SELMA 



5298 



SEMINOLE 



SEL'MA, ALA., the county seat of Dallas 

 County, and a thriving industrial center, is 

 situated west and south of the center of the 

 state, fifty miles west of Montgomery, the state 

 capital, and 162 miles northeast of Mobile. It 

 is on the Alabama River, which permits weekly 

 steamer service to Mobile, and is on the Louis- 

 ville & Nashville, the Southern and the West- 

 ern of Alabama railroads. In 1910 the popula- 

 tion was 13,649; it was 15,626 (Federal esti- 

 mate) in 1916, about evenly divided between 

 whites and negroes. The area of the city ex- 

 ceeds three square miles. 



Prominent features of the city are the Dallas 

 Academy, the Alabama Baptist Colored Uni- 

 versity, the Alabama Methodist Orphanage, 

 Y. M. C. A. building, Carnegie Library, Fed- 

 eral building, completed in 1908 at a cost of 

 $150,000, the courthouse and the Vaughn Me- 

 morial Hospital. Cotton is the chief crop of 

 the rich agricultural section of which Selma is 

 the commercial center. The city's average 

 yearly cotton receipts are 125,000 bales. It has 

 a large wholesale trade, cotton mills, cotton- 

 seed-oil mills, the Southern Railroad shops, 

 lumber plants and machine shops. 



Selma was founded in 1820. During the War 

 of Secession it was an important Confederate 

 military base, and was captured by Federal 

 troops in 1865. M.R. 



SEL'VAS, extensive woodland plains of the 

 Amazon Valley in South America, covered 

 with the densest vegetation on the globe. They 

 extend from the northern part of Brazil to the 

 Southern part of Venezuela, and occupy the 

 lowlands where abundant rains fall most of the 

 year. In the selvas are found rubber, bamboo, 

 rosewood, Brazil-nut, cacao, wax-palm and 

 many other kinds of trees, all bound together 

 with thick tangles of cacti, orchids and creep- 

 ing vines. From this immense forest Brazil 

 exports great quantities of rubber and various 

 kinds of valuable wood. See BRAZIL, subhead 

 The Great Forests and the Rubber Industry. 



SEMBRICH, zem'briK, MARCELLA (1858- 

 ), an operatic singer, whose real name is 

 MARCELLINE KOCHANSKA, was born at Wisniow- 

 czyk, Poland. She was educated in music at 

 Vienna, with Wilhelm Stengel as teacher, and 

 he subsequently became her husband. Her 

 first appearance in opera was at Athens in 1877, 

 when she sang in / Puritani with such success 

 that musical critics advised her to prepare for 

 German grand opera. This she did at Berlin, 

 and from 1878 to 1880 was engaged as one of 

 the leading sopranos in the Dresden court thea- 



ter. During the next five years she became 

 celebrated through her frequent concert tours 

 of England and America. In the latter country 

 she received many remarkable ovations and 

 was rivaled in popularity probably only by 

 Patti. Since 1889 she has made Dresden her 

 permanent home, but has continued her public 

 work, largely in recitals, in Europe and America. 

 Her voice is notable for the extraordinary shad- 

 ing and vigor it displays in a great variety of 



SEMELE, sem'elee, in the Greek myth, a 

 beautiful daughter of Cadmus. She was wooed 

 and won by Jupiter in the guise of a mortal, but 

 the jealous Juno, taking the form of Semele's 

 nurse, induced her to ask of Jupiter that he 

 appear before her in his divine glory. First 

 she extracted from Jupiter a promise to grant 

 any favor to her she might ask, and then she 

 made her request. In vain the king of the 

 gods protested; Semele was firm, and Jupiter 

 at last was obliged to yield to her entreaties. 

 He donned only his mildest glory, but even 

 this was too much for the mortal eyes of 

 Semele, who was burned to death in the blaze 

 of light which surrounded him. Bacchus, her 

 son, was caught up by his father and saved 

 from destruction. 



SEMINOLE, sem'inohl, a tribe of Indians 

 belonging to the Muskhogean family, famous 

 for the stubbornness with which they resisted 

 attempts of the American government to force 

 them out of their Florida home. Their troubles 

 with the United States began in 1817, when 

 General Andrew Jackson invaded their terri- 

 tory, which was then a Spanish possession. 

 Two years later Florida was purchased by the 

 United States. In 1832 a treaty was concluded 

 whereby the Seminoles agreed to remove be- 

 yond the Mississippi, but several thousand of 

 the tribe under the leadership of Osceola (which 

 see) disregarded the treaty and began war 

 against the United States. A terrible conflict 

 followed, lasting seven years (1835-1842) and 

 costing the government $10,000,000 and thou- 

 sands of lives. Eventually the Indians were 

 conquered. The majority removed to Okla- 

 homa, where their descendants, who are now 

 American citizens, number about 1,500. A few 

 hundred have been living in the Everglades of 

 Florida, but the government is planning to 

 place them on a small reservation because of 

 the drainage operations in the swamps. 



Consult Wilson's The Seminoles of Florida. 



Related Subjects. An illustration of a pres- 

 ent-day Seminole Indian and his bride appears 



