The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 420

SUNDA ISLANDS, a name sometimes applied to the long chain of islands stretching SE. from the Malay Peninsula to North Australia, including Sumatra, Timor, &c., but more correctly designates the islands Bali, Lombok, Sumbawa, Flores, Sandalwood Island, &c., which lie between Java and Timor, are under Dutch suzerainty, and produce the usual East Indian products. See various islands named.

SUNDERBUNDS or SUNDARBANS, a great tract of jungle, swamp, and alluvial plain, forming the lower portion of the Ganges delta; extends from the Hooghly on the W. to the Meghna on the E., a distance of 165 m.; rice is cultivated on the upper part by a spa.r.s.e population; the lower part forms a dense belt of wild jungle reaching to the sea, and is infested by numerous tigers, leopards, rhinoceroses, pythons, cobras, &c.

SUNDERLAND (142), a flourishing seaport of Durham, situated at the mouth of the Wear, 12 m. SE. of Newcastle-upon-Tyne; embraces some very old parishes, but as a commercial town has entirely developed within the present century, and is of quite modern appearance, with the usual public buildings; owes its prosperity mainly to neighbouring coal-fields, the product of which it exports in great quant.i.ties; has four large docks covering 50 acres; also famous iron shipbuilding yards, large iron-works, gla.s.s and bottle works, roperies, &c.

SUNDERLAND, CHARLES SPENCER, THIRD EARL, son of succeeding, and son in law of the Duke of Marlborough; was a Secretary of State in Queen Anne's reign during 1706-1710, and in the following reign, as leader of the Whigs, exercised unbounded influence over George I.; narrowly escaped, chiefly through Walpole's help, being found guilty of accepting heavy bribes from the South Sea Company; lost office, and was displaying his father's propensity to underhand scheming by intriguing with the Tories and the Pretender's party when death cut short his career (1675-1722).

SUNDERLAND, ROBERT SPENCER, SECOND EARL OF, an English statesman prominent in the reign of Charles II., James II., and William III.; was for some years engaged in emba.s.sies abroad before being appointed Secretary of State in 1679; adroit and insinuating, and with great capacity for business, he soon became a leading minister; attached himself to the d.u.c.h.ess of Portsmouth, and in the corrupt politics of the two Stuart kings played his own hand with consummate if unscrupulous skill, standing high in King James's favour as Prime Minister, although he had formerly intrigued in favour of Monmouth; supported the Exclusion Bill, and even then was in secret communication with the Prince of Orange; after the Revolution rose to high office under William; was instrumental in bringing the Whigs into power, and during 1695-1697 was acknowledged head of his Government (1640-1702).

SUNNITES, the orthodox Mohammedans, a name given to them because they accept the _Sunna_, i. e. traditional teaching of the Prophet, as of the same authority as the Koran, in the matter of both faith and morals, agreeably to a fundamental article of Mohammedanism, that not only the rule of life, but the interpretation of it, is of divine dictation.

SUN-WORSHIP, the worship of the sun is conceived of as an impersonation of the deity, that originated among races so far advanced in civilisation as to recognise what they owed to its benignant influence, in particular as tillers of the soil, and, is a.s.sociated with advance as the worship of Bacchus was, which could not originate prior to cultivation of the vine.

SUONADA, the Inland Sea of j.a.pan, separating Kyushu and Shikoku from the Main Island, Honshiu, a fine sheet of water (250 m. by 50), picturesquely studded with islands which, however, render navigation difficult.

SUPEREROGATION, WORKS OF, name given in the Roman Catholic theology to works or good deeds performed by saints over and above what is required for their own salvation, and the merit of which is held to be transferable to others in need of indulgence.

SUPER-GRAMMATICAM (above grammar), name given to Sigismund, emperor of Germany, from his rejoinder to a cardinal who one day on a high occasion mildly corrected a grammatical mistake he had made in a grand oration, "I am King of the Romans, and above grammar."

SUPERIOR, LAKE, largest fresh-water lake on the globe, lies between the United States and Canada, the boundary line pa.s.sing through the centre; area, 31,200 sq. m., almost the size of Ireland; maximum depth, 1008 ft.; St. Mary's River, the only outlet, a short rapid stream, carries the overflow to Lake Huron; receives upwards of 200 rivers, but none of first-cla.s.s importance, largest is the St. Louis; is dotted with numerous islands; water is singularly clear and pure, and abounds with fish; navigation is hindered in winter by sh.o.r.e-ice, but the lake never freezes over.

SUPERSt.i.tION, the fear of that which is not G.o.d, as if it were G.o.d, or the fear of that which is not the devil, as if it were the devil; or, as it has in more detail been defined by Ruskin, "the fear of a spirit whose pa.s.sions and acts are those of a man present in some places and not others; kind to one person and unkind to another, pleased or angry, according to the degree of attention you pay him, or the praise you refuse him; hostile generally to human pleasure, but may be bribed by sacrificing part of that pleasure into permitting the rest."

SUPRALAPSARIANISM, the doctrine of the extreme Calvinists, that the decree of G.o.d as regards the eternal salvation of some and the eternal reprobation of others is unconditional.

SUPREMACY, ROYAL, the supremacy of the sovereign in matters ecclesiastical and matters of civil right to the exclusion of matters spiritual and the jurisdiction in the former claimed by the Pope.

SURABAYA (127), a seaport on the NE. coast or Java, is the head-quarters of the Dutch military, and exports tropical products; of the population 6000 are European, and 7000 or so Chinese.

SURAT (109), a city of India, Bombay Presidency, on the Tapti, 14 m.

from its entrance into the Gulf of Bombay; stretches along the S. bank of the river, presenting no architectural features of interest save some Mohammedan, Pa.r.s.ee, and Hindu temples, and an old castle or fortress; chief exports are cotton and grain; the English erected here their first factory on the Indian continent in 1612, and with Portuguese and Dutch traders added, it became one of the princ.i.p.al commercial centres of India; in the 18th century the removal of the English East India Company to Bombay drew off a considerable portion of the trade of Surat, which it has never recovered.

SURINAM. See GUIANA, DUTCH.

SURPLICE, a linen robe with wide sleeves worn by officiating clergymen and choristers, originating in the rochet or alb of early times.

SURREY (1,731), an inland county, and one of the fairest of England, in the SE. between Kent (E.) and Hampshire (W.), with Suss.e.x on the S., separated from Middles.e.x on the N. by the Thames; the North Downs traverse the county E. and W., slope gently to the Thames, and precipitously in the S. to the level Weald; generally presents a beautiful prospect of hill and heatherland adorned with splendid woods; the Wey and the Mole are the princ.i.p.al streams; hops are extensively grown round Farnham; largest town is Croydon; the county town, Guildford.

SURREY, HENRY HOWARD, EARL OF, poet, son of the Duke of Norfolk; early attached to the court of Henry VIII., he attended his royal master at the "Field of the Cloth of Gold," and took part in the coronation ceremony of Anne Boleyn (1533); was created a Knight of the Garter in 1542, and two years later led the English army in France with varying success; imprisoned along with his father on a charge of high treason, for which there was no adequate evidence, he was condemned and executed; as one of the early leaders of the poetic renaissance, and introducer of the sonnet and originator of blank verse, he deservedly holds a high place in the history of English literature (1516-1547).

SURYA, in the Hindu mythology the sun conceived of as a female deity.

SUSA (the Shushan of Daniel, Esther, &c.), an ancient city of Persia, now in ruins, that spread over an area of 3 sq. m., on the Kerkha, 250 m. SE. of Bagdad; was for long the favourite residence of the Persian kings, the ruins of whose famous palace, described in Esther, are still extant.

SUSAN, ST., the patron saint and guardian of innocence and saviour from infamy and reproach. See SUSANNA.

SUSANNA, THE HISTORY OF, a story in the Apocrypha, evidently conceived to glorify Daniel as a judge, and which appears to have been originally written by a Jew in Greek. She had been accused of adultery by two of the elders and condemned to death, but was acquitted on Daniel's examination of her accusers to their confusion and condemnation to death in her stead. The story has been allegorised by the Church, and Susanna made to represent the Church, and the two elders her persecutors.

SUSQUEHANNA, a river of America, formed by the junction at Northumberland, Pennsylvania, of the North Branch (350 m.) flowing out of Schuyler Lake, central New York, and the West Branch (250 m.) rising in the Alleghany Mountains; flows in a shallow, rapid, unnavigable course S.

and SE. through beautiful scenery to Port Deposit, at the N. end of Chesapeake Bay; length, 150 m.

SUSs.e.x (550), a S. maritime county of England, fronts the English Channel between Hampshire (W.) and Kent (E.), with Surrey on its northern border; is traversed E. and W. by the South Downs, which afford splendid pasturage for half a million sheep, and terminates in Beachy Head; in the N. lies the wide, fertile, and richly-wooded plain of the Weald; chief rivers are the Arun, Adur, Ouse, and Rother, of no great size; is a fine agricultural county, more than two-thirds of its area being under cultivation; was the scene of Caesar's landing (55 B.C.), of aella's, the leader of the South Saxons (whence the name Suss.e.x), and of William the Conqueror's (1066); throughout the country are interesting antiquities; largest town, Brighton; county town, Lewes.

SUTHERLAND (22), a maritime county of N. Scotland; presents a N. and a W. sh.o.r.e to the Atlantic, between Ross and Cromarty (S.) and Caithness (E.), and faces the North Sea on the SE., whence the land slopes upwards to the great mountain region and wild, precipitous loch-indented coasts of the W. and N.; scarcely 3 per cent, of the area is cultivated, but large numbers of sheep and cattle are raised; the Oykell is the longest (35 m.) of many streams, and Loch Shin the largest of 300 lochs; there are extensive deer forests and grouse moors, while valuable salmon and herring fisheries exist round the coasts; is the most spa.r.s.ely populated county in Scotland. Dornoch is the county town.

SUTLEJ, the eastmost of the five rivers of the Punjab; its head-waters flow from two Thibetan lakes at an elevation of 15,200 ft., whence it turns NW. and W. to break through a wild gorge of the Himalayas, thence bends to the SW., forms the eastern boundary of the Punjab, and joins the Indus at Mithankot after a course of 900 m.

SUTRAS, name given to a collection of aphorisms, summaries of the teachings of the Brahmans, and of rules regulative of ritual or religious observances, and also given to these aphorisms and rules themselves.

SUTTEE, a Hindu widow who immolates herself on the funeral pile of her husband, a term applied to the practice itself. The practice was of very ancient date, but the custom was proclaimed illegal in 1829 under Lord William Bentinck's administration, and it is now very seldom that a widow seeks to violate the law. In 1823, in Bengal alone, 575 widows gave themselves to be so burned, of whom 109 were above sixty, 226 above forty, 209 above twenty, and 32 under twenty.

SUWARROW or SUVOROFF, Russian field-marshal, born at Moscow; entered the army as a private soldier, distinguished himself in the Seven Years' War, and after 20 years' service rose to command; in command of a division he in 1773 routed an army of the Turks beyond the Danube, and in 1783 he reduced a tribe of Tartars under the Russian yoke; his greatest exploit perhaps was his storming of Ismail, which had resisted all attempts to reduce it for seven months, and which he, but with revolting barbarities however, in three days succeeded by an indiscriminate ma.s.sacre of 40,000 of the inhabitants; his despatch thereafter to Queen Catharine was "Glory to G.o.d and the Empress, Ismail is ours!" he after this conducted a cruel campaign in Poland, which ended in its part.i.tion, and a campaign in Italy to the disaster of the French and his elevation to the peerage as a prince, with the t.i.tle of Italinski; he was all along the agent of the ruthless purposes of POTEMKIN (q. v.) (1730-1800).

SVEABORG, a strong fortress in Finland, protecting Helsingfors, in the Baltic, 3 m. distant from that town, and called the "Gibraltar of the North."

SVIR, a Russian river that flows into Lake Ladoga.