in Italy an epidemic distemper, which carried off by sneezing all those who were seized by it; and that this pontiff ordered prayers to be made against it, accompanied by certain signs of the cross. But this is not credible, as there are very few cases in which sneezing is dangerous, and it is frequently a favorable symptom. Yet the com*piler of this work knew an instance of a man, apparently in health, dying almost instantaneously after a fit of sneezing in a barber's shop at Montrose, into which he had come to be dressed, on Saturday the 16th September, 1786. Nor was the fit either violent or tedious. He had only sneezed the third time. But as no inspection was made of his body, to see whether his death was occasioned by the rupture of a blood-vessel or any other cause, no decisive inference can be drawn from this solitary fact. Avicenna and Carden say it is a sort of convulsion, which gives occasion to dread an epilepsy. Clement of Alexandria inveighs bitterly against those who endeavour to procure sneezing by external aid. It is singular enough that so many ridiculous, contradictory, and superstitious opinions, have not abolished those customary civilities which are still preserved equally among high and low. The reason is obvious. They are preserved because they are esteemed civilities, and because they cost nothing. Among the Greeks sneezing was almost always a good omen. It excited marks of tenderness, of respect, and attachment. The young Parthenis, hurried on by her passion, resolved to write to Sarpedon an avowal of her love; she sneezes in the most tender and impassioned part of her letter: this is sufficient for her; this incident supplies the place of an answer, and persuades her that Sarpedon is her lover. Pene lope, harassed by the vexatious courtship of her suitors, begins to curse them alı, and to pour forth vows for the return of Ulysses. Her son Telemachus interrupts her by a loud sneeze. She instantly exults with joy, and regards this sign as an assurance of the approaching return of her husband.-Hom. Odys. lib. xvii. Xenophon was haranguing his troops; a soldier sneezed in the moment when he was exhorting them to embrace a dangerous but necessary resolution. The whole army, moved by this presage, determined to pursue the project of their general; and Xenophon orders sacrifices to Jupiter the preserver. This superstitious reverence for sneezing, so ancient and so universal even in the times of Homer, excited the curiosity of the Greek philosophers and of the rabbins. These last have a most absurd tradition respecting it. Aristotle remounts likewise to the sources of natural religion, because the brain is the origin of the nerves, of our sentiments, sensations, &c. Such were the opinions of the most ancient and sagacious philosophers of Greece; and mythologists affirmed that the first sign of life Prometheus's artificial man gave was by sternutation. See Prometheus. SNELL (Rodolph), an eminent Dutch philosopher, born at Oude-Water in 1546. He was many years professor of Hebrew and mathematics in the university of Leyden. He published several works on Geometry, and other branches of science. He died at Leyden in 1613. SNELL (Willebrord), styled Snellius in his Latin works, the son of Rodolph, succeeded his father in the mathematical chair at Leyden in 1613, and excelled him in his discoveries. He was the first who discovered the true law of refraction of the rays of light; and Des-Cartes, who saw his papers, borrowed his discovery, without acknowledging the obligation. See OPTICS, Index. His works are numerous and respectable. The chief of them is his Cyclometricus de Circuli Dimensione, &c., 4to., 1621. In this treatise he gives several approximations to the measure of the circle, both arithmetical and geometrical. He died in 1626. SNETTISHAM, PORT, a harbour on the north-west coast of America, in Stephens's Passage; it extends a league from its entrance in a north-east direction, where, on each side, the shores form an extensive cover, and terminate in a sandy beach, with a fine stream of water. The shores are high and steep. Long. of its northwest point, 226° 22′ E., lat, 57° 53′ N. SNEUWBERG, or SNOW MOUNTAIN, an extensive range in the district of Graaf Reynet, Cape of Good Hope. It forms one of the divisions into which this district is divided; the pasture is excellent, and the district is the grand repository of sheep and cattle from the colony. SNELLING (Thomas), an English writer on coins, who died in 1773. He published a treatise on the Silver Coin and Coinage of England, 1762, 4to.; The Gold Coin and Coinage of England, 1763, 4to.; and, after his death appeared Thirty-three Plates of English Medals, 1776, 4to.; and A View of the Origin, Nature, and Use of Jettons or Counters, especially those commonly known by the name of Black Money and Abbey Pieces, 1779, 4to. SNICK AND SNEE, or SNICKER-SNEE, n. s. Belg. sniker-snee. A combat with knives. Among the Dunkirkers, where snick and snee was in fashion, a boatswain, with some of our men drinking together, became quarrelsome: one of our men beat him down; then, kneeling upon his breast, he drew out a knife sticking in his sash, and cut him from the ear towards the mouth. Wiseman's Surgery. Swed. sniffa. To draw breath SNIFF, v. n. audibly up the nose. So then you looked scornful, and snift at the dean As who should say, Now am I skinny and lean? Swift. SNIG'GLE, v. n. Perhaps of Belg, snicker, to cut. Sniggling is thus performed: in a warm day, when the water is lowest, take a strong small hook, tied to a string about a yard long; and then into one of the holes where an eel may hide herself, with the help of a short stick, put in your bait leisurely, and as far as you may conveniently if within the sight of it the eel will bite instantly, and as certainly gorge it: pull him out by degrees. Walton's Angler. SNIP, v. a. Belg. snippen; Swed. snopa. To clip; cut at once with scissars: a cut of this kind; a small shred or share. What! this a sleeve? Here's snip and snip, and cut, and slish and slash, He found his friend upon the mending hand, which he was glad to hear, because of the snip that he himself expected upon the dividend. L'Estrange. A SNIPE, n. s. Sax. rnite; Dan. sneppe. small fen fowl with a long bill; a fool; a blockhead. Thus do I ever make my fool my purse; SNORING, in medicine, otherwise called stertor, is a sound like that of the cerchnon, but greater and more manifest. Many confound those affections, and make them to differ only in place and magnitude, calling by the name of stertor that sound or noise which is heard or supposed to be made in the passage between the palate and the nostrils as in those who sleep; that boiling or bubbling noise, which in respiration proceeds from the larynx, or head, or orifice of the aspera arteria, they call cerchnon; but, if the sound SNIPPET, n. s. From snip. A small part; have it called cerchnos, that is, as some say, a comes from the aspera arteria itself, they will SNIPE. See SCOLOPAX and SHOOTING. a share. Of tame birds Cornwall hath doves, geese, and ducks of wild, quail, rail, snite, and wood-dove. Carew. Nor would any one be able to snite his nose, or to sneeze; in both which the passage of the breath through the mouth, being intercepted by the tongue, is forced to go through the nose. Grew's Cosmologia. SNIVEL, n. s. & v. n. Į Germ. snavel, sneSNIV'ELLER, n. s. Svel. The mucus of the nose to run at the nose; to cry as children: the noun substantive following corresponding. Funeral tears are hired out as mourning cloaks; and whether we go to our graves snivelling or sing ing, 'tis all mere form. L'Estrange. Swift. He'd more lament when I was dead, possets. VOL. XX. Ben Jonson. rattling, or, as others, a stridulous_or_wheezing roughness of the aspera arteria. In dying persons, this affection is called by the Greeks PExxos, rhenchos, which is a snoring or rattling kind of noise, proceeding as it were from a conflict between the breath and the humours in the aspera arteria. This and such like affections are owing to a weakness of nature, as when the lungs are full of pus or humors. Expectoration is suppressed either by the viscidity of the humor, which requires to be discharged, and which adhering to the aspera arteria, and being there agitated by the breath, excites that bubbling noise or stertor; or by an obstruction of the bronchia; or, lastly, by a compression of the aspera arteria, and throat, whence the passage is straightened, in which the humors, being agitated, excite such a kind of noise as before described. Hence Galen calls those who are straight-breasted, stertorous. He assigns two causes of this symptom, which are either the straightness of the passage of respiration, or redundance of humors, or both; but we may add a third, to wit, the weakness of the dying persons, where nature is too weak to make faculty, which is the cause of the rhenchos in discharges. Hence we may conclude that this symptom, or this sort of fervor or ebullition in the throat, is not mortal, unless when nature is oppressed with the redundance of humor in such a manner that the lungs cannot discharge themselves by spitting; or the passage appointed for the breath (the aspera arteria) is very much obstructed, upon which account many dying persons labor under a stertor with their mouths gaping. SNORRO (Sturlesonius), a native of Iceland, in the thirteenth century, who was minister of state to a king of Sweden and to three kings of Norway. He was forced, by an insurrection, to leave Norway, and take refuge in Iceland, where he lived till 1241, when he was discovered, 2 M The bounding fawn, that darts across the glade When none pursues, through mere delight of heart, And spirits buoyant with excess of glee; The horse, as wanton and almost as fleet, That skims the spacious meadow at full speed, Then stops and snorts, and, throwing high his heels, Starts to the voluntary race again. Cowper. SNOT, n. s. Saxon snore; Belg. snot. SNOTTY, adj. The mucus of the nose: the adjective corresponding. This squire South my husband took in a dirty motty-nosed boy. Arbuthnot. Thus, when a greedy sloven once has thrown His snot into the mess, 'tis all his own. Swift. SNOUT, n. s. Belg. snuyt; Swed. snude; SNOUTED, udj. Dan. Snyte. The nose of a beast; applied the human nose in contempt; a nozzle; having a snout. His nose in the air, his snout in the skies. Tusser. Id. Juvenal. Snouted and tailed like a boar, and footed like a Grew. goat. Swift. Charmed with his eyes, and chin, and snout, Sax. rnap; Belg. and Dan. snee. The small particles of water frozen before they unite into drops: see below: to fall in snow; scatter like snow: the snow-ball is well known: snowbroth is used by Shakspeare for very cold liquor: snowdrop is an early flower: the adjectives follows the noun substantive snow in meaning. Drought and heat consume snow waters. Job xxiv. 19. Angelo, a man whose blood Is very snowbroth, one who never feels Shakspeare. A snow-white bull shall on your shore be slain, His offered entrails cast into the main. Id. Æneid. Rowe. A snowball having the power to produce in us the But now your brow is beld, John, But blessings on your frosty pow, John Anderson my jo. Pope. Burns. Sends Nature forth, the daughter of the skies, To dance on earth, and charm all human eyes; To teach the canvass innocent deceit, Or lay the landscape on the snowy sheetThese, these are arts pursued without a crime, That leave no stain upon the wing of time. Cowper. Her anchor parts: but still her snowy sail Attracts our eye amidst the rudest gale: Though every wave she climbs divides us more, The heart still follows from the loneliest shore. Byron. SNOW is a well known meteor, formed by the freezing of the vapors in the atmosphere. It differs from hail and hoar frost, in being as it were crystallised, which they are not. This appears on examining a flake of snow by a magnifying glass; when the whole of it will appear to be composed of fine shining spicula diverging like rays from a centre. As the flakes fall down through the atmosphere, they are continually joined by more of these radiated spicula, and thus increase in bulk like the drops of rain or hailstones. Dr. Grew, in a discourse on the nature of snow, observes that many parts thereo. are of a regular figure, for the most part stars of six points, and are as perfect and transparent ice as any we see on a pond, &c. Upon each o. these points are other collateral points, set at the same angles as the main points themselves; among which there are divers other irregular broken points, and fragments of the regular ones. A cloud of vapors, being gathered into drops, descend; meeting with a freezing air as they pass through a colder region, each drop is immediately frozen, shooting itself forth into several points; but these still continuing their descent, and meeting with some intermitting gales of warmer air, or in their continual waftage to and fro touching upon each other, some of them are a little thawed, blunted, and again frozen into clusters, or intangled so as to fall down in what we call flakes. The lightness of snow is owing to the excess of its surface, in proportion to the matter contained under it. The whiteness of snow is owing to the small particles into which it is divided; for ice, when pounded, will become equally white. Beccaria says, clouds of snow differ in nothing from clouds of rain, but in the circumstance of cold that freezes them. Both the regular diffusion of the snow, and the regularity of the structure of its parts (particularly some figures of snow or hail which fall about Turin, and which he calls rosette), show that clouds of snow are acted upon by some uniform cause like electricity; and he endeavours to show how electricity is capable of forming these figures. He was confirmed in his conjectures by observing that his apparatus for observing the electricity of the atmosphere never failed to be electrified by snow as well as rain. Professor Winthrop sometimes found his apparatus electrified by snow when driven about by the wind, though it had not been affected by it when the snow itself was falling. A more intense electricity, according to Beccaria, unites the particles of hail more closely than the more moderate electricity does those of snow. But we are not to consider snow merely as a curious and beautiful phenomenon. The Great Dispenser of uni versal bounty has so ordered it that it is eminently subservient, as well as all his works of creation, to his benevolent designs. Snow, particularly in those northern regions where the ground is covered with it for several months, fructifies the earth, by guarding the corn or other vegetables from the intense cold of the air, and especially from the cold piercing winds. It has been a vulgar opinion, very generally received, that snow fertilises the lands on which it falls more than rain, in consequence of the nitrous salts which it is supposed to acquire by freezing. But by Margraaf's experiments, in 1751, the chemical difference between snow and rain, is found to be exceedingly small. The peculiar agency of snow as a fertilizer, in preference to rain may admit of a very rational explanation, without recurring to the supposition of its containing nitrous salts. It may be ascribed to its furnishing a covering to the roots of vegetables, by which they are guarded from the influence of the atmospherical cold, and the internal heat of the earth is prevented from escaping. The internal parts of the earth, by some principle (whether it be the electric fluid, or the principle called caloric by modern chemists, is not yet discovered), is heated uniformly to 48° of Fahrenheit's thermometer. This degree of heat is greater than that in which the watery juices of vegetables freeze, and it is propagated from the inward parts of the earth to the surface, on which the vegetables grow. The atmosphere being variably heated by the action of the sun in different climates, and in the same climate at different seasons, communicates to the surface of the earth, and to some distance below it, the degree of heat or cold which prevails in itself. Different vegetables are able to preserve life under different degrees of cold, but all of them perish when the cold which reaches their roots is extreme. Providence has, therefore, in the coldest climates, provided a covering of snow for the roots of vegetables, by which they are protected from the influence of the atmospherical cold. The snow keeps in the internal heat of the earth which surrounds the roots of vegetables, and defends them from the cold of the atmosphere. (But some say it does more.) Snow or ice water is always deprived of its fixed air, which escapes during the process of congelation. Some have supposed this to be the cause why some of the inhabitants of the Alps. who use it for their constant drink, have enormous wens upon their throats. But this is refuted by the fact that in Greenland, where snow water is commonly used, the inhabitants are not affected with such swellings; whereas they are common in Sumatra, where snow is never seen. Notwithstanding Margraaf's experiment above mentioned discovered little difference between snow and rain in their fertilizing qualities, the enquiry has been renewed and prosecuted farther, by some of the most eminent French chemists of the present age. Citizen Morveau, alias citizen Guyton, employed J. H. Hassenfratz to inquire into the cause of the difference of the effects of snow and rain water on various substances. Hassenfratz found that these differences are occasioned by the oxygenation of the snow; and that these effects are to be ascribed to a particular combination of oxygen in this congealed water. He put 1000 grammes of snow in a jar, and 1000 grammes of distilled water in another. See MEASURE. He poured into each of the jars an equal quantity of the same solution of turnsole. He placed both the jars in a warm temperature; and, after the snow melted, he remarked that the dye was redder in the snow water than in the distilled water. He repeated this experiment, and with the same result. He put into a jar 1000 grammes of distilled water, and into another 1000 grammes of snow. Into each of the jars he put 6.5 grammes of very pure and clean sulphate of iron. In the first there was precipitated 0.150 grammes of the oxide of iron, and 0.010 grammes in the other. As the oxide of iron was precipitated from a solution of the sulphate by oxygen, it thence follows that the snow contained more oxygen than the distilled water; and it follows, from the first experiment, that this quantity of oxygen was considerable enough to redden the tincture of turnsole. It is fully demonstrated, by these two experiments, that snow is oxygenated water, and that it must consequently have on vegetation an action different from that of common ice. The experiments of Dr. Ingenhousz on the germination of seeds have taught us that the presence and contact of oxygen are absolutely necessary for the plant to expand. They have shown, also, that the more abundant the oxygen is, the more rapidly will the seeds grow. Most plants suffered to attain to their perfect maturity shed on the earth a part of their seed. These seeds thus abandoned, and exposed to the action of cold, are preserved by the snow which covers them, at the same time that they find in the water it produces by melting a portion of oxygen that has a powerful action on the principle of germination, and determines the seeds that would have perished, to grow, to expand, and to augment the number of the plants that cover the surface of the earth. A very considerable number of the plants which are employed in Europe for the nourishment of men are sown in September, October, and November. The seeds of several of these germinate before the cold commences its action upon them, and changes the principle of their life. The snow which covers the rest, acting on the germ by its oxygenation, obliges them to expand, and to increase the number of useful plants which the farmer and gardener commit to the earth, and consequently to multiply their productions. Here, then, we have three effects of snow upon vegetation, all very different, which contribute each separately to increase, every year, the number of our plants; to give them more vigor, and consequently to multiply our crops. These effects are:-1. To prevent the plants from being attacked by the cold, and from being changed or perishing by its force. 2. To furnish vegetables with continual moisture, which helps them to procure those substances necessary for their nutrition, and to preserve them in a strong healthy state. 3. To cause a greater number of seeds to germinate, and consequently to increase the number of our plants. To determine the quantity of water a given quantity of snow is equal to, we have an ingenious article in the Philosophical Transactions, from the pen of Mr. Alexander Brice, of Kirknewton, dated May 13, 1766; in which he observes that, from the end of March 1765 to the end of September of the same year, they had very little rain in that part of Scotland, and less snow in proportion: the rivers were as low, through the winter, as they used to be in the middle of summer; springs failed in most places, and brewers and malsters were obliged, even in winter, to carry their water from a considerable distance. In the end of March they had a fall of snow; and, as he did not remember to have ever read an account of such an experiment, he wished to be able to determine to what quantity of rain this fall of snow was equal. The snow had been falling from five o'clock the former evening till ten o'clock next day; about eleven o'clock he measured the depth of snow, and found it to be 6.2 inches; he then took a stone jug, holding about three English pints, and turned the mouth of it downwards on the snow measured, and where the ground below was smooth and hard; and by this means he took up all the snow from top to bottom in the jug; this snow he melted by the side of a fire, and the 6.2 inches of snow yielded six-tenths of an inch deep of water in the same jug. After emptying the jug, he dried, and weighed it in a balance, and took up the same quantity of snow in it as before, weighed it again, and found the weight of the snow taken up, and from this weight computed what quantity of water it should have produced, and found that it should have produced sixtenths of an inch, and one-twentieth of an inch more; he then dissolved the snow, and found that it yielded a quantity of water in the bottom of the jug six-tenths of an inch deep, as in the former experiment. The difference of one-twentieth of an inch in the depth of the water, between the weight and the melting of the snow, was probably owing to an exhalation from the jug, while the snow was melting by the fire, for he observed a steam sometimes rising from it. A greater or less degree of cold, or of wind, while the snow falls, and its lying a longer or shorter time on the ground, will occasion a difference in the weight, and in the quantity of water produced, from a certain number of cubic feet, or inches, of snow; but if he may trust to the above trials, which he endeavoured to perform with care, snow, newly fallen, with a moderate gale of wind, freezing cold, which was the case of the snow he made the trials on, the 27th of March, will produce a quantity of water equal to one-tenth part of its bulk; or the earth, when covered with snow, ten inches deep, will be moistened by it when melted, or rivers and springs recruited, as much as if a quantity of rain had fallen that had covered the surface of the earth to the depth of one inch. Mode of the formation of snow. The frequent changes of the weather that have taken place during the last winter (1804),' says a writer in Nicholson's Philosophical Journal, having induced me to direct my attention to meteorology, I confess that the manner in which philosophers account for some of the phenomena that occur, is not, to me, altogether satisfactory. 'It is not surprising that electricity (with the immediate agency of which we are so little acquainted) should be resorted to, as the grand agent in all meteorological phenomena. Accordingly we find that snow, and indeed every variety of weather we experience, is considered to be more or less affected by the electric fluid. 'Snow is generally supposed to be the vapors of the atmosphere, disengaged by the electric fluid, and frozen. But it appears to me that, before we receive so vague an explanation, the following questions might be asked :-What are the vapors of the atmosphere composed of? By what laws, and in what manner does the electric fluid act, either in the formation of snow, or as a component part of it? I shall now offer a few remarks to strengthen a supposition that the electric fluid is not engaged in, or in the least essential to the production or existence of snow. By an attentive observation of all the circumstances that have attended the fall of snow, during the last winter, I have, in almost every instance, found that it is accompanied with, or rather preceded by a change of the wind; and that the wind, previous to the fall of snow, blew from some point be tween the south and the west; and afterward from some point between the east and the northwest. If it is observed that we have sometimes snow without the wind changing to any of the |