Page:Cyclopaedia, Chambers - Supplement, Volume 2.djvu/584

 S U K

S U L

Sugar has been faid to be a fpecific againft the famous In- dian poifon mentioned by Mr. tie la Condamine ; but this feems a miftake. See the article Poison. Coarfe fugar, in which there is more oil than in refined fugar, is recommended as a good medicine in Collyria for difcharging ulcers of the cornea, in which aftringents are hurtful. Demour's Diff. fur les Malad. des yeux. Labourers in fugar-hbuks are very fubjciEt to dyfenteries. The vitrum antimonii ceratum is an effectual remedy in thefe cafes. See Vitrum antimonii ceratum.

Maple Sugar. See Maple. ,

Sugar of milk. See Milk..

Sugar fpirit, a name given by our diftillers to a fpirit made in England, Holland, and other places, from the warnings, fcummings, drofs, and wafte of a fugar -baker's refimng- houfe. The manner of preparing it is the fame with that ufed for the malt and melafies fpirits. The refufe of the fugar is fermented with water in the ufual manner, then diftilled into what is called low wines, and afterwards recti- fied, without any addition, into proof fpirit. When the operation is well performed, and no foul foetid, or foreign matter, has got in among the warn, this is a to- lerably clean fpirit. We ufually make it fuch, but in Hol- land it is ufually made very naufeous and difagreeable ; though capable, by an eafy rectification familiar with us, though not much known abroad, of being brought to a fine and clean fpirit. With us this fugar fpirit is ufed to mix With, and adulterate brandy, rum, and arrack, which will receive a large dofe of it without its being at all difcover- able ; but the Dutch, who have it very coarfe, can only adulterate rum with it, and even that will bear but a fmall proportion, without being betrayed by its naufeoufnefs. This fugar fpirit reduced to alcohol makes one of the pureft fpirits we are acquainted with, much fuperior to that of me- laffes, and much more to that of malt. Shaw's Effay 01 Diftillery.

We have, in the Philofophical Tranfa&ions, an account of a volatile and pungent fpirit of fugar, which was made froi what the fugar- bakers call fugar-water, which is no other than the water in which the aprons, moulds, and other utenfils, employed in the refining of fugar, are waftied This was fo extremely pungent, that a man could not fmell to a large quantity of it without danger of fuffoca'Jon ; and fo volatile, that no flopping it up could preferve its fpirit for any length of time. Phil. Tranf. N° 130.

SUGGESTUS, among the Romans, a place in the campus martins raifed higher than the reft, where every magiftrate, according to his rank, was allowed to harrangue the peo> pie j but private perfons could not, unlefs they firft obtained leave from fome magiftrate to do it. Pitifc. in voc.

SUGGRUNDARIUM, among the Romans, a place where infants, not exceeding forty days old, were buried ; it being unlawful to burn them. Pitifc. in voc. See the articles Burning and Burial.

SUGITIVA, a term ufed by fome authors to exprefs medi- cines, which fuck up and abforb the ferofities in dropfical perfons.

SUIT {Cyclf — Svn-Jiher, m our old writers, a fmall rent, or fum of money, paid in fome manors to excufe the ap- pearance of freeholders at the courts of their lords. Blount.

SUKOTYRO, in natural hiftory, the Chinefe name of a very large and remarkable horned animal, which feems to be the fame with the carnivorous bull of Pliny and the antients. It is of the fize of a large ox ; its head is fliaped like that of a hog ; its ears are long and hairy ; and its tail is bufhy. On each fide of the head, near the eyes, there ftands a large horn, refcmbling the ivory tufk of the elephant, but not altogether fo thick. Nieuhoff, who gives this account, adds, that it is very rarely caught, and that it feeds on grafs ; but this laft obfervation may poilibly have been fpoken of courfe, without any one's having certainly known it. All that we have ever feen of this animal, is a pair of horns of an en- ormous fize, now in the poffeflion af Sir Hans Sloane, and of which he has given an account to the Academy of Sci- ences at Paris.

Thefe were found in fome part of Wapping, by Mr. Doyly, the inventor of the Englifti fluff of that name, in a cellar he had hired j they were much injured by time, and in many places rotten, and worm eaten. No one could re- member any account of the place whence they came, or how they were brought to that place.

They are ftrait for fome diftance from the bafe, but higher up they begin to bend, and go on crooked to a point. They have much more of the external appearance of the horns of .the goat, than the ox kind, being not round, but flatted, and varioufly undulated with high tranfverfe ridges and fur- rows. They are not both exacl in length, but the longeft meafures fix feet, fix inches and a half in length. The dia- meter at the bafe is feven inches, and the circumference there a foot and a half. The weight of the largeft is nearly two and twenty pounds, and it will hold in its cavity a gallon and a pint of water ; and would hold much more, were it not for the worm-holes near the bafe. The captain of an Eaft-Indian fhip, on feeing thefe horns,

affured Sir Hans that they belonged to a large fpecies of bull in the Eaft, which he had feen, and which, by his account* feemed to be the fame with die creature before mentioned, as defcribed by the antients; though none of the modern naturalifts having feen it, it has been left out of their ac- counts. Agatharcides, who lived about a hundred and twenty four years before Chrift, has well defcribed this animal} and whatever has been occafionally fpoken of it by any others, is all tranferibed from his writings. The creature feems to be a native only of Ethiopia, fome few parts of the Eaft- Indies, and fome inland countries in Africa, never viftted by our travellers. From all the accounts we have, its fize ap- pears to be, at leaft, twice that of our ordinary oxen, and with horns proportionably large. The pair here mentioned feem not to be the only ones preferved in Europe, for Gefner tells us of one of an enormous fize, which is {till hung up in the cathedral church of Strafbufg. Mem. Acad. Par. 1727.

SULA, in zoology, a name given by Hoier* and fome others, to a bird, defcribed as a diftinct fpecies of the webfootcd water-fowl, but feem'ing to be no other than the anfer ba- fanus, or foland goofe. Ray's Ornkholog. p. 249.

SULCATED leaf among botanifts. See Leaf.

SULMO, in ichthyology, a name given by Bcllonius, and fome others, to the falmon.

SULPHUR, {Cycl) in natural hiftory. Sulphurs are defined to be dry, folid, but friable foffde bodies, melting with a fmall heat, when fired in the open air, burning almoft wholly away with a blue flame and noxious vapour, indued with an electric power, and not diffoluble in acids. Some have ufed the word fulphur as a name for the whole feries of inflammable bodies, but as we have alfo been ufed to diftinguiih thofe of a particular kind by the fame name, it feems much more eligible to reftrain that nanie to thofe bodies, and to give fome other for the more general claffes. The word fulphur, in this acceptation, becomes the name of a regular genus of foflils, of which there are four known fpecies. 1. The yellow native fulphur, which in its pureft ftate is of a pale ftraw colour, and as pellucid as the fineft amber j but is more frequently found coarfer, and more opake. It is found in the gold mines of Peru, in Hungary, and in fome other places. 2. The green native fulphur. This is harder than the other, and is ufually found in fmall mafTes compofed of feveral crufts. It is found, fo far as is yet known, only about mount Vefuvius. 3. The grey na- tive fulphur, which is common in Iceland, and many other places, and is the coarfeft and worft of all the kinds. And 4. the moft rare and beautiful of all the kinds, the red na- tive fulphur. This is of a fine glowing red, like cinnabar, and very bright and tranfparent, and is found, fo far as is yet known, only in the gold mines of Peru. Hill's Hift. of Foff. p. 402.

Mr. Homberg having given the original compofition of ful- phur, in his accurate analyfis of that mineral, Mr. Geoffroy attempted to bring that analyfis to the niceft teft, by com- pofing fulphur out of fuch fubftances as appeared to be its conflituent principles.

It appeared from Mr. Romberg's analyfis, that what paffed in the earth for the production of fulphur, was, that the vi- triolic acid, and the common mineral bitumen} both which are always found in great abundance in all places where native fulphur is produced, being joined by a long digeftion under ground, and mixt with fome of the native alkalis of the earth, by an intimate union of all three together, form- ed one mineral fulphur. The beft way of trying the juft- nefs of this hypothefis, was by attempting to make fulphur with the fame fubftances by a chemical digeftion. With this view Mr. Geoffroy mixed the perfectly deflegmated fpirit of fulphur with an equal quantity of Mr. Homberg's balfam of fulphur, carefully prepared } after digefting thefe alone for fome time, he added fome oil of tartar by way of alkali, and then gave the whole a new digeftion. After this the whole being diftilled by the retort with a brifk fire, there came over into the receiver fome phlegm, and a little oil \ and when the veffels were cooled, there was found in the retort a faline matter, yellow in fome parts, and red in others, and every where fmell ing very ftrongly of fulphur. He made a lixivium of this fubftance, filtered the clear li- quor, and adding diftilled vinegar to it, the liquor became turbid, and fmelt ftrongly of fulphur, and, in fine, precipi- tated a white powder, which was true fulphur, and would burn wholly away.

This was the firft experiment; the next was to try whether other fubftances, of the nature of thofe fi-parated from ful- phur, would produce a true fulphur in the fame manner. For this purpofe the fubftances fixed upon were oil of vitriol for the acid, and oil of turpentine for the bitumen ; equal quantities of thefe being mixed together, the whole became very hot, and after ftanding fome time it became red, and / had an agreeable fmell, like the citron: this however, in longer ftanding, became ftronger, and lefs agreeable. The mixture having ftood till it was confiderably thick, there was added to it a quantity of oil of tartar ; the whole then fer- mented together for a long time, but not with any great 1 violence,