itself to those who had intercourse with them. This is easily explained by the imperfect care taken of the health of such a crew, and the uncommon hardships of such a voyage in those times. At all events, their complaint was not the venereal disease, as this broke out almost at the same moment, in the summer of 1493, in the south of France, in Lombardy, and in the north of Germany. Now, the vessels of Columbus did not arrive till April at Seville; and the disease could not possibly have spread so far from this place within two months. Others have sought for the origin of this disease in the expulsion of the Marranos (secret Jews) from Spain, between 1485 and 1493. Many thousands of these unhappy persons died of the plague on their passage by sea to Italy, Greece, &c. Thousands of others suffered by the leprosy; and, without doubt, they carried misery and sickness with them wherever they went. But that this particular form of disease existed among them cannot be proved; and, moreover, though Germany was not visited by these emigrants, the syphilis showed itself simultaneously, in 1493, in Halle, Brunswick, Mecklenburg, &c. As to the opinion that the venereal disease had always existed in some form, it only amounts to a play upon words, as a mere diseased state of the genitals is far from amounting to syphilis, especially if we consider the horrid consequences which that disease produced at the time referred to. The most probable conclusion is, that the venereal disease was produced by an epidemic tendency existing at that time, which gave this new form to the leprosy then so widely spread. The ancient writers, for many years, described syphilis more as a terrible disease of the skin and bones in general than as a mere affection of particular parts; more as a plague than as a disorder of particular individuals. A new form of disease could be developed the more readily, as the political relations of that time brought the nations very much into connexion with each other: Spaniards, French, Germans, traversed Italy, and all these, together with the Italians, spread through Germany. The disease brought by the sailors from America, akin to scurvy, may also have contributed its part. It is certain that the disease was then far more terrible than now. It made the patient an object of horror to his friends, and almost inevitably reduced him to despair, as no physician was able to aid him, and the remedies used were almost as shocking as the disease. Since contagion, at that period, took place much easier than now, and houses of ill fame, which contributed greatly to spread the disease, were found every where, the disorder had by no means the same character of disgrace connected with it as at present. On the contrary, Ulrich von Hutten, who suffered from it for years, and at length recovered his health by the use of guaiacum, and the strength of his constitution, always enjoyed public esteem, and even dedicated his work on the disease to the first spiritual prince of Germany, without indecorum or offence. Like other diseases, it gradually diminished in virulence, particularly after Paracelsus had found in mercury, and Swediauer in acids, the most effective remedies against it; and great suffering does not arise from it at present except in consequence of neglect. Yet it is still a formidable disease, as it injures more or less the general health, and lays the foundation for other diseases of a very obstinate character-gout, rheumatism, complaints in the bladder, &c. SYPHON. (See Siphon.) SYRACUSE (now Siragosa, with a population of 13,800 souls), anciently the chief city of Sicily, and one of the most magnificent cities in the world, with 300,000 inhabitants, is now greatly reduced, but still has an excellent harbor, capable of receiving vessels of the greatest burden, and of containing a numerous fleet. The ancient city was of a triangular form, twenty-two miles in circuit, and consisted of four parts, surrounded by distinct walls, namely, Ortygia, between the two harbors; Acradina, extending along the seaside; Tyche, so called from its containing a temple of Fortune (Tex”), an inland division; and Neapolis, forming the western part. At present, the only part inhabited is the south-east corner, containing Ortygia and a part of Acradina. Siragosa is insulated, walled, and entered by drawbridges. The streets are regular, but narrow, and the houses tolerably built. It contains an hospital, and a number of churches and convents. The cathedral is the ancient temple of Minerva. The papyrus (q. v.) is found in the neighborhood. Syracuse was founded by a colony of Corinthians, B. C. 736. It became the largest and most wealthy city in Sicily, and, according to Thucydides, possessed a greater population than Athens, or any other Grecian city. It was at one time governed as a republic, at anothcr by Gelon, Hiero, Dionysius (see these articles, and Timoleon), and other rulers. It was besieged, B. C. 414, by the Athenians; and again, B. C. 215, by the Romans, under Marcellus and Appius. It was defended near three years by the genius and enterprise of Archimedes (q.v.), but at last fell into the hands of the Romans (B. C. 212), and continued in their possession till the downfall of their empire. Here are remains of the ancient amphitheatre, of an oval form, 300 feet in length and 200 in breadth: the arena, seats, and passages of communication, were cut out of the rock. The catacombs (q. v.) still exist, and form a remarkable feature of Syracuse. They are only seven or eight feet high; but their extent is such that they form a kind of subterranean city, with a number of narrow streets, some of which are said to be a mile long, and contain tombs and sepulchral chambers. The speaking grotto, or, as it was called by the ancients, the Ear of Dionysus, is a cave 170 feet long, 60 high, and from 20 to 35 wide, with so strong an echo, that the slightest noise is overheard in the small chamber near the entrance, in which Dionysius is said to have listened to the conversation of his prisoners. The fountain of Arethusa (q. v.), still a striking object, from its discharge of waters, now serves merely as a resort for washerwomen. Theocritus and Archimedes were natives of Syracuse; and the Romans found here an immense number of works of art, which they carried off to Italy. (See Sicily.) SYRENS. (See Sirens.) SYRIA; a country of Western Asia, bordering on the Mediterranean sea, and forming a part of the Ottoman empire. (q.v.) It is called by the Arabs Al-Scham, or Bar el Cham; by the Turks and Persians, Sur, or Suristan; and in the Scriptures, Aram. It has Asia Minor, or Natolia, to the north, the Euphrates and the great Arabian desert on the east, Arabia Petræa to the south, and the Mediterranean on the west. It is divided into four pachalics, Aleppo, Tripoli, Damascus and Acre. Square miles, about 50,000; population, 2,400,000. The chief towns are Aleppo, Damascus, Hamah, Hems, Jerusalem, Antioch; the seaports, Alexandretta, Tripoli, Bairout, Saida (Sidon), Sur (Tyre), Acre and Jaffa. The leading features in the physical aspect of Syria consist of the great mountainous chains of Lebanon, or Libanus, and Anti-Libanus, extending from north to south, and the great desert lying on the south-east and cast. The valleys are of great fertility, and yield abundance of grain, vines, mulberries, tobacco, olives, excellent fruits, as oranges, figs, pistachios, &c. The climate, in the inhabited parts, is exceedingly fine. The commerce has never been so great in modern as in ancient times, and has of late diminished. An extensive land communication was formerly carried on from Syria with Arabia, Persia, and the interior of Asia; but it has been interrupted by the disturbed state of the countries. Syria is inhabited by various descriptions of people, but Turks and Greeks form the basis of the population in the cities. The only tribes that can be considered as peculiar to Syria are the tenants of the heights of Lebanon. The most remarkable of these are the Druses and Maronites. (See the articles.) The general language is Arabic: the soldiers and officers of government speak Turkish. Of the old Syriac no traces exist. No country was more cele brated in antiquity than Syria. In the south-west was the land of promise, the country of the Israelites, and the cradle of Christianity. (See Palestine.) Phonicia (q. v.), particularly its cities of Tyre and Sidon, were famous for commerce. Damascus was long the capital of a powerful kingdom, and Antioch was once a royal residence, and accounted the third city in the world in wealth and popula tion. Balbec and Palmyra still exhibit splendid ruins of their ancient greatness. (See the articles.), Here have the Assyrians, Jews, Greeks, Parthians, Romans, Saracens, the crusaders, and the Turks, struggled at different periods for pos session. Ninus, Semiramis, Sesostris, Alexander, Pompey, Antony, Cæsar, Ti tus, Aurelian, &c.; at a later period, Godfrey of Bouillon, Richard Cœur de Lion, Saladin, &c. (see Crusades); and, still more recently, Napoleon and Mohammed Ali, have in turn acted a part on the plains of Syria. Ignorance, superstition and barbarism now cover the land, and no traces of its civilization remain but ruins. (See Turkey.) SYRIAN LANGUAGE. (See Semitic Languages.) SYRIAN or CHALDEAN CHRISTIANS is the name which the Nestorians give to themselves, because they use the ancient Syrian in their religious service: they also possess the New Testament in this language. This Christian sect was formed in the fifth century, by the union of the adherents of Nestorius (see Heretic), who had been excommunicated, in 431, by the synod of Ephesus, on account of refusing to call Mary the mother of God, and to give up the doctrine of the existence of two natures in Christ. Though this doctrine of two natures in Christ was soon after received into the creed of the orthodox church, and monophysitism (see Monophysites) was declared heretical, yet the Nestorians, who would only call the virgin Mary the mother of Christ, remained excommunicated, and, towards the end of the fifth century, established their ecclesiastical constitution under the protection of the king of Persia, to whom they had fled. The other Christians in Persia joined them in 499, and they gained many adherents in Eastern Asia, where the Christians of St. Thomas (q. v.) also joined them. In the eleventh century, they converted the Tartar tribe, whose Christian ruler is known in history under the name of Prester John. His people remained attached to Christianity and the Nestorian faith, after having been reduced, in 1202, by Gengis Khan, under the dominion of the Mongols. Until the wars of Timour, in the fourteenth century, there existed, also, in Central and North-eastern Asia, Nestorian communities. The Nestorians are believed to have carried Christianity even to China, as has been concluded from a Christian document of the year 781, found in China; and the connexion of Lamaism with Christianity has also been explained by the influence of Nestorian missions. The chiefs of the Syrian Christians are hereditary patriarchs. The principal one among them resided, in the fifth century, in Babylon; at present, he resides at El kesh, near Mosul, in Mesopotamia, and has the title Catholicos. Under him are five bishoprics. He, and another Nestorian patriarch at Diarbekir, in Syria, acknowledge, at present, the supremacy of the pope, and are, with their flocks, united Nestorians, who, like the united Greeks, have retained their old rites. They have only been obliged to renounce the marriage of the priests, and to adopt the seven sacraments. The doctrine and worship of the Nestorians agree perfectly with those of the orthodox Greek church, except that they are hostile to pictures in the churches, where they allow no image but that of the cross to be seen. The Syrian patriarch at Giulamork, in the high mountains of Acaria, and the bishops and dioceses under him, do not belong to the united Nestorians. The Syrian language is a Semitic dialect, and important for the study of Hebrew. The study of it was first scientifically pursued by Michaelis, the father, then by his son, in 1748, afterwards by the Swede Agrell, and, since that time, particularly by A. Theoph. Hoffmann at Jena (Grammatica Syriaca, Halle, 1827, 4to.). SYRINX; a Naiad, daughter of the river Ladon, in Arcadia. Flying from the pursuit of Pan, she was arrested in her course by the waters of the Ladon, and, calling upon her sisters for aid, was changed by them into a reed. The wind sighing through it produced sweet sounds, which charmed the god, who made himself a pipe from the reed, and called it syrinx. The syrinx was composed of seven pieces of reed, of unequal length, joined together with wax, and was the favorite instrument of the Greek and Latin shepherds. SYRTES; two large sand banks in the Mediterranean, on the coast of Africa, one of which was near Leptis, and the other near Carthage. The Syrtis Minor, or Lesser Syrtis, is in the south-east part of Tunis; and the Syrtis Major (now Sidra) in the eastern part of Tripoli. SYRUPS are viscous liquids, in the composition of which are commonly put two parts of sugar to one of some liquid. Generally, water, charged with the remedial principles of plants, is used in the preparation of syrups. The process, varied according to the nature of the remedies employed, may be conducted with or without heat. These preparations are likewise simple or compound. SYSTEM (Greek, vornua, a putting together); an assemblage of facts, or of principles and conclusions scientifically arranged, or disposed according to certain mutual relations, so as to form a complete whole. The object of science is to collect the fragmentary knowledge which we possess, on any subject, into a system, classifying natural objects into orders, genera and species, according to their peculiar properties, or distributing them according to their powers and reciprocal relations, and arranging maxims, rules, facts and theories into an organic, living body. (See Method.) System is, therefore, sometimes nearly synonymous with classification, and sometimes with hypothesis, or theory. Thus we speak of a mythological system, or a chronologi cal system, in the historical sciences, of a botanical system, or a mineralogical system, in natural science, &c. So in astronomy the solar or planetary system signifies that collection of heavenly bodies which revolve around the sun as a common centre, and the Copernican, Ptole maic or Tychonic system, the hypothesis by which each of those philosophers respectively explained their position and motions. The purpose of a system is to classify the individual subjects of our knowledge in such a way as to enable us readily to retain and employ them, and at the same time to illustrate each by showing its connexion with all; and although it may appear that a mere arrangement of facts already possessed, implies no addition to our former knowledge, yet it is, nevertheless, true that a simple and judicious classification may suggest new views and point out new relations of things. The constituent parts of a system are a fundamental principle, which serves as a basis for the whole, and a large collection of facts, from which the various laws are to be deduced, which themselves all flow together into the common principle. SYSTEM, in music. (See Tone.) SYSTEM OF THE UNIVERSE; a certain arrangement of the several parts of the universe, fixed stars, planets and comets, by which their appearances and motions are explained. We know little of the universe by actual inspection: its infinity escapes the grasp of our limited vision; but reasoning leads us to conclusions be yond the reach of sense. (See Astronomy.) We first become acquainted with our own globe, and with the other planets revolving with it round the sun, by observation; and from this little corner of the universe we draw our inferences as to the rest. In our own system, we see the sun forming a fixed centre, about which the earth and the other planets, with their moons, regularly revolve. Our earth we know to be the residence of organized, sensitive and thinking beings: observation teaches us that the other planets of the solar system resemble the earth in many respects; and we therefore conclude that they are the residences of sensitive and rational beings. Further observation makes it probable that the fixed stars are bodies like our sun, since they shine by their own light, and never change their relative positions. From this we are led to conjecture that each of them has its train of planets like our earth, and that there are as many solar systems as fixed stars. Then, as observation proves to us, that all the bodies of our system are mutually related to each other, we may conjecture that the different solar systems are not entirely disconnected with each other. Wherever we turn our eyes, we see connexion, order and stability; and we suppose these laws to embrace the whole universe, which thus forms a harmoniously framed SYZYGY; th SZIGETH, vár (properly Nagyszigeth, or Frontier-Szigeth, to distinguish it from two places of the same name in Hungary), is of historical importance on account of its heroic defence by count Nicholas Zrinyi. (q. v.) Szigeth is, at present, a market town, on a low island, formed by the Almas, and belongs to the county of Schümeg. It is fortified. It contains one Greek and two Roman Catholic churches (of which one was erected for a mosque), one Franciscan monastery, and the castle of count von Festetics. The inhabitants are partly Magyars, partly Ger mans and Rascians. The place has some commerce. As early as in 1556, Szigeth was twice besieged without success by the Turks. In 1566, the noble defence of it by Zrinyi took place. When Zrinyi at last preferred death to a dishonorable captivity, not one of its defenders survived. (See Zrinyi.) The Turks themselves admitted a loss of 7000 janizaries and 20,000 men at the siege of Szigeth. In 1689, the margrave of Baden took it again. Lon. 17° 56′ E.; lat. 46° 8′ N. T. T; the twentieth letter in the Eng- and t, pronounced with a lisp, like the lish alphabet, representing the sound pro- Greek 6, and designated by a character reduced by a quick and strong emission of sembling our p, for which their descendthe breath after the end of the tongue has ants, when they exchanged the Anglo-Saxbeen placed against the roof of the mouth on alphabet for the Latin, substituted th. near the roots of the upper teeth. The The ancient Germans had no alphabet strength with which the breath is emitted which can be called properly their own, in pronouncing t is all that distinguishes but adopted the Latin characters after this sound from that of d. T is, there- their conversion to Christianity. It is not fore, a lingual; it is also a mute. As d known whether there existed a e in their and t are so nearly related, it is natural ancient dialects, pronounced with a lisp, that they should often take each other's like our th; but it seems, nevertheless, places, as is the case also with t and s, on that they were sensible of a sound beaccount of the similarity of their pronun- tween t and d, and made various attempts ciation. (See the article S.) One of the to express it. The unknown translator of main differences between Lower and Up- a piece of Isidorus, considered the most per German (see Low German) is that ancient German writer, uses erdha for the Lower German, almost invariably, erde, earth; dhuo for da, there; dhanne puts a d where the Upper German has a for dann, then; dher for der, the mascut. line article; dhiz for dies, this. Yet he does not add an h to every d, and writes abgrunidiu, mittungardes, herduuom, &c. The th appears more rarely in his works; yet he writes anthlutte for antlitz, face. The next writer in the order of time, Kero, uses neither dh nor th, and writes teil for theil, part; tuan for thun, to do; tat for that, deed. Yet Otfried, who seems to have reflected more deeply on his language, revived the th. However this may be, it is certain that the ancient pronunciation of the German th is lost; and there exists, at present, in that idiom, no middle sound between t and d, though the Germans use the th in writing. Theil, thau and ruthe do not differ at all in sound from teil, tau and rute. T is used as an abbreviation on ancient monuments, &c., for Titus, Titius, Tullius. As a numeral, it signified 160, according to the verse : On account of the hardness of this letter, it is used to separate liquids or vowels, as in the German words kenntniss, öffentlich, and the French fera-t-il, y-a-t-il. The English th, which, though a compound character, represents but a single sound, has two pronunciations, as in this and thing: the former is a sound between d and t, and the latter between t and s; so that foreigners whose native language does not contain these sounds, often say dis and sing for this and thing, or nossing for nothing. The Greeks had a proper character to designate the consonant between & and viz. 0 or 9, which, however, was accompanied by a lisp. The Latins, who had no such character, used the th instead, particularly in such words as were directly derived from the Greek. The most ancient northern tribes of Europe had also the sound of th; and their runes (q. v.) had a proper character for it, which, however, Adelung thinks can be proved to be derived from the Greek 0. The language of the Anglo-Saxons also contained a consonant sound between d T T quoque centenos et sexaginta tenebit. T, with a dash over it, thus, T, signified 160,000. Among the Greeks, de |