sawing machine Machine tool for cutting up bars of material or for cutting out shapes in plates of raw material. The cutting tools (saws) may be thin metallic disks with teeth on their edges, thin metal blades or flex¬ ible bands with teeth on one edge, or thin grinding wheels. The tools may use any of three actions: true cutting, grinding, or friction-created melt¬ ing.
sawmill Machine or plant with power-driven machines for sawing logs into rough-squared sections or into planks and boards. A sawmill may be equipped with planing, molding, tenoning, and other machines for fin¬ ishing processes. Cutting is performed on various large machines; recip¬ rocating saws, band saws, or circular saws cut the log into various thicknesses as it moves past the saw on a feeder table. The biggest mills are usually located where timber can be brought by river or rail, and mill design is affected by the mode of transportation.
Sax, Adolphe orig. Antoine-Joseph Sax (b. Nov. 6, 1814, Dinant, Belg.—d. Feb. 7, 1894, Paris, France) Belgian instrument maker. Son of an accomplished instrument maker, he worked for his father until 1842, making improvements on the clarinet and bass clarinet. He then set up shop in Paris, supported by musicians such as Hector Berlioz and Fro- mental Halevy (1799-1862) but opposed by French instrument makers; he invented several new families of instruments, including the saxhorns, the saxtrombas, and most successfully, the saxophones. A fine woodwind player, he taught saxophone at the Paris Conservatoire (1857-71).
Saxe, (Hermann-) Maurice, count de (b. Oct. 28, 1696, Goslar, Saxony—d. Nov. 30, 1750, Chambord, France) German-born French gen¬ eral. The illegitimate son of Frederick Augustus I of Saxony, he served under Eugene of Savoy in Flanders and was made count of Saxony (Saxe) in 1711. He commanded a German regiment in the French service (1719) and made innovations in military training, especially in musketry. He served with distinction in the French army against his half brother Augus¬ tus III in the War of the Polish Succession and was made a general (1734). He successfully led French forces in the War of the Austrian Succession, capturing Prague (1741) and invading the Austrian Netherlands. There he won the Battle of Fontenoy (1745) and captured Brussels and Antwerp (1746). Appointed marshal general of France by Louis XV, Saxe led the successful invasion of Holland in 1747.
Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, House of See House of Windsor
saxifrage Vsak-s3-frij\ Any of about 300 species of the genus Saxi- fraga, of the family Saxifragaceae, which is composed of 36 genera of mostly perennial herbaceous plants. Members of the saxifrage family are known for their ability to grow and thrive on exposed rocky crags and in fissures of rocks. They are adapted to the full range of moisture condi¬ tions, but most grow in moist, shaded woodlands in northern cold and temperate regions. Leaves characteristically alternate along the stem and sometimes are deeply lobed or form rosettes. Flowers generally are borne in branched clusters and range in colour from greenish to white or yel¬ low and from pink or red to purple. The fruit is a capsule. Saxifraga spe¬ cies are planted in rock gardens or as border ornamentals, prized for their small, bright flowers, fine-textured foliage, and early spring flowering. Other well-known genera in the saxifrage family are Astilbe, Heuchera, and Mitella.
Saxo Grammaticus Ysak-so-gr3- , ma-ti-k9s\ (fl. 12th century-early 13th century) Danish historian. Little is known of Saxo’s life except that he was from Sjaelland, bom to a family of warriors, and probably served as clerk to the archbishop of Lund. His 16-volume Gesta Danorum (“Story of the Danes”) is the first important work on the history of Den¬ mark and the first Danish contribution to world literature. A panorama of his country’s antiquity and traditions, it inspired many 19th-century Dan¬ ish Romantic poets and was the original source of the story of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Saxo’s brilliant, ornate Latin earned him the name “Grammaticus” in the 14th century.
Saxon Any member of a Germanic people who lived along the Baltic coast in ancient times and later migrated west as far as the British Isles. The Saxons became pirates in the North Sea during the decline of the Roman empire, and in the early 5th century they spread through northern Germany and along the coasts of Gaul and Britain. They fought Charle¬
magne (772-804) before being incorporated into the Frankish kingdom, and they settled Britain along with other Germanic invaders, including the Angles and the Jutes.
Saxony German Sachsen \'zak-son\ Historical region, former state, and recreated state, Germany. Before 1180 the name was applied to the territory conquered c. ad 200-700 by the Germanic Saxon tribe. They were conquered and Christianized by Charlemagne in the late 8th century. In the mid-9th century Saxony became part of the German kingdom of the Franks. The territory was broken up in 1180 and divided into two smaller and widely separated areas, Saxe-Lauenburg on the lower Elbe River and Saxe-Wittenberg on the middle Elbe. From 1422 the name Sax¬ ony was applied to a large region, including the country from Thuringia to Lusatia, bordering Bohemia. It was part of the German Empire (1871- 1918) and a free state in the Weimar Republic (1919-33). The state was abolished in 1952 and divided among East German districts. Upon Ger¬ man reunification in 1990, a new state of Saxony was recreated. The cur¬ rent territory of Saxony Land (pop., 2001 est.: 4,384,192) occupies the southeastern portion of what was formerly East Germany and covers an area of 7,080 sq mi (18,337 sq km). The capital is Dresden.
saxophone Single-reed wind instrument with a conical metal tube and finger keys. Though made of brass, it is classified as a woodwind instru¬ ment. Its mouthpiece resembles that of the clarinet. The saxophone fam¬ ily includes instruments with at least eight different ranges, the tenor and alto instruments being the most common. The smallest (highest-range) saxophones are straight; the rest have curved necks and their bells are bent up and out. Transposing instruments (producing a higher or lower pitch than indicated in music written for it) in B-flat and E-flat, all have the same written 3V6-octave range. The saxophone was patented in 1846 by Adolphe Sax, who created two separate instrument families, for mili¬ tary and orchestral use respectively. Though few composers included saxophones in their orchestral scores, they became centrally important in military, dance, and jazz bands.
Say \'se,\ English Ysa\, J(ean)-B(aptiste) (b. Jan. 5, 1767, Lyon, France—d. Nov. 15, 1832, Paris) French economist. He edited a maga¬ zine and started a spinning mill before joining the faculty of the Conser¬ vatory of Arts and Crafts (1817-30) and the College de France (1830— 32). In his major work, A Treatise on Political Economy (1803), he advanced his law of markets, which claims that supply creates its own demand. He attributed economic depression not to a general deficiency in demand but rather to temporary overproduction for some markets and underproduction for others, an imbalance that must automatically adjust itself as overproducers redirect their production to conform with consum¬ ers’ preferences. Say’s law remained a central tenet of orthodox econom¬ ics until the Great Depression.
Sayan \s3-'yan\ Mountains Large upland region on the frontiers of east-central Russia and Mongolia. The mountains form a rough arc stretching from the Altai Mountains to Lake Baikal and connecting with the Khamar-Daban mountain system of the Transbaikalia. The western and eastern ranges, each with a different geologic history, meet in a cen¬ tral knot where elevations exceed 10,000 ft (3,000 m). The range’s high¬ est peak is Munku-Sardyk, in Mongolia, which reaches an elevation of 11,453 ft (3,491 m).
Sayers, Dorothy L(eigh) (b. June 13, 1893, Oxford, Oxfordshire, Eng.—d. Dec. 17, 1957, Witham, Essex) English scholar and writer. In 1915 Sayers became one of the first women to graduate from Oxford Uni¬ versity. Her first major work was Whose Body? (1923), in which she cre¬ ated the detective Lord Peter Wimsey, a witty, dashing young gentleman- scholar who would be featured in such later short-story collections and novels as Strong Poison (1930), The Nine Tailors (1934), and Busman’s Honeymoon (1937). After the 1930s she concentrated on theological dra¬ mas and books, radio plays, and scholarly translations, notably of Dante’s Divine Comedy.