•SEA 
ject of this article, have ascribed it to some 
substance of the phosphoric kind, arising 
from putrefaction. 
Sea, in law : The sea shall be open to all 
merchants. Tlie main sea beneath the low 
water mark, and round England, is part of 
England j and the admiralty has jurisdiction 
there. 
SEAMEN, such as are reserved to serve 
the King, or other persons, it sea, who may 
not depart without license, &c. Seamen 
fighting, quarreling, or makmg any dis- 
turbance, may be punished by the com- 
missioners of the navy, with fine and impri- 
sonment. Registered seamen are exempted 
from serving in any parish office, &c. and are 
allowed bounty money besides their pay. 
By the law of merchants, the seamen of a 
vessel are accountable to the master or 
commander, and the master to the owners, 
and the owners to the merchants, for da- 
mage sustained either by negligence or 
otherwise. Where a seaman is hired for a 
voyage, and he deserts it before it is ended, 
fie shall lose his wages ; and in case a ship 
be lost by a tempest, or in a storm, the sea- 
jnen lose their wages, as w'ell as the owners 
their freight. 
Seamen, inlaw: by variousstatutes, sailors 
having served the King for a limited time, 
are free to use any trade or profession, in 
any town of the kingdom. By 2 George II. 
c. 36, made perpetually by 2 George III. 
c. 31, no master of any vessel shall carry to 
sea any seaman, his own apprentice except- 
ed, w'ithout first entering into an agreement 
with such seaman for his wages ; such 
agreement to be made in writing, and to 
declare what wages such seaman is to re- 
ceive during the whole of the voyage, or for 
such time as shall be therein agreed upon ; 
and such agreement shall also express the 
voyage for which such seaman was shipped 
to perform the same, under a penalty of 
101. for each mariner carried to sea w’itliout 
such agreement, to be forfeited by the mas- 
ter to the use of Greenwich Hospital. This 
agreement is to be signed by each mariner 
within three days after entering on board 
such ship, and is, when executed, binding 
on a’ parties. 
.AL, a puncheon, or piece of metal, or 
otLcr matter, usually either ropnd or oval, 
whereon are engraven the arms, device, &c. 
of some prince, state, community, magis- 
trate, or private person, often with a legend 
or suscription, the impression of whereof in 
wax, serves to make acts, instruments, &c. 
authentic. 
SEE 
Before the time of William the Con- 
queror, the makers of all deeds only sub- 
scribed their names, adding the sign of the 
cross, and a great number of witnesses; but 
that monarch and the nobility used seals 
with their arms on them, which example 
was afterwards followed by others. The 
colour of the wax wJierewith this King’s 
grants were sealed was usually green, to sig- 
nify that the act continued fresh for ever, 
and of force. A seal is absolutely necessary 
in respect of deeds, because the sealing of 
them makes persons parties thereto, and 
without being sealed, they are void in law. 
SEALER, an officer in chancery ap- 
pointed by the Lord Chancellor, or Keeper 
of the great seal, to seal tlie writs and in- 
struments there made in his presence. 
SEAMS of a ship, are places where her 
planks meet and join together. There is 
also a kind of peculiar seam in the sowing 
of sails, which they call monk-seam ; the 
other seam of a sail is the round-seam, so 
called from its being round like the com- 
mon seams. 
SEARCHER. See Alnager. Searcher 
is also an officer of the customs, whose 
business is to search and examine all ships 
outward bound, to see whether they have 
any prohibited or unaccustomed goods on 
board, 
SEAR cloth, or Cere cloth, in surgery, a 
form of external remedy somewhat harder 
than an unguent, yet softer flian an em- 
plaster, though it is frequently used both 
for the one and the other. The sear-cloth 
is always supposed to have w’ax in its com- 
position, which distinguishes and even deno- 
minates it. In effect, when a liniment or 
unguent has wax enough in it, it does not 
differ from a sear-cloth. 
SEBACIC acid, the acid of fat. The 
penetrating fumes which are exhaled from 
melted tallow, and which affect the eyes, 
the nostrils, and even the lungs, had been 
long ago observed. Little attention, how- 
ever, was paid to their nature and proper- 
ties. In 1754 appeared a dissertation by 
' M. Seguer, on the acid of animal fat, which 
contained a number of well-conducted ex- 
periments. Crell endeavoured to improve 
the process for the separation and purifica- 
tion of this acid, and to ascertain thp pro- 
perties of its combinations. These were 
published in the Philosophical Transactions 
for the years 1780 and 1782. But it ap- 
pears, that the acid obtained by those who 
first treated of the subj,ect, was either the 
acetic acid, pr some acid different from the 
