SMUT

succe ful. And it has been invariably found that no vigilance on the part of the revenue officers, and no severity of punishment, can prevent the smuggling of such commodities as are either prohibited or loaded with oppre ive duties. The smuggler is generally a popular character; and whatever the law may declare on the subject, it is quite ludicrous to expect that the bulk of society will ever be brought to think that those who furnish them with cheap brandy, geneva, tobacco, . are guilty of any very heinous offence. " To pretend," says Dr. Smith, "to have any scruple about buying smuggled goods, though a manifest encouragement to the violation of the revenue laws, and to the perjury which almost always attends it, would, in most countries, be regarded as one of those pedantic pieces of hypocrisy, which, instead of gaining credit with any body, seems only to expose the person who affects to practise them to the suspicion of being a greater knave than most of his neighbours. By this indulgence of the public, the smuggler is often encouraged to continue a trade which he is thus taught to consider as in some measure innocent; and when the severity of the revenue laws is ready to fall upon him, he is frequently disposed to defend with violence what he has been accustomed to regard as his just property; and from being at first rather imprudent than criminal, he at last too often becomes one of the most determined violators of the laws of society." ( Wealth of Nations, vol. iii. p. 49 1.) To create by means of high duties an overwhelming temptation to indulge in crime, and then to punish men for indulging in it, is a proceeding completely subversive of every principle of justice. It revolts the natural feelings of the people; and teaches them to feel an inter, est in the worst characters — for such smugglers generally are, — to espouse their cause, and avenge their wrongs. A. punishment which is not proportioned to the offence, and which does not carry the sanction of public opinion along with it, can never be productive of any good effect. The true way to put down smuggling is to render it unprofitable, to diminish the temptation to engage in it; and this is not to be done by surrounding the coasts with cordons of troops, by the multiplication of oaths and penalties, and making the country the theatre of ferocious and bloody contests in the field, and of perjury and chicanery in the courts of law; but by repealing'prohibitions, and reducing duties, so that their collection may be enforced with a moderate degree of vigilance, and that the forfeiture of the article may be a sufficient penalty upon the smuggler. It is in this, and in this only, that we must seek for an effectual check to illicit trafficking. Whenever the profits of the fair trader become nearly equal to those of the smuggler, the latter is forced to abandon his hazardous profe ion. But so long as prohibitions or oppre ively high duties are kept up, or, which is, in fact, the same thing, so long as high bounties are held out to encourage the adventurous, the needy, and the profligate to enter on this career, we may be a ured that armies of excise and custom-house officers, backed by the utmost severity of the revenue laws, will be insufficient to hinder them. (For full particulars respecting the law of smuggling, . see the Com. Diet.) SMUT. A disease incidental to corn crops, by which the farina of the grain in the whole body of the seed is converted into a black soot-like powder. If an ear of corn affected by this disease be smartly struck with the finger, the powder will be dispersed like that of the fungus known as Lycoperdon bonist a, the common puff-ball found in pastures, but darker; and if a portion of the powder be moistened and examined with the microscope, it will be found to consist of innumerable minute transparent globules. Some attribute the smut to the richne of the soil, and others consider it as a hereditary disease transmitted by one generation to another through the seed. Willdenow and Mirbel regard it as a small fungus; but Bauer believes it to be a proper disease, indicated by a morbid swelling of the ear. Some cultivators steep the grain of smutty corn in a weak solution of arsenic before sowing; but others deny the efficacy of this preparation. Smutty grain is separated from such as may be used for seed, or for grinding into flour, by being rapidly whirled round in a cylinder lined with brushes; or by steeping in water, when the smut from its lightne floats on the surface. The safest mode for the farmer to pursue is never to sow grain from a field in which the smut has prevailed. SNAKE ROOT. This term is applied to the root of the Aristolochia serpent aria, a native of Virginia: it is a fibrous, aromatic, and bitterish root. The infusion is occasionally used as a tonic and diaphoretic: in typhoid fevers it is a good adjunct to Peruvian bark, and to quinia. SNAKE WOOD. The wood of the Strychnos colubrina. Supposed to be an antidote to the poison of certain snakes. SNEE'ZING. A convulsive action of the respiratory organs, brought on by irritation of the nostrils. Violent fits of sneezing have occasionally attacked persons, and 112.5 SNOW. are even said to have proved fatal; recourse must in such cases be had to soothing the nasal membrane by the application of warm milk and water, or decoction of poppies. SNIPE. The common navae of the Scolopax gall in a go, Linn. This bird is a plentiful species In most parts of Great Britain. In wet seasons it resorts to the hills and higher grounds; in ordinary seasons it frequents marshes. Its principal food is worms, in quest of which it penetrates the soft earth with its long and slender bill, which is especially organized for that purpose. SNOW. (Ger. schnee.) Congealed water, which falls from the bosom of the atmosphere. Very little is yet known respecting the formation of this meteor. It has not been ascertained, for instance, whether the clouds which produce it are composed of vesicular vapours, or of frozen particles; nor whether the flakes are completely formed before they begin to descend, or receive an increase in pa ing through the lower strata of the atmosphere. The temperature of the flakes, and the circumstances which determine their form and volume, are likewise unknown. The only observations which may be considered as in any degree complete are with reference to the different forms which the flakes a ume. This subject was considered by Kepler, Hooke, Ca ini, Muschenbroek, and many others; but the most interesting series of observations we po e are those of Scores by {Account of the Arctic Regions, 1820), who has reduced the different forms into cla es, and given a number of excellent representations of tlie flakes in different states. Generally speaking, when examined with the microscope they present modifications of stelliform and hexagonal crystals; and frequently they consist of a star of six rays formed of prisms united at angles of 60*^, from which other prisms shoot at similar angles, giving the whole an appearance of exquisite beauty and great regularity. The variety of modifications is probably owing to the state of the atmosphere when the snow is formed. If the crystallization takes place when the air is calm, the crystals will be regularly formed; on the contrary, they will be irregular and imperfect when the air is much agitated. Sometimes the flakes present no traces of crystallization. Snow is much le dense than ordinary ice. The hulk of a given weight of ice is only about a ninth part greater than that of the water from which it is formed, while the bulk of new-fallen snow is ten or twelve times greater than that of the water obtained by melt'ng it. At moderate elevations above the sea, and in the mean latitudes, snow most frequently falls after some days of pretty hard frost, and when the temperature of the air, though still a few degrees above the freezing point, is sensibly mitigated. On this circumstance is founded the remark that it cannot snow in very severe cold; and though the remark does not always hold good, it will do so generally, for two reasons: — in the first place, the air which comes from very cold regions contains a small portion of watery vapour; and secondly, because the formation of clouds, by diminishing the radiation, nece arily mitigates the severity of the cold. As snow can only be formed when the temperature of the atmospheric strata containing the aqueous vapour is below the ireezing point, it is obvious that if the snow in falling pa es into strata of a higher temperature, it will be melted before arriving at the surface of the earth. Hence it follows that it never snows in the torrid zone, nor in the heats of summer, excepting on the tops of very elevated mountains. Red Snow — It had been remarked by the ancients that snow sometimes a umes a red tint, and Pliny ascribes the cause to age: — Ipsa nix vetustate rnbescit. Many modern observers have described and examined this curious phenomena, which appears to be met with in all parts of the world.. Sau ure observed red snow on the Bevern in 1760, and on St. Bernard in 1778; and he supposed the colouring matter to consist of a vegetable dust. Ramond met with it in the Pyrenees, Captain Ro in Baffin's Bay; Parry, Franklin, and Scores by collected it in still higher northern latitudes; and it has been found abundantly in New Shetland in latitude 70° south. Among the Alps it is generally found in low sheltered spots, and penetrating to the depth of two or three inches; or rather the strata in which it is found (for it occurs overlaid at considerable depths) seldom exceed two or three inches in thickne . The colouring matter of this singular substance has been examined by WoUaston, R. Brown, De Candolle, The nard, Bauer, . Dr. Wollaston first remarked that it is composed of minute spherical globules, which have a transparent envelop, and are divided into seven or eight small cells filled with a species of red oil insoluble in water. Mr. R. Brown and De Candolle supposed the globules to be a kind of algae. Mr. Bauer {Fhil. Trans. 1820) found the globules to be exactly identical in snow collected in Baffin's Bay and New Shetland; and he supposed them to be small mushrooms of the genus Uredu, forming a peculiar species, to which ho gave the name of Uredo nival is. 4 C 3 Page 1139