Swedish Beamtree
in botany, the Pyrus intermedia, a sub-species of P. aria. It has oblong, rather distinctlylobed leaves, ashy-white below, with 5 to 8 nerves on each side.
Only in Collier's New Encyclopedia
Single-source entries: S (144)
Each of these 14 subjects appears in only one of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. None is long enough to carry a page by itself, so they are gathered here by letter. Anything that grows moves out to a page of its own.
Swedish Literature
. See Literature Sweet Flag (acorus calamus), an aquatic plant. A relative of jack-in-the-pulpit, but growing in shallow water. The yellowish green flowers are crowded on a tall scape with no covering, no pulpit. The leaves are sword-like, resembling those of the common blue flag. The thick creeping root-stocks have a sweet odor and a pungent taste. Boys like to carry bits in their pockets to nibble at. Candy makers use sweet flag as a flavor. It is used also as a perfume. The name comes from the flavor of the root and the shape of the leaves. Sweet flag grows in Great Britain , and in America from east Kansas and Minnesota to Florida and Nova Scotia . See Perfume; Oil
Only in Aiton's Encyclopedia
Sweep
See STRICKLE. Sweep-board is essentially a strickle, but this term is invariably used for all boards that are intended to sweep circular moulds by means of the spindle. The sweep-board is bolted to the spindle-arm, and, being revolved, imparts to the finished cope whatever design has been carved on its edge. See STRICKLE; SPINDLE; LOAM-MOULDING.
Only in The Encyclopedia of Founding
Sweep Seconds
A movement in which a long seconds hand moves from the center of the dial instead of at the bottom, as in chronographs and split seconds watches.
Only in American Watchmaker and Jeweler
Sweet
BENJAMIN JEFFREY, an land, N. Y., April 24, 1832; settled with his parents in Stockbridge, Wis., in 1838; attended Appleton College for a year, SWEDENBORGIANS. See NEW JERU- and later spent his leisure in the study SALEM, CHURCH OF THE.
Only in Collier's New Encyclopedia
Sweet Briar
or SWEET BRIER United States, and grows wild, but is often planted in hedges and gardens on account of the sweet balsamic_smell of its small leaves and flowers. It is also called the eglantine.
Only in Collier's New Encyclopedia
Sweet Gum
the Liquidambar styraciflua, a North American tree about 60 feet high with apetalous flowers, in appearance like Acer campestre. The wood is fine-grained, and well adapted for furniture; the fragrant gum exuding from it when incisions are made in its bark constitutes liquid-ambar.
Only in Collier's New Encyclopedia
Sweet Sop
the Anona squamosa, a large shrub or tree of stunted irregular growth with spreading branches, indigenous in the West Indies and much cultivated in other tropical countries. It is completely domesticated over a great part of India. The fruit is about the size of an orange, of a glaucous yellowish-green color, covered with projecting scales; pulp white with a tinge of yellow, very sweet. The acrid seeds and the leaves are insecticide.
Only in Collier's New Encyclopedia
Sweetflag
a plant , also called sweetrush, found in marshy places throughout the Northern Hemisphere . The leaves shaped; the stem bears a lateral, dense, are swordgreenish spike of flowers. The root has been employed in medicine since the time of Hippocrates. It is also used by confectioners as a candy, and by perfumers in the preparation of aromatic vinegar, hair powder, etc.
Only in Collier's New Encyclopedia
Swett
SOPHIA MIRIAM, an American writer; born in Brewer, Me., in 186-. She published: "The Lollipops' Vacation"; "Captain Polly"; "Flying Hill Farm"; "The Mate of the Mary Ann"; "Cap'n Thistletop"; "The Ponkarty Branch Road"; "The Boy from Beaver Hollow" (1900); etc.
Only in Collier's New Encyclopedia
Sweyn
a king of Denmark, father of Canute the Great. He died in 1014, after having established himself in England, though without being crowned there. See DENMARK and ETHELRED II.
Only in Collier's New Encyclopedia
Swilly
LOUGH, a long narrow inlet of the Atlantic on the N. coast of Donegal, Ireland; enters between Dunaff Head on the E. and Fanad Point, on which there is a lighthouse (fixed light visible 14 miles), on the W. A second lighthouse, on Dunree Head, has a fixed light visible for 13 miles. The entrance is protected by forts. Lough Swilly penetrates about 25 miles inland, and has a width of 3 to 4 miles. On the E. shore is the small town of Buncrana, much resorted to for sea-bathing. On its waters a French fleet under Bompart was destroyed in 1798, and not many years later the British ship "Saldanha" foundered at the entrance in a storm. SWIFT, LINDSAY, an American educator, born at Boston, in 1856. He was educated at Harvard University and was editor of the Boston Public Library. Besides contributing to many journals and editing several works in American his tory, he wrote: "Massachusetts Election Sermons" (1897); "The Great Debate Between Hayne ne and Webster" (1898); "Literary Landmarks of Boston" (1903); "Benjamin Franklin" (1910); "William Lloyd Garrison" (1911).
Only in Collier's New Encyclopedia
Swimming Bladder
the swim bladder or air bladder of fishes; a hollow sac, formed of several tunics, containing gas, situated in the abdominal cavity, but outside the peritoneal sac, entirely closed or communicating by a duct with intestinal tract. The special function of the swimming bladder is to alter the specific gravity of the fish, or to change the center of gravity. It is absent in the Leptocardii, Cyclostomata, Chondropterygii, and Holocephala, but occurs in all the Ganoidei, in one suborder of which (Dipnoi) it possesses anatomical characters, and assumes, to some extent, the functions of a lung; in the genus Ceratodus, the swimming bladder, though a single cavity, has symmetrically arranged internal pouches, while in the other genera of the sub-order (Lepidosiren and Protopterus) it is laterally halved, is supplied with venous blood by a true pulmonary artery, and by its cellular structure are closely approaches the lungs of a reptile.
Only in Collier's New Encyclopedia
Swinburne, Algernon
Algernon (1837-1909), an English poet and essayist. He was born in London. He studied at Oxford, but he left without taking a degree, and began at once publishing poems which for some time attracted no attention. He was associated with Dante Rossetti and Walter Savage Landor, and was an admirer of Victor Hugo. His first work to attract attention was Atalanta in Calydon, published in 1862, in which he displayed that facile metrical invention for which he is celebrated, and in which he is almost unequaled. Other writings of Swinburne's are Poems and Ballads, Songs before Sunrise, Songs of Two Nations, A Century of Roundels, and The Sisters. Swinburne's critical writings do not display the quality of fine discrimination. He either over-praises or over-blames. He wrote eulogies on Charlotte Bronte, Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and Victor Hugo. Swinburne's reputation as a poet rests upon his mastery of poetic form, in which respect he has been compared with Milton and Shelley. He has been called a "molder of exquisite melodies."
Only in Aiton's Encyclopedia