Page images
PDF
EPUB

70,000 tons. The entrances in 1873 were 8,091 British vessels, tonnage 1,705,925, and 1,257 foreign vessels, tonnage 268,511; clearances, 8,140 British vessels, tonnage 1,828,094, and 1,299 foreign vessels, tonnage 296,602. The value of exports was £1,615,190. The chief manufactures consist of earthenware and glass, and all kinds of articles required for fitting out vessels. Window glass and glass bottles are very largely manufactured.

SUNDERLAND. I. Robert Spencer, second earl of, an English statesman, born in Paris about 1641, died at Althorp, Sept. 28, 1702. After serving as ambassador to Spain and France, he became in 1679 secretary of state. In 1681 he went out of office, but was recalled in 1682, and exercised a controlling influence during the remainder of the reign of Charles II. Under James II. he remained secretary, and was also made president of the council. In 1687 he became a Roman Catholic; but he carried on a secret intrigue with the prince of Orange, and in October, 1688, was dismissed by James. On the arrival of the prince of Orange, Sunderland went to Rotterdam, where he was thrown into prison, but was released by order of William. He then went to Amsterdam, turned Protestant again, and after residing about two years at Utrecht returned to England, although excepted in the act of indemnity. On April 19, 1697, William appointed him lord chamberlain and one of the lords justices; but on Dec. 25 he resigned. II. Charles Spencer, third earl of, an English minister, son of the preceding, born in 1674, died April 19, 1722. Professing republican principles, he entered the house of commons in 1695 as member for Tiverton, and continued in the next three parliaments. In 1705 he was sent to Vienna as envoy extraordinary and plenipotentiary, and in 1707 became secretary of state, but was dismissed in 1710. He was generally regarded as the head of the whig party, and on the accession of George I. he was made lord lieutenant of Ireland, in 1715 lord privy seal, and in April, 1717, secretary of state. The house of commons implicated him in the criminal transactions of the South sea scheme; but he was acquitted by a vote of 233 to 172, though with loss of his office. He spent his remaining days in intrigues to effect the downfall of Walpole. By his marriage with the second daughter of the great duke he became progenitor of the present house of Marlborough, their son succeeding as second duke.

SUNDEW, the common name of plants of the genus drosera (Gr. dpooɛpós, dewy), which gives its name to the droseracea, a small order of remarkable plants, one of which, the Venus's fly-trap, is described under DIONEA. There are about 100 species of drosera, distributed all over the world, except in some of the Pacific islands; they are perennials, and either stemless, with a rosette of leaves rising from the rhizome, or have stems with alternate 771 VOL. XV.-31

[ocr errors]

leaves; with a few rare exceptions, the leaves bear numerous bristles or hairs, each of which exudes a drop of clear glutinous fluid; this exudation of the hairs, which glistens like dew drops, is recognized in the common and botanical names. Six species are found within the limits of the United States; they are all stemless, with the leaves circinate in the bud (i. e., rolled up from the apex downward), all in a tuft at the base, from the centre of which rises a naked scape bearing the flowers at the top in a one-sided raceme, the undeveloped apex of which droops, leaving the open flower apparently the highest. The white or rosecolored flowers, which open only in sunshine, have in our species their parts mostly in fives, the calyx and corolla withering and remaining in fruit; the globular ovary has three or five styles, so deeply cleft as to appear like six or ten, and ripening into a one-celled, threevalved capsule containing numerous seeds, with a pitted surface. All are found in bogs or wet sands, some very rare and others widely distributed. The most common is the round-leaved

sun

sera rotundifolia).

dew (D. rotundifolia), which extends from Canada to Florida; its leaves, 1 to 2 in. long, and spreading upon the ground, have an orbicular blade narrowing abruptly into a petiole; the scapes, 6 in. or more high, bear white flowers with their parts sometimes in sixes. The long- Round-leaved Sundew (Droleaved (D.longifolia), less frequent, but with a similar range, often grows in the water, when its caudex is several inches long; the leaves, more or less erect, have an oblong blade which tapers gradually into the petiole, and are from 1 to 4 in. long; scape and flowers similar to the preceding. Both of these species are also natives of Europe, the first named extending from northern Spain to the arctic regions and throughout Russian Asia. The short-leaved (D. brevifolia) has wedge-shaped leaves onlyin. long, and white flowers on a scape 3 in. or more high; this and D. capillaris, formerly regarded as a long-leaved variety of it, are found only from Florida to North Carolina. The slender sundew (D. linearis) is our most local species, being found along Lake Superior and in a few other localities further west; its narrowly linear leaves are 4 to 6 in. long, the blade barely in. wide; the scape, at first shorter than the leaves, but at length longer, has white flowers. The thread-leaved sundew (D. filifolia) occurs

in wet sand along the coast, from Plymouth, Mass., to Florida; it has a bulb-like base or corm, from which rise the singular threadlike leaves, from 6 to 12, and sometimes 18 in. long, in which there is no distinction between blade and petiole, having the upper surface

Leaf of Round-leaved Sundew, viewed laterally. (Magnified four times.)

somewhat convex; the scapes, which are a little longer than the leaves, bear handsome rosepurple flowers more than half an inch across. -It was long known in a general way that numerous small insects were caught by coming in contact with these viscid glands, and about 1860 it was discovered that this was not accidental, but that the leaves were especially adapted to the work, and that though their motions are much slower than those of the related dionaa, they are none the less effective, and the droseras now rank among the plants which catch and digest insects for their own nourishment. Darwin, in his recent work on "Insectivorous Plants" (1875), gives in great detail the investigations of himself and others upon droseras and a few other genera, but two thirds of the work is devoted to drosera rotundifolia alone. The upper surface of the leaf is thickly studded with the glandular hairs already mentioned, to which Darwin gives the name of tentacles; the average number of these on 31 leaves was found to be 192; those on the central part of the leaf are short and erect, with green pedicels; toward

|

long; each tentacle consists of a straight, hairlike pedicel or stalk, consisting of several rowa of elongated cells filled with a purple fluid; the gland at the apex is mostly oval and complex, and secretes a colorless and extremely viscid matter, which may be drawn out into long threads. If a small object, organic or inorganic, be placed on the centre of the leaf, the tentacles nearest it begin to bend toward it; this impulse is transmitted to those further off, until all, including the marginal ones, are closely inflected over the object, a process requiring from one to four or five hours. In case an insect alights upon or touches one of these glands, it is held by the secretion, and in its struggles comes in contact with other glands, which hold it until the tentacles can fold over it one by one and completely imprison it. The insects thus caught are actually digested, and the nutritive material absorbed to contribute to the growth of the plant; it is found that the secretion from these glands or

[graphic][graphic][merged small][merged small]

Thread-leaved Sundew (Drosera filiformis).

tentacles has a digestive power closely resembling that of the gastric juice of animals, acting even upon cartilage and the fibrous substance of bone. Experiments with several other species of drosera show that, though the leaves vary greatly in shape and appearance from those of D. rotundifolia, they differ but little in their functions. Some of the curious results obtained by Mrs. Treat with our threadleaved sundew are given in the article INSECTIVOROUS PLANTS.

SUN FISH, the common name of the fishes of the diodon family and genus orthagoriscus (Schn.). The skeleton is soft and only partially ossified; the body short and round, compressed laterally; the skin rough, covered with mucus, but without spines; jaws undivided in the middle, forming a cutting edge; mouth small, the teeth adapted for bruising sea weeds and soft-bodied animals; the body is truncated posteriorly, looking as if it had

been cut off at the dorsal and anal fins and then furnished with a short broad caudal; there are no ventrals, no air bladder, and no abdominal sac capable of distention; the dor

Common Sun Fish (Orthagoriscus mola). sal and anal fins are more or less united to the caudal; the stomach is small, and immediately receives the biliary canal. The common sun fish (O. mola, Schn.) is almost circular, and the dorsal and anal project posteriorly, with the caudal between; on each side, near the centre, is a small pectoral, and in front of it the gill opening; the gills are arranged in comb-like fringes; it is also called moon fish and head fish. It grows 4 or 5 ft. in length and 3 or 4 ft. in depth, with a weight of several hundred pounds; the flesh is tough and remarkably elastic, owing to the great amount of yellow elastic fibre, intricately interlaced, almost to the exclusion of white fibre and true muscle; the liver is very fat, and its oil is used for lubricating purposes on board ship, and for sprains and bruises among fishermen. It is grayish above and whitish below, with a silvery lustre when alive, and phosphorescent at night. According to Mr. Putnam, in his paper read before the American association for the advancement of science in 1870, the young differ little from the adults in shape, and do not resemble molacanthus, as Lütken and Steenstrup have said. It is sluggish in its motions, and is often seen asleep at the surface of the water. In some seasons it is common in summer in Massachusetts and New York bays, and feeds partly if not principally on medusa. There is probably no fish more infested by parasites, internally and externally. The name sun fish is also commonly given to many medusæ (see JELLY FISH), and in this country to the bream (see BREAM).

SUNFLOWER, the common name of plants of the genus helianthus, a word of the same meaning. The genus belongs to the composite family, and consists of about 50 species, most of which are North American; they are

coarse annual and perennial herbs, with rough stems and foliage, and some species bear tubers; the opposite or alternate leaves have three nerves; the solitary or corymbose heads are margined by conspicuous neutral ray flowers; the involucre imbricated; the persistent chaff of the receptacle embracing the four-sided akenes (popularly seeds), which bear at the top two chaffy and very deciduous scales, with sometimes two or more intermediate ones. In the common sunflower (H. annuus), from tropical America, the flat receptacle is 6 in. or more across, margined by conspicuous yellow ray flowers, while the central portion, or disk, is crowded with brownish tubular ones. The idea that the sunflower is so called because it always presents its face to the sun is erroneous; the name is more likely to be due to the resemblance of the flower head to the old pictorial representations of the sun as a disk surrounded by flaming rays. Few plants are so exhaustive of potash, the constituent in which most soils are deficient, as the sunflower, and its cultivation, sometimes recommended for various uses, would soon render fertile soils unproductive; for this reason it cannot become a profitable crop. It is raised in small quantities occasionally for the seeds (akenes), which make an acceptable variety in the food of poultry, and they are in repute among horsemen as a remedy for heaves, a quart being given daily with the food. Though the seeds yield about 40 per cent. of an oil useful for burning, for soaps, and other purposes, equally good oil may be obtained from plants which do not so exhaust the soil. The abundant pith has been used by French surgeons as a moxa. A socalled double variety, in which the tubular florets of the disk are developed in the same

[graphic]
[graphic][merged small]

6 ft. high, and producing late in summer an abundance of flowers, which in the double form have a close resemblance to the flowers of the dahlia. H. argophyllus of Texas, with hoary white foliage, and H. orgyralis of the far west, with narrow gracefully recurved leaves, are both sometimes cultivated for the peculiarities of their foliage. Numerous species, of interest to the botanist only, are to be found in all parts of the country, especially on the western prairies. The species cultivated for its edible tubers as Jerusalem artichoke (H. tuberosus) is described under ARTICHOKE.

SUNFLOWER, a N. W. county of Mississippi, intersected by the Sunflower river; area, 720 sq. m.; pop. in 1870, 5,015, of whom 3,243 were colored. Since the census a portion has been set off to form Leflore co. The surface is level and swampy, and the soil highly fertile. The chief productions in 1870 were 155,672 bushels of Indian corn, 21,091 of sweet potatoes, and 7,028 bales of cotton. There were 839 horses, 849 mules and asses, 1,728 milch cows, 3,497 other cattle, 184 sheep, and 7,828 swine. Capital, Johnsonville.

SUNGARIA, or Dzungaria. See TURKISTAN. SUNNA (Arabic, custom or rule), a collection of oral traditions of the sayings and practices of Mohammed and his wives, companions, and immediate successors. The believers in them are called Sunnis. They are considered the orthodox Mohammedans, and comprise the four sects of Hanifites, Malekites, Shafeites, and Hanbalites, named after their founders, all of whom recognize the Sunna as of a value second only to that of the Koran, which the Shiahs deny. (See SHIAHS.) The Sunna is also known under the name Hadis, "Tradition." While the Shiahs constitute at present the majority of the Persian and Hindoo Mohammedans, the Sunnis, and among them especially the Malekites and Shafeites, are dominant in the Ottoman empire, Arabia, Turkistan, and Africa.

SUNSTROKE (Lat. solis ictus; Fr. coup de soleil; Ger. Sonnenstich; also called insolation, heat apoplexy, heat asphyxia, and solar asphyxia), an affection which suddenly attacks persons exposed to the continuous hot rays of the sun or other sources of heat. The symptoms vary considerably, according to the extent and nature of the injury. The patient is usually attacked in the midst of his employment, although sometimes he is not seized till in the night, especially if occupying heated and badly ventilated quarters. There is loss of consciousness, and generally stertorous breathing and convulsions, and in the worst cases there is extreme prostration of the vital powers, and the voluntary muscles are motionless from the paralyzed condition of the nervous system, the greatly impeded functions of respiration and circulation being the only signs of life. The attack usually comes on in the afternoon, partly because this is the hottest part of the day, and also because the subject

has generally been laboring for many hours, and his vital powers are more or less exhausted. The attack may be immediately preceded by premonitory symptoms, such as pain and a feeling of fulness in the head and oppression at the pit of the stomach, sometimes attended with nausea and vomiting, and a feeling of weakness in the lower extremities, vertigo, and dimness of vision. In 60 cases reported to the New York hospital by Dr. H. S. Swift ("New York Journal of Medicine," 1854), surrounding objects appeared of a uniform color, generally blue or purple, but sometimes red, and at others green. In light cases the insensibility may be momentary, but in severe cases the patient rapidly becomes asphyxiated or comatose. The pupils are sometimes dilated and sometimes contracted, and there may be dilatation and contraction at different stages in the same case. There is considerable and often very great increase in the temperature of the body. In cases observed at Bellevue hospital, New York, in July, 1868, it frequently rose to 109-5° F., and in one instance to 110.5°; and still higher temperatures are recorded. When it reaches 107° recovery is scarcely to be expected, although it took place in the one instance at Bellevue where it reached 110.5°. Vomiting during the unconscious period, and involuntary evacuation of the bowels, are very grave symptoms. Although in many cases, as has been observed, the symptoms vary with the extent of the lesions, in the more pronounced cases they are rather uniform, the patient being completely without sensation or motion, except that of respiration, which is stertorous, though less than in true apoplexy. The eyes are fixed and turned upward with a glassy appearance; the pupils are greatly contracted, and the conjunctivæ are congested. Sometimes the whole system of voluntary muscles will be convulsed, and more rarely the patients appear to be in a state analogous to somnambulism; but the more fatal cases are often entirely free from motion of the voluntary muscles. In reports of cases occurring in the British army in India, by Mr. Longmore, in which he designated foul air of badly ventilated quarters as an active cause, the pathological conditions found after death were markedly more those of asphyxia than of congestive apoplexy, there being excessive engorgement of the lungs, while the cerebral congestion was decidedly less. The blood remains uncoagulated after death, showing a loss of life in its organic constituents. Thus, the post-mortem appearances accord with the symptoms, illustrating, as Mr. Barclay has pointed out, the four different ways in which death may take place, and furnish a key to the rational treatment of the different cases. 1. The intense heat of the sun's rays, pouring down upon the head, combined with great bodily exertion, may produce a state similar to that of nervous concussion from accident, and death may take place more or less sud

denly by syncope.

2. When death does not usually are. The supercargo is simply an agent, quickly ensue, paralysis of the respiratory and is limited like other agents to the authornerves may induce pulmonary congestion, ter- ity vested in him by his principal. Yet, by minating in asphyxia. 3. The cerebral may construction of the law, new authority is conbe much greater than the pulmonary conges- ferred upon the supercargo by the existence tion, and death may take place by coma. 4. and force of necessity; and it has been exPartial recovery may supervene, and the pa- pressly held that if by any sudden emergency tient die in two or three days afterward, with it becomes impossible for the supercargo to serous effusion within the cranial cavity. comply with the precise tenor of his instrucRather more than half the cases of sunstroke tions, or if a literal execution of them would are fatal, death sometimes occurring in a few defeat the objects of the shipper and amount minutes, but oftener in a few hours, the aver- to a sacrifice of his interests, it then becomes age perhaps being from three to four, the pa- the duty of the supercargo to do the best he tient remaining in a comatose state till the end can for the shipper; and his acts done bona of life. The treatment has been a matter of fide and with a reasonable discretion, in such much discussion, and for cases having marked an exigency, are binding upon the latter. A apoplectic or comatose symptoms it is so still. supercargo, like a master or foreign factor, Some contend that bloodletting may be ad- generally buys and sells in his own name, and vantageously employed, while others strongly his acts in a foreign port, even after the death oppose it in all cases, maintaining that there of the owner of the cargo, and while that is always a degree of vital depression which event was unknown to him, are binding upon forbids it. This is the position generally held all parties. by the surgeons of the English army in India. The principal remedies relied upon in nearly all countries are stimulation to the surface, especially along the spine, by sinapisms or blisters and electricity, and the administration of stimulant and purgative enemata containing alcoholic spirits; the bathing of the surface of the body with tepid or warm water containing ammonia or carbonate of soda; and the application of the cold douche to the spine and of cold to the head. The hair should be cut short, and in the worst cases blisters may be applied to the nape of the neck and along the spine. When the breathing is very difficult and the bronchial tubes are clogged with mucus, the patient should be often turned upon the side and face. Beneficial effects have sometimes been found from the inhalation of chloroform, but the use of this requires great caution. Promptness and decision are necessary, and the services of a physician should be procured as quickly as possible; but cold to the head, sinapisms, and stimulating enemata may be employed before his arrival.

SUPERIOR, Lake, the uppermost of the great border lakes of the United States and Canada, and the largest body of fresh water on the globe. It is included between lat. 46° 30' and 49° N., and lon. 84° 50′ and 92° 10′ W.; greatest length from E. to W. 360 m.; greatest breadth, across its central portion, 140 m.; area, 32,000 sq. m. Its length of coast is about 1,500 m., its mean depth about 1,000 ft., and the level of its surface above the sea about 630 ft. The boundary line between Canada and the United States passes from Lake Huron up the St. Mary's river, the outlet of Lake Superior, through the centre of the lower half of this lake, to the mouth of Pigeon river on the N. shore, between Isle Royale and the Canadian coast. This island was allowed to fall on the American side of the boundary in compensation for one of the islands at the mouth of the St. Mary's river. The S. coast of the lake from the outlet to Montreal river belongs to the upper peninsula of Michigan. From this river to the river St. Louis the coast belongs to Wisconsin, and thence round to Pigeon river to Minnesota. Toward each extremity the lake contracts in width, and at the lower end terminates in a bay which falls into the outlet, the St. Mary's river, at the two opposite headlands of Gros Cap on the north and Point Iroquois on the south. Thence to the mouth of the St. Mary's at Lake Huron is about 60 m. Numerous streams flow into Lake Superior, but none of large size. High lands in general lie near the coast, the long slopes from which are directed away from the lake and the short slopes toward it. The rapid fall prevents the navigation even by canoes of most of these streams, but provides excellent water power, which is almost

SUPERCARGO, a person who accompanies a cargo shipped to a foreign port, and is intrusted with the sale of it there, either as specially directed or to the best advantage, and with the investment of its proceeds in a proper cargo for the home or other market. As the supercargo's authority properly concerns the cargo, it is ordinarily dormant during the voyage, and is called into exercise by arrival at the foreign port; and though for the sake of the cargo and a market the supercargo may sometimes have the authority to determine the destination of the ship, yet he has none to interfere in the navigation of her, or in any respect to usurp the office and functions of the master. The powers and duties of a super-everywhere available. The principal rivers cargo are not very specifically regulated by law or usage, but are determined in every instance by the express instructions of the shipper where such instructions are given, as they

are the St. Louis, which enters at the head of the lake; on the N. shore, the Pigeon, Kaministiquia, Black Sturgeon, Nipigon (the outlet of Nipigon lake), Pic, and Michipicoten; and

« PreviousContinue »