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Any violent catastrophe, involving sudden and extensive changes of the earth's surface.

The science of exchanges, a branch of political economy.

mpounds, so that by alternate composition and decomposition the agent is apparenty left unchanged; as, the catalysis of making ether from alcohol by means of sulphuric acid; or catalysis in the action of soluble ferments (as diastase, or ptyalin) on starch.

A violent and widely extended change in the surface of the earth, as, an elevation or subsidence of some part of it, effected by internal causes. Whewell.

The doctrine that the geological changes in the earth's crust have been caused by the sudden action of violent physical causes; -- opposed to the doctrine of uniformism.

Consisting of, or occuring in, disconnected parts or snatches; changeable; as, a catchy wind.

me is from zeal to the cause. Burke. Efficient cause, the agent or force that produces a change or redult. -- Final cause, the end, design, or object, for which anything is done. -- Formal cause, the elements of a conception which make the conception or the thing conceived to be what it is; or the idea viewed as a f…

ole to a degree not sufficient to cause fusion, the physical properties of the body being changed by chemical combination with powder; thus iron becomes steel by cementation with charcoal, and green glass becomes porcelain by cementation with sand.

Progressing by changes from the exterior of a thing toward its center; as, the centripetal calcification of a bone. R. Owen. Centripetal force (Mech.), a force whose direction is towards a center, as in case of a planet revolving round the sun, the center of the system, See Centrifugal force, under Centrifugal. -- Cen…

s ways, consisting essentially of cobalt stannate. Unlike other cobalt blues, it does not change color by gaslight.

ngs, and bring forth living young which they suckle for some time. The anterior limbs are changed to paddles; the tail flukes are horizontal. There are two living suborders: (a) The Mysticete or whalebone whales, having no true teeth after birth, but with a series of plates of whalebone [see Baleen.] hanging down from…

To exchange; to bandy, as words. Spenser.

To change into various colors. [R.]

A kind of joint by which an overlap joint is changed to a flush joint, by means of a gradually deepening rabbet, as at the ends of clinker-built boats.

Having a changeable, varying luster, or color, like that of a changeable silk, or oa a cat's eye in the dark.

Changeableness of color, as in a mineral; play of colors. Cleaceland.

forces and operations of chemistry; employed in the processes of chemistry; as, chemical changes; chemical comnbinations. Chemical attraction or affinity. See under Attraction.

That branch of science which treats of the composition of substances, and of the changes which they undergo in consequence of alterations in the constitution of the molecules, which depend upon variations of the number, kind, or mode of arrangement, of the constituent atoms. These atoms are not assumed to be indivisibl…

Synthesis of organic compounds by energy derived from chemical changes or reactions. Chemosynthesis of carbohydrates occurs in the nitrite bacteria through the oxidation of ammonia to nitrous acid, and in the nitrate bacteria through the conversion of nitrous into nitric acid. -- Chem`o*syn*thet"ic (#), a.…

is a troublesome weed in wheat flelds, and is often erroneously regarded as degenerate or changed wheat; it bears a very slight resemblance to oats, and if reaped and ground up with wheat, so as to be used for food, is said to produce narcotic effects; -- called also cheat and Willard's bromus. [U. S.]…