 
To OCCUPY, v. a. [ occupcr, Fr. from occupo, Lat.] 
To pofiefs; to keep; to take up.—How fhall he that 
occupieth the room of the unlearned fay Amen at thy 
giving of thanks, feeing he underftandeth not what 
thou fayed ? 1 Cor. xiv. 16.—Pow'der, being fuddenly 
fired altogether, upon this high rarefaftion requireth 
a greater fpace than before its body occupied. Brown's 
Vn/g. Err. — To buly ; to employ.— An archbilhop 
may have caufe to occupy more chaplains than fix. 
Ad. of Ecu. VIII.— He that giveth his mind to the law 
of the Mod High, and is occupied in the meditation 
thereof, will feek out the wifdom of the ancient, and be 
occupied in prophecies. Eccief. xxxix. 1.—To follow as 
bufinefs.—They that go down to the fea in lliips, and oc- 
cupy theirbulinefs in deep waters. P /1 107. Comm. Prayer. 
—Mariners were in thee to occupy thy merchandife. Ez. 
xxvii. 9.'—To ule; to expend.—All the gold occupied for 
the work was twenty and nine talents. Exod. xxxviii. 24. 
To OCCUPY, v.n. To follow bufinefs.—He called his 
ten fervants, and delivered them ten pounds, and faid 
unto them, Occupy till I come. Lidiex’ix. 13. 
To OCCUR', v.n. [ occurro , Lat.] To be prefented to 
the memory or attention.—The mind fliould be always 
ready to turn itfelf to the variety of objefts that occur, 
and allow them as much confederation as fhall be thought 
fit. Locke.— To appear here and there.—In Scripture' 
•though the word heir occur, yet there is no fuels thing as 
heir in our author’s fenfe. Locke. —To clafli; to firike 
againft ; to meet.—Bodies have a determinate motion ac¬ 
cording to the degrees of their external impulfe, their 
inward principle of gravitation, and the refinance of the 
bodies they occur with. Bentley. —To obviate ; to inter¬ 
cept; to make oppofition to. A latinijm .—Before I begin 
that, I muff occur to one fpecious objection againfl this 
proportion. Bentley. 
OCCUR RENCE, f. [perhaps originally occurrents.] 
Incident ; accidental event.—In education moll time is 
to be bellowed on that which is of the greateft confe- 
quence in the ordinary courfe and occurrences of that life 
the young man is defigned for. Locke. —Occafional pre- 
fentation.—Voyages detain the mind by the perpetual oc¬ 
currence and expedition of fomething new. Watts. 
OCCUR'RENT, adj Incident; comingin the way. AJh. 
OCCUR'RENT, f. [Fr. from occurrens, Lat.] Incident ;• 
any thing that happens.— He did himfelf certify all the 
news and occurrents in every particular from Calice, to 
the mayor and aldermen of London. Bacon's Lien. VII. 
OCCUR'SION, f. {.occurfus, Lat.] Clafli; mutual blow. 
— In the refolution of bodies by fire, fome of the diffi- 
pated parts may, by their various oceurfion occafioned by 
the heat, Hick clofely. Boyle. 
QC'JDA, a town ofPerfia, in the province of Irak : 150 
miles eafl-fouth-eafl of Ifpahan. 
.OCEAN , f. [Fr. oesanus, Lat. tv.s mao;, Gr. from ur.tu; 
O C E 
lanif, to flow or Aide fwiftly.] The main ; the great fea. 
—The ocean is that huge body of waters, in winch the 
two grand continents known to us, the new and old, are 
inclofed like iflands. Chambers. 
Will all great Neptune’s ocean wafh this blood 
Clean from my hand ? Shakejpeare's Macbeth. 
The Ocean is diftinguifhed into three grand divifions. 
1. The Atlantic Ocean, which divides Europe and Africa 
from America, which is generally about 3000 miles wide. 
2. The Pacific Ocean, or South Sea, which divides Ame¬ 
rica from Afia, and is generally about 10,000 miles over. 
And 3. The Indian Ocean, which feparates the Eaft 
Indies from Africa, which is 3000 miles over. ’The other 
feas, which are called' Oceans, are only parts or branches 
of thefe, and ufually receive their names from the coun¬ 
tries they border upon. 
Mr. Clarke (Progrefs of Maritime Difcovery, 1803.) 
urges the convenience that would arife from more deter¬ 
minate divifions of the ocean ; and propofes the follow¬ 
ing, to the attention of nautical men : 1. The North 
Atlantic, extending from the equator to Cape Farewell, on 
the coafl of Greenland, in 60 6 north latitude. 2. South 
Atlajitic, from the equator to an imaginary line drawn 
from the Cape of Good Hope to Cape Horn. 3. Indian 
Ocean, bounded to the fouth by a line carried from the 
Cape of Good Hope to the fouth-well point of New Hol¬ 
land. 4. North Pacific, flowing from the equator to Cape 
Prince of Wales, in the latitude of 66° north. 5. South 
Pacific, from the equator to an imaginary line ffretched 
from the fouth-eallern point of Van Diemen’s Land to 
the fouthern cape of New Zealand, and continued thence 
to Cape Horn. The remaining portions, flowing round 
the northern and fouthern poles, to be called the North 
and South Polar Seas. 
By computation it appears, that the ocean takes up 
confiderabiy more of what vve know of the terreftrial globe 
than the dry land ; and recent difeoveries have evinced 
that more than two-thirds of it are covered with water: 
Dr. Keill computes the fiirface of the whole ocean to be 
8 5>49°)5°6 fquare miles ; fo that, fuppofing the depth of 
the ocean, at a medium, to be Jth of a mile, the quan¬ 
tity of water in the whole will be 21,372,626! cubic miles. 
Yet Dr. Burnet computes that all the waters in the ocean 
were not fufficient to drown or overflow the dry land fo 
high as the Scriptures fay it was at the deluge: feven or 
eight oceans, according to him, would fcarcely have fuf- 
ficed. 
The ocean, penetrating the land at feveral freights, or 
Hraits, quits its name of ocean, and aflumes that of Jia, or 
gulf; to which are ufually added fome epithets, to diflin- 
guiih it; as Mediterranean Sea, Perfian Gulf, &c. In 
very narrow places it is called freights, or firaits. 
In the vth vol. of the Tranf. of the American Phil. Soc. 
we find fome judicious “ Obfervations on the Soda, Mag- 
nefia, and Lime, contained in the Water of the Ocean, 
flowing that they operate advantageoufly there, by neu¬ 
tralizing Acids, and among others the Septic Acid; and 
that Sea-water may be rendered fit for walking Clothes 
without the Aid of Soap ; by Sam. L. Mitchell, of New- 
York.” The general inferences of the author are thus 
Hated : 1. Alkaline fubJlances, fuch as magnefia, and 
more powerfully lime and loda, are plentifully diflribivted 
through the ocean, to keep it from becoming foul, un¬ 
healthy, and uninhabitable, which doubrlefs would be 
the cafe if the fulphuric, feptic, and muriatic, acids, 
abounding in it, were not neutralized. 2. Where either 
of thefe acids is but imperfeftly faturated, as happens 
when they are united to magnefia and lime, they decom¬ 
pound foap, let loofe its greafe, and become unfit for wafii- 
ing, by aid of that material. 3. If foda or barilla is added 
to ocean-water in fufficient quantity, and the water lixi¬ 
viated or alkalized, the earths will of courfe he precipi¬ 
tated and the acids neutralized; and in this Hate, dirty 
linen may be cleanfed in it; and men at fea be thus ena¬ 
bled 
