Page:LA2-NSRW-4-0330.jpg



SPICE ISLANDS

1798

SPIDERS

has the head of a man; eriosphinx, the head of a ram; and hieracosphinx, a hawk's; yet all have the body of a lion. These were employed along the avenues leading to temples and along the passages that joined together the sacred fortresses which usually outnumbered the temples in every city and were used as the last resort in an attack from enemies. Consult Maspero's Manual of Egyptian Archeology; Binion's Ancient Egypt or Mizraim; and Hamlin's History of Architecture.

Spice Islands. See MOLUCCAS.

Spices, certain vegetable substances, used for flavoring food. They are the product usually of tropical countries, and are brought mainly from the east, though some are found in the tropical regions of America. They come from different parts of the plant, as ginger from the root, pepper and nutmeg from the fruit, cinnamon from the bark, and cloves from the bud. Ginger, cultivated in the East and West Indies, is prepared for the market by scalding the roots in boiling water or by scraping the roots and then washing. The first process makes white ginger, and the last black ginger. Preserved ginger is the young rootstocks preserved in syrup. Nutmeg and mace are obtained from the fruit of trees or shrubs native to Asia, Madagascar and America. Nutmeg is the kernel or seed of the fruit, which is yellow and looks like a pear that is somewhat round, and has rather hard flesh. Around the nut is a network of fibers called mace, and within the thin brown shell is 'the nutmeg. The mace is blood-red when fresh, but when dried, in the sun turns a light brown. It is sprinkled with sea-water to preserve it and pressed flat. Both mace and nutmegs yield an oil and are used in medicine as well as in food. The trees do not bear fruit until eight or nine years old. Cinnamon is the inner bark of the cinnamon-tree. The tree is a native of Ceylon, and grows also in China and South America. The bark is taken from the tree in strips about 40 inches long, and gathered into bundles, which makes it ferment so that the outside bark is easily peeled off. It is dried, and rolled up. The best cinnamon comes from Ceylon. Cloves (called so because they look like small nails, from clavus, the Latin for nail) is the flower-bud of the clove-tree. The tree is a native of the Moluccas, grows about 40 feet high, and lives to be 100 or 200 years old. The spice is the blossom, and is gathered before it is quite open and dried in the shade. The tree does not grow well out of its native soil. The oil of cloves is used in medicine. Pepper is a berry which grows on a climbing shrub. It is about as large as a pea, and there are 20 or 30 in a cluster. They are yellow when ripe, black when dried. Black pepper is made by grinding the whole berry, white pepper by rubbing off the outer cov-

ering before grinding. Cayenne pepper is the pod of a plant, and was first brought from Cayenne in South America. Mustard is obtained from the seeds of a plant, three varieties of which are used — the black found in Europe, the white in Europe, Asia and the United States, and a weed, called the wild mustard, found in England and the United States. The seeds of the wild mustard are used only to mix with the others. The flour made from the seeds is often adulterated, but mixing it with wheat-flour is allowed, as it keeps better and is less bitter and stinging.

Spi'ders, a distinct group of animals related to scorpions, daddy-long-legs and mites. United with the latter, they make the class Aracknida, which is related to the classes of insecta, Crustacea arid myriopoda. Their body is separated into two parts, a combined head and thorax and an abdomen. There are four pairs of walking-legs on the thorax, which distinguish them from all insects, the latter having three pairs of legs. The head carries poison-jaws, mouth-parts and, usually six or eight simple eyes. The arrangement of the eyes is an aid in classifying spiders. They breathe by means of air-chambers on the abdomen, which are called lungs. These number two or four, and, when the former, there also are air-tubes in the body. The spinnerets from which the thread is spun are little knob-like processes on the under side of the abdomen near its tip. There are two, three or four pairs with numerous homy tubes opening upon them. The substance of the thread is fluid and hardens on contact with the air. It is formed within numerous glands, one of which opens in each horny tube. Fluid issues from the various tubes and is usually united into a single thread. Some spiders, in place of spinning webs, send into the air a slender thread which becomes longer and longer, and, finally, is sufficient to act as a float. They let go their hold and go sailing through the air often for miles, supported by this floating thread, and ballooning spiders sometimes are seen far out at sea. Spiders lay eggs in silken bags or cocoons, which are sometimes carried about by the female and at other times attached to objects in sheltered places. The young that hatch from the ball dragged by the mother climb up her back, and for a time she thus carries them about. The kinds of spiders and the webs they form are varied. The cobweb of the house-spiders is most familiar, though there is a much larger number of webs to be found out-of-doors. The common garden-spider with its geometrical web is well-known. The large black and yellow spider is frequently seen in the autumn. The interesting jumping-spiders are common on plants, logs, fences and sides of buildings. The common grass-spider makes its web in the