that confusion in which matter lay when newly CHAOS [1781] CHA

newly produced out of nothing at the beginning of the world, before God, by his almighty word, had put it into the order and condition wherein it was after the six days creation. See EARTH.

in zoology, a genus of insects belonging to the order of vermes zoophyta. The body has no shell or covering, and is capable of reviving after being dead to appearance for a long time; it has no joints or external organs of sensation. There are five species, mostly obtained by inflations of different vegetables in water, and only discoverable by the microscope. See ANIMALCULE.