Page:Willich, A. F. M. - The Domestic Encyclopædia (Vol. 4, 1802).djvu/191

sut «3issolved In water; the solution acquiring a yellow, golden shade. On melting it in a continued heat, till it grows tough, and assumes a red-brown colour, then pouring the liquid mass into water, it will re- main as soft as wax, and j'ield to any imjiression from engraven stones, metals, or coins. After be- coming cold, however, it recovers its former hardness and colour. This mineral is usually imported in large irregular masses, which are melted into rolls, with the addi- tion of coarse resin, flour, &c. ; whence it assumes a pale yellow tint. It pays, on importation, the sum of 7s. -Id. per cwt. Sulphur is of great utility in the arts : when converted into an acid by combustion in the open air, it affords that extensively useful li- quid, vulgarly termed oil of Vi- triol J considerable quantities of which are consumed in the various processes of bleaching, dissolving metals, especially iron, and in other useful arts : it is also of great service in cementing iron railing to stones, by simply melting, and pouring it into the interstices. See also GuN-rowDEK. — Brimstone is farther advantageously employed for whitening silk, wool, or other articles, by exposing them to its fumes, during combustion. In medicine, sulphur is almost a specific in cutaneous diseases, v/he- ther adm.in.istered internally with honey or molasses, or applied ex- ternally in the form of ointment. In the piles, it is of evident bene- fit, when taken in small doses ; nay, it is occasionally prescribed in chronic catarrhs and coughs ; as it operates gently, by promoting in- sensible perspiration through every pore of the skin. — See likewise SUM [165 SULPHUR. WORT, the CoMr MON, Hog'sFenxel, or Hare- strong, Paicfdanum officinale, L. a native perennial, growing in salt- marshes ; producing flowers in the months of June and July, — Both the roots and stalks of this saline plant are from three to fom- feet long; have a fetid odour, and an acrid, bitterish taste. If an inci- sion be made in the former, during the spring, a considerable portion of yellow juice will exude, and con- crete into a gummy resin, retain- ing the sulphurv^ous smell of the root. The expressed juice of thl«  plant was formerly employed in letiiargy; but its medicinal proper- ties have never been ascertained with precision. As the sulphur-wort is an use- less weed in ineadows, it should be diligently extirpated ; though Bech- STEiN observes, that the dried roots have been successfully employed in fumigations, to prevent the s[)read- ing of epidemic distempers among SUMACH-TREE, or Rhus, L. a genus of exotic tre«s, compre- hending 33 species, of which the following are the most remarkable, namely : i . The Coriaria, or Elm-leaved Sumach, a native of Italy, Spain, Syria, Turkey, and Palestine, where it grows to the height of eight or ten i'pe.t. The branches of this species, when dried and reduced to powder, are substituted for oak- bark in tanning, particularly Tur- key, or MOROCCO-I-EATHER : its leaves are occasionally employed on the Continent in medicine, l:>e- ing reputed to be uncommonly astringent and styptic. Troms- DORF obtaiied from the reddish, compressed hairy berries of this tree, an essential acid salt, similar M3 " to