point which forms the letters; is screwed into the bar d: FG is a piece of wood glued to the bottom of the box, with a small piece of ivory fastened upon the top of it, to support the paper while it is written up. on: the surface of this ivory is about the same height as the brass shelf, a a, as is seen in the section fig. 4: H and I are two small rollers, (one of which is shown separately in fig. 2) on which the paper is rolled; it is fastened to them at both ends, by a small brass lever, k, (fig. 2) which shuts down in a groove made in the roller: when the paper is put under this lever, and shut down, it is held fast, and by turning the roll is wound upon it: Im are two small milled heads, one on each roll, to turn them; at one end of the roll, I, a small rachet wheel, t, of six teeth, is fixed; it is turned round by a click, k, (fig. 4) jointed to a small lever, 1, which is thrown up by a spring, m: n (fig. 1) is a piece of brass plate screwed to the side of the box: it is shown separately in fig. 3, and has two branches, to receive the pivots of the two rollers, HI; these arms are elastic, and press against the ends of the rollers, and causes them to turn rather stiffly, so that they will not be liable to be moved by the elasticity of the paper which is rolled upon them. The pentagraph is of the common kind: the three points, g i, and the end of h, being all in one line, as explained in the article PENTAGRAPH; the point i, which forms the letters, is a short piece of silver wire, screwed into the bar d, and pointed at the end to make this mark: the paper is rubbed over with whiting, or chalk; and when at any time the point is worn away, it may be renewed by screwing it through the bar a little further; the point is always made to project so far, that when the blunt point at the end of the pencil, h, rests upon the brass shelf, a a, the pentagraph will be set a little upon the strain, and by that means press upon the paper with a proper degree of force to write legibly. In using the machine, the lid, FG, is to be half shut, as shown in fig. 5, and thus form a support for the hand while writing; the pencil, h, is held in the hand, and pressed down to touch the brass shelf, a a, and used in the same manner as a common pen or pencil, taking care to always begin at the end of the shelf; the side of the box, and a small ledge upon the edge of the shelf, limits the height of the letters. When the pencil arrives at the end of the shelf, it is to be brought back again, and the end of it is to be placed upon the

end of the lever, 1, and forced down the click, k, then takes into one of the teeth of the wheel, t, and turns it round one tooth; the pressure is then to be removed, and the spring, m, lifts up the lever, l, just the proper height to catch the next tooth of the wheel, as is shown in fig. 4: this operation moves the paper forward just the proper space to write another line. One of the uses of the pentagraph is to reduce the writing to half the size that it is made on the brass shelf, whereby double the number of lines are contained on a slip of paper that would be if written the full size, and the lines are but half the length, so that room is left at the ends of the rollers for the rachet wheel and milled nuts. The rollers will hold a slip of thin paper twenty inches long, and contain 100 lines, each of two inches long: this will contain a considerable quantity of information, and when it is all written, and rolled upon the roll, I, the lever, k, (fig. 2) of the other roller will be exposed to view; then the pentagraph is to be lifted up upon its hinge, g, and the lever raised up by putting the nail under the end of it: this releases one end of the paper; and by pulling it the other roll will be unwound; and when the small lever of that roller is taken up, the paper will be quite loose; another piece will be fixed with equal ease, by first fixing it to the roll H, and rolling it upon it, and then fastening it to the other. If at any time any particular line of the writing is wanted, it will be easily brought into view, by turning the rollers by their nuts, 7, m.

This instrument would be particularly useful to persons who have occasion to make memorandums while on horseback, or travelling in a coach, as any degree of pressure may be given upon the brass shelf while writing, so as to avoid being disturbed by the most violent shocks, which cannot be done upon common paper for fear of breaking the pencil point, or of piercing the paper by it. Its use to blind people who have learned to write is very obvious.

SCRATCH, in the language of the saltworkers of our country, the name of a calcareous, earthy, or stony substance, which separates from sea-water in boiling it for salt. This forms a thick crust, in a few days, on the sides and bottoms of the pans, which they are forced to be at the pains of taking off once in a week, or ten days, otherwise the pans burn away and are destroyed.

SCREW, one of the five mechanical powers. See MECHANICS.

SCRIBING, in joinery, &c. is a term used when one side of a piece of stuff is to be fitted to another that is irregular. In order to make these join close all the way, they scribe it; that is, they lay the piece to be scribed close to the other they intend to scribe it to, and opening their compasses to the widest distance these two pieces stand from each other, they bear the point of one of the legs against the side they intend to scribe to, and with the other point draw a line on the stuff to be scribed. Thus they form a line on the irregular piece parallel to the edge of the regular one; and if the stuff be cut exactly to the line, when these pieces are put together they will seem a joint.

SCROPHULARIA, in botany, figwort, a genus of the Didynamia Angiospermia class and order. Natural order of Personatæ. Scrophularia, Jussieu. Essential character: calix five-cleft; corolla subglobular, resupine; capsule two celled. There are twenty-two species.

SCROTUM. See ANATOMY. SCROWLS, or SCROLLS, in architec. ture, the same with volutes.

SCRUPLE, a weight equal to the third part of a dram, or to twenty grains. Among goldsmiths it is equal to twenty-four grains.

SCUDDING, in naval affairs, is the movement by which a ship is carried precipitately before a tempest, and is either per formed with a sail extended on her foremast; or, if the storm is excessive, without any sail, which is then called scudding under bare poles. In sloops and schooners, and other small vessels, the sail employed for this purpose is called the square-sail, In larger ships it is the fore-sail.

SCULPTURE. It is beyond human research to ascertain when this art was first practised, and by what nation. We may, however, safely conjecture that it was almost one of the original propensities of man, and may be said to have been born with him in every climate. This will still appear in the ardent and irresistible impluse of youth to make representations of objects in wood, and the attempts of savages to embody their conceptions of their idols. If a command from the Author of our being was necessary to prevent the ancient Israel ites from making graven images, it may be naturally inferred that the inhabitants of the rest of the earth possessed similar propensities. The descriptions of the scriptures demonstrate that the art had been brought to great perfection at the period of which

they treat; but they could not be so parti cular as to enable us to judge whether their excellence approached the remains we possess derived from other sources.

To proceed methodically on this subject, it becomes necessary to make a distinction between carving and sculpture; the former belonging exclusively to wood, and the latter to stone.

It is extremely probable that every essay at imitating animated objects was in each nation made in wood originally, and it is vain to suppose the tools were any other at first than the sharp edges of broken stones or flints; a visit to the British Museum will afford the curious spectator a competent idea of what the nearest descendants of Adam accomplished in the art of carving with instruments of the above de scription in the figures of the South sea idols. The least enlightened nations possess individuals of superior observation, who see the defects of their neighbours, and by in. struction or ridicule produce an attempt at reformation: this has evidently been the case amongst the Egyptians and Greeks, who of all the people of antiquity made the earliest and greatest progress in the art of sculpture. If the former commenced their imitation of nature in wood, it is probable they soon discovered that it was incapable of a durability commensurate with their wishes, they therefore adopted a close grained and beautiful granite, which not only required tools of iron, but those of the most perfectly tempered steel, to cut it; and with such they have left us at this very distant time vast numbers of excavated figures, as complete and as little injured as if executed within our own memory.

In examining the various sculptures of the Egyptians, we find that a general character prevails throughout their outlines, which demonstrate that the sculptors were natives of Egypt, and that they rigidly copied the expression and character of their countrymen. Had the persons employed in decorating the numerous magnificent works, the ruins of which still surprise the spectator, been invited from other countries, a variation of style in the drawing would have been readily discovered. The circumstance of their figures, both male and female, strongly resembling each other in every instance, proves that this people were not deficient in genius; and their spirited imitations of animals adds to our conviction, that had nature been more kind to the Egyptian in their forms and features, their sculptors were fully competent to give an accurate repre

sentation of personal grace. Their limited and absurd ideas of religion were a decided bar to improvement, and led them to debase rather than improve the human form; hence we sometimes find the heads of animals attached to the bodies of men, and the ridiculous imputed acts of their idols are represented in strange unnatural positions, and those frequently repeated; hence the idea of grouping their figures was decidedly banished, except in a few cases, when the same outline occurs to the depth of four and five persons, each performing the same act, with the uniformity of a set of recruits, under the care of a drilling serjeant.

The errors of the Egyptians on this head cannot be more forcibly illustrated than by mentioning their manner of expressing a general punishment; a gigantic figure wields a weapon with one hand, and with the other grasps the hair of a group of kneeling figures, placed in a circle, with three ranges of heads appearing above each other, the hands, knees, bodies, and profiles exactly parallel. A second mistake in their sculpture was the disproportion of their figures to the object decorated with them, as it frequently happens that the same building contains hieroglyphics not three inches in length, which in another part of the structure are extend ed to several feet; indeed, all their productions in this art were a compound of littleness and vastness. Thus the temple of Apollinopolis Magna, at Etfu, has its side covered with figures half the height of the building, and the front with others not a sixth part of their size.

Very few of the detached figures or statues sculptured by the Egyptians deserve notice, otherwise than as objects of curiosity; indeed to examine them critically would be mere waste of time, as they are too frequently wilfully distorted to suit my thological conceptions: it is therefore impossible to select a subject deserving of examination, by which to judge of their skill in delineating the swells of the mus cles in various positions. Denon has given several valuable specimens of their remains, amongst which are a species of caryatides, or naked figures, standing erect with their arms crossed on their breasts: these, however, are very little calculated to raise our opinion of the merit of the artists who made them; and, indeed, the only instances we recollect of correctness and propriety, are the sphinx, and the enormous clenched hand, now in the British Museum. Of the former, Denon speaks with enthusiasm:

"I had only time to view the sphinx, which deserves to be drawn with a more scrupulous attention than has ever yet been bestowed upon it. Though its proportions are colossal, the outline is pure and graceful; the expression of the head is mild, gracious, and tranquil; the character is African; but the mouth, the lips of which are thick, has a softness and delicacy of execution truly admirable; it seems real life and flesh. Art must have been at a high pitch when this monument was executed; for, if the head wants what is called style, that is to say, the straight and bold lines which give expression to the figures under which the Greeks have designated their deities, yet sufficient justice has been rendered to the fine simplicity and character of nature which is displayed in this figure."

These observations corroborate what we have already advanced of the capability of the Egyptians to execute had their conceptions been equally correct; but as those were limited, their genius for excellent sculpture can only be collected from detached objects, where a ray has accidently emanated, and meeting with apathy from the public, perhaps another has never been excited in the mind of the artist; hence it is that we must look for elegance in their re presentations of animals, foliage, and flowers, which being admired by all, and not subject to the changes and varieties exhibited in the human frame and countenance, are more readily copied. In this part of our pursuit we are again assisted by Denon, who has presented us with many traces of simplicity in the capitals of their pillars, some of which are of about the same degree of excellence with the best, specimens of Saxon sculpture, and in some cases strongly remind us of the works of that people; and it may be worthy of observation, that the shape of the Egyptian capital differs very little from those invented by the Greeks: one in particular might be supposed to be the work of the latter, as it is surrounded by a range of beautiful full-grown leaves of the palm, disposed as the acanthus leaf afterwards was; another formed of a collection of palm stalks, before the branches and leaves are fully developed, shows that a very little taste, added to the disposition, would have raised the reputation of Egyptian sculpture to a level with that of their more polished imitators, as there can be no doubt that they have afforded hints to the Greeks. The frieze of the great temple at Tentyra, also shows that the ideas of the Egyptians,