S'AS 
siual plant, and a native of Virginia and 
Pennsylvania, growing abundantly in the 
fields, and under tlie bushes, in a dry sandy 
ground, near the capital of the latter pro- 
vince. 
SARRACENIA in botany, side-saddle 
flower, so named in honour of Dr, Sarrazin, 
professor of botany, a genus of the Polyan- 
dria Monngynia class and order. Natural 
order of Succulentae. Essential character : 
calyx double, three-leaved, and five-leaved ; 
corolla, five-petalled ; capsule, five-celled, 
with the style having a clypeate stigma. 
There are four species, all natives of North 
America. 
SARSAPARILLA, in pharmacy, the 
root of the rough smilax of Peru, consisting 
of a great number of long strings hanging 
from one head : these long roots, the only 
parts made use of, are about the thickness 
of a goose-cjuill, or thicker, flexible, .and 
composed of fibres running their whole 
length : they have a bitterish but not un- 
grateful taste and no smell ; and as to their 
medicinal virtues, they are sudorific and 
attenuant, and should be given in decoc- 
tion, or by way of diet-drink. 
SASH, a mark of distinction, which in 
the British service is generally made of 
crimson silk for the officers, and of crimson 
mixed with white cotton for the serjeants. 
It is worn round the waist in most regiments; 
in some few, particularly in the Highland 
corps, it is thrown across the shoulder. 
Sashes were originally invented for the con- 
venience and ease of wounded officers, <cc. 
by means of which, in case any of them 
were so badly wounded as to render them 
incapable of remaining at their posts, they 
might be carried off with the assistance of 
two men. They are now reduced to a very 
spiall size, and of course unfit for the ori- 
ghial purpose. Both the sash and gorget, 
indeed, must be considered as mere marks 
of distinction, to point out officers on duty. 
In some instances they are worn together ; 
in others, the gorget is laid aside, and the 
sash only worn. The British cavalry tie 
the sash on the right, the infantry on the 
left side. The sashes for the imperial 
army are made of crimson and gold, for 
the Prussian army black silk and silver, the 
Hanoverians yellow silk, the Portuguese 
crimson silk with blue tassels. The French 
have their sashes made of three colours, lAz, 
white, pink, and light-blue, to corre.spond 
with the national flag. 
SASSAFRAS, in pharmacy, the wood of 
an American tree, of the laurel-kind, im- 
VOL. VI. 
SAT 
ported in large straight blocks: it is ssid 
to be warm, aperient, and corroborant ; 
and frequently employed, with good suc- 
cess, for purifying the blood, for which pur- 
pose an infusion, in the way of tea, iS a very 
pleasant drink : its oil is very fragrant, and 
possesses most of the virtues of the wood. 
SATELLITES, in astronomy, are cer- 
tain secondary planets, moving round the 
other planets, as the Moon does round the 
Earth. They are so called because they al- 
ways attend them, and make the tour about 
the Sun together with them. The words moon 
and satellite are sometimes used indifferent- 
ly ; thus we say, either Jupiter’s moons, or 
Jupiter’s satellites; but usually we distin- 
guish, restraining the term moon to the 
Earth’s attendant, and applying the term 
satellite to the little moons more recently 
discovered about Jupiter, Saturn, and the 
Herschel planet, by he assistance of the 
telescope, which is necessary to render them 
visible. 
The satellites move round their primary 
planets, as their centres, by the same laws 
as those primary ones do rouud their centre 
the Sun ; viz. in stich manner that, in the 
satellites of the same planet, the sqna:es of 
the periodic times are proportional to the 
cubes of their distances from the primary 
planet. 
Satellijes of Jupiter, are four little 
moons, or secondary planets performing 
their revolutions about Jupiter, as that 
planet does about the Sun. 
Simon Marius, mathematician of the 
Elector of Brandenburg, about the end of 
November 1609, observed three little stars 
moving round Jupiter’s body, and proceed- 
ing along with him ; and in January 1610, 
he found a fourth. In January 1610, Galileo 
also observed the same in Italy, and in the 
same year published ha observations. These 
satellites were also observed in the same 
month of January 1610, by Thomas Harriot, 
the author of a work upon algebra, and 
who made constant observations on these 
satellites, from that time till the 26th of 
February 1612. 
When Jupiter comes into a line between 
any of his satellites and the Sun, the satellite 
disappears, being then eclipsed, or involved 
in his shadow. When the satellite goes 
behind the body of Jupiter, with respect 
to an observer on the Earth, it is then said 
to be occulted, being hidden from our sight 
by his body, whether in his shadow or not. 
And when the satellite comes into a posi- 
tion between Jupiter and the Sun, it casts- 
C 
