S N O 



which is made in the larynx and windpipe, by the piiTing of 

 the air through an accumulating fluid, as in cafes of afthraa, 

 or in the laft ttruggles of exhaulled life ; of the termination 

 of which, in the latter mllance, this ratthng found is marked 

 by the attendants as an unerring fign. 



SNORT, in the Manege, called in YTmc\i ebrouer, de- 

 notes a certain found which a horfe of fire makes by 

 breathing through his noftrils ; as if he had a mind to expel 

 fomething that was in his nofc;, and hindered him to take 

 breath. 



This noife or found is performed by means of a cartilage 

 within the nollrils, called in French fouris. Horfes of 

 much metal fnort, when you offer to keep them in. See 



SOURIS. 



SNOTTER, in Rigging, a fhort rope fpliced together 

 at the ends, and ferved with fpun-yarn, or covered with 

 hide : it is feized to the fize of the maft, leaving a bight, 

 wherein is fitted tlie lower end of the fprit, which con- 

 fines it to the maft. 



SNOV, in Gengraphy, a river of Ruflia, which runs into 

 the Defna, near Beriezin, in the government of Tchernigov. 



SNOW, Valevtine, in Biography, an admirable per- 

 former on the trumpet, whofe exquifite tone and fine (hake 

 mutt be well remembered by many perfons now living, who 

 have heard him at Vauxhall, or in Handel's oratorios. 



In 1753 he fucceeded Shore as lerjeant-trumpet, a place 

 of 500/. a-year ; after which promotion he ceafed to perform 

 in public, which was a ferious lofu to the frequenters of 

 Vauxhall, where his filver tones, having room to expand in 

 the open air, never arrived at the ears of the audience in a 

 manner too loud or piercing. 



Snow, Nix, a meteor formed in the middle region of 

 the air, of vapour raifed by the aftion of the fun, or fub- 

 tenraneous fire ; there congealed, its parts conflipated, its 

 fpecific gravity increafed, and thus returned to the earth in 

 form of little white villi, or flakes. 



The fnovv we receive, may properly enough be afcribed 

 to the coldnefs of the atmofphere through which it tall^. 

 When the atmofphere is warm enough to diffolve t'he fiiow 

 before it arrives at us, we call it rain ; if it prefervea itfelf 

 undiflblved, it makes what we call /now. See EvAPOR-l- 

 TION. 



Dr. Grew, in a difcourfe of the nature of fnow, obferves, 

 that many parts of it are of a regular figure, for the moft 

 part fo many little rowels, or liars of fix points ; and are 

 perfeft and tranfparent ice, as we fee on a pond, &c. Upon 

 each of thefe points are thofe collateral points, fet at the 

 fame angles as the main points themfelves ; among which 

 there are divers other irregular ones, which are chiefly 

 broken points, and fragments of the regular ones : others, 

 alfo, by various winds, leem to have been thawed, and 

 frozen again into irregular clufters ; fo that it feems as if 

 the whole body of fnow were an infinite mafs of icicles ir- 

 regularly figured. A cloud of vapours being gathered into 

 drops, the faid drops forthwith defcend ; upon which de- 

 fcent, meeting with a freezing air as they pafs through a 

 colder region, each drop is immediately frozen into an icicle, 

 (hooting itfelf foi th into feveral points ; but thefe Hill con- 

 tinuing their defcent, and meeting with fome intermitting 

 gales of warmer air, or, in their continual waftage to and 

 fro, touching upon each other, fome of them are a little 

 thawed, blurted, and again frozen into clutters, or entangled, 

 fo as to fall down in what we call flakes. 



Clouds of fnow, fignior Beccaria obferves, differ in no- 

 thing from clouds of rain, (fee Rain,) but in the circum- 

 ttance of cold, which freezes them. Both the regular dif- 

 fufion of fnow, and the regularity in the ftruAure of the 



S N O 



parts of which it confi^ts, (particularly fome figures of fnow 

 or hail, which he calls rofetts, and which fall about Turin,) 

 ftiew the clouds of fnow to be adluated by fome uniform 

 caufe, like electricity. He even endeavours, very particu- 

 larly, to {hew in what manner certain configurations of 

 fnow are made, by the uniform aftion of eleftricity. He 

 adds, that his apparatus never failed to be electrified by 

 fnow, as well as by rain ; and that a more intenfe eleftricity 

 unites the particles of hail {fee Hail) more clofely than 

 the more moderate eleftricity does thofe of fnow. Lett, 

 dell' Elletricifmo, p. 5.20, &c. Prieftley's Hitt. &c. of 

 Eleftricity, vol. i. p. 432. 



The lightnefs of fnow, although it is firm ice, is owing 

 to the excefs oi its furface, in comparifon to the matter con- 

 tained under it ; as gold itfelf may be extended in furface 

 till it will ride upon the leail breath of air. 



The ufes of fnow muit be very great, if all be true that 

 Barthollne has (aid in its behalf, in an exprefs treatife " De 

 Nivis Ufu Medico." He there fliews, that it fruftifics the 

 earth (which, indeed, is a very old and general opinion); 

 and that it preferves from the plague, cures fevers, colics, 

 tooth-aches, fore-eyes, and pleuniies, (for which laft ufe, 

 his countrymen of Denmark ufually keep fnow-water ga- 

 thered in March). He adds, that it contributes to the 

 prolongation of life ; giving inttances of people in the 

 Alpine mountains that live to great ages: and to the pre- 

 ferving of dead bodies ; inttances of which he gives m per- 

 fons buried under the fnow in pafTing the Alps, which have 

 been found uncorrupted in the fummer, when the (now is 

 melted. 



He obferves, that, in Norway, fnow-water is not only 

 their fole drink in the winter ; but fnovv even ferves for 

 food ; people having been known to live feveral days with- 

 out any other fullenance. 



Indeed, the generality of the medicinal effefls of fnow 

 are not to be afcribed to any fpecific virtue in fnow, but to 

 other caufes. 



It fructifies the ground, for inftance, by guarding the 

 corn, or other vegetables, from the intenfer cold of the air, 

 efpecially from the cold piercing winds ; and it preferves 

 dead bodies, by conftipating and binding up the parts, and 

 thus preventing all fuch fermentations, or internal conflicts 

 of their particles, as would produce put refaction. 



It has been a vulgar opinion, very generally received, that 

 fnow fertilizes the lands upon which it falls more than rain, 

 in confequence of the nitrous falts which it is fuppoled to ac- 

 quire by freezing. But it appears from the experiments of 

 Margraaf, in the year 1751, that the chemical difference 

 between rain and fnow-water is exceedingly fmall, and that 

 the latter, however, is fomewhat lefs nitrous, and contains 

 a fomewhat lefs proportion of earth than the former ; but 

 neither of them contain either earth or any kind of fait in any 

 quantity, which can be fenfibly efficacious in promoting ve- 

 getation. Allowing, therefore, that nitre is a fertilizer of 

 land, which many are, upon good grounds, difpofed utterly 

 to deny, yet fo very fmall is the quantity of it ccvitaincd in 

 fnow, that it cannot be fuppofed to promote the vegetation 

 of plants upon which the fnow has fallen. 



The peculiar agency of fnow 3.i a fertilizer, in prer 

 ference to rain, may, without recurring to nitrous (alts, 

 erroneoufly fuppofed to be contained in it, be rationally 

 afcribed to its funiilhing a covering for the roots of ver 

 getables, by which they are guarded from the influence 

 of the atm/afpherical cold, and the internal h?at of the 

 earth is prevented from cfcaping. Snow maj' alfo ferti- 

 lize the earth, agreeably to the hypothefis of thofe who 

 make oil the food of plants, by means of the oily particles 



which 



