“The cup, the cup itself, from which our Lord
Drank at the last sad supper with his own.”
(Tennyson.)
Sanglier, Her. A wild boar.
Sanguine. A deep blood colour, prepared from oxide of iron.
Sanguinolentæ (sc. ampullæ). Glass vessels found in the catacombs at Rome, containing a red sediment, ascertained by analysis to be blood; and canonically pronounced by the Roman Church to be that of the early Christian martyrs in whose tombs it has been found. (The subject is discussed at length by V. Schultze: die Katakomben, Leipzig, 1882.)
Sanhedrim, Heb. The supreme council of the Jews, which sat at Jerusalem in a circular hall, one half of which was within the temple, and the other outside. (Bosc.)
Sap-green. The only green vegetable pigment; used in water-colour painting. Obtained by evaporating the juice of the berries of the buckthorn, mixed with lime.
Sap-wood. The soft white wood immediately under the bark of a tree.
Sapphire (Syriac saphilah). The oriental sapphire from Arabia, which has been known from the earliest antiquity, was one of the stones on the breastplate of Aaron, and was dedicated to Apollo by the Greeks, by whom it was regarded as the gem of gems—the sacred stone par excellence. The sapphires from Brazil are also called oriental sapphires. The sapphires of Puy, found in a mountain in Central France, vary from the deepest to the palest blue, passing sometimes to a reddish blue or even to a yellowish green. The sapphire, although extremely hard, has been engraved by the ancients. There is a beautiful sapphire among the crown jewels of Russia, representing a draped female figure: the stone is of two tints, and the artist has skilfully used the dark tint for the woman and the light for the drapery. (L. Dieulafait.)