SOMERS' ISLANDS 



SOMNAMBULISM 



the reception of the famous mineral waters are 

 among the most important relics of the Roman 

 period in England. But the impress of the Roman 

 has been left in nearly every part of the county 

 in villas, roads, pottery kilns, interments, and 

 coins ; while Ilchester, like Bath, was a Roman 

 city. Tradition claims for Glastonbury (q.v.) the 

 honour of being the first seat of Christianity in 

 Britain. Under the Saxons the district became 

 known as the home of the Sumerssetan, and took 

 its present name, the origin of which is disputed. 

 Part first came under Saxon sway in 658, but 

 its inclusion in Wessex was not complete until 

 710, when Gerente was defeated by Ine, who made 

 Taunton (q.v.) his chief fortress, and founded the 

 cathedral of Wells (q.v.), which became the seat 

 of the bishopric of the Somersastas (since Bath and 

 Wells) in 909. Somerset was the last home of 

 Saxon freedom when Alfred took refuge at Athel- 

 ney, defended by trackless marshes. It was at 

 Wedmore that Alfred made his treaty with Guth- 

 rum, though the claims of Edington to be the 

 .Kihanduiit! where he won his most memorable 

 victory are doubtful. In the wars of the Roses 

 Somerset was in the main Lancastrian ; in the 

 ware of the Commonwealth it was chiefly parlia- 

 mentarian, and the stout defence of Taunton first 

 made famous the name of Admiral Blake. The 

 county was also the centre of Monmouth's opera- 

 tions ; and it was chiefly Somersetshire men who 

 fell at Sedgemoor (1685). The county has two 

 cities Bath and Wells; parliamentary boroughs 

 in Bath and Taunton ; an important manufac- 

 turing port in Bridgwater ; one of the finest water- 

 ing-places on the western coast in Weston-super- 

 Mare ; manufacturing towns in Frome, Yeovil, 

 Shepton Mallet, and Wellington; and seven 

 county parliamentary divisions. 



See Collinson, Somerset; Phelp, Somerset; Rutter, 

 Delineation of the ff. W. Division of Somerset ; Proceed- 

 ings of Somersetshire Archaeological and Natural History 

 Society ; Jeboalt, W. Somerset ; Pulinan, Book of the 

 Axe; Eyton, Somerset Domesday; Hugo, Mediceval 

 Jfunntries of Somerset ; W. A. J. Archbold, The Somerset 

 Religious House* ( Camb. 1892 ) ; Martin, Somerset ; and 

 numerous histories cited at Bristol, Bath, Taunton, Wells, 

 Glagtonbnry, and other towns. 



Somers' Islands. See BERMUDAS. 



Somerville, a city of Massachusetts, a suburb 

 of Boston, 2 miles from the central station. It has 

 many handsome residences, contains tube-works, 

 bleaching-works, and large slaughter-houses, and 

 manufactures flour, leather, iron, oil, bricks, &c. 

 Pop. ( 1880) 24,933 ; ( 1890) 40,152 ; ( 1900) 61,643. 



Somervllle, MRS MARY, a lady famed for her 

 mastery of mathematics and physical science, was 

 the daughter of Admiral Sir William Fail-fax, 

 and wasTjorn on 26th December 1780 at Jedburgh 

 in the manse of her uncle and future father-in-law, 

 Thomas Somerville, D.D. (1741-1830), the author 

 of My own Life and Times. She was brought up 

 at Burntislantt and Edinburgh, amid_ somewhat 

 narrow family circumstances. It was in an alge- 

 braic sum in a magazine of fashions that she first 

 made acquaintance with the subject that most en- 

 grossed her attention in after-life. In 1804 she 

 married a cousin, Captain Greig, of the Russian 

 navy, Russian consul in London. He died in 1806, 

 and it was not till her return north as a widow 

 that she was free to buy the books she wanted, 

 and to study the subject that most interested her. 

 In 1812 she married another cousin, Dr William 

 8omerville, inspector of the army medical board, 

 who entered warmly into all her ideas. They 

 removed to London in 1816, where Mrs Somer- 

 rille went mnch into society, and became known 

 as possessed of scientific interests and gifts. In 



1823 she was invited by Lord Brougham to try 

 to popularise for the English public Laplace's 

 great work, the Mecaniqiie Celeste; and the Celestial 

 Mechanism of the Heavens ( 1830) was received with 

 the greatest admiration. Mrs Somerville was 

 awarded a royal pension of 300 in 1835. Other 

 works by her were The Connection of the Physical 

 Sciences (1835), Physical Geography (1848), and 

 Molecular and Microscopic Science (1866). Mrs 

 Somerville, who for many years resided in Italy, 

 died at Naples, 29th November 1872. An auto- 

 biography, edited and supplemented by her 

 daughter, was published in 1873. After her is 

 named Somerville Hall, a college for women at 

 Oxford (1879). 



Sonillio, a river of northern France, rises not 

 far from St Quentin in the dept. of Aisne, flows in 

 a south-west, then north-west direction, and after 

 a course of 150 miles falls into the English Channel 

 not far from St Valery. It is navigable for vessels 

 of 300 tons up to Abbeville (q.v.), and its upper 

 course is canalised. The department of Somme, 

 in the north of France, formerly part of the province 

 of Picardy, touches the English Channel on the 

 north-west. Area, 2378 sq. in. The dept. is level, 

 very fertile, and amongst the best cultivated dis 

 tricts of France. Much cider is made and poultry 

 reared. The textile industries (wool, cotton, linen, 

 hemp, silk spinning, and the weaving of mixed 

 stuns, cloth, velvet, carpets) give the principal 

 mechanical employments ; but there are also large 

 iron-foundries, lock, soap, candle, chemical, paper, 

 and beet-root sugar factories, distilleries, and 

 breweries, employing in all nearly 70,000 hands. 

 There are the five arrondissements of Abbeville, 

 Amiens, Doullens, Montdidier, and Peronne ; chief 

 town, Amiens. Pop. (1872)557,015; (1891)546,495. 



Somnambulism (Lat. somnus, 'sleep,' arn- 

 bulo, 'I walk') is a disorder of sleep. It is 

 svmptomatic of more or less activity in some of 

 the psychical and motor areas of the brain, while 

 the centres that preside over consciousness are 

 slumbering soundly. There are different forms, as 

 sleep-crying, sleep-talking (somniloquy ), and sleep- 

 walking. These all involve sensori-motor acts. 



Sleep-walking is closely related to hysteria and 

 epilepsy, and it occasionally alternates with these 

 and allied diseases. It occurs mostly in youth, 

 affecting males and females in almost equal pro- 

 portion ; commonly, although not invariably, it 

 disappears when adult age is attained. It is met 

 with chiefly in persons of nervous temperament, 

 and in those who have an inherited proclivity to 

 neurotic disease. The exciting causes embrace 

 mental excitement, overwork, fright, bodily fatigue, 

 hepatic and digestive disorders, worms, and an 

 overloaded bladder, and in females uterine and 

 ovarian troubles. Sleep-walking is one of the 

 neuroses of deep sleep. It occasionally presages 

 graver maladies ; generally these may be prevented 

 by suitable treatment. It is important to recog- 

 nise that it is a pathological state, and that no 

 one who is in perfect health walks in his sleep. 

 Sleep-walking is an acted dream, which generally 

 supervenes when sleep is deepest often during the 

 first deep sleep. The dreamer usually stages it so 

 precisely that he is able to act it with admir- 

 able exactness. In the first visitation the dream 

 may be simple, and merely impel the sleeper to 

 rise from bed to walk round the room and then 

 return to bed. Eventually the dreams become 

 more elaborate, and may embrace many complex 

 operations, in which the individual has to elude 

 articles of furniture, unlock doors, open windows, 

 walk along dangerous roofs, or beside the edge 

 of precipices in short, perform feats he could 

 not possibly execute in his waking moments, 



