SAFETY VALVE 



5139 



SAGAS 



Davy, who invented the first lamp in 1816. It 

 consists of an oil lamp surrounded by a cylin- 

 der of wire gauze of fine mesh, which forms 

 a sort of cage. The heat of the flame will not 

 pass beyond this gauze covering and ignite the 

 gas on the outside until the wire becomes as 

 hot as the flame, and owing to its good con- 

 ducting power, it will not become so heated 

 before the miner has time to withdraw from the 

 chamber. One of the chief uses of the lamp is 

 to warn the miner of the presence of the deadly 

 fire damp; the other is to protect him from the 

 danger arising from the presence of this gas. 

 If fire damp invades the workings, it can be 

 detected by lowering the wick, when a pale blue 

 flame will be noticed about the central flame 

 of the lamp. A reasonably prudent miner, ob- 

 serving this peculiarity, will at once leave the 

 menaced workings, for explosions of fire damp 

 are exceedingly destructive. See FIRE DAMP. 



SAFETY VALVE, an appliance attached to 

 steam boilers to allow steam to escape when 

 the pressure becomes too great for safety. On 

 stationary boilers the contrivance is quite sim- 

 ple; it is a kind of stopper, loaded with weights, 

 closing a circular orifice. The weights are often 

 hung at the outer end of a lever, and they 

 hold the valve in place with a pressure which 

 is carefully gauged so as to be several pounds 

 below the pressure which it is thought the 

 boiler may safely sustain. When the limit of 

 safety is approached, the pressure of the steam 

 raises the stopper and some of the steam es- 

 capes. The valve used on locomotive and 

 marine boilers is held in place by a spring in- 

 '1 of a weight, but engineers prefer weight-- 

 to springs wherever they can be employed 

 advantageously, because the tension of the 

 -I>ring may vary, while the pressure of the 

 weight is constant. 



SAFFLOWER, aaj'loucr, a thistlelike plant 

 belonging to the Composite family (which see). 

 It is cultivated in India, China, Egypt and 

 Southern Europe for its orange-colored flowers. 

 From these flowers, after they have l> < M <ln ,|, 

 yellow and red dyes are made. The red 

 which is the more- valuable, is used to a lim- 

 i extent in coloring silks in various shades 

 of pink, rose, scarlet and crimson, but t 

 substitutes have largely taken its place. It is 

 also employed in the manufacture of m 



yellow dye is sometimes used to adulterate 

 saffron (which see), but ha- >lue as a 



coloring matter. Oil yielded by the seeds is 

 used as fuel in lamps and for cooking purposes 

 in the East. 



SAFFRON, saf'run, a yellow coloring mat- 

 ter and flavoring material obtained by dry- 

 ing the stigmas of the yellow autumn crocus 

 (see CROCUS). Four thousand flowers yield one 

 ounce of commercial saffron. The product has 

 a sweetish aromatic odor and a bitter taste. 

 It is employed in cookery aid to flavor and 

 color candy, and, in Europe and India, as a 

 condiment. Its use in painting and dyeing has 

 declined with the discovery of cheaper coloring 

 matters, and it is now considered of little value 

 as a medicine, though once widely employed as 

 a stimulant and preventive of spasms. 



SAGAS, sah'gaz, or sa'gaz, the name given 

 in Iceland to a form of literature which may 

 best be described as the prose epic. The sagas 

 are narratives, either historical, mythical or 

 romantic, of the great heroes and rulers of 



SPECIMEN OF SAGA MANUSCRIPT 



Iceland, and they are composed according to 

 rules as strict as those which govern verse. A 

 typical saga traces the life of its hero from his 

 birth to his death, including often, if his death 

 was by violence, an account of the vengeance 

 which his family took. Alliteration is common, 

 and verse is often introduced as an ornament, 

 though forming no part of the stories. 



These sagas were originally preserved orally, 

 and were composed to be recited at banquets 

 or other festive gatherings, or in the long nights 

 of that northern country where other diversions 

 were few. By the twelfth century literary men 

 had recognized the value of these tales and 

 began to write them down, but by far the 

 greater number were written in the tin: 

 century. Naturally the aristocrat ic families 

 were much interested in having the lives of 

 ncestors recorded in this form. Greatest 

 " compositions is the Njalssaga, the saga 

 of law. hut the Eyrbyggiasaga, with its store of 

 history ;m<l 01, is also a most valuable 



work. The romantic Laxdaclasaga, the Gisla- 

 saga, and the Volsungasaga, which contains the 

 Nibclungen story in prose form, are also no- 

 table. The authors of some of these works are 

 known, but there is no clue as to the identity 

 of many of them. 



