OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sylhet

See also Sylhet on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​SYLHET, a town and district of British India, in the Surma valley division of Eastern Bengal and Assam. The town is on the right bank of the river Surma, on rising ground, embowered in groves. Pop. (1901), 13,893. There are manufactures of mats, carved ivory and shells, and furniture. There is an unaided college, founded in 1892, which is mainly supported by a native gentleman. There are two dispensaries and an English church. The great earthquake of the 12th of June 1897 destroyed every substantial building, but caused very little loss of life. Sylhet is the largest town in Assam, but is steadily decaying, being 30 m. from a railway and inaccessible to steamers during the dry season.
The District of Sylhet has an area of 5388 sq. m. It consists of the lower valley of the Surma or Barak river, and for the most part is a uniform level broken only by scattered clusters of sandy hillocks called Mas, and intersected by a network of rivers and drainage channels. It is a broad and densely-cultivated plain, except in the extreme north, where the enormous rainfall converts many square miles of land into one huge lake during the rains, and in the south, where eight low ranges of hills, spurs of the Tippera mountains, run out into the plain, the highest range being about 1500 ft. above sea-level. There is also a small detached group in the centre of the district called the Ita hills. The district is watered by the branches of the Surma (q.v.) which are navigable by large boats, and support a busy traffic. The climate is extremely damp and the rainfall is heavy, reaching an annual average of over 150 in.; the rainy season generally lasts from April to October.
In 1901 the population was 2,241,848, showing an increase of 4% in the decade. More than half are Mahommedans. Tea cultivation is a flourishing industry in the southern hills. The Assam-Bengal railway crosses the district, but trade is still largely river-borne. Great damage was done by the earthquake of June 1897, which was followed by an outbreak of malarial fever.
Sylhet passed into the hands of the British in 1765, with the rest of Bengal, of which it formed an integral part until 1874, being included in the Dacca division. In that year it was annexed, together with the adjoining district of Cachar, to the chief-commissionership of Assam which was amalgamated with eastern Bengal in 1905.
See Sylhet District Gazetteer (Calcutta, 1905).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Tiffany, Charles Lewis

See also Charles Lewis Tiffany and Tiffany & Co. on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​TIFFANY, CHARLES LEWIS (1812-1902), American jeweler, was born at Killingly, Connecticut, on the 15th of February 1812. At fifteen he became a clerk in his father's store, but removed to New York City in 1837, and with John B. Young opened a fancy goods store. In 1847 the firm began to manufacture gold jewelry, and in 1848, when the political unrest in Europe caused great depreciation in the price of precious stones, Tiffany invested heavily in diamonds, which were sold at a great profit a few years later. The firm became Tiffany, Young & Ellis in 1841 and was reorganized as Tiffany & Company (Mr Young and Mr Ellis retiring) in 1853. In 1851 the firm had established the sterling silver standard of .925 fine, subsequently adopted by other jewelers; and in the same year had founded a branch house in Paris. In 1858 Tiffany bought the unused portion of the Atlantic telegraph cable which he made into cane handles or sold in sections. At the beginning of the Civil War, foreseeing that the jewelry business would suffer, he turned most of his capital to the manufacture of swords, medals and similar war material. In 1868 the company was incorporated, and branches were established at London and at Geneva. Tiffany made a speciality of importing historic gems, jewelry and art works, and in 1887 bought some of the crown jewels of France, paying for them about half a million dollars. He was made a chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 1878. He died in New York on the 18th of February 1902.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Tietjens, Thérèse Johanne Alexandra

See also Thérèse Tietjens on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​TIETJENS, THÉRÈSE JOHANNE ALEXANDRA (1831–1877), Hungarian soprano vocalist, was born at Hamburg on the 17th of July 1831. Her voice was trained at Hamburg, where she made a successful début in 1849 as Lucrezia Borgia in Donizetti's opera. Thence she proceeded to Frankfort and Vienna. She sang for the first time in London in 1858, appearing as Valentine in Les Huguenots. Her success was so great that for the rest of her life she made England her home, and soon gained as brilliant a reputation in concert and oratorio work as she had already won upon the stage. Her voice was a dramatic soprano of magnificent quality, and her powers as an actress were supreme. Her most famous parts were Fidelio, Medea (in Cherubini's opera) and Donna Anna (in Don Giovanni). She died in London on the 3rd of October 1877, having endeared herself to the English people as much by her private virtues as by her artistic gifts.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Tiffany, Louis Comfort

See also Louis Comfort Tiffany on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​TIFFANY, LOUIS COMFORT (1848–), American artist, son of Charles L. Tiffany, was born in New York City, on the 18th of February 1848. He was a pupil of George Inness and of Samuel Coleman, New York, and of Léon Bailly, Paris. He became a member of the Society of American Artists (1877), of the National Academy of Design (1880), of the American Water Color Society, and of the Société Nationale des Beaux Arts, Paris. He travelled extensively in Europe, and painted in oil and water-colour, but subsequently devoted himself to decorative glass work. He became president and art director of the Tiffany Glass and Decorating Co., and produced a “Favrile” glass, of unusual beauty of colour.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Tiflis (government)

See also Tiflis Governorate on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​TIFLIS, a government of Russian Transcaucasia, occupying the eastern portion of the great valley which stretches between the main Caucasus range and the Armenian highlands, from the Meskes Mountains eastward, and extending up into the higher regions on both north and south. The district of Akhaltsikh lies actually on the Armenian highlands. The government is rich in minerals, but only copper is extracted, at Alaverdi and Akhtal; petroleum and other mineral springs are abundant. The government is drained by the Kura and its tributaries (Lyakhva, Aragva, Yora and Alazan), all of whose waters are largely used for irrigation; but in the lower parts of the valley there are extensive waterless steppes, Shirak and Karayaz, on the left bank of the Kura, which are chiefly inhabited by nomad Tatars., The area of the government is 15,601 sq. m. (17,140 with the Zakataly district), and the estimated population in 1906 was 1,081,900. The government is divided into nine districts, the chief towns of which are Tiflis, Akhalkalaki, Akhaltsikh, Dushet, Gori, Signakh and Telav. Agriculture is the principal occupation. Good silk is produced, especially in the region of Kakhetia.. Livestock breeding is extensively carried on on the steppes. About one-fourth of the area is under forest. The natives exhibit remarkable skill in the manufacture of leather and metallic goods, felt, woollen stuffs (e.g. carpets and shawls) and gold embroidery.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Tigellinus, Sophonius

See also Tigellinus on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​TIGELLINUS, SOPHONIUS, minister and favourite of the emperor Nero, was a native of Agrigentum, of humble origin and possibly of Greek descent. During the reign of Caligula he was banished (A.D. 39) for adultery with the emperor's sisters, but recalled by Claudius (41) . Having inherited a fortune, he bought land in Apulia and Calabria and devoted himself to breeding race-horses. In this manner he gained the favour of Nero, whom he aided and abetted in his vices and cruelties. In 62 he was promoted to the prefecture of the praetorian guards. In 64 he made himself notorious for the orgies arranged by him in the Basin of Agrippa, and was suspected of incendiarism in connexion with the great fire, which, after having subsided, broke out afresh in his Aemilian gardens. In 65, during the investigation into the abortive conspiracy of Piso, he and Poppaea formed a kind of imperial privy council. In 67 he accompanied Nero on his tour in Greece. When the emperor's downfall appeared imminent, Tigellinus deserted him, and with Nymphidius Sabinus brought about the defection of the praetorians. Under Galba he was obliged to give up his command, but managed to save his life by lavishing presents upon Vinius, the favourite of Galba, and his daughter. Otho on his accession (69) determined to remove one so universally detested by the people. While in the baths at Sinuessa, Tigellinus received the news that he must die, and, having vainly endeavoured to gain a respite, cut his throat.
See Tacitus, Annals, xiv., xv., xvi.; Hist. i. 72; Dio Cassius lix. 23, lxii. 13, 15, 27, lxiii. 12, 21, lxiv. 3; Suetonius, Galba, 15; Plutarch, Galba, Otho; ancient authorities quoted by Mayor on Juvenal, i. 155; B. W. Henderson, Life and Principate of the Emperor Nero (1903).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Tiffin

* related portals: Ohio.
* sister projects: Wikipedia article, travel guide, Wikidata item.
See also Tiffin, Ohio and Edward Tiffin on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​TIFFIN, a city and the county-seat of Seneca county, Ohio, U.S.A., on the Sandusky river, about 40 m. S.S.E. of Toledo. Pop. (1900), 10,989, of whom 1168 were foreign-born; (1910 census), 11,894. Tiffin is served by the Baltimore & Ohio, the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St Louis and the Pennsylvania railways, and by an electric line to Fostoria, about 12 m. west. It is the seat of an Ursuline College for girls, founded in 1863 and incorporated with power to confer degrees in 1878; and of Heidelberg University (Reformed Church), founded in 1850, incorporated as Heidelberg College in 1851 and reincorporated under its present name in 1890. The Heidelberg Theological Seminary was conducted here from 1850 to 1907, when it was combined with the “School of Theology” of Ursinus College, Collegeville, Pennsylvania, to form the Central Theological Seminary of the Reformed Church in the United States, which in 1908 was removed to Dayton, Ohio. In Tiffin are the St Francis Home (1869), and the National Orphans' Home (1897). The city had 87 factories in 1905, of which 54.2% were owned by individuals, and the value of the factory products was $2,434,502. Tiffin was settled in 1817, incorporated as a town in 1835, and chartered as a city in 1850, when the village of Ft. Ball, on the opposite side of the Sandusky, was consolidated with it. It was named in honour of Edward Tiffin (1766-1829), a native of Carlisle, England, who emigrated to the United States. He graduated at the University of Pennsylvania in 1789, removed in 1796 to Chillicothe, Ohio, where he practised medicine and was a local Methodist preacher. He was speaker of the House of Representatives of the Northwest Territory in 1799, president (1802) of the convention which framed the first constitution of Ohio, the first governor of the state (1803-1807), a Democratic member of the United States Senate in 1807-1809, first commissioner of the United States General Land Office in 1812-1814, and surveyor-general of public lands north-west of the Ohio River in 1814-1829.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Tiger-cat

See also Oncilla on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​TIGER-CAT, typically Felis tigrina, an American wild cat ranging from Mexico, on the east of the Andes to Paraguay and the central forest region of Argentina. Together the head and body measure something over 30 in., of which the tail counts for a third. The fur is grizzly grey, with black spots that do not form chains. The name is also applied to the Ocelot (q.v.), and often used of any small striped or spotted wild cat, either from the western or eastern hemisphere.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/United Brethren in Christ

See also Church of the United Brethren in Christ (New Constitution) on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​UNITED BRETHREN IN CHRIST, an American religious sect which originated in the last part of the 18th century under the leadership of Philip William Otterbein (1726–1813), pastor of the Second Reformed Church in Baltimore, and Martin Boehm (1725–1812), a Pennsylvanian Mennonite of Swiss descent. Otterbein and Boehm licensed some of their followers to preach and did a great work, especially through class-meetings of a Wesleyan type; in 1789 they held a formal conference at Baltimore, and in 1800, at a conference near Frederick City, Maryland, the Church was organized under its present name, and Otterbein and Boehm were chosen its first bishops or superintendents. The ecclesiastical polity of the Church is Wesleyan and its theology is Arminian: there is no hard-and-fast rule about baptism. Bishops are elected for four years. The first delegated general conference met at Mount Pleasant, Pennsylvania, in 1815, and adopted a confession of faith, rules of order and a book of discipline, which were revised in 1885–1889, when women were first admitted to ordination, and when the Conservatives, protesting against the new constitution, withdrew and formed the body now commonly known as the United Brethren in Christ “of the Old Constitution.”
The Liberal branch had 3732 organizations in 1906 with a total membership of 274,649. This body carries on missions in West Africa (since 1855), japan, China, the Philippines and Porto Rico. It has a publishing house (1834) and Bonebrake Theological Seminary (1871) at Dayton, Ohio; and supports Otterbein University (1847) at Westerville, O.; Westfield College (1865) at Westfield, Illinois; Leander Clark College (1857) at Toledo, Iowa; York College (1890) at York, Nebraska; Philomath College (1867) at Philomath, Oregon; Lebanon Valley College (1867) at Annville, Pa.; Campbell College (1864) at Holton, Kansas, and Central University (1907) at Indianapolis, Indiana.
The “Old Constitution” body had 572 organizations in 1906 with a total membership of 21,401. It has a publishing house at Huntington, Indiana.
See D. Berger, History of the Church of the United Brethren (1897), and his sketch (1894) in vol xii. of the “American Church History Series”; E. L. Shuey, Handbook of the United Brethren in Christ (1893); W. J. Shuey, Year-Book of the United Brethren in Christ (from 1867); and A. W. Drury, Life of Philip William Otterbein (1884).
* ↑ The sect is not to be confused with the Moravian Brethren (q.v.), whose official name, Unitas Fratrum, is commonly rendered in English “United Brethren.”
* ↑ Otterbein was an intimate friend of Francis Asbury and was greatly influenced by him.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Vincent, George

See also George Vincent (painter) on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​VINCENT, GEORGE (1796-1831?), English landscape and marine painter, was born at Norwich in June 1796. He studied art under “Old” Crome, and the age of fifteen began to contribute to the Norwich exhibition. From 1814 till 1823 he exhibited occasionally at the Royal Academy, and also in the Water-Colour Exhibition and the British Institution. In 1819 he removed from Norwich to London, and he was a contributor to the Suffolk Street gallery from its foundation in 1824 till 1830. He possessed great artistic abilities; but he fell into dissipation, and his works became slight and hastily executed. Finally he dropped out of sight, and he is believed to have died about 1831. His most important work, a “View of Greenwich Hospital,” was shown in the International Exhibition of 1862. His “London from the Surrey Side of Waterloo Bridge” is also a fine work.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Villingen

See also Villingen on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​VILLINGEN, a town of Germany in the grand duchy of Baden, pleasantly situated amid well-wooded hills, 52 m. by rail N. of Schaffhausen. Pop. (1905) 9582. It is in part still surrounded by walls, with ancient gate towers. It is the chief seat of the watch-making industry of the Black Forest. It also produces musical-boxes, glass and silk, and has a Gothic church of the 13th century and another of the 11th, a 15th-century town hall, with a museum of antiquities, and music, technical and agricultural schools.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Villoison, Jean Baptiste Gaspard d'Ansse de

See also Jean-Baptiste-Gaspard d'Ansse de Villoison on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​VILLOISON, JEAN BAPTISTS GASPARD D’ANSSE (or Dannse) DE (1750–1805), French classical scholar, was born at Corbeil-sur-Seine on the 5th of March 1750 (or 1753, authorities differ). He belonged to a noble family (De Ansso) of Spanish origin, and took his surname from a village in the neighbourhood. In 1773 he published the Homeric Lexicon of Apollonius from a MS. in the abbey of Saint Germain des Prés. In 1778 appeared his edition of Longus’s Daphnis and Chloe. In 1781 he went to Venice, where he spent three years in examining the library, his expenses being paid by the French government. His chief discovery was a 10th-century MS. of the Iliad, with ancient scholia and marginal notes, indicating supposititious, corrupt or transposed verses. After leaving Venice, he accepted the invitation of the duke of Saxe-Weimar to his court. Some of the fruits of his researches in the library of the palace were collected into a volume (Epistolae Vinarienses, 1783), dedicated to his royal hosts. Hoping to find a treasure similar to the Venetian Homer in Greece, he returned to Paris to prepare for a journey to the East. He visited Constantinople, Smyrna, the Greek islands, and Mount Athos, but the results did not come up to his expectation. In 1786 he returned, and in 1788 brought out the Codex Venetus of Homer, which created a sensation in the learned world. When the revolution broke out, being banished from Paris, he lived in retirement at Orléans, occupying himself chiefly with the transcription of the notes ​in the library of the brothers Valois (Valesius). On the restoration of order, having returned to Paris, he accepted the professorship of modern Greek, established by the government, and held it until it was transferred to the Collège de France as the professorship of the ancient and modern Greek languages. He died soon after his appointment, on the 25th of April 1805. Another work of some importance, Anecdota Graeca (1781), from the Paris and Venice libraries, contains the Ionia (violet garden) of the empress Eudocia, and several fragments of Iamblichus, Porphyry, Procopius of Gaza, Choricius and the Greek grammarians. Materials for an exchaustive work contemplated by him on ancient and modern Greece are preserved in the royal library of Paris.
See J. Dacier, Notice historique sur la vie et les ouvrages de Villoison (1806); Chardon de la Rochette, Mélanges de critique et de philologie, iii. (1812); and especially the article by his friend and pupil E. Quatremère in Nouvelle biographie générale, xiii., based upon private information.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Vilna (government)

See also Vilna Governorate on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​VILNA, or Wilno, a Lithuanian government of West Russia, having the Polish government of Suwalki on the W., Kovno and Vitebsk on the N., and Minsk and Grodno on the E. and S. Area, 16,176 sq. m.; pop. (1906 estimate) 1,806,300. Vilna lies on the broad marshy swelling, dotted with lakes, which separates Poland from the province of East Prussia and stretches E.N.E. towards the Valdai Plateau.
Its highest parts are a little more than 1000 ft. above sea-level. On its western and eastern boundaries it is deeply trenched by the valleys of the Niemen and the S. Dvina. It is chiefly built up of Lower Tertiary deposits, but in the north Devonian sandstones appear on the surface. The Tertiary deposits consist of Eocene clay, slates, sandstones, limestones and chalk, with gypsum, and are partly of marine and partly of terrene origin. The whole is overlain with thick layers of Glacial boulder clay and post-Glacial deposits, containing remains of the mammoth and other extinct mammals. Interesting discoveries of Neolithic implements, especially of polished stone, and of implements belonging to the Bronze Age and the early years of the Christian epoch, have been made. Numerous lakes and marshes, partly covered with forests, and scarcely passable except when frozen, as well as wet meadowland, occupy a large area in the centre of the government. The Niemen, which flows along the southern and western borders for more than 200 m., is the chief artery of trade, and its importance in this respect is enhanced by its tributary the Viliya, which flows west for more than 200 m. through the central parts of Vilna, receiving many affluents on its course. Among the tributaries of the Niemen is the Berezina, which acquired renown during Napoleon's retreat in 1812; it flows in a marshy valley in the south-east. The S. Dvina for 50 m. of its course separates Vilna from Vitebsk. The climate of the government is only slightly tempered by its proximity to the Baltic Sea (January, 21° 8; July, 64° 5); the average temperature at the town of Vilna is only 43° 5. But in winter the thermometer descends very low, a minimum of -30° F. having been observed. The flora and fauna are intermediate between those of Poland and middle Russia.
The government is divided into seven districts, the chief towns of which are Vilna, Vileiki, Disna, Lida, Oshmyany, Zventsyany and Troki.