S I L 
S I L 
SII'LCULOSE, adj. [silicula, Lat.] Husky; full of 
husks. Diet. 
SILIFREY. See Jillifree. 
SILI'GINOSE, adj. [siliginosus, Lat.] Made of fine 
wheat. Diet. 
SILILICON, in Botany, a name given by some of the 
old Latin writers to the carob tree, siliqua dulcis. The 
Latins borrowed this name from the Greek xyloglycon, 
l-vXolXvKovi the sweet, or sweet-fruited tree. 
SIL1N, or Abu Ait, a village of Upper Egypt; 12 miles 
south-south-east of Siut. 
SILING, a town of China, of the third rank, in Quang- 
see. 
SILINO, a small island among the Philippines, near 
the north coast of Mindanao. Lat. 9. 2. N. long. 121. 
40. E. 
SI'LING-DISH, s. A strainer; a colander. Bar¬ 
ret. 
SILIPICA, a settlement of South America, in the pro¬ 
vince of Tucuman, on the shore of the river Dulce; 20 miles 
south of St. Jago del Estero. 
SI'LIQUA, s. [Latin.] [With gold-finers.] A carat 
of which six make a scruple. [Silique, Fr., with botanists.] 
The seed-vessel, husk, cod, or shell of such plants as are of 
the pulse kind. Johnson. 
SILIQUA, [/<epa7(ov, Gr.] among the ancients, the third 
part of an obolus, or, what comes to the same, the sixth 
part of a scruple. 
SILIQUA NABATHiEA. See Nabathtea Siliqua. 
SILIQUA, in Botany, a Pod, is a sort of Pericarp. 
(See that article.) The Siliqua is a solitary seed-vessel, of 
an elongated form, and dry substance, consisting of two 
parallel valves, separated by a parallel linear partition, or 
receptacle, along each of whose edges the seeds are ranged 
in alternate order. 
SILIQUA. See Caroa: 
SILIQUASTRUM, the appellation of the Judas-tree 
in Tournefort and preceding authors, alluding to its partial 
resemblance to the fruit of the Carob, which was called 
Siliqua, the Pod, by way of eminence. See Ceratonia 
and Cercis. 
SILIQUASTRUM, in Natural History, the name given 
by Mr. Lhuyd, and others, to the bony palates of fishes, 
when found fossile. 
SILIQUATICUM, among the Romans, a custom or 
toll paid for merchandize. This the Greeks called cera- 
tismus. 
SILIQUOSA, in Botany, the second order of the Lin- 
nsean 15th class, Tetradynarnia ; which order is character¬ 
ized by the oblong form of the seed-vessel. See Siliqua 
and Silicula. 
SILIQUOSiE, the 39th natural order, among the frag- 
menta of Linnaeus, exactly analogous to the Crucifers 
of Jussieu. See Botany. 
SI'LIQUOSE, or Si'liquous, adj. [from siliqua, 
Lat.] Having a pod or capsula.—All the tetrapetalous 
siliquose plants are alkalescent. Arbutknot. 
SILISTRIA, or Dristra, a large town in the north of 
European Turkey, in Bulgaria, situated on the Danube, on 
its south bank, at the influx of the small river Missovo. It 
is well fortified, tolerably built, has several handsome 
mosques and baths, and contains a population of 20,000. 
Being out of the usual road from Turkey to Germany, it is 
rarely visited by travellers. In the environs are to be seen 
the ruins of the wall erected by the Greek emperors, against 
the incursions of the barbarians. It is at present one of the 
frontier towns of Turkey; and in 1773 several sharp actions 
took place here between the Russians and Turks. It is the 
see of an archbishop ; 155 miles north-north-east of Adrian- 
ople. Lat. 44.15. N, long. 27. 6. E. 
SILIUS ITALICUS (Caius), an Italian poet, was born 
about the year 15 of the Christian era. He has been sup¬ 
posed to have been a native of ltalica in Spain ; but his 
not being claimed as a fellow countryman by Martial, who 
has bestowed upon him the highest praises, renders the 
Vol. XXIII. No. 1564. 
209 
supposition improbable. It is certain that he lived chiefly 
in Italy, in which he possessed several estates. The know¬ 
ledge of him come down to these times is derived from a 
letter of Pliny the Younger to Caninius Rufus, announcing 
his death. From this it appears that he incurred some re¬ 
proach in the reign of Nero, as having been forward in 
accusations, and that he was consul at the time of the tyrant’s 
death; that he made a discreet and humane use of the friend¬ 
ship of Vitellius; and that having acquired much honour, 
from his conduct in the proconsulate of Asia, he thenceforth 
withdrew from public offices, and maintained the rank of the 
principal persons of the city without power and without envy. 
It appears, likewise, that he passed his time chiefly in literary 
conversations, and in composing verses, which he sometimes 
recited in public. He had great taste for elegance, and 
purchased a number of villas, which, after enjoying for a 
time, he deserted for new ones. He collected a number of 
statues, books, and busts, to some of the latter of which 
he paid a kind of religious veneration. This was particularly 
the case with respect to that of Virgil, whose birth-day he 
kept with much more ceremony than his own, and whose 
tomb was included in one of his villas. He is said also to 
have possessed a villa that had been Cicero’s. In his latter 
ears he retired altogether to his seat in Campania, which 
e did not quit upon any account; and the general tide of 
his prosperity did not cease to flow, except in the instance 
of the death of the younger of his two sons, which was in 
some degree compensated by the consular dignity of the 
elder. In his 75th year he was attacked with an incurable 
ulcer, and he is said to have put an end to his life, by 
abstaining from food. 
The work of Silius, which has come down to the present 
time, is an epic poem on the second Punic war. In this he 
scarcely deviates from Livy, in the narration of transactions; 
but occasionally introduces a machinery, copied from 
Virgil, of whose style and manner he is an imitator. Pliny 
says, that “ he writes with more diligence than genius." 
The best editions of this work are those of Drakenborch, 
1717; and of Lefebvre de Villebrune, 4 vols. 12mo., 
1782. 
SILIVRI, or Selivrea, the ancient Selymbria, a sea¬ 
port of European Turkey, in Romania, near the sea of 
Mannora, situated on the western side of a promontory. It 
contains 6000 inhabitants, of whom 1500 are Greeks, and 
200 Jews. It commands a beautiful prospect of the Pro¬ 
pontis, but its harbour admits only small vessels; 32 miles 
west of Constantinople. 
SILJAN, a small town in the middle part of Sweden, in 
Dalecarlia, on a lake to which it gives name; 29 miles north¬ 
west of Fahlun. 
SILK, s. [peolc, Saxon. “ Vocabulum Anglicanum sellc, 
Lat. sericum, —nuncupatum est quasi selih, pro serile, 
liter® r in / facili commut. fact.” SerenJ] The thread of 
the worm that turns afterwards to a butterfly. 
The worms were hallow’d that did breed the silk ; 
And it was dy’d in mummy, which the skilful 
Conserv’d of maidens’ hearts. Shakspeare. 
. The stuff made of the worm’s thread.—Let not the creak¬ 
ing of shoes, or rustling of silks betray thy poor heart to 
woman. Shakspeare. 
Silk is a very soft, fine, bright, delicate thread; the 
work of an insect, called bomhyx, or the silk-worm. 
The ancients were but little acquainted with the use and 
manufacture of silk; they took it for the work of a sort of 
spider or beetle, who spun it out of his entrails, and wound 
it with its feet about the little branches of trees. This in¬ 
sect they called ser, from Seres, a people in Scythia, whom 
we now call the Chinese, who, as they thought, bred it; 
whence the silk itself they called sericum. But this ser of 
theirs has very little affinity with our silk-worm, the fomier 
living five years; but the latter dying annually enveloped in 
a yellowish bag or ball, which, wound out into little threads, 
makes what we call silk. 
It was in the isle of Cos that the art of manufacturing it 
3 H was 
