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work either in producing light or in driving motors. A similar shunt is to be found in many motors.

Shun-tien-fu, official name of Peking (q.v.).

Shurtleff College. A Baptist coeducational institution at Upper Alton, Ill., founded in 1827. Its organization comprises a college of liberal arts, a school of music, and an academy. The collegiate courses lead to the bachelor's degree in arts or science, and the master's degree is given after one year's graduate work in residence or two years' work out of residence. The college has an endowment of $140,000, buildings and grounds worth $100,000, an income of $16,000, and a library of 12,000 volumes. A new library building, the gift of Carnegie, under construction (1911). In 1910 its students numbered 150 and the instructors 12.

Shusha, town, Russian Transcaucasia, Yelisavetpol government, 68 m. s.E. of Yelisavetpol. It grows fruit, and weaves wool and cotton; contains tanneries, dye works, and soap factories. Shusha was the capital of Karabagh khanate before the Russian occupation. Pop. 30,000.

Shushwap, a North American tribe of Salish stock, that inhabited the interior of British Columbia along the Fraser River, and around Shushwap Lake. The women were skilful in basketry and matting. Unlike the neighboring tribes, they lived in underground circular houses, and did not possess a clan system. See SALISH.

Shuster, former capital of province of Khuzistan, Persia, on the Karun River; 250 m. s.w. of Ispahan. Among its notable features is the Mosque of Masjed-i-Juma. Pop. 18,000.

Shute, JOHN, See BARRINGTON. Shuvaloff, PETER ANDREIEVITCH (1827-89), Russian soldier and diplomat, was born in St. Petersburg. As governor-general of the Baltic provinces (1864) he distinguished himself by repressing nihilism and other forms of revolutionary agitation. He was placed at the head of the political police, and became the confidential agent of Czar Alexander II. He was then ambassador to Britain; and in 1877-8, after the Russo-Turkish War, he conducted the negotiations with Lord Salisbury which led up to the Berlin Congress.

Shuya, town, Vladimir government, Central Russia; 63 m. N.E. of Vladimir city. It has manufactories of soap, cotton, calico, linen, cloth, dye works, and preparation of hides and furs. Pop. 23.000.

Shwan-pan, or SUAN-PAN. See ABACUS.

Shwedaung, town, Prome district, Lower Burma, on the Irawadi River; 11 m. s. w. of Prome. Weaving is the chief industry; exports rice. Pop. 12,000.

Sialagogue is a substance which

Siam

increases the flow of saliva. Some drugs effect this by direct contact with the mucous membrane of the mouth-e.g., dilute acids, ether, tobacco, mustard, and spices; others by acting upon the salivary glands-e.g., potassium iodide, jaborandi, mercurial salts, and physostigma. Sialagogues, as such are of small importance in medicine, though by increasing salivary digestion some of them promote appetite and assimilation.

Sialkot, municipal town, Sialkot district, Punjab, India, 66 m. N.E. of Lahore. Excellent paper and country cloth are manufactured. Pop. 60,000.

Siam (Siamese, Muang Thaï), an Asiatic kingdom, north of the Gulf of Siam, which separates the Malay from the Indo-Chinese Peninsula. Its area is about 195,000 sq. m. The country is naturally divided into three regions: (1) The mountainous district to the west and northwest; (2) the great central plateau, which reaches the sea to the south; and (3) Lower Siam, a narrow strip of territory forming the northern part of the Malay Peninsula. The island of Junk Ceylon or Tongkah, off the western coast of Malay Peninsula, contains valuable tin mines. A large part of the mainland is an alluvial plain. The range which extends south from the northwest forms the backbone of the Malay Peninsula. The estuaries of the rivers are all blocked by sandbars.

The chief mineral products are rubies, antimony, manganese, zinc, and tin. Copper and gold are worked to a limited extent, a few sapphires are found, and iron and coal occur. The climate of the mountains is extremely damp and malarious, but that of the plains is fairly healthful for European adults. The soil is admirably adapted for the cultivation of rice by artificial irrigation. The most important natural product is teak, which flourishes in the jungles in the northern part of the valley of the Menam. Forestry is almost entirely in British hands. The fauna and flora of the northern districts are like those of the adjacent parts of Burma, but toward the south, especially in Lower Siam, both gradually merge into those characteristic of Malaya. Elephants, tigers, and several kinds of deer are abundant, and there is a great variety of birds, reptiles, and other animals.

The Siamese have probably migrated south from Central Asia, being the result of the fusion of a Mongolian people with an aboriginal population of Indonesian stock. It is not clear how far they are racially distinct from the Laos, Shans, and other tribes of the north. Chinese immigration on a large scale has been going on for generations, and has visibly affected the physical type, while the same is perhaps true of the legendary Hindu immigrations of the

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1. Native houses and boats, Ayuthia. 2. Natives. 3. Grand Palace, Bangkok.

milling, which is conducted on a large scale in Bangkok, the capital. The chief port is Bangkok, some ten miles up the Menam; but ships of heavy draught have to transfer their cargoes at Paknam, on the coast. The value of the sea-borne imports in 1908-9 was $28,500,000, and of the sea-borne exports $37,500,000. There is also a considerable trade overland with Burma and China, amounting in 1909 to $850,000 imports, and $1,000,000 exports. The bulk of this trade is with Hong-kong, Singapore, and India. The most important ex

with Korat to the northeast. A branch to Lopburi has been extended to Paknampo, and thence up the Nampo River to Utaradit (148 m.); others run to Paknam (14 m.), Petchaburi (95 m.), and Tachin (20 m.); in all, 660 m. are open (1909). Pop. (est. 1910)6,686,800, of whom two-thirds are Siamese, over 700,000 are Chinese, and 200,000 Malays, and the same number Cambodians, the remainder being Burmese, Laotians, and Hindus. The standing army numbers about 25,000 men, with European officers.

The constitution of Siam is in

theory an absolute monarchy, the person of the king being sacred. There is a legislative council of ministers, most of whom have expert European advice at their disposal, and not less than 12 others appointed by the king. The council now numbers 41. Drastic reforms have been introduced, rendering peculation impossible for the higher officials. European nations enjoy extra-territorial jurisdiction. Siam has no national debt. The state religion is Buddhism, largely corrupted by spirit-worship. There are considerable numbers of Mohammedans (Malays), and the northern tribes practise pure Shamanism. The French Jesuit missionaries have long been established, and British and American societies are at work in Bangkok and other parts of Siam proper. In many provinces education is still in the hands of the Buddhist priests, of whom there are 88,000, but there is a Department of Education in Bangkok, where several good schools, under European management, are conducted by the government and by missionary societies. There is no hereditary nobility, so that it is possible for any man to rise to the highest offices. The position of women is very much better than in many Oriental states, and they enjoy many legal and actual rights. Though polygamy is legal, it is rare among the peasants.

HISTORY.-The modern history of Siam commences with the usurpation of the throne (after_the disastrous overthrow by the Burmese of the old capital, Ayuthia) by a Chinese general named Phya Tak, who built the modern capital at the end of the eighteenth century. Siam is the buffer state between the British and the French possessions in the Far East, and its more recent history has been largely the account of its dealings with France, and to a less but continually increasing extent with Great Britain. The boundary between Siam and British Burma was settled by the treaty of 1891. In virtue of a treaty signed in 1893 between France and Siam, the latter agreed to abandon all territorial claims on the east side of the Mekong, and to recognize a neutral zone 15 m. wide on the west side of that river; at the same time France occupied Chantabun, on the Gulf of Siam. This arrangement held good until 1904, when France waived the maintenance of the neutral zone, and evacuated Chantabun. In return for this, Siam ceded about 8,000 sq. m. of territory next the Cambodian frontier, and abandoned all claims to the Luang Prabang districts on the w. side of the Mekong. Again in 1907, France secured nearly 8,000 sq. m. of additional territory and increased her influence on the Mekong Railroad, and by a rectification of boundaries in the Luang Prabang rezion a large tract of the Laos country was restored to Siam.

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By a treaty signed in March, 1909, Siam transferred to Great Britain the suzerainty over the provinces of Kelatan, Trengannu, and Keda, lying north of the Federated Malay States (q.v.), an area of about 15,000 sq. m., and Great Britain agreed to acknowledge the Siamese codes, and to further the extension of the railroads. Upon the death of King Chulalongkorn, his son Chowfa Maha Vajiravudh succeeded to the throne on Oct. 23, 1910.

Consult Young's The Kingdom of the Yellow Robe (1898); McCarthy's Surveying and Exploring in Siam (1900); Campbell's Siam in the Twentieth Century (1902); Curtis' Laos of North Siam (1903); Whitney's Jungle Trails and Jungle People (1905); Little's The Far East (1905).

Siam, GULF OF, branch of the China Sea, between the Malay Peninsula on the w. and Cambodia and Cochin-China on the E., 235 m. wide at its mouth, and extending inland 470 m.

NGAN-FU,

Siamese Twins, an instance of the monstrosity known as 'double.' The twins attained adult life, and exhibited themselves in various parts of the world. They died in 1874, at the age of sixty, and a post-mortem examination showed that they were united by a fleshy band, situated between the xiphisterna and the umbilici, containing peritoneal and hepatic tissues. Sian-fu (variously spelled SIHSIAN-FU, etc., formerly called CHANG-AN), provincial capital of Shensi, Northwest China, is about 250 miles west of Honanfu railroad station. The city walls measure 12 miles in circumference and 35 feet in height, and possess four gates surmounted by towers. The northeast part of Sian is the Manchu quarter, including a large tract of walled land where stood the imperial palaces of old; the northwest part is mainly Mohammedan, and contains the oldest mosque in China; the southwest part contains the governor's Yamen, and many residences; while the southeast corner boasts the 'Peilin,' with a valuable collection of ancient carved tablets. The city is but a few miles south of the Wei River, the chief tributary of the Yellow River (Hwang-ho). Little shipping is seen, the Hwang-ho not being navigable to any extent in Shensi and West Honan. The transit caravan trade of Sian is important, and in a few years the railroad will connect the Western Capital' with the outer world. The Roman Catholics, English Baptists, and Scandinavian Alliance Missions maintain stations in Sian-fu. The population is estimated anywhere from 250.000 to 1,000,000, and is probably about 300,000.

Sian-fu is a city of great historical interest, conspicuous as the capital of the Tang dynasty (618906). During Taitsung's reign, Nestorian missionaries came from

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became the temporary capital of
China when the Empress Dowager
Tze-Hsi and Emperor Kwang-Hsu
fled thither from Peking in 1900,
during the Boxer rising.

Siang-tan. See HSIANG-TAN.
Sintón, pueblo, Negros Island,
Philippines, 26 m. s.w. of Dum-
aguete. Pop. 15,000.

Sibalón, pueblo, Antique prov-
ince. Panay, Philippines, 10 m. N.E.
of San José de Buenavista. Pop.
15,000.

Siberia, Russian territory in Northern Asia, extends from the Urals to Bering Strait, and from 77° 41' N. lat. at Cape Chelyuskin down nearly to lat. 42° at the mouth of the Tumen-ula (Korea).

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steppes by a conventional line crossing the basin of the Ob. A mountainous arc extends from Bering Strait southwest to the Transbaikal plateau, and is continued northwest by ranges on the right bank of the Yenisei, one of which, the Pitski, crosses that river at the 'Gates,' not far from the mouth of the Stony Tunguska, and ends in low hills at the sourceregion of the Taz River. Within this arc lie several other elevations, running more or less from west to east, chief of which are the Siverma Mountains (2,000 ft. high), and the Great Verkhoyansk arc, extending from the mouth of the Olenek to the Stanovoi range on the

Anadir boundary. From the Sayan Mountains ranges run northeast, enclosing the basin of Lake Baikal. On the shores of the Arctic Ocean the country frequently rises into table-lands or forms low plains, as on the Indigirka and Kolima. Nearly the entire northwestern section is covered by the great Siberian swamp, the most extensive in the world. South of the great arc it is much diversified by mountains, on the Sea of Okhotsk and in the Amur province by spurs of the Stanovoi, in the Ussuri districts by the Sikhota-alin, while the Little Khingan crosses the Amur into the Amur province. Owing to the above configuration the principal rivers-e.g., Ob, Yenisei, and Lena-flow into the Arctic Ocean, and only one important stream, the Amur, debouches on the east coast. Lakes, salt and fresh, are numerous in the basin of the Ob, and also within the great mountain arc.

The climate is very severe, and of a pronounced continental character. In the northern section the ground is perpetually frozen to a great depth-in the Vitim district the frost reaching 300 ft. below the surface. The remains of mammoths and other animals are found intact in these frozen depths. In winter the isotherms circle round Verkhoyansk, the coldest inhabited place in the world, while in summer they attain their highest latitude on this meridian. At Verkhoyansk (674° N., 1341° E.) the mean for the year is about zero, and the absolute maximum and minimum are 88° and-89° F., so that the range is 177°. In summer the surface thaws, and the whole northern country is covered with deep mud. In the south, at Irkutsk, in Transhaikalia, and on the Amur, the annual mean is 32° or less, and even at Vladivostok the harbor is frozen for more than three months. But the summer mean is over 60°, and therefore crops ripen. Western Siberia has a better climate, with an annual mean of 37°, and a temperature of 67° in July. The precipitation also increases toward the south. It is very small along the Arctic coast, and only fourteen inches in the Irkutsk government; but it is twenty inches at Nikolaiesk (mouth of Amur) and nineteen in Western Siberia. Owing to the cold and dryness of the Arctic littoral, the surface is covered with tundra vegetation down to about 66° lat. Then follows the forest zone, which, along the rivers, sends out tongues into the former. The agricultural zone extends from the Baraba steppe (Tomsk) east along the south of Siberia. Fur-bearing animals are hunted by natives and Russian settlers, and the most valuable, the sable, has been almost exterminated in the Yakutsk province. The principal fur trade is in skins of the polar hare and fox,

N.

otter, red fox, ermine, wolf, bear, and squirrel; upward of a million skins a month being the output. Game birds and water fowl frequent the lakes and rivers, which also swarm with fish (sturgeon, salmon, and allied forms); the catches in the Kolima are of extraordinary magnitude. The Eskimo dog and the reindeer are used as draught animals in the northern country, and the camel in the southern sections.

Minerals are distributed all over Siberia. Hitherto, most attention has been paid to gold. The most productive mines are those on the Olekma and Vitim Rivers (east of Lake Baikal), and on the slopes of the Ala-tau and Altai. There have been many finds of gold in the valley of the upper Zeya, and south of the Amur, near Komarsk. In Central Siberia there is alluvial gold in the Ob and Yenisei basins, the auriferous gravel varying in thickness from 6 to 11 feet, but nothing has been found as rich as the Klondike or the Rand. The quartz mines are almost entirely neg lected, and the placers are worked only by the crudest methods. There are silver mines at Nerchinsk, and in the Altai lead is mined. Iron is manufactured on the eastern slope of the Urals, at Petrovsk in Transbaikalia, and on the Abakan River at the northern foot of the Sayan Mountains. Coal exists in many places, and the deposits of graphite are particularly rich. Copper, once so plentiful in the Altai mining district, is now extracted only in small quantities. There is, however, a considerable quantity of this metal in Northern Siberia, as well as galena and other ores. In the Yakutsk province there are rich deposits of silver, zinc, and platinum, as well as gold, and vast coal fields. Some precious stones, including emeralds, are also found. Salt is obtained in many parts.

Nearly nine-tenths of the inhabitants of Siberia are Russians or of other Slavonic nationalities. Cossacks, who are bound to serve as soldiers when called upon, are distributed in villages over all the southern part of Siberia, especially on the Amur frontier and in Northern Ussuri. Convicts, thousands of whom are brought into the country annually, work in the government mines, or are assigned to private mine-owners and manufacturers. Political exiles are confined to a certain district. From 1807 to 1899, 865,000 persons were exiled to Siberia, but in 1900 the Czar substituted imprisonment for many. offences. Political offenders continue to be sent to Siberia. The native tribes include Kirghiz in the southwest, Buriats in Irkutsk, Southern Yeniseisk, and Transbaikalia, Tungus tribes from the Arctic shore to the Ussuri district, Ainus in Sakhalin, Yakuts in the Lena basin, Lamuts on the Sea of

Okhotsk, Chukches in the northeast, Samoyedes and Ostiaks west of the Anabara River.

Cattle-grazing and horse-breeding are the principal occupations, especially of the Cossacks, Buriats, and Kirghiz. Reindeer take the place of cattle in the north and east and in the Sayan Mountains. Market-gardening is a favorite occupation in all parts, and agriculture chiefly in Western Siberia. There are upward of 2,500 factories making butter, with an annual output of 80,000,000 pounds. The manufacturing industry is still in its infancy, distilleries being the most numerous. Hunting and fishing are almost the sole occupations of the natives of the north and east.

Navigation on the rivers is open only about five months in their upper courses and three at their mouths. But this defect has been in part made good by the construction of the great Siberian Railway from the Urals to Vladivostok. (See SIBERIAN RAILWAY.) A very important caravan route runs from Irkutsk through Kiakhta to Peking, by which Chinese and Mongolian wares, tea principally, are imported to the annual value of $7,000,000. Another important outlet is Tiumen, where the navigable waters of the Ob are connected by rail with Perm in the basin of the Volga. In July, 1909, there were 7,900 miles of railroad in operation in Siberia,

The only recognized religion is that of the Orthodox Church, though dissenters are allowed more freedom than in Russia. Many natives have been baptized, but most of these cleave to their old faiths-Shamanism, Lamaism, or Islam. There is a university at Tomsk, but only about 2 per cent. of the children of school age receive instruction.

HISTORY.-The Russian Cossack Yermak first crossed the Urals in 1579. Tobolsk, the capital of the new territory, was founded in 1590. The Cossacks erected a blockhouse at Yakutsk in 1637. In 1651 a blockhouse was erected where the town of Irkutsk was built in 1686; and in 1656 Nerchinsk was founded. Khabaroff penetrated into the Amur valley as early as 1649, but the province was finally ceded by China only in 1858. In 1860 the Peking treaty gave the Ussuri districts to Russia, and Vladivostok was founded. In 1872 this became the chief naval station of Russia on the Pacific, superseding the icebound port of Nicolayevsk. See RUSSIA.

Consult Beveridge's Russian Advance (1903); Fraser's Real Siberia (1902); Keane's Asia (1906); Deutsch's Sixteen Years in Siberia (Eng. trans., 1905); Gerrare's Greater Russia (1903); Hawes' In the Uttermost East (1905); Kennan's Tent Life in Siberia (1910); Curtin's A Journey in Southern Siberia (1909), Radloff's Aus Siberien (2

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VIEWS OF SIBERIAN TOWNS.

1. Tiumen. 2. Tomsk. 3. Yeniseisk. 4. Irkutsk. 5. Village of Listvianitchnoé, Lake Baikal. 6. Kiakhta. 7. Railway Station at Tchita. 8. Vladivostok, looking N.E. (Photos by N. P. Edwards.)

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