RUSTCHUK-RUTHERGLEN. the Uredo rubigo vera, but it is doubted by some if this is not really a young state of a Puccinia. Not a few authors regard R. as an eruptive disease (exanthema), which makes its appearance chiefly in damp weather, and sometimes extends so far as seriously to injure the plants affected by it, the mycelium and spores which appear in it being regarded as present accidentally, or in consequence of the disease. This, however, is the least probable opinion concerning it.-R. is sometimes very injurious to crops. No remedy is known for it; but it is certain that rank manures tend to produce or aggravate it. See UREDO. RUSTCHUK, a town of European Turkey in Bulgaria, eyalet of Silistria, and 70 miles westsouth-west of the town of that name, on the south bank of the Danube, opposite Giurgevo. Its position on a range of hills, with its white chimneys, its mosques and minarets rising from amid forests of fruit-trees, give it a striking and picturesque appearance. It is surrounded by an extended line of fortifications, contains nine mosques, several Greek and Armenian churches, synagogues, and baths. The Danube is here about two miles wide, but its banks are low, and its channel is marked with islets and shallows. It is the most important manufacturing Turkish town on the Danube. The principal articles of manufacture are cloth, linen, leather, muslin, silk and tobacco. Pop. 30,000. There by abortion, or twice or thrice as many. RUTH, BOOK OF, one of the Hagiographa, placed in the Authorised Version, as in the LXX., between Judges and Samuel; and in the Jewish canon, as the second of the five Megilloth, coming after the Song of Songs. It consists of four chapters, and describes how Ruth, the Moabite widow of a Hebrew, Machlon by name, in the time of the Judges, became-by faithful, loving adherence to her motherin-law, Naomi, for whose sake she had left her home and kindred-the wife of Boaz, and through him the ancestress of David himself. A fragmentary genealogy of David's house of which the principal links only are given-forms the conclusion of the book, which is characterised throughout by the most naïve simplicity, and minute RUSTIC OR RUSTICATED WORK and truthfulness of detail. If there be a tendency in RUSTICATION. The name of that kind of the book-which is doubtful-it would naturally masonry in which the various stones or courses are be to shew how utterly even that strictest of marked at the joints by splays or recesses. The prejudices, in the mind of ancient peoples, espe surface of the stone is sometimes left rough, and cially the Hebrews, against intermarriage with the sometimes polished or otherwise dressed. Rusti-stranger,' is vanquished by genuine human love cation is chiefly used in classical or Italian architec- and piety; nay, that the heroine of the tale, even ture, although Rustic Quoins (q. v.) are often used a Moabite, was deemed worthy for her virtue to in rough Gothic work. In the figure, a and b shew become the foundress of the royal house of Israel. Considering that the Book of Kings contains no details about David's genealogy, this book, apart from its indescribable natural charm, becomes a most useful historical record, and further supplies many items on the forms and domestic customs of a time about which we have such very scant information elsewhere. Rustre. RUTA BAGA. See TURNIP. RUTA'CEÆ, a natural order of exogenous plants, consisting mostly of trees and shrubs, but containing a few herbaceous plants. The leaves have no stipules, are simple and entire, lobed, pinnate, or decompound, and are covered with pellucid resinous dots. The flowers are hermaphrodite, sometimes irregular. The calyx has four or five segments; the petals are equal in number to its segments, or wanting, or are united into a monopetalous corolla; the stamens are equal in number to them, or fewer The time of the events related mounts back to about a century before David, yet both the contents and tendency of the book shew clearly enough that it was hardly written before the last years of David's reign, if it was at all written in his lifetime. For a change had already taken place in the interval in the manners and customs of the people (cf. the 'in former time,' iv. 7), and the genealogy carried down to David, shews the theocratic significance he had acquired by the time it was written down. Its canonicity has never been questioned in or out of the church. RUTHENIUM (symb. Ru, equiv. 52, spec. grav. 11.3) is a metal which was discovered in 1843 by Claus in the ore of platinum. In most respects, excepting in its specific gravity, it closely resembles iridium, the coloured reaction of the salts being almost without exception the same in both. For details regarding this metal, which is of no practical importance, the reader may consult Deville and Debray's Memoir on Platinum and its Ores,' in the Annale de Chimie et de Physique, for 1859. RU'THERGLEN, or, by popular abbreviation, RUGLEN, a royal, parliamentary, and municipal burgh, in Lanarkshire, on the Clyde, three miles south-east of Glasgow. It consists of one long wide street and of several narrow streets or lanes branching from it at right angles. In ancient times it was a place of considerable importance, carried on a large traffic on the river, and embraced RUTHIN-RUYTER. Glasgow within its municipal boundaries. Its trade is now mainly dependent upon that of Glasgow, and its inhabitants are employed in weaving muslins for Glasgow manufacturers, and in the mills, print, chemical, and dye-works, and collieries of the burgh and vicinity. Pop. (1861) 8062. In parliamentary representation, it is one of the Kilmarnock district of boroughs. RUTHIN, a municipal and parliamentary borough of North Wales, in the county of Denbigh, eight miles south-east of the town of that name, stands on the summit and slope of a hill on the right bank of the Clwyd. The site of the ancient castle, said to have been built in the reign of Edward I., is occupied by a fine modern castellated edifice in Gothic. Pop. (1861) 3372. RUTHVEN, RAID OF, a conspiracy of note in Scottish history, contrived and executed in 1582 by William, first Earl of Gowrie, father of the principal actor in the Gowrie Conspiracy (q. v.), in conjunction with Lord Lindsay of the Byres, the Earl of Mar, and the Master of Glammis. The object of the conspirators was to obtain the control of the state by seizing the person of James VI., then a boy of 16, and under the guardianship of the Duke of Lennox and Earl of Arran. The king being by invitation at Gowrie's seat of Ruthven Castle, the conspirators assembled 1000 of their vassals, surrounded the castle, and obtained complete possession of James. Arran was thrown into prison, and Lennox retired to France, where he died brokenhearted. The Presbyterian clergy warmly espoused the cause of the Ruthven lords, who received the thanks of the General Assembly, and full indemnity from a Convention of Estates. Nearly a year elapsed before the king regained his freedom. His feigned acquiescence in his position led the confederates so to relax their vigilance that he was enabled to throw himself into the castle of St Andrews, whose keeper was in his confidence, and thus to become his own master. Gowrie and the other lords made their submission, and were pardoned; but soon afterwards a royal proclamation characterised their enterprise as treason. Gowrie was commanded to leave Scotland; but while waiting for a vessel at Dundee, he was drawn into a conspiracy to surprise the castle of Stirling, for which he was tried and executed. are reared in great numbers. R., which abounds in pleasing scenery, contains many stately mansions, as well as a number of ecclesiastical remains dating from the Norman period. It returns two members to the House of Commons. (1871-pop. 22,070.) RU'VO IN APU'LIA, a city of Southern Italy, province of Bari, and 22 miles west of the city of that name. Pop. 15,133. It is built upon a rising ground, contains many churches, and two museums of Italo-Grecian vases, and is famous for its potteries. The staple produce is grain, pulse, and dried fruits. R. is the Rubi of Horace. RUYSDAEL, or RUÏSDAEL, JAKOB, was born at Haarlem. The date of his birth is uncertain; some make it 1625, others 1630 or 1635. It is said that there is a picture by him signed and dated 1645, which makes the last date improbable. He died in 1681. It has been stated, that for some years he directed his attention to the study and practice of surgery, but was advised by his friend Nicholas Berghem to devote his time to painting. In his pictures the trees are excellent in form, the foliage touched with sharpness and precision, and the skies are light and floating. His style of composition is entirely original, and characterised by a certain compactness in the arrangement; the Italian painters have generally groups of trees at the sides, and running out of the picture; in R.'s compositions, they are almost always massed within the picture. R. and Hobbima hold about an equal position-namely, that of the best landscape-painters of the Dutch school; but R. was also equally eminent for his sea-pieces. His etchings, seven in number, are much prized by collectors. Jan van Kessel and Jan Renier de Vries were imitators of Ruysdael. His elder brother, Salomo (born circa 1613, died 1676), was also a painter of some note. admiral, was born at Vliessingen in 1607, of poor RUYTER, MICHAEL ADRIAANSZOON VAN, Dutch a cabin boy parents, who sent him to sea as when only eleven years old. He became a warrant officer, and in 1635 rose to be a captain in the Dutch navy. Indian seas, he was, in 1645, made rear-admiral. After serving several years in the He engaged and sunk a piratic Algerine squa dron off Sallee in 1647. In 1652, when war broke out between the States and England, then under the Protectorate, he was placed in command of a RUTILE, a mineral, which is essentially Oxide squadron, and ordered to convoy a large number of Titanium or Titanic Acid, although generally of merchant-ships. He was met by the English containing a little peroxide of iron. It is of a fleet under Sir G. Ayscough off Plymouth, and brown, red, or yellow colour; and is found massive, an engagement took place. Neither of the fleets disseminated, in thin lamine, and in four-sided or gained any decisive advantage; but R. succeeded six-sided prisms, which are sometimes needle-like, in saving his convoy. In 1653, when a fight and permeate rock-crystal. It is found also in of three days took place between the English and granite, syenite, gneiss, mica-slate, limestone, chlo-Dutch fleets off Portland, R. commanded a divirite-slate, &c., and its geographic distribution is sion under Van Tromp. The English, under Blake, very wide. It is used to give a yellow colour to finally obtained a great victory, taking and destroyporcelain. ing 11 Dutch men-of-war and 30 merchantmen. RUTLANDSHIRE, an inland county of Eng-The states-general, in 1659, sent him to assist land, much the smallest in England and Wales, is Denmark against Sweden. He defeated the Swedish bounded on the N.E. by Lincoln, on the S.E. by Nor- fleet, and obtained a title of nobility and a pension thampton, and on the W. by Leicester. Area, 95,805 from the king of Denmark. In 1664, he fell upon acres pop. (1861) 21,861. The river Wash, flowing the English factories at Cape Verde, and attempted east through the middle of the county, divides it into to seize the island of Barbadoes. As other depreda two portions, of which the northern is a somewhat tions of the Dutch upon English merchants, as well elevated table-land, while the southern consists in the East Indies as on the high seas, were com of a number of valleys running east and west, and plained of, war was declared against the Dutch. separated by low hills. The principal streams are In June 1666, R. and Van Tromp, with 90 sail, the Welland, forming the boundary on the south-engaged the English fleet under Prince Rupert and east, and its affluents the Wash and Chater. The climate is mild and healthy, the soil is loamy and rich, and there is hardly an acre of waste land in the whole county. R., however, is not a crop producing, but a grazing county. Oxen and sheep the Duke of Albemarle. Both sides fought with such obstinacy that the battle lasted four days, and ended without any decisive result. In July, the conflict was renewed, when the English gained a complete victory, destroying above 20 of R.'s RYAN-RYE-GRASS. men-of-war. In 1667, he destroyed the shipping at Sheerness, sailed up the Medway as far as Chatham, burned several English men-of-war, and effected more towards the conclusion of peace at Breda (1667) than any diplomatist. In 1671, he commanded the Dutch fleet, and fought several battles with the combined English and French fleets, but without decisive results. In 1675, he was sent to the Mediterranean. He fought, off the coast of Sicily, a desperate battle with the French fleet, under the celebrated Admiral Duquesne. Victory declared itself on the side of the French; but R. made good his retreat into the harbour of Syracuse. He had his legs shattered in the engagement, and died of his wounds, April 1676. Europe did justice to his bravery; and Louis XIV. said he could not help regretting the loss of a great man, although an enemy. His death was deeply mourned by his countrymen, and a splendid monument was erected to his memory at Amsterdam. RYAN, LOCH. See WIGTONSHIRE. RYBINSK, a district town of Great Russia, in the government of Jaroslav, stands on the right bank of the Volga, 418 miles east-south-east of St Petersburg. It is the great centre of the corn trade on the Volga, and, after Nijni Novgorod, is the chief commercial centre on that river. The trade of R. consists principally in transhipping and forwarding to the capital the goods brought hither by large vessels up the Volga. For this purpose, upwards of 6000 barges are built here every year. The landingplace extends along the river for several miles, and is divided into nine sections, each of which is appropriated to special varieties of goods. The chief articles of trade are corn, flour, tallow, spirits, metals, and timber, and these are forwarded to St Petersburg by three systems of communications, of which the Mariinsky Canal conveys goods to the value of £5,000,000; the Tichvin Canal, goods to the value of £4,000,000; and the Vyshnivolotsk Canal, goods to the value of £2,000,000. Pop. 8643. RYDE, a flourishing and fashionable wateringplace and market-town, on the north coast of the Isle of Wight, Hampshire, occupies the east and north slopes of a hill, six miles south-south-west of Portsmouth, from which it is separated by the roadstead of Spit Head. It consists of Upper and Lower R.; the former anciently called Rye, or La Riche, and the latter of quite modern construction. The shores are wooded to the verge of the water, and the appearance of the town, with its streets and houses interspersed with trees, is pleasing and picturesque. The pier, nearly a mile in length, forms an excellent promenade. Yacht and boatbuilding are carried on to some extent. Steamers cross every hour to Portsmouth in summer, and several times a day in winter. R., the largest town in the island, had, in 1851, 7147, and in 1861, 9269 inhabitants. RYE, a seaport, market-town, and parliamentary and municipal borough in the south-east of the county of Sussex, ten miles north-east of Hastings, It is charmingly situated on an eminence bounded east by the Rother, and south and west by the Tillingham, which streams unite here, and, entering the sea two miles below the town, form the old harbour. The appearance of the town is remarkably quaint and old-fashioned. Overlooking the junction of the streams is a small castle built by William de Ypres, in the reign of Stephen, now used as a jail. The church is a beautiful and interesting structure-the central tower, transepts, a number of circular arches, &c., all being early Norman. In former times the sea flowed close and up to R., washing the rock on which the Ypres tower stands, but it has retired to a distance of two miles. The harbour admits vessels of 200 tons, and has been recently improved. This ancient town receives historical mention as early as 893. It was walled on two sides by Edward III., and contributed nine ships to the fleet with which that monarch invaded France. Brewing, ship-building, and trade in corn, hops, &c., are carried on. R. is one of the Cinque Ports, and sends a member to parliament. Pop. (1861) 8202. (1871-8288). RYE (Secale), a genus of grasses, allied to Wheat and Barley, and having spikes which generally consist of two-flowered, rarely of three-flowered, spikelets; the florets furnished with terminal (S. cereale) is a well-known grain. It has, when in awns, only the upper floret stalked. One species fruit, a roundish-quadrangular spike, with a tough rachis. Its native country, as in the case of the other most important cereals, is somewhat doubtful; but it is said to be found wild in the desert regions near the Caspian Sea, and on the highest mountains of the Crimea. It has long been cultivated as a cereal plant; although the supposed mention of it in Exodus ix. 32 is doubtful, spelt being perhaps intended. It is much cultivated in the north of Europe and in some parts of Asia. Its cultivation does not extend so far north as that of barley; but it grows in regions too cold for wheat, and on soils too poor and sandy for any other grain. Its ripening can also be more confidently reckoned upon in cold regions than that of any other grain. But R. succeeds best, and is most productive, in a climate where wheat still ripens. It delights in sandy soils. The varieties of R. are numerous, although much less so than those of other important cereals. Some are best fitted for sowing in autumn, others for sowing in spring. The former kinds (Winter R.) are most extensively cultivated, being generally the most productive. In some places on the continent of Europe, R. is sown at midsummer, mowed for green fodder in autumn, and left to shoot in spring, which it does at the same time with autumn-sown R., producing a good crop of small but very mealy grain. In Britain, R. is not a common grain crop, and is cultivated to a smaller extent than it formerly was; the sandy soils, to which it is best adapted, being improved and fitted for other kinds of corn. It is, however, sometimes sown to be used as a green crop, for feeding sheep and oxen in winter, and is found particularly good for milch cows. times also mown for horses and other animals. Bread made of R. is much used in the north of Europe. It is of a dark colour, more laxative than that made of wheat-flour, and, perhaps, rather less nutritious. R. is much used for fermentation and distillation, particularly for the making of Hollands. R. affected with Ergot (q. v.) is a very dangerous article of food. The straw of R. is tougher than that of any other corn-plant, and is much valued from Common R. in having a very hard, red-like for straw-plait.-PERENNIAL R. (S. perenne) differs culm; ears, 3-5 inches long, flatly compressed, with a brittle rachis, and 50-60 closely imbricated spikelets. It endures for many years, but is not much cultivated, as its grain is slender, and does not yield an easily separable flour. It is some RYE-GRASS (Lolium), a genus of grasses, having a two-rowed, flatly-compressed spike, the spikelets appressed edgewise to the rachis. COMMON R., or PERENNIAL R. (L. perenne), the Ray-grass of the older English authors, is frequent on waysides, and in meadows and pastures, in Britain and on the continent of Europe. The spikelets are much longer than their solitary external glume, 6-8-flowered; RYEHOUSE PLOT-RYSWICK. the florets awnless or nearly so; the culm flattened, assassinate the king on his return from Newmarket. from one foot to three feet high; the root producing The deed was to be perpetrated at a farm belonging leafy barren shoots, which add much to the agricultural value of the grass. This grass is highly valued for forage and hay, and is more extensively sown for these uses than any other grass, not only in Britain, but on the continent of Europe and in North America. It grows well even on very poor soils. The Common Perennial R. is the kind most generally cultivated. A kind called Annual R.-not really an annual plant, although useful only for one yearis sometimes cultivated; but is, in almost every respect, inferior.-ITALIAN R. (L. Italicum, or L. multiflorum, or L. Bouchianum), a native of the 1, Common Rye-grass; 2, Italian Rye-grass. to Rumboldt, one of the conspirators, called the Ryehouse Farm, whence the plot got its name. The R. P. is supposed to have been kept concealed from Monmouth, Russell, Shaftesbury, and the rest of those who took the lead in the greater conspiracy. It owed its defeat to the circumstance, that the house which the king occupied at Newmarket took fire accidentally, and Charles was thus obliged to leave that place eight days sooner than was expected. Both the greater and lesser conspiracy were discovered before long, and from the connec tion subsisting between the two, it was difficult altogether to dissever them. The indignation excited by the R. P. was extended to the whole Whig party; Lord Russell, Algernon Sidney, and Lieutenant-colonel Walcot were brought to the block for treason; John Hampden, grandson of his more noted namesake, was fined £40,000; and scarcely one escaped who had been concerned in either plot. RY'OT (from the Arabic raaya, to pasture, to protect, to govern; hence, literally, the governed, a subject) is the vernacular term for a Hindu cultivator or peasant. RYOTWAR (literally, according to or with ryots) is the term applied to the revenue settlement which is made by the government officers in India with each actual cultivator of the soil for a given term-usually a twelvemonth-at a stipulated money-rent, without the intervention of a third party. This mode of assessment prevails chiefly, though not exclusively, in the Madras presidency. See H. H. Wilson, Glossary of Judicial and Revenue Terms (Lond. 1855), under RAIYATWAR. RYSBRACH, MICHAEL, a sculptor of considerable talent, born at Antwerp in 1693. He settled in London in 1720, and executed numerous works there, in particular the monuments to Sir Isaac Newton in Westminster Abbey, and to the Duke of Marlborough at Blenheim, a bronze equestrian statue of William III. for the city of south of Europe, is much esteemed as a forage and Bristol, a colossal statue of George II. for the parade hay grass. In many soils and situations in Britain at Greenwich Hospital; a Hercules, and busts of it succeeds extremely well, and is remarkable for its many of the eminent poets, wits, and politicians of verdure and luxuriance in early spring. It is pre- his time. Scheemakers, also a native of Antwerp, ferred by cattle to the Common Rye-grass. The and Roubilliac, a Frenchman, were contemporaries young leaves are folded up, whilst those of the and rivals of his, and shared with him most of the Common R. are rolled together.-There are many commissions for works of sculpture in England at varieties of Rye-grass. It is nowhere so much the period. With Scheemakers was placed as a valued or cultivated as in Britain. It was culti-pupil Nollekens, who became so distinguished vated in England before the end of the 17th for his busts, and as one of the founders of the century. Italian R. was introduced into Britain in English school of sculpture. R. died 8th January 1831 by Mr Thomson of Banchory and Messrs 1770. Lawson and Son of Edinburgh. R. is generally sown along with some kind of corn, and vegetating for the first year amongst the corn, appears in the second year as the proper crop of the field. RYE'HOUSE PLOT. In 1683, at the same time that a scheme was formed in England among the leading Whigs to raise the nation in arms against Charles II., a subordinate scheme was planned by a few fiercer spirits of the party, including Colonel Rumsey and Lieutenant-colonel Walcot, two military adventurers; Goodenough, under-sheriff of London; Ferguson, an independent minister; and several attorneys, merchants, and tradesmen of London-the object of which was to waylay and 394 RY'SWICK, PEACE OF, a treaty concluded in 1697 at Ryswick, a Dutch village between Delft and the Hague, which was signed by France, England, and Spain on September 20, and by Germany on October 30. It put an end to the sanguinary contest in which England had been engaged with France. It has been often said that the only equivalent then received by England for all the treasure she had transmitted to the continent, and all the blood which had been shed there, was an acknowledgment of William's title by the king of France; but it must not be forgot how much the allies were benefited by the check given to the gigantic power and overweening ambition of France. S THE 19th letter in the English and of the Fichtelgebirge (Bavaria), and flowing northother western alphabets (the 18th ward through several minor states, and finally in the Latin), belongs to the dental across the Prussian province of Saxony, falls into series, and marks the fundamental the Elbe, about 25 miles above Magdeburg, after a sound of the hissing or sibilant course of 200 miles. It is navigable only within group, 8, 2, sh, zh. The Sanscrit the Prussian dominions. has characters for three hissing or 8- SAARBRÜCK, a town of Rhenish Prussia, on sounds; the Semitic languages had four the Saar, 40 miles south-south-east of Treves. It is (see ALPHABET). The Hebrew or Phoenician the seat of an active industry, of which coal-mining, character, from which the modern s is derived, spinning, and the manufacture of woollen and linen was called shin-i. e., tooth, and in its original fabrics, and of pottery and tobacco, are among the form probably represented two or three teeth. The principal branches. Pop. (1862) 11,288, exclusive of same character, with the presence or absence of a the suburb of St Johann, on the left bank of the diacritic point, marked either s or sh. In Eng., river, which contains 3360 inhabitants. 8 = = s is used both for the sharp and flat sounds, as this, = SAA'RDAM. See ZAANDAM. SAAZ, a town of Bohemia, on the Eger, 45 miles west-north-west of Prague. Hops are largely cultivated in the vicinity, and important corn-markets are held. Pop. 5800. SABADELL, a rising manufacturing town of Spain, in Catalonia, 14 miles by railway north-west of Barcelona. It has risen into importance only within recent years, and it is now the Manchester of Catalonia. Woollen and cotton fabrics are the staple manufactures, and of the 100 factories in the town, by far the greater number are engaged in these manufactures. Pop. about 16,000. SABADI'LLA, CEBADILLA, or CEVADILLA remnant of an old prefixed particle (as, is, us), having, (Asagraa officinalis, formerly Helonias officinalis), a perhaps, the force of ex in Lat. exopto, I wish Mexican plant of the natural order Melanthaceae, greatly; or ur in Ger. urklein, very small. An initial the seeds of which are employed in medicine, 8 before a vowel in Lat. corresponds to Gr. h; comp. because of properties analogous to those of White Lat. sub, sex, sal (salt), with Gr. hypo, hex, hals. In Hellebore (Veratrum album). The plant has a Greek and Latin, 8 was pronounced feebly at the bulbous root, and grows in tufts; the leaves are end of words, and still more so between two vowels. linear and grassy, about four feet long, and not It thus frequently disappeared in these positions, above a quarter of an inch broad; among them and this was one of the chief sources of the irregu- rises a round scape (leafless flower-stem), about six larities in the declensions and conjugations, which had originally been formed on a uniform system (see INFLECTIONS). The dropping of 8 is one of the ways in which the forms of modern French words have become so degraded; compare Lat. magister, old Fr. maistre, modern Fr. maitre; presbyter, prestre, prêtre. Even where still written, final s in French is mostly silent-e. g., vos, les. SAAD-ED-DIN, a Turkish historian, was born in 1536, and died at Constantinople in 1599. His history, entitled the Taj-al-Tuarikh (the Crown of Histories), a work held in high estimation by scholars, gives a general account of the Ottoman empire from its commencement in 1299 till 1520; it has never been printed, but MS. copies of it are found in most of the great libraries of Europe, and an inaccurate translation into Italian was published in 1646-1652. S. also wrote the Selim-Nameh, or History of Selim I., which is chiefly a collection of anecdotes regarding that prince. SAA'LÉ, a river of Germany, distinguished from other and smaller rivers of the same name as the Saxon or Thuringian S., rises on the western slope feet high, bearing a very dense raceme, a foot and a half long, of small white flowers. The seed-vessels are papery follicles, three together; the seeds one, two, or three in each follicle, two or three lines long, winged, and wrinkled. The powdered seeds have been known in medicine since the end of the 16th century. On submitting them to chemical analysis, they are found to consist of fatty matter, two special organic acids, to which the names Cevadic and Veratric acids have been given; of varieties of resin, yellow colouring matter, gum, and combination with gallic acid; and to these cona highly poisonous alkaloid named Veratria in stituents, a French chemist, Couerbe, has added a crystalline body named Sabadilline. Notwithstanding its highly poisonous properties, S. is prescribed on many parts of the continent as a vermifuge in cases of tape-worm and ascarides, and it may be administered to an adult in 8 or 10 grain doses, mixed with a little sugar, and a few drops of oil of fennel. In the form of powder, it is sometimes applied to the head to destroy lice, but if the skin be broken, some other remedy should be selected, as absorption to a dangerous extent might |