In some parts of England they understand by a shorling, a sheep whose face is shorn off; and by a morling, a sheep that dies.(James), an eminent optician, was born in Edinburgh on the 10th of June, O.S. in the year 1710. At ten years of age, having lost his father and mother, and being left in a state of indigence, he was received into Heriot's Hospital, (see Edinburgh Public Buildings, n° 16.), where he soon displayed his mechanical genius in constructing, for himself, little chests, bookcases, and other conveniences, with such tools as fell in his way. At the age of twelve he was removed from the Hospital to the High School, where he showed a considerable taste for classical literature, and generally kept at the head of his forms. In the year 1726 he was entered into the university, where he passed through the usual course of education, and took his master's degree with great applause.

By his friends he was intended for the church; but after attending a course of theological lectures, his mind revolted from a profession which he thought little suited to his talents; and he devoted his whole time to mathematical and mechanical pursuits. He had been fortunate enough to have the celebrated Mr Laurin for his preceptor; who having soon discovered the bent of his genius, and made a proper estimate of the extent of his capacity, encouraged him to prosecute those studies in which nature had qualified him to make the greatest figure. Under the eye of that eminent master, he began in 1732 to construct Gregorian telescopes; and, as the professor observed in a letter to Dr Jurin, "by taking care of the figure of his specula, he was enabled to give them larger apertures, and to carry them to greater perfection, than had ever been done before him." See Optics, n° 97.

In the year 1736 Mr Short was called to London, at the desire of Queen Caroline, to give instructions in mathematics to William duke of Cumberland; and immediately on his appointment to that very honourable office he was elected a fellow of the royal society, and patronized by the earls of Morton and Macclesfield. In the year 1739 he accompanied the former of those noble lords to the Orkney Isles, where he was employed in adjusting the geography of that part of Scotland; and happy it was for him that he was so employed, as he might otherwise have been involved in a scuffle which took place between the retainers of Sir James Stewart of Barra and the attendants of the earl, in which some of the latter were dangerously wounded.

Mr Short having returned to London, and finally established himself there in the line of his profession, was in 1743 employed by lord Thomas Spencer to make for him a reflector of twelve feet focus, for which he received 600 guineas. He made several other telescopes of the same focal distance with greater improvements and higher magnifiers; and in 1752 finished one for the king of Spain, for which, with its whole apparatus, he received 1200l. This was the noblest instrument of the kind that had then been constructed, and perhaps it has never yet been surpassed except by the astonishing reflectors of Herschel. See Telescope.

Mr Short was wont to visit the place of his nativity once every two or three years during his residence in London, and in 1766 he visited it for the last time. On the 15th of June 1768 he died, after a very short illness, at Newington Butts, near London, of a mortification in his bowels, and was buried on the 22d of the same month, having completed, within a few days, his fifty-eighth year. He left a fortune of about 20,000l. of which 15,000l. was bequeathed to two nephews, and the rest in legacies to his friends. In gratitude for the steady patronage of the earl of Morton, he left to his daughter the Lady Mary Douglas, afterwards countess of Aboyne, 100l. and the reverend of his fortune, should his nephews die without issue; but this reverendary legacy the lady, at the desire of her father, generously relinquished by a deed in favour of Mr Short's brother Mr Thomas Short and his children. Mr Short's eminence as an artist is universally known, and we have often heard him spoken of by those who had known known him from his youth, as a man of virtue and of very amiable manners.

**Short-Hand Writing.** See Stenography.

**Short-jointed,** in the manege. A horse is said to be short-jointed that has a short pattern; when this joint, or the pattern is too short, the horse is subject to have his fore legs from the knee to the coronet all in a straight line. Commonly your short-jointed horses do not manege so well as the long-jointed; but out of the manege the short-jointed are the best for travel or fatigue.

**Short-Sightedness,** a certain defect in vision, by which objects cannot be distinctly seen unless they are very near the eye. See Optics, n° 155.

**SHORTFORD,** q. d. *forecloe,* an ancient custom in the city of Exeter, when the lord of the fee cannot be answered rent due to him out of his tenement, and no distress can be levied for the same. The lord is then to come to the tenement, and there take a stone, or some other dead thing off the tenement, and bring it before the mayor and bailiff, and thus he must do seven quarter days successively; and if on the seventh quarter-day the lord is not satisfied of his rent and arrears, then the tenement shall be adjudged to the lord to hold the same a year and a day; and forthwith proclamation is to be made in the court, that if any man claims any title to the said tenement, he must appear within the year and day next following, and satisfy the lord of the said rent and arrears: but if no appearance be made, and the rent not paid, the lord comes again to the court, and prays that, according to the custom, the said tenement be adjudged to him in his demesne as of fee, which is done accordingly, so that the lord hath from thenceforth the said tenement, with the appurtenances to him and his heirs.

**SHOT,** a denomination given to all sorts of balls for firearms; those for cannon being of iron, and those for guns, pistols, &c. of lead. See Shooting.

**Cafe Shot** formerly consisted of all kinds of old iron, nails, musket-balls, stones, &c. used as above.

**Shot of a Cable,** on ship-board, is the splicing of two cables together, that a ship may ride safe in deep waters and in great roads; for a ship will ride easier by one shot of a cable, than by three short cables out ahead.

**Grape Shot.** See Grape-Shot.

**Patent milled Shot** is thus made: Sheets of lead, whose thickness corresponds with the size of the shot required, are cut into small pieces, or cubes, of the form of a die. A great quantity of these little cubes are put into a large hollow iron cylinder, which is mounted horizontally and turned by a winch; when by their friction against one another and against the sides of the cylinder, they are rendered perfectly round and very smooth. The other patent shot is cast in moulds, in the same way as bullets are.

**Shot-Flaggon,** a sort of flaggon somewhat bigger than ordinary, which in some counties, particularly Derbyshire, it is the custom for the host to serve his guests in, after they have drank above a shilling.

**Small Shot,** or that used for fowling, should be well sized, and of a moderate bigness: for should it be too great, then it flies thin, and scatters too much; or if too small, then it hath not weight and strength to penetrate far, and the bird is apt to fly away with it. In order, therefore, to have it suitable to the occasion, it not being always to be had in every place fit for the purpose, we shall set down the true method of making all sorts and sizes under the name of mould-shot. Its principal good properties are to be round and solid.

Take any quantity of lead you think fit, and melt it down in an iron vessel; and as it melts keep it stirring with an iron ladle, skimming off all impurities whatsoever that may arise at the top: when it begins to look of a greenish colour, throw on it as much auripigmentum or yellow orpiment, finely powdered, as will lie on a shilling; to every 12 or 14 pound of lead; then stirring them together, the orpiment will flame.

The ladle should have a notch on one side of the brim, for more easily pouring out the lead; the ladle must remain in the melted lead, that its heat may be the same with that of the lead, to prevent inconveniences which otherwise might happen by its being either too hot or too cold: then, to try your lead, drop a little of it into water, and if the drops prove round, then the lead is of a proper heat; if otherwise, and the shot have tails, then add more orpiment to increase the heat, till it be found sufficient.

Then take a plate of copper, about the bigness of a trencher, which must be made with a hollowness in the middle, about three inches compass, within which must be bored about 40 holes according to the size of the shot which you intend to cast; the hollow bottom should be thin; but the thicker the brim, the better it will retain the heat. Place this plate on a frame of iron, over a tub or vessel of water, about four inches from the water, and spread burning coals on the plate, to keep the lead melted upon it: then take some lead and pour it gently on the coals on the plate, and it will make its way through the holes into the water, and form itself into shot; do thus till all your lead be run through the holes of the plate, taking care, by keeping your coals alive, that the lead do not cool, and so stop up the holes.

While you are casting in this manner, another person with another ladle may catch some of the shot, placing the ladle four or five inches underneath the plate in the water, by which means you will see if they are defective, and rectify them.

Your chief care is to keep the lead in a just degree of heat, that it be not so cold as to stop up the holes in your plate, nor so hot as to cause the shot to crack: to remedy the heat, you must refrain working till it is of a proper coolness; and to remedy the coolness of your lead and plate, you must blow your fire; observing, that the cooler your lead is, the larger will be your shot; as the hotter it is, the smaller they will be.

After you have done casting, take them out of the water, and dry them over the fire with a gentle heat, stirring them continually that they do not melt; when dry, you are to separate the great shot from the small, by the help of a sieve made for that purpose, according to their several sizes. But those who would have very large shot, make the lead trickle with a stick out of the ladle into the water, without the plate.

If it stop on the plate, and yet the plate be not too cool, give but the plate a little knock, and it will run again; care must be had that none of your implements be greasy, oily, or the like; and when the shot, being separated, are found too large or too small for your purpose, pose, or otherwise imperfect, they will serve again at the next operation.

The sizes of common shot for fowling are from No. 1 to 6, and smaller, which is called mustard seed, or dust shot; but No. 5 is small enough for any shooting whatsoever. The No. 1 may be used for wild geese; the No. 2 for ducks, widgeons, and other water-fowl; the No. 3 for pheasants, partridges after the first month, and all the fen-fowl; the No. 4 for partridges, woodcocks, &c.; and the No. 5 for snipes and all the smaller birds.

Tin-Case Shot, in artillery, is formed by putting a great quantity of small iron shot into a cylindrical tin-box called a canister, that just fits the bore of the gun. Leaden bullets are sometimes used in the same manner; and it must be observed, that whatever number or sizes of the shots are used, they must weigh with their cases nearly as much as the shot of the piece.