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aggregated to a total (Hooker). 2. Quantity of money (Shakspeare). 3. Compendium; abridgment; the whole abstracted (Hooker). 4. The amount; the result of reasoning or computation (Tillotson). 5. Height; couple tion (Milton).

To SUM. v. a. (sommer, French.) 1. To compute; to collect particulars into a total; to cast up (South). 2. To comprise; to comprehend; to collect into a narrow compass (Dryden). 3. (In falconry). To have feathers full grown.

SUMACH. (sumak, from samak, to be red; Heb. so called from its red berry.) Elm-leaved sumach. This plant, rhus coriaria; foliis pinnatis obtusis, caule serratis corolibus subtus villosis of Linnéus. C. O. Pentandria, trigynia, is a small tree, a native of the south of Europe. It is singular that this is the only species of the genus rhus which is perfectly innocent; the others being active poisons. Both the leaves and berries of this plant are used medicinally as astringents and tonics; the former are the most powerful, and have been long in common use, where they may be easily obtained in various complaints indicating this class of remedies. The berries, which are red, and of a roundish compressed figure, contain a pulpy matter, in which is lodged a brown, hard, oval seed, manifesting a considerable degree of adstringency. The pulp, even when dry, is grateful, and has been discovered to contain an essential salt similar to that of woodsorrel. An infusion of the dried fruit is not rendered black by a solution of iron; hence it appears to be destitute of astringency. But its acidity is extremely grateful; therefore, like many other fruits, these berries may be advantageously taken to allay febrile heat, and to correct bilions putrescency.

This plant is very extensively used as a dye; and is for this purpose imported largely into Europe, from Spain, Portugal, Syria, and many parts of the Levant. Every part of the tree ap Fears impregnated with astringent matter. The parts employed for dyeing are the entire twigs and branches, which are dried and ground in a mill into a coarse brown or yellowish green powder, and in this form we receive it when imported.

Sumach readily yields a yellowish-green infrion with warm water, which soon turns brown on exposure to air. This infusion gives a small quantity of yellow lake with alum, and forms with the solutions of iron an abundant black or dark brown precipitate, showing the presence of gallic acid.

As a

tincture, it gives by itself a yellow-buff, or fawn colour tending to green, which, how ever, is fugitive unless fixed by a mordant. If a salt of iron enter into the mordant, the black of the gallat of iron hereby produced mixes with the natural colour of the sumach, and a vast variety of useful grey, drab, and slate colours, are brought out. Sumach, like the gall-nut, contains also a very large quantity of Lar, and hence will give a copious precipitate with infusion of glue or any other animal

jelly; so that it has an additional use in the preparation of leather, the finer kinds of which are tanned by this material. See the article TANNING. A good deal of sulphat of lime is found in the infusion of sumach by the barytic and oxaline tests. The infusion of this plant differs from that of the other astringent vegetables in giving a precipitate with the caustic alkalies, which is probably owing to the sulphat of lime which it contains. Sir Humphry Davy obtained 165 grains of matter soluble in water from 490 grains of Sicilian sumach, of which he estimates 78 grains to be tannin.

SUMACH (Currier's, and myrtle-leaved), in botany, different species of coriaria.

SUMATRA, an island of Asia, the most western of the Sunda Islands. Its general direction is nearly N.W. and S.E. The equator divides it into almost equal parts; the one extremity being in 5. 33 N. the other in 5. 56 S. lat. and Achen Head, its N. extremity, is in lon. 95. 34 E. It is separated from Malacca by the straits of that name, and from Java by the straits of Sunda. It is 900 miles in length, and from 150 to 200 in breadth. No account has been given of this island, by any Englishman, till the year 1778, when Mr. Millar (son of the celebrated botanist) gave an account of the manners of a particular district. These were the Battas, a people who live in the interior parts, called the Cassia country. They differ from all the other inhabitants in language, manners, and customs. They eat the prisoners whom they take in war, and hang up their skulls as trophies in their houses. He observes, however, that human flesh is eaten by them in terrorem, and not as common food; though they prefer it to all others, and speak with peculiar raptures of the soles of the feet and palms of the hands. They expressed much surprise that the white people did not kill, much less eat, their prisoners. From this country the greatest part of the cassia that is sent to Europe is procured. It abounds also with the camphire trees, which constitute the common timber in use; and in these trees the camphire is found native, in a concrete form. In 1783, Mr. Marsden, who had been secretary to the president and council of Fort Marlborough, published an account of this island, and represents it as surpassed by few in the beautiful indulgences of nature. A chain of high mountains runs through its whole extent; the ranges, in many parts, being double and treble: their altitude, though great, is not sufficient to occasion their being covered with snow during any part of the year. Between these ridges are extensive plains, considerably elevated above the surface of the maritime lands. In these the air is cool; and from this advantage they are esteemed the most eligible portion of the country, are the best inhabited, and the most cleared from the woods, which elsewhere, in general, cover both hills and valleys with a constant shade. Here too are found many lakes and rivers, that facilitate the communication between the different parts.

The inhabitants consist of Malays, Achenese, Battas, Lampoons, aud Rejangs: the latter are taken as a standard of description with respect to the person, manners, and customs of the Sumatrans. They are rather below the middle stature; their bulk in proportion; their limbs, for the most part, slight, but well shaped, and particularly small at the wrists and ancles. Their hair is strong and of a shining black. The men are beardless; great pains being taken to render them so, when boys, by rubbing their chins with a kind of quicklime. Their complexion is properly yellow, wanting the red tinge that constitutes a copper or tawny colour; those of the superior class, who are not exposed to the rays of the sun, and particularly their women of rank, approaching to a degree of fairness; but the major part of the females are ugly. The rites of marriage among the Sumatrans consist simply in joining the hands of the parties, and pronouncing them man and wife, without much ceremony, excepting the entertainment which is given upon the occasion. But little apparent courtship precedes their marriages. Their manners do not admit of it; the young people of each sex being carefully kept asunder, and the girls being seldom trusted from their mothers. The opportunities which the young people have of seeing and conversing with each other are at the public festivals, where the persons who are unmarried meet together, and dance and sing in company. A man, when determined in his choice, generally employs an old woman as his agent, by whom he sends a present to the female of his choice. The parents then interfere, and the preliminaries being settled, a feast takes place. At these festivals a goat, a buffalo, or several, according to the rank of the parties, are killed, to entertain not only the relations and invited guests, but all the inhabitants of the neighbouring country who choose to repair to them. The greater the concourse, the more is the credit of the host, who is generally, on these occasions, the father of the girl. The customs of the Sumatrans perinit their having as many wives as they can purchase, or afford to maintain; but it is extremely rare that an instance occurs of their having more than one, and that only among a few of the chiefs. This continence they owe, in some measure, to their poverty. Mothers carry their children straddling on the hip, and usually supported by a cloth tied in a knot on the opposite shoulder. The children are nursed but little; are not confined by any swathing or bandages; and being suffered to roll about the floor, soon learn to walk and shift for themselves: when cradles are used, they swing suspended from the ceiling of the room. The original natives of Sumatra are pagans; but it is to be observed, that when the Sumatrans, or any of the natives of the eastern islands, learn to read the Arabic character, and submit to circumcision, they are said to become Malays; the term Malay being understood to mean Mussulman. The wild beasts of Sumatra are tigers, elephants, rhino

ceroses, bears, and monkeys. The tigers prove to the inhabitants, both in their journeys and even their domestic occupations, most destructive enemies; yet, from a superstitious prejudice, it is with difficulty they are prevailed upon to use methods for destroying them, till they have sustained some particular injury in their own family or kindred. Alligators likewise occasion the loss of many inhabitants, as they bathe in the river, according to their regular custom; and yet a superstitious idea of their sanctity also preserves them from molestation. The other animals of Sumatra are buffalos, a small kind of horses, goats, hogs, deer, bullocks, and hog-deer. This last is an animal somewhat larger than a rabbit, the head resembling that of a hog, and its shanks and feet like those of the deer: the bezoar stone found on this animal has been valued at ten times its weight in gold. Of birds there are a greater variety than of beasts. The coo-ow, or Sumatran pheasant, is a bird of uncommon beauty. Here are storks of a prodigious size, parrots, dunghill fowls, ducks, the largest cocks in the world, woodpigeons, doves, and a great variety of small birds remarkable for the beauty of their colours. The reptiles are lizards, flying lizards, and cameleons. The island swarms with insects, and their varieties are no less extraordinary than their numbers. Rice is the only grain that grows in the country. Here are sugar-canes, beans, peas, radishes, yams, potatoes, pumkins, and several kinds of potherbs unknown to Europe; and also most of the fruits to be met with in other parts of the East Indies, in the greatest perfection. Indigo, saltpetre, sulphur, arsenic, brazil wood, two species of the bread fruit tree, pepper, cassia, camphire, benjamin, coffee, and cotton, are likewise the produce of this island. Here also is the cabbage tree and silk cotton tree; and the forests contain a great variety of valuable species of wood, as ebony, pine, sandal, eagle, or aloes, teak, manchineel, and iron wood, and also the banyan tree. Bees wax is a commodity of great importance here; and there are likewise edible birds-nests. Gold, tin, iron, copper, and lead, are found in the country; and the former is as plentiful here as in any part of Asia. Sumatra is divided into many petty kingdoms, the chief of which are Acheen, Indrapore, Palimban, and Jambi. The English and Dutch have factories on this island; the principal one of the former being Fort Marlborough, at Bencoolen.

SU'MLESS. a. (from sum.) Not to be computed (Pope).

SUMMARILY. ad. (from summary.) Briefly; the shortest way (Hooker).

SUMMARY. a. (summaire, Fr.) Short; brief; compendious (Swift).

SUMMARY. s. (from the adjective.) Compendium; abridgment (Rogers).

SUMMER, the name of one of the seasons of the year, being one of the quarters when the year is divided into four quarters, or one half when the year is divided only into twe, sum

mer and winter. In the former case, summer is the quarter during which, in northern climates, the sun is passing through the three signs Cancer, Leo, Virgo, or from the time of the greatest declination, till the sun come to the equinoctial again, or have no declination; which is from about the 21st of June till about the 22d of September. In the latter case, summer contains the six warmer months, while the sun is on one side of the equinoctial; and winter the other six months, when the sun is on the other side of it.

It is said, that a frosty winter produces a dry summer; and a mild winter, a wet summer. See Philos. Trans. No. 458, sect. 10.

SUMMER SOLSTICE, the time or point when the sun comes to its greatest declination, and nearest the zenith of the place. See SOL

STICE.

SUMMER BEAM, in carpentry, a large piece of timber, which, being supported on two stone piers or posts, serves as a lintel to a door, window, &c. SUMMER CYPRESS. See CHENO PODIUM. SUMMER ISLANDS. See BERMUDAS.

SUMMER RED BIRD. See MUSICAPA. To SUMMER. U. n. (from the noun) To pass the summer (Isaiah).

To SUMMER. v. a. To keep warm (Shakspeare).

SUMMERHOUSE. s. (from summer and house.) An apartment in a garden used in the summer (Watts).

SUMMERSAULT. SUMMERSET. S. (sou Iresault, Fr.) A high leap, in which the heels are thrown over the head (Walton).

SUMMIT. s. (summitas, Latin.) The top; he utmost height (Shakspeare).

To SUMMON. v. a. (summoneo, Latin.) 1. To call with authority; to admonish to appear; to cite (Pope). 2. To excite; to call up; to raise (Shakspeare).

SUMMONER. s. (from summon.) One who cites; one who summons (Shakspeare). SUMMONS. s. A call of authority; admonition to appear; citation (Milton). SUMMUM BONUM, in ethics, the chief good.

SUMOROKOF (Alexander), the father of the Russian stage, was born at Moscow in 1727. He received a liberal education, and soon showed a strong turn for poetry. He was patronized by count Ivan Shuvalof, who introduced him to the empress Elizabeth. About the 29th year of his age he wrote the tragedy of Koref, which laid the foundation of the Russian theatre. This piece was first acted by some young men who had previously perform ed a French play; and this reaching the ears of the empress, she ordered the tragedy to be exhibited in her presence. The applause which the author received on this occasion stimulated him to further exertions, and he wrote several other dramatic pieces, both tragic and comic. He also attempted every species of poetry except the epic, and was the author of a few historical works. The empress Elizabeth rewarded him with the rank of a brigadier;

appointed him director of the Russian theatre, and settled upon him a pension of 4001. per annum. Catharine II. created him counsellor of state, conferred upon him the order of St. Anne, and honoured him with many other marks of distinction. He died in 1777.

SUMP, in metallurgy, a round pit of stone, lined with clay within, for the receiving the metal on its first fusion from the ore.

SUMP, in the British salt-works, where seawater is boiled into salt, is the name of a sort of pond, which is made at some distance from the saltern on the sea-shore, between full sea and low water mark. From this pond a pipe is laid, through which, when the sea is in, the water runs into a well adjoining to the saltern; and from this well it is pumped into troughs, through which it is carried to the cisterns, in order to be ready to supply the pans. See SALT.

SUMPH, in mining, denotes a pit sunk down in the bottom of the mine, to cut or prove the lode still deeper than before; and in order to slope and dig it away if necessary, and also to drive on the lode in depth.

SUMPTER. s. (sommier, French.) A horse that carries the clothes or furniture (Dryden). SUMPTION, s. (from sumptus, Latin.) The act of taking: not in use (Taylor).

SUMPTUARY. a. (sumptuarius, Latin.) Relating to expence; regulating the cost of life (Bacon).

SUMPTUOSITY. s. (from sumptuous.) Expensiveness; costliness: not used (Raleigh). SUMPTUOUS. a. (sumptuosus, Latin.) Costly; expensive; splendid (Atterbury). SUMPTUOUSLY. ad. (from sumptuous.) Expensively; with great cost (Bacon).

SUMPTUOUSNESS. s. (from sumptu ous.) Expensiveness; costliness (Boyle).

SUN. SOL. O, in astronomy, the great luminary which enlightens the world, and by his presence constitutes day.

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The sun, which was reckoned among the planets in the infancy of astronomy, should rather be counted among the fixed stars. only appears brighter and larger than they do, because we keep constantly near the sun; whereas we are immensely farther from the stars. But a spectator, placed as near to any star as we are to the sun, would probably see that star a body as large and as bright as the sun appears to us; and, on the other hand, a spectator as far distant from the sun as we are from the stars would see the sun as small as we see a star, divested of all his circumvolving planets; and he would reckon it one of the stars in numbering them.

According to the Pythagorean and Copernican hypothesis, which is now generally received, and has been demonstrated to be the true system, the sun is the common centre of all the planetary and cometary system; around which all the planets and comets, and our earth among the rest, revolve, in different periods, according to their different distances from the sun.

But the sun, though thus eased of that pro

digious motion by which the ancients imagined he revolved daily round our earth, yet is by no means a perfectly quiescent body. For, from the phenomena of his maculæ or spots, it evidently appears that he has a rotation round his axis, like that of the earth, by which our natural day is measured, but only slower. For some of these spots have made their first appearance near the edge or margin of the sun, from thence they have seemed gradually to pass over the sun's face to the opposite edge, then disappear; and hence, after an absence of about 14 days, they have reappeared in their first place, and have taken the same course over again; finishing their entire circuit in 27d. 12h. 20m.; which is hence inferred to be the period of the sun's rotation round his axis: and therefore the periodical time of the sun's revolution to a fixed star is 25d. 15h. 16m; because in 27d. 12h. 20m. of the month of May, when the observations were made, the earth describes an angle about the sun's centre of 26° 22′, and therefore as the angular motion 360° 26° 22′: 360°:: 27d. 12h. 20m.: 25d.

15h. 16m.

This motion of the spots is froin west to east: whence we conclude the motion of the sun, to which the other is owing, to be from

east to west.

Besides this motion round his axis, the sun, on account of the various attractions of the surrounding planets, is agitated by a small motion round the centre of gravity of the system and has farther, in all probability, either a progressive motion, or a very slow one, round some amazingly remote centre of force.

In a paper on the construction of the heavens, Dr. Herschel says it is very probable that the great stratum called the milky way is that in which the sun is placed; though perhaps not in the centre of its thickness, but not far from the place where some smaller stratum branches from it. Such a supposition will satisfactorily and with great simplicity account for all the phenomena of the milky way, which, according to this hypothesis, is no other than the appearance of the projection of the stars contained in this stratum, and its secondary branch. See GALAXY.

In another paper on the same subject, he says, that the milky way is a most extensive stratum of stars of various sizes admits no longer of the least doubt; and that our sun is actually one of the heavenly bodies belonging

to it is as evident.

We will now, says the doctor, retreat to our own retired station in one of the planets at tending a star in the great combination, with numberless others; and in order to investigate what will be the appearances from this contracted situation let us begin with the naked eye. The stars of the first magnitude, being in all probability the nearest, will furnish us with a step to begin our scale; setting off, therefore, with the distance of Sirius or Arcturus, for instance, as unity, we will at present suppose, that those of the second magnitude are at double, and those of the third at treble

the distance, and so forth. Taking it, then, for granted, that a star of the seventh magnitude is about seven times as far from us as one of the first, it follows that an observer, who is enclosed in a globular cluster of stars, and not far from the centre, will never be able, with the naked eye, to see to the end of it: for since, according to the above estimations, he can only extend his view about seven times the distance of Sirius, it cannot be expected that his eyes should reach the borders of a cluster which has perhaps not less than fifty stars in depth every where around him. The whole universe, therefore, to him will be comprised in a set of constellations, richly ornamented with scattered stars of all sizes. Or if the united brightness of a neighbouring cluster of stars should, in a remarkably clear night, reach his sight, it will put on the appearance of a small, faint, nebulous cloud, not to be perceived without the greatest attention. Allowing him the use of a common telescope, he begins to suspect that all the milkiness of the bright path which surrounds the sphere may be owing to stars. By increasing his power vision, he becomes certain that the milky way is, indeed, no other than a collection of very small stars, and the nebulæ nothing but clus ters of stars.

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Dr. Herschel then solves a general problem for computing the length of the visual ray: that of the telescope which he uses will reach to stars 497 times the distance of Sirins. Now, according to the doctor's reasoning, Sirius can not be nearer than 100,000 × 194,000,000 miles, therefore his telescope will, at least, reach to 100,000 × 194,000,000 × 497 miles And Dr. Herschel says, that in the most crowded part of the milky way, he has had fields of view that contained no less than 588 stars, and these were continued for many minutes, so that in a quarter of an hour be has seen 116,000 stars pass through the field view of a telescope of only 15' aperture: and at another time, in 41 minutes, he saw 258,000 stars pass through the field of his telescope. Every improvement in his telescopes has discovered stars not seen before, so that there appears no bounds to their number, or to the extent of the universe.

The sun, like many other stars, has probably a progressive motion, directed towards the constellation Hercules. Dr. Herschel, on this subject, observes that the apparent proper motions of 44 stars ont of 50 are nearly in the direction which would be the result of such a real motion of the solar system; and that the bright stars Arcturus and Sirius, which are probably the nearest to us, have, as they ought, according to this theory, the greatest apparent motions. Again, the star Castor appears, when viewed with a telescope, to consist of two stars, of nearly equal magnitude; and though they have both an apparent motion, they have never been found to change their distance with respect to one another a single second, a circumstance which is easily understood if both their apparent motions are

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The sun revolves on his axis in 25 d. 15h.with respect to the fixed stars; this axis is directed towards a point about half way between the pole star and Lyra, the plane of the rotation being inclined a little more than 7° to that in which the earth revolves. The direction of this motion is from west to east. All the rotations of the different bodies which compose the solar system as far as they have been ascertained, are in the same direction, and likewise all their revolutions, excepting those of some of the comets, and those of some of the satellites of the Herschel planet.

The time and the direction of the sun's rotation are ascertained by the change of the situation of the spots, which are usually visible on his disc, and which some astronomers suppsed to be elevations, and others to be exca, vations in the luminous matter covering the san's surface. These spots are frequently observed to appear and disappear, and they are in the mean time liable to great variations, thugh they are generally found about the same points of the sun's surface. M. Lalande supposes them to be parts of the solid body of the sun, which by some agitations of the luminous ocean, with which he conceives the sun to be surrounded, are left nearly or entirely bare. Dr. Wilson and Dr. Herschel are disposed to consider this ocean as consisting rather of a fame than of a liquid substance; and Dr. Herschel, in an ingenious paper, attributes the pots to the emission of an æriform fluid, not yet in combustion, which displaces the general uminous atmosphere, and which is afterwards to serve as fuel for supporting the process; hence he supposes the appearance of copious spots to be indicative of the approach of warm seasons on the surface of the earth, a theory which he has attempted to maintain by his torical evidence. The exterior luminous atinosphere has an appearance somewhat mot Led; some parts of it, appearing brighter than others, have been called faculæ, but Dr. Herschel distinguishes them by the names of idges and nodules. The spots are usually surfounded by margins less dark than themselves, which are called shallows, and which are considered as parts of an inferior stratum, consisting of opaque clouds, capable of protecting the immediate surface of the sun from the excessive heat produced by combustion in the superior stratum, and perhaps rendering it habitable to animated beings.

To which Dr. Young replies, if we inquire into the intensity of the heat which must necessarily exist wherever this combustion is performed, we shall soon be convinced that no clouds, however dense, could impede its rapid transmission to the parts below. Besides the diameter of the sun is 111 times as great as that of the earth; and at its surface a heavy body would fall through no less than 450 feet in a single second; so that if every other circumstance permitted human beings to reside on it, their own weight would present an inVOL. XI.

superable difficulty, since it would become thirty times as great as upon the surface of the earth, and a man of moderate size would weigh above two tons.

Dr. Herschel, in another paper, supposes that the spots in the sun are mountains on its surface, which, considering the great attraction exerted by the sun upon bodies placed at its surface, and the slow revolution it has about its axis, he thinks may be more than 300 miles high, and yet stand very firmly. He says, that in August 1792, he examined the sun with several powers from 90 to 500, and it evidently appeared, that the black spots are the opaque ground or body of the sun; and that the luminous part is an atmosphere, which being inter cepted or broken, gives us a glimpse of the sun itself. Hence he concludes, that the sun has a very extensive atmosphere, which consists of elastic fluids that are more or less lucid and transparent; and of which the lucid ones furnish us with light. This atmosphere, he thinks, is not less than 1843, nor more than 2765 miles in height; and he supposes that the density of the luminous solar clouds need not be exceedingly more than that of our aurora borealis, in order to produce the effects with which we are acquainted.

The similarity of the sun to the other globes of the solar system, with regard to its solidity; its atmosphere; its surface diversified with mountains and valleys; its rotation on its axis; and the fall of heavy bodies on its surface; leads us to suppose that it is most probably inhabited, like the rest of the planets, by beings whose organs are adapted to the peculiar circumstances of that vast globe. If it be objected, that from the effects produced at the distance of 95,000,000 miles, we may infer, that every thing must be scorched up at its surface: we reply, that there are many facts in natural philosophy which show that heat is produced by the sun's rays only when they act on a calorific medium: they are the cause of the production of heat by uniting with the matter of fire which is contained in the substances that are heated; as the collision of the flint and steel will inflame a magazine of gunpowder, by putting all the latent fire which it contains into action. On the tops of mountains of sufficient height, at the altitude where clouds can seldom reach to shelter them from the direct rays of the sun, we always find regions of ice and snow. Now, if the solar rays themselves conveyed all the heat we find on this globe, it ought to be hottest where their course is the least interrupted. Again, our aeronauts all confirm the coldness of the upper regions of the atmosphere; and since, therefore, even on our earth the heat of the situation depends upon the readiness of the medium to yield to the impression of the solar rays, we have only to admit, that on the sun itself the elastic fluids composing its atinosphere, and the matter on its surface, are of such a nature as not to be capable of any extensive affection of its own rays; and this seems to be proved by the copi ous emission of them; for if the clastic fluids

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