CERUSSE, or white lead, a substance compounded of the acetic acid and lead. It is formed by the metal plates of lead being exposed to the vapours arising from boiling vinegar, and the metal being oxy dized by the action of the air, aided by the affinity of the acid. This has been regarded either as an oxide or a sub-car bonate of lead; though it appears pro bable that it should contain some acetic acid. It serves as the basis from which the more perfect salt, the sugar of lead of commerce, is formed ; the cerusse, in fine powder, is boiled in distilled vinegar, the vinegar being poured off as it loses its acidity, and fresh qualities being suc cessively added. The liquors thus pro cured are then evaporated nearly to the consistence of honey ; and on cooling, masses are formed, consisting of a con geries of needle-like prisms. From the account given by Pontier of the manufac ture of this salt, it appears that it is also formed by exposing plates of lead to the action of distilled vinegar and of the at mospheric air : the plates, as they are in crusted with oxide at the surface of the vinegar, are plunged to the bottom, until this oxide is dissolved, and are again raised to the sitrfitce. The acid is thus at length saturated, and, by evaporation, the solu tion is brought to crystallize.
CEItVUS, the deer, in natural history, a genus of Mammalia of the order Peco ra. The generic character : horns solid, and while the animal is young covered with a hairy skin, growing from the top, annual, branched and naked : eight front teeth in the lower jaw : no canine teeth. There are twelve species, of which we shall particularly notice the C. Aces, or the elk. This animal sometimes attains the height of seventeen hands, and the weight of twelve hundred and thirty ; but such cases are somewhat extraordinary. It is larger in Asia and America than in Europe. It abounds in the cold countries of Sweden, Siberia, :nut Canada, and in the last is called also the moose deer. Its principal food is derived from the boughs of the forest trees in these desolate regions, and the night is gene rally preferred for its repasts. Its man ners are extremely gentle and inoffen sive ; it will however defend itself with great courage and dexterity, both with its horns and fore feet, and has been known, with a single blow from the latter, to de stroy a wolf. Among the North Ameri
can Indians the hunting of the elk is an employment of considerable interest and preparation. One party is occupied in surrounding a large tract of country near the lakes or rivers, and, by means of their dogs, in rousing the elks contained in it, who, finding all escape from danger im practible by land, press onwards to the water. Here, however, they are received by another party of enemies, whose ca noes, extending in a crescent form, in close a considerable space, and reach from shore to shore, and who destroy their victims by clubs and lances. They are often taken also by snares, into which they are driven by the noises and alarms of the Indians, and in which they are in extricably entangled amidst slips of raw hides, or confined within so small a com pass, that they become sure marks for the arrows of their adversaries. It is re marked of the elk, that when first dis lodged, he drops on the ground for a few seconds, as if labouring under a complete prostration of strength, occasioned, pro bably, by the influence of fear. This is the moment invaluable to the hunter, who, if he miss this opportunity, frequently fails in every other, as the animal, after a very short pause, is roused to the most vigor ous flight, which he continues, without suspension, for a progress of twenty or thirty miles.
In the of Ireland, as well as in America, horns have been repeatedly dug' tip of an enormous size, which apparently belonged to an animal of the deer kind, but are far superior in dimensions to those of any animal now known by naturalists, Their length has sometimes been of eight feet, and the distance from the tip of one to that of another has extended to four teen feet. These are justly considered as most curious specimens in the collec tion of natural productions, and the idea of their annual reproduction is well calcu lated to excite astonishment. Mammalia Plate VII'. fig. I.