Encyclopaedia Britannica, or, a Dictionary of arts, sciences, and miscellaneous literature : enlarged and improved. Illustrated with nearly six hundred engravings > Volume 8, ELE-FOR

E L E [i
Element active and pa Have j for no perfon can prove, that the
r, II ^ nutter which is active in one cafe may not be paffive
' in another, and occafionally refume its activity. Some¬
thing like this certainly happens in the cafe of the
electric Raid, which is modified into heat or light, ac¬
cording to different circumflances •, and we cannot
know but it is the very fame fubftance that conftitutes
the moft folid bodies. This, opinion at leait did not
feem abfurd to Sir Ifaac Newton, who propofed it as
a query, Whether grofs bodies and light were not con¬
vertible into one another ? The end of our inquiries on
this fubjed therefore mult be, That the univerfe may
be compofed of many elements, or of one element; and
of the nature of thefe elements, or of the fmgle one, we
know nothing.
E EE WENT, in a figurative fenfe, is ufed for the prin¬
ciples and foundations of any art or fciencej as Euclid’s
Elements, &c.
Elements, in Agronomyy are thofe principles, de¬
duced from aftronomical observations and calculations,
and thofe fundamental numbers which are employed in
the conftruction of tables of the planetary motions.
Thus, the elements of the theory of she fun, or ra¬
ther of the earth, are his mean motion and eccentricity,
and the motion of the aphelia. The elements of the
theory, of the moon are its mean motion 5 that of its
node and apogee, its eccentricity, the inclination of its
orbit to the plane of the ecliptic, &c.
ELEMI, or Elemy, in the Materia Medica. See
Amyris.
ELENCHU3, in antiquity, a kind of ear-rings fet
with large pearls.
Elenchus, in Logic, by the Eatins called argumen-
tuni' and inqiufitio, ss a vicious or fallacious argument,
which deceives under the appearance of a truth } the
fame with what is otherwife called fophifm.
ELEPHANT. See Elephas, Mammalta Index.
American ELEPHANT: An animal only known in a
folTii date, and that but partially, from the teeth, fome
of the jaw-bones, the thigh-bones, and vertebras, found
with many others five or fix feet beneath the farface on
the banks of the Ohio. But thefe bones differ in fe-
veral refpefls from thofe of the elephant; for which
fee Pqji/ BONES. As yet the living animal has eva¬
ded our fearch. Mr Pennant thinks it “ more than
probable, that it dill exiffs in lome of thofe remote parts
of the vail new continent unpenetrated yet by Europeans.
Providence maintains and continues every created fpecies;
arid we have as much affurance that no race of animals
will any more ceafe while the earth remains, than feed-
tune and harveff, cold and heat, Jiimmer and winter,
day or night. See Mammoth.
ELEPUANT-Beetle. See Scarabteus, Entomolo-
G Y Index.
Knights of the ELEPHANT, an order of knighthood
in Denmark, conferred upon none but perfons of lhe firfl
quality and merit. _ It is alfo called the order of St Mary.
Its inffitution is faid to have been owing to a gentleman
among the. Danifli croifes having killed an elephant, in ,
an expedition againft the Saracens, in 1184 j in memory
of which, King Canutus inftituted this order, the badge
of which is a towered elephant, with an image of the
holy virgin encircled with rays, and hung on a watered
fey-coloured ribbon, like the george in England.
ELEI KAN i A, a fniall, but very remarkable
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3 1 E L E
iiland, about five miles from the caftle of Bombay in Elephants,
the Eait Indies. Of this we have the following de- v '
feription in Mr Grofe’s Voyage to the Eaft Indies.
“ It can at moft be but about three miles in compafs,
and confifts of almoft all hill; at the foot of which, as
you land, you fee, juft above the fhore, on your right,
an elephant, coarfely cut out in ftone, of the natural
bignefs, and at fome little diftance not impoflible to be
taken for a real elephant, from the ftone being natu¬
rally of the colour of that beaft. It Hands'on a plat¬
form of Hones of the fame colour. On the back of
this elephant was placed, Handing, another young one,
appearing to have been all of the fame ftone, but has
been long broken down. Of the meaning, or hiftory,
of this image, there is no tradition old enough to give
any account. Returning then to the foot of the hill,
you afeend an eafy ilant, which about half way up the
hill brings you to the opening or portal of a large ca¬
vern hewn out of a folid rock into a magnificent
temple : for fuch furely it may be termed, confidering
the immenfe workmanfhip of fuch an excavation ; and
feems to me a far more bold attempt than that of the
pyramids of Egypt. There is a fair entrance into this
fuoterraneous temple, which is an oblong fquare, in
length about 80 or 90 feet, by 40 broad? The- roof
is nothing but the rock cut Hat at top, and in which
I could not difeern any thing that did not Ihow it to
be all of one piece. It is about ten feet high, and fup-
ported towards the middle, at equidiftance from the
iides and from one another, with two regular row's of
pillars of a lingular order. They are very maffive,
fhort in proportion to their thieknefs, and their capi¬
tal bears fome refemblance to a round cufhion prefied
by the fuperineumbent mountain, with which they are
alfo of one piece. At the further end of this temple.
are three gigantic figures 5 the face of one of them is
at leaft five feet in length, and of a proportionable
breadth. But thefe reprefentatipns have no reference
or connexion either to any known hiftory or the
mythology of the Gentoos. They had continued in
a tolerable Hate of prefervation and wholenefs, confi¬
dering the remotenefs of their antiquity, until the. ar¬
rival of the Portuguefe, who made themfelves mafters
of the place 5 and in the blind fury of their bigotry,
not fuffering any idols but their own, they muff have
even been at fome pains to maim and deface them, as
they now remain, confidering the hardnefs of the ftone.
It is faid they even brought field-pieces to the demoli¬
tion of images, which fo greatly deferved to be fpared
for the unequalled curiofity of them. Of this Oueen
Catherine of Portugal was, it feems, fo feniible, that
fhe could not conceive that any traveller v'ould return
from that fide of India without vifiting the w'onders
of this cavern j of which too the fight appeared to me
to exceed all. the deferiptions I had heard of them.
About tvvo-tiurds of the way up this temple, on each
fide,, and fronting each other, are tw'o doors or out¬
lets into 1 mailer grots or excavations, and freely open
to the air. Near and aoout the door-way, on the
right hand, are feveral mutilated images, fingle and in
groups. In one of the laft, I remarked a.kind of re-
lemblance to the ftory of Solomon dividing the child,
there Handing a figure with a drawn fword, holding in
one hand an infant with the head downwards, which
it appears in ,att to cleave through the middle. The.
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