SHE 
Franklin county, Massachusetts; 100 miles west of Boston. 
Population 961. 
SHELBY, a township of the United States, in Bath 
county, Kentucky. 
SHELBY, a county of the United States, in the north 
part of Kentucky, bounded north by Henry, west by Bullet, 
east by Franklin, and south by Nelson. It is fertile, and 
copiously watered by several creeks running into Salt river. 
Population 14,778, including 3114 slaves. 
SHELBYVILLE, the principal town of Shelby county, 
in the United States, situated on Brashan’s creek; 12 miles 
above its junction with Salt river. It contains a court-house, 
a bank, and a meeting-house. Population 424. 
SHELBYVILLE, a post township of the United States, 
and capital of Bedford county, Tennessee, on Duck river. It 
is flourishing, and contains a court-house. 
SHE'LDAFLE, s. [she/d, speckled; An old Suffolk 
word. Ray.] The chaffinch. 
SHELDERTON, a hamlet of England, in Salop; 8 miles 
west-north-west of Ludlow. 
SHELDESLEY, Beauchamp and King’s, two hamlets 
of England, in Worcestershire, on opposite sides of the river 
Teme, north-west of Clitheroe. 
SHELDON, a hamlet of England, in Derbyshire; 31- 
miles west-by-north of Bakewell. 
SHELDON, a village of England, in Devonshire; 6| 
miles east-north-east of Columpton. 
SHELDON, a parish of England, in Warwickshire; 4\ 
miles south-west of Coleshill. Population 388. 
SHELDON, formerly Hungerford, a post township of 
the United States, in Franklin county, Vermont, on the 
Michiscoui; 16 miles east of Lake Champlain. Population 
883. 
SHELDON, a township of the United States, in Genesee 
county, New York; 270 miles west of Albany. Population 
1415. 
SHE'LDRAKE, s. A bird that preys on fishes; a kind 
of wild duck.—Teals, sheldrakes, and speckled fowls, 
that come hither in winter out of Scandia, Muscovy, &c. 
Burton. 
SHE'LDUCK, s. A kind of wild duck. See Shel¬ 
drake. —To preserve wild ducks, and ske/lducks, have a 
place walled in with a pond. Mortimer. 
SHELDWICK, a parish of England, in Kent; 2§ miles 
south-by-west of Feversham. Population 449. 
SHELE, a small river of England, which runs into the 
Tyne, near its head. 
SHELF, s. pi. Shelves, [jcylp pcelf, Sax.] A board fixed 
against a supporter, so that any thing may be placed upon it. 
Bind fast, or from their shelves 
Your books will come and right themselves. Swift. 
A sand bank in the sea; a rock under shallow water.— 
Our transported souls shall congratulate each other on their 
having now fully escaped the numerous rocks, shelves, and 
quick-sands. Boyle. 
SHELF, a term used by the miners in many parts of 
England, to express a distinction of the inner structure of 
the earth, so little known to philosophers, that they have 
no word to express it by. These workmen sometimes also 
express it by the term fast ground or fast country. What 
they mean by this is, that part of the earth, which they find 
lying even, and in an orderly manner, and evidently having 
retained its primitive form and situation.. 
SHELF ANGER, a parish of England, in Norfolk; 2f 
miles north of Diss. Population 398. 
SHELFE, a township of England, West Riding of 
Yorkshire; 3 miles north-east of Halifax. Population 1553. 
SHELFORD, a small town of England, in Bedfordshire, 
lying between two rivulets, which, uniting their streams, fall 
into the Ouse. Market on Friday; 9 miles south of Bedford, 
and 41 north of London. 
SHELFORD, a parish of England in Nottinghamshire; 
6 miles east-north-east of Nottingham. Population 366. 
Vol. XXIII. No. 1558. 
SHE 113 
SHELFORD, Great, a parish of England, in Cam¬ 
bridgeshire ; 3 miles south-by-east of Cambridge. Popula¬ 
tion 593. 
SHELFORD, Little, another parish in the same 
county, about a mile distant from the foregoing. Popula¬ 
tion 357. 
SHE'LFY, adj. Full of hidden rocks or banks ; full of 
dangerous shallows. 
Glides by the syren’s cliffs a shelfy coast, 
Long infamous for ships and sailors lost. 
And white with bones. Dry den. 
In this passage, stony.-—The tillable fields are in some 
places so tough, that the plough will scarcely cut them; 
and in some so shelfy that the corn hath much ado to 
fasten its root. Carew. 
SHELL, s. [fcyll, ycell. Sax. schale, schelle, Teut. 
schale. Germ., skal, Icel., skalja, M. Goth., a shell, a scale. 
See also Shale.] The hard covering of any thing; the 
external crust.—Whatever we fetch from under ground is 
only what is lodged in the shell of the earth. Locke .— 
The covering of a testaceous or crustacepus animal. 
Her women wear 
The spoils of nations in an ear; 
Chang’d for the treasure of a shell. 
And in their loose attires do swell. B. Jonson. 
The covering of the seeds of siliquous plants.—Some 
fruits are contained within a hard shell, being the seeds of 
the plants. Arbuthnot The covering of kernels. 
Chang’d loves are but chang’d sorts of meat; 
And when he hath the kernel eat, 
Who doth not throw away the shell ? Donne. 
The covering of an egg. 
Think him as a serpent’s egg, 
Which, hatch’d, would, as his kind, grow mischievous. 
And kill him in the shell. Shakspeare. 
The outer part of an house.—The marquis of Medina 
Sidonia made the shell of a house, that would have been a 
very noble building, had he brought it to perfection. 
Addison .—It is used for a musical instrument in poetry, 
from testudo, Latin; the first lyre being said to have been 
made by straining strings over the shell of a tortoise. 
Less than a god they thought there could not dwell 
Within the hollow of that shell. 
That spoke so sweetly, and so well. Dry den. 
The superficial part.—-So devout are the Romanists about 
this outward shell of religion, that if any altar be moved, or 
a stone of it broken, it ought to be reconsecrated. Ay life. 
—In artillery, a bomb. 
SHELLS, Collecting and cleaning of See Con¬ 
ch OLOGY. 
SHELLS, Figures and Colours, Sfc. of. It is observed, 
that river-shells have not so agreeable or diversified a colour 
as the land and sea-shells; but the variety in the figure, co¬ 
lours, and other characters of sea-shells, is almost infinite. 
The number of distinct species we find in the cabinets of 
the curious is very great; and doubtless the deep bottoms 
of the sea, and the yet unsearched shores, contain multi¬ 
tudes more, yet unknown to us. Even the same species 
differ in some degree in almost every individual, so that it is 
rare to find any two shells which are alike in all respects. 
Bonan. Recreat. Ment. et Ocul. 
This wonderful variety, however, is not all the produce 
of one sea, or one country; the different parts of the world 
afford us their different beauties. Bonani observes, that the 
most beautiful shells we are acquainted with come from the 
East Indies, and from the Red sea. This is in some de¬ 
gree countenanced by what is found to this day; from the 
general observations of the curious, it seems that the sun, 
by the great heat that it gives to the countries near the line, 
exalts the colours of the shells produced there, and gives 
2 G them 
