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

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​SNOW-LEOPARD, or Ounce (Felis uncia) a large member of the cat family, from the high mountain regions of Central Asia. It resembles the leopard in general conformation, but has longer fur, grey in colour, marked with large dark rosettes. The dimensions of the head and body are about 4 ft. 4 in., tail 3 ft., and the height 2 ft. This animal lives among rocks, and preys upon wild sheep and goats, and probably large rodents or birds. It carries off sheep, goats and dogs from villages, and even kills ponies, but, it is said, has never been known to attack man (Blanford). Examples Shown in the Zoological Gardens of London have been fairly tame and playful.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Snowdon

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​SNOWDON (Wyddfa, view-place, Eryri, eagle-place), the highest elevation in N. Wales. It is formed chiefly of slates, grits and porphyries of the Cambrian and Silurian systems. It consists of five “ribs” converging at the summit, 3560 ft. above sea-level. Between these lie such depressions as Cwm Glas (blue or green vale) to the N., and Cwm y llan (clearing, town or church vale) to the S. Snowdon is demarcated from the surrounding hills by passes famous for their scenery, such as that of Llanberis (q.v.) to the N .E. and Aberglaslyn to the S. These two passes are joined by Nant Gwynnant (stream, or valley, of the white or happy valley, or stream), skirting the S.E. flanks of the Snowdon massif. Nant Colwyn runs N .W. to Carnarvon. A rack-and-pinion railway (opened in 1897) ascends from Llanberis to the summit of the mountain (4¾ m.). Snowdonia, as the locality is sometimes called, contains several lakes, e.g. Peris and Padarn at Llanberis; Glaslyn and Llydaw between Cribgoch (red crest) and Lliwedd; Cwellyn and others W. of the hill itself; and Gwynnant and Dinas (Y Ddinas) in Nantgwynnant.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Tumkur

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​TUMKUR, or Toomkoor, a town and district of southern India, in the West of Mysore state. The town has a station on the Madras & Southern Mahratta railway, 43 m. N.W. from Bangalore. The area of the district is 4158 sq. m. It consists chiefly of elevated land intersected by river valleys. A range of hills rising to nearly 4000 feet crosses it from north to south, forming the water parting between the systems of the Krishna and the Cauvery. The principal streams are the Jayamangala and the Shimsha. The mineral wealth of Tumkur is considerable; iron is obtained in large quantities from the hill-sides; and excellent building-stone is quarried. The slopes of the Devaray-durga hills, a tract of 18 sq. m., are clothed with forests, in which large game abounds, including tigers, leopards, bears and wild hog. The climate of Tumkur is equable and healthy; the annual rainfall averages 39 in.
The population in 1901 was 679,162, showing an increase of 17% in the decade. The cultivated products consist chiefly of millets, rice, pulses and oil seeds. The chief industries are the making of coarse cotton cloths, woollen blankets and ropes.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Tummel

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​TUMMEL, a river of Perthshire, Scotland. Discharging from Loch Rannoch, it flows eastward to a point near the Falls of Tummel, where it bends to the S.E., a direction which it maintains until it falls into the Tay, just below Logierait, after a course of 58 m. from its source in Stob Ghabbar (3565 ft.). Its only considerable affluent is the Garry, 24 m. long, an impetuous river which issues from Loch Garry (2$^1$⁄$_2$ m. long, $^1$⁄$_4$ m. wide, and 1334 ft. above the sea). About midway in its course the Tummel expands into Loch Tummel (2$^3$⁄$_4$ m. long, $^1$⁄$_2$ m. wide, 128 ft. deep, and 500 ft above the sea), between which and the confluence with the Garry occur the Pass and Falls of the Tummel, which are rather in the nature of rapids, the descent altogether amounting to 15 ft. The scenery throughout this reach is most picturesque, culminating at the point above the eastern extremity of the loch, known as Queen Victoria’s View. The chief places of interest on the river are Kinloch Rannoch; Dunalastair, a rocky hill in well-wooded grounds, the embellishment of which was largely due to Alexander Robertson of Struan (1670–1749), the Jacobite and poet, from whom the spot takes its name (“ the stronghold of Alexander ”); Foss; Faskally House (beautifully situated on the left bank); Pitlochry; and Ballinluig.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Tunbridge Wells

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​TUNBRIDGE WELLS, a municipal borough and inland watering-place of England, chiefly in the Tonbridge parliamentary division of Kent, but extending into the eastern division of Sussex, 34½ m. S.E. by S. of London by the South Eastern & Chatham railway, served also by a branch of the London Brighton & South Coast line. Pop. (1891), 29,296; (1901), 33,375. It owes its popularity to its chalybeate springy and its beautiful situation in a hilly wooded district. The wells are situated by the Parade (or Pantiles), a walk associated with fashion since the time of their discovery. It was paved with pantiles in the reign of Queen Anne. Reading and assembly rooms adjoin the pump-room. The town is built in a picturesquely irregular manner, and a large part of it consists of districts called “ parks ” occupied by villas and mansions. On Rusthall Common about a mile from the town is the curiously shaped mass of sandstone known as the Toad Rock, and a mile and a half south-west is the striking group called the High Rocks. The Tunbridge Wells sanatorium is situated in grounds sixty acres in extent. Five miles south-east of Tunbridge Wells is Bayham Abbey, founded in 1200, where ruins of a church, a gateway, and dependent buildings adjoin the modern Tudor mansion. Three miles south, in Sussex, the village of Frant stands on a hill which is perhaps the finest of the many view-points in this district, commanding a wide prospect over some of. the richest woodland scenery in England. The vicinity of Tunbridge Wells is largely residential. To the north lies the urban district of Southborough (pop. 6977). There is a. large trade in Tunbridge ware, which includes work-tables, boxes, toys, &c., made of hard woods, such as beech, sycamore, holly, and cherry, and inlaid with mosaic. Tunbridge Wells was incorporated in 1889, and is governed by a mayor, 8 aldermen and 24 councillors. Area, 3991 acres.
The town owes its rise to the discovery of the medicinal springs by Dudley, Lord North, in 1606. Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I., retired to drink the waters at Tunbridge Wells after the birth of her eldest son Charles. Soon after the Restoration it was visited by Charles II. and Catherine of Braganza. It was a favourite residence of the princess Anne previous to her accession to the throne, and from that time became one of the chief resorts of London fashionable society. In this respect it reached its height in the second half of the 18th century, and is specially associated with Colley Cibber, Samuel Johnson, Cumberland the dramatist, David Garrick, Samuel Richardson, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Beau Nash, Miss Chudleigh and Mrs Thrale. The Tunbridge Wells of that period is sketched with much graphic humour in Thackeray's Virginians.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Tumulus

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​TUMULUS, a Latin word meaning a heap or mound, also in classical writings in the secondary sense of a grave. In Roman epitaphs we meet with the formula tumulum faciendum curavit, meaning the grave and its monument; and on the inscribed monumental stones placed over the early Christian graves of Gaul and Britain the phrase in hoc tumulo jacet expresses the same idea. But among archaeologists the word is usually restricted in its technical modern application to a sepulchral mound of greater or less magnitude. The mound may be of earth, or of stones with a covering of earth, or may be entirely composed of stones. In the latter case, if the tumulus of stones covers a megalithic cist or a sepulchral chamber with a passage leading into it from the outside, it is often called a dolmen. (See Stone Monuments, Barrow and Cairn.) The custom of constructing sepulchral tumuli was widely prevalent throughout the prehistoric ages and is referred to in the early literature of various races as a fitiing commemoration of the illustrious dead. Prehistoric tumuli are found abundantly in almost all parts of Europe and Asia from Britain to Japan. They occur with frequency also in northern Africa, and in many parts of North and South America the aboriginal populations have practised similar customs. Sepulchral tumuli, however vary so much in shape and size that the external appearance is no criterion of age or origin. In North America, especially in the Wisconsin region, there are numerous mounds made in shapes resembling the figures of animals, birds or even human forms. These have not been often found to be sepulchral, but they are associated with sepulchral mounds of the ordinary form, some of which are as much as 300 ft. in diameter and 90 ft. in height. Perhaps the largest tumulus on record is the tomb of Alyattes, king of Lydia, situated near Sardis, constructed in his own lifetime, before 560 B.C. It is a huge mound, 1180 ft. in diameter and 200 ft. high. In south-eastern Europe, and especially in southern Russia, the sepulchral tumuli are very numerous and often of great size, reaching occasionally to 400 ft. in circumference and over 100 ft. in height. These are mostly of the period of the Greek colonies of the Tauric Chersonese, dating from about the 5th century B.C. to about the 2nd century A.D., and their contents bear striking testimony to the wealth and culture of the people who reared them.
Authorities.—Duncan McPherson, M.D., Antiquities of Kertch and Researches in the Cimmerian Bosporus (London, 1857); Cyrus Thomas, ”Burial Mounds of the Northern Sections of the United States,” Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Smithsonian Institution (Washington, 1887); Kondakoff, Tolstoi and Reinach, Antiquités de la Russie méridionale (Paris, 1891).
(J. An.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Tundra

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​TUNDRA (a Russian word, signifying a marshy plain), in physical geography, the name applied to the treeless and often marshy plains which border the arctic coasts of Europe, Asia ​and North America. The Russian tundra, apart from the arctic conditions of climate and flora, may be compared with the steppes farther south.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Tulu

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​TULU, or Tuluva, a language of the Dravidian family, found chiefly in the South Kanara district of Madras. It has no literature, nor has it been adopted for official use even where it is spoken by the majority of the population. In 1901 the total number of speakers of Tulu exceeded half a million.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Tumble-weed

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​TUMBLE-WEED, a botanical term for a plant which breaks loose when dry, and is blown about, scattering its seeds by the way.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Tun

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​TUN, a town in the province of Khorasan, Persia, situated about 150 m. S. of Nishapur in 34° N., 58° 7' E., at an elevation of 1200 ft. The town, which has a population of 7000, is surrounded by a wall, 20 ft. in height, raised on a high rampart of mud. It has three gates, handsome bazaars, good caravanserais and numerous large gardens and fields producing opium, tobacco and cotton. Some silk is also grown.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Tumbler

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​TUMBLER, that which “ tumbles,” i.e. falls or rolls over or down. The O. Eng. tumbiare, of which Mid. Eng. tumblere is a frequentative form, appears also in Du. tuimelen, Ger. taumeln, to stagger, tumble about; Fr. tomber, to fall, is Teutonic in origin. As applied to a person, “ tumbler ” is another word for an acrobat, one who shows his agility by turning somersaults, standing on his head, walking or dancing on his hands, &c. It is interesting to note that Herodias' daughter Salome is described as a tumbestere in Harl. MS., 1701, f. 8, quoted by Halliwell (Dict. of Archaic Words), and in the margin of Wycliffe's Bible (Matt. xiv. 6) tumblide is given as a variant of daunside (danced). Similarly, in early pictures of her dancing before Herod, she is represented sometimes as standing on her head. The common drinking-glass known as a “ tumbler,” which now is the name given to a plain cylindrical glass without a stem or foot, was originally a glass with a rounded or pointed base, which could only stand on being emptied and inverted (see Drinking Vessels, Plate I., fig. 3).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sowerby, James

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​SOWERBY, JAMES (1757–1822), English natural-history artist, was born in London on the 21st of March 1757. He became a student at the Royal Academy, and subsequently taught drawing, but soon applied his art to the illustration of botanical and conchological works, and became distinguished by the publication of his English Botany (36 vols., 1790–1814), and British Mineralogy (5 vols., 1804–1817). He likewise planned and carried out for a number of years the classic geological work intended to describe and illustrate the British fossils, and entitled The Mineral Conchology of Great Britain (7 vols., 1812–1846). This was issued in parts, with the assistance first of his elder son, J. de C. Sowerby, and, after J. Sowerby’s death (Oct. 25, 1822), of his second son, G. B. Sowerby, both the sons being themselves expert palaeontologists. The Sowerby collection, consisting of about 5000 fossils, was purchased by the British Museum in 1860.
The elder son, James de Carle Sowerby (1787–1871), was in 1838 one of the founders of the Royal Botanic Society, and was its secretary for thirty years. He supplied the plates and part of the text to the Supplement to English Botany (4 vols., 1831–1849); but his most important work related to palaeontology, as he identified and in many cases described the invertebrate fossils for papers by Buckland, Sedgwick, Fitton, Murchison and others in the Transactions of the Geological Society of London.
The younger son, George Brettingham Sowerby (1788–1854) was author of The Genera of Recent and Fossil Shells (1820–1825), and one of the editors of the Zoological Journal (1825–1826). His son, G. B. Sowerby (1812–1884), author of the Conchological Manual (1839; 4th ed., 1852), and grandson G. B. Sowerby (b. 1843), a distinguished student of the Mollusca, inherited the family talent for natural history.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Spade

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​SPADE, a tool for digging and loosening the soil; together with the fork it forms one of the chief implements wielded by the hand in agriculture and horticulture. Its typical shape is a broad flat blade of iron with a sharp lower edge, straight or curved, the upper edge on either side of the handle affording space for the foot of the digger, which drives it into the ground; the wooden handle terminates in a cross-piece, usually forming a kind of loop for the hand. The word in O.Eng. is spaedu, cognate forms being Du., Swed. and Dan. spade, Ger. Spaten; it is derived from the Gr. σπάθη, a broad blade of wood or metal, and so used of the blade of an oar or sword. This was latinized as spatha, and used of a broad paddle for stirring liquid, of a piece of wood used by weavers for driving home the woof, and particularly of a broad two-edged sword without a point. The Spanish playing cards had " swords " for the suit which we know as " spades," and the suit was called espada (see Cards, Playing) .
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Spahis

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​SPAHIS (in Persian Sipari, meaning warriors, and synonymous with Sepoy) originally the holders of fiefs in Central Asia who yielded personal military service to their superior chief. In time the term came to be applied to the soldiery furnished in their own stead. A similar institution existed in Turkey, and the “Spahis” were the light irregular cavalry which from the time of Sultan Amurath I. (1326) down to the beginning of the 19th century formed the flower of the Turkish army; at one period they are estimated to have numbered 130,000. “Spahis” is the term now applied to certain native cavalry regiments in Algiers and Tunis, officered by Frenchmen.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sowerby Bridge

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​SOWERBY BRIDGE, an urban district in the Sowerby parliamentary division of the West Riding of Yorkshire, England, 3 m. S.W. of Halifax by the Lancashire & Yorkshire railway. It is situated on both sides of the river Calder, at the termination of the Rochdale canal. Christ Church, dating from 1526, was rebuilt in 1819. The town is almost entirely a growth of the second half of the 19th century. It possesses worsted and cotton mills, iron works, dye works and chemical works. The separate urban district of Sowerby adjoins to the south-west. Pop. (1901), Sowerby Bridge, 11,477; Sowerby, 3653.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Soyer, Alexis Benoît

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​SOYER, ALEXIS BENOIT (1800-1858), French culinary artist, was born at Meaux-en-Brie, France, in October 1809. After five years' apprenticeship as a cook near Versailles, he was engaged by a well-known Paris restaurateur, and soon became chief cook. Leaving France at the revolution of 1830, he went to London and joined his brother in the kitchen of the duke of Cambridge. Subsequently he was cook in several noblemen's kitchens, and in 1837 was made chef to the Reform Club, London. In 1847, having written several letters to the press on the famine in Ireland, he was commissioned by the government to establish kitchens in Dublin. In 1850 he resigned his position at the Reform Club, and the following year opened Gore House, Kensington, as a restaurant, but this venture did not prove a success. In 1855 he offered, through the medium of The Times, to proceed at his own expense to the Crimea and advise on the cooking for the British army there. His services were accepted by the government. On returning from the front he lectured at the United Service Institution on cooking for the services, and reformed the dietary of the military hospitals, and of the emigration commissioners, He ​died in London on the 5th of August 1858. Soyer was the inventor of an army cooking wagon, and the author of a variety of cookery books. His wife, Elizabeth Emma Soyer, achieved considerable popularity as a painter, chiefly of portraits.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Spagna, Lo

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​SPAGNA, LO (d. -c. 1529), the usual designation (due to his Spanish origin) of the Italian painter Giovanni di Pietro, one of the chief followers of Perugino. The famous " Sposalizio "—marriage of Joseph and Mary— in the Caen museum, formerly attributed to Perugino (q.v.), is now credited to Lo Spagna. Nothing whatever is known of his early life, or how he became a member of the Perugian school. There is. a marked absence of individuality about his style, which seems like an imitation of the earliest manner of Raphael and that of Pinturicchio in a weaker and less virile form. The chief of his numerous panel paintings are the " Nativity," in the Vatican, and the " Adoration of the Magi," at Berlin. In 1510 Lo Spagna executed many frescoes at Todi, and in 1512 several other mural paintings in and near Trevi. His most important works were frescoes at Assisi and Spoleto, of which some exist in good preservation. He received the freedom of the city of Spoleto in 1516, as a reward for his work there. Lo Spagna's frescoes reach a much higher standard of merit than his panel pictures. The museum of the Capitol in Rome now possesses a very beautiful series of life-sized fresco figures by him, representing Apollo and the ​Nine Muses. Lo Spagna was alive in 1528, but he appears to have died before 1530, as in that year a pupil of his named Doni completed a fresco in S. Jacopo, near Spoleto, which Lo Spagna had begun.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Spa

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​SPA, a town, of Belgium, lying less than 20 m. S.E. of Liége and in the same province, famous for its mineral springs, which are reputed to be the oldest known in Europe, having been first discovered in 1326. They are supposed to have given the common name of “spa” to such resorts. The town is situated 850 ft. above sea-level and the heights above the valley reach 1100 ft. In the 18th century it was the most fashionable resort in Europe for the medicinal use of such waters, being visited by Peter the Great of Russia, Gustavus III. of Sweden, and Joseph II. of Austria. In 1807 much of the town was burned down, while the principal buildings, the Casino and the Pouhon, are quite modern. Spa has not held its own with its many French and German rivals, but it still attracts about 20,000 visitors annually. Pop. (1904), 7759.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Rough Cast

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​ROUGH CAST (the French equivalent is crépis), in architecture, the exterior coating originally given to the walls of common dwellings and outbuildings, but now frequently employed for decorative effect on country houses, especially those built in half timber. It is a composition of small gravel and sand, mixed with strong lime mortar, and is thrown on the walls already covered with two ordinary coats of plaster. Variety can be obtained on the surface of the wall by small pebbles of different colours, and in the Tudor period fragments of glass were sometimes embedded. The central tower of St Alban’s cathedral, built with Roman tiles from Verulam, was covered with rough cast believed to be coeval with the building. The rough cast was removed about 1870.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Roulers

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​ROULERS (Flemish Roeselaere), a town of Belgium, in the province of West Flanders, 13 m. N.W. of Courtrai. Pop. (1904) 24,548. It is one of the oldest communes in Belgium, and was famous for its weavers in the 11th and 12th centuries. Its prosperity depends on the cultivation of flax and the manufacture of linen. The church of St Michael is remarkable for its lofty tower. Baldwin VIII., count of Flanders, died here in 1120, and in 1794 the French under Pichegru defeated the Austrians under Clerfayt.