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

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​SNAKE-ROOT. In most countries where snakes abound some root or herb is used by the natives as an antidote for the bites of venomous species, and many herbs have consequently received the name of snake-root. Botanically speaking, the name properly belongs to Ophiorrhiza Mungos, the Mungoose plant, a plant of the natural order Rubiaceae, used in the E. Indies for the purpose above indicated. In medicine, however, the roots of Aristolochia Serpentaria, Polygala Senega and Cimicifuga racemosa were understood by this name, being distinguished as the Virginian, seneca and black snake-roots. The root of Aristolochia reticulata is known in the United States as Red river or Texan snake-root.
The roots or rhizome of Liatris spicata, Eryngium aquaticum and Eupatorium altissimum have all been used in N. America for snake-bites, the first two being known as button snake-root and the last as white snake-root. The rhizome of Asarum canadense passes under the name of Canadian snake-root. All of these contain acrid or aromatic principles which, when a warm decoction of the drug is taken, exercise a powerfully diaphoretic or, in some cases, diuretic action, to which any benefit that may be derived from their use must be attributed.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Snell, John

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​SNELL, JOHN (1629–1679), founder of the Snell exhibitions at Oxford, was born in 1629 in Ayrshire, Scotland, the son of a blacksmith. He joined the royalists during the civil war, and fought in several battles, including Worcester. Thereafter he took refuge in Cheshire, where he met Sir Orlando Bridgeman, whose clerk he became, being raised to the offices of court-crier and seal-bearer as his patron was promoted to those of judge and Lord Keeper. Later he was secretary to the Duke of Monmouth and had the management of his Scottish estates. He died at Oxford on the 6th of August 1679, leaving a bequest for sending students from Glasgow University to an Oxford college or hall. The Court of Chancery decided in 1693 that Balliol should receive the beneficiaries.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sneek

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​SNEEK, a town in the province of Friesland, Holland, to the west of Sneek lake, 14 m by rail S.S.W. of Leeuwarden, with which it is also connected by canal. Steam tramways connect it S.E. with Heerenveen and N.W. with Bolsward and Harlingen. Pop. (1900) 12,075. Sneek is one of the great butter and cheese markets of the province. One of the former city gates (1615) remains, and there are a town hall, communal buildings (1863), court-house, weigh-house, synagogue and churches of various denominations, in one of which is the tomb of the naval hero of the 16th century, Lange, or Groote Pier (Long or Great Peter). The horse-fair of Sneek is widely attended, and there is a considerable activity in trade and shipping.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Snapdragon

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​SNAPDRAGON, or Antirrhinum (Gr. ῥἰς, ῥινὀς, snout, from the shape of the flower), a plant of the natural order Scrophulariaceae (q.v.), native to central and south Europe, occurring as an alien on old walls in Britain. It is an old-fashioned garden perennial of easy cultivation. Antirrhinum majus, sown in heat, and forwarded until the general time for planting out, becomes a summer annual, and may be so treated; but under a slower and more hardy regime it may be sown in boxes in August, and pricked off into other boxes and wintered in a frame. So treated, and planted out in well-prepared beds of good friable garden soil, it will become very showy and effective. The “Tom Thumb” or dwarf strain, obtainable in self and mixed colours, is a very valuable plant for bedding. The named sorts are propagated by cuttings, and wintered in a frame. Some of the double-flowered sorts are interesting. There are forms with white, yellow, rose, crimson, magenta, and variously mottled and striped flowers, some of them of great beauty, but the named sorts are too fugitive to make it desirable to record a list.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Snell, Hannah

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​SNELL, HANNAH (1723–1792), the “female soldier,” was born at Worcester on the 23rd of April 1723, being the daughter of a hosier. In order to seek her husband, who had ill-treated and abandoned her, in 1745 she donned man's attire and enlisted as a soldier in Guise's regiment of foot, but soon deserted, and shipped on board the sloop “Swallow” under her brother-in-law's name of James Gray. The “Swallow” sailed in Boscawen's fleet to the East Indies, and took part in the siege of Araapong. Hannah served in the assault on Pondicherry and was wounded, but she succeeded in extracting the bullet without calling in a surgeon. When recovered she served before the mast on the “Tartar” and the “Eltham,” but when paid off she resumed woman's costume. Her adventures were published as The Female Soldier, or the Surprising Adventures of Hannah Snell (1750), and she afterwards gave exhibitions in military uniform in London. She died insane in Bethlehem Hospital on the 8th of February 1792.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Snell, Willebrord

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​SNELL, WILLEBRORD (1591–1626), commonly known as Snellius, Dutch astronomer and mathematician, was born at Leiden in 1591. In 1613 he succeeded his father Rudolph Snell (1546–1613) as professor of mathematics in the university of Leiden. In 1615 he planned and carried into practice a new method of finding the dimensions of the earth, by determining the distance of one point on its surface from the parallel of another, by means of a triangulation. His work Eratosthenes Batavus, published in 1617, describes the method and gives as the result of his operations between Alkmaar and Bergen-op-Zoom a degree of the meridian equal to 55,100 toises=117,449 yds. (A later recalculation gave 57,033 toises =121,569 yds., after the application of some corrections to the measures indicated by himself.) Snell also distinguished himself as a mathematician, and discovered the law of refraction, in 1621 (see Light). He died at Leiden on the 90th of October 1626.
In addition to the Eratosthenes Batavus he published Cyclometria sive de circuli dimensione (1621), and Tiphys Batavus s. Histfiodromice, de navium cursibus et re navali (1624). He also edited Coeli et siderum in eo errantium observationes Hassiacae (1618), containing the astronomical observations of Landgrave William IV. of Hesse. A trigonometry (Doctrina triangulorum,) by him was published a year after his death.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Snip Snap Snorem

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​SNIP SNAP SNOREM, an old game at cards, sometimes called Earl of Coventry. There are several methods of playing, but in the commonest a full whist pack is used and any number of players may take part. The pack is dealt, one card at a time, and the eldest hand places upon the table any card he likes. Each player in his turn then tries to match the card played just before his, making use of a prescribed formula if successful. Thus, if a king is played, the second player lays down another king (if he can) calling out “Snip!” The next player lays down the third king, saying “Snap!” and the next the fourth king with the Word “Snorem.” A player not being able to pair the card played may not discard, and the holder of “Snorem” has the privilege of beginning the next round. The player who gets rid of all his cards first wins a counter from his companions for each card still held by them.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sneezing

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​SNEEZING (O. Eng. fnēosung, from fnēosan, to sneeze, cf. Dutch fnlezen, allied to the obsolete neeze, and ultimately to be referred to root seen in Gr. πνεἲν, to breathe; the initial s is due to association with numerous words, such as snort, snuff, snore, &c.), a violent expiration of air from the nose and mouth; it is an involuntary reflex respiratory act; caused by irritation of the nerve-endings of the mucous membrane of the nose or by stimulation of the optic nerve by a bright light. The irritation may be due to the swelling of the nasal mucous membrane, which occurs in catching cold, sneezing being often a premonitory or accompanying symptom, or to foreign bodies in the nose, as by inhalation of snuff or other “errhines” or “sternutatories.” A venerable and widespread belief survives in the custom of saying “God bless you” when a person sneezes. The Hindus say “live,” to which the answer “with you” is given (E.B. Tylor, Primitive Culture, i. 101). A sneeze was considered a sign or omen from the gods by the Greeks and Romans; it was one of the many common everyday occurrences which if coming at an important moment could be interpreted as presaging the future. There are many allusions to it in classical literature, e.g. Homer, Od. xvii. 561, Plutarch, Themist. 13, Xenophon, Anab. iii. 2 and Catullus, Carm. 45. There are references to it in Rabbinical literature, and it has been found in Otaheite, Florida and the Tonga Islands.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lyons, Edmund Lyons, Baron

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​LYONS, EDMUND LYONS, Baron (1790–1858), British admiral, was born at Burton, near Christchurch, Hampshire, on the 21st of November 1790. He entered the navy, and served in the Mediterranean, and afterwards in the East Indies, where in 1810 he won promotion by distinguished bravery. He became post-captain in 1814, and in 1826 commanded the “Blonde” frigate at the blockade of Navarino, and took part with the French in the capture of Kasteo Morea. Shortly before his ship was paid off in 1835 he was knighted. From 1840 till 1853 Lyons was employed on the diplomatic service, being successively minister to Greece, Switzerland and Sweden. On the outbreak of the war with Russia he was appointed second in command of the British fleet in the Black Sea under Admiral Dundas, whom he succeeded in the chief command in 1854. As admiral of the inshore squadron he had the direction of the landing of the troops in the Crimea, which he conducted with marvellous energy and despatch. According to Kinglake, Lyons shared the “intimate counsels” of Lord Raglan in regard to the most momentous questions of the war, and toiled, with a “painful consuming passion,” to achieve the object of the campaign. His principal actual achievements in battle were two—the support he rendered with his guns to the French at the Alma in attacking the left flank of the Russians, and the bold and brilliant part he took with his ship the “Agamemnon” in the first bombardment of the forts of Sebastopol; but his constant vigilance, his multifarious activity, and his suggestions and counsels were much more advantageous to the allied cause than his specific exploits. In 1855 he was created vice-admiral; in June 1856 he was raised to the peerage with the title of Baron Lyons of Christchurch. He died on the 23rd of November 1858.
See Adam S. Eardley-Wilmot, R.N., Life of Lord Lyons (1898).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lynton and Lynmouth

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​LYNTON and LYNMOUTH, two seaside villages in the Barnstaple parliamentary division of Devonshire, England, on the Bristol Channel; 17 m. E. of Ilfracombe, served by the Lynton light railway, which joins the South Western and Great Western lines at Barnstaple. Both are favoured as summer resorts. Lynmouth stands where two small streams, the East Lyn and West Lyn, flow down deep and well-wooded valleys to the sea. Lynton is on the cliff-edge, 430 ft. above. A lift connects the villages. The industries are fishing and a small coasting trade. Not far off are the Doone Valley, part of the vale of the East Lyn, here called Badgeworthy water, once the stronghold of a notorious band of robbers and famous through R. D. Blackmore’s novel Lorna Doone; Watersmeet, where two streams, the Tavy and Walkham, join amid wild and beautiful scenery; and the Valley of Rocks, a narrow glen strewn with immense boulders. Lynton is an urban district, with a population (1901) of 1641.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lyon, Mary Mason

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​LYON, MARY MASON (1797–1849), American educationalist, was born on the 28th of February 1797 on a farm near Buckland, Franklin county, Massachusetts. She began to teach when she was seventeen, and in 1817, with the earnings from her spinning and weaving, she went to Sanderson Academy, Ashfield. She supported herself there, at Amherst Academy, where she spent one term, and at the girls’ school in Byfield, established in 1819 by Joseph Emerson (1777–1833), where she went in 1821, by teaching in district schools and by conducting informal normal schools. In 1822–1824 she was assistant principal of Sanderson Academy, and then taught in Miss Zilpah P. Grant’s Adams Female Academy, in Londonderry (now Derry), N.H. This school had only summer sessions, and Miss Lyon spent her winters in teaching, especially at Buckland and at Ashfield, and in studying chemistry and natural science with Edward Hitchcock, the geologist. In 1828–1834 she taught in Miss Grant’s school, which in 1828 had been removed to Ipswich, and for two years managed the school in Miss Grant’s absence. In 1828–1830 she had kept up her winter “normal” school at Buckland, and this was the beginning of her greater plan, “a permanent institution consecrated to the training of young women for usefulness . . . designed to furnish every advantage which the state of education in this country will allow . . . to put within reach of students of moderate means such opportunities that none can find better.” She was assisted by Dr Hitchcock, and her own mystical enthusiasm and practical common sense secured for her plan ready financial support. In 1835 a site was selected near the village of South Hadley and Mount Holyoke; in 1836 the school was incorporated as Mount Holyoke Female Seminary; and on the 8th of November 1837 it opened with Mary Lyon as principal, and, as assistant, Miss Eunice Caldwell, afterwards well known as Mrs J. P. Cowles of Ipswich Academy. Miss Lyon died at Mount Holyoke on the 5th of March 1849, having served nearly twelve years as principal of the seminary, on a salary of $200 a year. From her work at Holyoke sprang modern higher education for women in America.
See Edward Hitchcock, Life and Labors of Mary Lyon (1851); B. B. Gilchrist, Life of Mary Lyon (Boston, 1910).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lyonnesse

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​LYONNESSE, Lyonesse, Leonnoys or Leonais, a legendary country off the south coast of Cornwall, England. Lyonnesse is the scene of many incidents in the Arthurian romances, and especially in the romances of Tristram and Iseult. It also plays an important part in purely Cornish tradition and folklore. Early English chronicles, such as the Chronicon e chronicis of Florence of Worcester, who died in 1118, described minutely and without a suggestion of disbelief the flourishing state of Lyonnesse, and its sudden disappearance beneath the sea. The legend may be a greatly exaggerated version of some actual subsidence of inhabited land. There is also a very ancient local tradition, apparently independent of the story of Lyonnesse, that the Scilly Islands formed part of the Cornish mainland within historical times.
See Florentii Wigorniensis monachi Chronicon ex chronicis, &c., ed. B. Thorpe (London, 1848–1849).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lyons, Richard Bickerton Pemell Lyons, 1st Earl

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​LYONS, RICHARD BICKERTON PEMELL LYONS, 1st Earl (1817–1887), British diplomatist, son of the preceding, was born at Lymington on the 26th of April 1817. He entered the diplomatic service, and in 1859–1864 was British minister at Washington, where, after the outbreak of the Civil War, the extremely important negotiations connected with the arrest of the Confederate envoys on board the British mail-steamer “Trent” devolved upon him. After a brief service at Constantinople, he succeeded Lord Cowley at the Paris embassy in 1867. In the war of 1870 he used his best efforts as a mediator, and accompanied the provisional government to Tours. He continued to hold his post with universal acceptance until November 1887. He died on the 5th of December 1887, when the title became extinct.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lyra

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​LYRA (“The Harp”), in astronomy, a constellation in the northern hemisphere, mentioned by Eudoxus (4th century B.C.) and Aratus (3rd century B.C.). Ptolemy catalogued 10 stars in this constellation; Tycho Brahe 11 and Hevelius 17. α Lyrae or Vega, is the second brightest star in the northern hemisphere, and notable for the whiteness of its light, which is about 100 times that of the sun. The name “vega” is a remnant of an Arabic phrase meaning “falling eagle,” “Altair,” or α Aquilae, is the similar remnant of “flying eagle.” ε Lyrae is a multiple star, separated by the naked eye or by a small telescope into two stars; these are each resolved into two stars by a 3″ telescope, while a more powerful instrument (4″) reveals three smaller stars between the two pairs, β Lyrae and R. Lyrae are short period variables. There is the famous ring or annular nebula, M. 57 Lyrae, in the middle of which is a very faint star, which is readily revealed by photography; and also the meteoric swarm named the Lyrids, which appear in April and have their radiant in this constellation (see Meteor).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lyon, Nathaniel

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​LYON, NATHANIEL (1818–1861), American soldier, was born in Ashford, Connecticut, on the 14th of July 1818, and graduated at West Point in 1841. He was engaged in the Seminole War and the war with Mexico, won the brevet of captain for his gallantry at Contreras and Churubusco, and was wounded in the assault on the city of Mexico. In 1850, while serving in California, he conducted a successful expedition against the Indians. He was promoted captain in 1851, and two years later was ordered to the East, when he became an ardent opponent of “States’ Rights” and slavery. He was stationed in Kansas and in Missouri on the eve of the Civil War. In Missouri not only was sentiment divided, but the two factions were eager to resort to force long before they were in the other border states. Lyon took an active part in organizing the Union party in Missouri, though greatly hampered, at first by the Federal government which feared to provoke hostilities, and afterwards by the military commander of the department, General W. S. Harney. On Harney’s removal in April 1861, Lyon promptly assumed the command, called upon Illinois to send him troops, and mustered the Missouri contingent into the United States’ service. He broke up the militia camp at St Louis established by the secessionist governor of Missouri, Claiborne F. Jackson, and but for the express prohibition of Harney, who had resumed the command, would have proceeded at once to active hostilities. In all this Lyon had co-operated closely with Francis P. Blair, Jr., who now obtained from President Lincoln the definitive removal of Harney and the assignment of Lyon to command the Department of the West, with the rank of brigadier-general. On Lyon’s refusal to accede to the Secessionists’ proposal that the state should be neutral, hostilities opened in earnest, and Lyon, having cleared Missouri of small hostile bands in the central part of the state, turned to the southern districts, where a Confederate army was advancing from the Arkansas border. The two forces came to action at Wilson’s Creek on the 10th of August 1861. The Union forces, heavily outnumbered, were defeated, and Lyon himself was killed while striving to rally his troops. He bequeathed almost all he possessed, some
See A. Woodward, Memoir of General Nathaniel Lyon (Hartford, 1862); James Peckham, Life of Lyon (New York, 1866); and T. L. Snead, The Fight for Missouri (New York, 1886). Also Last Political Writings of General Nathaniel Lyon (New York, 1862).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Platon, Levshin

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​PLATON, LEVSHIN (1737-1812), Russian divine, was born at Chashnikovo near Moscow, and educated in the academy of that city. In 1763 the empress Catherine II. invited him to instruct her son Paul in theology, and he became one of the court chaplains. Three years afterwards Platon was appointed archimandrite of the monastery of the Trinity (Troitskaya Lavra) near Moscow, in 1770 archbishop of Tver, and in 1787 archbishop of Moscow and metropolitan. He died in 1812, one of his last acts having been to write an encouraging letter to the emperor Alexander I. in view of the French invasion. Platon was a brilliant and learned man, and the author of several works which enjoyed a high reputation in their time, including A Short History of the Russian Church, which has been translated into English.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Plateau, Joseph Antoine Ferdinand

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​PLATEAU, JOSEPH ANTOINE FERDINAND (1801–1883), Belgian physicist, was born at Brussels on the 14th of October 1801, and died on the 15th of September 1883 at Ghent, where he had been professor from 1835. He was a pupil and friend of L. A. J. Quetelet, who had much influence on the early part of his character. The more original investigations of Plateau refer chiefly to portions of one or another of two branches of science—physiological optics and molecular forces. We owe to him the "stroboscopic" method of studying the motion of a vibrating body, by looking at it through equidistant radial slits in a revolving disk. In 1829 he imprudently gazed at the midday sun for twenty seconds, with a view of studying the after effects. The result was blindness for some days, succeeded by a temporary recovery; but for the next fourteen years his sight gradually deteriorated, and in 1843 he became permanently blind. This calamity did not interrupt his scientific activity. Aided by his wife and son, and afterwards by his son-in-law G. L. van der Mensbrugghe, he continued to the end of his life his researches on vision—directing the course of his experiments which they made for him, and interpreting the bearing of the results. He also published a valuable analytical catalogue of all the more important memoirs which had been written, from the earliest times to the end of the 18th century, on his favourite theme of subjective visual phenomena. But even more extraordinary were this blind man's investigations about molecular forces, embracing hundreds of novel experiments whose results he saw only with others' eyes. These form the subject of his great work Statique expérimentale et théorique des liquides soumis aux seules forces moleculaires (2 vols., 1873), a valuable contribution to our knowledge of capillary phenomena. His son, Félix Auguste Joseph Plateau (b. 1841), became professor of zoology and comparative anatomy at Ghent in 1870.