Page:Cyclopaedia, Chambers - Supplement, Volume 2.djvu/392

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SACTIM, a word ufed by fome of the chemical writers to

exprefs vitriol. SADAF, in the materia medica, a name given by the Arabiai.

writers, fometimes to the purpura or purple nfh, and fome -

times to the purple fucus, with which the antient Greek women ufed to ftain their cheeks. This was the original of all painting, and the plant was the common purple fea wracks. After this every thing was called fucus that was ufed by the women to paint their faces ; and they had a fucus metallica made of white lead or cerufs, and the purple root of alcanet, &c. were called fuci. SADAR, or Alsador, the Arabian name of the medicinal lotos, defcribed by Diofcorides, and many others of the an- tients. This fhrub was called by fome of the antients acanthus, from its being full of thorns, and hence many have confounded it with the common acanthus, or bear's breech, and many with the acanthus of Theophraftus, which is the acacia or gum arabic tree. The fruit of this tree, callcdby Virgil the berries of the acanthus, is the nabac of the Arabian wmers, though fome would have it to be a kind of fig. Serapion evidently declares the fadar and acanthus of Virgil, that is the lotus cyreniaca of Herodotus, and the lotus of Diof- coridestobe one and the fame plant. Bellonius has alfo defcrib- ed it under the name of vapeta, a name probably derived from nabac, the appellation ufually given its fruit : he fays it is an ever-green fhrub, and was called by fome of the Greek writers cemplia. Profper Alpinus, in his account of the Egyptian plants, alfo defcribes the nabeca as a thorny fhrub ; though authors have obferved that there are two fpecies of it, the one thorny and the other not. Leo Africanus, in his third book, mentions alfo the fame tree ; but he miffakes the name, writing it rabech inftead oi'nabech ; he fays it is a prickly tree, producing a fruit refemblmg a cherry, but (mailer, and of the talte of the zizyphus. Thefe are the berries of the acanthus mentioned by Virgil. Projper Alpin. de Plant. J^gypt.

SADDLE (Cycl.) — A hurtling faddle is compofed of two bows, tw) bands, fore-bollters, pannels, and faeldie-ftraps : and the great faddle has befide thefe parts, corks, hind-bolfters, and a trouflequin. The pommel is common to both. See Bow, Band, Bolster, &c.

A horfeman that would fit a horfe well, ought always to fit on his twift, and never on his buttocks, which ought never to touch the faddle ; and whatever diforder the horfe commits, he ought never to move above the faddle, Guill. Gent. Diet. P. i. in voc.

Saddle-A(7£W, among horfemen, a name given to a horfe, that is hard to fit with a faddle, his reins being low, and his head and neck raifed, fo as to require a faddle to be made on purpofe for him. Guill. loc. cit.

Saddle cafe. See the article Housing, Cycl.

Saddle roll. See the -article Troussequin, Cycl.

Cart-S addle. See the article Cart.

Saddle f traps, are fmall leathern (traps, nailed to the bows of the faddle, which are ufed to hold the girths fall: to the fuddle. See the article Bows.

SADIR, a word ufed by fome chemilts to exprefs the fcoria of any metal in fufion.*

SADRE, a title given by the Perfians to the chief of the Ma- hometan religion. See the article Caliph.

S1EP/E, a name given by fome medical writers to (harp cor- roding puftules.

SAFFRON, crocus, {Cycl.) in botany. See Crocus.

There is no accident attending the culture of this va- luable and ufeful plant, which the farmers fo much dread, as what they call the rot with us, and in French la mart. 7'his is more common in the faffron fields of the Ga- tinois than in ours. Mr. du Hamel, who undertook to give the Paris academy fome account of this malady of the plant, obferves, that no author has given any account of it ; and that the people employed in the culture of the faff ran, know the terrible effects of it, without at all gueffing at what may be its caufe. It feems a fort of contagion among the plants, fpreading far and wide, and extending from one root as from a center all over a whole field, if not flopped ; the feafon of its raoft fatal fpreading is the fpring, and the mifchief is found to be flopped from farther progrels, by dig- ging deep trenches at that time of the year between the found and the tainted parts of the field.

Mr. du Hamel, in enquiring into the ftate of the roots or bulbs of the faffron in many fields where this diforder reigned, found that the roots in the center where the diftem- perature molt, raged, and thofe at a middle diftance from this part and the border of the field, and thofe at the border, were all in three different ftates, according to the degree of fpreading of the infection. Thofe in the middle where the infection began, were utterly deffroyed, their feveral coats all fhrivelled up and withered, their inner part refembling only a dirty and rotten earth, and their Superficies being co- vered with feveral brownifh red glandulous bodies of the bignefs of beans. Thofe of the middle diftance were found in a condition nearly allied to thefe ; their integuments were flaccid, but not wholly .withered; and there were fome re- mains of the fleihy bulb within j but this matter was a fort of

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pulp, looking as if it had been boiled. It was eafy to fee from this, that thefe roots were fpeedily approaching to the perfect ftate of decay of the others ; they were covered in the fame manner on their outrides with glandulous fubftances, like thofe of the middle roots, only that they fecmed on thefe. more plump, and well fed. At fome diftance from thefe he alfo obferved a number of violet coloured threads, forming a fort of network in the ground.

The roots at the edges of the field were found in a yet much founder ftate than any of the others ; their bulbs feemed un- hurt, and the membranes found and frefh, but they were in many places covered with reticular violet coloured filaments, and from fome pairs of thefe there ifTued fmall glandules, which feemed ready to grow into the fame Ihape and fize with thofe on the decayed roots ; though they, at this time, appeared only as fo many purple fpots lodged on the furface of the root or between its membranes. The earth all about thefe roots was alfo found to be full of thefe reticular violet coloured threads.

Thefe violet threads and their glandules being always found in the places where the rot was among the faffron roots, and never id any other place, it became very natural to fup- pofe they had fome confiderable fhare in the contagion ; to examine, therefore, what they truly were, Mr. du Hamel picked feveral of them out of the jsarth, and having warned them clean, he found that they were very like the truffle in appearance ; and in all their qualities they were feldom larger than a hazel nut, and were covered with a fort of foft down or velvety coat, and they had a mufhroom like tafte, but with an earthy flavour. There were found fome of them ad- hering to the bulbs of the faffron, and others two or three in- ches diftant from them; the violet threads are of the thicknefs of a coarfe thread, and are covered with a velvety coat, in the fame manner with the glandulous bodies ; fome of thefe ex- tend themfelves from one to another between thefe glandules, while others fpread themfelves over the furface of the bulb of the faffron, and pierced it in many directions quite to the center : they make numerous anaftomofes and inofculatlons in the body of the root, and have fattened to them in feveral places little knots or ganglions, which feem only fmall tufts of the cottony or velvety matter which covers them. From the whole it feems very clear, that this is a parafi- tical plant, which grows very quick in its glandules ; and by means of thefe threads, or filaments, fucks its nutritious juices from the roots of the faffron, which it by that means deftroys. It feems to grow in the fame manner with the truffle, that is, it never appears above the furface of the earth, but is produced under giound, and there grows and propagates its fpecies. It fpreads very fait, and ioon occu- pies a large compafs of ground, continually furnifhing new glandules at the end of the filamentous roots, in the manner of the potatoe and fome other roots. Thus the difeafe of the faffron, wherever it begins, fpreads itfelf every way in 1 a circular direction ; and there is nothing to be feen on the furface of the earth, which can give any opportunity of gueffing at its caufe.

It remained now to enquire whether this plant was peculiar to fields of faffron ; and whether it was brought thither with the faffron, or was there before : arid another material ques- tion was, whether it could draw its nnuriihment from any other plants, or muff, have it from faffron only. To try this, Mr. du Hamel put fome of the bulbs of the new plant into a pot of frefli earth, where he alfo planted fome roots of faffron, of narciflus, and of the common lilly. Six months afterwards, examining the whole, he found the glandules had greatly increafed in number, and had fed upon the lilly roots as well as on the faffron ; hence it appeared, that this was a real plant capable of increafing itfelf, and not deftined fingly to that food ; after this digging up the earth in feveral places where faffron had never been planted, he found in fome places the fame parafitical plant, fattening it- felf to the roots of the anonis, and fome other plants, and letting alone feveral others, Such as the fenecio, £fc The roots of mufcari were alfo fometimes found affected by it ; and a certain diftemperature, which the florifts complain. of in their tulip roots, feems to be owing to the fame caufe. This mifchievous plant, however fatal it prove to the faffron fields ; may, on the contrary, prove a real benefit in corn fields, by deftroying many of the pernicious herbs which hurt the corn, as it preys only on thofe which fend their roots deep into the earth, never hurting thofe which are Super- ficially fixed, as corn, and the like are. The florift, how- ever, is probably often as much injured by it, as the faf- fron cultivator ; and doubtlefs, whole beds of plants are often deftroyed without the proprietor's knowing what to attribute the mifchief to. One misfortune attending this deftroying plant, is, that the common culture of land which deftroys other weeds, ferves rather to promote its increafe, Since it delights in light dry earth, not in wet, or undug lands : it is poffible, however, to flop its progrefs, by dig- ging pretty deep between the found and the infected roots ; of the laft, thofe which are eaten to the heart can never recover again, but tf thofe which are only wounded Super- ficially there is fome hope ; fince it is common for them to

be