Collier's New Encyclopedia, Vol. 9 of 10 PDF Download

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Publisher: Forgotten Books
ISBN: 9780656096886
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 576

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Book Description
Excerpt from Collier's New Encyclopedia, Vol. 9 of 10: A Loose-Leaf and Self-Revising Reference Work Sow Thistle, the popular name given to a species of a genus of composite lants, Sonchus. There are about 50 species, mostly herbaceous, but some forming shrubs or small trees. Some of the first may be considered cosmopolitan, while the woody sorts are almost restricted to the Canaries and to the island of Madeira. The most common species in Great Britain is the common sow thistle, Sonchus oleraceus. It is very abundant as a weed, is greedily fed upon by many animals, and is sometimes used on the European continent as a pot-herb. It grows to a height of two or three feet, with a branching stem and small yellow flowers. The S. alpinus forms a tall and fine plant, with fresh and sharply defined foliage and large heads of beautiful blue flowers. The S. arvensis is found in Massachusetts and southern New York. Spa, or Spaa, a town of Belgium, and a watering place of world-wide celebrity; in a romantic valley amid hills which form part of the Ardennes chain, 27 miles S.E. of Liege, and 22 miles S. W. of Aix-la-Chapelle. The prettily-built town consists almost entirely of inns and lodging houses. The mineral springs are efficacious in complaints of the liver, nervous diseases, dyspepsia, etc. Spa water is exported to all quarters of the globe. Spa is also famed for the manufacture of wooden toys, which are stained brown by being steeped in the mineral waters. It was frequented as a watering place as early as the 14 th century, and has given its name to many mineral springs. Here the German Great Headquarters were established in 1918, where consultations were held concerning the armistice and from whence the German delegates set out for the French lines to meet Marshal Foch and sue for peace. Space, in geometry, the room in which an object, actual or imaginary, exists. All material objects possess length, breadth, and thickness; in other words, they exist in space of three dimensions. Plane surfaces have only two dimensions length and breadth, and straight lines but one dimension length. Hence we have notions of space of one dimension and of two dimensions, as distinguished from the three dimensional space in which we live. The question has arisen, and has been warmly discussed, as to whether space of four, and perhaps of higher dimensions exists. Zollner believes that it does, and that some persons have some of the power of beings living in space of four dimensions, and thus accounts for many of the phenomena of Spiritualism. For example, while a being living in space of two dimensions could only get in or out of a square by passing through one of it a sides, a human being could enter the square from above; so, he argues, a person having the properties of a four-dimensional being could enter or leave a closed box or room on its fourth-dimensional side. In metaphysics, a conjugate of material existence. Empirical philosophers maintain that notions of space are derived from our knowledge of existence;transcendentalists that these notions are innate. In music, one of the four intervals between the five lines of a staff. They take their names from the notes which occupy them; thus, the spaces of the treble staff, counting upward, are F, A, C, and E, and of the bass, A, C, E, and G. In physics, the room in which the Cosmos or universe exists. In printing, the interval between words in printed matter; also pieces of type-metal shorter than type, used to produce such spaces or to separate letters in words, of varying thickness, so as to justify the line. Spain, a kingdom in the S. W. of Europe, forming with Portugal the great S. W. peninsula of Europe. It is separated from France on then. E.by the chain of the Pyrenees, and is otherwise bounded by Portugal and the Atlantic and Mediterranean. In greatest breadth N. and S. it measures 540 miles; greatest length E. and W., 620 miles. Continent...