SEC 
is managed by either of the secretaries, 
without any distinction ; but with respect 
to foreign affairs the business is divided into 
two provinces or departments, tlie southern 
and the northern, comprehending all the 
kingdoms and states that have any inter- 
course with Great Britain ; each secretary 
receiving all letters and addresses from, and 
making all dispatches to, the several princes 
and states comprehended in his province. 
2. Secretary of an Embassy, a person at- 
tending an ernbassadorfor vypting dispatches 
relating to the negociation. There is a great 
difference between the secretary of an em- 
bassy, and the embassador’s secretary ; the 
last being a domestic or menial of the em- 
bassador, and the first a servant or minister 
of tlie prince. 3. The Secretary of War, 
an officer of the ^ar Office, who has tvvo 
chief clerks under him, the last of which is 
the secretary’s messenger. There are also 
secretaries in most of the other offices. 
SECRETION. In the course of the 
circulation the blood is conveyed to certain 
organs named glands, and is there entirely 
phanged in its chemical composition, so as 
to form various products not pre-existing in 
the mass of blood, and which form some of 
the most important varieties of animal mat- 
ter. See Physiolqgy. 
SECTION, in geometry, denotes a side 
or surface appearing of a body or figure cut 
by another ; or the place where lines, planes, 
&c. cut each other. The common section 
of two planes is always a right line ; being 
the line supposed to be drawn on one 
plane by the section of the othep, or by ifs 
entrance into it. 
Section of a building, in architecture, 
is the same with its profile ; or a delinea- 
tion of its heights and depths raised on a 
plane, as if the fabric was cut asunder to 
discover its inside. 
SECTOR, in geometry, is a part of ^ 
circle, comprehended between two radij 
and the arch; or it is a m'xed triangle, 
formed by two radu and- the arch of a 
circle. 
Sectoh is also a mathematical instru- 
ment, of great use in finding the proportion 
between quantities of the same kind, as be- 
tween lines and lines, surfaces and surfaces, 
&c. for which reason the French call it thp 
compass of proportion. 
The great advantage of the sector above 
common scales, &c. is, that it is adapted to 
all radii, and all scales. For, by the line of 
chords, sines, tapgents, &c. on the sector, 
we have fines of chords, sines, tangents. 
SEE 
&c. adapted to any radius between the length 
and breadth of the sector, when opened. 
The sector is founded on the fourth propo- 
sition of the sixth book of Euclid, where it 
is demonstrated, that similar triangles have 
their homologous sides proportional. See 
Mathematical Instruments. 
SECUNDINES, after birth, in anatomy, 
the several coats or membranes wherein 
the foetus is wrapped up in the mother’s 
womb, as the chorion qnd amnios, with the 
placenta, &c. See Midwifery. 
SECURIDAGA, in botany, a genus of 
the Diadelphia Octandria class and order. 
Natural order of Papilionaceae, or Legumi- 
nos®. Essential character : calyx three- 
leaved ; corolla papilionaceous, with the 
standard tWO-leaved within the wings; le- 
gume ovate, oue-celled, one-seeded, ending 
in a ligulate wing. There are three spe- 
cies. 
SEDUM, in botany, stonecrop, a genus 
of the Decandria Pentagynia class and 
order. Natural order of Succulent®. Seni- 
perviv®, Jussieu. Essential character : ca- 
lyx five-cleft; corolla five -pe tailed ; scales 
nectariferous, five, at the base of the germ • 
capsules five. There are thirty species, all 
of which are hardy, herbaceous, succulent 
perennials, durable in root, but mostly an- 
imal in stalk, &c. which, rising in spring,- 
flower in June, July, and August, in dif- 
ferent sorts ; the flowers consisting univer- 
sally of five spreading petals, generally 
crowning the stalks numerously in corym- 
bose and cymose bunches and spikes, ap- 
pearing tolerably conspicuous, and are suc- 
ceeded by plenty of seeds in autumn, by 
which they may be propagated, also abun- 
dantly by parting the roots, and by sfips 
or cuttings of the stalks in summer; in all 
of which methods they readily grow, and 
spread very fast into tufted bunches : being 
all of succulent growth, they consequently 
delight most in dry soils, or in any dry rub- 
bishy earth. As flowering plants, they are 
mostly employed to embellish rock-work, 
ruins, and the like places ; planting either 
the roots of cuttings of the shoots in a little 
mud or any moist soil at first, placing it in 
the crevices, where they will soon root and 
fix themselves, and spread about very agree- 
ably. 
SEED, in botany, the essence of the 
fruit of every vegetable. LimiEeus deno- 
minates it to be a deciduous part pf the 
plant, containing the rudiments qf the new 
vegetable, amd fertilized by the sprinkling 
of the male ^ ust. Plants are furnished with 
