694 
SOL 
SOL 
very like, the egg of a goose. Tt is often used 
boiled as a vegetable along with animal food 
or butler, and supposed to be aphrodisiac 
and to cure sterility. 
5. Longum. This plant is also herbaceous, 
but grows much ranker than the foregoing. 
r i he flowers are blue : and the' fruit is six or 
eight inches long, and proportionally thick. 
It is boiled and eaten at table as the egg- 
plant. 
6. Tuberosum, the common potatoe. It 
was introduced by sir Walter Raleigh, and 
first cultivated in Ireland about the year 
ItiOO. Large fortunes have been made by 
the culture of potatoes at Westham in Essex. 
SOLD AN ELLA, in botany, a genus of 
plants of the class of pentandria, and order of 
monogynia, and in the natural system arran- 
ged under the 21st order, precis. The co 
roll a is campanulated ; the border being very 
finely cut into a great many segments. The 
capsule is unilocular, and "its apex polyden- 
tate. There is one species. 
SOLDER, Sodder, or Soder, a metallic 
or mineral composition used in soldering or 
joining other metals. Solders are made of 
gold, silver, copper, tin, bismuth, and lead; 
usually observing, that in the composition 
there shall be some of the metal that is to be 
soldered mixed with some higher and finer 
metals. Goldsmiths usually make four kinds 
of solder, viz. solder of eight, where to seven 
parts of silver there is one ot brass or copper ; 
solder of six, where only a sixth part is cop- 
per ; solder of four, and solder of three. It 
is the mixture of copper in the solder that 
makes raised plate come always cheaper than 
liat. 
As mixtures of gold with a little copper 
are found to melt with less heat than pure 
gold itself, these mixtures serve as solders for 
gold : two pieces of line gold are soldered by 
gold that lias a small admixture of copper; 
and gold alloyed with copper is soldered by 
such as is alloyed with more copper. r \ he 
workmen add a little silver as well as cop- 
per, and vary the proportions of the two to 
one another, so as to make the colour of the 
solder correspond as nearly as may be to that 
«f the piece. A mixture of gold and copper 
is also a solder for line copper as well as for 
fine gold. Gold being particularly disposed 
to unite with iron, proves an excellent solder 
for the liner kinds of iron and steel instru- 
ments. 
T he solder used by plumbers is made of 
two pounds of lead to one of block-tin. Its 
goodness is tried by melting it, and pouring 
the size of a crown piece on a table ; for, if 
good, there will arise little bright shining stars 
in it. The solder for copper, is made like 
that of the plumbers ; only with copper and 
tin; and for very nice works, instead of tin, 
they sometimes use a quantity of silver. 
Solder for tin is made of two-thirds of tin and 
one of lead, or of equal parts of each ; but 
where the work is any thing delicate, as in 
organ-pipes, where the juncture is scarcely 
discernible, it is made of one part of bismuth 
and three parts of pewter. The pewterers 
use a kind of solder made with two parts of 
tin and one of bismuth ; this composition 
melts with the least heat of any of the sol- 
ders. 
Silver solder is that which is made of two 
parts of silver and one of brass, and used in 
soldering those metals. Spelter solder is 
made ot one part of brass and two of spelter 
or ziu , and is used by the braziers and cop- 
persmiths for soldering brass, copper, and 
iron. This solder is improved by adding to 
each ounce of it one pennyweight of silver ; 
but as it does not melt without a considerable 
degree of heat, it cannot be used when it is 
inconvenient to heat the work red-hot; in 
which case copper and brass are soldered with 
silver. 
Though spelter solder is much cheaper than 
silver solder, yet workmen in many cases 
prefer the latter. And Air. Bovle informs 
us, (hat he has found it to run with so mo- 
derate a heal, as not much to endanger the 
melting of the delicate parts of the work to 
be soldered ; and if well made, this silver 
solder will lie even upon the ordinary kind 
itself; and so fill up those little cavities that 
may chance to be left in the first operation, 
which is not easily clone without a solder more 
easily fusible than the first made use of. 
SOLDERING, th e joining ancl fastening 
together of two pieces ot the same metal, or 
ot two different metals, by the fusion and ap- 
plication ot some metallic composition on the 
extremities of the metals to be joined. To 
solder upon silver, brass, or iron : take silver, 
five pennyweights ; brass, four pennyweights ; 
melt them together for soft solder, which 
runs soonest. Take silver, five pennyweights; 
copper, three pennyweights ; melt* them to- 
gether for hard solder. Beat the solder thin, 
and lay it on the place to be soldered, which 
must be first fitted ancl bound togerher With 
wire as occasion requires ; then take borax 
in powder, ancl temper it like pap, ancl lay it 
upon the solder, letting it dry ; then coyer it 
with live coals, and blow, and it will run im- 
mediately.; take it presently out of the fire, 
and it i.; done. It is to be observed, that if 
any thing is to be soldered in two places, 
which cannot well be clone at one time, you 
must first solder with the harder solder, and 
then with the soft ; for, if it is first done with 
the soft, it will unsolder again before the other 
is softened. Let it be observed, that if \ou 
would not have your solder run about tire 
piece that is to be soldered, you must rub 
such places over with chalk. In the solder- 
ing either of gold, silver, copper, or either of 
the metals above mentioned, there is gene- 
rally used borax in powder, and sometimes 
rosin. As to iron, it is sufficient that it be 
heated red-hot, and the two extremities thus 
hammered together, by which means they 
will become incorporated with each other. 
For the liner kinds of iron ancl steel instru- 
ments, however, gold proves an excellent 
solder. This metal will dissolve twice or 
thrice its weight of iron in a degree of heat 
very far less than that in which iron itself 
melts ; hence if a small plate of gold is 
wrapped round the parts to be joined, and 
afterwards melted by a blowpipe, it strongly 
unites the pieces together without any injury 
to the instrument, however delicate. 
SOLEyE, among the Romans, a kind of 
sandals or slippers which covered only the 
sole of the feet, and were bound on with 
thongs of leather, instead of which the women 
and the effeminate ones of the other sex tied 
them on with purple -coloured ribbons, or 
such as were variously adorned with gold and 
silver. 
SOL 
SOLECISM, soloecismus, in grammar, 
false manner ot speaking contrary to the use 
ot language and the rules of grammar, either 
in respect of declension, conjugation, or 
syntax, 
SOLEN, razor sheath , or knife-handle 
shell, a genus belonging to the class of ver- 
mes, and order ot lestacea. r J he animal is am 
ascidia. I he shell is bivalve, oblong, ancl 
opening at both sides ; the hinge has a tooth 
shaped like an awl, bent back, often double,, 
not inserted into the opposite shell ; the rim 
at the sides somewhat worn away, and lias a. 
horny cartilaginous hinge. There are 23 
species; three of them, viz. the siliqua, va- 
gina, and ensis, are found on the British 
coasts, and lurk in t lie sand near the low- 
water maik in a perpendicular direction. 
When in want of food they elevate one end. 
a little above the surface, and protrude their 
bodies far out ot the shell. On the approach 
of danger they dart deep into the sand, some- 
times two feet at least. r l heir place is known, 
by a small dimple on the surlace. Sometimes 
they are dug out with a shovel ; at other 
limes they arc 1 ; taken by striking a barbed 
dait suddenly into them. A\ hen the sea is 
clown, these fish usually run deep into the 
sand; ancl to bring them up, the common 
custom is to throw a little salt into the holes,, 
on which the fish raises itself, and in a few 
minutes appears at the mouth of its hole, 
Yt hen halt the shell is discovered, the fisher- 
man has nothing more to do than to take 
hold of it wit li his lingers and draw it out % 
but he must be cautious- not to lose the oc- 
casion, tor the creature does not continue a 
moment in that state; and. if by any means 
the fisherman has touched it, and let it slip- 
away, it is gone forever ;. for it will not be 
decoyed again out of its hole bv salt ; so that 
there is then no way of gett.ng it but by 
digging under it, and throwing it up with the 
sand. 1 iie fish has two pipes, each com- 
posed of four or live rings or portions of rr 
hollow cylinder, of unequal lengths, joined 1 
one to another ; ancl the places where they 
join are marked by a number of fine streaks 
or rays. ’I lie reason why the salt causes 
these creatures to come up out of their holes, 
is, that it gives them violent pain, and even 
corrodes these pipes. T his is somewhat 
strange, as the creature is nourished by means- 
of salt water; but it is very evident, that if a 
little salt is strewed upon, these pipes in a 
fish taken out of its habitation,, it will cor- 
rode the joinings of the rings, and often make 
one or more joints drop off; the creature, to 
avoid this mischief, arises out of its hole, and 
throws off the salt, and then retires back 
again. '1 he use of these pipes to the animal 
is the same w'ith that of many other pipes of 
a like kind in other shell-fish ; they all serve 
to take in water r they are only a continua- 
tion of the outer membrane of* the fish, and 
serve indifferently tor taking in and throwing 
out the water, one receiving and the other 
discharging it, and either answering equally 
w T ell to their purpose. 
I his fish was used as food by the antu nts ; 
and Athemeus, from Sophron, speaks of it as 
a great delicacy, and particularly grateful to 
widows. It is often used as food* at present 
and is brought up to table fried in eggs. 
SOLFAING, or Solmization, °the art 
of sounding the notes, together with the cor- 
responding syllables of the gamut. This 
