HEATHER

In a general sense the term heath is applied to waste land in which the prevailing plants consist of one or more of the common species of heath — Calluna and Erica. (Calluna vulgar is, Sal. The Erica communis of Linnaeus.) This plant covers many hundreds of acres in the Highlands of Scotland, in Ireland, and in similar climates on the Continent. It attains, in many places, the height of three or four feet; and is used for thatching houses, making besoms, and for a variety of other purposes. The tender tops form a substitute for mattre es in Highland cottages; and they are also eaten green and in a dried state by horses, cattle, and sheep, in countries where the gra es and clovers do not begin to grow till late in the spring. HEAVE, in nautical phrase, to employ force to move great weights by the lever, .; as to heave up the anchor by the capstan or windla ; to heave down the ship, or pull her over on one side to get at a leak; also to heave taught (tight), or turn the capstan till the rope or chain applied to it becomes tight. HEAVEN, the Celestial Sphere, or Firmament, or Sky, in Astronomy, denotes the spaces in which the celestial bodies are placed, or through which they apparently perform their diurnal revolutions. Aristotle and his disciples believed the heavens to be composed of incorruptible elements, incapable of destruction or of any change whatever; and this opinion long continued to exercise a baneful influence on the progre of astronomy, as it led to the consequence that the celestial bodies are altogether of a different nature from the earth, and have nothing in common with our planet. It was finally overthrown by the discoveries and reasoning of Galileo. The term heaven is also frequently used to denote the orb or sphere in which a celestial body appears to move; and hence the ancient astronomers a umed the existence of as many heavens as they observed different and apparently independent motions. They supposed the various heavens to be solid, because they could not otherwise sustain the bodies placed in them; and spherical, because perfect motion must be performed in a circle whicli is formed by the section of a sphere; and crystalline, because the different bodies are visible, though their orbs include one another. The first heaven was that of the Moon, the second of Venus, the third of Mercury, the fourth of the Sun, the fifth of Mars, the sixth of Jupiter, and the seventh of Saturn. The eighth, which is that of the fixed stars, was called particularly the firmament. Ptolemy added a ninth, which was the Primum Mobile. All these reveries have been exploded by the discovery of the true system of the world, and the laws of the planetary motions." [s. 557]