SOLMISATION 



SOLOMON'S SEAL 



563 



tiful. He says the bird is called solitaire because 

 it is very seldom seen in flocks, and tells us that 

 the bird is with difficulty caught in the forests, 

 but easily on open ground, because it can be out- 

 ran by a man ; and that its flesh is very good to 

 eat. In 1865 Edward Newton visited Rodriguez 

 and discovered abundant remains of the solitaire, 

 from which he was able to confirm part of Leguat's 

 description. Since Professor Newton's visit many 

 more skeletons have been discovered, and the 

 osteology of the bird is now well known. Recon- 

 structed skeletons are preserved in the South Ken- 

 sington Museum, in the Royal College of Surgeons, 

 and in the Museum of the University of Cam- 

 bridge. The figure here given is derived from a 

 rude cut in Leguat's work. It has been shown 

 that the Dodo ( /'/</"- ineptus ) of Mauritius did not 

 occur on Rodriguez ; bones formerly referred to 

 the dodo all belong to the slightly divergent male 

 and female solitaires. 



See Strickland and Melville, The Dodo and its Kindred 

 (Lend. 1848); also Newton, Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. 

 (Lond. 1869) ; and Proc. Zool. Soc. (1875). 



Solmisat ion. See SOLFEGGIO. 



Solo, a term used in musical compositions of 

 several parts, whether vocal or instrumental, to 

 indicate a voice or instrument that is to perform 

 Alone or in a more prominent manner, as soprano 

 tola, violino solo. The plural, soli, is used when 

 two or more voices or instrumental parts are to be 

 performed together, such parts, of course, never 

 being doubled. A composition for a single instru- 

 ment accompanied is also termed a solo. 



Solofra, a city of Southern Italy, 31 miles by 

 rail E. of Naples, with important manufactures of 

 parchment, &c. Pop. 5178. 



Solomon (Salomon, Salomo, Suleiman, Soly- 

 man ; Hel>. Shel&mft, from shdldm, ' peace,' and 

 no meaning 'the Peaceful,' like Ger. Friedrich), 

 the second son of David and Bathsheba, successor 

 of the former on the throne of the Israelitish 

 kingdom for forty years (1015-977 B.C.). See 

 JKWS, Vol. VI. p. 323. In later Jewish and Moham- 

 medan literature Solomon appears not only as 

 the wisest of men, but as gifted with power to 

 control the spirits of the invisible world. As 

 the builder of the Temple his name is much 

 quoted in the literature of the Freemasons (q.v.). 

 For the so-called Song of Solomon, see CAN- 

 TICLES ; for the other biblical works long attrib- 

 uted to Solomon, see BIBLE, ECCLESIASTES, 

 PROVERBS. The Wisdom of Solomon, one of the 

 books of the Apocrypha (q.v.), makes a claim, 

 real or hypothetical, to have been written by 

 Solomon, but from internal evidence it is obvi- 

 ously the work of an Alexandrian Jew, written in 

 the period 150-50 B.C. The book is a hymn in 

 praise of Wisdom the Wisdom of Proverbs (q.v.), 

 but containing approximations to the doctrine of 

 the Logos (q.v.), and combines the ethical doc- 

 trine and speculation of the Hebrews with Platonic 

 and Stoic philosophy. There are commentaries 

 on it by Grimm ( 1860), Gutberlet (Minister, 1874), 

 and Deane, The Book of Wisdom, (1881). The 

 Psalms of Solomon, also called the Psalms of the 

 Pharisees, were apparently written in Hebrew by 

 a Pharisaic Jew in Jerusalem about 70-40 B.C., 

 and are a protest against modern corruptions. 

 They are an imitation of the canonical psalms, and 

 seem to have been known by the authors of much 

 apocryphal and later Jewish literature. There is 

 an edition of the existing Greek text, with a trans- 

 lation and notes, by Ryle and James ( 1892). 



Solomon Islands an archipelago in the 

 western Pacific, lielonging in part to Germany, in 

 part to Great Britain. The islands lie 500 miles 

 E. of New Guinea, and stretch south-eastwards in 



two parallel chains for 600 miles towards the Santa 

 Cruz group. The north-eastern chain embraces 

 Bougainville, Choiseul, Ysabel, and Malaita ; the 

 south-western Vella Lavella, Kulanibangra, New 

 Georgia, Guadalcanar, and San Cristoval. Besides 

 these, which vary between 70 and 110 miles in 

 length, and are 20 to 30 in width, there are a 

 number of smaller ones. They have a total esti- 

 mated area of 15,000 sq. m. ; are nearly all of 

 volcanic formation, there being one active volcano 

 and several quiescent and extinct volcanoes ; and 

 are covered from the seashores to the summits of 

 the highest mountains ( 10,000 feet in Bougain- 

 ville, 8000 in Guadalcanar, 4100 in San Cristoval) 

 with dense tropical vegetation. There is an extra- 

 ordinarily heavy annual rainfall, estimated by Dr 

 Guppy at 400 and even 500 inches on the moun- 

 tains, and 150 on the coasts. The atmosphere is 

 consequently very moist ; and the temperature 

 ranges from 75 to 95 F. The people, stated to 

 number 167,000, show decidedly Papuan or Melan- 

 esian characteristics ; they are divided into a great 

 number of tribes, constantly at war with one 

 another, and are very suspicious towards strangers. 

 Cruel and savage, they indulge in cannibalism, 

 wear little or no clothing, and tattoo their bodies. 

 Their religion is a kind of ancestor-worship, with 

 attendant mysteries. Totem castes exist on 

 Guadalcanar and some others of the islands. Yams, 

 vegetables, and the cocoa-nut are the principal 

 productions used as food. The fauna of the islands 

 includes a phalanger (cuscus or flying fox), bats, 

 gigantic rats and frogs) very large and very brilliant 

 butterflies. This group was discovered by the 

 Spaniard Mendana in 1567. Then for two hundred 

 years it was never visited by Europeans, and was 

 virtually rediscovered (1767-88) by Carteret, Bou- 

 gainville, Surville, Shortland, and other navigators. 

 See Guppy, The Solomon Islands (2 vols. 1887), and 

 Woodford, A Naturalist among the Bead-hunters (1890). 



Solomon's Seal (Polygonatum), a genus of 

 plants of the natural order Liliaeese, differing from 

 Lily of the Valley (q.v.) chiefly in the cylindrical 

 tubular perianth, and in having the flowers jointed 

 to their flower-stalks. There are three British 

 species. The Common Solomon's Seal (P. multi- 

 florum) is found in woods and copses in many 

 parts of England and 

 in a few places in 

 Scotland. It has a 

 stem about two feet 

 high, the upper part 

 of which bears a num- 

 ber of large, ovate- 

 elliptical, alternate 

 leaves in two rows. 

 The flower-stalks are 

 generally unbranched; 

 the flowers not large, 

 white, and drooping. 

 The roots are knotty, 

 and a transverse sec- 

 tion of them reveals 

 characters which the 

 fanciful have imag- 

 ined represent the 

 impress of the famous 

 seal of Solomon, to 

 which very ancient 

 legends attributed 

 matncjil nronprtips Angular-stemmed Solomon's 

 ^TppeaSes on CT(5^ office). 

 the cut root being 



variously described as looking like the ' marke of a 

 seale.'like the magical Pentacle (q.v.), or like Hebrew 

 letters. The Narrow-leaved Solomon's Seal (P. ver- 

 ticillatum ) is a rare British plant, only found in a few 



