SCHWARTZBURG SCILLY ISLANDS. 



133 



Roger Bacon, who died in 1292, was acquainted ' 

 with an inflammable composition similar to gun- 

 powder, the" knowledge of which Europeans appear 

 to have derived from the Orientals. See Gunpow- 

 der. 



SCHWARTZBURG, OR SCHWARZBURG; 

 a sovereign principality of Germany, in the interior ] 

 of Thuringia, and bounded by Saxe-Gotha and the I 

 Prussian province of Erfurt. The house is very 

 ancient, and is divided into two lines, Schwartzburg- j 

 Sondershausen, and Schwartzburg-Rudoldstadt. In i 

 the diet, they have, with Oldenburg and Anhalt, 

 one vote (15th), and in the plenum a vote each. , 

 The territories of both are hilly, interspersed with 

 fertile valleys. The forests are extensive, and con- 

 tain mines of iron, alum and cobalt; also quarries j 

 of marble, freestone and slate. The religion is Lu- 

 theran. 



Schwartzburg-Rudolstadt lies further to the south, 

 and borders on the grand-duchy of Saxe-Weknar. 

 Rudolstadt (4000 inhabitants) is the chief town, 

 and residence of the prince. The other principal 

 towns are Frankenhausen and Ilmstadt. Popula- 

 tion, 58,000; square miles, 400 ; revenue, 136,500 

 dollars; debt, 113,000. Rudolstadt has estates, 

 but Sondershausen is an absolute government. 



Schwartzburg- Sondershausen is almost surrounded 

 by the Prussian province of Saxony. Sondershau- 

 sen (3321 inhabitants) is the chief town, and resi- 

 dence of the prince. The other principal towns 

 are Arnstadt, Breitenbach, and Graussen. Popula- 

 tion, 48,106; square miles, 350; revenue, 170,000 

 dollars ; debt, the same. 



SCHWARTZENBERG, CHARLES PHILIP, 

 prince of, Austrian field-marshal, born at Vienna, 

 in 1771, served in the early wars of the French 

 revolution, in which he distinguished himself on 

 several occasions. In 1805, he was at the head of 

 a division under general Mack, and at Ulm com- 

 manded the right wing of the Austrian forces. Af- 

 ter the fortune of the day was decided, he forced 

 his way through the enemy at the head of a body 

 of cavalry. The battle of Austerlitz, at which he 

 was present, was fought against his advice, before 

 Bennigsen and the archduke Charles had come up. 

 In 1808, Schwartzenberg was ambassador to the 

 Russian court ; and, in 1809, commanded the rear- 

 guard after the battle of Wagram. In the campaign 

 of 1812, he commanded the Austrian auxiliary 

 corps of 30,000 men, in Galicia, which, however, 

 remained almost entirely inactive, and at the 

 close of the year, he received the marshal's staff. 

 In 1813, he was appointed to command the army of 

 observation in Bohemia; and after the declaration 

 of war by Austria, prince Schwartzenberg was 

 named generalissimo of the allied forces. (See 

 Dresden, Russian- German War, and Leipsic, Battle 

 of.) After Napoleon's return from Elba, he com- 

 manded the allied forces on the Upper Rhine ; but 

 the contest was decided at Waterloo, without his 

 participation. The prince died in 1820. Many of 

 his military dispositions have been censured ; and 

 Napoleon declared that he could not command 

 6000 men See Prokesch, Memoirs of Prince 

 Schwartzenberg (in German, Vienna, 1823). 



SCHWARZ, OR SCHWARTZ (German black); 

 an adjective which begins a great number.of Ger- 

 man geographical names. 



SCHWARZWALD. See Black Forest. 



SCHWEIGHAUSER, JOHN, one of the most 

 distinguished German philologists, was born at 

 Strasburg, in 1742, and became professor of the 



Greek and Oriental languages in that place in 1778. 

 He published valuable editions of Polybius, Athe- 

 naeus, Arrian, Epictetus, &c., and especially of 

 Herodotus (6 vols., 1816). His academical writ- 

 ings were published in 1807 (2 vols.), and in 1824 

 appeared his Lexicon Herodoteum (2 vols.) He 

 died in 1830. 



SCHWEITZ, OR SCHWYTZ; a canton of 

 Switzerland, bounded N. W. and N. by Zug and 

 Ziirich, E. by Glarus, S. by Uri, and W. by Under- 

 walden and Lucerne ; population, 36,040, nearly 

 all Germans, and Catholics; square miles, 336. It 

 is surrounded by Alpine mountains, between which 

 are a few valleys, tolerably fertile. The chief 

 mountains are Mytten, 6300 feet high ; Righi, 6000; 

 and Pragel, 5500. The soil is better adapted to 

 pasturage than tillage, and the wealth of the inha- 

 bitants consists in cattle. It was here that, in the 

 beginning of the fourteenth century, the standard 

 of Swiss liberty was first erected; and this petty 

 canton had the honour of giving its name to the 

 confederation. (See Switzerland.) The capital of 

 the canton, of the same name, two miles from lake 

 Lowerz, is situated in a fertile valley, between the 

 mountains of Mytten and Righi; population, 5000. 



SCHWERIN. See Mecklenburg-Schwerin. 



SCHWERIN, KURT CHRISTOPHER, count, Prus- 

 sian field-marshal, was born in 1684, in Swedish 

 Pomerania, and, after having served in the Dutch 

 armies, entered the Prussian service in 1720, with 

 the rank of major-general. Frederic II., who 

 ascended the throne in 1740, esteemed him very 

 highly, created him field-marshal, and count, and 

 gave him the command of his forces in the Austrian 

 succession war (1741). In 1756, he was again 

 placed in command of one of the Prussian armies, 

 and fell at the head of his troops, before Prague, in 

 1757. See Seven years' War; consult also Fred- 

 eric's Histoire de man Temps. 



SCILLY ISLANDS; a group of islands, situ- 

 ated at the western extremity of the English chan- 

 nel, about thirty miles westward of the Land's 

 End, and belonging to the county of Cornwall. 

 Their total surface is about 4700 acres; and of 

 St Mary's, the largest, 1640 acres. There are only 

 six among them of any importance, namely, St 

 Mary's, Tresco, or Trescow, St Agnes, St Martin's, 

 Breyer, and Sampson, the rest, eleven in num- 

 ber, being barren rocks, interspersed with shoals and 

 quicksands, which have often proved fatal to mari- 

 ners. It has been conjectured that these islands 

 were, at a remote period, joined to Cornwall, and 

 that the intervening ridge of land was submerged 

 by an earthquake, or by the violence of the sea. 

 The inhabitants are chiefly engaged in agriculture, 

 in fishing, and formerly in the manufacture of kelp. 

 The crops principally raised are barley, pease and 

 oats, with a small proportion of wheat. The lan- 

 guage spoken in the Scilly Islands is an intermix- 

 ture of the west country dialect with common 

 English. On several of the islands are remains of 

 what are commonly called Druidical antiquities. 

 The situation of the Scilly group renders the islands 

 important for the assistance or supply of ships bound 

 to England from the south ; and they were there- 

 fore appointed as a place of rendezvous by the Ad- 

 miralty about twenty years age. On St Agnes 

 is a lighthouse, lat. 40 53' 30" north. Popula- 

 tion of the Scilly Islands in 1841: St Mary's, 

 1545; Tresco, 430; St Agnes, 243; St Mai tin's, 

 214: Breyer, 121; and Sampson Isle, 29;_total 

 2582. 



