Page:Cyclopaedia, Chambers - Supplement, Volume 2.djvu/500

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Jhall be fufe to have a bite \ and may, if your tackling hold, get the largeft of eels. Vid. Cox, Gentl. Recr. Part 4.

P- 39* SNIPE, in zoology. See the article Gallinago minor. _ "Thefe birds are eafdy taken, by means of lime-twigs, in this manner : take fifty or fixty birchen-twigs, and lime them all very well together ; take there out into places where there are fnipes, and having found the places which they moft frequent, which may be feen by their dung, fet the twigs in thefe places, at about a yard diftance one from an- other. Other places, are thofe where the water lies open in hard frofty and fnowy weather : in thefe places alfo, and where-ever they are fufpedted to come to feed, let more lime-twigs be placed in the fame manner. The twigs are not to be placed perpendicularly in the ground, but flopmg, fome one way, fome another ; the fportfman is then to re- tire to a diftance, ,and watch the coming of the birds to thefe places. When they fly to them, they naturally take a fweep round the earth, and by this means they will almoft always be caught by one or other of the twigs. When a firft fnipe is taken, the fportfman is not to run to take it up, for it will feed with the twig under its wings, and this will be a means of bringing down more of them to the place. When three or four are taken, they may be taken up, only leaving one fail to entice others ; and thus the fport may be continued, as long as there are any birds of this kind about the place. It may be very proper, when the twigs are planted, to go about, and beat all the open and watery places near, that they may be raifed from thence, and fly to thofe places where the twigs are placed to receive them.

SNORT, in the manege, called in French ebrouer, denotes a certain found which a horfe of fire makes by breathing through his noftrils ; as if he had a mind to expel fomething that was in his nofe, and hindered him to take breath. This noife or found is performed by means of a cartilage within the noftrils, called in Ytenchfouris. Horfes of much mettle fnort, when you offer to keep them in. See the article Squris.

SNOTTOLF, a name ufed by fome authors for a fpecies of the orbis, or globe- fifh, called by Clufius, and other authors, the orbis rants riftu, or frog-mouthed globe-fiih. It is ufually of about fixteen inches in length. It is of a brown colour, variegated with white fpots. Its head is very thick, and its mouth large and wide, and very much re- fembling that of a frog. It has one irregular fin on the back, running nearly all the way to the tail, and two rows of tubercles on each fide, one on the middle part of the body, the other nearer the belly. It is frequent in the Ger- man, and in many other feas. The name is Dutch. Gefner. p. 747. Bartholin. Cent. Obf. 2. Hift. 1. This fifh is the cyclopterus of Artedi, and the lumpits of other authors. See the article Lumpus.

SNOW (Cycl.) — Snow may be preferved by ramming it down in a dry place underground, and covering it well with chaff". At Leghorn they ufe barley-chaff for this purpofe. See Phil. Tranf. N° 8. p. 140.

Snow and ice are alfo preferved with ftraw or reeds. Mr. Boyle has defcribed the manner in his experimental hiftory of cold.

It is ufual in hot countries to mix /now and ice with their wine. Hence Pliny b fays, Hi nives, Mi gladem potant, pes- nafque montium in whptatem gula verhint. — [ b Lib. 19. cap. 4. Martial has an epigram on this fiibject, Lib. 14. Epigr. 117.]

&XOV? -drop-tree, a very beautiful American tree, which bears the cold of our climate in the open air; but it is very diffi- cult to encreafe, the layers being two years before they take root, nor will they ever take root at all, except the branches are very young, and are flit in the joint, as in the laying carnations. When thoroughly rooted, they may be tranf-

. planted into fmall quarters of flowering- fhrubs, where, among thofe of a middling growth, they add much to the variety. Miller's Gard. Diet.

Snow-/?o?^, in natural hiftory, a name given by fome to a very beautiful ftone found in America ; of which the Spani- ards are very fond, making it into tables, and other orna- ments in their houfes. Alonfo Barba, who had feen much of it, tells us, that it is found in the province of Atocama, and is ufually found in pieces of four feet long, and four or five inches broad ; fo that it is forced to be joined in the working. Its general thicknefs is about two inches. It has a great variety of colours, which form clouds and varie- gations of a very beautiful kind. The principal colours are red, yellow, green, black, and white. The white is gene- rally formed into fpots on the very blackeft parts of the mafs, and is fo beautifully difpofed, that it reprefents /new falling in all its whitenefs upon a jetty furface. Alonfo Barba of Metals.

SNUFF (Cycl.) — The many mifchiefs attending an unnatural practice of taking this powder of tobacco at the noftrils,

■ have been defcribed by the writers in general on thefe fub- jects, fince this pernicious cuftom has reigned in the world ; but one of the moft remarkable accidents, occasioned by it, is related in the Acta Eruditorum.

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The cafe is this. A fat perfon, greatly addicted to the tak- ing Spanifh fnuff, after many years continued ufe of it, complained one day of a mighty uneafinefs which it occa- fioned in the middle of his cefophagus, and foon after this he began to find his fwallowing difficult. He applied for re- lief to a phyfician, and naming nothing of the pain which had preceded this difficulty of fwallowing, it was treated as a complaint arifing from fome glutinous humor in the cefo- phagus, it is no wonder that the medicines in this inten- tion had no effect. The patient grew worfe, and tired of this doctor, applied to another, who fuppofing the com- plaint arofe from fome fharp humor vellicating the parts, gave medicines in that intention, equally without fuccefs. After this a common quack tried the moft violent medicines on him, but without fuccefs ; and finally he applied to the ufe of the excutiaventriculi, an inftrument made to be thruft down the cefophagus into the ftomach, but this he never could get down ; and in the ufe of this inftrument he firft felt, that there was abfolutely a lump of flefh, which flopped its paf* fage farther than the place where the feat of his complaint was. The diftemper after this encreafed upon him, till he could only fwallow liquids, and thofe at laft by no other means, but the fucking them through a quill, by which means he could get down milk, water- gruel, and the like, by a little at a time. At length confulting another phyfi- cian, and telling him of the immoderate quantity of Spanifh Jnuff he had been ufed to take, and that it often happened to him on taking the drieft fnuff of this kind ; that it got into his cefophagus, and occafioned violent pain, coughing, and fpitting of blood, he foon concluded that a polypus had formed itfelf in the cefophagus, wounded by this fharp pow- der, and that there was no relief, but that the death of the patient was quickly approaching. The man, from a very' corpulent habit, was fo extenuated, that he appeared a mere fceleton ; he died fome little time after of abfolute hunger, the cefophagus being fo entirely filled up by this unnatu- ral fwelli'ng, that not the leaft drop of a liquid could gtt down.

After death the cefophagus was opened, and a flefhy ex- crefcence, or polypus, was difcovered, of the bignefs of the cavity of the part, and taking its origin about the middle, from the back part of the cefophagus, it reached down to the pylorus. This was of a whitifh colour, and much refem- bled a large worm, and its fubftance was fibrous, and very tender. Act. Erudit. Annoi?^. p. 457. Snuff, or Snujper, in the manege. See the article Sncrt. SOAGGIO, the name of a fifh common in the markets of Rome and Venice, and of the turbot-ldnd. It is the rhombo'ides of Rondeletius, and the rhombus non mn- leatus fquammofus of Willughby.

We have it alfo on our own fhores, and the Cornifh people, who frequently catch it, call it the lug-a-kaf. It has no rough lines at the roots of its fins. Its eyes are large, and fet at a confiderable diftance, and it is covered with ex- tremely minute fcales. It is extremely flat and thin, and of an afh-colour.

It is a very lingular fpecies of fifh, differing, in fome par- ticulars, from both thofe genera to which it fcems allied. It differs from the plaife-kind, in that it has the eyes, fins, C3V. of the turbot, or rhombus; and from that fifh, in that it is fcaly, as the plaife, and the other fifh of that genus. mHughby, Hift. Pifc. p. 95. Rondel, de Pifc. p. 358. SOAL, in ichthyology, the Englifh name of the fifh, called by the generality of authors the hughffus, by fomefolea. It is, according to the new iyftem of Artedi, a fpecies of the pleuronectes, and is of that kind which have the eyes placed on the left fide. Some authors call it the linguacula. See Buglossus and Pleuronectes. SOAP (Cycl.) — The making of /cap depending only on the mixing the fait of pot-aih with oil or fat, though this is at prefent procured by a tedious operation, and long bail- ing, it feems very practicable to fhorten, and make the procefs much ealier, and lefs expenfive, by fubftituting mo- tion in the place of fire. This motion might be eafily given by an engine to any quantities of the ingredients at a time ; and we find it practicable to make foap by this means, only by mixing in a large vial half a pint of foap-tees, and an ounce, or more, of oil-olive ; for by fhaking thefe to- gether for a quarter of an hour, an abfolute foap is procured in a cake at the top of the liquor, which hardens on being expofed to the air. Shaw's Lectures, p. 160. The ufe of foap has, of late, been much extolled in medi- cine ; but then thofe, who magnify it moft, except againft the ufe of it in fuch cafes where obftructions are attended with a putrefactive alkali, or where an inflammatory dif- pofition appears. It is acknowledged to be very dangerous in a pthifis, fever, and fome other cafes. The bifhop of Cloyne, in his Siris, feems to think tar-water an ufeful and fafe fubftitute for it. See the article TAk-water. SoAP-rock, or Soap-earth, in natural hiftory. See the article Steatites.

There is great reafon to believe, that when we know the proper manner of working, this will, one way or other, make a great ingredient in our porcelain manufactures.

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