SILVER.

a, sole formed of wood ashes; b, bricks; c, bed of slag; d, dome of

'iron plate; ee, tuyères for bellows; f, fireplace; g, crane for lifting

SILVER.

matters and the sulphates and chlorides, the barrels, which were hitherto only two-thirds full, are now filled with water (the dilution throwing down any chloride of silver held in solution by the sea-salt), and kept revolving for two hours; after which, by

means of a stop-cock, the amalgam is allowed to flow into the amalgam chamber, and the rest of the contents, except the iron fragments, into a washtun. The superfluous quicksilver has next to be separated from the amalgam. This is done in bags of ticking, through which the mercury at first flows readily by its own weight, and is afterwards squeezed out on a flat surface. The result of this operation is, that the amalgam of mercury, silver, copper, &c. is left in the bags: its actual composition being nearly 85 per cent. of mercury, 10 per cent. of silver, and 5 of copper, lead, and antimony. Finally, the quicksilver of the amalgam itself is separated by heat in the distilling furnace, fig. 4. Here the

d

preferable, instead of diluting the liquid, to introduce metallic copper, which has the property of decomposing the chloride of silver: the chlorine unites with the copper to form chloride of copper, and the silver is precipitated.

In Mexico, the extraction of the silver from its ores is chiefly accomplished by amalgamation, but the plan employed differs a good deal from the Saxon process described above, and is more primitive and wasteful, owing to the formation of subchloride of mercury. It is estimated that as much as 6,000,000 cwt. of quicksilver has been lost in this way at the American mines in the course of 200 years.

It has now become a common practice at Swansea, where the great British copper smelting-works are situated, to extract the silver which exists in an appreciable, though small quantity, in many copper ores. Several processes are followed, but it will suffice to name the liquation process. Blistercopper, that is, copper unrefined, which has been smelted from an argentiferous ore, is melted with three or four times its weight of lead, and cast into ingots. When these are moderately heated, the copper does not fuse, but the lead and silver melt, and run off together. The lead is then separated from the silver in the usual way by cupellation.

The physical and chemical properties of silver are such as make it specially valuable for many purposes in the arts; the chief of which are noticed in the articles Alloy, Mint, Plating, Galvanism, and Photography. Ordinary mirrors have their silvering produced by a coating of an amalgam of tin and mercury; but a process has for some years been practised, by which a mirror-like coating of silver is given to glass objects of any round as well as flat form. It consists in mixing some of the salts of silver, usually the nitrate, with an alcoholic solution of grape-sugar or of certain essential oils, which has the property of reducing the silver to the metallic state, and depositing it on the surface of the glass.

MEDICINAL USES OF SILVER. Nitrate of silver, in small doses, constitutes an excellent tonic, and it appears to exert almost a specific influence over certain convulsive diseases. As a tonic, it is frequently prescribed in the early stages of phthisis, and in cases of irritability of the mucous membrane of the stomach; and epilepsy and chorea frequently yield to its influence, when many other remedies have been tried in vain. There is unfortunately one great drawback to its administration-viz., that when its use has been continued for some time, this salt communicates a permanent slate-like or bluish-gray hue to the skin. There is very little danger of this change of colour occurring, if the medicine is not administered for a longer period than three months. In prescribing this salt, it is usual to begin with a small dose, about one-sixth of a grain, and gradually to increase it to two or three amalgam is put into a row of iron pots, which go grains, three times a day. It is best administered into a large retort. When heat is applied, the quick-in pills made with some vegetable extract. The silver volatilises, and is condensed in a pipe attached to the retort, from which it is collected in a trough. The impure silver left in the retort is refined by fusion and subsequent cupellation.

a,

Fig. 4.-Furnace for Distilling the Amalgam. iron retort; b, iron pots; c, fireplace; d, flue; f, condensing pipe; g, trough for collecting mercury.

There is another process carried on at Freiberg and elsewhere, by which the use of mercury is dispensed with. It consists in treating the ore as above described till it leaves the roasting-furnace. At this stage, the roasted ore is digested in a warm concentrated solution of sea-salt, which readily dissolves the chloride of silver. On diluting the solution, and allowing it to cool, the chloride of silver will separate again, and could thus be obtained as a compound of comparative purity. But it is found

surgical uses of nitrate of silver have been already noticed in the article on LUNAR CAUSTIC.

Oxide of silver is employed in the same cases as the nitrate. It is especially recommended in chronic affections of the stomach, and in menorrhagia. It may be given in the same doses as nitrate. Chloride of silver has been employed both in America and in Germany in the same cases as the nitrate, and in certain forms of syphilitic disease. It is stated not to produce the discoloration of the skin caused by the nitrate; but as the same statement was confidently made regarding the oxide, and was found to be fallacious, we are not inclined to put any faith in this assertion especially as the nitrate must be

SILVERING GLASS-SIMON.

at once converted into a chloride by the free hydro- Salghir, 45 miles north-east of Sebastopol. chloric acid of the gastric juice.

ness.

SILVERING GLASS. See MIRROR. SIMARUBA'CEÆ, a natural order of exogenous plants, consisting of trees and shrubs; with alternate, generally compound leaves, without stipules; regular, generally hermaphrodite flowers. The species are not numerous; they are found in the tropical parts of Asia, Africa, and America. The whole order is characterised by great bitterQuassia (q. v.) and Bitterwood (q. v.) belong The seeds of Simaba cedron, a small tree found in the Isthmus of Darien and neighbouring countries, are known by the name of Cedron, are intensely bitter, and are greatly esteemed in Central America and New Granada as a cure for intermittents, dyspepsia, and other diseases.-SIMARUBA BARK, employed as a tonic in dyspepsia, dysentery, &c., is the bark of the roots of Simaruba amara, a native of the West Indies, called Mountain Damson in Jamaica. It was first brought to Europe

to it.

in 1713.

SIMBIRSK, a government of Russia, bounded on the E. by the Volga, and on the W. by the governments of Nijni-Novgorod and Penza. Area, 18,778 sq. m.; pop. 1,183,312. The surface is for the most part level, and the soil of remarkable fertility, and there are excellent and extensive meadows and pasture-grounds. The fisheries and the commerce on the Volga, and cattle-breeding, are important.

SIMBIRSK, capital of the Russian government of the same name, on the right bank of the Volga, 220 miles south-east of Nijni-Novgorod. Leather, soap, and candles are manufactured, considerable trade is carried on by the Volga, and there is a famous annual fair. During the years 1864 and 1865, S. suffered severely from fires. Pop. 24,494.

The

valley of the river is studded with charming villas, and the town is surrounded by gardens, and has a picturesque appearance. The older part comprises the old Tartar town of Ak-Metchet, or White Mosque the new part, containing the government buildings, is very handsome. Fruits are largely grown in the vicinity, and exported. Pop. 29,812.

SI'MIA AND SIMI'ADÆ. See MONKEY. SIMILAR FIGURES, in Geometry, are figures which exactly correspond in shape, but may or If the figures be may not be of the same size. rectilineal, then the criterion of similarity is that every pair of corresponding sides should have the same ratio to each other, and that each angle of the one figure should be equal to a corresponding angle of the other. If the figures be triangular, the proportionality of the sides carries with it the equality of the angles, and vice versa, but only in this case. Similar segments of circles are those in which, and on whose bases, similar triangles can be inscribed; or, as it is otherwise expressed, those which contain equal angles-a satisfactory test that they are each the same part of their respective circles. Similar solids are those which are bounded by similar planes similarly situated to each other. All similar plane figures are to one another as the squares of any corresponding sides, and all similar solids are as the cubes of their corresponding sides. Thus, a circle which has 3 (3 : 1) times the diameter of another, has 9 (3 : 1) times its area, and a globe which has 3 (3:1) times the diameter of another has 27 (33: 13) times the volume.

SIMLA, a British sanatorium, in the north-west of India, about 170 miles in direct line north of Delhi. It consists of a number of houses irregularly scattered over a mountain-ridge, with a noble panorama expanding on all sides of it. European fruits and vegetables are successfully and extensively cultivated, and the climate is salubrious. The pop., which is very fluctuating, is said to range from 2000 to 20,000.

SIMO'DA (Lowland), a harbour of Japan, at the southern extremity of Cape Idzu, and about 80 miles from Yeddo, opened to foreign commerce by the Dutch treaty of 1857. The streets of the town are about 20 feet wide, and at right angles. The pop. is estimated at 80,000. In 1854, the town was nearly destroyed by an earthquake, while the harbour was so scoured out that hardly any holding-ground was left for ships on the granite bottom.

SIMEON, REV. CHARLES, an eminent evangelical preacher of the English Church, was born at Reading in Berkshire, September 24, 1758. Educated at Eton and Cambridge, he was ordained a priest in 1782. His first religious impressions occurred during his residence at the university, and produced a permanent change in his character. From being a somewhat vain and dressy young gentleman, he passed into an ardent and zealous preacher of the Cross, and this he remained during the fifty-four years of his public ministry. His career was not marked by many incidents. Appointed vicar of Trinity Church, Cambridge, in the year of his ordiSIMON, RICHARD, a distinguished orientalist nation, and vice-provost of his own college (King's) and critical scholar, was born at Dieppe, May 13, in 1790, he continued to hold these offices to the 1638. Having completed his studies, he entered close of his life, November 13, 1836. As a preacher the Congregation of the Oratory in 1659, but soon S. was distinguished for an impassioned evangeli- afterwards withdrew. He returned, however, in the calism in language, sentiment, and doctrine, that at latter part of 1662. For a time, he delivered lectures first roused against him a bitter and protracted on Philosophy in the college of Juilly; but his opposition. His earnestness, however, met with its studies eventually turned upon theology, oriental due reward. Friends and followers sprung up; and languages, and biblical criticism. At one time, he in course of time, S. became a centre of evangelical thought of entering the Jesuit order, but he remained influence, that began to spread itself over the whole in the Oratory; and it was while still a member of church, and gave birth to its great missionary that congregation that he published his well-known activity in recent years. S. may even be regarded work on the doctrine of the oriental church regardas the founder of the Low-church' party, and on ing the Eucharist, designed as a supplement to the the whole, fairly represents their earnestness, dog- celebrated Defence of the Perpetuity of the Faith in matism, mediocre intellect, and limited scholarship. the Blessed Eucharist, by Arnauld and Nicole, but For an account of S.'s life and labours, see Memoirs criticising that work very severely. This and of the Rev. Charles Simeon, by the Rev. W. Carus other controversies to which his later writings gave (Lond. 1857). S.'s Hora Homiletica (21 vols., 1832) rise, led to his again withdrawing from the Oratory are very popular among sermon-readers and sermon-in 1678. In that year he retired to Belleville, as makers of evangelical tendencies.

SI'MEON STYLITÉS. See PILLAR-SAINTS. SIMFEROPOL, a town of Russia, in the Crimea, capital of the government of Taurida, stands on the

curé; but in 1682, he resigned his parish, and lived in literary retirement, first at Dieppe, and afterwards in Paris. His health having given way, he returned once again to his native place,

SIMONIDES-SIMOOM.

The

teristics of his poetry are sweetness, polish com-
bined with simplicity, genuine pathos, and great
power of expression, although in originality he is
much inferior to his contemporary Pindar.
best edition of his fragments is that of Schneidewin,
entitled Simonidis Cei Carminum Reliquiæ (Bruns-
wick, 1835).

This S. must be carefully distinguished from the iambic poet SIMONIDES of Amorgos, who flourished about 100 years previous to S. of Ceos.

SIMONOSE KI, a town of Japan, in 33° 56′ N. lat., and 131° E. long., at the south-west extremity of the island of Nipon, and at the entrance of the inland sea Suonada. It is surrounded by hills, and consists of one main street, containing about 10,000 inhabitants. The warehouses-the principal buildings-are built of mud and wood, coated with cement, and are said to be fireproof. S. is a depôt for receiving the European imports from Nagasaki, to be sent into the interior of the country; also for the produce from Osaca, which is reshipped to Nagasaki and other places.

Dieppe, where he died in April 1712. Few invented the art of artificial memory. The characwriters of his age played so prominent a part in the world of letters, and especially in its polemics. There is hardly a critical or theological scholar among his contemporaries with whom he did not break a lance-Spanheim, Le Clerc, Du Pin, Jurieu, and Jurieu's great antagonist, Bossuet. The principal work of S. is his Histoire Critique du Vieux Testament (Paris, 1678), in which he anticipates the most important conclusions of all the later rationalistic scholars of Germany, and also their method of investigation. For example, he conceives himself to have disproved the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, and assigns its composition to the scribes of the time of Ezra. Other writings of S.'s are Histoire Critique du Texte du Nouveau Testament (Rotterd. 1689); Disquisitiones Critica de variis Bibliorum Editionibus (1684); De l'Inspiration des Livres Sacrés (Rotterd. 1687); and L'Histoire Critique des Prin cipeaux Commentateurs du Nouveau Testament (Rotterd. 1692), in which he assails the theology of the Fathers, and particularly that of Augustine, as a departure from the simple and less rigid doctrines of the primitive church. Among the Fathers, his most esteemed authority was Chrysostom. Bossuet replied to this last work by his Defense de la Tradition et des Saints Pères. S. frequently published under assumed names-as his Dissertation Critique on Dupin's Library of Ecclesiastical Writers, under the name of Jean Reuchlin; a work, Histoire Critique sur la Créance et des Coutumes des Nations du Levant, under the anagram of Monis; and a Histoire de l'Origine et du Progrès des Revenus Ecclésiastiques under the name of Jerome Acosta. No collected edition of his works has ever appeared; in the natural progress of the science of criticism, the most famous of them have lost most of their prestige, and are displaced by recent, and often second-hand compilations upon the subjects, which, in the days of S., were comparatively new and unexplored; but still there is much to be learned even from such of his works as have been forgotten by ordinary

students.

SIMO'NIDÉS, a celebrated Greek lyric poet, was born at Iulis, in the island of Ceos, in the year 556 B. C., and educated probably with a view to

making music and poetry a profession. He left his native island on the invitation of Hipparchus, who, by means of great rewards, induced him to reside at Athens, where also lived at that time Anacreon and Lasus, the teacher of Pindar, although no intimacy seems to have sprung up between S. and his two rivals. It was probably after the expulsion of Hippias (510 B. C.) that he took up his residence in Thessaly, under the patronage of the Aleuads and Scopads, who appear to have treated him in a very niggardly fashion. Shortly before the invasion of Greece by the Persians, he returned to Athens, and employed his poetic powers in the composition of elegies, epigrams, dirges, &c., in connection with that momentous struggle, taking the prize, in regard to the battle of Marathon, out of the hands of his rival Eschylus. In the year 477 B.C., when S. was 80 years of age, he came off victor for the 56th time in a poetical contest at Athens. Shortly after this, he went to reside at the court of Hiero of Syracuse, where he died in 467 B.C., at the age of 90. S. appears to have scandalised his contemporaries by writing for hire; and Pindar, his great rival, accuses him, apparently not without good reason, of excessive avarice. His poetry is imbued with a comparatively high morality. He brought to perfection the elegy and epigram, and excelled in the dithyramb and triumphal ode; he seems also to have completed the Greek alphabet by the addition of the double letters and long vowels, and to have

SIMONY, in English Law, is the corrupt presentation of any one to an ecclesiastical benefice for gift-money or reward, and is so called from its resemblance to the sin of Simon Magus. In the canon law, it was considered a heinous crime, and a kind of heresy. As the canonical punishment, however, was not deemed sufficient, a statute was passed in the time of Elizabeth, defining its punishment. A simoniacal presentation was de clared to be utterly void, and the person giving or taking the gift or reward forfeited double the value of one year's profit; and the person accepting the benefice was disabled from ever holding the same benefice. Presentation bonds, however, taken by a patron from a presentee to resign the benefice at a future period in favour of some one to be named by the patron, are not illegal, provided the nominee is either by blood or marriage an uncle, son, grandson, brother, nephew, or grandnephew of the patron, and provided the bond is result of the statutes is that it is not simony for a registered for public inspection in the diocese. The layman or spiritual person, not purchasing for himself, to purchase while the church is full, either an advowson or next presentation, however immediate may be the prospect of a vacancy, unless that vacancy is to be occasioned by some agreement or arrangement between the parties. Nor is it simony for a spiritual person to purchase for himself an advowson, although under similar circumstances. It is, however, simony for any person to purchase the next presentation while the church is vacant ; and it is simony for a spiritual person to purchase for himself the next presentation, although the

church be full.

SIMOO'M (otherwise written Simoun, Semoun, Samoun, Samun), or Sambuli, a name derived from the Arabic samma, signifying hot, poisonous, or generally whatever is disagreeable or dangerous, and applied to the hot suffocating winds which are peculiar to the hot sandy deserts of Africa and Western Asia. In Egypt, it is called khamsin (Ar., fifty) because it generally continues to blow for 50 days, from the end of April to the time of the inundation of the Nile.

Owing to the great power of the sun's rays, the extreme dryness of the air, and the small conducting power of sand causing the accumulation of heat on the surface, the superficial layers of sand in the deserts of Africa and Arabia often become heated to 200° F. to a depth of several inches. The air resting on this hot sand becomes also highly heated,

SIMPLE CONTRACT-SIMSON.

SIMPLE CONTRACT, in English law, means any contract which is constituted by word of mouth or by a writing not under seal. See CONTRACT. SIMPLON (Ital. Sempione), a famous mountain of Switzerland, one of the Lepontine Alps, in the east of the canton of Valais, and near the Piedmontese frontier, rises to the height of 11,124 feet. The Simplon Road, one of the greatest engineering SIMSON, ROBERT, a celebrated Scotch matheachievements of modern times, leads over a shoulder matician, was born at Kirton Hall in Ayrshire, of the mountain from which it derives its name October 1687. He was educated at the university (the Pass of the Simplon. 6592 feet) from Brieg in of Glasgow with a view to the clerical profession, Valais to Domo d'Ossolo in the north of Piedmont. and attained great eminence in classical and matheThe road was commenced in 1800 under the direc-matical knowledge. His taste for mathematics tion of Napoleon, and was completed in 1806. It is gradually gained the ascendency, and all other