the earth by trigonometrical operations, combined with the observed latitudes of the stations; and Snell has the honour of being the first who put in, practice a method which has since been almost always adopted by those who have undertaken that great geodetical problem. He measured a base line on the ground, and observed with circular instruments the angles between the stations: he then by computation found the length of the terrestrial are between Alkmaar and Bergen-op-Zoom, from which arc, with the difference between the observed latitudes of those places, he deduced the length of a meridional, are of one degree. The method possesses great advantages over, the older process of actually measuring the whole length of the meridional are with rods, or, as Fernel, in the beginning of the sixteenth century, is said to have ascertained it, by the number of revolutions made by a carriage-wheel. The inperfection of the instruments employed was the cause that some inaccuracies occurred in the performance of the operations; these were however discovered by Snell; and it is said that he intended to have given the nccessary corrections in a second edition of his book, but he did not live to complete them.

was so charmed with the present, that he gave the art st commissions for several large pictures of honungs and other similar compositions, and which, down to a recent Rubenis, date, were in the old palace of Buen Retiro. although himself eminent as an animal painter, held the abilities of Sneyders in such admiration that he frequently entrusted that portion of his pictures, as well as the fruit and other similar accessories, to the masterly pencil of his brother-artist, and it would be difficult to point out any two masters who have worked in conjunction whose performances are in more perfect harmony than those of these eminent men. Jordaens too availed himself of the talents of Sneyders in a similar manner, and in a variety of instances both Rubens and Jordaens conjointly executed the human figures in compositions of Sneyders, and there are known to be several pictures in existence the joint production of these three great but friendly rivals. The works of Sueyders are in many of the, best collections in England. One in the possession of the Marquis of Westminster, in Grosvenor House, London, representing a Bear Hunt, consists of a group of two bears and eleven dogs. This picture is stated, in Mr. Young's Catalogue of that colHe published, in 1619, a work, in quarto, entitled De-lection, to have been painted for a noble family in Venice, scriptio Cometæ qui ann. 1618 primum effulsit; and two and to have been sent to England about seventy years years afterwards his Cyclometricus, seu de Circuli Dimen- ago and purchased by the late Lord Grosvenor. M. Pérès sione,' in which is given an approximation to the value of enumerates nine pictures by this master as being in 1825 the circumference of a circle by a method more short than the museum of the Louvre, one of which contains the two that of Van Keulen. His next work (1624), called Tiphys lions afterwards introduced by Rubens into his picture of Batavus, constitutes a treatise on navigation; and in 1627, the Marriage of Henry IV. Although the works of Saeythat is, after his death, Hortensius of Delft published, his ders consist principally of boar and bear hunts, and other Doctrina Triangulorum Canonica Libri Quatuor,' which compositions of animals, views of interiors and subjects of contains the theorems of plane and spherical trigonometry, still-life are by no means uncommon, though it is but together with rules for the calculation of sines, tangents, reasonable to suppose that the chief number of the and secants. were executed soon after he had left the studio of Vai Balen. Those however in which the human figures are

According to both Vossius and Huygens, Snell was the first who made the discovery that if a ray of light be inci-painted by Rubens or Jordaens are of course of a later dir, dent on a refracting surface, and be produced within the There is an admirable portrait of Sueyders by Vandyke, medium, the parts of the refracted ray and of the produced which was in the Orleans collection, and is engraved in the incident ray intercepted between the point where the re- well-known series of heads after pictures by that master. fraction takes place and any line passing through them There are, according to Mr. Bryan, a set of sixteen etchings perpendicularly to the refracting surface, have to each other of varios animais by Sneyders, executed in a spirited ad a constant ratio. This discovery, which is said to have been masterly manner. That there are a few etchings by him made in 1621, is no other than the now well-known law we know, but that they consist of so great a number s between the sines of the angles of incidence and refraction, sixteen is very doubtful, for Bartsch in his catalogue des which Descartes published in his Dioptries,' in 1637, as the not mention even one as belonging to the extensive colleresult of his own researches. The experiments by which tion at Vienna, nor is there one by his hand among the Snell discovered the law were never published; but Huy-prints formerly belonging to Mr. Sheepshanks, and na gens states that he had seen the manuscript containing an deposited in the British Museum, a collection confessedly account of them; and Vossius relates that the heirs of Pro- | rich in works, both with the graver and the point, by masters fessor Hortensius communicated the contents of the manu- in the Flemish and Dutch schools. Although there are script to Descartes. It is therefore very probable that very few etchings by this eminent painter, there are many Descartes obtained the idea from the works of Snell, to after his works. He died at Antwerp, in the year 1657. whom Montuela, Bossut, and most of the Euglish philoso- (Biographie Universelle; Bryan's and Pilkington's Diephers agree in attributing the honour of this important tionaries.) discovery.

After having suffered during several years from bad health, Snell died, October 31, 1626, when thirty-five years of age; his wife survived him only cleven days, and both of them were buried in the same grave.

SNEYDERS, or SNYDERS, FRANCIS, a painter, born at Autwerp in 1579, was a pupil of Henry van Balen, and for a time followed the style of his preceptor, confining himself to the representation of fruit, flowers, and other objects of still-life. He soon attempted the more difficult task of painting animals, in which, for freedom, truth, and | energy, he became conspicuous, and for these qualities remains to this day, if not without a rival, at least inferior to no other artist. D'Argenville says that Sneyders went to Italy for professional improvement, and that at Rome he became an ardent admirer of the style of Benedetto Castiglione, from whose pictures he studied a considerable time, This statement is followed by M. Périès in the Biographie Universelle,' though the same work gives the date of Cas tiglione's birth as 1616. Mr. Bryan properly observes that the assertion of M. D'Argenville is not reconcileable with chronology, for the Flemish painter was thirty-seven years older than the Genoese; but how far he is justified in thence inferring that Sneyders did not leave the Netherlands is not so clear. During part of his career he lived at Brussels, having been invited there by the Archduke Albert, governor of the Low Countries, for whom he painted some of his finest works, particularly a stag-hunt, which was sent by the archduke to Philip III. of Spain, who

SNIPE, the English name for those grallatorial beris which belong to the second section of the SCOLOPACID☎ [vol. xxi., p. 85], and form the genus Gallinago, Steph.

The Snipes most familiar to the English sportsman al ornithologist are the Common Snipe, the Jack Snipe, anl the Solitary Snipe: Sabine's Snipe (Scolopar Sabini) is of very rare occurrence, and indeed the Solitary Suipe is f from common.

We proceed to illustrate this section by descriptions and figures of the Common Snipe and the Solitary or Great Snipe.

And first of the Common Snipe, Scolopar Gallinag Linn., Gallinago scolopacinus, Bonap.

Description-Normal number of tail-feathers fourteen, varying to sixteen (Brehm's Suipe), and twelve (Delamoite s Snipe). Upper parts variegated very nearly as in the Scale tary Snipe; neck and breast striped longitudinally; sides striped transversely with white and blackish; middle of the belly and abdomen spotless, pure white; base of the bil ash-colour, the rest brown; feet pale-greenish; length about ten inches and a half, of which the bill measures about two inches and three-quarters.

The colours of the plumage, after the spring moult, are brighter and more brilliant with bronze reflections that after the autumnal moult: in winter the hue becomes more ashy.

Varieties.- Pure white; reddish-white; the feathers sp.inkled or blotched with white, or some part of the plumage white,

This is the Beccacino and Pizzarda of the Italians; Bé-| Mr. Selby in continuation, snipes, having perfected their cassine or Bécasseau and Chévre volunt of the French; summer or nuptial plumage, select appropriate places for Heer Schnepfe and Himels Ziege of the Dutch; Watersnep nidification, and the male bird commences his calls of inof the Netherlanders; Myr Snippe of the Icelanders; vitation for a mate. These are always uttered upon the Horsajok of the Swedes; Hossegoeg of the Danes; and wing, and consist of a piping or clicking note, often repeated, Ysnittan y Fyniar of the antient British.* and accompanied at intervals by a humming or bleating noise, not unlike that of a goat,' whence probably its French names of Chevre volant and Chevrette volunte, apparently produced by the action of the wings, as the bird, whenever this sound is emitted, is observed to descend with great velocity, and with a trembling motion of the pinions. At this season it soars to an immense height, remaining long upon the wing; and its notes may frequently be heard when the bird itself is far beyond the reach of sight. These flights are performed at intervals during the day, but more commonly towards the evening, and are continued during the whole time that the female is engaged m incubation.'

Geographical Distribution.—Mr. Gould (Birds of Europe) states, that, although the contrary has been long stated by naturalists, he conceives that the natural range of the Common Snipe is comparatively limited, and that the Snipes from India, Africa, and North America, which have been regarded as identical with our bird, will be found, on examination, to be specifically distinct; in the character of their plumage, he observes, they are indeed somewhat similar, but they nearly all present a different form in the feathers of the tail, and also a difference of number. The Prince of Musignano had, in his Specchio Comparativo, marked the North American bird with a ?, as identical with that found near Rome; and in his Birds of Europe and North America, the same identity is recorded, and the ? is withdrawn. Temminck says that an individual received by him from North America differs solely from those killed in Europe in the colours of the plumage, which are some shades brighter. He also states that the common snipe oceurs jusqu'au Japon,' where, he remarks, the species is exactly the same, and has always fourteen feathers in the tail. Mr. Strickland notes it as abundant in Smyrna. It is said to be found in Lower Egypt.

The following localities have been given as the range of the common suipe in Europe and Asia:-Russia and Siberia, froin Scona to Lapland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Faroe Islands, Iceland and Greenland, Germany, Holland, British Islands, France, Spain, Provence, Switzerland, Italy, Hungary, and Illyria.

Food, Habits, Nest, &c.-Marshes, moist meadows, and, in frosty weather, the edges of rushy rills, are the haunts of the snipe. In such situations they have been seen pushing their bills, by means of repeated thrusts, quite up to the base in the mud, drawing them back with great quickness, and shifting their ground every now and then. Their food consists of such worms, insects, and small mollusks as haunt such miry places, and they have been shot in the act of feeding on leeches.

The bill of a fresh snipe presents above, at the end, and for some way up, a dimpled appearance, somewhat resembling the depressions on a woman's thimble: these little cells, which are continued into the bones of the upper mandible, are supplied by portions from two branches of the fifth pair of nerves. Thus this sensitive probe enables the bird to ascertain the presence of its prey, and to capture it securely, though hidden from its sight. The nest, which is rude and inartificial, being a mere depression in the ground under or upon a tuft of grass or rushes, scantily lined with dry grass or herbage, has been found among long grass by the side of small lochs, amid the long heather on the sides of hills, and in fens among rushes. The eggs, generally four in number, are pale-yellowish or greenish-white, with rather elongated spots of two or three shades of brown on the big end. They are large, being about one inch six lines in length, and one inch one line in breadth. Sir Humphry Davy, who came upon the nests of ten or twelve couple, in the heather surrounding a small lake in the island of Hoy in the Orkneys, where he was grouse-shooting in August, 1817, found usually two young ones in a nest, though he had seen three. He describes the parent birds as being exceedingly attached to their young, and says that if any one approach their nest, they make a loud and drumming noise above the head of the intruder, as if to divert his attention. In the British Islands they have been known to breed also in Dorsetshire, in the New Forest, in Cambridgeshire, in Norfolk, in Scotland, in Wales (on a marshy hill in the neighbourhood of Coytrahên, near Bridgend in Glamorganshire), and in Ireland. Mr. Selby observes, that, in addition to our native snipes, great flights come annually from Norway and other northern parts of Europe; and that in Northumberland they arrive in the greatest numbers in the beginning of November. He remarks what most snipeshooters have noticed, that they seldom remain long in one situation, but move from place to place; so that the sportsman who has enjoyed excellent snipe-shooting one day, may find the same spots entirely deserted on the following. 'Towards the end of March or beginning of April,' says

• Giach is the antient British name for the Jack Snipe.

Utility to Man-Few birds are better than a fresh snipe. The old quatrain says→

Le becasseau est de fort bon manger,
Duquel la chair resueille l'appetit.
Il est oy sean passager et petit:

Et par son goust fait des vins bien juger.'

Snypes' were among the birds admitted to the earl of Northumberland's table (Houshold, 1512), and were then charged at 3d. a dozen.

Head and Foot of the Common Snipe.

The Solitary, Double, or Great Snipe, Scolopax major (Gallinago major, Bonap.), is a much larger bird.

Description.-Tail composed of sixteen feathers; midrib of the first quill whitish. The black of the top of the head divided by a band of yellowish white; eyebrows of that colour; upper parts variegated with black and bright rusty, the last-named colour disposed longitudinally; lower parts whitish rusty; belly and sides striped with black bands; bill inclining to reddish, brown at the point; feet greenish ash. (Temm.)

Mr. Yarrell gives a much more elaborate description, and as it is very correct, and the bird is not common, we here lay it before our readers:

The beak dark-brown at the end, pale yellow-brown at the base; irides dark-brown; from the base of the beak to the eye, a dark-brown streak; over that, over the eye and the ear-coverts, a streak of pale-brown; forehead and top of the head rich dark-brown, divided along the middle line from before backwards by a pale-brown stripe; neck all round pale-brown, the centre of each feather darker brown; interscapulars, scapulars, and back, rich brownish-black, with central lines and broad margins of rich buff or fawn colour; lesser wing-coverts nearly black, the upper series tipped with pale-brown, the lower series tipped with white; great coverts black, tipped with white; primary quill-feathers dull greyish-black, with white shafts; secondaries dull black, tipped with white; tertials black, barred and streaked with pale brown; rump very dark-brown, edged with pale brown; upper tail-coverts pale yellow-brown, varied with dark-brown; tail-feathers sixteen, the four on each outside nearly all white, the others rich brownish-black over

rell, ex relatione Dann.) Mr. Gould observes that there are two other snipes which exceed this in size, found in the hilly districts of India, and a third from Mexico, whose sire is superior to that of a woodcock. (Birds of Europe.)

SNORRI STURLUSON, also called Sturleson or Stur lason, and in Latin works Snorro, was the son of Sturla, and born in Iceland in the year 1178, on an estate belonging to his father, called Hoamms, whence the father is sometimes called Hoamms-Sturla. When Snorri had scarcely attained his fourth year, his father died, and he was thenceforth educated at Odi, in the house of Ion, the most learned man of the age. His education was conducted with great care, and his talents soon gave him distinetion as a philosopher, a mathematician, a lawyer, a linguist. antiquary, and architect. At the same time he acquired great reputation for the enchanting manner in which he told the stories of former times, an art which is still highly valued in Iceland. Although his father had been the chieftain of an Icelandic tribe, the son appears to have been poor, until he improved his circumstances by a marriage with a wealthy lady, whom some years afterwards however he deserted. He managed his newly-acquired property su

Orre is the Swedish name for the BLACK COCK.

well, that he became no less distinguished for his wealth | than for his talents and learning. He was several times invested with the office of Logsögumadr, that is, interpreter of the law, the highest official dignity in Iceland, and gradually rose to the rank of Landur-madur and of Yarl, which was the highest title next to that of duke. During this period of his greatest prosperity he composed some of the most beautiful songs, tales (sagas) that exist in the literature of Iceland, and also wrote some historical works. He also spent considerable sums upon the building of splendid edifices, especially at Reykiahollt. His character as a man however was by no means in accordance with his great mental powers, for he was avaricious, quarrelsome, inconstant, and full of cunning, though wanting in active energy. A party was formed against him, which was headed by his own brother Sighwat and his nephew Sturla; and his sons-in-law, enraged at Snorri having abandoned his wife, joined his enemies. Snorri and his adherents were defeated and banished from the island (1234). They went over to Norway, where Snorri's patron, Duke Skuli, was preparing to revolt against King Hacon, and was supported by the poetical powers of Snorri. In the meanwhile however his enemies in Iceland were defeated, and Snorri, dreading the vengeance of King Hacon, returned to his native island. But the king declared him an outlaw, and Snorri was murdered on the 22nd of September, 1241, at Reykiahollt, by his own sons-in-law.

sult, if the atmosphere were tranquil and the temperature very low, small flakes of some regular figure. From such as have been observed, it appears that these consist of brilliant spicular icicles, which diverge from a centre in six directions, and resemble stars having so many rays, upon each of which small crystals are sometimes formed; but if the atmosphere is agitated, the original flakes strike against each other, and uniting in groups, in consequence of small quantities of moisture adhering to them, they descend in irregular forms. In regions of the earth far to the north or south, the air, when allowed to enter through a small aperture into a heated apartment, has frequently caused the warm vapour to be converted into snow.

Snow has been observed to fall in a fine powder, not having any appearance of regular crystals; this is therefore supposed to have been formed near the surface of the earth, and is considered as being in an elementary state. (Bibliothèque Universelle, 1830.) The crystals are evidently those of ice combined together, and their primitive form is, from the experiments and observations of Sir David Brewster, considered as belonging to the pyramidal system; M. Haidinger infers this fact from the circumstance that tin-ore and rutile, which are of that class, produce crystallizations similar to the stellar figures of snow. The regularity of the formation of snow has been ascribed to electricity. Beccaria observed that his apparatus for ascertaining the electrical state of the atmosphere indicated the presence of the Snorri is one of the greatest, and at the same time the fluid in snow as well as in rain; and, according to the oblast of the northern Scalds. His most important work is servations of Schübler, it is more commonly positive than the 'Heimskringla,' a beautiful collection of sagas, con- negative. The lightness of the flakes, by which they float sisting partly of Scaldic songs by Snorri himself, and partly about in the air when agitated, is the result of their surface of the poems of earlier Scalds, who were contemporary with being great when compared with their volume. The specific the events which they describe, and whose poems are in- gravity of snow is very variable; and according to Mussterwoven in the Sagas of Snorri himself. This collection chenbroek, that of some, of the stelliform kind, was only was first published by Peringskiold (Stockholm, 1697, fol.), of the specific gravity of water; but M. Quetelet has since with a Swedish and Danish translation; another edition, of that of water, with a Danish and Latin translation, appeared at Copen- found that the greatest density is nearly 2.8 hagen from 1777 till 1826. Vols. 1 and 2 were edited by the temperature being 34.5° (Fahr.). He ascertained also Schöning; vol. 3 by Sc. Th. Thorlacius; vols. 4, 5, 6, with that the density of fine snow having no determinate form the separate title of Noregs Konunga Sögor,' by Birg. was about 4, the temperature being 32°, and that the least Thorlacius and E. Chr. Werlauf. The last Danish trans-lensity varied from to of that of water, at which time lation is that by Grundtvig, Copenhagen, 1818-1822, 3 vols. the snow had the form of small stars, and the temperature 4to. It has also been translated into German by Wachter, varied from 29.7° to 18.5°. who has added a very valuable historical and critical introduction.

1

The flakes of snow have even in temperate regions many varieties of form, and are often very elegant; but the polar regions of the earth are those in which nature has displayed her power in creating this species of beauty in the highest degree and to the greatest extent. In the Phil. Trans., 1775, may be seen numerous delineations of the figures assumed by flakes of snow as they were observed by Dr. Nettis of Middelburg in 1740; but Mr. Scoresby, in his Account of the Arctic Regions,' bas given still greater

Among the other works ascribed to Snorri are, 1. The Gylfa-Ginning,' which forms the first part of the 'SnorraEdda;' 2, The Scaldic Songs called Kanningar or Skalldskoparmal; 3, Hattalykill,' or the Key of the Wise, consisting of two eulogies on Duke Skuli, and three others which are partly written in praise of King Hacon. All these poems form part of the Skallda,' which has been edited by Rask (Stockholm, 1818), under the title of 'Snorra-varieties; the latter gentleman, besides dividing them into Edda ásamt Skáldu.' Besides several other poems upon contemporary heroes, Snorri also wrote a number of Fraedibackur, i.e. manuals of science, which have been very much used by his countrymen.

SNÓW. It has been stated [RAIN, p. 269, col. 1] that rain, snow, and hail are formed by the precipitation of vapour when two volumes of air of different temperatures, and saturated with moisture, become mixed together; the nature of the precipitation depending on the temperature of the region of the atmosphere through which the aqueous particles descend towards the ground. Now when the particles are frozen in separate crystals of ice, and these afterwards unite together in such a manner as to reflect light to the eye in great abundance from all, thus producing a sensation of whiteness, the assemblages of crystals constitute snow.

M. Monge observes (Annales de Chimie, vol. v., p. 1) that the crystallization of sal-ammoniac presents phenomena similar to those which are observed in the formation of snow. If a saturated solution of sal-ammoniac in a warm state be allowed to cool in a tranquil air, the surface of the liquid is that which first arrives at a state of supersaturation, and there the first crystals are formed; these sink immediately, and in descending they unite with similar crystals formed in the liquid itself, so that they arrive at the bottom of the vessel in white flakes. Thus also the elementary crystals, formed generally in the upper region of the atmosphere, gradually descend by their superior specific gravity, and by the laws of affinity cause the crystallization of the aqueous molecules which otherwise the air would have held in solution. These uniting, there would probably re- I

classes, has also expressed their magnitudes, and the state of the barometer and thermometer when the snow fell.

Of these classes the first is called lamellar,' and is divided into many different species: one of the latter is a thin transparent hexagonal plate, or a hexagonal plate with white lines parallel to the sides of the polygon, and sometimes there is a starlike figure in the centre; the magnitudes vary, and the greatest is about inch diameter. Another species, and this is the most ordinary appearance of snow, is the stelliform; the figures 1, 2, and 3 represent

1

2

3

****

the most remarkable varieties of this kind; its magnitude varies, but the diameter of the greatest is about 4 inch, and it occurs most abundantly when the temperature of the air is near the freezing-point of water. Sometimes the stars appear to have twelve points, but Mr. Scoresby thinks that these are formed merely of two stellar plates applied one on the other. The six following figures represent assemblages of hexagonal crystals; the diameters of the two first kinds are respectively and inch, and those of the rest are inch diameter; they are usually formed at temperatures between 32° and 20° (Fahr.).