SKY
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■head and eyes with a regular and imperceptible motion ; for nothingvo much diminishes the grace and elegance of skating as suddenjerks and exertions, which are too frequently used by the gene*ralily of skaters. The management of the arms likewise deservesattention. There is uo mode of disposing of them more gracefullyin skating outside, than folding the hands into each other, or usinga muff.
SKELETON , in astronomy, the dried bones of any animaljoined together by wires, or by the natural ligament dried, so as toshew their position when the creature was alive. See Anatomy.
SKERRIES, a name applied to certain low rocky islands amongthe Northern and Western Isles of Scotland and Ireland .
SKIDS, or SKEEDS, in sea-language, are long compassingpieces of timber, notched below so as to fit closely upon the wales,extending from the main-wale to the top of the side, and retainedin this position by bolts or spike-nails.
SK1EE, a vessel resembling a yawl, usually employed for passingrivers.
SKILSKIOER, a sea-port of Denmark, in Zealand , 28 milesS, W. of Copenhagen . Lon. 11. 77. E. Lat. 55. 16. N.
SKIMMIA, in botany, a genus of the monogynia order, andtetrundria class of plants ; natural order Personals. Calyx four-parted ; petals four, concave; berry four-seeded. There is butone species, viz. S. japonica, a native of Japan, near Nagasaki .
SKIPTON, a town of England in the West Riding of York-shire, 41 miles S. by E. of Richmond, and 231 N.byW. ofLondon .
SKIRMISH, in war, is a slight engagement between smallparties, without any regular order.
Skirmish Bay, the name given by Lieutenant Broughton to abay in an island, which was discovered by him in Lat. 43°4S'S.end Ion. 183° E.
SKIVE, a town of Denmark, in North Jutland , 15 miles N. W.ofViborg. Lon. 8. 55. E. Lat. 56. 41. N.
SKOH AM, and SKOMAR, two islands of S. Wales, near theW. coast of Pembrokeshire. Lon. 5. 17. W. Lat. 51. 41. N.SKULL, or CRANIUM . See Anatomy.
SKY, the blue expanse of air or atmosphere. For the reasonof its concave figure, see Optics. With respect to the blueness•of the sky, M. de la Hire, after Leonardo da Vinci , observes,that any black body, viewed through a thin white one, gives thesensation of bine; and this he assigns as the reason of the bluenessof the sky, the immense depth of which, being wholly devoid oflight, is viewed through the air illuminated and whitfened by thesun. For the same reason, he adds, it is, that soot mixed withwhite makes a blue ; for white bodies, being always a little trans-parent, and mixing themselves with a black behind, give the-per-ception of blue. 'From the same principle he accounts for theblueness of the veins on the surface of the skin, though the bloodthey are filled with be a deep red ; for red, he observes, unlessviewed in a clear, strong light, appears a dark brown, borderingblack ; being then in a kind of obscurity in the veins, it mustb >ve the effect of a black; and this, viewed through the membrane ofi‘ le vein and the white skin, will produce the perception of blueness,■til the same way did many of the early writers account for the phe-nomenon of a blue sky ; but, in the explanation of this pha-no-iiienon, Isaac Newton observes, that all the vapours, when"'ey be gin to condense and coalesce into natural particles, become j•Ji'st of such a bigness as to reflect the azure rays, before they canConstitute clouds of any other colour. This, therefore, being the 1Jfst colour which they begin to reflect, must be that of the finestlu lr| ost transparent skies, in which the vapours are not arrived togiossness sufficient to reflect other colours. M. Bougucr, with-j having recourse to the vapours diffused through the atmo-ra' ere ’ "i order to account for the reflection of the bine-makingf 4 s ’ascribes it to the constitution of the air itself, whereby thesea „, ^coloured rays are incapable of making their way throughconsiderable tract of it.
of sm Y ’ ' u B eo graphy, one of the greatest of the Western islandsBi «*Und. so called from Skianach, which in the Erse dialectTrni es .' vm ged, because the two promontories of Valevness andSu < ' ,n ' s h, by which it is bounded on the N V/. and N. E. arethe \v Set * t0 ‘^cmble wings. It lies between the shire of Ross and*on • P ai ’t of Lewis. The surface of this island is mountainous ;
Mountains are so high as to be covered with snow on the top
II at midsummer; in general, their sides are clothed with heath andgrass, which afford good pasturage for sheep and black cattle.Between the mountains there are some fertile valleys, and thegreater part of the land towards the sea-coast is plain and arable.
SLAB, the outside sappy plauk or board sawed off from thesides of a timber-tree.
Slab Line, in sea language, a small cord passing up behind aship’s main-sail or fore-sail and being reeved through a blockattached to the lower part of the yard, is thence transmitted in twobranches to the foot of the sail, to which it is fastened.
SLACK WATER, in sea-language, denotes the interval be-tween the flux and reflux of the tide, or between the last of theebb and the first of the flood, during which the current is inter-rupted, and the water apparently remains in a state of rest.
SLANEY, an ancient city of Bohemia , with a castle, formerlyvery flourishing, 18 miles N. W. of Prague . Lon. 18. 27. E.Lat'. 50. 16. N.
SLATE, [sfrgrmfa,] a stone of a compact texture and lami-nated structure, splitting into fine plates. This stone constitutes apart of many mountains. It structure is slaty. Its texture foli-ated. Fracture splintery. Fragments often tabular. Lustre mostcommonly silky. Specific gravity from 2 - 67 to 2-SS. Does notadhere to the tongue. Gives a clear sound when struck. Streakwhite or grey. Colour most commonly grey, with a shade ofblue, green, or black ; sometimes purplish, yellowish, mountain-green, brownj bluish-black ; sometimes striped or spotted with adarker colour than the ground. It is composed, according to Kir-wan, of silica, alumina, magnesia, lime, and oxide of iron. In somevarieties the lime is wanting. Several varieties contain a consider-able quantity of carbonaceous matter.
Slave Coast, a country of Africa adjoining to the Gold Coastand Ivory Coast, and situated between these and Benin ; compre-hending the kingdoms of Ardra, Popo, Koto, Whidah, &c. Inpolitics, religion, customs, and manners, the natives greatly re-semble those of the Gold Coast.
Slave Falls, a beautiful cataract of North America , in theriver Winnepig, 100 yards broad, and 20 feet high. Lon. 95. 20.W. Lat. 50. 6. N.
Slave Lake, a very extensive lake in the N. W. part ofNorth America , above 200 miles long, and about 12 broad. Thecentre of this lake lies in about Lon. 115. 0. W. Lat. 61. 26. N.
SLAVERY, is a word, of which, though generally understood,it is not easy to give a proper definition. An excellent moralwriter has defined it to be “ an obligation to labour for the benefitof the master, without the contract or consent of the servant.’*But may not lie he properly called a slave who lias given uphis freedom to discharge a debt which he could not otherwisepay, or who has thrown it away at a game of hazard ? Inmany nations debts have been legally discharged in this manner;and among the ancient Germans , such was the universal ardourfor gaming, that it was no uncommon thing for a man, afterhaving lost at play all his other property, to stake, on a singlethrow of did#, himself, his wife, and his children. Tac. de Mor.Germ. That persons who have thus lost their liberty are slaves,will hardly be denied ; and surely the infatuated gamester is aslave by his own contract. The rlebtor loo, if lie was aware ofthe law", and contracted debts larger than he couhl reasonably ex-pect to be able to pay, may justly be considered as having comeunder an obligation to labour for the benefit of a master with hisown consent; for every- man is answerable for all the known con-sequences of his voluntary actions. This definition of slaveryseems to be defective as well as inaccurate. A man may-be underan obligation to labour through life for the benefit of a master, andyet that master have no right to dispose of him by sale, or in anyother way to make him the property of a third person ; but theword slave, as used among us, always denotes a person who ni 3 ybe bought and sold like a beast in the market. Cicero definesslavery to he “ the obedience of a degraded and abject mind,which lias no will of its own.” In its original sense, indeed, theword slave was of the same import with noble, illustrious ; but vastnumbers of the people called Slavi , among whom it had that signi-fication, being, in the decline of the Roman empire, sold by theircountrymen to the Venetians, and by them dispersed over all Eu-rope , the word slave came to denote a person in the lowest state