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

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​TARSIER, the Anglicized form of the scientific name of a small and aberrant lemur-like animal, Tarsius spectrum, inhabiting the Malay Peninsula and islands, and typifying a family. The name tarsicr refers to the great elongation of two of the bones of the tarsus, or ankle, and spectrum to the huge goggle-like eyes and attenuated form which constitute two of the most distinctive features of this weird little creature. In organization the tarsier departs markedly from other lemurs as regards several particulars, and thereby approximates to monkeys and apes. Rather smaller than a squirrel, with dusky brown fur, the tarsier has immense eyes, large ears, a long thin tail, tufted at the end, a greatly elongated tarsal portion of the foot, and disk-like adhesive surfaces on the fingers, which doubtless assist the animal in maintaining its position on the boughs. Four species of the genus are now recognized, whose range includes the Malay Peninsula, Java, Sumatra, Borneo, Celebes and some of the Philippines. The tarsier feeds chiefly on insects and lizards, sleeps during the day, but is tolerably active at night, moving chiefly by jumping from place to place; an action for which the structure of its hind-legs seems par- ticularly well adapted. It is rare, not more than two being generally found together, and only brings forth one young at a time. (See Primates.)
(R. L.*)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Tarrasa

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​TARRASA, a town of north-eastern Spain, in the province of Barcelona, 6 m. W.N.W. of Sabadell on the Barcelona- Lerida railway, and in the midst of a narrow plain surrounded by mountains. Pop. (1900) 15,956. Tarrasa was a Roman municipality, and a bishopric from the 5th century to the Moorish invasion in the 8th. It was razed by the Moors and rebuilt .later by the Christians. There are three ancient Romanesque churches, in one of which, San Miguel, some Roman pillars are incorporated. Tarrasa is now mostly a modern industrial town, with fine public buildings, including the royal college, built in 1864 for 450 students besides day scholars, the school of arts and handicrafts, the industrial institute, chamber of commerce, hospitals, town hall, clubs, theatres and many large textile factories. Grain, wine, oil and fruit are produced in the district, and there is a municipal farm, founded in 1885, for experiments in viticulture.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Tartaglia, Niccolò

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​TARTAGLIA, or Tartalea, NICCOLÒ (c. 1506-1559), Italian mathematician, was born at Brescia. His childhood was passed in dire poverty. During the sack of Brescia in 1512, he was horribly mutilated by some French soldiers. From these injuries he slowly recovered, but he long continued to stammer in his speech, whence the nickname, adopted by himself, of "Tartaglia." Save for the barest rudiments of reading and writing, he tells us that he had no master; yet we find him at Verona in 1521 an esteemed teacher of mathematics. In 1534 he went to Venice. For Tartaglia's discovery of the solution of cubic equations, and his contests with Antonio Marie Floridas, see Algebra (History). In 1548 Tartaglia accepted a situation as professor of Euclid at Brescia, but returned to Venice at the end of eighteen months. He died at Venice in 1559.
Tartaglia's first printed work, entitled Nuova scienzia (Venice, 1537). dealt with the theory and practice of gunnery. He found the elevation giving the greatest range to be 45, but failed to demonstrate the correctness of his intuition. Indeed, he. never shook off the erroneous ideas of his time regarding the paths of projectiles, further than to see that no part of them could be a straight line. He nevertheless inaugurated the scientific treatment of the subject. His Quesiti et invenzioni diverse, a collection of the author's replies to questions addressed to him by persons of the most varied conditions, was published in 1546, with a dedication to Henry VIII. of England. Problems' in artillery occupy two out of nine books; the sixth treats of fortification; the ninth gives several examples of the solution of cubic equations. He published in 1551 Regola generate per sollevare ogni ajfondata nave, intitolata la Travagliata Invenzione (an allusion to his personal troubles at Brescia), setting forth a method for raising sunken-ships, and describing the diving-bell, then little known in western Europe. He pursued the subject in Ragionamenti sopra la Travagliata Invenzione (May 1551). His largest work, Trattato generate di numeri e misure, is a comprehensive^ mathematical treatise, including arithmetic, geometry, mensuration, and algebra as far as quadratic equations (Venice, 1556, 1560). He published the first Italian translation of Euclid (1543), and the earliest version from the Greek of some of the principal works of Archimedes (1543). These included the tract De insidentibus aquae, of which his Latin now holds the place of the lost Greek text. Tartaglia claimed the invention of the gunner's quadrant.
Tartaglia's own account of his early life is contained in his Quesili, lib. vi. p. 74. See also Buoncompagni, Intorno ad un testamento inedito di N. Tartaglia (Milan, 1881); Rossi, Elogi di Bresciana illustri, p. 386. Tartaglia's writings on gunnery were translated into English by Lucar in 1588, and into French by Rieffcl in 1845.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Tart

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​TART, a dish of baked pastry containing fruit, a fruit pie; also a small open piece of baked pastry with jam placed upon it. The word was adapted from the O.Fr. tarte; the older form must have been torte, as is seen in the mod. Fr. tourte and the diminutive lorlel or torteau; the origin is the Lat. torta, twisted (torquere, to twist), used of a cake in Med. Lat., the paste or dough of cakes or tarts being rolled or twisted. The alteration of the vowel is also seen in Ital. tartera. In English there is some confusion with " tart," sharp, acid, bitter, which comes from O.E. teart, sharp, severe, properly "tearing," from leran, to tear; cf. "bitter," from "to bite."
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Tarring and Feathering

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​TARRING AND FEATHERING, a method of punishment at least as old as the Crusades. The head of the culprit was shaved and hot tar poured over it, a bag of feathers being afterwards shaken over him. The earliest mention of the punishment occurs in the orders of Richard Cceur de Lion, issued to his navy on starting for the Holy Land in 1191. "Concerning the lawes and ordinances appointed by King Richard for his navie the forme thereof was this . . . item, a thiefe or felon that hath stolen, being lawfully convicted, shal have his head shorne, and boyling pitch poured upon his head, and feathers or downe strawed upon the same whereby he may be knowen, and so at the first landing-place they shall come to, there to be cast up" (trans, of original statute in Hakluyt's Voyages, ii. 21). A later instance of this penalty being inflicted is given in Notes and Queries (series 4, vol. v.), which quotes one James Howell writing from Madrid, in 1623, of the " boisterous Bishop of Halverstadt," who, " having taken a place where there were two monasteries of nuns and friars, he caused divers feather ​beds to be ripped, and all the feathers thrown into a great hall, whither the nuns and friars were thrust naked with their bodies oiled and pitched and to tumble among these feathers, which makes them here (Madrid) presage him an ill-death." In 1696 a London bailiff, who attempted to serve process on a debtor who had taken refuge within the precincts of the Savoy, was tarred and feathered and taken in a wheelbarrow to the Strand, where he was tied to the Maypole which stood by what is now Somerset House. It is probable that the punishment was never regarded as legalized, but was always a type of mob vengeance.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sedum

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​SEDUM, in botany, a genus of the natural order Crassulaceae, containing about 120 species, natives chiefly of the north temperate and frigid regions, and mostly perennial herbs with succulent leaves of varied form, but never compound. The white or yellow, rarely, pink or blue, flowers are usually small and grouped in cymes. They have a calyx of fine sepals, as many petals, usually ten stamens and five distinct carpels, which have as many glands at their base and ripen into as many dry seed-pods. Several species are British, including some with tuberous roots and large leaves (Telephium), and others of smaller size, chiefly found on rocks, walls and dry banks; S. acre is stonecrop (see fig. 1), well, known also in gardens, a variety of which, aureum, is in cultivation with golden-yellow tips to the leaves and shoots. Many others are cultivated for the beauty of their foliage or flowers, and many are remarkable for their vitality under adverse circumstances. They succeed on rockwork, old walls or as border plants; some, e.g. S. Lydium, a native of Asia Minor, are excellent for carpet bedding. S. spectabile, 1 to 1½ ft., with pink flowers in great cymose heads, is a fine plant for the borders, and worthy also of pot-culture for greenhouse decoration. S. Sieboldi and its variegated form, from Japan, are often grown in hanging pots or baskets in cottage windows. Sedums are very closely allied to Sempervivums (see Houseleek).
Sedum acre (Stonecrop). (After Curtis.) Flora Lindinensis. 1, Diagram of flower; 2, flower enlarged.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Seetzen, Ulrich Jasper

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​SEETZEN, ULRICH JASPER (1767–1811), German explorer of Arabia and Palestine, was born, the son of a yeoman, in the little lordship of lever in German Frisia on the 30th of January 1767. His father, who was a man of substance, sent him to the university of Göttingen, where he graduated in medicine. His chief interests, however, were in natural history and technology; he wrote papers on both these subjects which gained him some reputation, and had both in view in making a series of journeys through Holland and Germany. He also engaged in various small manufactures, and in 1802 obtained a government post in Jever. In 1801, however, the interest which he had long felt in geographical exploration culminated in a resolution to travel. In the summer of 1802 he started down the Danube with a companion Jacobsen, who broke down at Smyrna a year later. His journey was by Constantinople, where he stayed six months, thence through Asia Minor to Smyrna, then again through the heart of Asia Minor to Aleppo, where he remained from November 1803 to April 1805, and made himself sufficiently at home with Arabic speech and ways to travel as a native. Now began the part of his travels of which a full journal has been published (April 1805 to March 1809), a series of most instructive journeys in eastern and western Palestine and the wilderness of Sinai, and so on to Cairo and the Fayum. His chief exploit was a tour round the Dead Sea, which he made without a' companion and in the disguise of a beggar. From Egypt he went by sea to Iidda and reached Mecca as a pilgrim in October 1809. In Arabia he made extensive journeys, ranging from Medina to Lahak and returning to Mocha, from which place his last letters to Europe were written in November 1810. In September of the following year he left Mocha with the hope of reaching Muscat, and was found dead two days later, having, it is believed, been poisoned by the command of the imām of Sana.
For the parts of Seetzen’s journeys not covered by the published journal (Reisen, ed. Kruse, 4 vols., Berlin, 1854), the only printed records are a series of letters and papers in Zach’s Monatliche Correspondenz and Hammer’s Fundgruben. Many papers and collections were lost through his death or never reached Europe. The collections that were saved form the Oriental museum and the chief part of the Oriental MSS. of the ducal library in Gotha.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sedulius, Coelius

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​SEDULIUS, Coelius or Caelius (a praenomen of doubtful authenticity), a Christian poet of the first half of the 5th century, is termed a presbyter by Isidore of Seville and in the Gelasian decree. He must not be confused with Sedulius the Irish-Scot grammarian of the 9th century. His fame rests mainly upon a long poem, Carmen paschale, based on the four gospels. In style a bombastic imitator of Virgil, he shows, nevertheless, a certain freedom in the handling of the Biblical story, and the poem soon became a quarry for the minor poets. A hymn by Sedulius in honour of Christ, consisting of twenty-three quatrains of iambic dimeters, has partly passed into the liturgy, the first seven quatrains forming the Christmas hymn A solis ortus cardine, and some later ones the Epiphany hymn, Hostis Herodes impie. A Veteris et novi Testamenti collatio in elegiac couplets has also come down, but we have no grounds for ascribing to him the Virgilian cento, De verbi incarnatione.
Sedulius's works were edited by F. Arevalo (Rome, 1794), reprinted in P. Migne's Patrol. Lat. vol. xix.; and finally by J. Huemer (Vienna, 1885). See J. Huemer, De Sedulii poëtae vita et scriptis commentatio (Vienna, 1878); M. Manitius, Geschichte der christlich-lateinischen Poesie (Stuttgart, 1891); Teuffel-Schwabe, Hist. of Roman Lit. (Eng. trans.), 473; Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopädie für protestantische Theologie, xviii. (Leipzig, 1900); Smith and Wace, Dictionary of Christian Biography (1887).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/See

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​SEE (Lat. sedes, a seat), a seat or throne, particularly the throne of a bishop, the cathedra, the symbol of his office and dignity, the placing of which in a church makes it a cathedral (q.v.). The term is thus applied to the place where the bishop's cathedral is situated and from which he properly takes his title, and so is to be distinguished from diocese (q.v.), the territorial province over which his jurisdiction extends (see Bishop).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Seebach, Marie

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​SEEBACH, MARIE (1830-1897), German actress, was born at Riga, in Russia, on the 24th of February 1830, being the daughter of an actor, Wilhelm Friedrich Seebach (1798-1863). After appearing first at Nuremberg as Julie in Kean, she played soubrette parts at Lübeck, Danzig and Cassel. In 1852 she achieved her first great success at the Thaliatheater in Hamburg as Gretchen in Goethe's Faust, and she remained there until 1854, when she appeared in Vienna. She then played in Munich, establishing her reputation as a tragic actress with the roles of Jane Eyre and Adrienne Lecouvreur. From 1855 to 1866 she was engaged at the court theatre at Hanover, and there in 1859 she married the tenor Albert Niemann. In 1866 she followed her husband to Berlin, but separated from him after two years. In 1870-1871 she visited the United States, and gave in seventeen cities no less than 160 performances—mostly of Faust; and in 1886 she accepted a permanent engagement at the Schauspielhaus in Berlin. She retired from the stage in 1897, and died on the 3rd of August of that year. In 1895 she endowed a home for poor actors and actresses at Weimar, called the Marie Seebach Stiftung.
See Gensichen, Aus Marie Seebachs Leben (Berlin, 1900).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sedley, Sir Charles

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​SEDLEY, SIR CHARLES (c. 1639-1701), English wit and dramatist, was born about 1639, and was the son of Sir John Sedley of Aylesford in Kent. He was educated at Wadham College, Oxford, but left without taking a degree. Sedley is famous as a patron of literature in the Restoration period, and was the “Lisideius” of Dryden's Essay of Dramatic Poesy. His most famous song, “Phyllis is my only joy,” is much more widely known now than the author's name. His first comedy, The Mulberry Garden (1668), hardly sustains Sedley's contemporary reputation for wit in conversation. The best, but most licentious, of his comedies is Bellamira; or The Mistress (1687), an imitation of the Eunuchus of Terence, in which the heroine is supposed to represent the duchess of Cleveland, the mistress of Charles II. His two tragedies, Antony and Cleopatra (1667) and The Tyrant King of Crete (1702), an adaptation of Henry Killigrew's Pallantus and Eudora, have little merit. He also produced The Grumbler (1702), an adaptation of Le Grondeur of Brueys and Palaprat. An indecent frolic in Bow Street, for which he was heavily fined, made Sedley notorious. He was member of parliament for New Romney in Kent, and took an active and useful part in politics. A speech of his on the civil list after the Revolution is cited by Macaulay as a proof that his reputation as a man of wit and ability was deserved. His bon mot at the expense of James II. is well known. The king had seduced his daughter and created her countess of Dorchester, whereupon Sedley remarked that he hated ingratitude, and, as the king had made his daughter a countess, he would endeavour to make the king's daughter a queen. He died on the 20th of August 1701.
His only child, Catherine, countess of Dorchester (c. 1657-1717), was the mistress of James II. both before and after he came to the throne, and was created a countess in 1686, an elevation which aroused much indignation and compelled Catherine to reside for a time in Ireland. In 1696 she married Sir David Colyear, Bart. (d. 1730), who was created earl of Portmore in 1703, and she was thus the mother of Charles Colyear, 2nd earl of Portmore (1700-1785). She died at Bath on the 26th of October 1717, when her life peerage became extinct. By James II. Lady Dorchester had a daughter Catherine (d. 1743), who married James Annesley, earl of Anglesey (d. 1702), and after his death married John Sheffield, duke of Buckingham. Through Catherine, her daughter by her first husband, she was the ancestress of the Barons Mulgrave.
See The Works of Sir Charles Sedley in Prose and Verse (1778), with a slight notice of the author.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Seed

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​SEED (from the root seen in Lat. serere, to sow), the fertilized ovule of plants. The seeds of the cryptograms or flowerless plants are not-true seeds and are properly designated “spores” (see Fruit). For the sowing of seed see Sowing.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Towanda

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​TOWANDA, a borough and the county-seat of Bradford county, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., on the west bank of the Susquehanna river, about 50 m. N.W. of Wilkes-Barré. Pop. (1890), 4169; (1900), 4663 (322 foreign-born), (1910) 4281. Towanda is served by the Lehigh Valley and the Susquehanna & New York railways. It is situated about 730 ft. above the sea, and is surrounded by high hills. Towanda contains the museum of the Bradford County Historical Society. The borough is in a farming, dairying and stock-raising region, and has various manufactures. The first settlement was made by William Means in 1786, the village was laid out in 1812, became the county seat in the same year, was variously known for some years as Meansville, Overton, Williamson, Monmouth and Towanda, and in 1828 was incorporated as the borough of Towanda. Its name is an Indian word said to mean “ where we bury the dead.”
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Tow

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​TOW, the term given in textile manufacture to the short fibres formed during the processes of scotching and hackling, and also to the yarns which are made from these fibres. A special machine termed a carding engine or a tow card is used to form these fibres into a sliver, this sliver then passes to the drawing frames, and thereafter follows the same process as line yarns in flax spinning.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Towel

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​TOWEL, a cloth used for the purpose of drying the hands, face or body after bathing or washing. These cloths are made of different materials, known as “ towellings,” the two principal kinds are “ huckaback,” a slightly roughened material for chamber towels for face and hands, and Turkish towelling, with a much rougher surface, for bath towels; finer towellings are made of linen or damask. The term has a particular ecclesiastical usage as applied to a linen altar cloth for to a rich cloth of embroidered silk, velvet, &c., covering the altar at all “ such periods when Mass is not being celebrated.”
The Mid. Eng. towaille comes through the O. Fr. touaille from the Low Lat. toacula, represented in other Romanic languages by Sp. toalla, Ital. tovaglia; this is to be referred to the Teutonic verb meaning “ to wash," O. H. G. twahan, M. H. G. dwahen, O. Eng. þweán, and cf. Ger. Zwehle, provincial Eng. dwile, a dish-cloth.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Town

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​TOWN, in its most general sense, a collection or aggregation of inhabited houses larger than a village. The Old Eng. tun (M. Eng. toun) meant originally a fence or enclosure, cf. Ger. zaun, hedge, hence an enclosed place. The Scottish and Northern English use of the word for a farmhouse and its buildings, a farmstead, preserves this original meaning, and is paralleled by the Icel. tun, homestead, dwelling-house. A cognate Celtic form meaning a fastness, a strong place, appears in Gael. and Irish dun, Welsh din, fortress, hill-fort (cf. Welsh dinas, town). This is familiar from the many Latinized names of places, e.g. Lugdunum, Augustodunum, &c. In English law “town” is not a word defined by statute. For purposes of local government there are boroughs, urban districts and rural districts, but many urban districts are rural in character and the distinction is purely an administrative one (see Borough; City; Commune (Medieval); Municipium; England: Local Government, and the sections on local administration under various country headings). The meaning attached to the term “township” in the local administration of the United States is treated under United States: Local Government.