ISINGLASS, i'ziu-glits (from ND. huysen bla.s, Dutch huisblad, Ger. Ilausenblasc, isin glass. sturgeon-bladder, from .,11Dutch huysca, Dutch 110z-en, 011G. bass, Ger. Hausen, sturgeon Dutch bias, Dutch blad, OHG. blasa, Ger. Diasen, bladder, dialectic Eng. ()faze, pimple; associated by popular etymology with Eng. gloss). The dried swimming-bladders of differ ent fishes. The amount of gelatin in it is from SG to 93 per cent., and even more. It is pre pared by tearing the air-bladder from the back of the fish. from which it is loosened by striking several blows with a wooden club, then washing in cold water. removing the black outer skin with a knife, again washing, and spreading on a board to dry in the open air, with the white shiny skin turned outward. To prevent shriveling or shrinking, the bladders must be fastened to the drying-board. The best quality of isinglass comes from sounds that are dried in the sun. After drying, the sound is again moistened with warm water, and the interior shiny skin is removed by hammering or rubbing. Finally. it is rolled be tween two polished iron rollers. If it is desired to extract the gelatin, the isinglass, while still in a moist condition, is bleached in a solution of sulphuric acid. in which it swells up to a colorless jelly; the latter, after having been dis solved in warm water, is cooled, and the jelly then formed, when dry, is a clear and colorless gela tin. The chief places of manufacture are Rus sia, Canada, Brazil. the West Indies. the East Indies, and .Manila. The Russian varieties, which are supposed to be the best on the market, are made chiefly from the sturgeon; hut elsewhere the bladders of cod, hake, and other fish are also used. Isinglass should be of a bright or light yellow color, thin and transparent. and without any odor or taste. The latter naturally indi cates the presence of impurities. When dissolved in boiling water there should remain but a very small insoluble residue, and the jelly which is formed should be clear and colorless. Isinglass may he used for the same purposes as gelatin (q.v.l. It is employed chiefly for clarifying beer and wine, for culinary purposes (in jellies and soups), for making cement. etc. The adhesive quality of court-plaster is due to isinglass.
PSIS (Gk. 'Ices, Egyptian, Ise-1, a name of obseure etymology). An Egyptian goddess, the daurdner of Seb (Earth) and Nut (Heaven), and the sister and wife of Osiris (q.v.). After the treacherous murder of her husband by his brother Set (q.v.). Isis fled to the swamps of the Delta, accompanied by seven scorpions. On one occasion the mistress of a house in which she sought shelter, fearing the scorpions, turned the goddess from her door, and the scorpion Tefen crept into the house and stung the son of the woman so that he died. But Isis, moved by the woman's grief, laid her hand upon the child and restored him to life. Shortly after this Isis gave birth to her son Horns, whom she placed in the charge of Buto, the goddess of the North. Buto guarded him carefully, but in spite of all her care lie was stung by a scorpion, and his mother found him lying lifeless on the ground. At her prayer the sun-god Re stopped his ship in mid-heaven and sent down Thoth, the god of wisdom, who soon brought Horns back to life. Leaving her young son in the Delta, carefully hidden by Buto from the malevolence of his uncle Set, Isis next went through the world seek ing the body of her husband, Osiris. which, in closed in a chest, had been borne out to sea by the Nile. In her wanderings she was accom panied and protected by Anubis (q.v.), the son of Osiris by his sister Nephthys (q.v.). After a long search she found the body of Osiris. The chest inclosing it had drifted ashore near Byhlos, on the Pluenician coast, and had become imbedded in the trunk of a great tree which had grown around it. The King of the country. ignorant of
the presence of the chest, had caused the tree to be cut down, and made of it a pillar for his house. Isis entered the King's service as nurse to his child, and endeavored to confer immortal ity on the infant. Every night she burned away his mortal part with celestial fire, while she herself, in the form of a swallow, flew round the pillar lamenting her husband. One night the Queen, Astarte, came upon her while thus en gaged. and crying out in terror at the sight of the child surrounded with flames, destroyed his chance of immortality. Isis now revealed her self, drew the chest from the pillar, and conveyed the body of her husband by ship to Egypt, where she hid it and went to visit her son. Set, how ever, found the body of Osiris and tore it to pieces, which he scattered in every direction. Learning of this misfortune, Isis took a boat, and seeking her husband's scattered members throughout the land, found all the pieces except the phallus, which had been eaten by fishes. Wherever she found a portion of the body she buried it, and in after-times each of these spots was revered as the burial-place of Osiris. His bead, for example, was buried at Abydos, and his backbone at Busiris, in the Delta. Isis reared her son Horns in concealment, and when he reached mature age he defeated Set and ascended his father's throne. In the legends of the sun god P.C. Isis is represented as possessing special skill in magic and in the healing art: in this character, as the 'great mistress of enchantments.' her aid is frequently invoked in the Egyptian magical texts. Her sacred animal was the cow. and she is sometimes represented with the head of a cow. though more frequently she wears only the horns. She is also very commonly depicted as a woman wearing upon her head a throne —the ideogram used in writing her name. In later times she is often represented as seated and holding the infant Horus to her breast.
Isis was_ very generally worshiped throughout Egypt, but special honor was paid to her at Abydos and Busiris. In later times the centre of her cult was in PhiIre (q.v.). where magnifi cent temples were built to her. Here she was still revered as late as A.D. 453. long after pagan ism had been suppressed in other parts of the land by edict of Theodosius, her special wor shipers being the savage Blemunyan tribes who constantly menaced the safety of Egypt. From Alexandria,. where the worship of the triad. Serapis (q.v.), Isis, and Harpocrates (q.v.) over shadowed that of all other Egyptian deities, the cult of the goddess spread throughout the whole Hellenic world, and temples were erected to her in many places. It was introduced into Rome in the time of Sulla. (n.c. 80), and soon became fashionable; but was brought into ill repute by the licentiousness of its priests, and the Govern ment made occasional attempts to suppress it. Under the Empire the cult of Isis became very popular, and Domitian. Commodus, and Caraealla were among the priests of the Egyptian goddess. At the opening of spring (March 5th) both Greeks and Romans held a festival in which a ship was carried in solemn procession in honor of Isis. In the Roman calendar the day of this festival was designated as Yarigium lsidis. Con Plutarch, Rept lau5os sal 'Oolptoos; Wiede mann, The Religion of the Ancient Egyptians (New York, 1897) Erman, Life in. Ancient Egypt (London, 1894) ; Brugsch, Religion and Mythologie der alten Aegypter (Leipzig. 1885 90) ; A History of Egypt Under Roman. Rule (New York, 1898). See HAR(ERis ; Horns; °suits; and the paragraph on ancient religion in the article EGYPT.