OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ross, Alexander

See also Alexander Ross (poet) on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​ROSS, ALEXANDER (1699–1784), Scottish poet, was born on the 13th of April 1699 at Kincardine-O’Neil, Aberdeenshire. He was educated at Marischal College, Aberdeen, and became tutor to the children of Sir William Forbes of Craigievar. He became in 1732 schoolmaster of Lochlee, Angus, where the rest of his life was spent. He 'had long been in the habit of writing verse for his own amusement, when in 1768 he published, at the suggestion of James Beattie, The Fortunate Shepherdess . . . to which is (sic) added a few songs. This is a pastoral narrative poem, written in obvious imitation of Allan Ramsay’s Gentle Shepherd. Its affectations are chiefly on the surface. The background of shepherd life as known to Ross, and the rather sordid motives of the characters, despite their high-sounding names of Helenore, Rosalind, &c., are depicted with uncompromising truth. He died at Lochlee, and was buried on the 26th of May 1784.
See Helenore, or the Fortunate Shepherdess, edited by John Longmuir (1866); also H. Walker, Three Centuries of Scottish Literature (1893), ii. 28–34. The bulk of Ross’s writings remain in MS.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Roskilde

See also Roskilde on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​ROSKILDE, or Roeskilde, a town of Denmark in the amt (county) of Kjöbenhavn (Copenhagen), 20 m. by rail W. of Copenhagen, on the great lagoon-like inlet named Roskilde Fjord. Pop. (1901) 8368. It has a small port, and is an important railway junction, from which lines diverge W., S.W. and S. through the island of Zealand. Its interest, however, is historical. It was the capital of the kingdom until 1443, and the residence of the bishops of Zealand until the Reformation. The cathedral, a beautiful church, was consecrated in 1084, but of this early building only foundation walls remain; the present structure of brick was begun in 1215, and enlarged and restored at various later dates. It stands in relation to Danish history somewhat as Westminster Abbey does to English, containing the tombs of most of the Danish kings from Harold I. (987). The most noteworthy architectural details are the Chapel of the Trinity (15th century) and that of Christian IV. (Renaissance, 1617), carved choir stalls, and an altar-piece of the 16th century. Other old buildings are a church of Our Lady, dating as it stands from 1242, a diocesan library (partly of the 15th century), royal palace (1733) and institute for daughters of noblemen (1670).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ross

See also Ross-on-Wye on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​ROSS, a market town in the Ross parliamentary division of Herefordshire, England; 133 m. W. by N. from London and 12 S.E. from Hereford by the Great Western railway. Pop. of urban district (1901) 3303. It occupies a fine position on and about a rocky eminence on the left bank of the river Wye. There are manufactures of machinery and agricultural implements, and trade in the products of the district, such as cider and malt, and several fairs are held annually. The church of St Mary the Virgin stands high, and is surmounted by a lofty spire; it shows good Decorated and Perpendicular work. A beautiful terrace called the Prospect adjoins the churchyard and overlooks the river. The market house, dated 1670, is a picturesque building supported on columns, thee upper portion serving as a town hall. There are in the town many memorials of John Kyrle, the Man of Ross, who died here in 1724, and is eulogized by Pope in his third Moral Epistle (1732). The Prospect was acquired and laid out by Kyrle, who also planted the fine elm avenues near the church; his house stands opposite the market house, where he disbursed his charities; he erected the church spire, and is buried in the chancel, where his grave remained without a monument until Pope called attention to the omission. Nearly opposite the town is Wilton Castle, which defended the ford in the disturbed reign of Stephen, and suffered in the Civil Wars, being held for the Parliament and burned by the Royalists. The inhabited portion is modern. Four miles below Ross the important ford of Goodrich probably carried traffic in British and Roman times, and a magnificent castle, on a precipice rising sheer above the right bank of the river, commands it. The keep is doubtfully assigned to a date previous to the Conquest; the important position on the Welsh March led to several subsequent additions, especially in the 14th century, and the castle was only dismantled by order of the Parliamentarians after it had strongly resisted their arms on behalf of Charles I. in 1646, being the last to fall of the royal strongholds in this county.
Ross (Ros, Rosse) was granted to the see of Hereford by Edmund Ironside, but became crown property by an exchange effected in 1559. It derived importance from its situation on the road to South Wales. In 1305, only, it was represented in parliament by two members; but it was never incorporated, and was governed by appointees of the manor court, until the Ross Improvement Act of 1865 established elected commissioners of the borough. Fairs on the days of the Ascension, Corpus Christi, St Margaret and St Andrew were conferred by Henry III., and were in existence in 1888. A market every Thursday was granted by Stephen and confirmed by Henry III.; Friday is now market day.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Rosewood

See also Rosewood on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​ROSEWOOD, the name given to several distinct kinds of ornamental timber. That, however, so called in the United Kingdom is Brazilian rosewood, the palissandre of the French, the finest qualities of which, coming from the provinces of Rio de Janeiro and Bahia, are believed to be the produce principally of Dalbergia nigra, leguminous tree of large dimensions, ​called cabiuna and jacaranda by the Brazilians. The same name, jacaranda, is applied to several species of Machaerium, also trees belonging to the natural order Leguminosae; and there can be no doubt that a certain proportion of the rosewood of commerce is drawn from these sources. Rosewood comes to the United Kingdom from Rio de Janeiro, Bahia, Jamaica and Honduras. The heartwood attains large dimensions, but as it begins to decay before the tree arrives at maturity it is always faulty and hollow in the centre. On this account squared logs or planks of rosewood are never seen, the wood being imported in half-round flitches 10 to 20 ft. in length and from 5 to 12 in. in their thickest part. Owing to its irregular form, the wood is sold by weight, and its value varies within wide limits according to the richness of colour. Rosewood has a deep ruddy brown colour, richly streaked and grained with black resinous layers. It takes a fine polish, but, on account of its resinous nature, it is somewhat difficult to work. The wood is very much in demand both by cabinet-makers and pianoforte-makers, by whom it is used both solid and in veneer.
The wood of Dalbergia latifolia, a native of the East Indies, used for ornamental furniture and carvings under the name of black wood, is frequently termed East Indian Rosewood. The Bois de Rose of the French, the Portuguese Pao de Rosa, and the German Rosenholz is a Brazilian wood, the produce of Physocalymma floribundum, called in the United Kingdom tulip wood, and very highly esteemed on account of its beautiful rose colour and grain.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Rosin

See also Rosin on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​ROSIN (a later variant of “ resin, ” q.v.) or COLOPHONY (Colophonia resina, resin from Colophon in Lydia), the resinous constituent of the oleo-resin exuded by various species of pine, known in commerce as crude turpentine. The separation of the oleo-resin into the essential oil-spirit of turpentine and common rosin is effected by distillation in large copper stills. The essential oil is carried off at a heat of between 2120 and 316° F., leaving fluid rosin, which is run off through a tap at the bottom of the still, and purified by passing through a straining wadding. Rosin varies in colour, according to the age of the tree whence the turpentine is drawn and the amount of heat applied in distillation, from an opaque almost pitchy black substance through grades of brown and yellow to an almost perfectly transparent colourless glassy mass. The commercial grades are numerous, ranging by letters from A, the darkest, to N, extra pale, -superior to which are W, “window glass, ” and WW, “water white” varieties, the latter having about three times the value of the common qualities. Rosin is a brittle and friable resin, with a faint piny odour; the melting-point varies with different specimens, some being semi-fluid at the temperature of boiling water, while others do not melt till 2200 or 250° F. It is soluble in alcohol, ether, benzene and chloroform. Rosin consists mainly of abietic acid, and combines with caustic alkalis to form salts (rosin ates or pinates) that are known as “ rosin soaps.” In addition to its extensive use in soap-making, rosin is largely employed in making inferior varnishes, sealing-wax and various cements. It is also used for preparing shoemaker's wax, as a flux for soldering metals, for pitching lager beer casks, for rosining the bows of musical instruments and numerous minor purposes. In pharmacy it forms an ingredient in several plasters and ointments. On a large scale it is treated by destructive distillation for the production of rosin spirit, pinoline and rosin oil. The last enters into the composition of some of the solid lubricating greases, and is also used as an adulterant of other oils.
The chief region of rosin production, is the South Atlantic and Eastern Gulf states of the United States. American rosin is obtained from the turpentine of the swamp pine, Pinus austral is, and of the loblolly pine, P. T aeda. The main source of supply in Europe is the “landes ” of the departments of Gironde and Landes in France, where the cluster pine, P. Pinaster, is extensively cultivated. In the north of Europe rosin is obtained from the Scotch hr, P. sylvestris, and throughout European countries local supplies are obtained from other species of pine,
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Simson, William

See also William Simson on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​SIMSON, WILLIAM (1800-1847), Scottish portrait, landscape and subject painter, was born at Dundee in 1800. He studied under Andrew Wilson at the Trustees' Academy, Edinburgh, and his early pictures—landscape and marine subjects—found a ready sale. He next turned his attention to figure painting, producing in 1829 the “Twelfth of August,” which was followed in 1830 by “Sportsmen Regaling” and a “Highland Deer-stalker.” In the latter year he was elected a member of the Scottish Academy; and, having acquired some means by portrait-painting, he spent three years in Italy, and on his return in 1838 settled in London, where he exhibited his “Camaldolese monk showing Relics,” his “Cimabue and Giotto,” his “Dutch Family,” and his “Columbus and his Child” at the Convent of Santa Maria la Rabida. He died in London on the 29th of August 1847. Simson is greatest as a landscapist; his “Solway Moss—Sunset,” exhibited in the Royal Scottish Academy of 1831 and now in the National Gallery, Edinburgh, ranks as one of the finest examples of the early Scottish school of landscape. His elder brother George (1791-1862), portrait-painter, was also a member of the Royal Scottish Academy, and his younger brother David (d. 1874) practised as a landscape-painter.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sims, George Robert

See also George Robert Sims on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​SIMS, GEORGE ROBERT (1847–), English journalist and dramatic author, was born on the 2nd of September 1847. He was educated at Hanwell College and at Bonn, and commenced journalism in 1874 as successor to Tom Hood on Fun. His first play, Crutch and Toothpick, was produced at the Royalty Theatre in April 1879, and was followed by a number of plays of which he was author or part-author. After long runs at west end houses, many of these became stock pieces in suburban and provincial theatres. His most famous melodramas were: The Lights of London (Princess's theatre, September 1881), which ran for nearly a year; In the Ranks (Adelphi, Oct. 1883), written with H. Pettit, which ran for 457 nights; Harbour Lights (1885), which ran for 513 nights; Two Little Vagabonds (Princess's Theatre, 1896–1897). He was part-author with Cecil Raleigh of the burlesque opera, Little Christopher Columbus (1893), and among his musical plays were Blue-eyed Susan (Prince of Wales's, 1892) and The Dandy Fifth (Birmingham, 1898). His early volumes of light verse were very popular, notably The Dagonet Ballads (1882), reprinted from the Referee. How the Poor Live (1883) and his articles on the housing of the poor in the Daily News helped to arouse public opinion on the subject, which was dealt with in the act of 1885.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Siméon, Joseph Jérôme, Comte

See also Joseph Jérôme, Comte Siméon on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​ SIMÉON, JOSEPH JÉRÔME, Comte (1749-1842), French jurist and politician, was born at Aix on the 30th of September 1749. His father, Joseph Sextius Simeon (1717-1788), had been professor of law and royal secretary for the parlement of Provence. J. J. Simeon followed his father's profession, but he was outlawed for his share in the federalist movement in 1793, and only returned to France after the revolution of Thermidor. In the council of the Five Hundred, of which he was now a member, he took the conservative side. In 1799, for protesting against the invasion of the chamber by P. F. C. Augereau, he was imprisoned until the 18th Brumaire (9th November). In the Tribunate he had an important share in the preparation of the Civil Code, being rewarded by a seat in the council of state. In 1807 he was one of the commissioners sent to organize the new kingdom of Westphalia, and was premier of King Jerome. He served the Restoration as councillor of state and in the chamber of peers. In 1820 he was under-secretary of state for justice, and in the next year minister of the interior until the fall of the Richelieu ministry. A baron of the Empire and count at the second Restoration, he was admitted to the Academy of Moral and Political Science in 1832, and in 1837 he became president of the Cour des Comptes. He died in Paris on the 19th of January 1842 in his 93rd year.
His son, Joseph Balthasar, Comte Siméon (1781-1846), entered the diplomatic service under the Empire. At the Restoration he was successively prefect of Var, Doubs and Pas de Calais. He was director-general of fine arts in 1828, and had a great reputation as a connoisseur and collector.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Simrock, Karl Joseph

See also Karl Joseph Simrock on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​SIMROCK, KARL JOSEPH (1802-1876), German poet and man of letters, was born on the 28th of August 1802 at Bonn, where his father was a music publisher. He studied law at the universities of Bonn and Berlin, and in 1823 entered the Prussian civil service, from which he was expelled in 1830 for writing a poem in praise of the French July revolution. Afterwards he was admitted as lecturer at the university of Bonn, where in 1850 he was made a professor of Old German literature; and in which city he died on the 18th of July 1876. Simrock established his reputation by his excellent modern rendering of the Nibelungenlied (1827), and of the poems of Walther von der Vogelweide (1833).
Among other works translated by him into modern German were the Arme Heinrich of Hartmann von Aue (1830), the Parzival and Titurel of Wolfram von Eschenbach (1842), the Tristan of Gottfried of Strassburg (1855), and the Heldenbuch (1843-1849), which he supplemented with independent poems. Before the publication of this work he had shown an original poetical faculty in Wieland der Schmied (1835); and in 1844 he issued a volume of Gedichte in which there are many good lyrics, romances and ballads. In 1850 appeared Lauda Sion, and in 1857 the Deutsche Sionsharfe, collections of Old German sacred poetry. Of his republications the most popular and the most valuable were the Deutschen Volksbücher, of which fifty-five were printed between 1839 and 1867. His best contribution to scholarship was his Handbuch der deutschen Mythologie (1853-1855). At an early stage of his career Simrock took a high place among students of Shakespeare by his Quellen des Shakespeare in Novellen, Märchen und Sagen (1831); and afterwards he translated Shakespeare's poems and a considerable number of his dramas. The large number of editions through which Simrock's translations from the Middle High German have passed (the Nibelungenlied more than forty) bear witness to their popularity. An edition of his Ausgewählte Werke in 12 vols. has been published by G. Klee (1907).
See N. Hocker, Karl Simrock, sein Leben und seine Werke (1877); H. Düntzer, “Erinnerungen an Karl Simrock,” in Monatsschrift für Westdeutschland (1877), and E. Schröder's article in Allg. deutsche Biographie.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Simsbury

* related portals: Connecticut.
* sister projects: Wikipedia article, travel guide, Wikidata item.
See also Simsbury, Connecticut on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​SIMSBURY, a township of Hartford county, Connecticut, U.S.A., traversed by the Farmington river and about 10 m. N.W. of Hartford. Pop. (1910) 2537. Area about 38 sq. m. The township is served by the New York, New Haven & Hartford and by the Central New England railways, which meet at Simsbury village. Among the manufactures are fuses, cigars and paper. A tract along the Tunxus (now Farmington) river, called Massacoe or Saco by the Indians, was ceded to whites in 1648, and there were settlers here from Windsor as early as 1664. In 1670 the township was incorporated as Simsbury. In 1675, during King Philip's War, Simsbury was abandoned; and in 1676 it was burnt and pillaged by the Indians; but it was resettled in the following year. Steel seems to have been made here from native iron in 1727, and in 1739 the General Court of Connecticut granted to three citizens of Simsbury a fifteen years' monopoly of making steel in the colony. Owing to the pine forests pitch and tar were important manufactures in early times. From the N. of Simsbury the township of Granby (pop. 1910, 1383) was set off in 1786. In this part of the township a copper mine was worked between 1705 and 1745, and smelting and refining works were built in 1721. In 1773 the mine was leased by the General Court and was fitted up as a public gaol and workhouse (called Newgate Prison), the prisoners being employed in mining. Some Tories were imprisoned here after 1780; many of them escaped in May 1781. The prison was rebuilt in 1790 and was used until 1827. The W. of Simsbury was set off in 1806 as Canton (pop. in 1900, 2678).
See N. A. Phelps, History of Simsbury, Granby and Canton from 1642 to 1845 (Hartford, 1845).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sin-eater

See also Sin-eater on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​SIN-EATER, a man who for trifling payment was believed to take upon himself, by means of food and drink, the sins of a deceased person. The custom was once common in many parts of England and in the highlands of Scotland, and survived until recent years in Wales and the counties of Shropshire and Herefordshire. Usually each village had its official sin-eater to whom notice was given as soon as a death occurred. He at once went to the house, and there, a stool being brought, he sat down in front of the door. A groat, a crust of bread and a bowl of ale were handed him, and after he had eaten and drunk he rose and pronounced the ease and rest of the dead person, for whom he thus pawned his own soul. The earlier form seems to have been more realistic, the sin-eater being taken into the death-chamber, and, a piece of bread and possibly cheese having been placed on the breast of the corpse by a relative, usually a woman, it was afterwards handed to the sin-eater, who ate it in the presence of the dead. He was then handed his fee, and at once hustled and thrust out of the house amid execrations, and a shower of sticks, cinders or whatever other missiles were handy. The custom ​of sin-eating is generally supposed to be derived from the scapegoat (q.v.) in Leviticus xvi. 21, 22. A symbolic survival of it was witnessed as recently as 1893 at Market Drayton, Shropshire. After a preliminary service had been held over the coffin in the house, a woman poured out a glass of wine for each bearer and handed it to him across the coffin with a “ funeral biscuit.” In Upper Bavaria sin-eating still survives: a corpse cake is placed on the breast of the dead and then eaten by the nearest relative, while in the Balkan peninsula a small bread image of the deceased is made and eaten by the survivors of the family. The Dutch doed-koecks or “ dead-cakes,” marked with the initials of the deceased, introduced into America in the 17th century, were long given to the attendants at funerals in old New York. The “ burial-cakes ” which are still made in parts of rural England, for example Lincolnshire and Cumberland, are almost certainly a relic of sin-eating.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Simson, Robert

See also Robert Simson on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​SIMSON, ROBERT (1687-1768), Scottish mathematician, the eldest son of John Simson of Kirktonhill in Ayrshire, was born on the 14th of October 1687. He was intended for the church, but the bent of his mind was towards mathematics, and, when a prospect opened of his succeeding to the mathematical chair at the university of Glasgow, he proceeded to London for further study. After a year in London he returned to Glasgow, and in 1711 was appointed by the university to the professorship of mathematics, an office which he retained until 1761. He died on the 1st of October 1768.
Simson's contributions to mathematical knowledge took the form of critical editions and commentaries on the works of the ancient geometers. The first of his published writings is a paper in the Philosophical Transactions (1723, vol. xl. p. 330) on Euclid's Porisms (q.v.). Then followed Sectionum conicarum libri V. (Edinburgh, 1735), a second edition of which, with additions, appeared in 1750. The first three books of this treatise were translated into English, and several times printed as The Elements of the Conic Sections. In 1749 was published Apollonii Pergaei locorum planorum libri II., a restoration of Apollonius's lost treatise, founded on the lemmas given in the seventh book of Pappus's Mathematical Collection. In 1756 appeared, both in Latin and in English, the first edition of his Euclid's Elements. This work, which contained only the first six and the eleventh and twelfth books, and to which in its English version he added the Data in 1762, was for long the standard text of Euclid in England. After his death restorations of Apollonius's treatise De sectione determinata and of Euclid's treatise De porismatibus were printed for private circulation in 1776 at the expense of Earl Stanhope, in a volume with the title Roberti Simson opera quaedam reliqua. The volume contains also dissertations on Logarithms and on the Limits of Quantities and Ratios, and a few problems illustrative of the ancient geometrical analysis.
See W. Trail, Life and Writings of Robert Simson (1812); C. Hutton, Mathematical and Philosophical Dictionary (1815).