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# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sorau

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​SORAU, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Brandenburg, on the Sorebach, 54 m. S.E. of Frankfort-on- Oder by rail, and at the junction of lines to Cottbus and Görlitz. Pop. (1905), 16,410. One of the oldest towns in Lower Lusatia, Sorau contains a number of ancient buildings, among which the most prominent are several of the churches (one dating from 1204), the town hall, built in 1260, and the old palace of 1207 (now a prison). The new palace, erected in 1711 by Count Erdmann II. of Promnitz, is utilized for government offices. The varied manufactures of the town comprise cloth, linen, wax candles, starch, glass and porcelain.
Sorau is said to have existed in 840, and to have belonged to the abbey of Fulda till the 12th century. It received civic rights in 1260. With the surrounding district, known as the barony of Sorau, it became the seat of successive noble families; and in 1400 it was united with the barony of Triebel. The last Count of Promnitz, whose ancestor had purchased both baronies from Frederick of Bohemia in 1556, sold them in 1765 to the elector of Saxony for an annuity of 12,000 thalers (£1800). In 1815 Saxony ceded them to Prussia.
See Worbs, Geschichte der Herrschaft Sorau und Triebel (Sorau, 1826).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sorcery

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​Sorcery, magic, enchantment, witchcraft; the use of supposed supernatural powers by the agency of evil spirits called forth by spells, incantations, &c., on the part of the magician, sorcerer or witch. The word meant originally divination by means of the casting or drawing of lots, and is derived from the O. Fr. sorcerie, sorcier, a sorcerer, Med. Lat. sortiarius, one who practises divination by lots, sortes (see Magic, Divination and Witchcraft).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sora

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​SORA, a city of Campania, Italy, in the province of Caserta, 77 m. N. by W. of that town on the railway between Roccasecca and Avezzano, 920 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1901), 6,050 (town); 16,022 (commune). It is built in a plain on the banks of the Liris. This part of the valley is the seat of some important manufactures, especially of paper-mills. The original cathedral, consecrated by Pope Adrian IV. in 1155, was destroyed by the earthquake of 1634. On the precipitous rock above the town (1768 ft.) which guards the Liris valley and the entrance to the Abruzzi are remains of polygonal walls; here, possibly, was the citadel of the original Volscian town. There are also remains of medieval fortifications. In the town itself there are no remains of antiquity nor buildings of interest. The district around Sora is famous for the costumes of its peasants.
Sora, an ancient Volscian town, was thrice captured by the Romans, in 345, 314 and 305 B.C., before they managed, in 303, by means of a colony 4000 strong, to confirm its annexation. In 209 it was one of the colonies which refused further \contributions to the war against Hannibal. By the lex Julia it became a municipium, but under Augustus it was colonized by soldiers of the legio IV. Sorana, which had been mainly enrolled there. It belonged technically to Latium Adjectum. The castle of Sorella, built on the rocky height above the town, ​was in the middle ages a stronghold of some note. Charles I. of Anjou made Sora a duchy for the Cantelmi ; it was afterwards seized by Pius II., but, being restored to the Cantelmi by Sixtus IV., it ultimately passed to the Delia Rovere of Urbino. Against Caesar Borgia the city was heroically defended by Giovanni di Montefeltro. It was purchased by Gregory XIII. for n,ooo ducats and bestowed on the Buoncompagni, the ancestors of the line of Buoncompagni-Ludovisi. In ancient times Sora was the birthplace of the Decii, Attilius Regulus, and Lucius Mummius; and among its later celebrities is Cardinal Baronius. (T. As.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sorby, Henry Clifton

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​SORBY, HENRY CLIFTON (1826–1908), English microscopist and geologist, was born at Woodbourne near Sheffield on the 10th of May 1826. He early developed an interest in natural science, and one of his first papers related to the excavation of valleys in Yorkshire. He subsequently dealt with the physical geography of former geological periods, with the wave-structure in certain stratified rocks, and the origin of slaty cleavage. He took up the study of rocks and minerals under the microscope, and published an important memoir On the Microscopical Structure of Crystals in 1858 (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc.). In England he was one of the pioneers in petrography; he was awarded the Wollaston medal by the Geological Society of London in 1869, and when president of the society he published in his addresses the results of original researches on the structure and origin of limestones, and of the non-calcareous stratified rocks (1879-1880). He had previously been president of the Royal Microscopical Society. He wrote on the construction and use of the micto-spectroscope in the study of animal and vegetable colouring matter, and in later essays he dealt with such varied subjects as the microscopical structure of iron and steel, and the temperature of the water in estuaries. He also applied his skill in making preparations of invertebrate animals for lantern-slides. In 1882 he was elected president of Firth College, Sheffield. He died on the 9th of March 1908.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Soranus

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​SORANUS, Greek physician, born at Ephesus, lived during the reigns of Trajan and Hadrian (A.D. 98–138). According to Suïdas, he practised in Alexandria and subsequently in Rome. He was the chief representative of the school of physicians known as " methodists." Two treatises by him are extant : On Fractures (in J. L. Ideler, Physici et medici minores, i. 1841) and On Diseases of Women (first published in 1838, later by V. Rose, in 1882, with a 6th-century Latin translation by Moschio, a physician of the same school). Of his most important work (On Acute and Chronic Diseases) only a few fragments in Greek remain, but we possess a complete Latin translation by Caelius Aurelianus (5th century). The Life of Hippocrates (in Ideler) probably formed one of the collection of medical biographies by Soranus referred to by Suïdas, and is valuable as the only authority for the life of the great physician, with the exception of articles in Suïdas and Stephanus of Byzantium (s.v. Κώς). The Introduction to the Science of Medicine (V. Rose, Anecdota graeca, ii. 1870) is considered spurious.
See article by J. Hahn, in Dechambre's Dictionnaire encyclopédique des sciences médicales, 3rd series, tom. 10; W. Christ, Geschichte der griechischen Litteratur (1898); J. Ilberg, Die Überlieferung der Gynaekologie des Soranos von Ephesos (Leipzig, 1910).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sorbs

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​SORBS, the tribal name of the Slavonic people, whom the Germans call Wends in Lusatia (Lausitz); they call themselves Serbs or Lužičane. Their country includes the western extremity of the kingdom of Saxony and parts of the districts of Hoyerswerda, Muskau, Kottbus, Kalau, Spremberg and Sorau in Prussia; they are now surrounded on all sides by Germans, but they formerly had them as neighbours only on the west along the Fulda, while on the north towards Köpenick they marched with the Lutiči, on the east with the Poles and Silesians along the Queiss and Bobr, and on the south were separated from the Bohemians by the mountains that now make the Austrian frontier. The Sorbs are divided into High and Low along a line from Sagan to Muskau and Spremberg. They are in all about 180,000 in number; 80,000 Low Sorbs and 40,000 of the 100,000 High Sorbs are in Prussia, and 60,000 High Sorbs in Saxony. These have gained definite rights for their language in school and administration, so that Bautzen (Budyšin), their capital, is the intellectual centre not only for Saxon subjects, but for all High Sorbs and to a great extent for Low Sorbs. The first monuments of both dialects belong to the Reformation period, these being translations of Luther's Catechism by Warichius and Moller. Some Sorbs are Protestants, though the Saxon Sorbs are mostly Roman Catholics. Early in the 19th century the High Sorbs had a revival under the leadership of F. A. Klin, a lawyer and politician; A. Seidler, a considerable poet, and S. E. Smoler, an ethnographer and publicist. More recent writers are J. Ćišinsk and J. Radyserb. A Macica or Literary and Linguistic Society was founded in 1847, and publishes a Časopis or Periodical. Meanwhile Low Sorb has remained almost uncultivated owing to the pressure of the Prussian administration.
The two dialects stand between Polish and Čech: they have lost the nasal vowels, have the accent on the first syllable, and make tj into č, dj into z, like Čech, but they retain x and y and, like Polish, have grod for Čech grad. High Sorb has h, Low the original g. They have kept the old aorist and dual. Sorb is usually printed in German blackletter variously adapted; the Macica publishes some books spelt after the Čech system.
Bibliography. — G. Kral, Grammatik der wendischen Sprache in der Oberlausitz (Bautzen, 1895); K. E. Mucke, Historische und vergleichende Laut- u. Formen-Lehre d. niedersorbischen Sprache (Jablonowski Preisschrift, xviii.) (Leipzig, 1891); Pfuhl, Lausitzisch- Wendisch Wörterbuch (High Sorb) (Bautzen, 1866); J. G. Zwahr, Niederlausitz-wendisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch (Spremberg, 1847); M. Hórnik, Citanka (Chrestomathy of High Sorb) (Bautzen, 1863); L. Haupt and J. S. Smoler, Volkslieder der Wenden in der Ober- und Niederlausitz (Grimma, 1842-1843).
(E. H. M.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Tharandt

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​THARANDT, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Saxony, romantically situated on the Wilde Weisseritz, 9 m. S.W. of Dresden, on the Dresden-Reichenbach railway. Pop. (1905) 2967. It has a Protestant church, a hydropathic establishment, and the oldest academy of forestry in Germany (founded by Heinrich Cotta in 1811) with about sixty students. Tharandt is a favourite summer resort of the people of Dresden, one of its principal charms being the magnificent beech woods which surround it.
See Donner, Tharandt (Tharandt, 1890).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Thanesar

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​THANESAR (=“place of the god”), an ancient town of British India, in Karnal district of the Punjab, on the river Saraswati, 100 m. by rail N. of Delhi: pop. (1901) 5066. As the centre of the tract called Kurukshetra in the Mahabharata, it has always been a holy place, and was in the seventh century the capital of King Harshavardhana, who ruled over all northern India. The bathing-fair held here on the occasion of a solar eclipse is said to be attended by half a million pilgrims.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Thanet, Isle of

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​THANET, ISLE OF, the extreme north-eastern corner of Kent, England, insulated by the two branches of the river Stour, and forming one of the eight parliamentary divisions of the county. Its name is said to be derived from Saxon tene, a beacon or fire (probably from the number of watch-fires existing on this easily ravaged coast), and numerous remains of Saxon occupation have been found, as at Osengal near Ramsgate. Thanet is roughly oblong in form, its extreme measurements being about 8 m. from E. to W., and 5 m. from N. to S. The branches of the Stour dividing near Sarre take the place of the former Wantsume, a sea-passage which had diminished in breadth to half a mile in the time of Augustine. The Wantsume was guarded by the Roman strongholds of Regulbium (Reculver) in the north and Rutupiae (Richborough) in the south, and was crossed by ferries at Sarre and Wade. With the drying up of this channel and the closing of Sandwich harbour in the 16th century, the present marshlands or level to the south and west of the isle were left. The sea-face of Thanet consists mainly of bold slopes or sheer cliffs, and the eastern extremity is the fine headland of the North Foreland. Containing the popular seaside resorts of Ramsgate, Broadstairs, Margate and Westgate, Thanet is served by the South-Eastern & Chatham railway, and Minster is a junction station of the lines to Ramsgate and Sandwich respectively.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Thapsus

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​THAPSUS, a low peninsula, now known as Magnisi, joined by a narrow isthmus to the mainland of Sicily, about 7 m. N.N.W. of Syracuse. The founders of Megara Hyblaea settled here temporarily, according to Thucydides, in the winter of 729–728 B.C., but it seems to have remained almost if not entirely uninhabited until the Athenians used it as a naval station in their attack on Syracuse early in 414 B.C. A number of tombs were excavated in 1894, containing objects belonging to a transitional stage between the second and third Sicel period, attributable roughly to 1000–900 B.C., and with a certain proportion of Mycenean importations.
See Orsi in Monumenti dei Lincei (1897), vi. 89–150.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Thann

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​THANN, a town of Germany, in Upper Alsace, 16 m. by rail N.W. of Mülhausen. Pop. (1905) 7901. It is the seat of cotton, calico, silk, machinery and other industries, and excellent wine is grown there. The (Roman Catholic) church of St Theobald (1351) is an elegant specimen of Gothic, and has a remarkably fine tower (1450–1516), 266 ft. high. Above the town are the ruins of the castle of Engelburg, destroyed by Turenne in 1675.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Thapsacus

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​THAPSACUS, the “large and prosperous city” on the Arabian side of the Euphrates where Cyrus the Younger revealed to the Greeks the object of his expedition (Xen. Anab. i. 4, 11). No such place has yet been found mentioned in cuneiform texts. We may have a Semitic form of the name in the Hebrew Tiphsah; but it is impossible to determine whether the one phrase “from Tiphsah to Gaza” (1 Kings v. 4—iv. 24 in the English version), where the name seems to occur, is as early ​as the Persian period: the Greek text is quite discrepant. Thapsacus was the crossing-place of Darius Codomannus, before and after his defeat (Arrian ii. 13), and of Alexander (iii. 7), and in Strabo’s time it was the usual crossing-place (xvi. 1, 21); but Tiglath-pileser I. and Assur-nasir-pal crossed considerably farther north, and we have no reason to suppose that they were not simply following the practice of those early times; and we do not know when the custom of crossing at Thapsacus which the Hebrew text of the passage in 1 Kings may presuppose sprang up. Xenophon’s army had to be content with fording the stream. Alexander, however, effected his crossing (Arrian, iii. 7) by two connected bridges (of boats?), and it was from this place that later he had the material for his fleet sent down (Arrian vii. 19; Strabo xvi. 741) to Babylonia. His successors must also have valued the place, for according to Pliny (v. 87) it bore later the name of Amphipolis, perhaps bestowed on it (Steph. Byz., Appian Syr. 57) by Seleucus I., although the name, like so many others, probably failed to win acceptance; and in the time of Eratosthenes the position of Thapsacus had become so central that he chose it as the point from which to make his measurements for all Asia (Strabo ii. 79, 80), and in the time of Strabo himself it was there that goods were embarked for transport down the Euphrates (Q. Curt. x. 1), and landed after having come by stream from lower districts (Strabo xvi. 1, 23). After Pliny the city is not again mentioned.
After various attempts at identification (see Ritter, Erdkunde) it has apparently been correctly identified by J. P. Peters (Nation, May 23, 1889) and B. Moritz (Sitz.-Ber. d. Berl. Akad., July 25, 1889). The name may survive in Kal’at Dibse, “a small ruin 8 m. below Meskene, and 6 m. below the ancient Barbalissus.” See J. P. Peters, Nippur, 196 ff. (H. W. H.)
* ↑ 2 Kings xv. 16 cannot possibly refer to any place on the Euphrates.
* ↑ Stephanus of Byzantium gives it in a list of cities as a “Syrian town on the Euphrates,” quoting from Theopompus, without noting that he has already referred to it under the name Amphipolis.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Thar and Parkar

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​THAR AND PARKAR, or Thur and Parker, a district of British India in the Sind province of Bombay. Area, 13,941 sq. m. The district is divided into two portions. The western part, called the “Pat,” is watered by the Eastern Nara and the Mithrau canals, which constitute the sole water-system of the district, and the presence of water has created a quantity of jungle and marsh; the other part, called the “Thar,” is a desert tract of rolling sand-hills, running north-east and south-west, composed of a fine but slightly coherent sand. To the south-east of Thar is Parkar, where there are ranges of rocky hills, rising to 350 ft. above the surrounding level, and open plains of stiff clay. This portion contains the ruins of several old temples. The climate is subject to considerable extremes in temperature, being excessively hot in the summer and very cold in winter, the cold increasing as the sand-hills are approached. In 1901 the population was 389,714, showing an increase of 22 per cent. in the decade. The principal crops are millcts, rice, wheat, oil-seeds and cotton. Cultivation largely depends upon the control of the water which comes down the canals and occasionally causes flood. Salt is found in two or three places. The western border of the district is entered by the narrow-gauge railway from Hyderabad to Shadipalli, connected with the North-Western main line by a bridge across the Indus at Kotri, and with the Rajputana system at Jodhpur. Umarkot, the administrative headquarters of the district, is on the edge of the desert. Pop. (1901) 4924. It is historically interesting as the birthplace of the emperor Akbar in 1542.
Very little is known of the early history of the district. The Soda Rajputs, said to be descendants of Parmar Soda, are supposed to have come into this part of Sind about 1226, when they quickly displaced the rulers of the country, though, according to other authorities, they did not conquer the country from the Sumras, the dominant race, before the beginning of the 16th century. The local dynasty of the Sodas succumbed to the Kalhoras about 1750, since which period the district has been subject more or less to Sind. The Talpur mirs succeeded the Kalhoras, and built a number of forts to overawe the people, who were lawless and addicted to robbery. On the British conquest of Sind in 1843 the greater part of the district was made over to Cutch, but in 1856 it was incorporated in the province of Sind. In 1859 a rebellion broke out, which was quickly suppressed.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Tharrawaddy

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​THARRAWADDY, a town and district in the Pegu division of Lower Burma. The town has a station on the railway, 68 m. N.W. from Rangoon. Pop. (1901) 1643. The district has an area of 2851 sq. m. The Pegu Yoma range separates it from Toungoo district, and forms the water-parting between the rivers Irrawaddy and Sittang; there are also many small elevations. The Irrawaddy is the principal navigable river. Another important river is the Hlaing, which runs through the district from north to south, receiving from the east, through numerous channels, the drainage of the Pegu Yoma Mountains, which fertilizes the plain on its eastern bank. There are teak forests and fuel reserves, covering an area of 732 sq. m. Among the wild animals found in the mountains are elephant, rhinoceros, bison and various kinds of feathered game. The rainfall in 1905 was 91.65 in. Pop. (1901) 395,570, showing an increase of 17 per cent. in the decade. The railway runs through the centre of the district, with ten stations. The chief towns are Gyobingauk (6030) and Thonzé (6578). The staple crop is rice, but orchards and gardens are also common. The history of the district is identical with that of Henzada (q.v.). Tharrawaddy was formed in 1878 out of that portion of Henzada lying east of the Irrawaddy.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Web

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​WEB (a word common to Teutonic languages, cf. Du. webbe, Dan. vaev, Ger. Gewebe, all from the Teutonic wabh—to weave), that which is woven (see Weaving). The word is thus applied to anything resembling a web of cloth, to the vexillum of the feather of a bird, to the membrane which connects the toes of many aquatic birds and some aquatic mammals; it is particularly used of the “cobweb,” the net spun by the spider, the Old English name for which was átor-coppe, i.e. poison-head (átor, poison, and coppe, tuft or head). In architecture the term “web” is sometimes given, in preference to “panel,” to the stone shell of a vault resting on the ribs and taking its winding surface from the same; see Vault.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Webb, Sidney

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​WEBB, SIDNEY (1839–), English socialist and author, was born in London on the 13th of July 1859. He was educated at private schools in London and Switzerland, at the Birkbeck Institute and the City of London College. From 1875 to 1878 he was employed in a city office, but he entered the civil service by open competition as a clerk in the War Office in 1878, became surveyor of taxes in 1879, and in 1881 entered the colonial office, where he remained until 1891. In 1885 he was called to the bar at Gray’s Inn. Mr Webb was one of the early members of the Fabian Society, contributing to Fabian Essays (1889); and he became well-known as a socialist, both by his speeches and his writings. He entered the London County Council in 1892 as member for Deptford, and was returned at the head of the poll in the successive elections of 1895, 1898, 1901 and 1904. He resigned from the civil service in 1891 to give his whole time to the work of the Council (where he was chairman of the Technical Education Board) and to the study of economics. He served from 1903 to 1906 on the Royal Commission on Trade Union Law and on other important commissions He married in 1892 Miss Beatrice Potter, herself a writer on economics and sociology, the author of The Co-operative Movement in Great Britain (1891) and a contributor to Charles Booth’s Life and Labour of the People (1891–1903). His most important works are: a number of Fabian tracts; London Education (1904); The Eight Hours Day (1891), in conjunction with Harold Cox; and, with Mrs Sidney Webb, The History of Trade Unionism (1894, new ed. 1902), Industrial Democracy (1897, new ed. 1902), Problems of Modern Industry (1898), History of Liquor Licensing (1903), English Local Government (1906), &c. Mrs Webb was a member of the Royal Commission on the Poor Law, and she and her husband were responsible for the Minority Report (see Poor Law) and for starting the widespread movement in its favour.