See SOLANUM, BOTANY Index.

Potatoes, it is generally thought, came originally from North America, where they were not reckoned good for food. They were first (we are told) introduced into Ireland in the year 1565, and from thence into England by a vessel wrecked on the western coast, called North Meols, in Lancashire, a place and soil even now famous for producing this vegetable in great perfection. It was 40 years after their introduction, however, before they were much cultivated about London; and then they were considered as rarities, without any conception of the utility that might arise from bringing them into common use. At this time they were distinguished from the Spanish by the name of Virginia potatoes or battatas, which is the Indian name of the Spanish sort. At a meeting of the Royal Society, March 18, 1662-3, a letter was read from Mr Buckland, a Somerset gentleman, recommending the planting of potatoes in all parts of the kingdom to prevent famine. This was referred to a committee; and, in consequence of their report, Mr Buckland had the thanks of the society, such members as had lands were intreated to plant them, and Mr Evelyn was desired to mention the proposals at the close of his Sylva.

In Sweden, notwithstanding the indefatigable industry of Linnaeus, the culture of potatoes was only introduced in 1764, when a royal edict was published to encourage their general cultivation. They were known there, however, at an earlier period; for in the Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Sciences in Sweden, 1747, M. Charles Skytte proposed to distil brandy from them, in order to save corn, which in that country is very dear. He found by experience, that an acre of land set with potatoes will yield a much greater quantity of brandy than when sown with barley. For a full account of the methods of cultivating and preserving this valuable root, see AGRICULTURE Index.

We have already mentioned a cheap preparation by means of potatoes for the poor, see AGRICULTURE, No 288.; we shall here introduce a receipt to make a potato harrico, which may be equally useful to those whose circumstances are not such as to make them regardless of economy. We take it from the Gentleman's Magazine, and give it in the words of a person who had made the experiment.

"Scrape the skin clean off four pounds of good raw potatoes, then wash them clean in fair water: take two pounds of beef, one of mutton, and one of pork; or, as you like best, four pounds of any of these meats; cut them into pieces of three or four ounces each, season them very well with pepper and salt and a good onion chopped very small: have ready a strong wide-mouthed stone-jar, such as hares are usually juggled in; slice thin a layer of the potatoes into the jar, then a layer of the seasoned meat over them, and so alternately layers of potatoes and meat; let your uppermost layer be potatoes, so that your jar be about three quarters full, but put no water into your jar; then close or stop the mouth of it with a large well-fitted piece of cork, covering the same with a strong piece of canvas, and tying it down with packthread, so as only a little of the steam may escape in the stewing; for a little should constantly evaporate from the side of the cork to save the jar from bursting. Then place your jar upright in a kettle of cold water on the fire, so as the mouth of the jar may be always two inches above the water in the kettle when boiling. The harrico in the jar will begin to boil some minutes sooner than the water in the kettle, and that for obvious reasons. In about an hour after the water in the kettle begins to boil, your harrico will be fully stewed. Then take out and open the jar, pour out the harrico into a deep dish, and serve it up.

"This excellent, wholesome, and economical dish supplies an agreeable dinner twice a week to a family consisting of three grown people, and three children under 14 years of age, where neither health nor good stomachs are wanting, thanks to God: and, in point of economy, we must observe, that here is the whole article of butter saved, as also the whole article of bread, or nearly so; nor does there require so large or so continued a fire, nor so much time or trouble as is necessary for the dressing of many other dishes that by no means deserve the preference to this excellent harrico.

"We have also (by way of change) made it with powdered beef, sometimes with powdered pork, sometimes with half fresh beef or mutton and half pickled pork, and found it good in all these ways, particularly with three pounds of fresh beef and one of pickled pork. We have left off sending pies and stews to the bakers. We sometimes (in a larger kettle) boil a small piece of powdered beef along-side of the jar, by continuing the boiling an hour and a half longer, and this serves us to eat cold the next day, with hot garden-stuff or a pudding."

**Potato-Bread.** See **Bread of Potatoes.**

**Spanish Potato.** See **Convolvulus, Botany Index.**

**Potent,** or **Potence,** in **Heraldry,** a term for a kind of crofs, whose ends all terminate like the head of a crutch. It is otherwise called the Jerusalem crofs. See **Heraldry.**

**Potentia (power),** that whereby a thing is capable either of acting or being acted upon.

**Potential,** in the schools, is used to denote and distinguish a kind of qualities, which are supposed to exist in the body in potentio only; by which they are capable in some measure of affecting and impressing on us the ideas of such qualities, though not actually inherent in themselves; in which sense we say, potential heat, potential cold, &c.

**Potential cautery,** in **Medicine,** denotes the consuming, or reducing to an eftar, any part of the human body by a caustic alkaline or metallic salt, &c. instead of a red-hot iron, which last is called the actual cautery.

**Potential,** in **Grammar,** an epithet applied to one of the moods of verbs. The potential is the same in form with the subjunctive, and is, according to Ruddiman, implied in that mood, for which reason that grammarian rejects it; but others will have it to differ from the subjunctive in this, that it always implies in it either possum, volo, or debo. It is sometimes called the permissive mood, because it often implies a permission or concession to do a thing. See **Grammar.**

**Potentilla, Silver-weed, Wild Tansey,** or Cinquefoil; a genus of plants belonging to the icotandria clas; and in the natural method ranking under the 35th order, Senticoceae. See **Botany Index.**

**Poterium, Garden Burnet,** a genus of plants belonging to the monoecea clas; and in the natural method ranking under the 54th order, Miscellaneae. See **Botany Index.**

**Pothos,** a genus of plants belonging to the gyandria clas. See **Botany Index.**

**Potion,** a liquid medicine, consisting of as much as can be drunk at one draught.

**Potiphar,** or **Putiphar,** an officer of the court of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and general of his troops, according to our translation, Le Clerc, and the version of the vulgate; but according to the Hebrew and Septuagint, the chief of his butchers or cooks. The Hebrew text, the Septuagint, and vulgate, call him Eunuch. But it is probable it in this place means only an officer of the king's court, for he was certainly married and had children. We have no other accounts of him but what appears in scripture; and that account is too generally known to require to be enlarged on in this place. See Genesis xxxviii, xxxix, &c.

**Potosi,** a city of Peru in South America, situated at the bottom of a mountain of that name, in which is the richest silver mine ever discovered. To give an idea of its richness, we shall mention its produce at different times. Exclusive of what was not registered, says Abbé Raynal, and was smuggled away, the fifth part belonging to the government from 1545 to 1564, amounted to 36,450,000 livres £ per annum. But this abundance of metals soon decreased. From 1564 to 1585, the annual fifth part amounted to no more than 15,187,489 livres four sols £. From 1585 to 1624, 15,187,500 livres four sols £. From 1624 to 1633, 6,074,997 livres six sols £. From this last period, the produce of these mines hath so evidently decreased, that in 1763 the fifth part, belonging to the king, did not exceed 1,364,682 livres 12 sols £. Situated in W. Long. 67° S. Lat. 22°. See **Peru.**

**Potsdam,** or **Postdam,** a town of Germany, in the circle of Upper Saxony, with a palace, belonging to the king of Prussia. It is seated in an island 10 miles in circumference, formed by the rivers Spree and Havel. The palace is finely built, delightfully situated on a spot 12 miles west of Berlin. E. Long. 13° 42° N. Lat. 52° 34°. Riebeck in his Travels informs us, that the houses in Potsdam are still finer than those of Berlin; but like them they are inhabited only by persons of the lower and middling ranks. The population of Potsdam is stated at 26,000.

**Pott, Percival,** was born in London in 1713. He received the first rudiments of his education at a private school at Darnle in Kent; and became an apprentice to Mr. Nourse, one of the surgeons of St Bartholomew's hospital; of which hospital, in 1744-5, he was elected an assistant surgeon, and in 1749 appointed one of the principal surgeons. In 1746, he married the daughter of Robert Cruttenden, Esq. His first publication is said to have been planned in 1756, during his confinement in consequence of a compound fracture of the leg: from that time, his pen was seldom long unemployed. His practice and his reputation were now rapidly increasing: in 1764, he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society; and afterward was complimented with honorary diplomas from the Royal Colleges of Surgeons at Edinburgh and in Ireland. In 1787, he resigned the office of surgeon to St Bartholomew's hospital, "after having served it (as he used to say), man and boy, half a century;" and on the 22d of December 1788, after an illness of eight days, he expired.

"The labours of the greatest part of his life (says Mr. Earle, who published his Chirurgical works), were without relaxation; an increasing family required his utmost exertion: of late years he had a villa at Neasden; and in the autumn usually paid a month at Bath or at the sea-side. Thus, though he gathered, as he expressed it, some of the fruit of the garden which he had planted as he went along, and always lived in a generous and hospitable manner, at the same time bestowing on four sons and four daughters a liberal and necessarily expensive education, and applying large sums to their establishment during his lifetime, he left an ample provision for them at his decease. Among his papers was found, what he had often mentioned, a small box, containing a few pieces of money, being the whole which he ever received from the wreck of his father's fortune. With this was deposited an exact account of every individual fee which a long life of business had produced—abundant evidence of well spent time, and the industrious application of abilities, to which the res angusta domi, at the commencement, probably acted more powerfully as an incentive than as an obstacle."

**Potter, Christopher,** a learned English divine, was born in 1591, and bred at Oxford. In 1633, he published published his "Answer to a late Popish Plot," entitled Charity mistaken, which he wrote by special order of King Charles I., whose chaplain he was. In 1634, he was promoted to the deanery of Worcester; and, in 1640, was constituted vice-chancellor of the university of Oxford, in the execution of which office he met with some trouble from the members of the long parliament. Upon the breaking out of the civil wars, he sent all his plate to the king, declaring, "that he would rather, like Diogenes, drink in the hollow of his hand, than that his majesty should want;" and he afterwards suffered much for the royal cause. In consideration of this he was nominated to the deanery of Durham in 1646, but was prevented from being installed by his death, which happened about two months after. He was a person learned and religious, exemplary in his conversation, courteous in his carriage, of a sweet and obliging nature, and of a comely presence. He was remarkable in his charity to the poor.

Potter, Dr John, archbishop of Canterbury, was the son of a linen-draper at Wakefield in Yorkshire, where he was born about the year 1674. He studied at University college, Oxford; and at 19 published Variantes lectiones et notae ad Plutarchi librum de audiendis poetis; et ad Basilii magni orationem ad juvenes, quomodo cum fructu legere possint Graecorum libros, 8vo, 1693. In 1697, came out his edition of Lycephron, in folio; which is reckoned the best of that obscure writer: soon after, he published his Antiquities of Greece, 2 vols, 8vo. These works established his literary reputation, and engaged him in a correspondence with Gravius and other learned foreigners. In 1706, he was made chaplain to the queen; in 1715, bishop of Oxford; and in 1737, he succeeded Archbishop Wake in the see of Canterbury; which high station he supported with much dignity until his death in 1747. He was a learned and exemplary churchman; but not of an amiable disposition, being but too strongly tinctured with the pride of office; nor is it to his credit that he disdained his eldest son for marrying below his rank in life. His "Theological works, containing sermons, charges, discourses on church-government, and divinity lectures," were printed at Oxford, in 3 vols. 8vo, 1753.