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This wafliing, Mr. Boyle obferves, is expeditious, cheap, requires no quickfilver, and may be made to laft fome years, and is eafily renewable, when it begins to wear. See his Works Abr. Vol. I. p. 151. Silvering of glajfes. An excellent method of turning fphe- rical, and other glaffes, into fpeculums by flvering, is this : take half an ounce of pure lead, and melt it into a mafs with the fame quantity of fine tin, then immediately add half an ounce of bifmuth, and carefully flam off the drofs; remove the ladle from the fire, and before the matter is cold, add to it five ounces of pure quickfilver, ftir the whole together, and then put the fluid amalgam into a clean glafs.
When this is to be ufed for foiling, or Jikerihg, let it be ftrained through a linnen rag, and then gently pour fome ounces of it into the glafs intended to be foiled, by means of a paper funnel, reaching almoft to the bottom, to prevent its flying up to the fides \ then dexteroufly inclining the elafs every way, endeavour thus to fatten the foil. When this is done, let the glafs reft for fome hours, then repeat the operation, till at length the whole fluid mafs is evenly fpread and fixed over the whole internal furface ; then let the fuperfluous amalgam be poured out, and the outfide of the glafs polifhed. This is the method by which glafs fphcres are made to look as if full of quickfilver, and deferves to be tried on the common looking- glaffes, as having many ad- vantages over the ufual way of filvering them. Shaw's Lec- tures, p. 428. SILURUS, in zoology, the name of a very large fifh, com- monly called in Engliih. the jheat-fijh.
It is caught in the Viftula, and other large rivers, and grows to an immenfe fize, fome having been caught of more than an hundred weight, and of fixteen feet long, and fometimes confiderably larger than that. It refembles the eel in co- lour, but the belly is variegated with black, white, and dullcy fpots. The body is without fcales, and is covered with a mucous fubftance. The head is flat, ftiort and broad, the opening of the mouth extremely large. The body down to the fundament is thick and cylindric, but the bottom of the belly is flat, and from the anus to the tail it is broader and flat. Its eyes are large, and have two antenna?, or ilender excrefcences before them j and four beards hang from the lower jaw. The gills are four On a fide. It has only one fmall fin upon the back, and the tail is not forked. Its flefh is much efteemed for food, and is dreffed for the table as the eel. It is a very voracious fifh, and much dreaded when- ever it comes among the finaller fty.
Gefner mentions two other fpecies of it, one flatted toward the tail, and the other of a mixed green and yellow colour, and having two beards on the upper jaw, and three on the under : he only calls thefe filuri Jecunda, and tertia /pedes. IVillughby, Hift. Pifc. p. 128.
The name is of Grecian origin, and is derivad from the words <rw, to move or fhake, and ofg«, a tail. It is given to this fifh, from its remarkable quality of being almoft con- tinually moving its tail in the water. Silurus is alfoaname given by fome authors to the fturgeon, called by others accipenfr, but by the generality of writers Jlurio. Salvian, de Aquat. Sec the article Sturio. S1MARONA, a name given by the Spaniards in America to a fpecies of vanilla, called alfo bajlard -vanilla. The pods of this kind are every way fmall er than thofe of the true kind, and have very little liquor, or pulp in them when broken, and contain very few feeds. Thefe are greatly inferior to the true kind, having fcarce any finell. It is not yet certainly known, whether this fpecies be the fruit of a different kind of vanilla-plant from the common, or whether it be the fame fruit gathered at a different feafon, or from a plant growing in a different foil. See the article Vanilla. SIMAROUBA. The bark of this plant is very fuccefsful in the cure of dyfentcries, as Mr. Juflieu affures us from his experience. It is a thick yellow bark, of an aftringent bit- terifh tafte, and refembling, as it is faid, the macer of the antients. It was firft brought into Europe from America, in 1 71 3; hut of the tree, which produces it, we have no certain account.
This medicine is. more fuccefsful in decoctions than In fub- ftance. The dofe is about the third part of a quart of de- coction, having two drachms of the bark in it. See Mem. de l'Acad. des Scienc. Anno 1729. S1MARUM mufcuhs, in anatomy, a name given by fome of the old writers to a mufcle, called by the moderns the fer- rates magnus. See Serratus. SIMBALATH, in the materia medica, a name given by Avi- fenna and others to the fpikenard, or nardus Indica. The exact interpretation of the word is fpicigera, and Avi- fenna, under this general name, diftinguifhes it into feveral kinds ; the firft he calls alnardin, or nardin. It has been fuppofed by fome that he means the Indian fpikenard by this word, but, on the contrary, it appears plainly that he means the Celtic nard ; he calls it the nardus Romant oriis, and fays that it is of European growth. After this he men- tions the Afiaiic nards of feveral kinds, which are only the Indian fpikenard, growing in different places, and fuch as Suppl. Vol. II.
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ufed to be brought thence in different degrees of perfection* See the article Nardus. SIMLA, the ape or monkey, is made by Linnseus a diftinct ge- nus of animals, the character of which is, that the creatures of this kind have teeth, have feet compofed of five toes, and made for climbing, and have their paps on the breaft. £*»* nai Syftem Nat. p. 34.
This genus comprehends the monkey, ape, and bahon daffes, but more regularly, the word fimia is the name of that kind only which has no tail, the tailed ones being, in diftinctionj called cercopitheci, ox tailed monkeys.
The proper name of the fimia, in Englifh, is ape, and thofe which have tails, are diftinguifhed by the name monkey. See Cercopithecus.
There are many fpecies of apes, and even many more than were fuppofed by authors ; America affording us frequent in- ftances of fuch as have not been defer! bed in any book* Ray's Syn. Quad. p. 149. Sim 1 a marina, the fca-ape, a name ufed by Bellonius, and fome other authors, for the fifh called vulpes marina, a kind of fhark, remarkable for its long tail, from which probably it had both one and the other of thefe names* fritlughbji Hift. Pifc. p. 54. SIMICON, in antiquity, a mufical inftrument of theftringed-* kind, with thirty ( five firings. Mem. de l'Acad. Infcripti Vol. 5. p. 168. SIMILAR (Cycl.)-*- Similar curves, in geometry. The ft- milarity of curvilinear figures may be derived from that of rectilinear figures, that are always ftmilarly deft. ri bed in them j or, we may comprehend all forts of fimilar figures, planes, or folids, in this general definition: figures are fimi- lar, when they may be fuppofed to be placed in fuch a man- ner, that any right line being drawn from a determined point to the terms that bound ihem, the parts of the right line, intercepted betwixt that point and thofe terms, are always in one conftant ratio to each other. Thus the fi- gures ASD, a$>d, are fimilar j when any line S P being drawn always from the fame point S^ meeting A D in P, and a d iri p, the ratio of S P to fp is in- variable. It is manifeft, that ,-v the rectilinear inferibed figures apdS, APDS, -axe fimilar in this cafe, according to the defi- nition of fuch figures given in Euclid's Elements, Book 6* See Mac Laur. Flux. Art. 122.
When the fimilar figures are in the fituation here defcribed* they are alio ftmilarly fituated, and all their homologous lines are either placed upon one another, or parallel. Similar diameters of two conic fections. When the diameters in two conic fections make the fame angles with their or- dinates, they are fometimes faid to be fimilar. Similar folids, fuch as are contained under equal numbers of
fimilar planes, alike fituated. Similar bodies, in natural philofophy, fuch as have the'if
particles of the fame kind or nature one with another. Similar animals. We have a treatife by Dr. Martin, where- in he treats of the laws and proportions of the motions and forces of the folids and fluids of animals, of however diffe- rent magnitudes, which are fuppofed of f mi lar make and conftitution, SeeTractat.de Similibus animalibus. SIMON, in, zoology, a name by which fome authors have called the dolphin. It is affirmed that this fifh loves the name, and will come to a perfon who calls him by it ; but this, though recorded by authors of credit, meets with no faith among the judicious readers. Ray's Ichthyography, p. 31. SIMPLE (Cyr/.)— Simple leaf, among botaniits.- See the
article Leaf. Simple, or Jingle eccentricity. See Eccentricity, Cycl. Simple problem, in mathematics. See LINEAR probUm, CycL Simple roofs. See Fibrose roots. Simple waters, in diftillery. See Waters. SIMPULUM, among the Romans, a veffel with a long handle,- and made like a cruet. It was ufed in facrifices and liba- tions, for taking a very little wine at a time. Pitifc Lex. Antiq. in voc. SIMULACRUM, among the Romans. See the articles Idol
and Idolatry, Cycl. SIMUS, in zoology, the name ufed by fome authors for the nafus, or nafe, a fifh common in the large rivers in Ger- many, and fomewhat refembling our chub, and in fome re- fpects our common rud'd. Gefner, de Pifc. p. 213. See the article Nasus. SINAPI, muftard, in botany, the name of a genus of plants* the characters of which are thefe. The flower is compofed of four leaves, and is of the cruciform-kind. The piftil arifes from the cup, and finally becomes a long pod, divid- ed by an intermediate membrane into two cells, and con- taining round ifli feeds; the pod alfo ufually terminates in 2 fungofe horn, which has fome feeds in it. To this it is to' be added, that, thefe plants have all a hot, acrid, and biting tafte.'
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