the daisy: A genus of the Syngenesia order, belonging to the polygamia superflua class of plants; and in the natural method ranking under the 40th order, Compositae-difformis. The receptacle is naked and conic; there is no pappus; the calyx is hemispherical, with equal scales; and the seeds are ovated.

Species, &c. 1. The perennial, with a naked stalk, having one flower. This is the common daisy, which grows naturally in pasture-lands in most parts of Europe. It is often a troublesome weed in the grass of gardens, so is never cultivated. Its leaves have a sub-tle subacid taste; and are recommended as vulneraries, and in asthmas and hectic fevers, as well as in such disorders as are occasioned by drinking cold liquors when the body has been much heated. Ludovic prefers this plant to those commonly used as antiscorbutics and resolvents of coagulated blood in hypochondriacal disorders. 2. The annual, with leaves on the lower part of the stalk, is a low annual plant growing naturally on the Alps and the hilly parts of Italy. It seldom rises more than three inches high; and hath an upright stalk garnished with leaves on the lower part; but the upper part is naked, supporting a single flower like that of the common daisy, but smaller. 3. The hortensis, or garden daisy, with a large double flower. This is generally thought to be only a variety of the common daisy; but Mr Miller assures us, that he was never able to improve the common daisy by culture, or to make the garden daisy degenerate into the common sort for want of it. The varieties of this species cultivated in gardens are, the red and white garden daisy; the double variegated garden daisy; the childling, or hen and chicken garden daisy; and the cock's-comb garden daisy with red and white flowers. The garden daisies flower in April and May, when they make a pretty variety, being intermixed with plants of the same growth: they should be planted in a shady border, and a loamy soil without dung, in which they may be preserved without varying, provided the roots are parted and transplanted every autumn. This is all the culture they require, except keeping them free from weeds. Formerly they were planted as edgings to borders; but for this purpose they are improper, because where fully exposed to the sun, they frequently die in large patches, whereby the edgings become bald in many places.

**Bellis Major.** See **Chrysanthemum.**

**Bellon,** a distemper common in countries where they smelt lead-ore. It is attended with languor, intolerable pains and sensations of griping in the belly, and generally coliciveness.—Beasts, poultry, &c. as well as men, are subject to this disorder; hence a certain space round the smelting-houses is called bellon-ground, because it is dangerous for an animal to feed upon it.

**Bellona,** in Pagan mythology, the goddess of war, is generally reckoned the sister of Mars, and some represent her as both his sister and wife. She is said to have been the inventor of the needle; and from that instrument is supposed to have taken her name, signifying a needle. This goddess was of a cruel and savage disposition, delighting in bloodshed and slaughter; and was not only the attendant of Mars, but took a pleasure in sharing his dangers. She is commonly represented in an attitude expressive of fury and distraction, her hair composed of snakes clotted with gore, and her garments stained with blood: she is generally depicted driving the chariot of Mars, with a bloody whip in her hand; but sometimes she is drawn holding a lighted torch or brand, and at others a trumpet. Bellona had a temple at Rome, near the Circus Flaminius, before which stood the column of war, from whence the consul threw his lance when he declared war. She was also worshipped at Comana, in Cappadocia; and Camden observes, that in the time of the emperor Severus, there was a temple of Bellona in the city of York.

**Bellonarii,** in antiquity, priests of Bellona, the goddess of wars and battles. The bellonarii cut and mangled their bodies with knives and daggers in a cruel manner, to pacify the deity. In this they are singular, that they offered their own blood, not that of other creatures, in sacrifice. In the fury and enthusiasm wherewith they were seized on these occasions, they ran about raging, uttering prophecies, and foretelling blood and slaughter, devastations of cities, revolutions of states, and the like: whence Martial calls them *turba entheata Bellona.* In after-times, they seem to have abated much of their zeal and transport, and to have turned the whole into a kind of farce, contenting themselves with making signs and appearances of cutting and wounds. Lampridius tells us, the emperor Commodus, out of a spirit of cruelty, turned the farce again into a tragedy, obliging them to cut and mangle their bodies really.

**Bellonia** (so named from the famous Petrus Bellonius, who left many valuable tracts on natural history, &c.), a genus of the monogynia order, belonging to the pentandra class of plants. Of this genus there is only one species known, viz. the aspera, with a rough balm leaf. This is very common in the warm islands of America.

**Bellori** (John Peter), of Rome; a celebrated antiquary and connoisseur in the polite arts: Author of the lives of the modern painters, architects, and sculptors, and of other works on antiquities and medals. He died in 1696.

**Bellovaci** (anc. geog.), a people of Gallia Belgica, reckoned the bravest of the Belgae; now the Beauvaisis, in the isle of France.

**Bellows,** a machine so contrived as to expire and inspire the air by turns, by enlarging and contracting its capacity. This machine is used in chambers and kitchens, in forges, furnaces, and foundries, to blow up the fire; it serves also for organs and other pneumatic instruments, to give them a proper degree of air. All these are of various constructions, according to their different purposes; but in general they are composed of two flat boards, sometimes of an oval, sometimes of a triangular figure: Two or more hoops, bent according to the figure of the boards, are placed between them; a piece of leather, broad in the middle, and narrow at both ends, is nailed on the edges of the boards, which it thus unites together; as also on the hoops which separate the boards, that the leather may the easier open and fold again: a tube of iron, brass, or copper, is fastened to the undermost board, and there is a valve within, that covers the holes in the underboard to keep in the air.

Anacharsis the Scythian is recorded as the inventor of bellows. The action of bellows bears a near affinity to that of the lungs; and what we call blowing in the latter, affords a good illustration of what is called respiration in the former. Animal life itself may on some occasions be subsisted by blowing into the lungs with a pair of bellows. Dr Hooke's experiment to this effect is famous: having laid the thorax of a dog bare, by cutting away the ribs and diaphragm, pericardium, &c., and having cut off the apera arteria below the epiglottis, and bound it on the nose of a bellows, he found, that as he blew, the dog recovered, and as he ceased, fell convulsive; and thus was the animal kept alternately alive and dead above the space of an hour. There are bellows made wholly of wood, without any leather about them; one of which is preferred in the repository of the Royal Society; and Dr Plot describes another in the copper-works at Elaston in Staffordshire. Ant. della Fruta contrived a substitute for bellows, to spare the expense thereof in the fusion of metals. This is called by Kircher 'camera acida,' and in England commonly the water-bellows; where water falling thro' a funnel into a clofe vessel, sends from it so much air continually as blows the fire. See the article Furnace, where different blowing machines of this kind are described.

Smiths and founders bellows, whether single or double, are wrought by means of a rocker, with a string or chain fastened thereto, which the workman pulls. The bellow's pipe is fitted into that of the tezel. One of the boards is fixed, so as not to play at all. By drawing down the handle of the rocker, the moveable board rises, and by means of a weight on the top of the upper board, sinks again. The bellows of forges and furnaces of mines usually receive their motion from the wheels of a water-mill. Others, as the bellows of enamellers, are wrought by means of one or more steps or treddles under the workman's feet. Lastly, the bellows of organs are wrought by a man called the blower; and in small organs by the foot of the player. Butchers have also a kind of blast or bellows of a peculiar make, by which they bloat or blow up their meat when killed, in order to piecing or parting it the better.

Bone Bellows, occurring in Herodotus for those applied by the Scythians to the genitals of mares, in order to distend the uterus, and by this compression make them yield a greater quantity of milk.

Hessian Bellows are a contrivance for driving air into a mine for the respiration of the miners. This M. Papin improved, changing its cylindrical form into a spiral one; and with this, working it only with his foot, he could make a wind to raise two pound weight.

Hydrostatic Bellows. See Hydrostatics.