SODOMY 



SOILS 



Sodouia, or SODONA, 1 1., was the UHiial appel- 

 lation of Giovanni Antonio Baz/i ( 1477-1 ">4!l ), rcli- 

 pirns ami hUtorical painter, Imrn at Vrrrelli ; he 

 painted in Rome, but chiefly at Sienna, where he 

 died. His best-known pictures are the famous 

 frescoes in the Villa Farnesina at Rome. See 

 German Life by Junsen ( 1870). 



Siiloill>. an unnatural crime, is punishable 

 \vitli penal servitude for life, or any term not less 

 than ten ve.ir-. and the attempt to commit it is 

 punisliable with penal servitude for from three to 

 ten years. In Scotland it was till 1887 nominally 

 a capital offence, though punished only by penal 

 servitude and imprisonment. 

 Sodor and Man. See HEBRIDES, and MAN. 

 Soest, in Westphalia, 37 miles SE. of Minister 

 by rail, was once a Hanse town and a free imperial 

 city, with a population of 30,000 ; now it has but 

 15,407 inhabitants (half of them Catholics). The 

 Gothic Cathedral (Catholic), built in 1314, was 

 restored in 1846. The municipal law of Soest 

 . <! as the model for Lttbeck, Hamburg, &<. 

 In 1180 the Archbishop of Cologne seized the 

 sovereignty ; but in 1441 the people rose and 

 sought the protection of the Duke of Cleves, and 

 this led to a siege and heroic defence. 



Sofala. the name given to that portion of the 

 south-east coast of Africa which extends from the 

 Zambesi as far south a.* Delagoa Bay. The inland 

 region at the back of the const district, partly 

 corresponding to MataMeland, was anciently 

 known as the Empire of Monotnotapn (though the 

 word is rather the name of the prince than of 

 the state). Sofala was descril>ed by the old geo- 

 graphers as a very rich, gold-producing country, 

 and was judged by some to be the Opblr of 

 Solomon, an idea afterwards long discredited, but 

 lately revived since Mauch discovered the disused 

 inine'-workings around Zimbabwe (q.v.), and in- 

 terest was aroused in them through the British 

 South Africa Company penetrating into that region. 

 Sofala belongs to the Portuguese, who established 

 themselves here in 1505. Their headquarters, the 

 town of Sofala, once a large commercial town, U 

 now a wretched place of 1000 inhabitant*. 



Sofia, the capital since 1878 of the principality 

 of Bulgaria, stands in a broad valley of the Bal- 

 kans. li.-~i.il' tin- railway connecting Constantin- 

 ople with Belgrade and Vienna. The city since 

 1S1I1 has undergone thorough reconstruction, 

 most of the crooked dirty streets, with their 

 tumble-down houses and ruinous mosques, of the 

 old Turkish city being demolished to make way 

 for broad tree pfanted iKiulevaicls, with pave. I si.lc- 

 walks and electric-light posts, new French-looking 

 houses, shops ami lintels, and large public build- 

 ings (baths, national library, banks, post-office, 

 &c.). The principal streets converge upon the 

 new government palace. For centuries the place 

 hat been renowned for its hot mineral s|irings ( 117 

 F. ). Sofia is the seat of a metropolitan of the 

 Greek Church, and of the national university. 

 There is a considerable trade in hides, spirits, 

 maize, and wheat. Top. (1870) 19,000; (1895) 

 47,500, of whom two-thirds were Bulgarians, and 

 about 5000 Jews (originally emigrants from Spain). 

 Sofia is the Scrdira of the Romans, and was the 

 seat of a famous church council in 343. Attila 

 plnndcri-d it ; ami it was in the possession of the 

 Bulgarians from the beginning of the ttth century 

 until it- capture bv the Turks in 1382. Both 

 llinivn.lv an. I the Albanian chief Mustapha Pasha 

 (in 1829) utterly devastated the place, and it was 

 occupied by the Russians under General Gourko in 

 January 1878. See Conlemjmrar;/, April 1891. 



Softa, a student of Mohammedan theology and 

 sacred law. 



Soft -grass (Holcus), a genus of Grasses (q.v.). 



Sogdlana, anciently a province of the empire 

 nf Pei sin in the time of the Acha-meniauB, corre- 

 siHinded to the modem districts of Samarcand and 

 llokhara and the valley of Zerafshan. I'mler the 

 Greeks, after its conquest by Alexander the threat, 

 it was united with Bactria, The Arab geographers 

 describe its fertility and beauty in terms of ex- 

 aggerated eulogy. 



Soliaill. a small market-town of Cambridge- 

 shire, with a line church, 5 miles SE. of Ely. Pop. 

 of parish, 3980. 



Sonar, a seaport of Oman in Arabia, stands on 

 the <;ulf of Oman, 130 miles NW. of Muscat, and 

 is a well-built place with town-walls and a castle, 

 some weaving and working of metals, a good 

 harlsmr, and an active trade. It was a famous 

 trading-town in the end of the 10th century, but 

 not long after its commerce fell away entirely. 

 The Portuguese occupied it from 1508 to 1650. 

 Pop. probably 5000. 



SolSJIlios. a town of the Belgian province of 

 Hainault, 22 miles by rail S. by W. of Brussels. 

 The church of St Vincent dates from the 12th 

 century, though it was first founded in 650. Pop. 

 8683. Near here the French defeated the Nether- 

 landers on 10th July 1794. 



Soils, Soils are generally said to be derived 

 from our primitive rocks by that disintegrating 

 process called weathering (see DENUDATION). 

 The doctrine that commonly obtains is that lichens, 

 the first occupants of the thin initial layer so 

 formed, contributed by their life and death in 

 turn to soil formation, and thereby made life 

 possible for the mosses. These in like manner 

 yielded their increase, and rendered it possible 

 for plants of a still higher order to grow and 

 nourish, and so on, untu perfect soils were pro- 

 duced in which all plants might luxuriate. It is 

 perhaps convenient to adopt the lichens as the 

 starting-point ; but it would probably lie more 

 accurate to presume that these were preceded by 

 other forms, for the origin of soils may indeed have 

 been the origin of life itself, and until we can 

 clearly define the one there must of necessity be 



indelinili ss about the other. llccent cxjieri- 



ments go to show that sterilised soils are infertile 

 soils; and if that In- an unassailable doctrine, then 

 it follows that micro organisms aided in the forma- 

 tion of that soil which was siillicient for the growth 

 of the lichen. The origin of soil organisms must 

 be left 10 the bacteriologist to discuss, but it may 

 not be out of place to state here that the growing, 

 sowing, and feeding of the desirable soil germs is 

 of as much im|Kirtonce to the agriculturist of to-day 

 as is the sowing of seeds, or the growing and feed- 

 ing by manuring of plants; indeed, it may 

 almost be asserted that manures applied to soils do 

 not always act as they do in water-culture experi- 

 mental as direct plant food, but rather as food for 

 those soil liacteroids which are the great agricul- 

 tural workers, or preparers of food for plants. It 

 may 1> allirmed that it is quite as necessary for the 

 agriculturist to have certain conditions of soil 

 physical and chemical which are essential to the 

 growth ami working of the desirable germs, and 

 accordingly essential for the growth of good crops, 

 as it is for the brewer to have those more or less 

 definite physical and chemical conditions which are 

 essential to the growth and working of the yeast 

 plant in the production of good beer. Moreover, 

 what is universally stated in text-books as being 

 due to a 'selective power' of plants is entirely 

 ascribable to the biological condition of the noil ; 

 and far from its being a power of selection _or 

 instinct possessed by plants, these have no choio 

 in the matter. 



