Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XV.djvu/307

 SQUIER SQUILL 295 from the body, the whole arm being more than 30 ft., and the total length of the animal about 44 ft. The most characteristic features are : the irregularity- of the rows of lingual sth, the very simple internal shell or pen, ibryonic form of caudal fin, and clusters of lall suckers and tubercles on long arms ; the rst three indicate a low rank in the family, jlow loligo and ommastrephes ; it may be a lodification of the Jurassic teudopsis preserved jy its oceanic habitat to the present time, like "ler huge marine types having a mesozoic spect. (See SEA SEKPENT.) Probably some these great squids of the genus architeuthis in a total length of 50 ft., including the mg tentacles ; the largest known is probably ie A. princeps (Verrill), from Newfoundland. SQUIER, Ephraim George, an American archsa- logist, born in Bethlehem, 1ST. Y., June 17, L821. He early became an engineer and a jour- st. In 1845 he made a survey, in conjunc- ion with E. H. Davis, M. D., of the ancient lonuments of the Mississippi valley, the re- Its of which were published in 1848 in " An- ient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley," ing vol. i. of the "Smithsonian Contribu- ions to Knowledge;" and in 1848 he explored ie aboriginal monuments of the state of New York. In 1849 he was appointed charge '.'affaires to Guatemala; in 1853 assisted in ie survey of an interoceanic railway route irough Honduras, for the construction of rhich he formed a company ; in 1863-'4 was Fnited States commissioner to Peru to adjust " ims, devoting many months to exploring le ancient monuments of that country ; and 1868 was for a time United States consul sneral to Honduras. At intervals he has lited newspapers at Albany, N. Y., Chilli- )the, O., Hartford, Conn., and New York, id has several times visited Europe. Be- les the above mentioned work and numerous jhasological papers contributed to American " European scientific periodicals, he has pub- led "Aboriginal Monuments of the State New York " (4to, Washington, 1851, being rol. ii. of the " Smithsonian Contributions ") ; "Antiquities of the State of New York" (8vo, Buffalo, 1851), with a supplement on antiquities of the west ; " Nicaragua, its 'eople, Scenery, Ancient Monuments, and )roposed Interoceanic Canal" (2 vols. 8vo, Tew York and London, 1852); "The Ser- snt Symbol, or Worship of the Reciprocal rinciples of Nature in America" (8vo, New r ork, 1852) ; " Notes on Central America," BO. (1854) ; " Waikna, or Adventures on the [osquito Shore," under the nom de plume of >amuel A. Bard (12mo, 1855) ; Question Anglo- imericaine, &c. (8vo, Paris, 1856) ; " The of Central America," &c. (8vo, New r ork, 1857) ; " Report of the Survey of the londuras Interoceanic Railway " (4to, London, L859); " Translation, with Notes, of the Letter Don Diego de Palacio (1571) to the Crown )f Spain on the Provinces of Guatemala, San Salvador, &c." (New York, 1860) ; " Mono- graph of Authors who have written on the Aboriginal Languages of Central America" (1861) ; " Tropical Fibres and their Economic Extraction " (1861) ; " Is Cotton King? Sources of Cotton Supply " (1861) ; " Honduras, De- scriptive, Historical, and Statistical " (London and New York, 1870) ; and " Peru : Incidents of Travel and Exploration in the Land of the Incas " (New York, 1876). Most of his books have been translated into German, French, and Spanish. SQUILL (Lat. squilla or scilla), a drug con- sisting of the sliced and dried bulbs of the scilla maritima of Linnaeus, but the plant has been separated from this genus and is now the urginea maritima of Baker ; it belongs to the lily family, and is a native of the Mediterra- nean region. It has a large, pear-shaped, onion- like bulb, sometimes weighing 4 Ibs. ; the leaves are long, flat, and spreading ; the scape about 2 ft. high, terminated by a long dense raceme of white flowers. It is not rare in cultivation as a window plant, but has no great beauty. The only preparation given the bulbs is to slice them transversely and dry the pieces in the sun; there are two varieties, the white and the rose-tinted bulbs, the later making a dark- colored and less esteemed product. As found in the shops, squill is in the form of horn-like, curved strips, which can only be pulverized by thorough drying, and unless the air be ex- cluded from the powder it absorbs moisture and soon becomes a solid mass. The taste is mucilaginous, bitter and acrid ; its properties Squill (Urginea [Scilla] maritima). are ascribed to a principle called scillitine, which has not yet been isolated. Squill is one of the oldest of medicines, and its use is men- tioned by the earliest writers ; some antiqua- ries think that the onion which the Egyptians regarded as sacred was really the squill bulb.