SAGINA 179 SAGO SAGINA, in botany, the pearlwort, a genus of Alsinex. Sepals four or five; petals four or five, entire or emarginate, sometimes wanting; stamens 4 to 10; styles four or five; capsule four- to five- valved. Known species eight, from the temperate zones. All but S. saxatilis and S. nivalis, which are Alpine species, are common. SAGINAW, a city of Michigan, the county-seat of Saginaw co. It is on the Saginaw river, and on the Grand Trunk, the Michigan Central, and Pere Mar- quette railroads. The river here is spanned by 11 bridges, 4 of which are railroad and 7 public bridges. The city has an excellent street system and most of the important roadways are paved with asphalt and brick. There is an extensive park system including Hoyt, Linton, Ezra Rust, and Bliss parks. The city also con- tains two excellent libraries, the Hoyt Library and the Public Library. It is the seat of the Michigan Institute for the Blind, the Old Folks' Home, and the Ger- mania Institute. Its educational institu- tions include a free manual training school given to the city by Hon. W. R. Burt. There is also a trade school, the gift of Hon. Arthur Hill. Other notable buildings include three Masonic temples, a court house, city hall, and two hospitals. Also an Elks temple, Y. M. C. A. and Y. W. C. A. buildings, and a post-office. During the lumber era of Michigan, Sag- inaw was one of the chief scenes of the lumber trade. The lumbering industry is still important. Within recent years extensive beds of bituminous coal have been discovered in the neighborhood of the city, and over 2,000,000 tons are mined annually. The beet sugar indus- try is an important one in the surround- ing country. Among the other leading industries are the manufacture of glass, lumber, salt, and many other products. The city has an important wholesale trade with the surrounding country. Pop. (1910) 50,510; (1920) 61,903. " SAGINAW BAY, the largest inden- ture of Lake Huron on the United States 6ide entering the S. peninsula of Michigan, in the eastern part of the State. It is 60 miles long, 30 miles in extreme width, and is bordered by Iosco Bay, and Tus- cola and Huron counties. It affords ex- cellent navigation, and is a safe harbor for large vessels. Its surface is usually rough, but not dangerously so, when the open lake is comparatively smooth. The color of the water is plainly different from that of the open lake, being a brown- ish-green, often termed "tea-water." SAGITTA, in astronomy, the Arrow; a small northern constellation, one of the 48 ancient asterisms. It is situated be- tween the hill of the Swan and Aquila, and is traversed by a branch of the Milky Way. A nebula in Sagitta was resolved by Sir William Herschel, in 1783, into a cluster of stars. In geometry, (1) the versed sine of an arc. (From the re- semblance of an arrow standing upright on the string of a bow.) (2) The ab- scissa of a curve. In zoology, the sole genus of Chsetogriatha, with several spe- cies, found on the surface of the ocean all over the world. They are transparent unsegmented worms, about an inch long. The genus presents analogies with both the Nematoidea and the Ammelida. SAGITTARIUS (the Archer)., in as- tronomy, the ninth sign of the zodiac, into which the sun enters Nov. 22. The con- stellation consists of eight visible stars. It is represented on celestial globes and charts by the figure of a centaur in the act of shooting an arrow from his bow. SAGITTATE, in botany, a term ap- plied to the form of leaf shaped like the head of an arrow; triangular, hollowed at the base, with angles at the hinder part. SAGO, a nutritive farinaceous sub- stance obtained from the pith of several species of palms, principally, however, from Sagus (Metroxylon) Rumphii, the spiny, and S. Ixvis, which is spineless. For the natives of the eastern Archipel- ago this palm is a source of vegetable food naturally more abundant and less variable in its yield than rice. The stem consists of a thin hard wall, about two inches thick, and of an enormous volume of a spongy medullary substance, which is edible. Each tree yields about 600 pounds of pith. There are three well- marked varieties of this palm. The tree grows in Java, Sumatra, Celebes, Borneo, Malacca, and Siam. The only countries, however, where it is found growing in large forests are New Guinea, the Moluc- cas, Celebes, Mindanao, Borneo, and Su- matra, being widely spread over the Mo- luccas, but confined to particular parts of the others. A tree becomes mature at about 15 years. These palms propagate themselves by lateral shoots as well as by seed, and they die after producing fruit, so that a sago plantation once formed is perpetual. Large quantities of the meal in its pure state are sent to Singapore from the eastern islands, where it is granulated or pearled and bleached by the Chinese for shipment to Europe. It comes into commerce in three forms, the common brown sago, pearl sago, and sago flour. It is made by two processes, the starch grains being burst in some samples and not in others.
