OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Semipalatinsk (town)

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​SEMIPALATINSK, a town of Asiatic Russia, capital of the province of the same name, on the right bank of the Irtysh, and on the highway from Dzungaria to Omsk, 683 m. by river S.E. of the latter. Pop. (1881) 17,820, (1897) 26,353. It carries on a ​considerable trade, especially with the Kirghiz, and has a flour mill, distillery and tanneries. Steamers ply on the Irtysh down to Omsk and up to Lake Zaisan.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Porzio, Simone

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PORZIO, SIMONE (1497-1554), Italian philosopher, was born and died at Naples. Like his greater contemporary, Pomponazzi, he was a lecturer on medicine at Pisa (1546-1552), and in later life gave up purely scientific study for speculation on the nature of man. His philosophic theory was identical with that of Pomponazzi, whose De immortalitate animi he defended and amplified in a treatise De mente humana. There is told of him a story which illustrates the temper of the early humanistic revival in Italy. When he was beginning his first lecture at Pisa he opened the meteorological treatises of Aristotle. The audience, composed of students and townspeople, interrupted him with the cry Quid de anima? (We would hear about the soul), and Porzio was constrained to change the subject of his lecture. He professed the most open materialism, denied immortality in all forms and taught that the soul of man is homogeneous with the soul of animals and plants, material in origin and incapable of separate existence.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Posidippus

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​POSIDIPPUS (3rd cent. B.C.), Greek dramatist, of Cassandrea in Macedonia, the last and one of the most distinguished of the writers of the new comedy. He began to write for the stage in 289 B.C., and, according to Suïdas, wrote 40 plays, of which 17 titles and some fragments have been preserved. He appears to have gone somewhat out of the beaten track in his choice of subjects, and it is evident that cooks held an important position in his list of characters. His comedies were frequently imitated by the Romans (Aulus Gellius ii. 23), and it is considered very probable that the Menaechmi (a comedy of errors) of Plautus is an adaptation either from the Ὅμοιοι, or from some unknown comedy of Posidippus, called Δίδυμοι, or perhaps Μέναιχμος. His statue in the Vatican is considered a masterpiece of ancient art.
Fragments in A. Meineke, Poetarum comicorum graecorum fragmenta (1855).
Posidippus is also the name of a writer of epigrams (c. 270 B.C.), of which about 30 are preserved in the Greek Anthology.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Posidonius

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POSIDONIUS (c. 130-50 B.C.), nicknamed “the Athlete,” Stoic philosopher, the most learned man of his time (so Strabo τῶν καθ’ ἡμᾶς φιλοσόφον πολυμαθέστατος, Galen ἐπιστημονικώτατος) and perhaps of all the school. A native of Apamea in Syria and a pupil of Panaetius, he spent after his teacher's death many years in travel and scientific researches in Spain (particularly at Gades), Africa, Italy, Gaul, Liguria, Sicily and on the eastern shores of the Adriatic. When he settled as a teacher at Rhodes (hence his surname “the Rhodian”) his fame attracted numerous scholars; next to Panaetius he did most, by writings and personal intercourse, to spread Stoicism in the Roman world, and he became well known to many leading men, such as Marius, Rutilius Rufus, Pompey and Cicero. The last-named studied under him (78-77 B.C.), and speaks as his admirer and friend. He visited Rome, e.g. on an embassy in 86 B.C., but probably did not settle there as a teacher.
His works, now lost, were written in an attractive style and proved a mine of information to later writers. The titles and subjects of more than twenty of them are known. In common with other Stoics of the middle period, he displayed eclectic tendencies, following the older Stoics, Panaetius, Plato and Aristotle. His admiration for Plato led him to write a commentary on the Timaeus; in another way it is shown by important modifications which he made in psychological doctrine. Unquestionably more of a polymath than a philosopher, he appears uncritical and superficial. But at the time his spirit of inquiry provoked Strabo's criticism as something alien to the school (τὸ ἀιτιολογικόν καὶ τὸ ἀριστοτέλιζον, ὅπερ ἐκκλίνουσιν οἱ ἠμέτεροι). In natural science, geography, natural history, mathematics and astronomy he took a genuine interest. He sought to determine the distance and magnitude of the sun, to calculate the diameter of the earth and the influence of the moon on the tides. His history of the period from 146 to 88 B.C., in fifty-two books, must have been a valuable storehouse of facts. Cicero, who submitted to his criticism the memoirs which he had written in Greek of his consulship, made use of writings of Posidonius in De natura deorum, bk. ii., and De divinatione, bk. i., and the author of the pseudo-Aristotelian treatise De mundo also borrowed from him.
See Zeller, Philosophie der Griechen, iii. I, 570-584 (in Eng. trans., Eclecticism, 56-70); C. Müller, Fragmenta historicorum graecorum, iii. 245-296; J. Bake, Posidonii Rhodii reliquiae (Leiden, 1810), a valuable monograph; R. Scheppig, De Posidonio rerum gentium terrarum scriptore (Berlin, 1869); R. Hirzel, Untersuchungen zu Ciceros philosophischen Schriften, i. 191 seq., ii. 257 seq., 325 seq., 477-535. 756-789, iii. 342-378 (Leipzig, 1877); Thiaucourt, Essai sur les traités philosophiques de Cicéron (Paris, 1885); Schmekel, Die Philosophie der mittlern Stoa (1892); Arnold, Untersuchungen über Theophanes von Mytilene und Posidonius von Apamea (1882). (See also Stoics.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Porzio, Camillo

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PORZIO, CAMILLO (1526-1580?), Italian historian, belonged to a wealthy and noble Neapolitan family, and was the son of the philosopher, Simone Porzio. He studied law, first at Bologna and later at Pisa, and after graduating in utroque jure, practised as a lawyer in Naples. He died in 1580. His chief literary work is La Congiura dei baroni, a history of the unsuccessful conspiracy of the Neapolitan barons against King Ferdinand I. of Naples in 1485; it is based on the authentic records of the state trials, but is prejudiced in favour of the royal power. It was first published by Manutius in Rome in 1565. Of Porzio's other works, the Storia d'Italia (from 1547 to 1552), of which only the first two books have survived, is the most important. The best edition of these two works is that edited by C. Monzani (Florence, 1855).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Positive Organ

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​POSITIVE (or Portable) ORGAN, a medieval chamber organ which could be carried from place to place without being taken to pieces, and when played was placed on a table or stool and required a blower for the bellows, as well as a performer. It was larger and more cumbersome than the portative (q.v.), with which it has often been confounded. The positive had usually but one kind of pipe, the open diapason of 2 ft. tone, and in the 16th century the best types had three registers by means of which each note could be sounded with its fifth and octave, or each by itself, or again in combinations of twos. The positive differed from the regal in having flue pipes, whereas the latter had beating reeds in tiny pipes, one or two inches long, concealed behind the keyboard. During the early middle ages most of the pneumatic organs belonged to this type.
A well-known instance of an early positive or portable organ of the 4th century occurs on the obelisk erected to the memory of Theodosius the Great, on his death in A.D. 395. Among the illuminated manuscripts of the British Museum miniatures abound representing interesting varieties of the portable organ of the middle ages; such as Add. MS. 29902 (fol. 6) and Add. MS. 27695b (fol. 13), Cotton MS. Tiberius A VII. fol. 104d., all of the 14th century, Add. MS. 28962, Add. MS. 17280, both of the 15th century. These little organs were to be found at every kind of function, civil and religious; they were used in the dwellings and chapels of the rich; at banquets and court functions; in choirs and music schools; and in the small orchestras of Peri and Monteverdi at the dawn of the musical drama or opera.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Porus

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PORUS (4th century B.C.), an Indian prince, ruler of the country between the rivers Hydaspes and Acesines at the time of the invasion of Alexander the Great. In the battle on the banks of the Hydaspes he offered a desperate resistance, and Alexander, struck by his independent spirit, allowed him to retain his kingdom, which he increased by the addition of territory. From this time Porus was a loyal supporter of Alexander. He still held the position of a Macedonian satrap when assassinated some time between 321 and 315 B.C.
See Arrian v. 18, 19; Plutarch, Alexander, 60; Quintus Curtius viii. 14.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Shaddock

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​SHADDOCK (Citrus decumana), a tree allied to the orange and the lemon, presumably native to the Malay and Polynesian islands, but generally cultivated throughout the tropics. The leaves are like those of the orange, but downy on the under surface, as are also the young shoots. The flowers are large and white, and are succeeded by very large globose fruits like oranges, but paler in colour, and with a more pungent flavour. The name Shaddock is asserted to be that of a captain who introduced the tree to the West Indies. The fruit is also known under the name of grape-fruit, pommeloes, and “forbidden fruit.” Varieties occur with yellow and reddish pulp; and there are also pear-shaped varieties.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Shadoof

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SHADOOF (Arab. shādūf), an apparatus for drawing water, used in the East generally, and particularly on the Nile for the purpose of irrigation. It consists of an upright frame on which is suspended a long pole at a distance of about one-fifth of its length from one end; to the other end is attached a bucket or skin bag, while at the short end a weight is suspended serving as the counterpoise of a lever. The vessel containing the water is then swung round and emptied into the runnel, which conveys the direction in the direction required.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Shaft

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​SHAFT (O. Eng., sceaft, from scafan, to shave; the word is common to Teutonic languages), any slender, smoothed rod or stick, and so first used of the body of an arrow or spear to which the head is attached; hence the word is applied to the handle of a tool, and to the pair of bars between which a horse is harnessed to a vehicle, and in machinery to connecting bars or rods conveying power from one part of a machine to another. It is also applied to an opening sunk in the ground for mining or other purposes (see Shaft-sinking). This use is probably due to the use of Ger. Schacht, a variant of schaft. In architecture the term “shaft” is applied to the body of a column between the capital and the base. In Romanesque work shafts are occasionally octagonal, and are sometimes ornamented with the zigzag or chevron, or fluted vertically or in spirals; the most beautiful examples of the latter being found in the cloisters of St John Lateran and at St Paul’s outside the walls at Rome, where they are enriched with mosaics. Perhaps the earliest ornamented shafts are those of the Parthian Palace, now the mosque, at Diarbekr in Mesopotamia.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sgambati, Giovanni

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​SGAMBATI, GIOVANNI (1843–), Italian composer, was born in Rome on the 28th of May 1843, of an Italian father and an English mother. His early education took place at Trevi, in Umbria, and there he wrote some church music, and obtained experience as a singer and conductor. In 1860 he settled in Rome, and definitely took up the work of winning acceptance for the best German music, which was at that time neglected in Italy. The influence and support of Liszt, who was in Rome from 1861, was naturally of the greatest advantage to him, and concerts were given in which Sgambati conducted as well as played the piano. His composition, of this period (1864-1865) included a quartet, two piano quintets, an octet, and an overture. He conducted Liszt’s Dante symphony in 1866, and made the acquaintance of Wagner’s music for the first time at Munich, whither he travelled in Liszt’s company. His first album of songs appeared in 1870, and his first symphony was played at the Quirinal in 1881; this, as well as a piano concerto, was performed in the course of his first visit to England in 1882; and at his second visit, in 1891, his Sinfonia epitalamio was given at the Philharmonic. His most extensive work, a Requiem Mass, was performed in Rome 1901. His many pianoforte works have won permanent success; but his influence on Italian musical taste has been perhaps greater than the merits of his compositions, which, though often poetical and generally effective, are often slight in style.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Shad

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​SHAD, the name given to certain migratory species of herrings (Clupea), which are distinguished from the herrings proper by the total absence of teeth in the jaws. Two species occur in Europe, much resembling each other—one commonly called allis shad (Clupea alosa or Alosa vulgaris), and the other known as twaite shad (Clupea finta or Alosa finta). Both, like the majority of herrings, are greenish on the back and silvery on the sides, but they are distinguished from the other European species Clupea by the presence of a large blackish blotch behind the gill-opening, which is succeeded by a series of several other similar spots along the middle of the side of the body. So closely allied are these two fishes that their distinctness can be proved only by an examination of the gill-apparatus, the allis shad having from sixty to eighty very fine and long gill-rakers along the concave edge of the first bronchial arch, whilst the twaite shad possesses from twenty-one to twenty-seven stout and stiff gill-rakers only. In their habits and geographical distribution also the two shads are similar. They inhabit the coasts of temperate Europe, the twaite shad being more numerous in the Mediterranean. While they are in salt water they live singly or in very small companies, but during, May (the twaite shad some weeks later) they congregate, and in great numbers ascend large rivers, such as the Severn (and formerly the Thames), the Seine, the Rhine, the Nile, &c., in order to deposit their spawn. A few weeks after they drop down the river, lean and exhausted, numbers floating dead on the surface, so that only a small proportion seem to regain the sea. At Elbeuf on the Seine above Rouen there was formerly a hatchery for the artificial ​propagation of shad. The eggs are spawned in May and June, and are similar in the two species; they are heavier than the fresh water in which they develop, but unlike the herring's eggs they are not adhesive. They remain free and separate at the bottom of the river, carried down by the current or up by the tide. In the Elbe the twaite shad spawns below Hamburg, the allis shad above Dresden. In November the fry have reached 3 to 5 in. in length, but very few specimens in their second year have been found in rivers. The majority seem to descend to the sea before their first winter, to return when mature. On rivers in which these fishes make their periodical appearance they have become the object of a regular fishery. They are much esteemed on the middle Rhine, where they are generally known as “ Maifisch.” The allis shad is caught at a size from 15 to 24 in., and is better flavoured than the twaite shad, which is generally smaller.
Other, but closely allied species, occur on the Atlantic coasts of North America, all surpassing the European species in importance as food-fishes and economic value, viz., the American shad (Clupea sapidissima), the gaspereau or ale-wife (C. mattowocca or vernalis), and the menhaden (C. menhaden).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Shafirov, Peter Pavlovich, Baron

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​SHAFIROV, PETER PAVLOVICH, Baron (1670–1739), Russian statesman, one of the ablest coadjutors of Peter the Great, was of obscure, and in all probability of Jewish, extraction. He first made himself useful by his extraordinary knowledge of foreign languages. He was the chief translator in the Russian Foreign Office for many years, subsequently accompanying Peter on his travels. Made a baron and raised to the rank of vice-chancellor, he displayed diplomatic talents of the highest order. During the unlucky campaign of 1711, he succeeded against all expectations in concluding the peace of the Pruth (see Turkey: History). Peter left him in the hands of the Turks as a hostage, and on the rupture of the peace he was imprisoned in the Seven Towers. Finally, however, with the aid of the British and Dutch ambassadors, he defeated the diplomacy of Charles XII. of Sweden and his agents, and confirmed the good relations between Russia and Turkey by the treaty of Adrianople (June 5th, 1713). On the institution of the colleges or departments of state in 1718, Shafirov was appointed vice-president of the department of Foreign Affairs, and a senator. In 1723, however, he was deprived of all his offices and sentenced to death. The capital sentence was commuted on the scaffold to banishment, first to Siberia and then to Novgorod. Peculations and disorderly conduct in the senate were the offences charged against Shafirov, and with some justice. On the death of Peter, Shafirov. was released from prison and commissioned to write the life of his late master. He had previously (1717), in an historical tract on the war with Charles XII., in which Peter himself collaborated, epitomized, in a high panegyric style, some of the greatest exploits of the tsar-regenerator. The successful rivalry of his supplanter, Andrei Osterman, prevented Shafirov from holding any high office during the last fourteen years of his life.
See B. M. Solovev, History of Russia, vols. xiii.-xvi. (Rus.) (Petersburg, 1895). (R. N. B.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sambhar Lake

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​SAMBHAR LAKE, a salt lake in Rajputana, India, on the borders of the two states of ]odhpur and Jaipur. The town of the same name has a railway station 53 m. N.E. from Ajmer: pop. (1901) 10,873. The area of the lake when full is about 90 sq. m., but it usually dries up altogether in the hot season. Since 1870 the British government has worked the salt under a lease from the two states interested, supplying great part of N. and Central India. The annual output averages about 126,000 tons, yielding a profit of more than half a million sterling.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Samblançay

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​SAMBLANÇAY, or Semblançay, a French noble family of Touraine, sprung from the merchant class. The founder of the family was Jean de Beaune (d. c. 1489), treasurer of Louis XI., who narrowly escaped death for conspiracy under Charles VIII. His son, Jacques de Beaune, baron de Samblancay, vicomte de Tours, became general of finances before 1497, and from 1518 was superintendent of finances. Convicted of peculation in connexion with the supplies for the army in Italy, he was executed at Montfaucon on the 9th of August 1527. His eldest son, Martin de Beaune, who became archbishop of Tours in 1520, died in the same year as his father. Another son, Guillaume de Beaune, general of finances under his father, and banished from 1527 to 1535, was the father of the famous prelate, Renaud de Beaume (1527–1606), archbishop of Bourges (1581) and of Sens (1595). His efforts at pacification during the wars of religion culminated in the conversion of Henry IV., and it was he who presided at the ceremony of the king’s abjuration of Protestantism on the 25th of July 1593. Renaud was one of the most famous orators of his time, and some of his productions have come down to us, as well as his Réformation de l'université de Paris (1605 and 1667). A less honourable descendant of Jacques de Beaune was Charlotte de Beaune-Samblançay (c.1550–1617), a courtesan whom Catherine de Medici employed to discover the secrets of her courtly enemies. She counted among her lovers and dupes the king of Navarre (Henry IV.), the duc d’Alençon (Henry III.), Henry I., duc de Guise and others. The duc de Guise was killed when leaving her apartments in the early morning of Christmas Day 1588. She was married early in life to Simon de Fizes, baron de Sauves, a secretary of state, and aga.in in 1584 to Francois de la Trémoille, marquis de Noirmoutiers, by whom she had a son, Louis, 1st duc de Noirmoutiers, a ducal line which became extinct in 1733. Charlotte died on the 30th of September 1617.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sambourne, Edward Linley

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​SAMBOURNE, EDWARD LINLEY (1844–1910), English draughtsman, illustrator and designer, was born in London, on the 4th of January 1844. He was educated at the City of London School, and also received a few months' education at the South Kensington School of Art. After a six years' “ gentleman apprenticeship ” with John Penn & Son, marine engineers, Greenwich, his humorous and fanciful sketches made surreptitiously in the drawing-office of that firm were shown to Mark Lemon, editor of Punch, and at once secured him an invitation to draw for that journal. In April 1867 appeared his first sketch, “ Pros and Cons,” and from that time his work was regularly seen, with rare exceptions, in the weekly pages of Punch. In 1871 he was called to the Punch “ table.” At the beginning he made his name by his “ social ” drawings and especially by his highly elaborated initial letters. He drew his first political cartoon, properly so-called, in 1884, and ten years later began regularly to design the weekly second cartoon, following Sir John Tenniel as chief cartoonist in 1901. Examples of his best work in book illustration are in Sir F. C. Burnand's New Sandford and Merton (1872), and in Charles Kingsley's Water Babies (1885), which contains some of his most delicate ​and delightful drawings. The design for the Diploma for the Fisheries Exhibition (1883) is of its kind one of the most extraordinary things in English art. As a political designer, while distinguished for wit and force, he was invariably refined and good-humoured to the uttermost; yet it is essentially as an artist that he takes his highest place. He died on the 3rd of August 1910.
See M. H. Spielmann, The History of Punch (London, 1895).