SAXE 



522S 



SAXONY 



fish, and they have been known to drive the 

 saw through the hulls of ships. There are five 

 species, distributed through the warm parts of 

 the ocean. They are large fish, some of the 

 saws being six feet long and a foot wide at the 

 base. An American species, common in the 

 coast waters of the Southern United States, 

 grows to be fifteen feet long, including the saw. 

 It makes its way up the Mississippi River for 

 many miles from its mouth, and does consid- 

 erable damage to fishermen's nets. 



SAXE, sax, JOHN GODFREY (1816-1887), an 

 American humorous and satirical poet. He was 

 bora at Highgate, Vt., educated at Middlebury 

 College and admitted to the bar. Thereafter 

 he served as attorney-general and as editor of 

 a Burlington, Vt., newspaper, before going to 

 Albany, N. Y., where he edited the Evening 

 Journal and became well known through his 

 writings and his lectures. Saxe ranks next to 

 Holmes in humorous poetry, and his verse is 

 always bright and attractive. Among his pub- 

 lications are The Money-King and Other Poems, 

 Leisure-Day Rhymes and Fables and Legends 

 oj Many Countries. 



Saxe's literary style is well shown in the fol- 

 lowing stanza from one of his poems: 



God bless the man who first invented sleep ; 

 But blast the man, with curses loud and deep, 

 Who first devised, then went 'round advertising 

 That artificial cutoff, early rising. 



SAXIFRAGE, sak'sifrayj, derived from a 

 Latin word meaning stone breaking, is the 

 name applied to a genus of plants, many of 

 which grow in stony soil or from clefts in rocks. 

 They are found for the most part in cold and 

 temperate regions of the northern hemisphere. 

 The leaves of some of the European varieties 

 are eaten as salad, and the root is used medici- 

 nally. These hardy plants have stalks from 

 one to two feet high, while the foliage varies, 

 being mossy, leathery-leaved or silvery. The 

 many tiny seeds are enclosed in little capsules, 

 and the blossoms are of all colors. Some of 

 the species are grown for ornamental purposes. 

 Among the best known are lady's cushion, 

 beefsteak or strawberry geranium, none-so- 

 pretty, golden saxifrage and swamp saxifrage. 



SAXONS, sax'unz, a Germanic people who 

 took part in the invasions of the island of 

 Britain in the fifth and sixth centuries and so 

 contributed to the founding of the English 

 kingdom. The Saxons first appear in historical 

 records in a book written by Ptolemy in the 

 second century. They seem then to have oc- 

 cupied the land corresponding to Schleswig, 



but by the sixth century they had spread over 

 Northwestern Germany as far east as the Elbe 

 River. The Saxons who remained in Germany 

 were subjugated by Charlemagne, who forced 

 them to accept Christianity and made their 

 country a part of his empire. During the ninth 

 century a Saxon duchy was established, but 

 this passed out of existence after three centu- 

 ries. The name Saxony, which was originally 

 applied to the home of the Saxons, came in 

 time to be the designation of a kingdom in the 

 east of Germany. 



Related Subjects. The reader is referred to 

 the following articles in these volumes : 

 Anglo-Saxons England, subtitle History 



Charlemagne Saxony 



SAXONY, sak'suni, until 1918 a kingdom, 

 the third state in the German Empire in popula- 

 tion and the fifth in area. After the revolution 

 of that year it became an important unit in the 

 new republic. In proportion to its size it is 

 the busiest industrial section of Germany. It 

 holds first rank in the production of textiles 

 and contains some of the most important cen- 

 ters of iron manufacture. This small triangu- 

 lar kingdom lies on the eastern frontier of Ger- 

 many, with Prussia on the west, north and east, 

 Bavaria on the southwest and Czecho-Slovakia 

 (a new state) on the south. It has an area 

 of 5,789 square miles and a population of 

 4,806,661. In Saxony there are about 829 peo- 

 ple to the square mile, the density of popula- 

 tion far exceeding that of any other German 

 state. There are two cities of more than half a 

 million population, Leipzig and Dresden (both 

 of which see). 



The country is traversed by the Elbe River, 

 the only stream of any great commercial im- 

 portance, and has an agreeable, moderate cli- 

 mate. The fertile soil receives an abundance 

 of rain, and produces large crops of wheat, rye, 

 barley, oats, potatoes and hay. Orchards, vine- 

 yards and flax fields also flourish. Among min- 

 eral products, silver, coal, iron, lead, tin, mar- 

 ble and precious stones are important. There 

 are a number of mineral springs, those at Bad- 

 Elster being visited by large number of health 

 seekers. Besides the prosperous textile facto- 

 ries Saxony has large establishments producing 

 furniture, paper, watches, glassware, pianos, ma- 

 chinery and many other commodities. At Meis- 

 sen is the famous porcelain factory where Dres- 

 den china (which see) is produced. Another 

 profitable source of income is the forest area; 

 nearly half the wooded land (one-fourth the 

 total area) belongs to the state, and there is 



