354 



SPESSART-SPHRAGISTICS- 



SPESSART; a woody, mountainous chain of 

 Germany, in the Bavarian circle of the Lower 

 Maine, extending along the right bank of the 

 Maine, by which it is nearly surrounded. The 

 highest summit is Geyersberg, 2000 feet high. 

 There are about 300,000 acres (morgen) of forest, 

 belonging principally to the crown of Bavaria, and 

 consisting chiefly of oak and beech. Cobalt, 

 copper, and iron are obtained in the Spessart. 

 Aschaffenburg, on the south-western edge, is the 

 principal place. 



SPEYER, OR SPEIER. See Spire. 



SPEZIALE, member of the junta of government, 

 instituted in 1799, at Naples, was the son of a 

 peasant of Borgetto, not far from Palermo. His 

 servile deportment procured him a place in the 

 corte prcetoriana e capitanale at Palermo. When 

 the court of Naples fled to Sicily, he showed a 

 bitter hatred towards the French, and violently 

 persecuted the suspected, so that the chevalier 

 Acton appointed him to try the persons accused of 

 having taken part in the revolution. Even before 

 the French had left Naples, he began to exercise 

 his office on the island of Procida, which was pro- 

 tected by Nelson. He surrounded himself with 

 gibbets and executioners, and every day was marked 

 with executions. The cruelty of his character now 

 became manifest. No sex, age, or class was spared. 

 No defence was allowed. Hardly was the cardinal 

 Ruffo in possession of the capital, when Speziale 

 received orders to transfer his bloody court thither. 

 He even deceived his own friends, and allured them 

 to their destruction. This monster followed the 

 court to Palermo in 1806, became insane soon after, 

 and died distracted, in 1813, loaded with the curses 

 of the nation. 



SPEZZIA. See Hydra. 



SPHAGNUM; a very natural genus of mosses, 

 easily recognised when once known, and remarkable 

 for the whitish colour of the leaves. These plants 

 are soft, flaccid, and, when moistened, absorb water 

 like a sponge, but become friable in drying. They 

 grow in moist places, and are usually saturated 

 with water, often occupying, exclusively, consider- 

 able tracts of marshy ground. The formation of 

 peat, in such situations, is often owing, in a great 

 measure, to the presence of these plants. They 

 are found in all parts of the globe, from the equator 

 to the polar regions, and to the summits of the 

 highest mountains. They are excellent for enve- 

 loping the roots of plants intended for distant 

 transportation. 



SPHERE ; a solid, every point of the surface of 

 which is equally distant from a certain point 

 within the same, called its centre. It is generated 

 by the rotation of a circle upon one of its diameters 

 as an axis. Any circle described on the sphere, 

 and whose centre is that of the sphere, is called a 

 great circle. The solid contents of a sphere are 

 to those of a cylinder (q. v.) of equal base and 

 altitude, (the diameter of the base of the cylinder 

 being equal to that of the sphere) in the proportion 

 of two to three ; to those of a cone of equal base 

 and altitude as two to one. These proportions 

 were discovered by Archimedes. Nature, from 

 the egg of the smallest worm, and from the drop 

 of dew to the largest body in the universe, strives 

 after the form of the sphere. Therefore, in anti- 

 quitjv when the spiritual was represented by the 

 sensible, many philosophers conceived of God under 

 the form of a sphere. 



SPHEROID; a solid, generated by the entire 



rotation of a semi-ellipse, or other curve not differ- 

 ing much from it, upon its axis. As our earth has 

 the form of a sphere, flattened at the poles, it 

 belongs to the spheroids. Telescopes show a 

 similar form in Jupiter and Saturn; and there are 

 sufficient grounds for ascribing the same form to 

 all the heavenly bodies which have a rotation on 

 their axis. See Earth. 



SPHINX; a fabulous monster, which figures 

 both in the Grecian and Egyptian mythologies, and 

 was probably of Egyptian origin. The sphinx of 

 the Greeks is distinguished for cruelty as well as 

 wisdom. Juno, says the fable, provoked with the 

 Thebans, sent the sphinx, the daughter of Typhon 

 and Echidna, to punish them. It laid this part 

 of Bo3otia under continual alarms by proposing 

 enigmas, and devouring the inhabitants if unable 

 to explain them. The Thebans were told by the 

 oracle that the sphinx would destroy herself as 

 soon as one of the enigmas she proposed was ex- 

 plained. In this enigma, the question proposed 

 was, what animal walked on four legs in the morn- 

 ing, two at noon, and three in the evening. Upon 

 this, Creon, king of Thebes, promised his crown 

 and his sister Jocasta in marriage to him who 

 should deliver his country from the monster by a 

 successful explanation of the enigma. It was, at 

 last, happily explained by Gidipus, who observed 

 that man walked on his hands and feet when young, 

 or in the morning of life; at the noon of life he 

 walked erect; and in the evening of his days, he 

 supported his infirmities upon a stick. (See 

 CEdipus.} The sphinx no sooner heard this ex- 

 planation than she threw herself from a rock, and 

 immediately expired. The Egyptian sphinx does 

 not appear to have been distinguished by the same 

 traits of character. It is formed with a human 

 head on the body of a lion; is always in a recum- 

 bent posture, with the fore-paws stretched forward, 

 and a head-dress resembling an old-fashioned wig. 

 The features are like those of the ancient Egyp- 

 tians, found in the ancient ruins. The colossal 

 sphinx, near the group of pyramids at Gize, has 

 recently been uncovered by Caviglia. It is about 

 150 feet long and sixty-three feet high : the body 

 is monolithic ; but the paws, which are thrown out 

 fifty feet in front, are constructed of masonry. The 

 sphinx of Sais, formed of a block of red granite 

 twenty-two feet long, is now in the Egyptian 

 museum in the Louvre. There has been much 

 speculation concerning the signification of these 

 figures. Winckelmann observes that they have 

 the head of a female, and the other parts of a male, 

 which has led to the conjecture that they are 

 intended as emblems of the generative powers of 

 nature, which the old mythologies are accustomed 

 to indicate by the mystic union of the two sexes in 

 one individual. 



SPHR AGIS TICS (from <r^>.;j, a seal); abranch 

 of diplomatics which teaches the history of seals 

 and the means which they afford of determining 

 the genuineness of the documents to which they 

 are attached. Originally, only persons of rank, 

 churches, convents, or corporations, had the right 

 to use seals. The old seals represented the persons 

 to whom they belonged either on foot {sigilla 

 pedestria) or on horseback (sigilla equestrid), or 

 had figures emblematical of their dignity. They 

 are round or oval, impressed in gold, silver, lead, 

 but generally in wax of various colours. The dif- 

 ference in the colour of the wax indicated different 

 degrees of dignity, Sic. In the sixteenth century, 



