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HYPOCAUSTUM

Volume 11 · 119 words · 1823 Edition

among the Greeks and Romans, a subterraneous place, where was a furnace to heat the baths. The word is Greek, formed of the preposition ὑπό, under; and the verb καύειν, to burn.—Another sort of hypocaustum was a kind of kiln to heat their winter parlours. The remains of a Roman hypocaustum, or sweating-room, were discovered under ground at Lincoln in 1739. We have an account of these remains in the Philosophical Transactions, No 461. § 29.—Among the moderns, the hypocaustum is that place where the fire is kept which warms a stove or hot-house.

HYPOCHÆRIS, Hawr's-eye, a genus of plants belonging to the syngenesia class, and in the natural method ranking under the 49th order, Compositæ. See Botany Index.