3.5

15

10.5

12:5

8:3

19-75

46.2

100.

The distinguishing characters of Zingiberaceæ are-first, | root. When the cuttings are planted out in spring, which the structure of the seed, in which a fleshy body is inter- is the mode generally pursued in its cultivation, in the posed between the embryo and the albumen, entirely en- course of three or four months their rootstocks have a veloping the former. This body is called vitellus by mild aromatic flavour; and it is in this state they are rs: Brown, and is the remains of the innermost integument for the preparation of what is called preserved ginger of the ovule, which is unabsorbed during the progress of At the end of the year or the beginning of the nex: the seed to maturity. A second peculiarity consists in the they are considered fit to yield the ginger of commerce 2-celled anthers; and with this structure is combined de- The rootstocks are then prepared in two ways: either by cidedly aromatic properties. But the distinction between scalding them in boiling water, and drying them with art Marantaceæ and Zingiberacea depends, as pointed out by ficial heat; or by peeling, and drying them in sunshine, Lindley, on more important considerations than these. without immersing them in hot water. The former is the In true Zingiberacea,' he says, as Brown has observed, mode of preparing the black ginger, and the latter way the stamen is always placed opposite the labellum, or an- that of the white ginger of commerce. The chea terior division of the inner series of the corolla, and pro- composition of the rootstock of ginger, according to ceeds from the base of the posterior outer division; while Bucholz, is as follows:the sterile stamens, when they exist, are stationed right Soft acrid resin and left of the labellum. But in Marantaceæ the fertile Yellow volatile oil stamen is on one side of the labellum, occupying the place Acidulous extractive of one of the lateral sterile stamens of Zingiberaceæ. This Soluble gum peculiarity of arrangement indicates a higher degree of Bassorin irregularity in Marantaceæ than in Zingiberaceæ, which Starch also extends to the other parts of the flower. The supLignin. pression of parts takes place in the latter in a symmetrical manner; the two posterior divisions of the inner series of the perianthium, which are occasionally absent, corresponding with the abortion of the two anterior stamens. In Marantaceæ, on the contrary, the suppression of organs takes place with so much irregularity, that the relation which the various parts bear to each other is not always apparent instead of the central stamen being perfect, while the two lateral ones are abortive, as in Zingiberaceæ and most Orchidaceæ, or of the central stamen being abortive and the two lateral ones perfect, as in some Orchidaceæ, it is the central and one lateral one that are suppressed in Marantaceæ. Taking Zingiberacea and Marantaceæ together, they are nearly allied to Musaceæ, especially in the character of their leaves; but all Musacea have either five or six stamens, with a calyx and corolla alike. With Iridaceae these orders also agree in their superior flowers and the triple number of their stamens, but the abortive or deformed character of these organs in Zingiberacea and Marantaceæ distinguishes them. Their aborted stamens ally them with Orchidaceæ, from which however they differ in the absence of the cohesion of stamens and style.

The following genera belong to this order :

Nearly all the species are tropical plants, and by far the greater number inhabit various parts of the East Indies; they are also found in Africa and America.

The plants belonging to this order possess great beauty, on account of the development of their floral envelopes and the rich colours of their bracts. They are also employed to a considerable extent in medicine and as condiments, on account of their aromatic stimulating properties. Some of these are referred to under CURCUMA LONGA (the Turmeric plant), CARDAMOMS, and AMOMUM. Of the various genera belonging to this order, Zingiber is probably the most important. It is known from the rest by the inner limbs of the corolla having but one lip, and the anther having a simple recurved horn at the end. There are several species belonging to this genus, which was formed by Roscoe. The Z. officinalis, the Narrow-leaved common Ginger, has subsessile, linear-lanceolate, smooth leaves, elevated oblong spikes, acute bracts, and a 3-lobed lip. The rootstock of this plant is the ginger of commerce. It is imported into England from various quarters of the world, but more especially the East and West Indies. This plant is now grown in almost all parts of the globe in tropical climates, but it seems to have been originally indigenous in the East Indies. The gingerplant may be propagated by seeds or by cuttings of the

or

Ginger is one of the most agreeable of the hot aromatics, and is consequently much used as a condiment. It also enters into the composition of many medicines, where it acts as a carminative.

Z. Zerumbet, the Broad-leaved Ginger, is a native of the East Indies, and has delicate stems; bifarious, sessile, arceolate leaves; broad obovate bracts, and a 3-lobed im This plant is much used in the East for cataplasms and le mentations, but is not taken internally.

The genus Alpinia has an uncrowned anther, the terior limb of the corolla with one lip, the capsule a ber, the seeds with an aril. This genus was named by Wilde now in honour of Prosper Alpinus, an Italian physic and botanist, who lived in the sixteenth century. He physician to the Venetian consul at Cairo, and dunga stay in Egypt made several excursions into the inten the country, and collected more information with rega to the natural history than had been done by any previas traveller. On his return from Egypt he published several works on the natural history of that country, and espect on the plants of other countries which he had collected there, through the commerce of that part of the work He was professor of botany at Padua, and died in 1617, of 64.

the

age

T

This is one of the largest genera of Zingiberace plants, and one of the species, Alpinia Cardamomum, yieks a part of the seeds known by the name of Cardamoms [CARDAMOMS.] They are all splendid plants, and form & handsome addition to our hothouses. They require m their cultivation a rich soil, a moist heat, and plenty of room. A. racemosa, a handsome species, is best cultivated as an aquatic.

Hedychium is a beautiful genus of plants. They have a grateful smell, and the species are called Garland-flowers, The anther is naked, the tube of the corolla is long and slender, with both limbs tripartite, and the capsule dry In cultivation, the species, of which H. angustifolium is one of the handsomest, they require a light rich soil, and large pots to make the plants flower well.

Kampferia, a genus named after Engelbert Kæmpfer, the Japanese traveller, has the anther with a 2-lobed crest, and the tube of the corolla long and slender, with both limb tripartite. The plants belonging to this genus have no stem. There are several species, all of them natives the East Indies, and all are known by the name of Gala gales. Some of the species have the aroma of the order, with a sharpish acid taste, and are used as condiments and medicines.

Roscoea, a small genus of the order, was named in ho nour of William Roscoe, the historian of the Medic who published a monograph of the plants belonging to the order Zingiberaceæ.

The genus Globba contains species which produce spikes of smoky-coloured berries, which are about the size of grapes, and are sometimes eaten. (Cyclopedia of Plants; Lindley's Natural System: Christison's Dispensatory; Burnett, Outlines.) and the ZINNIA, a genus of plants belonging to the natural

division Heliopside of that tribe. It was named by Linnæus in honour of Dr. John Godfrey Zinn, professor of physic and botany at Göttingen, and author of a work entitled Catalogus Plantarum Horti Academici et Agri Göttingensis,' which was printed in 1757. He also wrote several treatises on various points of physiology. He was a pupil of Haller, and followed his master in the adoption of his system, in opposition to that of Linnæus. He died in 1758, at the age of 32.

This genus very closely resembles Rudbeckia, with which it was originally confounded by Zinn himself. It has a chaffy receptacle, the seed-down consists of two erect unequal awns, the calyx imbricated, somewhat ovate, the florets of the radius from 5 to 10, permanent and undivided. All the species are natives of South and North America; they are annuals, and form handsome borderplants in gardens. They may be propagated by seeds, which should be sown on a slight hotbed early in the spring. When the plants are three or four inches high, they should be pricked out on another bed previously prepared to receive them, where they may remain till the summer is advanced, when they may be planted out in the borders.

where he had been sent by the Danish government. Ziegenbalg was accompanied by a young native of Malabar, whom he had converted to Christianity; and it is said that the sight of this proselyte inspired Zinzendorf with the idea of propagating the Christian religion among the heathens, a design which he never lost sight of, and which he ultimately carried into execution. In 1719 Zinzendorf left Wittenberg, and travelled to Holland and France, for the purpose of making the acquaintance of distinguished divines. His religious principles at that time were pure, and in accordance with the Confession of Augsburg: he was of course not yet a sectarian, and distinguished himself from his fellow-believers only by his greater zeal and more fervent piety. At Utrecht he was highly distinguished by the jurist Vitriarius and by Basnage, both of whom encouraged him to preach, which he did with the greatest success. From Holland he went to Paris, accompanied by his friend the count of Reuss-Ebersdorf. Having been introduced to the nobility and at the court, he availed himself of the opportunity, and endeavoured to convert them to the Lutheran church. On some his sermons had a good effect, others styled him a Jansenist and Pietist; but to the majority he was an object of laughter and ZINZENDORF, NICOLAUS LUDWIG, COUNT mockery. None however ventured to ridicule him to his daVON, the founder (restorer) of the sect of the Moravian face. Instead of an ordinary preacher of awkward manBrothers, or Herrnhuters [MORAVIANS], was the son of Countners and uncouth Teutonic expressions, they saw a noble 12 Georg Ludwig von Zinzendorf, chamberlain and state- man accustomed to frequent the most aristocratic societies, minister of Augustus II., elector of Saxony and king of who spoke French elegantly, and who, notwithstanding his Poland. He was born on the 26th of May, 1700. He lost youth, showed so much talent, learning, and self-posseshis father at an early age. His mother made a second mar- sion, that wherever he appeared he was an object of general riage with the Count von Natzmer, a Prussian field-mar- attraction. He maintained serious discourses on religion shal; and young Zinzendorf was educated under the care in the midst of the most frivolous society in the world; he of his maternal grandmother, the widow of Baron von was much noticed by the first men in Paris, and was freGersdorf, a pious and learned lady, who wrote some quently at the court of the Duke of Orleans, then regent hymns and treatises on religious subjects, and corresponded of France. Lord Stair, the English ambassador at Paris, in Latin with several distinguished divines and scholars. treated him with great respect. Father De la Tour, the This lady lived on her estate in Lusatia, where she was general of the order of the Oratory, introduced him to frequently visited by pious men: the celebrated Jacob the archbishop of Paris: the prelate and the count enSpener was her most intimate friend, and it was the influ- deavoured to convert each other, but neither succeeded. ence of this divine, who was considered the head of the From Paris Zinzendorf went to Switzerland, and thence Pietists, which produced in the mind of young Zinzendorf returned to Saxony in 1721. Being now of age, he was that religious tendency which made him noticed when a intrusted with the management of his extensive estates, mere child, and in later years led him to reform the Pro-and the elector of Saxony appointed him a member of his testant faith. In 1710 Zinzendorf was sent to the Paeda-state council. The count however was seldom seen at its gogium at Halle, which was then directed by Francke, to whose particular care he was intrusted. In that school Zinzendorf remained six years, and as Pietism was the ruling principle there also, he abandoned himself entirely to religious pursuits, and founded a mystical order among his fellow-pupils, which he called Der Orden von Senfkorn, or the Order of the Grain of Mustard-seed, in allusion to the passage in St. Matthew (xiii. 31, 32). His family however was not pleased with the theological occupations of a young nobleman, whom they wished to bring up as a statesman, and not for the church, which had been deserted by the Protestant nobility of Germany since the bishoprics and rich prebendaries had been abolished by the zeal of the secular princes. Zinzendorf was accordingly sent to the university of Wittenberg (1716), where there was a spirit in religious matters quite opposite to the Pietism of Halle; but far from giving up his pursuits, he continued to hold religious meetings in his house and elsewhere, and resolved to take orders and devote himself entirely to the church. It is however said that his life there presented a striking contrast with his principles; he was as often seen in gaming-houses as in conventicles; he dressed in the most fashionable style, and being possessed of great personal beauty, imagination, and vivacity, he became the favourite of women whose moral character was suspicious. It is said that he endeavoured to reclaim them to better principles, but it is also true that the doctrines which he afterwards preached presented a strange mixture of idealism and sensualism, and exposed him not only to vulgar slander, but to the reproach of a bad life and hypocrisy, with which he was charged by several of the gravest divines of his time. It was only for a short time that Zinzendorf led this equivocal course of life. During his stay at Wittenberg he formed a lasting friendship with Frederick von Watteville, a young patrician of Bern, who afterwards became the protector of the Moravians in Switzerland; and as early as 1715 he made the acquaintance of Ziegenbalg, the German missionary, on his return from the coast of Malabar, P. C1, No. 1778.

meetings, and he resigned his place in 1728. As early as 1722 he married the sister of his friend the count of Reuss-Ebersdorf, and retired with her to his seat of Berthelsdorf in Upper Lusatia. One day a man called upon him, named Christian David, a carpenter from Moravia, who had travelled much: he belonged to the obscure sect of the Moravian Brothers, who professed the doctrines of John Huss in some remote corners of Moravia. David, who was a pious man, having informed the count of the oppression under which they lived under the Austrian government, Zinzendorf invited him to settle on his estate, and to bring thither such of his friends as would prefer liberty of conscience in a foreign country to religious oppression at home. David accepted the proposal, and returned in the course of the summer of 1722, with three men, two women, and five children, to whom the count gave some land and a wooden house situated at the foot of the Hutberg, or pasture-hill.' Such was the beginning of the celebrated colony of Herrnhut; for this name, which signifies 'the lord's guard,' was given by Zinzendorf to the settlement in allusion to the double meaning of the word Hut,' which signifies guard,' as well as a place where flocks are guarded,' that is, 'a pasture-ground.' [HERRNHUT.] The first settlers were so poor, that the countess presented them with some clothes and a milch cow, to prevent the children from starving; but they were industrious and good people, and soon got into better circumstances.

It was on this occasion that Zinzendorf first conceived the idea of forming a sect, and he published the principles of the new creed in several pamphlets, which sometimes contradict one another, but from which we may nevertheless see that he did not intend to separate from the Augsburg Confession. Herrnhut was destined to become the centre of that sect, and he invited other Moravian brothers, whose religious principles seemed to him to correspond best with his own, to settle in the new colony, to which he gave his solemn benediction. He supported the settlers with gre liberality, and he and his flock soon attracted the atter of Germany and other Protestant countries. The nu VOL. XXVII.-5 H

of his adversaries increased with that of his followers: he
was attacked publicly and privately; but he also received
proofs of respect and esteem from the highest quarters:
the emperor Charles VI. invited him to his court at
Vienna, but Zinzendorf declined this honour as well as
many others.
Faithful to his plan of converting the
heathen, Zinzendorf went to Copenhagen in 1731, for the
purpose of inquiring into the state of the Danish missions in
Greenland, and the East and West Indies; and he despatched
several of his disciples as missionaries to those countries.
This is the origin of the system of the Moravian missions
which are now scattered over the world. The king of Den-
mark, Christian VI., rewarded his zeal with the Knight
Cross of the Order of Dannebrog, which Zinzendorf
accepted; but he sent it back five years afterwards. In
1734 Zinzendorf went to Stralsund for the purpose of
being ordained a minister of the Lutheran church. As
his enemies were numerous, he adopted the name of Lud-
wig von Freideck, and engaged himself as tutor in the
house of a merchant named Richter. After having been ex-
amined by the members of the consistory at Stralsund, he
received ordination and preached in the chief church of that
town. It is said that he became a tutor because he had
devoted all his property to the establishment of his colony
of Herrnhut, and wanted a livelihood; but this is scarcely
credible. If he had lost his property, his devoted ad-
herents would have supported him; or his brother-in-law,
the count of Reuss-Ebersdorf, who was his sincere friend,
would have supplied him with the necessary means. Be-
sides, Zinzendorf continued to travel about the world; and
although he was often in temporary want of money, be-
cause he spent large sums at once, he was never obliged
to give up his plans for want of funds. In 1735 he intended
to go to Sweden, but, on his arrival at Malmoe, he was
ordered to leave the kingdom immediately. Upon this he
attacked the king of Sweden, Frederick of Hesse-Cassel,
in a pamphlet, of which he sent copies to the principal
courts of Europe. This made him new enemies, and in
1736 he was banished from Saxony on the charge of hav-
ing introduced novelties and preached dangerous prin-
ciples in meetings of a suspicious character, which tended
to weaken the authority of the government and to bring
into contempt the services of religion as practised by the
Protestant church. Zinzendorf took refuge with his bro-
ther-in-law, the count of Reuss-Ebersdorf, who was a
sovereign member of the empire; and it was only in 1747
that he was allowed to return into Saxony. In the same
year, 1736, he went to Holland, at the request of the prin-
cess-dowager of Orange, and founded the colony of s' Heer-
endyk (the lord's dyke), which was afterwards transferred
to Zuyst. Thence he went to Livonia and Esthland,
caused the Bible to be translated into the Livonian and
Esthonian languages, and established several Moravian
colonies there. On his return he was invited to Berlin by
the king of Prussia, Frederick William I., who had a very
unfavourable opinion of Zinzendorf, whom he believed to
be a vulgar fanatic; but no sooner was the count intro-
duced to the king, and spoke to him with that gentle and
noble persuasion which had always distinguished him, than
the king changed his opinion. Their conversation lasted
three days, and the king was so pleased with him that he
promised to acknowledge him as bishop of the Moravians,
if the count would be ordained. Zinzendorf having agreed
to the proposal, the Reverend Jablonski, who held the
office of the king's first court preacher, ordained him
bishop (May, 1737). The ordination of a bishop, by one
who was not a bishop, was hardly in concordance with the
canon law; but as Luther had ordained a bishop (Ams-
dorf), although he himself was no bishop, the practice
seemed to be justified; and the ordination finally contri-
buted to raise Zinzendorf in the opinion of the world,
although, strange enough, the king of Prussia would not
allow him to preach in public.

them tried to convert the other, but of course without effect. They were often engaged in discussions on regious subjects, and they argued particularly the question, whether men could attain perfection in this world, which Wesley affirmed, but Zinzendorf denied. From Lond Zinzendorf proceeded to the Danish colony of St. Thomas in the West Indies, and on his arrival there found that the Moravian missionaries who had been sent thither a tw years before had been thrown into prison, and they chapels shut up by order of the local government. He succeeded in obtaining their liberty, and defended his ad their cause with so much eloquence that the governor pro mised not to obstruct the religious services of the brothe hood. He now returned to Germany, made a ton o Switzerland, where Vernet and other French writers and philosophers received him with a kind of respectful carasity, but avoided any intimacy with him; and in 1742 he set out for his great tour to the British colonies in Nora America. He was accompanied by his daughter, who was then only sixteen. No sooner had he arrived in Penns vania than he was assailed by accusations of the most d gusting and revolting description, which he supported with his usual calmness and forbearance. At Germantown be performed divine service regularly every Sunday, ar! made himself so popular that the inhabitants, who wer mostly Germans, chose him their minister. He accepted the office with visible satisfaction, and being afterwas obliged to continue his travels, wrote to Herrnhut, and caused one of the preachers there to come over to Ame at his own expense, and to take his place as minister Germantown. He also ordered a church to be built there at his own expense, for the use of the Moravian congreg tion, who had hitherto assembled in a barn. At Phila phia Zinzendorf delivered a Latin speech in presence of a numerous auditory, to whom he declared that he cosidered his title of count to be inconsistent with his functions, and that he would henceforth be called Va Thumstein, which was the name of one of his estates. I Quakers in Philadelphia acted very kindly towards h and defended him warmly against his detractors: used to call him friend Louis. After having visited Indians in the interior of the country, and founded the celebrated colony of Bethlehem, he returned to ope (1743). During his absence the Moravian brothers Livonia had endeavoured to establish their faith in an a bitrary manner in all the Lutheran churches of th country, and Zinzendorf was accused of having encouraged them to such proceedings. However, so far was he fro having ever had the slightest idea of propagating his creed by other means than those of reasonable persuasion, that he immediately proceeded to Russia in order to justify himself. On arriving at Riga he received an order tre the empress Elizabeth to leave the empire immediate and he was put under a military escort, which accompanied him on his return as far as the Prussian frontier, and prevented him from holding any communications with the inhabitants. A few years after this he was allowed to turn to Saxony (1747). During his exile the brethren tad increased in number and in wealth, and their good coduct and industry had made them many friends amer people of rank, so that the government gradually treated them with less severity. Zinzendorf's numerous and powerful friends also pleaded in his favour, and the vernment was finally fully persuaded of the reformers honesty by an offer of the brethren to buy the castle of Barby and its territory, which belonged to the crown, t were of no use, as the castle was half in ruins and the so barren, and for which the brethren offered to give one hundred and fifty thousand thalers (25,000.), if the might be allowed to establish there a school of divinity. The Saxon government assented, full liberty of rehe was granted to the brethren, and Zinzendorf returned to Herrnhut. In 1749 he went to England, and through the About this time Zinzendorf was informed that he might protection of Archbishop Potter, General Oglethorpe, a return to Saxony if he would sign a paper declaring him- several other men of influence whose attachment to the self guilty of several charges which had been brought church could not be doubted, he obtained an act of pr against him by slanderers, but he nobly refused to do so, liament for the establishment of Moravian colonies and in North America. He now set out for America to carry his pa into execution, and after an absence of some year turned to Herrnhut. His last great tour was in 1737 Wesley received him with when he visited his friend Von Watteville at Montmara great kindness and esteem: and it is said that each of in the canton of Bern in Switzerland, whence he proceed

he went to London, and held private meetings in his house, which were attended by a great number of both pious and curious persons, and led to the establishment of

Moravian congregation.

ZIR

to Holland. He finally returned to his flock, and the Countess of Reuss, his wife, being then dead, he married Anne Nitschmann, the daughter of one of the first Moravians who had settled at Herrnhut, and who for many years had been superintendent of the spinsters at Herrnhut. Zinzendorf passed the last years of his active life in perfect quiet and retirement at Herrnhut, and when he died, after a short illness, on the 9th of May, 1760, he was buried in the cemetery of that place; thirty-two Moravian preachers from all the countries in the world, some even from Greenland, bore his offin, which was followed by two thousand brethren and a crowd of people of all ranks and confessions.

6

787

Zinzendorf's activity was unbounded, but he had excellent health. He wrote more than one hundred pamphlets, all directed to the propagation of his creed, or to the defence of himself or his brethren. The following are some of them:Attici Wallfahrt durch die Welt (Atticus' Travels through the World'), a description of his first tour to Holland and France; Das gute Wort des Herrn' (The good Word of the Lord'), a kind of catechism; Die wahre Milch der Lehre Jesus' (The true Milk of the Doctrine of Jesus'); Der Deutsche Socrates' ('The German Socrates'), a periodical, &c. Many of them are anonymous. He also wrote a great number of hymns, which are in the songbooks of the Moravians; they are of a remarkable mystical tendency; the versification is often harsh and the style broken, but they are wonderfully adapted to the organ and to singing in chorus. His writings may generally be characterized as a compound of beauty and tastelessness, of clearness and mystical dimness, of deep thoughts and common-places wrapt up in grand words. Dr. Jahr, the eminent homoeopathist, who was formerly a Moravian preacher, used to say that he had made the hymns of Zinzendorf the subject of his particular studies, but that he could not unriddle many of his allusions and mystical words, though he was initiated into what is commonly called the mysteries of the Moravian creed. There is another defect, but only in the earlier writings of Zinzendorf, which deserves censure, although the author made apology for it, and regretted his aberrations in his later and cooler years. This is the pious obscenity which poisons many of his hymns and sermons, and is particularly conspicuous in such as treat of the mystical marriage of Christ with his bride the church, and the Most unctions of the Holy Ghost as a spiritual mother. of his sermons were not published, nor even written by him, but by others who took short-hand notes of them which they afterwards caused to be printed. Zinzendorf as a poet is the founder of a particular school of hymn-writers. (Varnhagen von Ense, Leben des Grafen N. von Zinzendorf, in the fifth volume of his 'Denkmale;' this is the best biography of Zinzendorf; the author is considered to hold the first rank among German biographers; Spangenberg, Leben des Grafen N. von Zinzendorf, from which extracts have been published by Reichel and Duvernois; Spangenberg was one of the earliest friends and disciples of Zinzendorf, and his work is not impartial; an English abridgment of it was published under the title of Memoirs of the Life of Count Zinzendorf, Bishop of the Moravian Brethren,' by Spangenberg, translated by Samuel Jackson, with an Introductory Essay by Latrobe, London, 1838. 8vo.; Müller, Das Leben des Grafen N. von Zinzendorf, in the third volume of his 'Bekenntnisse berühmter Männer.")

ZIPHIUS. [WHALES, p. 297.]

ZIRCON.-Hyacinth; Jargoon.-Occurs in attached, imbedded, and loose crystals. Primary form a square prism. Cleavage parallel to the lateral planes, indistinct. Fracture conchoidal, undulating, brilliant. Hardness, scratches quartz. Brittle. Colour white, grey, red, reddish brown, brownish orange, yellow, pale green; streak white. Lustre adamantine. Doubly refractive in a very high degree. Transparent; translucent; opaque. Specific gravity 4.505. Before the blow-pipe infusible, but loses its colour; with borax fuses into a transparent glass.

Found at Expailly, in France; Ceylon; at Friedrich-
suärn, Norway; Greenland, the United States, &c.
Analysis of the zircon from Expailly, by Berzelius :-
Silica
Zirconia

33.3

66.7

100.

ZIRCONIA. [ZIRCONIUM.]

ZIRCONIUM, a peculiar metal obtained from the earth or metallic oxide zirconia. It is procured by heating the double fluoride of potassium and zirconium with potassium in a glass or iron tube. When the cooled mass is treated with water, a black powder very much like charcoal remains, and this is zirconium, containing however some hydrate of zirconia, from which it is freed by hydrochloric acid: being afterwards washed with hydrochlorate of ammonia and alcohol, it remains nearly pure.

The properties of zirconium are,- that under the burnisher it assumes the lustre of iron, and is compressed into scales resembling graphite. When heated in the air, even below redness, it takes fire; and by combining with oxygen is converted into oxide of zirconium, or zirconia. Alkalis or acids, except the hydrofluoric acid, produce little effect upon zirconium, but this dissolves it with the evolution of hydrogen gas.

Oxygen and Zirconium, constituting the earth zirconia, exist in the state of silicate in the zircon, and also as a titaniate in the aeschynite. [TITANIUM.] Its properties are,that it resembles alumina in appearance; is inodorous, insipid, and insoluble in water. It is sufficiently hard to scratch glass. When heated by the blow-pipe, it phosphoresces vividly.

It appears to be composed of-
One Equivalent of Oxygen.
One Equivalent of Zirconium

Equivalent

30

Zirconia forms salts with acids, which possess the following characters:-They have an astringent taste; they are precipitated by the caustic alkalis potash and soda, and an excess of them does not redissolve the precipitate. When boiled with sulphate of potash, a subsalt of zirconia is formed, and being insoluble subsides. Infusion of galls produces a yellow precipitate, and phosphate of soda a white one: carbonate of zirconia, when recently precipitated, is soluble in bi-carbonate of ammonia and of potash. ZIRKNITZ. [CIRKNITZ.]

John

ZISKA, or more correctly ZIZKA, OF TROCZNOW, JOHN, the celebrated leader of the Hussites, was born under an oak-tree in the open fields, near the castle of Trocznow, in the circle of Budweis, in Bohemia, about 1360, or, as some say, about 1380. His father, the lord of Trocznow, was a Bohemian noble of more credit than wealth. Zizka lost one eye at an early age, and hence it was said that fiction; Zizka was he was called Zizka, which would signify 'one-eyed' in the Bohemian language. But this the name of his family, and it does ot signify one eyed either in Bohemian or in Polish.* At the age of twelve John Zizka was received among the pages of Wenceslaus, king of Bohemia and emperor of Germany, and he became distinguished among his fellow-pages by his gloomy temper and his love of solitude. Disgusted with the trifling and capricious character of Wenceslaus, Zizka left the court, and sought his fortune abroad. For some time he served as a volunteer in the English army, and distinguished himagainst the French. He afterwards went to Poland, and commanded a body of the Bohemian and Moravian auxiliaries of King Wladislaw II., Jagiello, in his war against the Knights of the Teutonic Order. The dreadful battle of Tannenberg (15th of July, 1410), in which the grand-master Ulrich von Jungingen was slain, with 40,000 knights and soldiers, was decided in favour of the Poles by those auxiliaries, and John Zizka distinguished himself so much that King Wladislaw rewarded him with a chain of honour and other rich presents. The war being terminated by that battle, Zizka fought against the Turks in Hungary, and having again entered the English army, won fresh laurels at the battle of Azincourt (1415). After this he returned to Bohemia, and accepted a place as chamberlain at the court of King Wenceslaus, against his own inclination, and for reasons unknown.

Zizka was an adherent of the doctrines of John Huss, and the fate of this reformer and his friend Jerome of Prague, who were burnt at Constance, in 1415, was considered by him as an insult to his faith and his country. He His hatred of the Roman Catholic clergy was increased when his favourite sister was seduced by a monk. became conspicuous among those Bohemian nobles who urged King Wenceslaus to revenge the insult, and to proThere are still Zizkas living in Bohemia. 5 H 2