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# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/St Kilda (Australia)

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​ST KILDA, a city of Bourke county, Victoria, Australia, 31/2 m. by rail S. of, and suburban to, Melbourne. Pop. (1901) 20,544. It is a fashionable watering-place on Hobson’s Bay, and possesses the longest pier in Australia. The esplanade and the public park are finely laid out; and portions of the sea are fenced in to protect bathers. The town hall, the public library, the assembly hall, and the great Anglican church of All Saints are the chief buildings.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/St Johns (Quebec)

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​ST JOHNS, a town and port of entry of Quebec, Canada, and capital of St Johns county, 27 m. S.E. of Montreal by rail, on the river Richelieu and at the head of the Chambly canal. Pop. (1901) 4030. A large export trade in lumber, grain and farm produce is carried on, and its mills and factories produce flour, silk, pottery, hats, &c. Three railways, the Grand Trunk, Canadian Pacific and Central Vermont, enter St Johns. On the opposite bank of the river is the flourishing town of St Jean d'Ibe1ville (usually known simply as Ibervi1le), connected with St Johns by several bridges.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/St Kilda (Scotland)

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​ST KILDA (Gaelic Hirta, “the Western land”), the largest of a small group of about sixteen islets of the Outer Hebrides, Inverness-shire, Scotland. It is included in the civil parish of Harris, and is situated 40 m. W. of North Uist. It measures 3 m. from E. to W. and 2 m. from N. to S., has an area of about 3500 acres, and is 7 m. in circumference. Except at the landing place on the south-east, the cliffs rise sheer out of deep water, and on the north-east side the highest eminence in the island, Conagher, forms a precipice 1220 ft. high. St Kilda is probably the core of a Tertiary volcano, but, besides volcanic rocks, contains hills of sandstone in which the stratification is distinct. The boldness of its scenery is softened by the richness of its verdure. The inhabitants, an industrious Gaelic-speaking community (110 in 1851 and 77 in 1901), cultivate about 40 acres of land (potatoes, oats, barley), keep about 1000 sheep and a few head of cattle. They catch puffins, fulmar petrels, guillemots, razor-birds, Manx shearwaters and solan geese both for their oil and for food. Fishing is generally neglected. Coarse tweeds and blanketing are manufactured for home use from the sheep’s wool which is plucked from the animal, not shorn. The houses are collected in a little village at the head of the East Bay. The island is practically inaccessible for eight months of the year, but the inhabitants communicate with the outer world by means of “sea messages,” which are dispatched in boxes when a strong west wind is blowing, and generally make the western islands or mainland of Scotland in a week.
The island has been in the possession of the Macleods for hundreds of years. In 1779 the chief of that day sold it, but in 1871 Macleod of Macleod bought it back, it is stated, for £3000. In 1724 the population was reduced by smallpox to thirty souls. They appear to catch what is called the “boat-cold” caused by the arrival of strange boats, and at one time the children suffered severely from a form of lockjaw known as the “eight days’ sickness.”
See works by Donald Munro, high dean of the Isles (1585), M. Martin (1698), Rev. K. Macaulay (1764), R. Connell (1887); Miss Goodrich-Freer, The Outer Isles; Richard and Cherry Kearton, With Nature and a Camera (1896).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/St Kitts

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​ST KITTS, or St Christopher, an island in the British West Indies, forming, with Nevis and Anguilla, one of the presidencies in the colony of the Leeward Islands. It is a long oval with a narrow neck of land projecting from the south-eastern end; total length 23 m., area 63 sq. m. Mountains traverse the central part from N.W. to S.E., the greatest height being Mount Misery (3771 ft.). The island is well watered, fertile and healthy, and its climate is cool and dry (temperature between 78° and 85° F.; average annual rainfall 38 in.). The circle of land formed by the skirts of the mountains, and the valley of-Basseterre constitute nearly the whole of the cultivated portion. The higher slopes of the hills afford excellent pasturage, while the summits are crowned with dense woods. Sugar, molasses, rum, salt, coffee and tobacco are the chief products; horses and cattle are bred. Primary education is compulsory. The principal towns are Old Road, Sandy Point and the capital Basseterre, which lies on the S.W. coast (pop. about 10,000). One good main road, macadamized throughout, encircles the island. The local legislature consists of 6 official and 6 unofficial members nominated by the Crown. St Kitts was discovered by Columbus in 1493 and first settled by Sir Thomas Warner in 1623. Five years later it was divided between the British and the French, but at the Peace of Utrecht in 1713 it was entirely ceded to the British Crown. Population, mostly negroes, 29,782.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Rajasthani

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​RAJASTHANI (properly Rājasthānī, the language of Rājasthān of Rajputana), an Indo-Aryan vernacular closely related to Gujarati (q.v.). It is spoken in Rajputana and the adjoining parts of central India, and has several dialects the principal of which are Jaipurī, Mārwāṛī, Mēwātī and Mālvī. Hāṛauṭī, an important variety of Jaipurī, is spoken in the states of Kota and Bundi. Carey, the well-known Serampur missionary, paid great attention to Rajasthani in the early part of the 19th century, translating the New Testament into no fewer than six dialects, viz. Hāṛauṭī, Ujainī (i.e. Mālvī), Udaipurī (a form of Mārwāṛī), Mārwāṛī proper, Jaipurī proper and Bīkānērī (another form of Mārwāṛī). In 1901 the total number of speakers of Rājasthānī was 10,917,712. (G. A. Gr.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Rajmahal

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​RAJMAHAL, a former capital of Bengal, India, now a village in the district of the Santal Parganas, situated on the right bank of the Ganges, where that river makes a turn to the south. Pop. (1901) 2047. It was chosen for his residence by Man Singh, Akbar’s Rajput general in 1592, but the capital of the province was shortly afterwards transferred to Dacca. It contains many palaces and mosques, now in ruins and overgrown with jungle. It has a station on the loop line of the East Indian railway, but trade has declined since the Ganges abandoned its old bed; and Sahibganj has taken its place. Rajmahal has given its name to a range of hills, almost the only hills in Bengal proper, which here come down close to the bank of the Ganges. They cover a total area of 1366 sq. m;, and their height never exceeds 2000 ft. They are inhabited by an aboriginal race, known as Paharias or “hill-men,” of whom two tribes may be distinguished: the Male Sauria Paharias and the Mal Paharias; total pop. (1901) 73,000. The former, if not the latter also, are closely akin to the larger tribe of Oraons. Their language, known as Malto, of the Dravidian family, was spoken by 60,777 persons in 1901. The Paharias have contributed an element to the administrative history of Bengal. Augustus Clevland, a civilian who died in 1784 and whose name is still honoured, was the first who succeeded in winning their confidence and recruiting among them a corps of hill-rangers. The methods that he adopted are the foundation of the “non-regulation” system, established in 1796; and the hills were exempted from the permanent settlement. The Santals, a different aboriginal race, have since immigrated in large numbers into the Daman-i-koh, or “skirts of the hills”; but the Paharias alone occupy the plateaux on the top, where they are permitted to practise the privilege of shifting cultivation, which renders scientific forestry impossible. The approach from the plains below to each plateau is guarded by a steep ladder of boulders.
See E. W. Dalton, Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal (Calcutta, 1872); F. B. Bradley-Birt, The Story of an Indian Upland (1905).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Rajshahi

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​RAJSHAHI, a district and division of British India, in the province of Eastern Bengal and Assam. The administrative headquarters are at Rampur Boalia. The area of the district is 2593 sq. m., comprising an alluvial plain seamed with old river-beds and studded with marshes. The Ganges and the Mahananda are its principal rivers; the former constitutes a great natural boundary-line to the south and south-west, and the latter, which rises in the Himalayas, borders the district on the west for a few miles before joining the Ganges. Other rivers are the Narad and Baral, important offshoots of the Ganges; the Atrai, a channel of the Tista; and the Jamuna, a tributary of the Atrai. Both the Atrai and the Jamuna belong to the Brahmaputra system and are navigable throughout the year for small cargo boats. The drainage of Rajshahi is not carried off by means of its rivers, but through the chains of marshes and swamps, the most important of which is the Chalan bhil or lake, which discharges itself into the Brahmaputra. In 1901 the population was 1,462,407, showing an increase of 1.6% in the decade. Rice is the staple crop, with pulses, oilseeds and jute. Indigo has disappeared. Sericulture has received a stimulus from the efforts of the agricultural department, supported by private enterprise, to improve the breed of silkworms. The hemp grown on a small tract in the north of the district supplies all the ganja that is consumed in Bengal. The district is traversed from south to north by the main line of the Eastern Bengal railway to Darjeeling, with a branch to Bogra. Most of the permanent buildings in the district were severely damaged by the earthquake of the 12th of June 1897. When the East India Company took over the administration of Bengal in 1765, the zamindari of Rajshahi or Nattor was one of the largest and most important in the province. It appears to have extended from Bhagalpur on the west to Dacca on the east, and to have included an important subdivision called Nij-Chakla Rajshahi on the south of the Ganges. The total area was estimated at 13,000 sq. m., or more than five times the size of the present district. Having been found much too large to be effectually administered by one central authority, Rajshahi was stripped in 1793 of a considerable portion of its outlying territory, and a natural boundary-line was drawn to the west, south and east along the Ganges and Brahmaputra. Its north-western limits were reduced in 1813, when the present district of Malda was constituted. The erection of Bogra into a separate jurisdiction in 1821 still further reduced its area, and in 1832 the limits of Rajshahi were fixed by the constitution of Pabna into an independent jurisdiction.
The Division of Rajshahi is coextensive with northern Bengal, from the Ganges to the mountains. It comprises the seven districts of Rajshahi, Dinajpur, Jalpaiguri, Malda, Rangpur, Bogra and Pabna. Total area, 18,091 sq. m. Pop. (1901) 9,130,072.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Rajpipla

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​RAJPIPLA, a native state of India, in the Rewa Kantha agency, Bombay, occupying a hilly tract between the rivers Nerbudda and Tapti; area, 1517 sq. m. Pop. (1901) 117,175, showing a decrease of 32% in the decade, due to the results of famine; estimated revenue, £60,000; tribute (to the Gaekwar of Baroda), £3000. The chief, whose title is maharana, is a Gohel Rajput, of the same family as the thakor saheb of Bhaunagar. A light railway, constructed at the cost of the state, connects Nandod with Anklesvar in Broach district. The old fort of Rajpipla, in the hills, is now deserted. The modern capital is Nandod, situated on the river Karjan, 32 m. from Surat. Pop. (1901) 11,236.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Rajgarh

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​RAJGARH, a native state of central India, in the Bhopal agency. Area, 940 sq. m. Pop. (1901) 88,376, showing a decrease of 26% in the decade, due to the results of famine. Estimated revenue, £33,000; tribute (to Sindhia), £3640. The chief, whose title is rawat, is a Rajput of the Umat clan. Grain and opium are the principal articles of trade. The town of Rajgarh, which is surrounded by a battlemented wall, had a population of 5399 in 1901.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Rake

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​RAKE (O.E. raca, cognate with Du. raak, Ger. Rechen, from a root meaning to scrape together, heap up), an agricultural and horticultural implement consisting of a toothed bar fixed transversely to a handle, and used for the collection of cut hay, grass, &c., and, in gardening, for loosening the soil, light weeding and levelling, and generally for purposes performed in agriculture by the harrow. The teeth of the hand-rake are of wood or iron. For the horse-drawn rake, a bar with long curved steel teeth is mounted on wheels (see Hay and Haymaking). The word “rake” has been used since the 17th century in the sense of a man of a dissolute or dissipated character. This is a shortened form of the earlier “rake-hell,” apparently in common use in the 16th century. In military and naval use “to rake” means to enfilade, to fire so that the shot may pass lengthwise along a ship, a line of soldiers, entrenchments, &c. In the nautical sense of the projection or slope of a ship's bows or stern or the inclination of a mast, the word is apparently an adaptation of the Scandinavian raka, to reach, in the sense of reach forward.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Rajkot

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​RAJKOT, India, capital of a native state in Bombay, and headquarters of the political agent for Kathiawar. Pop. (1901) 36,151. It is situated in the middle of the peninsula of Kathiawar, and is the centre of the railway system. There is a military cantonment. The Rajkumar college, for the education of the sons of chiefs on the lines of an English public school, has achieved great success. Besides the high school there are training colleges for masters and mistresses. The Rasulkhanji hospital has a department for women, opened in 1897. All these institutions are maintained at the joint expense of the chiefs of Kathiawar. The state of Rajkot, which is a branch of Nawanagar, has an area of 282 sq. m. Pop. (1901) 49,795. Estimated revenue, £20,000.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Rajput

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​RAJPUT, a race of India, not confined to Rajputana, but spread over the N. of the country. According to the census of 1901 there were 9,712,156 Rajputs in all India, of whom only 620,229 lived in Rajputana. The great majority adhere to the Hindu religion, but 1,875,387 are entered as Mahommedans. The Rajputs form the fighting, landowning and ruling caste. They claim to be the modern representatives of the Kshatriyas of ancient tradition; but their early history is obscure, and recent research supports the view that they include descendants of more than one wave of immigrant invaders. Linguistic evidence supports tradition in proving that their unity was broken up by the Mahommedan conquest, for the inhabitants of the Himalayan valleys still speak a language akin to those of Rajputana proper, though separated from them by the wide Gangetic valley.
The Rajputs are fine, brave men, and retain the feudal instinct strongly developed. Pride of blood is their chief characteristic, and they are most punctilious on all points of etiquette. The tradition of common ancestry permits a poor Rajput yeoman to consider himself as well born as any powerful landholder of his clan, and superior to any high official of the professional classes. No race in India can boast of finer feats of arms or brighter deeds of chivalry, and they form one of the main recruiting fields for the Indian army of to-day. They consider any occupation other than that of arms or government derogatory to their dignity, and consequently during the long period of peace which has followed the establishment of the British rule in India they have been content to stay idle at home instead of taking up any of the other professions in which they might have come to the front. Those who are not zamindars have, therefore, rather dropped behind in the modern struggle for existence. As cultivators they are lazy and indifferent, and they prefer pastoral to agricultural pursuits. Looking upon all manual labour as humiliating, none but the poorest class of Rajput will himself hold the plough.
​Within the limits of Rajputana the Rajputs form a vast body of kindred, and any Rajput can marry any Rajput woman who does not belong to his own clan. The most numerous of the clans is the Rahtor, to which the chiefs of Marwar, Bikanir and Kishangarh belong. Its strength in 1901 was 122,160. Next comes the Kachwaha clan, which is strong in Jaipur and Alwar, both chiefs belonging to its members. It numbers 100,186. The Chauhan follows with an aggregate of 86,460, among whom are the chiefs of Bundi, Kotah and Sirohi. The Jadu or Jadon, which includes in its ranks the chiefs of Karauli and Iaisalmer, numbers 74,666. The Sisodhyias, who include the ancient and illustrious house of Udaipur, number 51,366. The Ponwar clan, to which Vikramaditya, the celebrated king of Ujjain, from whom the Hindu Era is named, is said to have belonged, numbers 43,435. The Solanki and Parihar clans, once powerful, are now only 18,949 and 9448 respectively.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sylt

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​SYLT (probably from the O. Fris. Silendi, i.e. sealand), the largest German island in the North Sea, being about 38 sq. m. in area and nearly 23 m. long. It is, however, very narrow, being generally about half a mile in width, except in the middle, where it sends out a peninsula to the east 7 m. across. It belongs to the Prussian province of Schleswig-Holstein, and lies from 7 to 12 m. from the Schleswig coast. The central peninsula contains some marshland and moorland pasture, on which a few thousand sheep graze; but the rest of the island consists merely of dunes or sandhills. These attain at places a height of from 100 to 150 ft., and are continually shifting to the westward. The inhabitants (3500) are of Frisian origin, and the official language is German, though in the extreme north of the island, known as List, Danish is spoken. Their occupations are fishing, oyster-dredging, seafaring and wild-duck catching. The chief places are Keitum, Tinnum, Morsum, Rantum and Westerland. Westerland, one of the most frequented sea-bathing places of Germany, lies on the west side of the island, separated from the sea, which is seldom perfectly calm, by a chain of sand dunes, across which board walks lead to the beach. The island is reached by a regular steamboat service from Hoyer on the mainland to Munkmarsch, which is connected by a steam tram with Westerland. Another line of steamers runs from Hamburg to Sylt via Heligoland. During the Danish War of 1864, after suffering severely at the hands of the Danes, the island was occupied by the Prussians on the 13th of July (see Frisian Islands).
See P. Knuth, Botanische Wanderungen auf der Insel Sylt (Tondern, 1890); C. P. Hansen, Das Nordseebad Westerland auf Sylt (Garding, 1891); Meyn, Geologische Beschreibung der Insel Sylt (Berlin, 1876); and Kepp, Wegweiser auf Sylt (Tondern, 1885).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sylvite

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​SYLVITE, a mineral consisting of potassium chloride (KCl), first observed in 1823, as an encrustation on Vesuvian lava. Well-formed crystals were subsequently found in the salt deposits of Stassfurt in Prussia and Kalusz in Austrian Galicia. It crystallizes in the cubic system with the form of cubes and cubo-octahedra and possesses perfect cleavages parallel to the faces of the cube. Although the crystals are very similar in appearance to crystals of common salt, they are proved by etching experiments to possess a different degree of symmetry, namely plagihedral-cubic, there being no planes of symmetry but the full number of axes of symmetry. Crystals are colourless (sometimes bright blue) and transparent; the hardness is 2 and the specific gravity 1.98. Like salt, it is highly diathermanous. The name sylvite or sylvine is from the old pharmaceutical name, sal digestivus sylvii, for this salt.
(L. J. S.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Symeon Metaphrastes

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​SYMEON METAPHRASTES, the most renowned of the Byzantine hagiographcrs. Scholars have been very much divided as to the period in which he lived, dates ranging from the 9th century to the 14th having been suggested; hut it is now generally agreed' that he flourished in the second half of the 10th century. Still greater divergences of opinion have existed as to the lives of saints coming from his pen, and here again the solution of the prohlem has been attained by studying the composition of the great Greek menologies. The menology of Metaphrastes is a collection of lives of saints for the twelve months of the year, easily recognizable among analogous collections, and consisting of about 150 distinct pieces, some of which are taken bodily from older collections, while others have been subjected to a new recension (μετάφρασις). Among other works attributed (though with some uncertainty) to Symeon are a Chronicle, a canonical collection, some letters and poems, and other writings of less importance. Symeon's great popularity is due more particularly to his collection of lives of saints. About his life we know only very few details. The Greeks honour him as a saint on the 28th of November, and an office has been composed in his honour.
See L. Allatius, De Symeonum scriptis diatriba (Paris, 1664); F. Hirsch, Byzantinische Studien, pp. 303-355 (Leipzig, 1876); A. Ehrhard, Die Legendensammlung des Symeon Metaphrastes (Rome, 1897); and in Romische Quartalschrift (1897), pp. 67-205 and 531-553; H. Delehaye, La Vie de S. Paul le jeune et la chronologie de MHaphraste (1893); Analecta Bollandiana, xvi. 312-327 and xvii. 448-452.
(H. De.)