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# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Strongylion

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​STRONGYLION, a Greek sculptor, the author of a bronze figure of a horse set up on the Acropolis of Athens late in the 5th century B.C., which represented the wooden horse of Troy with the Greek heroes inside it and looking forth. The inscribed basis of this figure has been found. Other works of the sculptor were a figure of Artemis at Megara, a group of the Muses, and an Amazon which was greatly admired by the emperor Nero.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Strontianite

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​STRONTIANITE, a mineral consisting of strontium carbonate, SrCO$_3$. It takes its name from Strontian in Argyllshire, where it appears to have been known as far back as 1764, but it was not recognized as a distinct mineral until later, when the examination of it led to the discovery of the element strontium. It crystallizes in the orthorhombic system and is isomorphous with aragonite and witherite. Distinctly developed crystals are, however, of rare occurrence; they are usually acicular with acute pyramid-planes and are repeatedly twinned on the prism. Radiating, fibrous or granular aggregates are more common. The colour is white, pale green or yellowish brown. The hardness is 31/2 and the specific gravity 3·7. Strontium is sometimes partly replaced by an equivalent amount of calcium. The mineral occurs in metalliferous veins in the lead mines of Strontium in Argyllshire, Pateley Bridge in Yorkshire, Braunsdorf near Freiberg in Saxony; abundantly in veins in calcareous marl near Münster and Hamm in Westphalia; and in limestone at Schoharie in New York. It is used for producing red fire in pyrotechny and for refining sugar. (L. J. S.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Mahanadi

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​MAHANADI, or Mahanuddy (“The Great River”), a river of India. It rises in 20° 10′ N., 82° E., 25 m. S. of Raipur town, in the wild mountains of Bastar in the Central Provinces. At first an insignificant stream, taking a northerly direction, it drains the eastern portion of the Chhattisgarh plain, then a little above Seorinarayan it receives the waters which its first great affluent, the Seonath, has collected from the western portion of the plain; thence flowing for some distance due E., its stream is augmented by the drainage of the hills of Uprora, Korba, and the ranges that separate Sambalpur from Chota Nagpur. At Padampur it turns towards the south, and struggling through masses of rock, flows past the town of Sambalpur to Sonpur. From Sonpur it pursues a tortuous course among ridges and rocky crags towards the range of the Eastern Ghats. This mountain line it pierces by a gorge about 40 m. in length, overlooked by forest-clad hills. Since the opening of the Bengal-Nagpur railway, the Mahanadi is little used for navigation. It pours down upon the Orissa delta at Naraj, about 7 m. west of Cuttack town; and after traversing Cuttack district from west to east, and throwing off numerous branches (the Katjori, Paika, Biropa, Chitartala, &c.) it falls into the Bay of Bengal at False Point by several channels.
The Mahanadi has an estimated drainage area of 43,800 sq. m., and its rapid flow renders its maximum discharge in time of flood second to that of no other river in India. During unusually high floods 1,500,000 cub. ft. of water pour every second through the Naraj gorge, one-half of which, uncontrolled by the elaborate ​embankments, and heavily laden with silt, pours over the delta, filling the swamps, inundating the rice-fields, and converting the plains into a sea. In the dry weather the discharge of the Mahanadi dwindles to 1125 cub. ft. per second. Efforts have been made to husband and utilize the vast water supply thrown upon the Orissa delta during seasons of flood. Each of the three branches into which the parent stream splits at the delta head is regulated by a weir. Of the four canals which form the Orissa irrigation system, two take off from the Biropa weir, and one, with its branch, from the Mahanadi weir. On the 31st of December 1868 the government took over the whole canal works from the East Indian Irrigation Company, at a cost of £941,368. The canals thus taken over and since completed, are the high-level canal, the Kendrapara canal, the Taldanda canal and the Machgaon canal, irrigating 275,000 acres.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Mahanoy City

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​MAHANOY CITY, a borough of Schuylkill county, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., 56 m. N.E. of Harrisburg. Pop. (1890), 11,286; (1900), 13,504, of whom 3877 were foreign-born, mostly Slavs; (1910 census) 15,936. It is served by branches of the Lehigh Valley and the Philadelphia & Reading railways. The borough is situated in the valley of Mahanoy Creek, and has an elevation of 1240 ft. above the sea; Broad Mountain (1795 ft.), a ridge extending through Schuylkill county, overlooks it on the S.E. The valley is a part of the anthracite coal region of Pennsylvania, fire clay abounds in the vicinity, and the borough’s principal industries are the mining and shipping of coal, and the manufacture of shirts and foundry products. Mahanoy City, originally a part of Mahanoy township (pop. in 1910, 6256), was incorporated as a borough in 1863.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Maharajpur

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​MAHARAJPUR, a village in Gwalior state, Central India. Pop. (1901), 366. It was the scene of a battle (Dec. 29, 1843) in which Sir Hugh Gough, accompanied by the governor-general, Lord Ellenborough, defeated the insurgent army of the Gwalior state.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Mahayana

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​MAHAYANA (“Great Vehicle”), the name given to the later Buddhism, the popular religion which embraced all the people and had its pantheon of Buddhas and Bodhisatvas, with attendant deities and demons, spacious temples and images, pompous ceremonial and noisy festivals. It was thus contrasted with the Hinayana (“Little Vehicle”) of the primitive Buddhism which had been only for the select few. (See Buddhism.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Mahdi

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​MAHDI (Arab. “he who is guided aright”), a title assumed by the third Abbasid caliph (see Caliphate: Abbasids, § 3). According to Moslem traditionists Mahomet declared that one of his descendants, the imam of God, who would fill the earth with equity and justice, would bear the name of al-mahdi. The Sunnis hold that this mahdi has not yet appeared. The name of mahdi is also given by the Shiʽite Mahommedans to the last of the imams of the house of ʽAli. It was under the name of al-mahdi that Mokhtar proclaimed ʽAli’s son Mahommed as the opponent of the caliph Abdalmalik, and, according to Shahrastani, the doctrine of the mahdi, the hidden deliverer who is one day to appear and fill the oppressed world with righteousness, first arose in connexion with a belief that this Mahommed had not died but lived concealed at Mount Radwā, near Mecca, guarded by a lion and a panther. The hidden imam of the common Shiʽites is, however, the twelfth imam, Mahommed AbuʽI-Qasim, who disappeared mysteriously in 879. The belief in the appearance of the mahdi readily lent itself to imposture. Of the many pretenders to this dignity known in all periods of Moslem history the most famous was the first caliph of the Fatimite dynasty in North Africa, ʽObaidallah al-Mahdi, who reigned 909–933. After him was named the first capital of the dynasty, the once important city of Mahdia (q.v.). Another great historical movement, headed by a leader who proclaimed himself the mahdi (Mahommed ibn Abdallah ibn Tumart), was that of the Almohades (q.v.). In 1881 Mahommed Ahmed ibn Seyyid Abdullah (q.v.), a Dongolese, proclaimed himself al-mahdi and founded in the eastern Sudan the short-lived empire overthrown by an Anglo-Egyptian force at the battle of Omdurman in 1898. Concurrently with the claim of Mahommed Ahmed to be the mahdi the same title was claimed by, or for, the head of the Senussites, a confraternity powerful in many regions of North Africa.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Mahdia

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​MAHDIA (also spelt Mehdia, Mehedia, &c.), a town of Tunisia, on the coast between the gulfs of Hammamet and Gabes, 47 m. by rail S.S.E. of Susa. Pop. about 8000. Mahdia is built on a rocky peninsula which projects eastward about a mile beyond the normal coast line, and is not more than a quarter of a mile wide. The extremity of the peninsula is called Ras Mahdia or Cape Africa—Africa being the name by which Mahdia was designated by Froissart and other European historians during the middle ages and the Renaissance. In the centre of the peninsula and occupying its highest point is a citadel (16th century); another castle farther west is now used as a prison and is in the centre of the native town. The European quarter and the new port are on the south-west side of the peninsula. The port is available for small boats only; steamers anchor in the roadstead about a quarter of a mile from the shore. On the south-east, cut out of the rock, is the ancient harbour, or cothon, measuring about 480 ft by 240 ft., the entrance being 42 ft. wide. There are manufactories of olive ​oil, but the chief industry is sardine fishing, largely in the hands of Italians.
Mahdia occupies the site of a Phoenician settlement and by some authorities is identified with the town called Turris Hannibalis by the Romans. Hannibal is said to have embarked here on his exile from Carthage. After the Arab conquest of North Africa the town fell into decay. It was refounded in 912 by the first Fatimite caliph, ’Obaidallah-al-Mahdi, after whom it was named. It became the port of Kairawan and was for centuries a city of considerable importance, largely owing to its great natural strength, and its position on the Mediterranean. It carried on an active trade with Egypt, Syria and Spain. The town was occupied by the Normans of Sicily in the 12th century, but after holding it for about twelve years they were driven out in 1159 by the Almohades. In 1390 a joint English and French force vainly besieged Mahdia for sixty-one days. In the early part of the 16th century the corsair Dragut seized the town and made it his capital, but in 1550 the place was captured by the Spaniards, who held it until 1574. Before evacuating the town the Spaniards dismantled the fortifications. Under the rule of the Turks and, later, the beys of Tunis Mahdia became a place of little importance. It was occupied by the French in 1881 without opposition, and regained some of its former commercial importance.
During 1908 numbers of bronzes and other works of art were recovered from a vessel wrecked off Mahdia in the 5th century A.D. (see Classical Review, June 1909).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Mahallat

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​MAHALLAT, a province of central Persia, situated between Kashan and Irak. Pop. about 20,000; yearly revenue about £2500. Until 1890 it was one of the five “central provinces” (the other four being Irak, Ferahan, Kezzaz, and Savah), which were under a governor appointed by the shah; since then it has formed part of the Isfahan government. It is traversed by the Anarbar or Kum River, and comprises the city of Mahallat, divided into upper and lower, or Rivkan and Zanjirvan, and twenty-two flourishing villages. It was known in former times as Anar, the Anarus of Peutinger’s tables. The city, capital of the province, is situated at an elevation of 5850 ft. in 33° 51′ N., 50° 30′ E.; pop. about 9000.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Mahar

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​MAHAR, the name of a servile caste in the Deccan, India. Their special function, apart from that of scavenger, is to act as village watchman, as guardian of the village boundaries, and as public messenger. In some parts they are also weavers of coarse cotton cloth. In 1901 their total number in all India was just under three millions.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Maheshwar

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​MAHESHWAR, a town in Indore state, Central India, on the N. bank of the Narbada (Nerbudda). Pop. (1901), 7042. Though of great antiquity and also of religious sanctity, it is chiefly noted as the residence of Ahalya Bai, the reigning queen of the Holkar dynasty during the last half of the 18th century, whose ability and munificence are famous throughout India. Close by her cenotaph stands the family temple of the Holkars.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Scheemakers, Peter

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​SCHEEMAKERS, PETER (1691–1770), Flemish sculptor, was born in Antwerp, and learnt his art from his father and from Delvaux. After visiting Denmark and walking thence to Rome for purposes of study, he returned on foot to the port of embarcation for England, but stayed in London but a short while. From 1728 to 1735 he again sojourned in Rome and then settled in England, where he remained from 1735 to 1770, returning in the latter year to his native city where he died a few months afterwards. He worked for a time with Francis Bird, the pupil of Grinling Gibbons. Fifteen of his works—monuments, figures and busts—are in Westminster Abbey, two executed in collaboration with his master Delvaux: the “ Hugh Chamberlen ” (d. 1728, and therefore perhaps produced during his first visit to London) and “ Catherine, duchess of Buckinghamshire.” He is best, though not most creditably, known to fame by his monument to Shakespeare (1740), but as this work was designed by Kent the blame for the errors of taste therein displayed must not be laid to Scheemakers' account. In addition to these may be mentioned the monuments to Admiral Sir Charles Wager, Vice-Admiral Watson, Lieut.-General Percy Kirk, George Lord Viscount Howe, General Monck, and Sir Henry Belasye. His busts of John Dryden (1720) and Dr Richard Mead (1754), also in the Abbey, are among the best of his smaller works. The most important of his monuments elsewhere, as mentioned by Walpole, are those to the 1st and 2nd dukes of Ancaster at Edenham, Lincolnshire; Lord Chancellor Hardwicke at Wimpole, Cambridgeshire; the duke of Kent, his wives and daughters, at Fletton, Bedfordshire; the earl of Shelburne, at Wycombe, Bucks; and the figure on the sarcophagus to Montague Sherrard Drake, at Amersham. Although less esteemed as an artist than Rysbrack and Roubiliac, Scheemakers was a very popular and widely-employed sculptor in his day, whose influence was considerable; he was the master of Nollekens, and left a son, Thomas Scheemakers, who produced a considerable amount of work, and exhibited in the Royal Academy from 1782–1804.
See Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting, vol. 3 (ed. 1876), and Dictionary of National Biography.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Schefer, Leopold

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​SCHEFER, LEOPOLD (1784–1862), German poet and novelist, was born at Muskau in Lower Lusatia on the 30th of July 1784, and educated at the gymnasium of Bautzen. In 1813, he was appointed manager of the estates of Prince Pückler-Muskau (q.v.). The prince, recognizing the literary abilities of the young man, encouraged his early poetical efforts and gave him the means to travel. After visiting England, Italy, Greece and Turkey, Schefer returned in 1820 to Muskau, where he lived in easy circumstances and with abundant leisure for his literary pursuits, until his death on the 16th of February 1862. Schefer wrote a large number of short stories which appeared in several series, Novellen (5 vols., 1825–1829); Neue Novellen (4 vols., 1831–1835); Lavabecher (2 vols., 1833); Kleine Romane (6 vols., 1836–1837). The historical novel Die Gräfin Ulfeld (2 vols., 1834), and the piquant satire, Die Sibylle von Mantua (1852), were published separately. But Schefer is less known for his novels which are lacking in plastic power and creative imagination, than for a volume of charming poems, Laienbrevier (1834–1835). These, owing to their warmth of feeling and fascinating descriptions of the beauties of nature, at once established his fame as a poet. This vein, in close imitation of his friend the poet Richard Georg Spiller von Hauenschild, known under the pseudonym Max Waldau (1822–1855), he followed in later years with the poems Vigilien (1843), Der Weltpriester (1846), and Hausreden (1869). His Hafis in Hellas (Hamburg, 1853) and Koran der Liebe (Hamburg, 1855) contain with their glowing descriptions of the East, original poetry of a high order.
A selection of Schefer's works, Ausgewählte Werke, in 12 vols., was published in 1845 (2nd ed., 1857). See J. Schmidt, Geschichte der deutschen Literatur im 19. Jahrhundert, vol. ii.; E. Brenning Leopold Schefer (1884); and L. Geiger in Dichter und Frauen (1896).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Scheldt

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SCHELDT (Fr. Escaut, Flem. Schelde), a river rising near Catelet in France, entering Belgium near Bleharies in Hainaut, and flowing past Tournai, Oudenarde, Ghent and Termonde till it reaches Antwerp. Some distance below Antwerp, in front of the island Beveland, where the river divides into two channels, respectively north and south of the island, both banks belong to Holland. Of the two channels named, the southern, which reaches the sea at Flushing, is the more important and is used for ocean commerce. The Scheldt has a length of 250 m., of which, by a skilful arrangement of locks, not less than 207 m. are navigable. The principal tributaries are the Lys and the Dender. By the treaty of Munster in 1648 the Dutch obtained the right to close the Scheldt to navigation, and they clung tenaciously to it for over two centuries. In 1839 on the final dissolution of the kingdom of the Netherlands, Holland gave definite form to this right by fixing the toll, and by obtaining the assent of the powers to the arrangement which fettered the trade of Antwerp. In 1863 after long negotiations Belgium bought up this right — each of the powers interested in the trade contributing its quota — and the navigation of the Scheldt was then declared free.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Scheelite

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SCHEELITE, a mineral consisting of calcium tungstate, CaWO$_4$. It was early known as “tungsten” (meaning in Swedish, “heavy stone”), and is the mineral in which K. W. Scheele discovered tungstic acid, hence the name scheelite. Well-developed crystals are not infrequent; they usually have the form of acute tetragonal bipyramids (P in fig.); sometimes other pyramid-faces are present, and these (g and n) being developed on only one side of P indicate the parallel-faced hemihedrism of the crystals. Compact and granular masses also occur. The colour is usually yellowish white or brownish, the crystals sometimes transparent to translucent; the lustre vitreous to adamantine. The hardness is 4½, the specific gravity 6.0. Molybdenum is usually present, replacing an equivalent amount of tungsten; and in a green variety known as “cupro-scheelite” part of the calcium is replaced by copper.
Scheelite usually occurs with topaz, fluor, apatite, wolframite, &c., in tin-bearing veins; and is sometimes found in association with gold. Fine crystals have been obtained from Caldbeck Fells in Cumberland, Zinnwald and Elbogen in Bohemia, Guttannen in Switzerland, the Riesengebirge in Silesia, Dragoon Mountains in Arizona and elsewhere. At Trumbull in Connecticut and Kimpu-san in Japan large crystals of scheelite completely altered to wolframite have been found: those from Japan have been called “reinite.”
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Scheffer, Ary

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SCHEFFER, ARY (1795-1858), French painter of Dutch extraction, was born at Dort on the 10th of February 1795. After the early death of his father, a poor painter, Ary was taken to Paris and placed in the studio of Guérin by his mother, a woman of great energy and character. The moment at which Scheffer left Guérin coincided with the commencement of the Romantic movement. He had little sympathy with the directions given to it by either of its most conspicuous representatives, Sigalon, Delacroix or Géricault, and made various tentative efforts — “Gaston de Foix” (1824), “Suliot Women” (1827) — before he found his own path. Immediately after the exhibition of the last-named work he turned to Byron and Goethe, selecting from Faust a long series of subjects which had an extraordinary vogue. Of these, we may mention “Margaret at her Wheel”; “Faust Doubting”; “Margaret at the Sabbat”; “Margaret Leaving Church”; the “Garden Walk”; and lastly, perhaps the most popular of all, “Margaret at the Well.” The two “Mignons” appeared in 1836; and “Francesca da Rimini,” which is on the whole Scheffer's best work, belongs to the same period. He now turned to religious subjects: “Christus Consolator” (1836) was followed by “Christus Remunerator,” “The Shepherds Led by the Star” (1837), “The Magi Laying Down their Crowns,” “Christ in the Garden of Olives,” “Christ bearing his Cross,” “Christ Interred” (1845), “St Augustine and Monica” (1846), after which he ceased to exhibit, but, shut up in his studio, continued to produce much which was first seen by the outer world after his death, which took place at Argenteuil on the 15th of June 1858. At the posthumous exhibition of his works there figured the “Sorrows of the Earth,” and the “Angel Announcing the Resurrection,” which he had left unfinished. Amongst his numerous portraits those of La Fayette, Béranger, Lamartine and Marie Amélie were the most noteworthy. His reputation, much shaken by this posthumous exhibition, was further undermined by the sale of the Paturle Gallery, which contained many of his most celebrated achievements; the charm and facility of their composition could not save them from the condemnation provoked by their poor and earthy colour and vapid sentiment. Scheffer, who married the widow of General Baudrand, was only made commander of the Legion of Honour in 1848 — that is, after he had wholly withdrawn from the Salon. His brother Henri, born at the Hague on the 27th of September 1798, was also a fertile painter.
See Vitet's notice (1861) prefixed to Bingham's publication of works of A. Scheffer; Etex, Ary Scheffer; Mrs Grote, Life of A. Scheffer (1860).