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shrub. Leaves alternate, on short petioles, two-faced, ovate, 
slightly serrate, smooth, three or four inches long. Panicle 
terminating. Flowers very numerous, small, of a dirty 
greenish colour, smelling very strong and offensive, not 
unlike that of Sterculia fostida.—’Native of the East Indies. 
To VENTILATE, v. a. [ ventilo , Lat.] To fan with 
wind.-—In close, low, and dirty alleys, the air is penned up, 
and obstructed from being ventilated by the winds. Har¬ 
vey. —To winnow 5 to fan. Cocker am. —To examine; to 
discuss.—-Nor is the right of the party, nor tire judicial 
process in right of that party so far perempted; but that 
the same may be begun again, and vent Mated de novo. 
^■VENTILA'TION, s. [ventilatio , Latin.] The act of 
fanning; the state of being fanned.—The soil, worn with 
too frequent culture, must lie fallow, till it has recruited its 
exhausted salts, and again enriched itself by the ventilations 
of the air. Addison. —Vent; utterance. Not in use. —To 
his secretary Doctor Mason, whom he let lie in a pallet near 
him, for natural ventilation of his thoughts, he would break 
out into bitter eruptions. Wotton. —Refrigeration.—Procure 
the blood a free course, ventilation and transpiration by 
suitable and ecphractic purges. Harvey.-— Examination; dis¬ 
cussion.—Nor doth the victor commonly permit any venti¬ 
lation of his dictates; for when the body is a slave, why 
should the reason be free ? Abp. Bancroft. 
VENTILATOR, St An instrument contrived to supply 
close places with fresh air. 
VENTNOR, a hamlet of England, in the isle of Wight, 
county of Southampton, on the southern coast of the island, 
near Steephill. 
VEFTO'SITY, s. [from ventosus, Lat.] Windiness. 
Cot grave, and Bullokar —Without ventosity or popu¬ 
larity. Bacon. 
VETOSO, Cape, a promontory on the north-east coast 
of the island of Cabrera, in the Mediterranean. Lat, 39.10. 
N. long. 2. 55. E. 
VENTOTIENE, an island in the Mediterranean, near 
the coast of Naples, anciently called Pandataria; according 
to Sir William Hamilton, composed of volcanic matter 
thrown up by fire. It is now, as it seems to have been for 
ages, used as a place of banishment for criminals of a 
superior rank. Hither Julia, the daughter of Augustus, was 
sent, accompanied by her mother Scribonia. Some years 
the virtuous Agrippina was also confined here ; and Octavia, 
wife of Nero, and daughter of Claudius, was at the instiga¬ 
tion of Poppaea banished and murdered in this island ; 17 
miles west of Ischia. Lat. 40. 53. N. long. 13. 19. E. See 
Penza, vol. xxi. p. 169. 
VENTOUX, Mont, a lofty mountain in the south-east 
of France, department of the Vaucluse. Elevation 6800 
feet. 
VENTRAL, adj. Belonging to the belly.—It is said, that 
the young of the viper, when terrified, will run down the 
throat of the parent, and seek shelter in its belly, in the same 
manner as the young of the oppossum retire into the ventral 
pouch of the old one. Chambers. 
VENTRICLE, s, [ventriculus, Lat.] The stomach.— 
Whether I will or not, while I live, my heart beats, and my 
ventricle digests what is in it. Hale. —-Any small cavity 
in an animal body, particularly those of the heart. 
Knows’! thou how blood, which to the heart doth flow. 
Doth from one ventricle to the other go ? Donne. 
VENTR'ILOQUISM, or Ventri'loquy, s. [ventriloque, 
Fr.; ventriloquys, Lat., venter and loquar, Lat.] The act of 
speaking inwardly, so that the sound seems to issue from the 
belly 3 the art of forming speech, by drawing the air into the 
lungs, so that the voice, proceeding out of the thorax, to a 
by-stander seems to come from some distance, or in any di¬ 
rection. 
This art does not depend on a particular structure peculiar 
to a few individuals, and very rarely occurring, but may be 
acquired by almost any ardently desirous of attaining it, and 
determined to persevere in repeated trials. The judgments 
we form concerning the situation and distance of bodies, 
by means of the senses mutually assisting and correcting 
each other, seem to be entirely founded on experience, and 
we pass from the sign to the thing signified by it immedi¬ 
ately, or at least without any intermediate steps perceptible 
to ourselves. Hence it follows, that if a man, though in the 
same room with another, can produce a sound, which in 
faintness and tone perfectly resembles a sound delivered 
from the roof of an opposite house, the ear will naturally, 
without examination, refer it to that situation and distance; 
the sound which the person hears being only a sign, which 
from infancy he has been accustomed, by experience, to 
associate with the idea of a person speaking from a house-top. 
A deception of this kind is practised with success on the 
organ, and other musical instruments; and there are many 
similar optical deceptions. 
For some facts and observations tending to explain the 
curious phenomena of ventriloquism by Mr. John Gough, 
we refer to the Manchester Memoirs, vol. v. part 2. p. 622. 
London, 1802, in which the ingenious author investigates 
the method whereby men judge by the ear of the position 
of sonorous bodies relative to their own persons. Thi* 
author observes in general, that a sudden change of direction 
in sound, our knowledge of which, as he conceives, does 
not depend on the impulse in the ear, but on other facts, 
will be perceived, when the original communication is inter¬ 
rupted, provided there be a sensible echo. He thinks that 
the echo reaches the ear, while the original sound is intercep¬ 
ted by the art of the ventriloquist. This is the reason why 
people, who speak in the usual way, cannot conceal the di¬ 
rection of their voices, which in reality fly off towards all 
points at the same instant. The ventriloquist, therefore, by 
some means or other, acquires the difficult habit of contract¬ 
ing the field of sound within the compass of his lips, which 
enables him to confine the real path of his voice to narrow 
limits. For he, who is master of the art, has nothing to do 
but to place his mouth obliquely to the company; and to 
dart his words, if the expression may be used, against an 
opposing object, whence they will be reflected immediately, 
so as to strike the ears of the audience from an unexpected 
quarter, in consequence of which the reflector will appear 
to be the speaker. Nature seems to fix no bounds to this 
kind of deception, only care must be taken not to let the 
path of the direct pulses pass too near the head of the person 
who is to be played upon ; for, if a line, joining the ex¬ 
hibitor's mouth and the reflecting body, approach one of 
his ears too nearly, the divergency of the pulses will make 
him perceive the voice itself, instead of the reverberated 
^sound. 
VENTRPLOQUIST, s. [ventriloque, Fr.; ventriloquus, 
Lat.] One who speaks in such a manner as that the sound 
seems to issue from his belly.—It appears from Plutarch, 
Suidas, (in V. and Josephus, that those who 
were anciently called ventriloquists, had afterwards the 
name of pythonesses. Of course the factitious voice, pro¬ 
duced by a ventriloquist, does not (as the etymology of 
the word imports) proceed from the belly, but is formecl in 
the inner parts of the mouth and throat. 
VENTRl'LOQUOUS, adj. [ventriloque, French; ventri¬ 
loquus, Latin.] Emitting sound as a ventriloquist..—Whe¬ 
ther the bleating or humming of cock-snipes in breeding 
time is ventriloquous, or proceeds from the motion of their 
wings, I cannot say. White. 
VENTUVAI, an abundant river of Guiana, which rises 
in the mountains of the interior, and turning to the south, 
enters by a very wide mouth into the Orinoco, opposite the 
fort of St. Barbara, in lat. 4. 20. N. 
VENTURA, a river of the province of Buenos Ayres, 
which runs west, and enters the Jazegua. 
VENTURE, s. [avanture, Fr.] A hazard; an under¬ 
taking of chance and danger. 
When he reads 
Thy personal venture in the rebel’s fight, 
His wonders and his praises do contend 
Which should be thine or his. Shalcspeare, 
Chance ; 
