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# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Spermaceti

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​SPERMACETI (from Lat. sperma, seed, and cetus, a whale), a wax found in the head cavities and blubber of the sperm-whale (Physeter macrocephalus), where it is dissolved in the sperm oil while the creature is living; it also occurs in other Cetacea (see Whale Oils). At a temperature of about 6° C. the solid matter separates in a crystalline condition, and when purified by pressure and treatment with weak solution of caustic alkali it forms brilliant white crystalline scales or plates, hard, but unctuous to the touch, and destitute of taste or smell. It is quite insoluble in water, very slightly affected by boiling alcohol, but easily dissolved in ether, chloroform, and carbon bisulphide. Spermaceti consists principally of cetin or cetyl palmitate, C$_{15}$H$_{31}$CO$_2$C$_{16}$H$_{33}$. The substance is used in making candles of standard photometric value, in the dressing of fabrics, and in medicine and surgery, especially in cerates, bougies, ointments, and in cosmetic preparations.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Spes

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​SPES, in Roman mythology, the personification of Hope. Originally a nature goddess (like Venus the garden goddess, with whom she was sometimes identified), she represented at first the hope of fruitful gardens and fields, then of abundant offspring, and lastly of prosperity to come and good fortune in general, being hence invoked on birthdays and at weddings. Of her numerous temples at Rome, the most ancient was appropriately in the forum olitorium (vegetable market), built during the first Punic war, and since that time twice burnt down and restored. The day of its dedication (August 1) corresponded with the birthday of Claudius, which explains the frequent occurrence of Spes on the coins of that emperor. Spes is represented as a beautiful maiden in a long light robe, lifting up her skirt with her left hand, and carrying in her right a bud already closed or about to open. Sometimes she wears a garland of flowers on her head, ears of corn and poppy-heads in her hand, symbolical of a prosperous harvest. Like Fortune, with whom she is often coupled in inscriptions on Roman tombstones, she was also represented with the cornu copiae (horn of plenty).
See G. Wissowa, Religion und Kultus der Römer (1902), according to whom Spes was originally not a garden goddess, but simply the divinity to whom one prayed for the fulfilment of one's desires.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Spey

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​SPEY, a river in the Highlands of Scotland. It rises in Mt Clach-a-Cheannaiche in the north of Lochaber, in Inverness-shire, at a height of 1497 ft. above the sea. A mile from its source it forms the small Loch Spey, and 31 m. lower down it expands into the larger Loch Inch. After crossing the boundary of Elginshire, below Grantown, it pursues an extremely serpentine course, as far as Craigellachie, where it begins to flow due northwards, becoming wholly a Moray stream as it approaches Fochabers, and falling by several mouths into the Moray Firth at Kingston. Its total length is about 110 m. It is the most rapid river in Scotland and is nowhere properly navigable, though at Speymouth in its lowest reaches some ship-building has been intermittently carried on. The strength of its current is due partly to its lofty origin, and partly to the volume of water contributed by numberless affluents from the mountainous regions of its birth. The more important tributaries are, on the left, the Markie, Calder, Dulnain, Tulchan, Ballintomb and Rothes and, on the right, the Mashie, Truim, Tromie, Feshie, Nethy, Avon, Fiddich and Mulben. Its area of drainage is 1300 sq. m. At certain points the stream attains a considerable width, as at Alvie, where it is 150 ft. wide, and at Kingussie, where its width is from 80 to 100 ft. From below Craigellachie, and especially on the low-lying coast-land, pools or stretches of fair size become frequent. For beauty of scenery Strathspey holds its own with any of the great valleys of Scotland. As a salmon river the Spey yields only to the Tay and Tweed. It passes many interesting spots in its long career, such as Laggan; Cluny Castle, the seat of Cluny Macpherson; Craig Dhu, the “black rock,” and Kingussie. It flows past the pine forests of Rothiemurchus; Granton, the capital of Strathspey; Cromdale, where the clansmen suffered defeat at the hands of William III.'s troops in 1690; Ballindalloch, with a splendid Scottish baronial castle, the seat of the Macpherson-Grants; and Charlestown of Aberlour and its fine cataract.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Meshrebiya

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​MESHREBIYA (drinking places), the Arabic term given to the projecting oriel windows in Cairo, enclosed with latticework, through which a good view of the street can be obtained by the occupants without being seen; the term was derived from the small semicircular bows, in which porous water-bottles are placed to cool by evaporation in the air.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Merx, Adalbert

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​MERX, ADALBERT (1838–1909), German theologian and orientalist, was born at Bleicherode near Nordhausen on the 2nd of November 1838. He studied at Jena, where he became extraordinary professor in 1869. Subsequently he was ordinary professor of philosophy at Tübingen, and in 1873 professor of theology at Giessen. From 1875 till his death he was professor of theology of Heidelberg. In the course of his researches he made several journeys in the East. Among his many works are: Grammatica syriaca (1867–1870); Vocabulary of the Tigré language (1868); Das Gedicht vom Hiob (1871); Die Prophetie des Joel und ihre Ausleger (1879); Die Saadjanische Übersetzung der Hohenlieder ins Arabische (1882); Chrestomathia targumica (1888); Historia artis grammaticae apud Syros (1889); Ein samaritanisches Fragment (1893); Idee und Grundlinien einer allgemeiner Geschichte der Mystik (1893). Merx devoted much of his later research to the elucidation of the Sinaitic palimpsest discovered in 1892 by Mrs Agnes Smith Lewis (see Bible, iv. 321, ad fin.), the results being embodied in Die vier kanonischen Evangelien nach ihrem ältesten bekannten Texte (1897–1905). His last work was an edition of the books of Moses and Joshua. He died at Heidelberg on the 6th of August 1909.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Mersey

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​MERSEY, a river in the north-west of England. It is formed by the junction of the Goyt and the Etherow a short distance below Marple in Cheshire on the first-named stream. The Goyt rises in the neighbourhood of Axe Edge, south-west of Buxton, and the Etherow in the uplands between Penistone and Glossop, watering the narrow Longdendale in which are several reservoirs for the Manchester water supply. The Mersey thus drains a large part of the Peak district of Derbyshire and of the southern portion of the Pennine system. The general direction from Marple is westerly. At Stockport the river Tame joins from the north, rising in the moors to the north-east of Oldham, and the Mersey soon afterwards debouches upon the low plain to the west of Manchester, which lies on its northern tributary the Irwell. The Bollin joins from the south-east near Heatley, and the main river, passing Warrington, begins to expand into an estuary before reaching Runcorn and Widnes, which face each other across it. The estuary, widening suddenly at the junction of the Weaver from the south-east, 21/2 m. below Runcorn, is 3 m. wide off Ellesmere Port, but narrows to less than 3/4 m. at Liverpool, and hardly exceeds a mile at the mouth in the Irish Sea. The fall of the Mersey is about 1600 ft. in all and about 300 from Marple; its length, including the Goyt, is 70 m. exclusive of lesser windings, and it drains an area of 1596 sq. m. The estuary is one of the most important commercial waterways in the world. (See Liverpool and Birkenhead.) The Manchester Ship Canal (q.v.) joins the estuary through Eastham Locks, skirts its southern shore up to Runcorn, and crosses the river several times. From the name of the river was taken the title of Lord Mersey in 1910 by Sir John Bigham (b. 1840), on his elevation to the peerage after serving as a judge of the high court from 1897 to 1909 and president of the divorce court 1909–1910.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Mesa

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​MESA (Span. mesa, from Lat. mensa, a table), in physical geography, a high table-land capped with hard rock, being the remnant of a former plateau. This type is general where strata are horizontal. In the process of denudation the hard rock acts as a flat protective cap preserving the regions between stream valleys or other places where denudation is especially active, in the form of “table-mountains” or “fortress-hills.” Many examples are found in Spain, North and South Africa, the Bad Lands and Colorado regions of North America, in Arabia, India and Australia.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Mersina

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​MERSINA, a town on the south-eastern coast of Asia Minor, and capital of a sanjak in the vilayet of Adana. Pop. about 15,000 including many Christians, Armenian, Greek and European. Its existence as a port began with the silting up of the harbour of Tarsus and Pompeiopolis, east and west, in the early middle ages; but it did not rise to importance till the Egyptian occupation of Cilicia (1832). It is now the busiest port on the south coast, being the terminus of the railway from Tarsus and Adana, by which (but still more by road) the produce of the rich “Aleian” plain comes down. It is served by most of the Levantine steamship companies, and is the best point of departure for visitors desiring to see Tarsus, the Cilician remains, and the finest scenery of the East Taurus. There is, however, no enclosed harbour, but only a good jetty. The making of a breakwater has long been under consideration. The anchorage in the roadstead is good, but the bay shoals for a long way out, and is exposed to swell from south-west and south. Mersina is an American mission centre, and the seat of a British vice-consul. Like all lowland Cilicia, it has a notoriously bad summer climate, and all inhabitants, who can do so, migrate to stations on the lower slopes of Taurus.  (D. G. H.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Merula, Georgius

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​MERULA, GEORGIUS (the Latinized name of Giorgio Mirlina; c. 1430–1494), Italian humanist and classical scholar, was born at Alessandria in Piedmont. The greater part of his life was spent at Venice and Milan, where he held a professorship and continued to teach until his death. To Merula we are indebted for the editio princeps of Plautus (1472), of the Scriptores rei rusticae, Cato, Varro, Columella, Palladius (1472) and possibly of Martial (1471). He also published commentaries on portions of Cicero (especially the De finibus), on Ausonius, Juvenal, Curtius Rufus, and other classical authors. He wrote also Bellum scodrense (1474), on account of the siege of Scodra (Scutari) by the Turks, and Antiquitates vicecomitum, the history of the Visconti, dukes of Milan, down to the death of Matteo the Great (1322); He violently attacked, Politian (Poliziano), whose Miscellanea (a collection of notes on classical authors) were declared by Merula to be either plagiarized from his own writings or, when original, to be entirely incorrect.
See monograph by F. Gabotto and Badini-Confalonieri (1894) with bibliography; for the quarrel with Politian; see also C. Meiners Lebensbeschreibungen der berühmten Männer (1796), ii. 158.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Meshcheryaks

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​MESHCHERYAKS, or Meshchers, a people inhabiting eastern Russia. Nestor regarded them as Finns, and even now part of the Mordvinians (of Finnish origin) call themselves Meshchers. Klaproth, on the other hand, supposed they were a mixture of Finns and Turks, and the Hungarian traveller Reguli discovered that the tatarized Meshchers of the Obi closely resembled Hungarians. They formerly occupied the basin of the Oka (where the town Meshchersk, now Meshchovsk, has maintained their name) and of the Sura, extending north-east to the Volga. After the conquest of the Kazan Empire by Russia, part of them migrated north-eastwards to the basins of the Kama and Byelaya, and thus the Meshchers divided into two branches. The western branch became russified, so that the Meshcheryaks of the governments of Penza, Saratov, Ryazan and Vladimir have adopted the customs, language and religion of the conquering race; but their ethnographical characteristics can be easily distinguished in the Russian population of the governments of Penza and Tambov. The eastern branch has taken on the customs, language and religion of Bashkirs, with whom their fusion is still more complete.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Teck

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​TECK, a ducal castle in the kingdom of Württemberg, immediately to the N. of the Swabian Jura and S. of the town of Kirchheim, crowning a ridge (2544 ft.) of the same name. It was destroyed in the Peasants' War (1525).
The duchy of Teck was acquired early in the 11th century by Berthold, count of Zähringen, whose great-grandson Albert, or Adalbert, styled himself duke of Teck. In 1381 it passed both by conquest and purchase to Württemberg. The title, which had lapsed with the extinction of the Zähringen line in 1439, was revived in 1495 by the German King Maximilian I., who bestowed it upon the dukes of Württemberg. The dignity was renounced by Duke Frederick William Charles upon his elevation to the rank of king in 1806. In 1863 the title “prince of Teck” was conferred by King William I. of Württemberg upon the children of Duke Alexander of Württemberg ​(1804-1885) by his morganatic marriage with Claudine, countess Rhédey, ennobled as countess of Hohenstein; in 1871 Prince Francis, the eldest son of Duke Alexander, was created duke of Teck. His eldest son Adolphus (b. 1868) was in 1910 the holder of the title.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Teanum Apulum

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​TEANUM APULUM, an ancient town of Apulia, Italy, on the road between Larinum and Sipontum, 18 m. E. of the former, at the crossing of the Fortore near the modern village of S. Paolo di Civitate. It was called Teate in earlier times, as appears from its numerous coins, which have Oscan legends. It submitted to Rome in 318 B.C., being then the chief town of Apulia. It was afterwards known as Teanum Apulum, and was a municipium. Some ruins and an old bridge over the Fortore still exist.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Teate Marrucinorum

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​TEATE MARRUCINORUM [mod. Chieti, q.v.], the chief town of the Marrucini, the whole of whose territory was placed under its municipal jurisdiction by the Romans, after the “Social War.” It was thus a town of some importance. Under the church of SS. Pietro e Paolo and the adjoining houses are extensive substructures (in opus reticulalum and brickwork) of the 1st century A.D., belonging to a building erected by M. Vectius Marcellus (probably mentioned by Pliny, H.N., II., 199) and Helvidia Priscilla. There are also remains of large reservoirs and of a theatre.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Teano

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​TEANO (anc. Teanum Sidicinum), a town of Campania, Italy, in the province of Caserta, 21 m. N .W. of that town on the main line to Rome from Naples, forming conjointly with Calvi an episcopal see. Pop. (1901) 6067 (town), 13,505 (commune). It stands at the S.E. foot of an extinct volcano Rocca Monfina (3297 ft.), 643 ft. above sea-level. The cathedral dates from 1530, but has many columns obtained from the ruins of the ancient town. There is a feudal castle built by the dukes of Sessa in the 15th century. Below the town on the S.E. is the old church of S. Paride.
The ancient Teanum Sidicinum (there is a Teanum Apulum, q.v., in Apulia) was the capital of the Oscan tribe of the Sidicini which drove the Aurunci from Rocca Monfina. They probably submitted to Rome in 334 B.C. and their troops were grouped with those of Campania in the Roman army. Thus the garrison of Regium, which in 280 attacked the citizens, consisted of one cohort of Sidicini and two of Campanians. Like Cales, Teanum continued to have the right of coinage, and, like Suessa and Cales, remained faithful to Rome in both the Hannibalic and the Social wars. Its position gave it some military importance, and it was apparently made a colony by Claudius, not by Augustus. Strabo speaks of it as the most important town on the Via Latina, and only coming after Capua among the towns in the interior of Campania. It lay on the Via Latina, here joined by a branch road from Suessa, of which remains still exist, and which continued E. to Allifae. Remains of a theatre and an amphitheatre still exist, and some extensive baths, containing several statues, and some Roman dwellings. both some way below the modern town, were excavated in 1908. A tomb with a Christian mosaic representing the visit of the three kings to Bethlehem was found in 1907 (V. Spinazzola in Notizie degli Scavi, 1907, 697; E. Gabrici, ibid., 1908, 399).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Teasel

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​TEASEL. Wild teasel is a common plant of the English copses and hedges, with a tall, stout, rigid, prickly stem, bearing large spreading opposite leaves, the midrib of which is prickly, and conspicuous oblong heads, the purplish flowers in which are subtended by very long, narrow, stiff, upright bracts. The plant is known botanically as Dipsacus sylvestris. Fuller’s teasel, D. Fullonum, in which the bracts are hooked, is probably a cultivated form of the wild species; the dry heads are used to comb up the nap on cloth. The genus Dipsacus gives its name to the family Dipsaceae, to which also belongs the Scabious (Scabiosa), represented in Britain by several species.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Tecuci

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​TECUCI (Tecuciu), the capital of the Tecuci department of Rumania, picturesquely situated among wooded hills, on the right bank of the river Bêrlad, and at the junction of railways from Bacau, Bêrlad and Galatz. Pop. (1900) 13,401. Tecuci has a large transit trade in grain, timber, cattle and horses, on their way from northern and eastern Moldavia to the Danubian ports. The neighbourhood of Tecuci was the scene of a fierce battle in 1476 between Stephen the Great and the Turks.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Tear

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​TEAR, a drop of the liquid secretion of the lachrymal gland, constantly produced in a certain quantity and flowing through the nasal duct without notice, but, when stimulated by pain, emotion or artificial excitation, increasing so that it fiows over the eyelids and runs down the cheeks and is the visible result of crying or weeping (see Eye). The O.E tear, taer, is represented in other Teutonic languages by Dan. taartt; Swed. tår; Goth. tagr, &c. The O.H.G. was zahar; the mod. Ger. Zähre was formed from the M.H.G. plural Zahere. The commoner word in Ger. Thräne, cf. Du. traan, is closely allied. The original root is seen in Gr. δάκρυ, Lat. lacrima, lacruma, for dacruma, whence Fr. larme, and It., Sp., and Port. lagrima. ​The generally accepted Indo-Germ. root is dak-, to bite, cf. Gr. δάκυειν, and Skt. daç, to bite, tears being “biting” or “bitter” things. The Du. traan, in the sense of tear-drop, was particularly applied to the blubber of whales reduced to oil by boiling, whence has come the tautological English “train-oil,” often identified with the lubricant used for the wheels of railway trains. For the so-called “tear-vessels,” which are properly small vases containing unguents, see Lacrymatory.
“Tear" (O.E. teran), to pull apart violently, to rend, is, of course, a distinct word; it is cognate with Gr. δέρειν, to flay, pull off, and the root is seen in Gr. δέρμα, skin, whence “dermatology,” “epidermis,” &c.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Soulary, Josephin

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​SOULARY, JOSEPHIN [Joseph Marie] (1815-1891), French poet, son of a Lyons merchant of Genoese origin (Solari), was born on the 23rd of February 1815. He entered a line regiment when he was sixteen, serving for five years. He was chef de bureau in the prefecture of the Rhône from 1845 to 1867, and in 1868 he became librarian to the Palais des arts in his native town. He died at Lyons on the 28th of March 1891. His works include À travers champs (1837); Les Cinq cordes du luth (1838); Les Ephémères (two series, 1846 and 1857); Sonnets humoristiques (1862); Les Figulines (1862); Pendant l'invasion (1871); Les Rimes ironiques (1877); Jeux divins (1882), and two comedies. His Œuvres poétiques were collected in three volumes (1872-1883). His Sonnets humoristiques attracted great attention, and charmed their readers by the mixture of gaiety and tragedy. His mastery over the technical difficulties of his art, especially in the sonnet, won him the title of the “Benvenuto of rhyme.”
See also Paul Mariéton, Soulary et la Pléiade lyonnaise (1884).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sou

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​SOU (O. Fr. sol, Lat, solidus, sc. nummus), the name of the bronze 5-centime French coin, corresponding to the English “halfpenny.” It is still colloquially used in France in reckoning, and the franc, 2 and 5-franc pieces are known as pièce de vingt, quarante and cent sous respectively. The solidus was originally a gold coin, first struck c. A.D. 312 by Constantine to take the place of the aureus. In the Eastern Empire this gold coin was the standard down to 1453, and, as the “bezant,” circulated from Portugal to the Indies. In the West after Pippin gold coinage ceased and the solidus in silver became the standard, one pound of silver making 22 sols (solidi) and 264 deniers (denarii). Under Charlemagne one pound of silver = 20 sols = 240 deniers. The livre (libra), the sol and the denier formed the universal money of account throughout France until the Revolution; and they have left their mark on the English money symbols, £ s. d., for pounds, shillings and pence.