the Great, a famous strait of Denmark, between the island of Zeeland and that of Funen, at the entrance of the Baltic sea. It is not, however, so commodious, nor so much frequented as the Sound. In 1658 the whole strait was frozen so hard, that Charles Gustavus king of Sweden marched over it with a design to take Copenhagen.

the Lesser, lies to the west of the Great Belt, between the island of Funen and the coast of Jutland. It is one of the passages from the German ocean to the Baltic, though not three miles in breadth, and very crooked.

Balteus, properly denotes a kind of military girdle, usually of leather, wherewith the sword or other weapons are fastened.—Belts are known among the ancient and middle-age writers by divers names, as cæm, zœa, zona, cingulum, reminiculum, rinca or ringa, and baldrellus. The belt was an essential piece of the ancient armour; insomuch that we sometimes find it used to denote the whole armour. In later ages, the belt was given to a person when he was raised to knighthood; whence it has also been used as a badge or mark of the knightly order.

The denomination belt is also applied to a sort of bandages in use among surgeons, &c. Thus we meet with quicksilver belts, used for the itch; belts for keeping the belly tight, and discharging the water in the operation of tapping, &c.

is also a frequent disease in sheep, cured by cutting their tails off, and laying the sore bare; then casting mould on it, and applying tar and goose grease.