strongly of musk, that the cat, which is so fond of birds in general, will not taste it. The hoopoe builds in holes of rotten trees, or of old walls, and lays from two to seven eggs. This, according to ancient fable, is the bird into which Tereus was metamorphosed. 2. U. paradisea. Crested hoopoe. Crested; chesnut; two of the tail-feathers very long. Inhabits India: nineteen inches in length. When tamed, this bird shews great attachment to its master; but is not easily reconciled to the company of strangers. This exclusive attachment becomes even so strong, as to efface the desire of liberty. A tamed hoopoe will not escape from its keeper, though left at full liberty to depart. When fully domesticated, it will eat indiscriminately either bread or raw flesh, and may be held a bird of prey. In the vicinity of Cairo and Rosetto there are two varieties, the one migratory, and the other stationary and of the former, the individuals, at certain seasons, become fat, and are excellent eating. In Egypt, these birds assemble in small flocks; and when one finds itself deserted by the rest, it recals its lost companions by a feeble sharp cry. In other places, the hoopoes are so solitary in their manners, that even when they arrive in the sanie district together, before they take their departure, they are neighbours who hold no kind of communication with each other. The young hoopoes are not all excluded from the shell at the same time. Several days, or even weeks, elapse, before the last are emancipated, if we may trust to their appearance in the nest; some being nearly fledged, while the rest are almost bare. The Italian naturalists allege, that birds of this species produce several broods in the same season, and that the young disperse as soon as they become in dependent of their parents. About the end of summer, the hoopoes leave Europe; but, as they are produced at different seasons, they are not all equally prepared for the journey: whence many of the young and infirm are forced to remain behind, and they shut themselves up in the holes in which they were reared. In a climate unsuitable to their constitution these pass the winter in a state approaching to torpor, taking but little food, and often perishing. This has given rise to the opinion that the birds of this genus lodge spontaneously during winter in hollow trees, where they remain naked and benumbed till the approach of spring. Similar accounts have been given of the cuckoo, from probably a like cause, and founded on no better grounds. These birds, it is said, arnong the Egyptians, are accounted the emblems of filial affection. No sooner do the father and mother become frail from age, than their young attend to nurse and comfort them. They warm them under their wings; aid them in their painful moulting, by pulling away the old feathers; apply healing herbs to their eyes when tender; and render them all those services, which the young themselves received during their feeble age. Such fables, however agreeable they may be to the pious credulity of the Egyptians, are far from being so well attested as to merit any credit from the historian. The crested hoopoe is about the size of a thrush, and weighs from two to four ounces. So large a crest, added to a creature of so dimi nutive a size, renders this bird one of the most fantastical of the feathered tribes. The crest consists of two rows of feathers, equidistant. The feathers of the longest row arise from the middle of the crown; and hence, when erect, they form a semicircle, about two inches and a half in height. The whole of these feathers are red, and terminate with a black spot. The upper part of the body is grey, with a tinge of brown, varied with transverse waves of dirty white: the wings and tail are black, undulated with bars of white. There are some varieties of this bird in Europe, and a distinct species in the island of Madagascar, and at the Cape of Good Hope. To these, M. Montbeillard, the continuator of Buffon, has added a species, which he calls the promeripe, distinguished by a long tail, resembling that of the bird of Paradise. M. Brisson has added four different species of birds to this genus, from America and the West Indies. These do not, however, seem strictly to belong to it, because they all want the large crest, the most singular characteristic of the European hoopoe. There are two others, the Mexican and the brown or New Guinea, the former nineteen, the latter twenty-two inches long. U'PWARD. a. (up and peard, Saxon.) Directed to a higher part (Dryden). U'PWARD. S. The top: out of use (Shaks.). U'PWARD. U'PWARDS. ad. (up and peaɲt.) 1. Toward a higher place (Dryden). 2. Toward heaven and God (Hooker). 3. With respect to the higher part (Milton). 4. More than; with tendency to a higher or greater number (Hooker). 5. Toward the source (Pope). Pop UPWIND. v. a. pret. and pass. up. wound. (up and wind.) To convolve (Spenser). UR (anc. geog.), a citadel of Mesopotamia, situated between the Tigris and Nisibis; taken by some for Ur of the Chaldees, the residence of Abraham. What seems to confirm this is, that from Ur to Haran, the other residence of the patriarch, the road lies directly for Palestine. And it is no objection that Ur is said to be in Mesopotamia: because the parts next the Tigris were occupied by the Chaldeans, as seems to be confirmed from Acts vii. 2, 4. It is call ed Orche, in Strabo; Orchoe, in Ptolemy. URACH, a town of Suabia, in the duchy of Wirtemburg. Here are considerable manufactures of damask and other linens. It is 21 miles S.S.E. of Stutgard, and 24 W. of Ulm. Lon. 9. 15 E. Lat. 48. 27 N. URACHUS. (from pov, urine, and to Y contain.) The ligamentous cord that arises from the basis of the urinary bladder, which it runs along and terminates in the umbilical cord. In the fetuses of brute animals, which the ancients mostly dissected, it is a hollow tube, and conveys the urine to the allantoid membrane. URAL, a river of Russia, which rises in mount Caucasus, and watering Orenburg, Uralsk, and Gurief, falls by three mouths into the Caspian sea. See the next article. URALIAN COSSACS, a Tartar tribe that inhabit the Russian province of Orenburg, on the south side of the Ural. These Cossacs are descended from those of the Don; and are a valiant race. They profess the Greek religion; but there are dissenters from the established religion, whom the Russians called Roskolniki, or Separatists, and who style themselves Staroverski, or Old Believers. These consider the service of the established church as profane, and have their own priests and ceremonies. The Uralian Cossacs are all enthusiasts for the ancient ritual, and prize their beards almost equal to their lives. A Russian officer having ordered a number of Cossac recruits to be publicly shaved in the town of Yaitsk, in 1771, this wanton insult excited an insurrection, which was suppressed for a time; but, in 1773, the impostor, Pugatchef, having assumed the name of Peter III. appeared among them, and, taking advantage of this circumstance, roused them once more into open rebellion. This being suppressed by the defeat and execution of the impostor, in order to extinguish all remembrance of this rebellion, the river Yaik was called the Ural; the Yaik Cossacs were denominated Uralian Cossacs; and the town of Yaitsk was named Uralsk. These Cossacs are very rich, in consequence of their fisheries in the Caspian sea. Their principal fishery is for sturgeons and beluga, whose roe supplies large quantities of caviare; and the fish, chiefly salted and dried, afford a considerable article of consumption in the Russian empire. URALSK, a town of Russia, in the government of Caucasus and province of Orenburg. It was formerly called Yaitsk (see the preceding article) and is seated on the river Ural, 375 miles N.N.E. of Astracan. Lon. 50. 10 E. Lat. 52. 0°N. URANIA, in fabulous history, one of the Muses, daughter of Jupiter and Mnemosyne, who presided over astronomy. She was represented as a young virgin crowned with stars, holding a globe in her hands, and having many mathematical instruments placed round. (Hesiod. Apollod.). A sirname of Venus, the same as Celestial, supposed to preside over beauty and generation. URANIA, in botany, a genus of the class hexandria, order monogynia. Calyxless; corol three-petalled; nectary two-leaved, with an additional bifid leaflet; capsule inferior, threecelled, many-seeded; seeds in two rows, covered with an aril. One species only, a Madagascar tree, with an undivided trunk. URANITE, in mineralogy. See URANIUM. URANIUM, in mineralogy, a genus of the class metals. Dark-grey, inclining internally to a brown, with a slight lustre, soft, brittle; specific gravity 6-440; hardly fusible before the blowpipe, but with borax forming a brown and with microcosmic salt a grass-green glass; convertible into a yellow oxyd by the nitric acid. Three species. 1. U. ochraceum. Uranite. Uranites. Uranitic ochre. Yellow oxyd of uranium. Yellowish or green, of an earthy texture, entirely soluble in nitric acid, combined with a large portion of oxygen. Generally found on the surface of uranium sulphureum or pechblende in Cornwall, &c. of a lemon or brimstone yellow or green; it slightly stains the fingers, is meagre to the touch, hardly fusible before the blowpipe, but in a strong heat becomes black: specific gravity 3.243; consists of oxyd of uranium and oxygen. 2. U. chalcholithus. Chalcolit. Oxyd of Crystallized oxyd of uranium. uranite. Hardish, diaphonous, shining internally, of a foliated texture, entirely soluble in nitric acid. Found in Cornwall, near Eibenstock and Johanngeorgenstadt in Saxony, and near Reinbreidenbach in the electorate of Trieves, some. times on the surface of other ores, sometimes in larger or less particles mixed with rocks of gneiss, garnet, or quartz, most commonly cry. stallized in cubes, square plates, eight-sided or six-sided prisms: colour emerald or grassgreen, often inclining to silvery-white, or yellowish with a greenish-white streak: lustre sometimes perlaceous, sometimes metallic; soluble in nitric acid without effervescence, but insoluble and infusible by alkalies; consists of oxyd of uranium, carbonic acid; and, the green kind, of a little oxyd of copper. 3. U. sulphureum. Sulphurated uranite. Pechblende. Hardish, very ponderous, black, compact, shining internally. Found at Johanngeorgenstadt, in Saxony; either forming entire thin strata, alternating with other stratified minerals, or massive and dispersed; colour black, dark-grey, or blueish-black, with a darker streak, and opaque, black powder; texture conchoidal, very brittle; imperfectly soluble in sulphuric and muriatic acids, but perfectly in nitric and nitro-muriatic acids, giving the solution a vinous yellow; forming a grey opake slag with borax and soda, and a green glass with microcosmic salt: specific gravity 378 to 7.500: contains, according to Klap roth, phur and silex are to be separated first by diges tion in dilute nitric acid; and the other exotic materials from the metal thus far purified in the regular order of lead, copper, and iron. The nitrat of uranium being boiled with caustic fixed alkali, the whole of the uranium will be precipitated as pure yellow oxyd. The process by which Klaproth reduced this metal is the following: he mixed the yellow oxyd of uranium, precipitated from its solutions by an alkali, with linseed oil, in the form of a paste, and this being exposed to a strong heat, there remained a black powder, which had lost rather more than one-fourth of its weight. It was then exposed to the heat of a porcelain furnace, in a close crucible, and the oxyd was afterwards found in a coherent mass, but friable under the fingers, and reduced to a black shining powder. It decomposed nitric acid with effervescence. This black powder, covered with calcined borax, was for the second time exposed to a still stronger heat, by which a metallic mass was obtained, consisting of very small globules adhering together. The affinity of the yellow oxyd for the acids is so considerable, that its salts are not decomposed by the addition of zinc or of any other metal. The following vitrescent mixtures were made by Klaproth to ascertain the power of this oxyd as a colouring substance. shorter than the lower; gill-membrane with six papillous toothed rays; the covers with a membranaceous fringe; vent in the middle of the body. Two species. 1. U. scaber. Body smooth. Head large, square, mailed, with a bone sprinkled over with minute warts, and which terminates above in two, beneath in five spines; tongue thick, strong, short, covered with minute teeth; lips bearded with cirri; upper jaw with a double oval cavity within, lower covered with a membrane terminating in a long appendage; eyes vertical, approximate; pupil black, iris yellow; aperture of the gills very large; body covered with small scales, nearly square, as far as the vent, and afterwards round; lateral line, con. sisting of small, round, hollow dots, descending from the nape to the pectoral fins, and afterwards straight; fins with soft yellow rays, those of the ventral quadrifid, of the broad pectoral cleft at the tip, of the glossy-black anal and dorsal simple, of the caudal much branched; first dorsal fin bony. Inhabits the Mediterranean sea; frequents deep places near the shores; body above brown, cinereous at the sides, beneath white; feeds on smaller fishes and aquatic insects; sometimes sleeps; flesh good, but tough ; length about a foot. 2. U. Japonicus. Back with a row of spinous scales. Head depressed, with recurvate prickles; ventral fins short. Inhabits the sea around Japan; half a foot long; body round, above yellow, beneath white. URANUS, or OURANUS, the same as Cœ. lus, the most ancient of all the gods. He mar ried Tithea, or the Earth, by whom he had the Titans. His children conspired against him, because he confined them in the bosom of the earth, and his son Saturn mutilated him, and drove him from his throne. URANUS, in astronomy, the name given, for the sake of analogy, to the primary planet discovered by Dr. Herschel. See ASTRONO MY, GEORGIUM SIDUS, and HERSCHEL. URATS. Salts formed by a combination of uric acid with an alkali or earth. See URIC ACID. URBA'NITY. s. (urbanité, French; urba nitas, Latin.) Civility; elegance; politeness; merriment; facetiousness (Dryden). URBINO, a duchy of Italy, in the Eccle siastical State, fifty-five miles long, and fortyfive broad; bounded on the north by Romagna, north-east by the gulf of Venice, south-east and south by Ancona, and W. by Perugino and Tuscany. The air is not deemed wholesome, nor is the soil fertile. The chief production is silk, and game is plentiful. URBINO, a city of Italy, capital of the duchy of Urbino, and an archbishop's see. The palace, where the dukes formerly resided, now belongs to the pope. The university contains a noble college and sixteen convents. Great quantities of fine earthen ware are made here; and it is famous for being the birthplace of the illustrious painter Raphael. It was taken by the French in 1796. It stands on a hill, be tween the rivers Metro and Foglia, 58 miles E of Florence, and 120 N. of Rome. Lon. 12. 40 E. Lat. 43. 46 N. URBINO (Raphael D'). See RAPHAEL. URCEOLATE, in botany. Pitcher-shaped. Urceoli s. pelvis instar inflatus & undique gibbus. Bellying out like a pitcher. Applied to the calyx, corol, and nectary, URCHIN, in zoology. See ECHINUS. URCHIN, a term of slight anger to a child. URE, a river in Yorkshire, which rises on the confines of Westmorland, flows by Middleham, Ripon, Boroughbridge, and Aldborough, and a little below joins the Swale, where the united stream forms the Ouse. UREA, the constituent and characteristic matter of urine, which may be obtained by the following process: Evaporate by a gentle heat a quantity of human urine, voided six or eight hours after a meal, till it is reduced to the consistence of a thick In this state, when syrup. put by to cool, it coucretes into a crystalline mass. Pour at different times upon this mass four times its weight of alcohol, and apply a gentle heat; a great part of the mass will be dissolved, and there will remain only a number of saline substances. Pour the alcohol solution into a retort, and distil by the heat of a sandbath till the liquid, after boiling some time, is reduced to the consistence of a thick syrup. The whole of the alcohol is now separated, and what remains in the retort crystallizes as it cools. These crystals consist of the substance known by the name of urea. Urea, obtained in this manner, has the form of crystalline plates crossing each other in different directions. Its colour is yellowish white: it has a fetid smell, somewhat resembling that of garlic or arsenic; its taste is strong and acrid, resembling that of ammoniacal salts; it is very viscid and difficult to cut, and has a good deal of resemblance to thick honey. When exposed to the open air, it very soon attracts moisture, and is converted into a thick brown liquid. It is extremely soluble in water; and during its solution a considerable degree of cold is produced. Alcohol dissolves it with facility, but scarcely in so large a proportion as water. The alcohol solution yields crystals much more readily on evaporation than the solution in water. When nitric acid is dropt into a concentrated solution of urea in water, a great num ber of bright pearl-coloured crystals are deposited, composed of urea and nitric acid. No other acid produces this singular effect. The concentrated solution of urea in water is brown, but it becomes yellow when diluted with a large quantity of water. The infusion of nutgalls gives it a yellowish brown colour, but causes no precipitate; neither does the infusion of tan produce any precipitate. When heat is applied to urea, it very soon melts, swells up, and evaporates with an insupportably fetid odour. When distilled, there come over first benzoic acid, thencarbonat of ammonia in crystals, some carbureted hydrogen gass, with traces of prussic acid and oil; and there remains behind a large residuum, com posed of charcoal, muriat of ammonia, and muriat of soda. The distillation is accompa nied with an almost insupportable fetid alliaceous odour. Two hundred and eighty parts of urea yield by distillation 200 parts of carbonat of ammonia, 10 parts of carbureted hydrogen gass, seven parts of charcoal, and 68 parts of benzoic acid, muriat of soda, and muriat of ammonia. These three last ingredients Fourcroy and Vauquelin consider as foreign substances, separated from the urine by the alcohol at the same time with the urea. Hence it follows that 100 parts of urea, when distilled, yield 92.027 carbonat of ammonia 99-860 Now 200 parts of carbonat of ammonia, ac◄ cording to Fourceroy and Vauquelin, are com→ posed of 86 aminonia, 90 carbonic acid gass, and 24 water. Hence it follows that 100 parts of urea are composed of 39.5 oxygen 32.5 azot 14.7 carbon 13.3 hydrogen 100.0 But it can scarcely be doubted that the water. which was found in the carbonat of ammonia existed ready-formed in the urea before the distillation. When the solution of urea in water is kept in a boiling heat, and new water is added as it evaporates, the urea is gradually decomposed, a very great quantity of carbonat of ammonia is disengaged, and at the same time acetic acid is formed, and some charcoal precipitates. When a solution of urea in water is left to itself for some time, it is gradually decomposed. A froth collects on its surface; and airbubbles are emitted which have a strong disagreeable smell, in which ammonia and acetie acid are distinguishable. The liquid contains a quantity of acetic acid. The decomposition is much more rapid if a little gelatine is added to the solution. In that case more ammonia is disengaged, and the proportion of acetic acid is not so great. When the solution of urea is mixed with one-fourth of its weight of diluted sulphuric acid, no effervescence takes place; but, on the application of heat, a quantity of oil appears on the surface, which concretes upon cooling; the liquid which comes over into the receiver contains acetic acid, and a quantity of sulphat of ammonia remains in the retort dissolved in the undistilled mass. By repeated distillations, the whole of the urea is converted into acetic acid and ammonia. When nitric acid is poured upon crystallized urea, a violent effervescence takes place, the mixture froths, assumes the form of a dark-red liquid, great quantities of nitrous gass, azotic gass, and carbonic acid gass are disengaged. When the effervescence is over, there remains only a concrete white matter, with some drops of reddish liquid. When heat is applied to this residuum, it detonates like nitrat of ammonia. Into a solution of urea, formed by its attracting moisture from the atmosphere, an equal quantity of nitric acid, of the specific gravity 1.460, diluted with twice its weight of water, was added; a gentle effervescence ensued: a very small heat was applied, which supported the effervescence for two days. There was disengaged the first day a great quantity of azotic gass and carbonic acid gass; the second day, carbonic acid gass; and at last nitrous gass. At the same time with the nitrous gass the smell of the oxyprussic acid of Berthollet was perceptible. At the end of the second day, the matter in the retort, which was become thick, took fire, and burnt with a violent explosion. The residuum contained traces of prussic acid and ammonia. The receiver contained a yellowish acid liquor, on the surface of which some drops of oil swam. Muriatic acid dissolves urea, but does not alter it. Oxymuriatic acid gass is absorbed very rapidly by a diluted solution of urea; small whitish flakes appear, which soon become brown, and adhere to the sides of the vessel like a concrete oil. After a considerable quantity of oxymuriatic acid had been absorbed, the solution, left to itself, continued to effervesce exceedingly slowly, and to emit carbonic acid and azotic gass. After this effervescence was over, the liquid contained muriat and carbonat of ammonia. Urea is dissolved very rapidly by a solution of potass or soda, and at the same time a quantity of ammonia is disengaged; the same substance is disengaged when urea is treated with barytes, lime, or even magnesia. Hence it is evident, that this appearance must be as. cribed to the muriat of ammonia, with which it is constantly mixed. When pure solid potass is triturated with urea, heat is produced, a great quantity of ammonia is disengaged, the mixture becomes brown, and a substance is deposited, having the appearance of an empyreumatic oil. One part of urea and two of potass, dissolved in four times its weight of water, when distilled, gives out a great quantity of ammoniacal water; the residuum contains acetat and carbonat of potass. When muriat of soda is dissolved in a solution of urea in water, it is obtained by evaporation, not in cubic crystals, its usual form, but in regular octahedrons. Muriat of ammonia, on the contrary, which crystallizes naturally in octahedrons, is converted into cubes by dissolving and crystallizing it in the solution of urea. UREDO. (from uro, to burn.) An itching or burning sensation of the skin, which accompanies many diseases. The nettle rash is also so called. UREDO, in botany, a genus of the class cryptogamia, order fungi. Fungus parasitical, consisting of mealy powder under the cuticle of plants; sometimes under the cuticle of leaves or stem; sometimes under that of the parts of fructification. Nine species, all indigenous to our country. The following are well enti tled to notice. 1. U. frumenti. Linear-oblong, blackbrown; well known, as to its effects, by the name of blight. 2. U. segetum. Black, in the spikelets of grasses. Equally well known, as to its effects, by the name of smut. See the articles HUSBANDRY and MuCOR, under a particular species of which M. Wildenow has chosen to rank both these plants. UREE, in chemistry, the basis of the uric ammonia; urine evaporated to the consistence of honey. URENA, in botany, a genus of the class monadelphia, order polyandria. Calyx double; the outermost five-cleft; capsule fivecelled, five-partible; the cells closed and oneseeded. Eight species, natives of the East or West Indies. The two following are culti vated. 1. U. lobata. Angular-leaved urena: rising with an upright stock, two feet high, and mallow-shaped flowers of a deep blue. A native of China. 2. U. sinuata. Cut-leaved urena. Suffruti cosa: rising three feet, with small rose-coloured flowers. A native of India. Both are stove plants, and increased by seeds from their natural soils. URETER. (?ng, from ov, urine.) The membranous canal which conveys the urine from the kidney to the urinary bladder; at its superior part it is considerably the largest, occupying the greatest portion of the pelvis of the kidney; it then contracts to the size of a goose-quifl, and descends over the psoas magnus muscle and large crural vessels into the pelvis, in which it perforates the urinary blad der very obliquely. Its internal surface is lubri cated with mucus, to defend it from the irrita tion of the urine in passing. URETHRA. (ppce, from pv, the urine, because it is the canal through which the urine passes.) A membranous canal running from the neck of the bladder through the inferior part of the penis to the extremity of the glans penis, in which it opens by a longitudinal orifice, called the meatus urinarius. In this course it first passes through the prostate gland, which portion is distinguished by the name of the prostatical urethra; it then becomes much dilated, and is known by the name of the bulbous part, in which is situated a cutaneous eminence called the caput gallinaginis or veru montanum, around which are ten or twelve orifices of the excretory ducts of the prostate gland, and two of the spermatic vessels. The remaining part of the urethra contains a num ber of triangular mouths, which are the lacu næ, or openings of the excretory ducts of the mucous glands of the urethra. |