THE FARMER AT HOME. 40g 



the oxygen or vital air of the atmosphere, has a tendency to destroy 

 life, by suffocation. This vapor, which is composed of the volatilized 

 particles of sulphur and oxygen, is called sulphuric acid. 



SULPHUROUS ACID. A combination of sulphur with oxygen, 

 in which the proportion of the latter is less than in the sulphuric acid; 

 and it is a rule observed in all oxygenous mixtures, to distinguish 

 those in which the larger quantity of oxygen is present, by the termi- 

 nation ic y and those in which the lesser, by the termination ous. 

 Vapors of sulphur have the property of bleaching or whitening almost 

 every substance with which they come in contact. 



SUMACH. A plant that grows spontaneously in many parts of 

 the United States ; bearing a small red berry, which is useful as a 

 dye, and has been discovered to be possessed of very powerful anti- 

 septic qualities. It has long since been the practice among the 

 natives of this continent, to substitute the sumach berry for tobacco, 

 and the secret has been transmitted to Europe ; in consequence of 

 which it became so universally esteemed there by people of fashion, 

 and fortune, that large sums were offered to persons of mercantile 

 professions, for this valuable but common production of nature. It 

 has been preferred to the best manufactured Virginia tobacco. The 

 method to be pursued in preparing the sumach to a state proper for 

 smoking, is, to procure it in the month of November, expose it some 

 time to the open air, spread it very thin on canvass, and then dry it 

 in an oven, one-third heated. After having completed the process of 

 cure thus far, spread it again on canvass, as before ; and there let it 

 remain twenty-two hours, when it will be perfectly fit for use. The 

 branches of the elm-leaved sumach, when dried and reduced to a 

 powder, are used in tanning Turkey or Morocco leather. 



SUMMER. In Cosmography, one of the seasons of the year, 

 commencing, in the higher northern latitudes, on the day the sun. 

 enters Cancer, and ending when it quits Virgo ; or, more strictly and 

 universally, the summer begins when the sun's meridian distance 

 from the zenith is the least, and ends when it is a mean between the 

 greatest and least. 



SUN. The sun has ever been esteemed an object of the first 

 importance in the solar system. Being the great source of light and 

 heat, it diffuses its rays to every part of an immense sphere, giving 

 life and motion to innumerable objects. Like its divine Author, 

 while it controls the greatest, it does not overlook the most minute 

 portions of the creation. According to the Copernican system, now 

 universally received, the sun is the centre of all the planetary and 

 cometary motions, all the planets and comets revolving round it in 

 different periods, and at different distances. The sun, although sta- 

 tionary in respect to surrounding objects, is not destitute of motion. 

 It turns on its own axis, from west to east, in about twenty-five days. 



There has been much speculation concerning the physical organi- 

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