TIIISTLE (S. o'era,eev8) abounds in Britain and in most parts of Europe, as a weed in gardens and cultivated fields. It is an annual plant, delighting in rich soils, grows to the height of two or three ft., with somewhat branching stein, and small yellow flowers almost in umbels. The tender tops and leaves are much used in the north of Europe as greens.—The ConN Sow TaisTLE (S. arvenxis)is a perennial with large yellow flowers, freqeent in corn fields in Britain, and throughout great part of Europe.—.Nearly allied to toe genus &ncitos is Malgedium, to which belongs the ALPINE BLUE Sow i IIISTLE (.IL alpiaurn), the beautiful blue flowers of which adorn some of the most inaccessible spots of the mountains of Switzarland and of Scotland.
SOY is a thick and piquant sauce, made from the seeds of the Soy BEAN (Soja hixpida), it plant of the natural order legunzinosce, suborder papilionacem, so nearly allied to the genus dolichos (q.v.) as to be often included in it. It is a native of China, Japan, and the Moluccas, and is much cultivated in China and Japan. It is also com mon in India, although, probably, not a native of that country. The seeds resemble those of the kidney bean, and tire used in the same way. The Japanese prepare from them a substance called miso, which they use as butter.
tssoy is made by mixing the beans softened by boiling with an equal quantity of wheat or barley roughly ground. The mixture is covered up, and kept for 24 hours in a warm place to ferment. The mass is then put into a pot, and covered with salt, the salt used being in quantity about equal to each of the other ingredients. Water is poured over it; and it is stirred, at least once a day, for two months, after which the liquor is poured off and squeezed from the mass, filtered, and preserved in wooden -vessels. By long keeping, it becomes brighter and clearer. A Chinese sauce, called
kitjap (ketchup), is often sold in Britain as soy, but is very inferior to the true soy.
SPA, a t. of l'elginm, and a watering-place of world-wide celebrity, stands in a romantic valley amid hills which form part of the Ardennes chain, 27 tn. s.e. of 1.ii2ge, and 22 in. s.w. of Aix-la-Chapelle by railway. The prettily-built town consists almost entirely of inns and lodging-houses. The chief edifices are the Redoute—plain outside, but handsome within, and including under one roof a theater (open four times a week), a lull-room, etc —and the Vauxhall, a fecund Bedoute, but now little used. Gaming, wlii(11 flout d prominently among the anmsements, was suppressed in 1872. The mineral springs, seven in number, are all chalybeate, and contain minute quantities of iron, so ermibined with alkaline salts and carbonic acid gas as to he'both easily digested End agreeable to the partite. They are cold, bright, and sparkling, and arc efficacious in complaints of tl c liscr, nervous diseases. etc. Spa-water is exported to all quarters of the globe. The other springs are near the town, and most of them are situated amid ph:tyre:Tine riantat ions. Spa is also famed for the manufacture of wooden toys. which are stained brown by being steeped in the mineral waters. Pop. '70, about 5.1:00. The number of visitors during the season is about 20,000, of whom half are Belgians.. Spa was fre9muted as a watering-place as early as the 14th c., and has given its Dame to many mineral springs.