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the literature of the times, and had acquired a knowledge of 
the Scriptures superior to that of most of his contemporaries. 
Of the innumerable list of his writings, (all on scriptural sub¬ 
jects,) it is enough to mention his Commentariorum de sanc- 
tissima Trinitate et operibus ejus, Lib. XLII.” including his 
illustration of the Pentateuch, the books of Joshua, Judges, 
parts of the books of Kings and the Psalms, the prophesies of 
Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Zechariah, and Malachy, 
the books of the Macchabees, some parts of the four Gospels, 
and other selected passages of Scripture. In this work his 
opinion relating to the eucharist differs widely from the 
Catholic doctrine of more modern times, since he held that 
though the real body and blood of Christ are present in that 
sacrament, yet the real substance of the bread and wine also 
remain. 
RUPERT, Prince, son of Frederick, Elector Palatine of 
the Rhine, and Elizabeth, daughter of James I. King of 
England, was bom in 1619. Being bred to arms, he accom¬ 
panied in his 13th year the Prince of Orange to the siege of 
Rhinberg; and he so much distinguished himself for a cou- 
rage and conduct, that at the age of 18 he was entrusted 
with the command of a regiment of cavalry. He was taken 
prisoner in the following year by the Imperialists, who de¬ 
tained him two years. Having obtained his liberty, upon 
the ruin of the Palatine House in Germany, he came to 
England with his brother Maurice in 1642, and offered his 
services to his cousin King Charles, between whom and the 
parliament war had just commenced. Of his exploits here as 
a general, an account is contained in pp. 673, 675 of the 
article England. In the same article p. 685 his naval 
achievements have received due notice. In the domestic 
politics of Charles the Second’s reigu, he joined the party of 
those who were most attached to the Protestant religion and 
a free , constitution, and his name appears first in the list of 
the privy-council nominated at the suggestion of Sir W. 
Temple, in 1678. He does not seem, however, to have 
engaged deeply in public affairs, and chemistry and the arts 
occupied his chief attention. When in retirement at Brussels 
before the Restoration, he is said, by observing a centinel 
clearing the rust from his musket, to have conceived 
the invention of mezzotinto, which he communicated to 
a painter in his service ; and their united experiments pro¬ 
duced an instrument by means of which they were enabled 
tp execute the prints denominated by that appellation, and in 
which the ground is all black, and the figures are made by 
scraping. He also made some etchings, and drew designs 
with a pen. As a chemist his name is preserved in those 
curious glass drops called Prince Rupert’s, which have the 
property of Hying into minute particles the instant a piece is 
broken off from the shank. He was likewise an able mathe¬ 
matician ; and was probably skilled in architecture, since he 
i§said to have contributed to the beautifying of Windsor Cas¬ 
tle. Prince Rupert died, unmarried, in 1682, and was inter¬ 
red in Henry II.’s chapel. He is described by Count Hamil¬ 
ton as of large size, with hard features and an ungraceful man¬ 
ner, harsh and rough when displeased, yet polite to excess 
on ordinary occasions. By long residence in this country 
he was become entirely English in his tastes and sentiments. 
Histor. Diet. 
RUPERT,, a township of the United States, in Benning¬ 
ton county, Vermont. Population 1630. 
RUPERT’S BAY, a bay on the west coast of the island 
of Dominica, of great size and depth, and well adapted for 
the shelter of vessels. Lat. 15. 40. N. long. 61. 18. W. 
RUPERT’S DROPS, lacri/nue Batavicec, a sort of glass 
drops with long and slender tails, which burst to pieces on 
the breaking of those tails in any part. They were first brought 
into England by Prince Rupert out of Germany, and shewn 
to king Charles II. who communicated them to the Royal 
Society at Gresham College : and a committee, appointed 
on this occasion by the society, gave the following account 
of them. They must be made of green glass well refined, for 
till the metal, as the glass-men call it, is perfectly refined, 
they never succeed if made of it; but always crack and 
break soon after they are dropped into the water. 
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The best way of making them is to take up some of the 
metal out of the pot upon the end of an iron rod, and im-. 
mediately let it drop into cold water, and there lie till it is 
cold. If the metal be too hot when it is dropped into the 
water, the business does not succeed, but the drop frosts and 
cracks all over, and falls to pieces in the water, but every 
one that does not crack in the water, but lies in it whole 
till it is quite cool, is sure to be good. There is great 
nicety in the hitting a due degree of heat in the metal, and 
the workmen who best know their business cannot promise 
before hand which shall succeed, but often two fail for one 
that hits right. Some of them frost over the surface with¬ 
out falling to pieces, and others break into pieces before 
the red heat is quite over, and that with a small noise; others 
break soon after the red heat is over and make a great 
noise, and some neither break nor crack till they seem to 
be quite cold; and others hold together while they are in 
the water, but fly to pieces with a smart noise when they 
are taken out of it; some do this on the instant, others an 
hour or two after, and others will keep several days, nay 
weeks, and at last fall to pieces without being touched. 
These drops, thus formed, are so hard, that they will; 
bear smart blows of a hammer, on the rounded end, without 
breaking; and yet if you grind the surface, or break off the 
tip of the tail, they will shatter, with a loud report, into 
powder; and in an exhausted receiver, with greater impe¬ 
tuosity than in the open air, and into a finer powder, exhi¬ 
biting light, when the experiment is made in the dark. 
But if the drops are ground with powder of emery and oil, 
or annealed by the fire, they will escape breaking. 
This surprising phenomenon is supposed to arise from 
hence ; that while the glass is in fusion, or in a melted state, 
the particles of it are in a state of repulsion; but being 
dropped into cold water, it so condenses the particles in the 
external parts of their superfices, that they are thereby re¬ 
duced within the power of each other's attraction, and by 
that means they form a sort of hard case, which keeps con¬ 
fined the before-mentioned particles in their repulsive state; 
but when this outer case is broke by the breaking off the- 
tail of the drop, the said confined particles have then liberty 
to exert their force, which they do by bursting the body of 
the drop, and reducing it to a very peculiar form of powder. 
See a paper on the phenomena and explication of these glass- 
drops, by Le Cat, in the Phils. Trans, vol. xlvi. p. 175, 
&c. 
RUPERT’S FORT, a fort on the west coast of the island 
of Barbadoes; 1 mile north of Speight’s Town. 
RUPERT'S HEAD, a cape on the west coast of the' 
island of Dominica. Lat. 15. 41. N. long. 61. 19. W. 
RUPERT’s ISLAND, a small island in the straits of 
Magellan; 3 miles south of Passage point. 
RUPERT’S RIVER, a river of North America, which 
runs from Lake Mistasin into James’s bay, Hudson’s bay. 
Lat. 51. 28. N. long. 78. 55. W. 
RUPNAGUR, a town of Hindostan, in the province of 
Ajrneer, belonging to the Mahratta chief Dowlut Row 
Sindia. Lat. 26. 43. N. long. 74. 5, E. 
RUPPERSDORF, a large village of Saxony, in Upper • 
Lusatia; 8 miles north-north-west of Zittau, with 1300 in¬ 
habitants. 
RUPPERSDORF, a village of the north-east of Bohemia, 
near the town of Semile. Population 800. 
RUPPIA [so named by Linnaeus, in memory of Henry 
Bernhard Ruppius, a German physician], in Botany, a genus 
of the class tetrandria, order tetragyma, natural order of 
inundate, naiades (Juss.J —Generic Character. Calyx : - 
spathe, besides the sheaths of the leaves scarcely any; spadix 
subulate, quite simple, straight, when the fruit ripens, curved ■ 
inwards, fenced in a double row by the fructifications; 
perianth, none. Corolla none. Stamina: filaments none; 
anthers four sessile, equal, roundish, subdidymous. Pistil: 
germs four or five, subovate converging; style none; stig¬ 
mas blunt. Pericarp none; the seeds are placed each on 
its peculiar filiform pedicel, the length of the fruit. Seeds • 
four or five, ovate oblique, terminated by a flat orbicular 
stigma. 
