veyed more commodiously to any short distance in a harbour or road than if they were separate. The timber and plank, with which merchant ships are laden, in the different parts of the Baltic, are attached together in this manner, in order to float them off to the shipping.

RAFT. part. pass. of raff. Torn; rent (Spenser). "RAFTERS, in architecture, are pieces of timber which stand by pairs on the raising-piece, or wall plate, and meet in an angle at the top, forming the roof of a building.

RA'FTERED. a. (from rafier.) Built with rafters (Pope).

RAG. s. (hnacode, torn, Saxon.) 1. A piece of cloth torn from the rest; a tatter (Milton). 2. Any thing rent and tattered; worn out clothes (Sandys). 3. A fragment of dress (Hudibras).

RAGAMUFFIN. s. A paltry mean fel

low.

RAGE. s. (rage, French.) 1. Violent anger; vehement fury (Shakspeare). 2. Vehemence or exacerbation of any thing painful (Bacon). 3. Enthusiasm; rapture (Cowley). 4. Eagerness; vehemence of mind (Pope)."

To RAGE. V n. (from the noun.) 1. To be in fury; to be heated with excessive anger (Milton). 2. To ravage; to exercise fury (Wal.). 3. To act with mischievous impetuosity (Milton).

RA'GEFUL. a. (rage and full.) Furious; violent (Hammond).

RAGG (Rowley). See RAGGSTONE. RA'GGED. a. (from rag.) 1. Rent into tatters (Arbuthnot). 2. Uneven; consisting of parts almost disunited (Shakspeare). 3. Dressed in tatters (Dryden). 4. Rugged; not smooth (L'Estrange).

RAGGED ROBIN, in botany. See LYCH

NIS.

RA'GGEDNESS. s. (from ragged.) State of being dressed in tatters (Shakspeare).

RAGINGLY. ad. (from raging.) With vehement fury.

RAGLAND, a village in Monmouthshire, five miles N.E. of Usk. It is famous for its castle, where Charles I. passed much of his time, and lived in a magnificent style. This castle was the last in Cromwell's time, which surrendered to general Fairfax.

RAGMAN, one who deals in rags. RAGOT, a name given in the old manage, to a horse that has short legs, a broad croup, and a strong thick body. It differs from a goussaut in this, that the latter has more shoulders, and a thicker neck.

RA'GOUT. s. (French.) Meat stewed and highly seasoned (Addison).

RAGG-STONE, ROWLEY RAGG, in mineralogy, a variety of trap, or basalt, by Kirwan denominated turilite; of a black colour with numerous white dots and black lamellæ of basaltine, which give it a dark brownishgrey appearance. It is found in large masses, ffecting a rhomboidal form, inclosing rounded

RAGUSA, a town of Sicily, in Val di Noto, near the river Maulo, 18 miles W.N.W. of Noto.

RAGUSA, a city and seaport of Dalmatia, capital of Ragusen, and an archbishop's see. It is two miles in circumference, and strong by situation, having an inaccessible mountain on the land side, and a strong fort on the gulf of Venice, It has a considerable trade with the Turks, and is 66 miles W. of Scutari. Lon. 17. 55 E Lat. 42. 32 N.

RAGUSEN, a territory of Dalmatia, lying along the coast of the gulf of Venice, about 55 miles long and 20 broad. It was a republic, under the protection of the Turks and Venetians; but now is annexed to Italy. The soil is so barren, that the inhabitants receive the greatest part of their necessaries from the neighhouring islands and Turkish provinces. The Ragusians profess the Roman catholic religion, but the Greek, Armenian, and Turkish persuasions are tolerated for conveniency. Ragusa is the capital.

RAGWORT, in botany. See SENE.

RAGWORT (Sea), in botany. See CINERARIA.

RAGWORT (African), in botany. See OTHONNA.

RAIA. Ray. In zoology, a genus of the class pisces, order chondropterigia. Spiracles five on each side, oblique, placed beneath near the neck; head small, pointed, not distinct from the body; mouth beneath, transverse, toothed; body broad, thin, flat. Nineteen species, thus divided into sections. A. Teeth sharp, comprising the skates and electric ray, or torpedo.

B. Teeth obtuse, comprising the sting-ray

and thornbacks.

C. Uncertain, comprising five species, that inhabit the Red Sea, or around the Cape of Good Hope, and which have not yet been sufficiently examined.

All these are inhabitants of the sea only: they keep at the bottom, and in winter cover themselves with mud or sand; they feed on testaceous animals, fishes, or any animal substances they meet with; grow to a large size, sometimes exceeding two hundred pounds weight; the females are the larger, and produce their young alive, only one at a time, though others are successively extruded a few hours after, and these, like the young of the shark, are inclosed in a quadrangular, black, horny shell, the corners of which end in slender incurved points, but not extending into long filaments like those of the shark; eyes half covered with a thin membrane, oblong, placed on the upper part of the head; above these, in the place of nostrils, is a broad sulcus, or groove, divided by a reticulate membrane, consisting of crested folds, and closed with a valve; behind this sulcus are two semilunar orifices; tongue very broad, short, smooth; pectoral fins covered with a thick skin, and surrounding the body; ventral at the base, and connected with the anal; flesh generally eatable; liver large, and producing a great quan tity of pure oil.

The following are the chief species.

1. R. batis. Skate. Varied; middle of the back smooth; tail with a single row of spines. Inhabits the European ocean, and is the largest of its genus: body above cinereous, sometimes with a few black lines, beneath white, with waved lines of black dots; round the eyes are numerous small, hooked spiacs; in the males the fins are full of spines.

Of all the larger fishes the skates are the most numerous; and their numbers are in a great measure owing to their size, and to the protection of those frightful spines which nature has afforded them. There is none of the rapacious tribes, except, perhaps, the cachalot and white shark, that has a swallow sufficiently large to receive them; and even these are, probably, often deterred from their purposes of destruction by the armour with which their prey is covered. Of some the size is such as to defy all the powers of destruction which even the shark himself is known to possess. In England some have been taken upwards of two-hundred pounds weight; but even this is far inferior to their enormous bulk in other parts of the world. Near the island of Gualoope in the West Indies, a ray was killed, thirteen feet eight inches in breadth, and tweaty-five from the snout to the tip of the tl. This last member contributed largely however to so prodigious a dimension; for it was twenty inches broad at its insertion, and pered to a point, by which it terminated £feen feet behind the body of the animal.

Tae fishes of this tribe probably attain a much larger size than that of any individual which has ever yet been examined. It is only the smallest of the kind that approach the shores; the larger continue for ever prowling at the bottom in the unfathomable caverns of the reean, where they continue perhaps to grow for a century. Hence the utmost bulks of this

tribe of rays cannot be ascertained, and some zoologists have supposed them to be the largest inhabitants of the sea. When, however, they surpass the common size, they become too coarse for food; though even in such state the negroes and half-starved savages of America cut them up for this purpose, and esteem their tenderer parts, when salted, as delicious morsels.

These fishes generate in March and April, at which time they swim near the surface of the water, several males pursuing one female. The females cast their purses as the fishermen call it in May, and continue to produce till September: they are very prolific, not less than three hundred eggs having been found in the body of a single female. In October, when their parturition ceases, they are exceedingly poor; after which they improve gradually dur ing the winter and spring, till May, when they are at their highest perfection, and again begin to undergo the same process of increase.

The rays generally frequent those parts of the sea where the bottom is black and muddy, where their voracity leads them indiscriminately to devour every animal which they can surprise: but although their appetite is ravenous and indiscriminate, they become more delicate with regard to a baited hook; they devour below any putrid substance whatever, but if the bait have been taken up and suffered to lie for any time in the open air, they will not touch it: they appear by their manner to perceive the line, and to dread it; but the impulse of their hunger is too great for their caution, and, even though they perceive the danger, if thoroughly hungry, they devour, as if regardless of destruction.

Both English and Dutch carry on the fishing to a considerable extent: the season at which they begin is early in the winter; and the boats in which the fishermen put to sea are of different sizes, according to the distance of the place where they intend to fish. The vessels used in the British Channel, called cobles, are of one ton burden, rowed with three pair of oars, and admirably constructed for encountering a mountain sea. When they go out to fish, every person is provided with three lines; each man's lines are fairly coiled upon a flat oblong piece of wicker-work, the hooks being baited, and placed very regularly in the centre of the coil. Each line is furnished with two hundred and eighty hooks, at the distance of six feet two inches from each other; the hooks are fastened to lines of twisted horsehair, twenty-seven inches in length.

When fishing, there are always three men in each coble, and consequently nine of these lines are fastened together, and used as one line, extending in length near three miles, and furnished with above two thousand five hun dred hooks; an anchor and buoy are fixed at the first end of the line, and another at the end of every other line; in all, four anchors, and four buoys, made of leather or cork.

The line is always laid across the currents ; the tides of flood and ebb continue an equal time upon our coast; and, where undisturbed

by winds, run each way about six hours; they are so rapid, that the fishermen can only shoot and haul their lines at the turn of the tide; and, therefore, the lines always remain upon the ground six hours; the same rapidity of tide prevents them from using hand lines, and, therefore, two of the people commonly wrap themselves up in the sail, and sleep, while the other keeps a strict look out, for fear of being run down by ships, and to observe the weather; for storms often rise so suddenly, that it is sometimes with extreme difficulty they escape to the shore, though they leave the lines behind

them.

Such is the account which M. Pennant gives of the manner in which the taking of these fish is conducted in the channel; but there are annually larger vessels, of twenty-five tons burden, that repair at the time of Lent to the Dogger Bank, where they fish for turbot, cod, ling, and skates indiscriminately, and where the business is carried on in a more expeditious manner, for as the fishermen have no occasion to wait the returns of the tide, each takes along with him twice the number of lines, which he continues to bait, haul, and shoot, without interruption.

But this method of fishing, operose as it may seem, and this extent of line, though itruns three miles along the bottom, is trifling when compared to the exertions made in the Mediterranean by the Italian fishers: there they go to sea in a tartan, a vessel much larger than ours; and bait a line of no less than twenty miles long, with above ten thousand hooks. This line is called the parisina; and the mode of fishing is named pielago. A piece of tackle of such enormous length, it is impossible to hawl and shoot in the same space with the English lines: it remains for a considerable period in the sea, and cannot be taken up in less than twenty-four hours. By this apparatus, they not only take rays, but sharks and other large fishes; some of them above a thousand pounds weight. When a fish of this magnitude is found at the line, the men are provided with an harpoon to dispatch them before they are brought on board.

2. R. oryrinchus. Sharp-nosed skate. Varied; middle of the back with ten spinous tubercles.

Willoughby describes this species, which he examined at Rome in 1664. They are frequently taken on the British coasts; and are distinguished from the former by their long, narrow, and sharp-pointed snout, not unlike the end of a spontoon. The mouth is very large, and furnished with a number of small sharp teeth, bending inwards: the tail is thick, and terminates in two small fins. The whole fish seven feet long.

This is supposed to be the bos of the ancient naturalists, a fish they describe as of an enormous size. Oppian gives an account of its fondness for human flesh, and the method it takes of destroying men, by overlaying them, and keeping them down with its vast weight till they are drowned. Other writers give the

same relation, and confirm the character of these anthropophagi. In the south they are so well known, that the persons employed in the pearl fishing have learned from the fatal experience of many of their own body how much they ought to be guarded against, These unhappy divers are sometimes surrounded, and wrapped round by the fins of the manta, for so this animal is by the pearl-fishers called, till they are suffocated: the negroes, therefore, take care never to go down without a sharp knife to defend themselves against so terrible an enemy.

3. R. torpedo, Torpedo, or electric ray, Body entirely smooth, flat. This species inhabits our own and the Mediterranean seas, and grows to a large size, some weighing not less than eighty pounds, though the usual weight is not more than twenty: its colour is a dirty clay; the head and body are round, and but indistinctly separated; the latter extremely thin, and attenuated towards the edges. Behind the eyes are two wide foramina, which Willoughby supposes are intended for conveying sound; they are beset with six cutaneous fingers on their inner circumference, and communicate with the mouth.

The torpedo can live only twenty-four hours out of the sea, and but little longer if put into fresh water; it inhabits those places where the bottom is sandy, and buries itself superficially by flinging the sand over its back with a vi bration it gives to its extremities, It is in this concealed situation that the torpedo astonishes the unwary passenger, who inadvertently treads upon it, by the exertion of a faculty perhaps the most extraordinary in nature.

The narcotic power of this animal has been taken notice of in all ages; the instant the fish is touched it benumbs the arm, and sometimes the whole body of him who touches it. The same effect is produced even when it is touched with a stick, or trodden upon by a person who has his shoes on. Oppian stretches the matter probably too far, when he alleges that it will benumb the fisherman through the whole length of the line and the rod.

The shock given by this animal most nearly resembles that of an electrical machine; it is sudden, tingling, and painful. It is thus described by Kempfer: The instant I touched it with my hand I felt a terrible numbness in my arm, as far up as the shoulder. Those who touch it with the foot are seized with a stronger palpitation than those who apply the hand to it. This numbness bears no resemblance to that which we feel when the vein has been a long time pressed, and the foot is said to be asleep; it rather appears like a sudden vapour, which, passing through the pores in an instant, penetrates into the very spring of life, whence it diffuses itself over the whole hody, and at the same time gives real pain; the nerves are so affected, that the person struck imagines all the bones of His body, particularly those of the limb that received the blow, are driven out of joint; all this is accompanied with an universal tremor, a sickness