216 APOCRENIC ACID. 
broadly ovate, marked with close punctured lines, 
and not so much inflated as those of Apion apri- 
cans; and its legs are yellow, the tarsi and coxe 
are black, the latter parts sometimes yellow on the 
two anterior pair of legs. This species conducts 
its depredations in the same manner and with 
the same results as Apion apricans; and can be 
combated or destroyed only by similar means.— 
Apion assimile has a somewhat close resemblance 
to Apion apricans, and attaches itself to the Z7r7- 
folium ochroleucum.—A pion ononis attaches itself 
to the restharrow, Ononis arvensis, and has been 
| known to occasion that plant an almost total loss 
| of its leaves—Paper of Rev. Mr. Duncan in Quar. 
Journal of Agr.—The Linnean Transactions — 
Paper of Mr. J. Walton in the Annals and Mag. 
of Nat. Hist. 
APIUM. See Parsney and Crerery. 
APOCRENIC ACID. One of the acids which 
result from the decomposition of vegetable mat- 
ter in soils. An acid closely allied to it, and 
| usually accompanying it, but less oxygenated, is 
erenic acid. Both were first detected in spring 
water, and in consequence derive their name from 
a Greek word which signifies ‘a fountain.’ But 
because the French word for a spring is source, 
the crenic acid has been called by some conti- 
nental chemists Sourcic acid, and the apocrenic 
acid has been called Oxygenated sourcic acid. 
Both are nearly allied to geine or humic acid, 
and have been identified with that substance by 
Dr. Liebig and Professor Graham; yet they are 
recognised as perfectly distinct acids by most 
other distinguished chemists. They are charac- 
terized, or proved to be distinct from geine or 
humic acid, by the presence of nitrogen; and 
they cannot pass into that substance without 
losing nitrogen, and in consequence undergoing 
a change of chemical constitution. Raspail, in- 
deed, holds a middle opinion respecting them, 
and supposes that, in them and in gluten, nitro- 
gen exists and acts only as an accident or as an 
ammoniacal salt. But it seems both more philo- 
sophical and more practically useful, to regard 
them as constitutionally distinct from humic acid, 
and as presenting nitrogenous, while humic acid 
presents non-nitrogenous results of vegetable 
composition; and, when thus viewed, they will 
be seen to perform an important part in those 
complicated chemical processes which constitute 
fertility of soil, or prepare its mineral and manu- 
rial elements for the absorption and nourishment 
of growing crops. See articles Azorr, Guinz, 
Hum, and Sorn. 
APOPLEXY. See Sraccrrs. 
APPEAL. <A term in law which signifies the 
removal of a cause or suit from an inferior to a. | 
Of this nature were 
superior judge or tribunal. 
the ancierst appeals to the court of Rome, in ec- 
clesiastical matters, introduced into England along 
with the canon law, during the reign of King Ste- 
phen, which, though previously held to be illegal, 
were afterwards expressly prohibited, upon the 
APPEAL. 
Reformation, by the statutes 24° Hen. VIII. c. 
12, and 25° Hen. VIII. c. 19 and 21; whereby 
the party appealing from any of the king’s courts 
to the court of Rome was made liable to the pains 
of premunire. 
by 13° Eliz. c.2. In ecclesiastical suits, appeals 
Jie from the archdeacon’s court to that of the 
bishop; from the consistory court of every dio- 
cesan bishop to the archbishop of each province, 
or his official, in the court of arches; and from 
this court there lies an appeal to the king in 
chancery, as supreme head of the church of Eng- 
land. The jurisdiction of this last great court 
of appeal, in all ecclesiastical causes, is exercised 
by a court of delegates, appointed by the king’s 
commission under his great seal. Should the 
king himself be a party in any of these suits, the 
appeal, of course, does not lie to him in chancery, 
but, by the statute 24° Hen. VIII. c. 12, to all 
the bishops of the realm, assembled in the upper 
house of convocation. And although the sentence 
of the delegates be declared, by the statutes 24° 
and 25° Hen. VIII., to be definitive; yet, in ex- 
traordinary cases, when it is apprehended they 
have been led into a material error, a commission 
of review may be granted by the king, for the 
purpose of revising their judgment. ‘This, how- 
ever, cannot be demanded by the subject as a 
matter of right, but only asa matter of favour, 
which, therefore, is frequently refused. 
In civil cases, appeals lie from all the ordinary 
courts of justice in England, and also from the 
equity courts of chancery, to parliament. Ap- 
peals from the courts of justice, against judg- 
ments at common law, are effected by what are 
called writs of error; those from chancery by pe- 
tition to the house of peers. The jurisdiction of 
parliament, in the case of chancery suits, is said 
to have been introduced in 18° Jac. I.; and cer- 
tainly the first petition which appears in the 
records of parliament was preferred in that year, | 
and the first that was heard and determined was 
presented a short time after. 
warmly controverted by the house of commons, 
in the reign of Charles IJ. But this dispute is 
lone since at rest: it being perfectly obvious to | 
the reason of all mankind, that when the courts | 
of equity became principal tribunals for deciding 
causes of property, a reversion of their decrees, | 
by way of appeal, became equally necessary as | 
a writ of error from the judgment of a court 
of law. 
Appeals from a court of equity, and writs of 
error from a court of law, differ from each other 
in these respects: 1st. The former may be brought 
upon interlocutory matters; the latter upon de- 
finitive judgments only. 2dly. On writs of error, 
the house of lords pronounces the judgment; on 
appeals, it gives direction to the court below to 
noone its own decree. 
The word appeal has the same signification in 
the law of Scotland, and is generally employed 
to express the act of bringing a decree of the 
And this offence is made treason 
It was afterwards | 
1 
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