SOISSONNOIS, a ci-devant province of France, bounded on the north by Laonnois, east by Champagne, south by Brie, and west by Valois. It was inhabited by the ancient Suessiones, a brave nation of Gaul, in the time of Cæsar. It is fertile, and abounds in corn, wood, and pasture. It now forms, along with the cidevant province of Vermandois, the department of Aisne.

SOISSONS, an ancient and large town of France, in the department of Aisne, and late province of Soissonnois. In the time of Julius Cæsar it was called Noviodunum, and was the capital of the Suessiones; whence the modern name. It was then the capital of a kingdom of the same name, under the first race of the French monarchs. It contains now about 7500 inhabitants, and is a bishop's see. The environs are charming, but the streets are narrow, and the houses ill built. The fine cathedral has one of the most considerable chapters in the kingdom. St. Louis, 'Philip III., and Louis XIV., were crowned in it. The castle, though ancient, is not that in which the kings of the first race resided. Soissons is seated in a very pleasant and fertile valley, on the Aisne, and has a good trade in corn, and its manufactures of coarse linen, ropes, thread, leather, and stockings.

SOL, the sun, in astronomy, astrology, &c. See ASTRONOMY, Index.

SOL, in chemistry, is gold; thus called from an opinion that this metal is in a particular manner under the influence of the sun.

SOL, in heraldry, denotes Or, the golden color in the arms of sovereign princes.

SOL, in music, the fifth note of the gamut, ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la. See GAMUT.

SOL, in Dutch currency. The Dutch have two kinds of sols; the one of silver, called sols de gros, and likewise schelling; the other of copper, called also the stuyver.

Old Fr. solacier ;

To comfort;

SOL'ACE, v. a., v. n., & n. s. Ital. solazzare; Lat. solatium. cheer; amuse : to take comfort; be recreated: the comfort or amusement yielded.

Therein sat a lady fresh and fair, Making sweet solace to herself alone;

Sometimes she sung as loud as lark in air, Sometimes she laughed, that nigh her breath was gone. Spenser's Faerie Queene.

If we have that which is meet and right, although they be glad, we are not to envy them this their solace: we do not think it a duty of ours to be in every such thing their tormentors.

Hooker. We will with some strange pastime solace them.

Shakspeare.

Were they to be ruled, and not to rule, This sickly land might solace as before. One poor and loving child,

Id.

But one thing to rejoice and solace in,
And cruel death hath catched it from my sight. Id.
The birds with song
Solaced the woods.
Though sight be lost,

Miton.

Life yet hath many solaces, enjoyed
Where other senses want not their delights,
At home in leisure and domestick ease,
Exempt from many a care and chance, to which
Eye-sight exposes daily men abroad.

Id.

If I would delight my private hours With musick or with poem, where so soon As in our native language can I find That solace? Id. Paradise Regained. Through waters and through flames I'll go, Sufferer and solace of thy woe. Prior. Bad thoughts are as infectious as bad company; and good thoughts solace, instruct, and entertain the mind, like good company.

Mason.

SOLEUS, or SOLEUS, in anatomy, one of the extensor muscles of the foot, rising from the upper and hinder parts of the tibia and sibula.

SOLAN, a country of Central Africa, between Tombuctoo and Cassina. It was described to Horneman as one of those composing the extensive country of Haoussa or Houssa, on the north bank of the Niger; but few particulars are known respecting it.

SOLANDER (Daniel Charles), M. D., an eminent Swedish naturalist, born in the province of Nordland, in Sweden, in 1736. He studied at Upsal, and was a pupil of the great Linnæus. He took his degree at Upsal, and in 1760 visited England, where he continued some years, and was prevailed on by his friend Sir Joseph Banks, to accompany captain Cook in his first voyage of discovery round the world in 1768. In 1773 he was appointed one of the librarians of the

British Museum. He died of an apoplectic fit

in 1782.

SOLANDER'S ISLAND, an island in the South Pacific Ocean, on the south coast of New Zealand, discovered by captain Cook. It is nothing but a barren rock, about a mile in circuit, remarkably high, and lies full five leagues distant from the main. The shore of the main lies nearest east by south and west by north, and forms a large open bay, in which there is no appearance of any harbour, or shelter for shipping. The surface of the country is broken into craggy hills, of a great height, on the summits of which are patches of snow. Wood was seen not only in the valleys, but upon the highest ground, yet no appearance of its being inhabited. Long. 192° 49′ W., lat. 46° 31' S.

SOLANDRA, in botany, a genus of plants, ranked by some botanists under the class monadelphia, and the order polyandria; but by Mr. Lee, of Hammersmith, it is arranged under the class polygamia, and in the order monacia. It is ranked in the natural system under the thirtyeighth order, tricocceæ. The calyx is simple; the capsule oblong, wreathed, and five-celled; the seeds are many, disposed in cells in a double order. The valves, after maturity, are divaricated even to the base, and winged inwards by the partition. The only species is S. lobata. This genus was first named Solandra, in honor of Dr. Solander, by Murray, in the fourteenth edition of the Systema Vegetabilium.

SOLANUM, in botany, a genus of the monogynia order, belonging to the pentandria class of plants; natural order twenty-eighth, lurida: CAL. inferior: COR. rotate, and generally monophyllous the fruit a berry, bilocular, and containing many small and flat seeds. Of this genus there are sixty-six species, most of them natives of the East and West Indies. The most remarkable are the following:-1. S. dulcamara, a native of Britain and of Africa, is a slender climbing plant, rising to six or more feet in height. The leaves are generally oval, pointed, and of a deep green color; the flowers hang in loose clusters, of a purple color, and divided into five pointed segments. The calyx is purple, persistent, and divided into five. The five filaments are short, black, and inserted into the tube of the corolla. The antheræ yellow, erect, and united in a point as usual in this genus. The style is long, and terminates in an obtuse stigma. The berry, when ripe, is red, and contains many flat yellowish seeds. It grows in hedges well supplied with water, and flowers about the end of June. On chewing the roots we first feel a bitter, then a sweet taste; hence the name. The berries are poisonous, and may easily be mistaken by children for currants. The stipites or younger branches are directed for use, and may be employed either fresh or dried: they should be gathered in the autumn. They are given in decoction or infusion. Razou directs the following-Take dried dulcamara twigs half a dram, and pour upon it sixteen ounces of spring water, which must be boiled down to eight ounces; then strain it three or four tea-spoonfuls to be taken every four hours, diluted with milk to prevent its exciting a nausea. Several authors say

that the dulcamara partakes of the milder powers of the nightshade, joined to a resolvent and saponaceous quality; hence it promotes the secretions of urine, sweat, the menses, and lochia. It is recommended in a variety of disorders; but particularly in rheumatisms, obstructed menses, and lochia; also in some obstinate cutaneous diseases.

2. S. longum. This plant is herbaceous, but grows rank. The flowers are blue; and the fruit is six or eight inches long, and proportionally thick. It is boiled and eaten as the egg-plant. 3. S. lycopersicon, the love apple, or tomato, cultivated in gardens in the warmer parts of Europe and in all tropical countries. The stalk is herbaceous, the leaves pinnated, oval, pointed, and deeply divided. The flowers are on simple racemi: they are small and yellow. The berry is of the size of a plum: they are smooth, shining, soft; and are either of a yellow or reddish color. The tomato is in daily use; being either boiled in soups or broths, or served up as garnishes to flesh meats.

4. S. melongena, the egg plant, or vegetable egg. This is also cultivated in gardens, particularly in Jamaica. It seldom rises above a foot in height. The stalk is herbaceous and smooth; the leaves oval and downy; the flowers are large and blue; the fruit is as big as, and very like, the egg of a goose. It is often used boiled as a vegetable along with animal food or butter, and supposed to be aphrodisiac, and to cure sterility.

5. S. nigrum, nightshade, common in many places in Britain about dunghills and waste places. It rises to about two feet in height. The stalk herbaceous; the leaves alternate, irregularly oval, indented, and clothed with soft hairs. The flowers are white; the berries black and shining. It appears to possess the deleterious qualities of the other nightshades in a very high degree; and even the smell of the plant is said to cause sleep. The berries are equally poisonous with the leaves; causing cardialgia, and delirium, and violent distortions of the limbs in children. Mr. Gataker in 1757 recommended its internal use in old sores, in scrofulous and cancerous ulcers, cutaneous eruptions, and in dropsies. He says that one grain infused in an ounce of water sometimes produced a considerable effect; that in the dose of two or three grains it seldom failed to evacuate the first passages, to increase very sensibly the discharges by the skin and kidneys, and sometimes to occasion headach, drowsiness, giddiness, and dimness of sight. Mr. Broomfield says, that in cases in which he tried this solanum, they were much aggravated by it; and that in one case, in the dose of one grain, it proved mortal to one of his patients; therefore he thinks its use is prejudicial. It is now never given internally. It was anciently employed externally as a discutient and anodyne in some cutaneous affections, tumefactions of the glands, ulcers, and disorders of the eyes.

6. S. nigrum rubrum, a native of the West Indies, is called guma by the negroes. It is so far from having any deleterious quality, that it is daily served up at table as greens or spinnage. It has an agreeable bitter taste.

Solders consist merely of simple or mixed metals, by which alone metallic bodies can be firmly united with each other. In this respect it is a general rule that the solder should always be easier of fusion than the metal intended to be soldered by it; next to this care must also be taken that the solder be as far as is possible of the same color with the metal that is to be soldered. For the simple solders, each of the metals may be used, according to the nature of that which is to be soldered. For fine steel, copper, and brass work, gold and silver may be employed. In the large way, however, iron is soldered with copper, and copper and brass with tin.

The most usual solders, says Dr. Ure, are the compound, which are distinguished into two principal classes, viz. hard and soft solders. The hard solders are ductile, will bear hammering, and are commonly prepared of the same metal with that which is to be soldered, with the addition of some other, by which a greater degree of fusibility is obtained, though the addition is not always required to be itself easier of fusion. Under this head comes the hard solder for gold, which is prepared from gold and silver, or gold and copper, or gold, silver, and copper. The hard solder for silver is prepared from equal parts of silver and brass, but made easier of fusion by the admixture of a sixteenth part of zinc. The hard solder for brass is obtained from brass mixed with a sixth, or an eighth, or even one-half of zinc, which may also be used for the hard solder of copper. It is sold in the shops in a granulated form, under the name of spelter-solder.

The soft solders melt easily, but are partly brittle, and therefore cannot be hammered. Of this kind are the following mixtures:-Tin and lead in equal parts; of still easier fusion is that consisting of bismuth, tin, and lead, equal parts; one or two parts of bismuth of tin and lead, each one part.

In the operation of soldering the surfaces of the metal intended to be joined must be made very clean, and applied to each other. It is usual to secure them by a ligature of iron wire, or other similar contrivance. The solder is laid upon the joint, together with sal ammoniac or borax, or common glass, according to the degree of heat intended. These additions defend the metal from oxidation. Glaziers use resin; and pitch is sometimes employed. Tin-foil applied between the joints of fine brass work, first wetted with a strong solution of sal ammoniac, makes an excellent juncture, care being taken to avoid too

much heat.

SOLDERING, the joining and fastening together of two pieces of the same metal, or of two different metals, by the fusion and application of some metallic composition on the extremities of the metals to be joined. To solder upon silver, brass, or iron: take silver, five pennyweights; brass, four pennyweights; melt them together for soft solder, which runs soonest. Take silver five pennyweights; copper, three pennyweights; melt them together for hard solder. Beat the solder thin, and lay it on the place to be soldered, which must be first fitted and bound together with wire as occasion requires; then take borax in powder, and temper it like pap, and lay it

upon the solder, letting it dry; then cover it with live coals, and blow, and it will run immediately; take it presently out of the fire, and it is done. If any thing is to be soldered in two places, which cannot well be done at one time, you must first solder with the harder'solder, and then with the soft; for, if it be first done with the soft, it will unsolder again before the other is fastened. To prevent the solder from running about the piece that is to be soldered, rub such places over with chalk.-In the soldering either of gold, silver, copper, or either of the metals above mentioned, there is generally used borax in powder, and sometimes resin. As to iron, it is sufficient that it be heated red-hot, and the two extremities thus hammered together, by which means they will become incorporated with each other. For the finer kinds of iron and steel instruments, however, gold proves an excellent solder. This metal will dissolve twice or thrice its weight of iron in a degree of heat very far less than that in which iron itself melts; hence if a small plate of gold is wrapped round the parts to be joined, and afterwards melted by a blow pipe, it strongly unites the pieces together without any injury to the instrument, however delicate.

SOLDIER, n. s. SOLDIERLIKE, adj. SOL'DIERLY, adv. SOLDIERSHIP, n. s. SOLDIERY.

Fr. soldat, soldie, from low Lat. solidarius, of solidus a piece of money, the pay of a soldier. A fighting man; a war

rior. All the derivatives correspond. Originally one who served for pay. Delaney in his valuable and learned life of king David, vol. i. p. 97, observes, Cæsar tells us that a usage anciently obtained among the Gauls, for those that were in debt, oppressed by tributes, or the tyranny of the great, to betake themselves to the service of some eminent man for protection; by him they were maintained, and to him they devoted themselves, under a solemn obligation to live and die with him. These were called in the Gallic language, soldurii; which must be owned to be a very honorable original of the word soldier.'

Although at the first they had fought with beastly fury, rather than any soldierly discipline, practice had now made them comparable to the best. Sidney.

Offering him, if he would exercise his courage in soldiery, he would commit some charge unto him under his lieutenant Philanax.

A soldier,

Id.

Shakspeare.

Full of strange caths, and bearded like a pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth.
soldierlike word, and a word of good command.
I will maintain the word with my sword to be a
Id. Henry IV.
Thy father and myself in friendship
First tried our soldiership: he did look far
Into the service of the time, and was
Discipled of the bravest.

Id. All's Well that Ends Well. They, according to a soldierly custom, in cases o extremity, by interchange of a kiss by every of them upon the swords of others, sealed a resolution to maintain the place. Hayward.

A hateful service, that dissolved the knees Of many a soldier.

Chapman.

Swift. Burns.

I've served my king and country langTake pity on a sodger. SOLDIERS, in English law. The laws and constitution of these kingdoms know no such state as that of a perpetual standing soldier, bred up to no other profession than that of war: it was not till the reign of Henry VII. that the kings of England had so much as a guard about their persons. In the time of our Saxon ancestors, as appears from Edward the Confessor's laws, the military force of the kingdom was in the hands of the dukes or heretochs, who were constituted through every province and county in the kingdom; being taken out of the principal nobility, and such as were most remarkable for being 'sapientes, fideles, et animosi.' Their duty was to lead and regulate the English armies, and because of this great power they were elected by the people in their full assembly, or folkmote, in the same manner as the sheriffs.

Upon the Norman conquest the feudal law, the whole of which is built on military tenures, was introduced in all its rigor. It is not necessary here to enter into the particulars of that constitution; it is sufficient to observe that, in consequence, all the lands in the kingdom were divided into what were called knight's fees, in number above 60,000; and, for every knight's fee, a knight or soldier (miles) was bound to attend the king in his wars for forty days in a year; in which space of time, before war was reduced to a science, the campaign was generally finished, and the kingdom either conquered or victorious. By this means the king had, without any expense, an army of 60,000 men always ready at his command. This personal service, however, as early as the reign of Henry II., degenerated into pecuniary commutations or aids; and at length all military tenures were entirely abolished by stat. 12 Car. II. c. 24, and other measures were pursued for the internal defence of the kingdom; which terminated in the establishment of the militia.

But frequently wars rendered more veteran troops and more regular discipline necessary. Therefore at such times more rigorous methods were put in use for the raising of armies, and the due regulation and discipline of the soldiery; which are to be looked upon only as temporary excrescences arising out of the distemper of the state, and not as any part of the permanent and perpetual laws. Martial law has been said to be, in truth and reality, no law, but something indulged rather than allowed as a law. The petition of right, 3 Car. I., enacted that no soldier shall be quartered on the subject without his own consent; and that no commission should

issue to proceed within this land according to martial law. After the restoration king Charles II. kept up about 5000 regular troops, by his own authority, for guards and garrisons; which king James II. having by degrees increased to no less than 30,000, all paid from his own civii list; it was made one of the articles of the Bill of Rights that the raising or keeping a standing army within the kingdom in time of peace, unless it be with consent of parliament, is against law. Stat. 1 W. & M. stat. 2, c. 2.

But, as standing armies have of late years universally prevailed in Europe, it has been annually judged necessary by our legislature to maintain, even in time of peace, a standing body of troops; who are, however, ipso facto disbanded at the expiration of every year, unless continued by parliament. On an occasion within our memory the Annual Bill did not receive the royal assent in due time, on a given Saturday night; and the whole army was virtually disbanded, or held illegally together until the Monday morning.

6

To keep this body of troops in order an act of parliament passes to punish mutiny and desertion, and for the better payment of the army and their quarters.' This regulates the manner in which they are to be dispersed among the several innkeepers and victuallers throughout the kingdom; and establishes a law martial for their government. By this, among other things, it is enacted, that if any officer or soldier shall excite or join any mutiny, or, knowing of it, shall not give notice to the commanding officer; or shall desert, or list in any other regiment, or sleep upon his post, or leave it before he is relieved, or hold correspondence with a rebel or enemy, or strike or use violence to his superior officer, or shall disobey his lawful commands: such offender shall suffer such punishment as a court-martial shall inflict, though it extend to death itself.

By our statute laws (still remaining in force though not attended to), desertion in time of war is made felony, without benefit of clergy, and the offence is triable by a jury, and before justices at the common law; yet, by our militia laws, a much lighter punishment is inflicted for desertion in time of peace. But our mutiny act makes no such distinction: for any of the faults abovementioned are equally at all times punishable with death itself, if a court-martial shall think proper. This discretionary power of the courtmartial is indeed to be guided by the directions of the crown; which, with regard to military offences, has almost an absolute legislative power.

'His majesty,' says the act, may form articles of war, and constitute courts-martial, with power to try any crime by such articles, and inflict penalties by sentence or judgment of the same.' But as soldiers, by this annual act, are in some respects put in a worse condition than any other subjects; so, by the humanity of our standing laws, they are in other cases put in a much better. By stat. 43 Eliz. c. 3, a weekly allowance is to be raised in every county, for the relief of soldiers that are sick, hurt, and maimed; and the royal hospital at Chelsea is established for such as are worn out in their duty. Officers and soldiers that have been in the king's service are, by several statutes enacted at the close, or daring