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561

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it consisted in leaving the lands of subjugated nations to the firstowners, upon condition of certain rents, and servile offices, to bepaid in acknowledgment. Hence the names of servi censiti,ascriptitii, and addicti glebse; some whereof were taxable at thereasonable discretion of the lord ; others at a certain rate agreed on ;and others were mainmortable, who, having no legitimate children,could not make a will to above the value of five pence, the lordbeing heir of all the rest; and others were prohibited marrying, orgoing to live out of the lordship. Most of these servitudes existedsu France till the revolution ; but they were long ago abolished inEngland. Such, however, was the original of.our tenures, &c.

SERUM is a thin, transparent, saltish liquor , which makes aconsiderable part of the mass of blood. See Anatomy , andBlood .

SESAMOIDEA OSSA, certain small bones somewhat re-sembling the seeds of sesamum, whence their name. They areplaced at the under part of the bones of the last joints of the fingersand toes.

SESAMUM, Oily Grain ; in botany, a genus of plants belong-ing to the class didynainia, and order angiospermia ; natural order,Luridse. Calyx five-parted; corolla bell-shaped, five-cleft, thelower lobe larger; rudiment of a filth filament; stigma lanceolate;capsule four-celled. There are three species, viz. the orientale,the Indicum, and the luteum.

SES ELI, Meadow-Saxifrage, or Hart wort of Marseilles ;in botany, a genus of plants belonging to the class pentandria,and order digynia ; natural order, Umbellate. Umbels globular;invokicrum consisting of one or two leaflets; fruit egg-shaped,streaked. There are 15 species.

SES1A, orSEZIA, a department of France , one of the six,into which the principalities of Piedmont, Monlferrat, &c. weredivided, on the lltli Sept. 1802.

SESQUt, a Latin particle, signifying a whole and a half; which,joined with altera, terza, quarta, &c. is much used in the Italianmusic to express a kind of ratios, particularly several species oftriples.

SESQUIALTERAL, or SESQUIALTERATE, in geometryand arithmetic: e. g. 6 and 9 are in a sesqui-alterate ratio ; since 9contains 6 once, and 3, which is half of 6, over; and 20 and 30are in the same; as 30 contains 20, and half 20 or 10. Also 40and 60 are sequialteral, the latter being a half more than the former.

SESQUI-DUPLICATE RATIO is when of two terms thegreater contains the less twice, and half the less remains; as 15 and6 > A0 and 20.

SESSILE ROOTS, among botanists, such tuberous roots asadhere to the base of the stalk. And a sessile leaf expresses a leafimmediately fixed lo the stalk or root without any petiole.

SESSIO'N, [sessin, Lat.] in general, denotes each sitting orassembly of a council, &c.

Session of Parliament , is a season or space from its meetingto its prorogation. See the article Parliament .

Session for Weights and Measures, is in London taken

for

a sitting of four justices chosen from among the mayor, recorder,

ai ’d aldermen, who hold a court in order to inquire into offencespersons selling by false weights and measures contrary to thestatutes, and to punish the same.

Session, in law, denotes a sitting of justices in court upon theircommission; as the sessions of oyer and terminer, the quarter-ses-' on s, otherwise called the general or open sessions of the peace,opposition to what is called a privy session, held, upon specialcessions for speedier dispatch of justice. This general session ofqP ea ce is a court of record held before two or more justices, one^mng of the quorum, for the execution of the authority grantedem by their commission and particular statutes, whereby theye authorized to hear and determine trespasses against the publicL- ace > &c. and likewise divers offences by statute. This courtheld four times a year in every county. See

of

sessions

—-='>'ns isC-OURT, &c.

■g tslERC E, Sestertius , a silver-coin, in use among the ancientt er .. 1ans > called also simply minimus, and sometimes nummus ses-oriJ 1S ‘u * lle s C ate rt!us was the fourth part of the denarius, andbv rrc^ conta med two asses and a half. It was at first denotedHie lih '■ two sigmfymg two libra-, and the S, half. Butthe sp ! ar ! 1 .’ a ‘ terwar ds converting the two L’s into an H, expressedstertius by HS. The word sestertius was first introduced

VOL. -- - J95.

by way of abbreviation for semistertius, which signifies two, and ahalf of a third, or, literally, only half a third ; for, in expressinghalf a third, it was understood that there were two before. Someauthors make two kinds of sesterces; the less called sestertius, inthe masculine gender; and the great one, called sestertium, in theneuter: the first that we have already described; the latter con-taining 1000 of the other. Others will have any such distinctionof great and little sesterces unknown to the Romans: sestertius saythey, was an adjective, and signified as sestertius, or two asses and ahalf: and when used in the plural, as in quinquaginta sestertium,or sestertia, it was only by way of abbreviation, and there was al-ways understood centena, millia, &c.

Sesterce, or Sestertius , was also used by the ancients for athing containing two wholes and an half of another, as as was takenfor any whole or integer.

Sesterce, Copper , was worth about one third of a pennyEnglish .

SESTERTIUM, SESTERTIUS. See Sesterce .

SESTOS, a noted fortress of European Turkey in Romania , op-posite lo Abydos, situated at the entrance of the Hellespont otDardanelles , 24 miles S. S. VV. of Gallipoli.

SESTRI DE LEV ANTE, a (own of Italy , 30 miles W. ofGenoa . Lon. 9. 28. E. Lat. 44. 23. N.

Sestri di Ponente, a town of Italy; four miles W. of Genoa .Lon. 8. 36. E. Lat. 44. 24. N.

SESUV1UM, in botany, a genus of plants belonging to theclass icosandria, and order trigynia. Calyx coloured, hve parted:no petals; capsule egg-shaped, three-celled, opening horizontallyabout the middle, and containing many seeds. There is only onespecies, S. Portulacastrum, Purslane-leaved Sesuvium, a native ofthe West indies .

SET, or SETS, a term used by the farmers and gardeners to ex-press the young plants of the white thorn and other shrubs, withwhich they use to raise their quick or quick-set hedges.

Set Off, in law, is an act w hereby the defendant acknowledgesthe justice of the plaintiff’s demand on the one hand ; but, on theother, sets up a demand of his own, to counterbalance that of theplaintiff, either in the whole, or in part.

SETACEOUS, [.seta, Lat.] bristly ; set with strong hairs; con-sisting of strong hairs.

Setaceous Worm, in natural history, a name given by Dr.Lister to that long and slender water-worm, which so much re-sembles a horsehair, that it has been supposed by the vulgar to bean animated hair of that creature.

SE-TCF1EOU, a city of China , of the first rank in the provinceof Koei-tcheou, 982 miles S. S. W. of Peking.

SE-TCHIN, orSE-TCHING, a city of China of the firstrank, in the province of Quang-si, 1100 miles S. S. W. of Pe-king.

SE-TCHUEN, an inland province of China , far from the sea-coast, hounded on the N. by Chen-si, E. by Ilon-quang, S. byKoei-tcheou, and W. by Thibet . Besides numerous fruits andvegetables, it abounds with lead, tin, iron, lapis lazuli, rock-salt,magnets, silk, sugar canes, musk, amber, rhubarb, &c. and ex-cellent small but swift horses. Tchintou is the capital.

SETEEF, a town of Africa , anciently called Sitipha, capitalof part of Mauritania , which made a brave resistance against theSaracens. It is 50 miles S. W. of Constantiua. Lon 5. 36. E,Lat. 35. 58. N.

SETIilANS, in church-history, Christian heretics; so calledbecause they paid divine worship to Seth, whom they looked uponto be Jesus Christ , the Son of God, but who was made by a thirddivinity, and substituted in the room of the two families of Abeland Cain , which had been destroyed by the deluge. These he-retics appeared in Egypt in the second century.

SETON, in surgery, a kind of issue, or artificial ulcer, pro-duced by passing the seton needle through any of the larger mus-cles, and introducing a cord made of cotton or silk thread ; inorder to effect the discharge of superfluous or morbid matter.Setons are-said lo be very useful in catarrhs, inflammations, andother disorders, particularly those of the eyes, as 3gutta sereria,cataract, and incipient suffusion ; to these we may add intenseheadachs, with stupidity, drowsiness, epilepsies, and even theapoplexy itself.

I Sf.tons, in farriery, are occasionally applied to various parts ofi 7 D a horse’s