schools, in the estuaries and tidal waters, and are often met with far from land; while one species (Distira Semperi) is confined to the landlocked Lake Taal, in Luzon. One of the well-known species of the Bay of Bengal is the ‘kerril’ (Distira Jerdoni). These serpents feed upon fish, and are extremely poisonous, and very dangerous to fishermen, pearl-divers, and bathers in certain regions. Most of them are dull brownish or greenish in color, but others are brilliantly colored, as in the case of the Indian species (Hydrophis nigricincta) figured on the Colored Plate of Foreign Venomous Serpents. Consult: Fayrer, Thanatophidia of India (London, 1874); Boulenger, in Natural Science, vol. i. (ib., 1892).
SEASONS (OF. seson, seison, saison, Fr. saison, from Lat. satio, a sowing, from serere, to sow; connected with OChurch Slav, sēti, Lith. segir, Goth, saian, OHG. sāen, säen, AS. sāwan, Eng. sow) . Divisions of the year based upon climatic conditions. The changes of the seasons are due to two causes: (1) the inclination of the earth's rotative axis to the plane of the ecliptic (q.v.); (2) the varying length of the day as compared with the night, resulting from the inclination of the axis. As a result of the first of these causes, the sun's rays fall more obliquely on the earth in the winter than in the summer. The number of rays striking a surface varies as the sine of the angle of inclination. Thus the greater the obliquity the less the number of rays. In the summer the sun rises to a greater elevation each day than at other seasons, and therefore the number of rays falling on the earth's surface in that season will be greater than in the winter. The second cause is obvious. Since the heat of the earth is due primarily to solarization, it follows that the hot season should occur when the days are longest. Within the tropics the difference in the obliquity of the sun's rays is never so great as to make one part of the year very sensibly colder than another. There are, therefore, either no marked seasons, or they have other causes altogether, and are distinguished as the wet and dry seasons. (See Rain.) But in the temperate zones the year is naturally divided into four seasons: spring, summer, autumn, and winter. In the Arctic and Antarctic regions spring and autumn are very brief, and the natural division of the year is simply into summer and winter, and this is very much the case also in regions of the temperate zones lying near the Arctic and Antarctic circles. In subtropical regions the distinction of four seasons is in like manner very imperfectly marked. This distinction is everywhere somewhat arbitrary as to the periods of the year included in each season, which really vary according to latitude, and partly according to the other causes which influence climate (q.v.), the seasons passing one into another more or less gradually, and their commencement and close not being determined by precise astronomical or other phenomena. The greatest heat of summer is never reached till a considerable time after the summer solstice (q.v.), when the sun's rays are most nearly vertical, and the day is longest; the greatest cold of winter is in like manner after the winter solstice, when the day is shortest, and the sun's rays are most oblique. The reason in the former case is that as summer advances the earth itself becomes more heated by the continued action of the sun's rays, and in the latter, that it retains a portion of the heat which it has imbibed during summer, just as the warmest part of the day is somewhat after midday, and the coldest part of the night is toward morning.
SEASONS, The. A descriptive poem in blank verse by James Thomson. Winter appeared in 1726, Summer 1727, Spring 1728, and Autumn 1730, and a revised and enlarged edition in 1744. It marks a reaction against the artificial poetry of that day, and led up to the nobler nature-poetry of the succeeding period.
SEA-SQUIRT. Any of several marine animals which have the power of ejecting water when removed from their native element. In the West Indies the large holothurians (q.v.) which eject water from the respiratory trees through the anal opening are often so called. The name is more commonly and rather more properly applied to the larger ascidians (q.v.), which force the water out of the atrial cavity through the atrial pore by the contraction of the tunic, often with considerable velocity, and for many inches.
SEA-SWALLOW. A small gull or tern (qq.v.).
SEA′TON, William Winston (1785-1866). An American journalist, born in King William County, Va. From 1812 until 1860 he was, with his brother-in-law, Joseph Gales, proprietor of the National Intelligencer at Washington, D. C. From 1812 until 1820 the two were the only reporters of Congressional proceedings. Their Annals of Congress, Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States from 3 March, 1708, till 27 May, 1824 (42 vols., 1834-56), and their Register of Debates in Congress from 1824 till 1837 (29 vols., 1827-37) are sources of the utmost importance on the history of the times.
SEA-TROUT. One of various fishes, as (1) the weakfish (q.v.), and (2) in Great Britain the trout (Salmo trutta).
SEATTLE, sē̇-ăt′t’l. The largest city of Washington and the county-seat of King County, situated on the eastern shore of Puget Sound, 864 miles by water north of San Francisco, Cal., and 185 miles by rail north of Portland, Oregon (Map: Washington, C 2). It is a terminal point of the Canadian Pacific, the Northern Pacific, and the Great Northern railroads, the first named using the tracks of the Northern Pacific for its entry into the city. Transportation facilities by water, too, are excellent. Besides several coastwise steamship lines to San Francisco, the principal ports of Alaska, etc., there are regular lines to Japan, China, Siberia, the Philippines, and Honolulu. Communication is maintained also, but more irregularly, with ports of South America, Europe, Africa, and Australia.
Seattle is magnificently situated midway between the Cascade and Coast ranges, with Puget Sound in front and Lake Washington at its rear. Green and Union lakes are within the municipal limits, and the Duwamish River flows through the city. The business quarter occupies the lower level, near the river and sea. Planks, gravel, macadam, asphalt, wooden blocks, and vitrified brick constitute the paving materials of the more important thoroughfares.
Denny and Kinnear, Lincoln, Volunteer, Woodland, and Washington are the chief parks, together with the beautiful and extensive grounds
