Page:Cyclopaedia, Chambers - Supplement, Volume 2.djvu/488

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The fpecies of finaph enumerated by Mr. Tournefort, are thefe. i. The turnep-leaved mujfard. 2. The white muf- tard with hairy pods, and red and white feeds. 3. The early wild mujfard with black feeds, called by many charlock, 4. The early black-feeded fe\d-mujlard, or charlock, with undivided leaves. 5. The " rocket-leaved mujfard. 6. The Spanifh mujfard with lobated leaves, and fulphur- coloured flowers. 7. The crefs-leaved Spanifh mitflard. 8. The fmall radifh-leaved Spanifh mujfard. 9. The dwarf white Spanifh mujfard. 10. The largeft Indian lettuce-leaved mujfard. 11. The large Indian lettuce-leaved mujfard with narrower leaves. Town. Inft. p. 227. See Mustard. Sinapi Perficum, Perfian mujfard, a name by which fome botanical authors have called the thlapfi, or treacle-muftard. Ger. EmaC. Ind. 2. SINAPISIS, a word ufed by fome writers as a name for Arme- nian bole. Caji. Lex. Med. in voc. EINAPISTRUM, in botany, the name of a genus of plants, the characters of which are thefe. The flower conhfts of four leaves, difpofed in the form of a crofs. The piftil arifes from the cup, and at length becomes a long cylindric bi- valve pod, ufually containing round ifh feeds. The fpecies of finapiffrum, enumerated by Mr. Tournefort. are thefe. I. The more prickly feven-leaved Egyptian_/?wa- piflrum with flefh-coloured flowers. 2. The lefler, not thorny, five-leaved Indian Jmapijfrum with flefh-coloured flowers. 3. The trifoliate, not thorny, Indian fmapijlrum with flefh-coloured flowers. 4. The fhrubby trefoil Ame- rican Jmapijfrum with the tafte of crefies. 5. The trifoliate red-flowered Portugal Jmapijfrum with horned pods. Tourn. Inft. p. 231. SINASBARIUM, in botany, a name given by fome authors to the Jyfimbrium, or water-mint, common in all our ditches and watery places. Ger. Emac. Ind. 2. SINE (Cycl.) — Sine of incidence, in catoptrics and dioptrics, is ufed for the fine of the angle of incidence. See the article Incidence, Cycl. Sine of rejiecl'ton, in catoptrics, is ufed for the Jini of the

angle of reflection. See Reflecion, Cycl. Sine of refraclion, in dioptrics, is ufed for the fine of the

angle of refraction. See Refraction, Cycl. Sine ajfienfu capituli, in law, a writ that lies where a bifhop, dean, prebendary, or matter of an hofpital, aliens the lands holden in right of his bifhoprick, deanery, houfe, &c. with- out the afTent of the chapter or fraternity ; in which czfe his fuccefibr fhall have this writ. F. N. B. 195. Blount, Cowel. SINEW (Cycl.) — Sinew, in the manege. To unfmew a horfe, called in French enerver, is to cut the two tendons on the fide of the head, about five inches under the eyes ; which two join in one at the tip, or end of the nofe, in order to perform its motion. This tendon, at the tip of the nofe, is likewife cut. We unfmew, in order to dry the head, and make it fmaller. Sinew-_/Z>j-h«£, is faid of a horfe that is over-rid, and fo worn down with fatigue, that he becomes gaunt-bellied, through a ftifFnefs and contraction of the two ftnews that are under his belly. Sinew -fprwig, is a violent attaint, or over-reach, in which a horfe ftrikes the toe of his hinder feet againft the fine w of the fore legs. SINF, in the materia medica of the antients, a word ufed to exprefs the fame as agallochinn, or lignum aloes. The Arabians formed an adjective of this word, and called the yellowifh lignum aloes finficum, and the blackifh indi- cum. Not that the finficum came from any other place, or that the Indicum was given as the name of the country, but that the colours only were expreffed by thefe epithets ; in- dicum being with the antients as a common word to exprefs black by. The only fpecies of myrobalan they had of a black colour, was called the Indian myrobalan ; not for its being peculiarly the produce of that country, but becaufe of its being of the colour they exprefled by that word. SINGERS, in the Jewifh antiquities. See Chanters. SINGLE (Gjcl)~ Single cajf, in hufbandry, a term ufed by the farmers for that fort of fowing, that difperfes the neceflary quantity of corn at one bout. Plot's Oxfordfhire, p, 251. SINGULATOR, among the Romans, a horfeman who rode

with one horfe only. P'ttifc. in voc. SINKING, or Absorptions of the earth. Kircher has writ- ten very largely on this fubject, and antient and modern hiftories agree in relating many fuch facts. The abforpti- ons themfelves are indeed too common, and are the effects of earthquakes, fubterranean fires, and many other accidents of the macrocofm ; but there are much fewer inftances of the reftoring the places thus abforbed, and there are but few of thofe inftances, which are recorded of it, that deferve credit, though fome are unqueflionable.

Pliny tells us, that in his own time the mountain Cymbotus, with the town of Eurites, which flood on its fide, were wholly abforbed into the earth, fo that not the leaft trace of either remained ; and he records the like fate of the city Tantalis in Magnefia, and after it of the mountain Sypelus, both thus abforbed by a violent opening of the earth. Galanis

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and Garnatus, towns once famous in Phoenicia, are recorded

to have met the fame fate ; and the vaft

promontory, called

Phlegium, in /Ethiopia, after a violent earthquake in the night-time, was not to be feen in the morning, the whole having difappeared, and the earth clofed over it. Thefe and many other hiftories, attefted by the authors of greateft credit among the antients, abundantly prove the fact in the earlier ages ; and there have not been wanting too many in- ftances of more modern date. Kircher's Mund, Subter. p. "7. The mountain Picus, in one of the Molucca ifles, was fa lofty, that it appeared at great diftances as an immenfe co- lumn reared erect in the air, and ferved as a land-mark to failors ; an earthquake in this ifland deftroyed it ; at one in- ftant the whole mountain was abforbed into the bowels of the earth, and no mark of its place remained but a vaft lake of water, exactly anfwering to the fhape of the baje of the mountain. A like accident, but of a more terrible kind, happened in China, in the year 1556, when a whole pro- vince of the mountainous parts of that kingdom was in one moment abforbed into the earth, and all the towns buried, the whole number of the inhabitants finking with it, and an immenfe lake of water remaining in its place to this time. Of much later date is the deftruction of a city in the confines of Swifierland j but this, though generally faid to have been fwallowed up into the earth, was not properly an abforption ; for the whole city was buried by the fall of a mountain upon it.

The burning mountains, Vefuvius and Strongylus, both once very high, have in length of time loft half their height, the upper part having been undermined by the burning, and having fallen into, and been abforbed by the under part. And in the year 1646, during the terrible earthquake in the kingdom of Chili, feveral whole mountains of the Andes difappeared, and were one after another wholly ab/orbed in the earth.

Thefe, and a thoufand other accidents of a like kind, prove the truth of abforptions in general ; fome of them leaving level ground in the place of the things abforbed, fome im- menfe chafms and cracks, and fome lakes of frefh or fait water; and it may be, that many immenfe lakes were form- ed in ages, of which we have no hiftories, by the like ab- forptions.

Pliny gives many accounts of the reftoring of places thus abforbed, but later obfervations do not give an equal credit to thefe parts of his hiftory. He tells us, that thefe reftora- tions are made fometimes in the fame place, where the ori- ginal mountain or ifland was abforbed; fometimes in others, as large fpaces of ground arifing out of the fea in one place, which had been taken from the land in another ; but thefe feem very vague relations. The ifiands of Rhodes and Delos, ha fays, are of this origin, as alfo that of Anephe beyond Melos, and Nea near Lemnos ; that of Aioue between Lebadus and Teus, and Hiera among the Cycladcs ; and finally, the ifland Thia, which he fays appeared in his own time. A modern inftance of this kind, is the fudden production of the new ifland near Santorini ; but this, and probably all the others alfo, was not the refloration of any thing before abforbed, but the effect of a vulcano under water, which threw up a vaft quantity of cinders and fciarri, the whole ifland, as it is called, confifting of nothing elfe. In the fame manner, in the year 1638, an ifland was railed near St. Michael's, in the Atlantic ocean, by fubterranean fires, which threw up ftones, and other fubterranean productions, jn fuch quanti- ties, that they formed an ifland of five miles in length. The mountain raifed in one night, in the fea nearPuzzoli, is an- other inftance of this fudden production of thefe mountains : this appeared after one night's violent fubterranean conflict, and ftill keeps its place, and is known under the name of the Mom Sanclus. Not one of thefe, however, appeared in the place of any thing that was abforbed ; and there is more imagination, than judgment, in fuppofing them to have any connexion in the laws of nature with the abforptions of other places, very diftant, and at diftant times. Kircber's Mund. Subter. p, 79. SINKOO, in the materia medica, a name given by fome au- thors to the lignum aloes, or agallochum, ufed in medicine. Dale's Pharm. p. 347. SINNET, aboard a {hip, is a line or ftring made of rope- yarn, confifting generally of two, fix, or nine firings, which are divided into three parts, and are platted over one an- other, and then it is beaten fmooth and flat with a wooden mallet. Its ufe is to ferve the ropes, that is, to keep them from galling. SINOPICA terra, in natural hiftory, the name of a red earth of the ochre-kind, called alfo rubrica Sinopica, and by fom* authors finopis.

It is a very clofe, compact, and weighty earth, of a fine glowing purple colour, but in fome fpecimens much deeper than in others, and in fome degeneratine; into palenefs ; but even in its worft Condition, it is a very fine colour. It is of a pure texture, but not very hard, and of an even, but dufty furface. It adheres firmly to the tongue, is perfectly fine and fmooth to the touch, does not crumble eafily be- tween the fingers, and ftains the hands. It me|ts very flowly