seeds solitary. There are two species, viz. S. completa, and S. lateriflora, natives of the West Indies.

SCALE, a mathematical instrument, consisting of several lines drawn on wood, brass, silver, &c. and variously divided, according to the purposes it is intended to serve; whence it acquires various denominations, as the plain scale, diagonal scale, plotting scale, Gunter's scale, &c. See MATHEMATICAL INSTRUMENTS.

SCALE, diagonal, is projected thus: first draw eleven parallel lines at equal distances, the whole length of which being divided into a certain number of equal parts, according to the length of the scale, by perpendicular parallels, let the first division be again subdivided into ten equal parts, both above and below; then drawing the oblique lines from the first perpendicular below to the first subdivision above, and from the first subdivision below to the second subdivision above, &c. the first space shall there. by be exactly divided into one hundred equal parts; for as each of these subdivisions is one tenth part of the whole first space or division, so each parallel above it is one tenth of such subdivision, and consequently one hundredth part of the whole first space; and if there be ten of the larger divisions, one thousandth part of the whole scale. If therefore the larger divisions be accounted units, the first subdivisions will be tenth parts of an unit; and the second subdivisions, marked by the diago. nals on the parallels, hundredth parts of an unit. Again, if the larger divisions be reckoned tens, the first subdivisions will be units, and the second subdivisions` tenth parts and if the larger divisions be accounted hundredths, the first subdivisions will be tens, and the second units; and

so on.

SCALE, Gunter's, an instrument, so called from Mr. Gunter, its inventor, is gene. rally made of box: there are two sorts, the long Gunter and the sliding Gunter, having both the same lines, but differently used, the former with the compasses, the latter by sliding. The lines now generally delineated on those instruments are the following, viz. a line of numbers, of sines, tangents, versed sines, sine of the rhumb, tangent of the rhumb, meridional parts, and equal parts; which are constructed after the following manner :

The line of numbers is no other than the logarithmic scale of proportionals, wherein the distance between each division is equal

to the number of mean proportionals con. tained between the two terms, in such parts as the distance between 1 and 10 is 1000, &c. equal the logarithm of that number. Hence it follows, that if the number of equal parts expressed by the logarithm of any number be taken from the same scale of eqnal parts, and set off from 1 on the line of numbers, the division will represent the number answering to that logarithm. Thus, if you take .954, &c. (the logarithms of 9) of the same parts, and set it off from 1 towards 10, you will have the division standing against the number 9. In like manner, if you set off .903, &c. .845, &c. .778, &c. (the logarithms of 8, 7, 6) of the same equal parts from 1 towards 10, you will have the divisions answering to the numbers 8, 7, 6. After the same manner

may the whole line be constructed.

The line of numbers being thus constructed, if the numbers answering to the natural sines and tangents of any arch, in such parts as the radius is 10,000, &c. be found upon the line of numbers, right against them will stand the respective divisions answering to the respective arches, or which is the same thing, if the distance between the centre and that division of the line of numbers, which expresses the number answering to the natural sine or tangent of any arch, be set off on its respective line from its centre towards the left hand, it will give the point answering to the sine or tangent of that arch: thus the natural sine of 30 degrees being 5,000, &c. if the distance between the centre of the line of numbers (which in this case is equal to 10,000, &c. equal the radius) and the division, on the same line representing 5000, &c. be set off from the centre, or 90 degrees, on the line of sines, towards the left hand, it will give the point answering to the sine of 30 degrees. And after the same manner may the whole line of sines, tangents, and versed sines be divided.

The line of sines, tangents, and versed sines being thus constructed, the line sine of the rhumb, and tangent of the rhumb are easily divided; for if the degrees and minutes answering to the angle which every rhumb makes with the meridian, be transferred from its respective line to that which is to be divided, we shall have the several points required: thus if the distance between the radius or centre, and sine of 45 degrees equals the fourth rhumb, be set off upon the line sine of the rhumb, we shail have the point answering to the sine of the

fourth rhumb; and after the same manner may both these lines be constructed. The line of meridional parts is constructed from the table of meridional parts, in the same manner as the line of numbers is from the logarithms.

The lines being thus constructed, all problems relating to arithmetic, trigonometry, and their depending sciences, may be solved by the extent of the compasses only; and, as all questions are reducible to proportions, the general rule is, to extend the compasses from the first term to the second, and the same extent of the compasses will reach from the third to the fourth; which fourth term must be so continued as to be the thing required, which a little practice will render easy.

SCALE, scala, in music, is a denomination given to the arrangement of the six syllables invented by Guido Aretine, ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la, called also gamut. It bears the name scale (q. d. ladder) because it represents a kind of ladder, by means whereof, the voice rises to acute, or descends to grave; each of six syllables being, as it were, one step of the ladder. Scale is also used for a series of sounds rising or falling towards acuteness or gravity, from any given pitch of tune, to the greatest distance that is fit or practicable, through such intermediate degrees as make the succession most agreeable and perfect, and in which we have all the harmonical intervals most commodiously divided.

SCALES of fish, generally possess a sil very whiteness, and are composed of different laminæ. In many of their properties they resemble horn. By long boiling in water they become soft, and when they are kept for some hours in nitric acid, they are converted into a transparent membranous substance. By saturating the acid with ammonia, a precipitate is formed, which is phosphate of lime. The constituent parts of scales, therefore, are membrane and phosphate of lime.

SCALENE, or SCALENOUS TRIANGLE, in geometry, a triangle whose sides and angles are unequal.

SCAMMONY, in the Materia Medica, is a concreted vegetable juice of a plant of the same name, partly of the resin and partly of the gum-kind, of which there are two sorts, distinguished by the names of the places from whence they are brought. The Aleppo scammony is of a spongy texturé, light and friable; it is of a faint disagreeable smell, and its taste is bitterish, very nause.

ous, and acrimonious. The Smyrna scam mony is considerably hard and heavy, of a black colour, and of a much stronger smell and taste than the former, otherwise it much resembles it.

SCANDALUM magnatum, is the special name of a statute, and also of a wrong done to any high personage of the land, as prelates, dukes, marquisses, earls, barons, and other nobles; and also the chancellor, treasurer, clerk of the privy seal, steward of the house, justice of one bench or other, and other great officers of the realm, by false news, or horrible, or false, messages, whereby debates and discord, between them and the commons, or any scandal to their persons might arise. 2 Richard II. c. 5. This statute has given name to a writ, granted to recover damages thereupon.

It is now clearly agreed, that though there be no express words in the statute which give an action, yet the party injured may maintain one on this principle of law, that when a statute prohibits the doing of a thing, which if done might be prejudicial to another, in such case he may have an action on that very statute for his damages.

SCANDIX, in botany, chervil, a genus of the Pentandria Digynia class and order. Natural order of Umbellatæ or Umbelliferæ. Essential character: florets of the disc most commonly male; corolla radiate; petals emarginate; fruit awl-shaped. There are eleven species. The most remarkable is S. odorata with angular furrowed seeds. It is a native of Germany; and has a very thick perennial root, composed of many fibres, of a sweet aromatic taste, like aniseed, from which come forth many large leaves that branch out somewhat like those of fern, whence it is named sweet fern.

SCANNING, in poetry, the measuring of a verse by feet, in order to see whether or no the quantities be duly observed.

The term is chiefly used in regard to the Greek and Latin verses. Thus an bexameter verse is scanned, by resolving it into six feet; a pentameter, by resolving it into five feet, &c.

SCANTLING, in building, a measure, or standard by which the dimensions of things are to be determined. The term is parti cularly applied to the dimensions of any piece of timber, with regard to its breadth and thickness.

SCAPEMENT, a general term for the manner of communicating the impulse of the wheels to the pendulum of a clock.

Common scapements consist of the swing wheel and pallets only. See HOROLOGY,

&c.

SCAPOLITE, in mineralogy, a species of the Flint genus, is of a greyish white colour, passing into greenish grey; it occurs massive, but most commonly crystallized in long, thin, often acicular prisms. Externally it is glistening; internally it is shining and glistening; its lustre is between resinous and pearly. It is brittle and frangible. Specific gravity about 3.7. Before the blowpipe it intumesces, and melts into shining white enamel. It is found in the iron-stone mines in Norway. Its crystals are sometimes mixed with mica, calc-spar, and felspar. It is composed of

SCARABÆUS, in natural history, the beetle, a genus of insects of the order Co. leoptera. Generic character: antennæ clavate, the club lamellate; feelers four; foreshanks generally toothed. In this genus there are several hundred species, in four divisions, which are distinguished by the form of their feelers.

S. Hercules, or Hercules beetle, is the most remarkable species, as well in size as in beauty. It is five or six inches long; the wing-shells are of a smooth surface, of a bluish-grey colour, marked with round, deep-black spots of different sizes; from the upper part of the thorax proceeds a horu of great length, in proportion to the body; it is sharp at the tip, and is furnished throughout its whole length with a fine, short, velvet-like pile, of a brownish-orange colour; from the front of the head also proceeds a strong horn, like the other, but not furnished with any pile. This insect is found in several parts of South America, where great numbers are said to be sometimes seen on the mammee-tree, rasping off the rind of the slender branches, by working nimbly round them with the horns, till they cause the juice to flow, which they drink to intoxication, and in this state fall senseless from the tree. This fact has been controverted by the learned Fabricius.

In this country, the S. melolontha, or

1

cock-chaffer, is very common. The larva inhabits ploughed lands, and feeding on the roots of corn; and the complete insect makes its appearance during the middle and the decline of summer. This insect sometimes appears in such prodigious numbers, as almost to strip the trees of their foliage, and to produce mischiefs nearly approaching to those of the locust-tribe; they are thus described in the "Philosophical Transactions" for the year 1697, by Mr. Molineux. These insects were first noticed in this kingdom in 1688. They appeared on the south-west coast of Galway, brought thither by a south-west wind, one of the most common, I might almost say, tradewinds, of this country. From hence they penetrated into the inland parts towards Heddford, about twelve miles north of the town of Galway: here and there in the adjacent country, multitudes of them appear. ed among the trees and hedges in the daytime, hanging by the boughs in clusters, like bees when they swarm. In this posture they continued, with little or no motion, during the heat of the sun; but, to wards evening or sun-set, they would all disperse and fly about with a strange humming noise, like the beating of distant drums, and in such vast numbers, that they darkened the air for the space of two or three miles square. Persons travelling on the roads, or abroad in the fields, found it very uneasy to make their way through them, they would so beat and knock themselves against their faces in their flight, and with such a force as to make the place smart, and leave a slight mark behind them. In a short time after their coming, they had so entirely eat up and destroyed all the leaves of the trees for some miles round, that the whole country, though in the middle of summer, was left as bare as in the depth of winter; and the noise they made in gnawing the leaves, made a sound much resembling the sawing of timber. They also came into the gardens and destroyed the buds, blossoms, and leaves of all the fruit-trees so that they were left perfectly naked; nay many that were more delicate than the rest, lost their sap as well as leaves, and quite withered away, so that they never recovered again. Their multitudes spread so exceedingly, that they infested houses, and became extremely offensive and troublesome. Their numerous young, hatched from the eggs which they had lodged under ground, near the surface of the earth, did still more harm in that close retirement

than all the flying swarms of their parents had done abroad; for this destructive brood, lying under ground, eat up the roots of corn and grass, and thus consumed the support both of man and beast. This plague was happily checked several ways. High winds, and wet misling weather, destroyed many millions of them in a day; and when this constitution of the air prevailed, they were so enfeebled that they would let go their hold, and drop to the ground from the branches, and so little a fall as this was sufficient quite to disable, and sometimes perfectly kill them. Nay, it was observable, that even when they were most vigorous, a slight blow would for some time stun them, if not deprive them of life. During these unfavourable seasons of the weather, the swine and poultry of the country would watch under the trees for their falling, and feed and fatten upon them; and even the poorer sort of the country people, the country then labouring under a scarcity of provision, had a way of dressing them, and lived upon them as food. In a little time it was found, that smoke was another thing very offensive to them, and by burning heath, fern, &c. the gardens were secured, or if the insects had already entered, they were thus driven out again. Towards the latter end of summer, they returned of themselves, and so totally disappeared, that in a few days you could not see one left. A year or two ago, all along the south-west coast of the county of Galway, for some miles together, there were found dead on the shore such infinite multitudes of them, and in such vast heaps, that,, by a moderate estimate, it was computed there could not be less than forty or fifty horse-loads in all; which was a new colony, or a supernumerary swarm, from the same place whence the first stock came, in 1688, driven by the wind from their native land, which I conclude to be Normandy, or Britany, in France, it being a country much infested with this insect, and from whence England heretofore has been pestered in a similar manner, with swarms of this vermin; but these, meeting with a contrary wind before they could land, were stopped, and, tired with the voyage, were all driven into the sea, which, by the motion of its waves and tides, cast their floating bodies in heaps on the shore. It is observed, that they seldom keep above a year together in a place, and their usual stages, or marches, are computed to be about six miles in a year. Hitherto their progress has been westerly, fol

lowing the course of that wind which blows most commonly in this country."

The larva of this insect is eagerly sought after and devoured by swine, bats, crows, and poultry: it is said to be two or three years in passing from its first form into that of the perfect insect. The eggs are laid in small detached heaps, beneath the surface of some clod, and the young, when first hatched, are scarcely more than the eighth of an inch in length, gradually advancing in their growth, and occasionally shifting their skins, till they arrive at the length of nearly two inches. At this period they begin to prepare for their change into a chrysalis or pupa, selecting for the purpose some small clod of earth, in which they form a cavity, and after a certain time, divest themselves of their last skin, and immediately appear in the pupa state; in this they continue till the succeeding summer, when the beetle emerges from its retirement, and commits its depredations on the leaves of trees, breeds, and deposits its eggs in a favourable situation, after which its life is of very short duration. If the larva appear in autumn in considerable quantities, they are said to prognosticate epidemic disorders.

A species of great beauty is the S. auratus, or golden beetle, about the size of the common or black garden beetle; the colour is most brilliant, varnished, and of a golden-green. This is a fine object for the magnifying glass. It is not very uncommon during the hottest parts of summer, frequenting various plants and flowers; its larva is commonly found in the hollows of old trees, or among the loose dry soil at their roots, and sometimes in the earth of anthills.

Mr. Donovan has described, among his English insects, the S. stercorarius, or clockbeetle, which flies about in an evening, in a circular direction, with a loud buzzing noise, and is said to foretel a fine day. It was consecrated by the Egyptians to the sun; is infested with the acarus and ichneumon; the body is often coloured with a bluish or greenish gloss, sometimes brassy beneath; shells frequently dull, rufous.

SCARIFICATION, in surgery, the ope ration of making several incisions in the skin by means of lancets, or other instru. ments, particularly the cupping instru

ment.

SCARP, in fortification, is the interior talus, or slope of the ditch next the place, at the foot of the rampart.

SCARP, in heraldry, the scarf which mili