SOL 
>tUvided. The flowers are on simple race- 
mi ; they are small and yellow. The berry 
is of the size of a plum ; tliey are smooth, 
shining, soft ; and are either of a yellow or 
reddish colour. 
S. tuberosum, or common potatoe, is a 
species of this genus, which is too well 
known to require description. 
SOLAR, something belonging to the sun ; 
tints the solar system is that system of the 
world wherein the heavenly bodies are 
made to revolve round the sun as tlie cen- 
tre of their motion. Also the solar year is 
that consisting of three hundred and sixty- 
five days, five hours, and forty-nine mi- 
nutes, in opposition to the lunar year, con- 
sisting of three hundred and fifty four days. 
SOLDANELLA, in botany, a germs of 
the Pentandria Monogynia class and order. 
Natural order of Precise. Lysimachias, 
Jussieu. Essential character : corolla bell- 
shaped, lacero multifid ; capsule one-celled, 
many-toothed at the top. There is only 
one species, tiz. S. alpina, Alpine splda- 
nelia. 
.SOLDER, SoDDER, or Sower, a metal- 
lic or mineral composition used in soldering, 
or joining together, other metals. See the 
next article. Solders are made of gold, sil- 
ver, copper, tin, bismuth, and lead; usually 
observing, that in the composition tl-.ere he 
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 of brass or cop- 
per ; solder of six, w'here only a sixth part 
is copper; solder of four, and solder of 
three. It is the mixture of copper in the 
solder that makes raised plate come always 
cheaper than flat. The solder used by 
plumbers is made of two pounds of lead to 
one of block-tin. Its gopdness is tried by 
melting it and pouring the bigiiess of a 
crown-piece upon a table ; for if good, 
there will arise little bright shining stars 
therein. The solder for copper is made 
like that of the plumbers, only with copper 
and tin ; 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 ; but where the work is 
any thing delicate, as in organ pipes, w'here 
the juncture is scarce discernible, it is made 
of one part of bismuth and three parts of 
pewter. 
SOLDERING, among mechanics, the 
joining and fastening together two pieces of 
the same metal, or of two diflercnt metals, 
SOL 
by the fusion and application of some mtv 
talic composition on the extremities of the 
metals to be joined. 
SOLE, in natural history. See Pleuro- 
NECTES. 
SOLECISM, in grammar, a false man- 
ner of speaking contrary to the nse of lan- 
guage and the rules of grammar, either in 
respect of declension, conjugation, or syn- 
tax. 
SOLEN, in natural history, razor-sheath, 
a genus of the Vermes Testacea class and 
order. Animal an ascidia ; shell bivalve, 
oblong, open at both ends ; hinge with a 
subulate reflected tooth, often double, and 
not inserted in the opposite valve. There 
are about twenty-four species, some where- 
of are straight, others crooked, some red, 
others variegated with brown and blue, 
some brown and w'hite, others of a violet- 
pnrple colour. This last is a beautiful 
smooth shell, from three to six inctujs long, 
and flora one- third to' three quarters of an 
inch in diameter. There is also another not 
inelegant species, variegated with brown 
and blue, and a little arcuated. The S. 
anatiiius has the shell ovate, membranace- 
ous, hairy, with a falcate rib at the hinge ; 
the shell is pellucid, white, thin like papei ; 
one end rounded and closed, the other 
gaping like tlie beak of a bird ; tooth in 
each valve resembling an ear-picker. 
SOLID, in philosophy, a body vs'hose 
parts are so firmly connected together, as 
not to give way, or slip from each other 
upon the smallest impression ; in which sense 
solid stands opposed to fluid. Geometri- 
cians define a solid to be the third species 
of magnitude, or tliat which has three di- 
mensions, viz. length, breadth, and thick- 
ness or depth. A solid may be conceived 
to be formed by the revolution, or direct 
motion, of a superficies of any figure what- 
ever, and is always terminated or contained 
under one or more planes or surfaces, as a 
surface is under one or more lines. 
Solids are commonly divided into regular, 
and irregular. The regular solids are those 
terminated by regular and equal planes, and 
are only five in number, viz, the tetrahe- 
dron, which consists of four equal trian- 
gles ; the cube, or hexahedron, of six equal 
squares; tlie octahedron, of eight equal tri- 
angles ; the dodecahedron, of twelve ; and 
the icosihedron, of twenty equal triangles. 
Tlie irregular solids are almost infinite, com- 
prehending all such as do not come nnder 
the definition of regular solids ; as tlie sphere, 
