Cassionberry-bush or South-sea Tea; a genus of the trigynia order, belonging to the pentandra class of plants. There are three species, all of them natives of warm climates. Of these the most remarkable is the yapon, which is a native of the maritime parts of Virginia and Carolina. It rises to the height of ten or twelve feet, sending out branches from the ground upward, garnished with spear-shaped leaves placed alternately, which continues green through the year. The flowers are produced in close whorls round the branches, at the footstalks of the leaves; they are white, and divided into five parts, almost to the bottom. The berries are of a beautiful red colour, and as they continue most part of the winter upon the plants without being touched by the birds, we may reasonably conclude that they are possessed of a poisonous quality; as few of the wholesome innocent fruits escape their depredations. The Indians, however, have a great veneration for this plant, and at certain seasons of the year come in great numbers to fetch away the leaves. On such occasions their usual custom, says Miller, is to make a fire upon the ground, and, putting on it a great kettle full of water, they throw in a large quantity of yapon leaves; and when the water has boiled sufficiently, they drink large draughts of the decoction out of the kettle; which seldom fails to vomit them very severely. In this manner, however, they continue drinking and vomiting for three days together, until they imagine themselves sufficiently cleansed; they then gather every one a bundle of the shrub, and carry it home with them.—In the operation of these leaves by vomiting, those who have tasted of them say, that there is no uneasy sensation or pain. The matter discharged comes away in a full stream by the mouth, without any violence, or so much as disquieting the patient to reach, or decline his head. The Spaniards who live near the gold mines of Peru, are frequently obliged to drink an infusion of this herb in order to moisten their breaths; without which they are liable to a sort of suffocation, from the strong metallic exhalations that are continually proceeding from the mines. In Paraguay, the Jesuits make a great revenue by importing the leaves of this plant into many countries under the name of Paraguay or South-sea tea, which is there drank in the same manner as that of China or Japan is with us. It is with difficulty preserved in England.

Cassini (Johannes Dominicus), a most excellent astronomer, born at Piedmont in 1635. His early proficiency in astronomy procured him an invitation to be mathematical professor at Bologna when he was no more than 15 years of age; and a comet appearing in 1652, he discovered that comets were not accidental meteors, but of the same nature, and probably governed by the same laws, as the planets. In the same year he solved a problem given up by Kepler and Bullialdus as insolvable, which was, to determine geometrically the apogee and eccentricity of a planet from its true and mean place. In 1663, he was appointed inspector-general of the fortifications of the castle of Urbino, and had afterward the care of all the rivers in the ecclesiastical state; he still however prosecuted his astronomical studies, by discovering the revolution of Mars round his own axis; and, in 1666, published his theory of Jupiter's satellites. Cassini was invited into France by Lewis XIV. in 1669, where he settled as the first professor in the royal observatory. In 1677 he demonstrated the line of Jupiter's diurnal rotation; and in 1684 discovered four more satellites belonging to Saturn, Huygens having found one before. He inhabited the royal observatory at Paris more than forty years; and when he died in 1712, was succeeded by his only son James Cassini.