SMELLING SALTS 



5411 



SMILES 



enables one to detect spoiled food and bad air, 

 and in this it serves a very useful purpose. 

 Many of the lower animals have a much keener 

 sense of smell than human beings, and it is this 

 faculty that makes dogs of such value in track- 

 ing game. C.B.B. 



SMELL 'ING SALTS, ammonium carbonate 

 drenched in perfume for use as a restorative, 

 for headaches and to relieve nasal catarrh. It 

 is only the pungent fumes of ammonia that are 

 effective. Some of the perfumes used are oils 

 of lavender, lemon, cloves, bergamot and pi- 

 mento. These preparations are often put up in 

 very ornamental bottles. 



SMELT, a genus of fish, closely related to the 

 salmon and prized as food because of the deli- 

 cate flesh. The common American smelt oc- 

 curs along the Atlantic coast from the Gulf of 

 Saint Lawrence to Virginia, and is found in 

 various northern lakes. In the winter it enters 

 streams for the purpose of spawning, and then 

 is caught in large numbers through holes in the 

 ice. Smelt are often marketed after being 

 frozen, but the unfrozen, or "green," fish are 

 considered the greater delicacy. The body is a 

 transparent greenish above and silvery on the 

 sides; the average length is eight or ten inches. 

 Large specimens are over a foot long and weigh 

 about a pound. A similar species is found on 

 the Pacific coast, from San Francisco north to 

 Bristol Bay, Alaska. The annual catch in the 

 United States, amounting to about 4,000,000 

 pounds, is valued at $175,000. About 10,000,000 

 pounds, worth $900,000, are caught in Canada. 



SMET, PETER JOHN DE (1801-1872), a Jesuit 

 missionary to the Indians of the Mississippi 

 Valley, was born at Termonde, in Belgium, 

 and educated at Mechlin. He sailed to the 

 United States in 1821, taught in an Indian 

 school at Florisant, Mo., and later in the 

 newly-established University of Saint Louis, 

 and in 1838, having been ordained a priest, be- 

 gan his work among the Indians. Many of the 

 tribes in the great valleys of the Missouri, Yel- 

 lowstone and Platte rivers knew him and felt 

 his influence the Potawatomi, Flatheads, 

 Sioux, Blackfeet and Pend d'Oreilles; for he 

 traveled scores of thousands of miles among 

 them, on foot, on horseback or by canoe. Sev- 

 eral times he visited Europe, where he raised 

 large sums to promote his work, and induced 

 other missionaries to join him. His published 

 'works include Letters and Sketches of a Resi- 

 dence in the Rocky Mountains, also Western 

 Missions and Missionaries and New Indian 

 Sketches. 



SMETANA, smatah'na, FRIEDRICH (1824- 

 1884), a pianist and composer, was born at 

 Leitomischl, Bohemia. He began the study of 

 music at so early an age that he could not re- 

 member the time, and had progressed so far 

 that when six years old he was giving public 

 concerts. He studied at Prague and at Leipzig, 

 where he became intimate with Schumann and 

 Mendelssohn. When scarcely twenty-one he 

 was made concert-master by Emperor Ferdi- 

 nand of Bohemia, and during the next twelve 

 years was busy not only with this work, but 

 also with the directing of a music school 

 founded by him at Prague. For some years 

 he was conductor of the Philharmonic Society 

 of Gothenburg, Sweden, but in 1866 returned 

 to Prague, where the remainder of his life was 

 spent. In 1874 he lost his hearing; this mis- 

 fortune so preyed upon his mind that on his 

 sixtieth birthday he lost his reason and spent 

 his last days in an asylum. Among his best 

 works are the operas, Braut and Dalibor, and 

 the well-known string quartette, From My Life. 



SMILAX, smi'laks, a group of useful, vine- 

 like plants of the lily family, containing about 

 200 species, growing in temperate and tropical 

 regions. The graceful hothouse plant of this 

 name, so largely used for decorative purposes, 



SMILAX 



is a native of the Cape of Good Hope, and is 

 not a true smilax. Familiar American species 

 are the carrion flower and the greenbrier. Al- 

 most all of the species of true smilax are woody 

 vines, with hardy, tuberous roots, evergreen 

 leaves veined from tip to base, and stems which 

 end in tendrils by which the plant climbs. 

 Several tropical varieties furnish sarsaparilla, 

 and from the leaves of others a sweet tea is 

 made. The pliant stems of certain kinds are 

 worked into baskets, and in some of the South- 

 ern states they make beer from smilax roots 

 and also fatten hogs on them. 



SMILES, SAMUEL (1812-1904), a Scottish 

 writer, born at Haddington. Prepared at Edin- 

 burgh for the medical profession, he practiced 



