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

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​SEMANG, an aboriginal people of the Malay peninsula, found in northern Perak, Kedah, Kelantan, Trengganu and the northern districts of Pahang. They are a fairly pure branch of the woolly-haired Negrito race, which includes the natives of the Andaman islands, the Aetas of the Philippines and the dwarfs of Central Africa. The men average about 4 ft. 9 or 10 in., while the women are 31/2 in. shorter. Their colour is a very dark brown or black. The shape of the head is round, or intermediate between round and long. The forehead is low and rounded, and projects over the root of the nose, which is short, depressed and pyramid-shaped. The eyes are wide open and round, showing no obliquity, the iris being of a very rich, deep brown. Lips vary from moderate to full, the mouth is rather large, the chin feebly developed, and the jaws are often slightly projecting. The hair is very dark-brown black, never blue-black as among Chinese and Malays. It grows in short, spiral tufts, curling closely all over the head. The arm-stretch is almost always greater than their height. The feet are usually short and splayed, with a remarkable inward curve of the great toe, and are very prehensile. The Semangs live in caves or leaf-shelters formed between branches. A waist cloth for the men, made of tree bark hammered out with a wooden mallet from the bark of the terap, a species of wild bread-fruit tree, and a short petticoat of the same for the women, is the only dress worn; many go naked. Tattooing, or rather scarring, is practised, by drawing the finely serrated edge of a sugar-cane leaf across the skin and rubbing in charcoal powder. They have bamboo musical instruments, a kind of Jews’ harp and a nose flute. On festive occasions there is song and dance, both sexes decorating themselves with leaves. The Semangs bury their dead simply, food and drink being placed in the grave.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Semaphore

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​SEMAPHORE (Gr. σῆμα, sign, and φορά, carrying, from φέρειν, to bear), the name of an apparatus or mechanical device by which information or messages can be signalled to a distance. It consists of movable arms or blades of wood, worked by levers and affixed to a high post or pole. The most familiar semaphore is that used in railway signalling on the block system, where the blade if horizontal signifies danger, if dropped safety. Used with a code, the semaphore is still used in the navy for signalling ​from ship to ship. Until the invention of the electric telegraph, the semaphore was used for transmitting messages over long distances.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Selous, Frederick Courtney

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​ SELOUS, FREDERICK COURTNEY (1851-), British explorer and hunter, was born in London on the 31st of December 1851, and was educated at Rugby and in Germany. His love for natural history led to the resolve to study the ways of wild animals in their native haunts. Going to South Africa when he was nineteen he travelled from the Cape to Matabeleland, reached early in 1872, and was granted permission by Lobengula to shoot game anywhere in his dominions. From that date until 1890, with a few brief intervals spent in England, Selous hunted and explored over the then little-known regions north of the Transvaal and south of the Congo basin, shooting elephants, and collecting specimens of all kinds for museums and private collections. His travels added largely to the knowledge of the country now known as Rhodesia. He made valuable ethnological investigations, and throughout his wanderings—often among people who had never previously seen a white man—he maintained cordial relations with the Kaffir chiefs and tribes, winning their confidence and esteem, notably so in the case of Lobengula. In 1890 Selous entered the service of the British South Africa Company, acting as guide to the pioneer expedition to Mashonaland. Over 400 m. of road were constructed through a country of forest, mountain and swamp, and in two and a half months Selous took the column safely to its destination. He then went east to Manica, concluding arrangements there which brought the country under British control. Coming to England in December 1892 he was awarded the Founder's medal of the Royal Geographical Society “in recognition of his extensive explorations and surveys,” of which he gave a summary in “Twenty Years in Zambesia” (Geo. Journ. vol. i., 1893). He returned to Africa to take part in the first Matabele War (1893), being wounded during the advance on Bulawayo. While back in England he married, but in March 1896 was again settled with his wife on an estate in Matabeleland when the native rebellion broke out. He took a prominent part in the fighting which followed, and published an account of the campaign entitled Sunshine and Storm in Rhodesia (1896). On the restoration of peace Selous settled in England. He continued, however, to make shooting and hunting expeditions—visiting Asia Minor, Newfoundland, the Canadian Rockies and other parts of the world. In none of his expeditions was his object the making of a “big bag,” but as a hunter-naturalist and slayer of great game he ranks with the most famous of the world's sportsmen.
Besides the works mentioned he published A Hunter's Wanderings in Africa (1881, 5th ed., 1907), Travel and Adventure in South-East Africa (1893), Sport and Travel, East and West (1900), Recent Hunting Trips in British North America (1907), African Nature Notes and Reminiscences (1908), a valuable addition to the knowledge of African fauna, and made numerous contributions to The Geographical Journal, the Field and other journals.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Selwyn, George Augustus (wit)

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​SELWYN, GEORGE AUGUSTUS (1719–1791), English wit, son of Colonel John Selwyn (d. 1751) of Matson, Gloucestershire, was born on the 11th of August 1719. Educated at Eton and Oxford, he became member of parliament for the family borough of Ludgershall in 1747, and from 1754, three years after he inherited Matson, to 1780 he represented Gloucester. In parliament he took no part in debate, but he managed to obtain two or three lucrative sinecures; in society he was very popular and won a great reputation as a wit. He is said to have been very fond of seeing corpses, criminals and executions, and Horace Walpole says he loved “ nothing upon earth so well as a criminal, except the execution of him.” He died in London on the 25th of January 1791. Like the eccentric duke of Queensberry Selwyn claimed to be the father of Maria Fagniani, who became the wife of Francis Charles Seymour, 3rd marquess of Hertford.
See J. H. Jesse, George Selwyn and his Contemporaries (1843–1844; new ed., 1882); and S. P. Kerr, George Selwyn and the Wits (1909).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Semelē

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​SEMELĒ, in Greek mythology, daughter of Cadmus and Harmonia, and mother of Dionysus by Zeus. It is said that Hera, having assumed the form of Semelē's nurse, persuaded her rival to ask Zeus to show himself to her in all his glory. The god, who had sworn to refuse Semelē nothing, unwillingly consented. He appeared seated in his chariot surrounded by thunder and lightning; Semelē was consumed by the flames and gave birth prematurely to a child, which was saved from the fire by a miraculous growth of ivy which sprang up round the palace of Cadmus. Dionysus afterwards descended to the nether world, and brought up his mother, henceforth known as Thyõnē (the raging one), to Olympus. Zeus and Semelē probably represent the fertilizing rain of spring, and the earth, afterwards scorched by the summer heat. Another tradition represents Actaeon as the lover of Semelē, and his death as due to the jealousy of Artemis. A statue and grave were to be seen in Thebes.
See Apollodorus iii. 4; Pausanias iii. 24. 3, ix. 2. 3; Ovid, Metam. iii. 260.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Selwyn, Alfred Richard Cecil

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​SELWYN, ALFRED RICHARD CECIL (1824–1902), British geologist, son of the Rev. Townshend Selwyn, Canon of Gloucester, was born at Kilmington in Somerset on the 28th of July 1824. Educated in Switzerland, he there became interested in geology, and in 1845 he joined the staff of the Geological Survey of Great Britain. He was actively engaged in the survey of North Wales and bordering portions of Shropshire, and a series of splendid geological maps resulted from his joint work with A. C. Ramsay and J. B. Jukes. In 1852 he was appointed director of the Geological Survey of Victoria, Australia, where he gave special attention to the gold-bearing rocks, until in 1869 the Colonial Legislature brought the Survey to an abrupt termination. At this date Sir W. E. Logan had just retired from the office of director of the Geological Survey of Canada, and Selwyn was appointed his successor. In this new sphere of activity he continued his geological work with marked success, devoting particular attention to the Pre-Cambrian rocks of Quebec. He retired in 1894. Meanwhile in 1874 he had been elected F.R.S., in 1876 he was awarded the Murchison Medal of the Geological Society of London, and he was created C.M.G. in 1886 for his distinguished work as assistant to the Canadian Commissioners at the exhibitions in Philadelphia (1876), Paris (1878) and London (1886). He retired to Vancouver in British Columbia, where he died on the 19th of October 1902.
See memoir with portrait in Geol. Mag. (Feb. 1899).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Semaphore (Australia)

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​SEMAPHORE, a town of Adelaide county, South Australia, 91/2 m. by rail from the city of Adelaide. It is one of the chief watering-places of the state, with a pier 1800 ft. long. Pop. about 8000.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Selve, Odet de

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​ SELVE, ODET DE (c. 1504-1563), French diplomatist, was the son of Jean de Selve, first president at the parlements of Rouen and Bordeaux, vice-chancellor of Milan, and ambassador of the king of France. In 1540 Odet was appointed councillor at the parlement of Paris and in 1542 at the grand council. In 1546, after the signature of the treaty of Ardres, he was sent on an embassy to England, in 1550 to Venice, and afterwards to Rome, where he obtained the election of Pope Paul IV. in 1555.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Morel

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​MOREL, the surname of several French classical scholars and printers in the 16th and 17th centuries, known for their editions of classical authors and the Fathers. (1) Guillaume Morel (1505–1564) was born at Tilleul in Normandy. After acting as proof-reader in a Paris firm, he set up for himself, and subsequently succeeded Turnebus as king’s printer in 1555. His most important work was Thesaurus vocum omnium latinarum, containing a number of quotations from Greek authors, taken from hitherto unpublished MSS. in the Paris library; (2) Fédéric (as he always called himself, not Frédéric) Morel, surnamed the Elder (1523–1583), was born in Champagne. He was of noble family, and was not connected with Guillaume Morel. About 1550 he married the daughter of the famous printer, Michel de Vascosan, in 1557 set up in business in the rue Saint jean de Beauvais, and in 1571 was appointed printer to the king. His chief publications were the Declamationes of Quintilian and L’Architecture de Philibert Delorme. (3) Fédéric Morel, son of the preceding, surnamed the Younger (1558–1630), was one of the greatest Greek scholars of his time. In addition to the management of his father’s business, to which he succeeded, he held the professorship of eloquence at the College de France. The number of his translations and commentaries on the Fathers and classical authors (Aristotle, Dio Chrysostom, Strabo) was very large; special mention may be made of his revised edition of Amyot’s translation of Plutarch and his Latin translations of some of the dissertations of Maximus of Tyre, of Libanius, Hierocles and Theodoret. His commentary on the Psalms is still considered valuable. (4) Claude Morel (1574–1626), brother of the preceding, also published editions of many of the Fathers and other authors, with learned prefaces and notes. (5) Charles Morel (1602–1640) was printer and secretary to the king. He followed the example of the other members of his family, and issued the Works of Clement of Alexandria, Gregory of Nazianzus, Cyril, Synesius and Chrysostom, and the Concilia generalia et provincialia of the German theologian Severin Bini. (6) Gilles Morel, brother of the preceding (the dates of his birth and death. are unknown), was the last representative of this learned family. The number of his publications was small, but some of them were of great importance, the chief being the Grande bibliothèque des pères, in 17 folio vols. (1643).
See M. Maittaire, Historia typographorum aliquot parisiensium (1717), for all the above; Fédéric Morel the elder is the subject of a monograph by J. Dumoulin (Paris, 1901).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Moreau, Hégésippe

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​MOREAU, HÉGÉSIPPE (1810–1838), French lyric poet, was born in Paris on the 9th of April 1810. In his early youth his parents, who were poor, migrated to Provins, where the ​mother went into service and the father took the post of usher in a public school. He went to Paris before 1830, and lived a Bohemian life. He was habitually houseless, and exposed himself to the dangers of a cholera hospital in the great epidemic of 1832 simply to obtain shelter and food. Then he revisited Provins and published a kind of satirical serial called Diogène. Some years of this life entirely ruined his health, and it was only just before his death that he succeeded in getting his collected poems published, selling the copyright for £4 sterling and 80 copies of the book. This volume, Myosotis, was received not unfavourably, but the author’s death on the 20th of December 1838, in a refuge of the destitute, created an interest in it which was proportionately excessive. Moreau’s work has a strong note of imitation, especially in his earlier songs, distinguished from those of his model, Béranger, chiefly by their elegiac note. Some of his poems, such as the elegy La Voulzie (1837) and the charming romance La Fermière (1835), have great sweetness and show incontestable poetic power. Moreau wrote some charming prose stories: Le Gui de chêne, La Souris blanche, &c.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Morecambe

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​MORECAMBE, a municipal borough, watering-place and seaport in the Lancaster parliamentary division of Lancashire, England, on Morecambe Bay, 236 m. N.W. by N. from London by the London & North-Western railway; served also by the Midland railway. Pop. (1901), 11,798. A fine promenade extends along the shore; there are a quay and a pier, a winter garden, and all the appointments of a seaside resort. The Midland railway is the harbour authority. The town was incorporated in 1902, and the corporation consists of a mayor, 6 aldermen and 16 councillors. The former alternative name was Poulton-le-Sands. Area, 1801 acres.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Morell, John Daniel

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​MORELL, JOHN DANIEL (1816–1891), British educationalist, was born on the 18th of June at Little Baddow, Essex, where his father was minister of the Congregational church (1799–1852). He proceeded to Homerton College in 1833, where he studied theology under Dr Pye Smith. He then entered Glasgow University, where he took his M.A. degree in 1841. Subsequently he studied philosophy and theology under Fichte at Bonn, and returned to England to undertake the pastorate of the Congregational church at Gosport. After three years work, he decided to give up the ministry in favour of philosophical work. As early as 1846 he made his name by his Historical and Critical View of the Speculative Philosophy of Europe in the Nineteenth Century, which brought him to the notice of Lord Lansdowne, who made him an inspector of schools. From 1848 till 1876 he was active in this capacity. As a result of his experience he published numerous educational works, e.g. The Analysis of Sentences (1852), The Essentials of English Grammar and Analysis (1855), Handbook of Logic (1855), Grammar of the English Language (1857). He also published four lectures on The Philosophical Tendencies of the Age (1848), The Philosophy of Religion (1849), Fichte’s Contributions to Moral Philosophy (1860), Philosophical Fragments (1878), An Introduction to Mental Philosophy on the Inductive Method (1884). He died on the 1st of April 1891.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Morellet, André

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​MORELLET, ANDRÉ (1727–1819), French economist and miscellaneous writer, was born at Lyons on the 7th of March 1727. He was one of the last survivors of the philosophes, and in this character he figures in many memoirs, such as Mme de Rémusat’s. He was educated by the Jesuits in his native town, and at the Sorbonne; he then took holy orders, but his designation of abbé was the chief thing clerical about him. He had a ready and biting wit, and Voltaire called him “L’Abbé Mord-les.” His work was chiefly occasional, and the most notable parts of it were a smart pamphlet in answer to Charles Palissot’s scurrilous play Les Philosophes (which procured him a short sojourn in the Bastille for an alleged libel on Palissot’s patroness, the princesse de Robeck), and a reply to Galiani’s Commerce des blés (1770). Later, he made himself useful in quasi-diplomatic communications with English statesmen, and was pensioned, being, moreover, elected a member of the Academy in 1785. A year before his death in Paris on the 12th of January 1819 he brought out four volumes of Mélanges de littérature et de philosophie du XVIIIᵉ siècle, composed chiefly of selections from his former publications, and after his death appeared his valuable Mémoires sur le XVIIIᵉ siècle et la Révolution (2 vols., 1821).
A bibliography of his numerous works is given in Quérard’s La France littéraire, vol. vi.; see also Sainte-Beuve, Causeries du lundi, vol. i.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Moreau de Saint Méry, Médéric Louis Élie

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​MOREAU DE SAINT MÉRY, MÉDÉRIC LOUIS ÉLIE (1750–1819), French politician, was born at Fort de France, in the island of Martinique, on the 28th of January 1750. He came to Paris at the age of nineteen, and became an avocat at the parlement of Paris. He subsequently returned to Martinique to practise law, and in 1780 was appointed member of the colonial council of San Domingo. Returning to Paris in 1784, he received a commission to study the legislation of the French colonies, and published Lois et constitutions des colonies françaises de l’Amérique sous le Vent de 1550 à 1785. In 1789 he was president of the assembly of the electors of Paris, played an active part in the early days of the Revolution, and was designated by Martinique deputy to the Constituent Assembly. His moderate ideas were the occasion of his arrest after the 10th of August 1792, but he contrived to escape to the United States, opened ​a bookseller’s shop at Philadelphia, and published Déscription topographique et politique de la partie espagnole et de la partie française de l’Île de Saint-Domingue (1796–1798). Returning to France in 1799, he became historiographer to the navy and councillor of state, and drafted in part the colonial and maritime code. In 1802 he was appointed by the First Consul administrator of the duchies of Parma, Piacenza, and Guastalla, but was dismissed in 1806 for slackness in repressing insubordination. From that date until his death he lived on a pension paid him by the Empress Josephine, who was a kinswoman of his.
See Fournier-Tescay, Discours prononcé aux obsèques de Moreau le 30 Janvier 1819; Silvestre, Notice sur Moreau (Paris, 1819).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Silves

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​SILVES, a city of S. Portugal, in the district of Faro (formerly the province of Algarve); on the right bank of the river Silves at the head of its estuary, and 30 m. W.N.W. of Faro. Pop. (1900) 9687. Silves is surrounded by Moorish walls and dominated by a Moorish castle. It has a fine Gothic church. It has manufactures of corks and soap; and exports corn, vegetables and fruits. Large numbers of pigs are bred, and fishing is carried on in the river and at sea. Alphonso III. (1210-1248) wrested Silves from the Moors.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Simancas

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​SIMANCAS, a town of Spain, in the province of Valladolid; 8 m. S.W. of Valladolid, on the road to Zamora and the right bank of the river Pisuerga. Pop. (1900) 1129. Simancas is a town of great antiquity, the Roman Septimanca, with a, citadel dating from the Moorish occupation in the 9th century, a fine bridge of seventeen arches, and many remains of old walls. In 934 it was the scene of a bloody battle between the Moors and Christians. The citadel is now the Archivo General del Reino, to which the national archives of Spain were removed by order of Philip II. in 1563. Their transference thither was first suggested to Charles V. by Cardinal Ximenes or Cisneros (d. 1517). The extensive alterations were made by three celebrated 16th-century architects, Juan de Herrera, Alonso Berruguete and Juan Gomez de Mora; the arrangement of the papers was entrusted to Diego de Ayala. They occupy forty-six rooms, and are arranged in upwards of 80,000 bundles (33,000,000 documents), including important private as well as state papers. The archives of the Indies were transferred in 1784 to the Lonja of Seville (q.v.). Permission to consult the documents at Simancas can be readily obtained.