487 



SHOKHNAH, IBN. 



SHUCKBURGH EVELYN, SIR GEORGE. 



appointed him his secretary at the outbreak of the war. In that 

 capacity Shishkov was the author of most of the ukases, manifestoes, 

 and proclamations that were issued in the course of that remarkable 

 contest. That which he composed on Napoleon I.'s entry into Moscow 

 ia inserted in Grech's ' Uchebnaya Kniga Russkoy Slovesnosti ' 

 or Collection of Russian Elegant Extracts, and it is in every point of 

 view a remarkable production. " Without a doubt," one passage runs, 

 " Napoleon's bold or rather rash irruption into the very heart of 

 Russia, and even to its oldest capital, will gratify his ambition, and 

 afford him an opportunity for boasting and vain-glory, but it is the 

 end that crowns the work. He is not in a country where one bold 

 step strikes all with terror, and brings armies and nations to his feet. 

 Russia is not accustomed to surrender her laws, her faith, her freedom, 

 her property ; to the last drop of her blood she will defend them. 

 ... How will it be when the enemy with the remainder of his still 

 diminishing forces, remote from his country, finds himself in the midst 

 of a numerous nation, surrounded by our armies, of which one will be 

 opposed to him, and the other two will endeavour to cut off his return, 

 and to prevent the arrival of any fresh reinforcements. . . In such 

 a miserable condition of the human race," the manifesto concludes, 

 'how illustrious will be that nation, which suffering all the calamities 

 inseparably connected with war, shall at last by its patience and forti- 

 tude not only succeed in procuring for itself a durable and inviolable 

 tranquillity, but in restoring it to other states, and even to those which 

 against their will are waging war upon it. It belongs to a good nation 

 to return good for evil. Almighty God, give to thy faithful people, 

 contending in the cause of right, firmness of soul and patience. By 

 these let it triumph, and, saving itself, save also the freedom and inde- 

 pendence of kings and kingdoms." Shishkov stood high in the favour 

 of the Emperor Alexander L, who appointed him hi 1816 President of 

 the Russian Academy, in 1820 a member of the council of the empire, 

 and in 1824 Minister of Public Instruction, a post however in which 

 he gained an unenviable reputation by his antipathy to the education 

 of the lower classes. It would have been well also for his fame if 

 some of the works of his old age had remained unpublished. One of 

 the most conspicuous, the German translation of which is entitled 

 ' Vergleichungs Worterbuch in Zweihundert Sprachen' ('Comparative 

 Dictionary of 200 Languages'), is in reality only a criticism on the well- 

 known ' Vocabulary ' of Professor Pallas and the Empress Catharine, 

 and many of the remarks it contains are of an extremely futile 

 character. Shishkov died in April 1841. An edition of his works in 

 fourteen volumes was published in his lifetime at St. Petersburg 

 between 1823 and 1834, and a selection from his letters was published 

 soon after his death. 



SHOKHNAH, IBN, is the surname of a celebrated Mohammedan 

 writer named Muhibbu-d-din Abu-1-walid Mohammed Ibn Kemali-d-din 

 Ibn Shokhnab, who was Kddhi-1-Kodhat, or supreme judge of the 

 Hanefite sect in the province of Irak or Mesopotamia. Having from 

 his early youth given proofs of great talent, and composed several 

 works on theology and jurisprudence, he was appointed cddi of one 

 of the mosques of Damascus, and in course of time was raised to the 

 highest ecclesiastical office among the Mohammedans, namely, that of 

 Sheikhu-l-Islam, or Mufti, or, as it is otherwise called, Ka'dhi-1-Kodha't, 

 supreme Ka"dhi or judge of Irak. Ibn Shokhnah died at Damascus, 

 in A.H. 883 (A.D. 1478). He left, among other historical works, ' Raud- 

 hatu-1-maudtzir fi akhba"ri-l-awayil wa-1-awakhir ' (the garden of the 

 overlooking places, or the history of ancient and modern times). 

 It is a sort of abridgment of Abu-1-fedil's large historica]^work, and 

 contains a chronological history of the world from the creation to the 

 year 1403 of our era. It is divided into four books or sections, and 

 contains much useful information, comprising many events which 

 escaped that celebrated historian. Ibn Shokhnah also wrote a work 

 on jurisprudence and canonical law, entitled ' LissCnu-1-hokham fi 

 maarefati-1-akhjlm ' (verbal decisions of the judges, or a knowledge 

 of law), which is in the Royal Library of Paris. 



SHOVEL, ADMIRAL SIR CLOUDESLEY, was born in 1650, of 

 poor parents. He was first noticed by Sir John Narborough, with 

 whoTi he went to sea as a cabin boy, but from his great merit soon 

 rose to the rank of an officer. In 1674, while on an expedition to 

 Tripoli, he was sent by his patron with a message to the Dey, on 

 which occasion he behaved with great discretion ; and through some 

 observations made by him while on shore, Sir John Narborough was 

 enabled to enter the harbour and burn the ships of the enemy. The 

 next year, in consequence of this service, he was appointed to the 

 command of a ship. He continued in employ during the reign of 

 James, who appointed him to the command of the Dovor. On the 

 accession of William he took the side of the new king, and distin- 

 guished himself so much in the battle of Bantry Bay as to obtain the 

 honour of knighthood. In 1692 he was appointed rear-admiral 

 of the red, and soon after was present at the battle of La Hogue, to 

 which victory he greatly contributed. In 1694 he served under Lord 

 Berkeley in the expedition to Camaret as vice-admiral of the red, and 

 on the return of the latter to England, took the chief command in 

 the expedition against Dunkirk. In the reign of Queen Anne we find 

 him employed till 1702, when he was sent to Vigo to bring back the 

 prizes left by Sir George Rooke. In 1704 he reinforced the fleet of 

 this officer in the Mediterranean with a powerful squadron, and led 

 the van in the battle of Malaga. In 1705 ho held the command of 



the fleet sent to Spain jointly with the Earl of Peterborough, and had 

 an active share in the capture of Barcelona. He returned to England 

 the same year, and in 1706 sailed to Portugal with Lord Rivers to the 

 relief of the young king of that country. He continued in command 

 there till 1707, when he joined the Duke of Savoy in the siege of 

 Toulon ; after the raising of which he proceeded homewards with 

 nine ships of the line, and was unfortunately wrecked off the Scilly 

 Isles, October 2, 1707. The circumstances of his death were peculiar : 

 he is said to have been thrown on shore alive, and to have been mur- 

 dered by one of the islanders for the sake of a valuable ring. Shovel 

 is called by Bishop Burnet (' History of his own Times') "one of the 

 greatest seamen of the age ; " and his whole career was as honourable 

 to himself as it was creditable to the judgment of Sir John Nar- 

 borough, who first drew him forth from an obscure condition. 



SHUCKBURGH EVELYN, SIR GEORGE, BART., a gentleman 

 distinguished as a classical scholar as well as for his attainments in 

 mathematical and philosophical learning, was born in 1750, and repre- 

 sented the county of Warwickshire in three successive parliaments. 

 In 1774 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, and in the 

 volume of its 'Transactions' for 1798 will be found the communi- 

 cations which he made to that body concerning the measurement of 

 the heights of mountains by the barometer, and the adoption of a 

 general standard of weights and measures. Together with General 

 Roy, he made numerous experiments in order to find the effect of 

 variations of temperature on the volumes of air and mercury ; and 

 from the labours of these experiments there has resulted a rule for 

 obtaining the relative heights of stations, which possesses perhaps all 

 the accuracy of which the barometrical method is susceptible, or which 

 can be required for the purposes of geography. According to Sir 

 George Shuckburgb, the formula expressing the required height in 

 fathoms is 



(10000 I If 0-44 d) { 1 +-0023 (/ - 32) } ; 



where I is the difference between the logarithms of the heights of the 

 barometer at the two stations, ^f d is the difference between the 

 attached thermometers (Fahrenheit's scale), the negative sign being 

 used when the mercury is coldest at the upper station, and the posi- 

 tive sign in the contrary case, and / is the mean of the temperatures 

 expressed by a detached thermometer at the stations. When the 

 air is tranquil, and the observations are carefully made, this formula will 

 give the required height within two or three feet in four thousand. 



It has always been considered advantageous that the units of linear 

 measure and of weight should have a relation to some invariable 

 standard existing in nature, in order that in the event of the values of 

 those units being lost, they may be recovered with accuracy. This 

 was the object proposed by the government of France in 1793, when 

 it was decided that the metre should be a certain portion of the cir- 

 cumference of a meridian of the earth ; and to Sir George Shuckburgh 

 belongs the merit of having determined the relation between the yard 

 (the unit of measure in England) and the length of a pendulum which 

 should make a certain number of vibrations in a given time. The 

 subject had already, at intervals, during many years been recom- 

 mended to the attention of the government, but the inquiry from 

 various circumstances being deferred, it was reserved for private 

 individuals, to whom, for the sake of obtaining accuracy and uniformity 

 in their scientific pursuits, it was of importance to have a precise 

 standard of length, to procure one by their own exertions. By nume- 

 rous experiments Sir George found that the difference between two 

 pendulums, one vibrating 42 times and the other 84 times in a minute 

 (mean time) in the latitude of London, at 113 feet above the level of 

 the sea, when the mercury in the barometer is at 30 inches, and the 

 temperature is at 60 (Fahr.), is equal to 59'89358 inches according 

 to the parliamentary standard ; and it is evident that by repeating 

 such experiments with all due care, the length of a rod containing the 

 same number of inches might be obtained. From the more recent 

 experiments of Captain Krater and Colonel Sabine, the length of a 

 pendulum vibrating one second in London is 39'13929 inches; which 

 gives for the difference between two such pendulums as those above 

 mentioned, 59'90103 inches, a result agreeing with that which had 

 been found by Sir George Shuckburgh within -00745 inch. This 

 philosopher also ascertained from numerous experiments that a cubic 

 inch of distilled water, when the mercury in the barometer is at 29'5 

 inches, and the temperature is 60, weighs in air 252-506 grains, and 

 in vacuo 252-806 grains; hence the exact weight of a grain, and 

 consequently of all other weights, may at any time be obtained. 

 I ('Phil. Trans.,' 1798.) 



In order that a precise standard of length might be preserved in 

 the country, Sir George Shuckburgh employed Mr. Troughton to 

 m&ke for him a brass-bar, and to lay down on it with great accuracy 

 the length of 5 feet, divided into feet, inches, and tenths of an inch ; 

 the bar was 67f inches long, If inch wide, and 0'4 inch thick ; and 

 besides the scale just mentioned, there were laid upon it various 

 other measures of acknowledged or reputed authority. This scale is 

 now in the possession of the Royal Society ; and in the ' Phil. Trans.' 

 for 1798 is a paper by Sir George, in which the scale is described, and 

 the length of 3 feet on it is compared with the length of the old 

 standard yard which was kept at the Exchequer (where it is supposed 

 to have been placed in the reign of Elizabeth) and with that of another 

 standard yard belonging to the Royal Society. The difference between 



