Connected also with the colony, a settlement has been formed called Bathurst, at St. Mary's, on the Gambia. The population is increasing. The climate is said to be healthy, and provisions much cheaper than at Sierra Leona; and the opportunity afforded of communicating with the populous countries on that river renders it extremely valuable. The following is the distribution and amount of the population of Sierra Leona, according to a census taken on the 8th of July 1820:Freetown and suburbs Leopold Bathurst Gloucester Regent and vicinity Kent and vicinity Waterloo Hastings Wellington York Leicester hamlet 4785 469 297 78 SIERRA MADRE, a ridge of mountains in North America, forming part of that vast chain which, under the different appellations of the Andes and Rocky Mountains, runs through the whole extent of the American continent, beginning at Terra del Fuego, and ending at the Icy Ocean in the north. The term of Sierra Madre, or Topia, is, however, more strictly applied to that elevated part of this immense ridge which commences near Guadalaxara, and extends 450 miles in a northerly direction into New Mexico. The breadth of all its ridges or parallel crests, at this part, is sometimes 120 miles, where the chain is 268 called more distinctively by the appellation of 469 Sierra Madre, or Mother Ridge, on account of 563 its great altitude above the other parts. Its sides1218 are said to present the most sublime specimens 1033 of mountain scenery. This part of the chain, 409 and indeed nearly the whole of it, is in general 296 densely covered with forests of the most gloomy 353 appearance, composed principally of pines and 195 oaks. Here birds of every description, peculiar 456 to the country, inhabit; and their variegated and beautiful plumage throws a ray of lustre on the sombre scene. On the summits of some of these mountains snow eternally lodges. Many rivers 115 take their rise in the sides and near the tops of 37 this Cordillera, and rush with impetuous force into the valleys below, whence they take their courses to the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. During this period, when the natives are forced 5796 to much manual labor and bodily exertion in the 3020 open air, to repress the ravages of the waters, the 2015 mosquitoes become intolerable. The Sierra Ma1678 dre sends off a branch in the west part of the province of New Mexico. This ramification is called Gemes, and bears a south-easterly direction; whilst on the eastern side it throws off another arm, called the ridge of Nahmi, which is, 120 however, of inferior height, and of shorter dura730 tion, than that of Gemes. From the shore of 594 the Pacific to the great Topian ridge, the general 2989 distance may be computed at 140 miles: in 8076 many places, however, it is greater, and in some, These statements are exclusive of the military where the continent begins to straighten its (European and native) and their families. The bounds, not one-half that distance. The Topian increase since the census of the 31st of Decem- chain takes the name of Sierra de las Grullas ber 1818 is 2944, chiefly arising from the libe- from 38° to 40° N. lat.; beyond that, to 42° N. rated negroes and discharged soldiers. lat., it receives the name of Sierra Verde. During its southern course it bears several distinct names, besides the general one of Sierra Madre. Villages in peninsula Peninsula and isles in river Gambia island Men Women Boys Girls Of these, there are 1468 12,509 equal to the finest in Europe; and, of consequence, several new towns have been built, and new settlements formed, in a district that had for many centuries continued barbarous and uncultivated. SIEVE, n. s. From sift. Hair or lawn SIFT, v. a. strained upon a hoop, by which flower is separated from bran, or fine powder from coarse; a boulter: to use a sieve; separate; try. We have sifted your objections against those preeminences royal. Hooker. All which the wit of Calvin could from thence draw, by sifting the very utmost sentence and syllable, is no more than that certain speeches seem to intimate that all Christian churches ought to have their elderships. Thy counsel Falls now into my ears as profitless As water in a sieve. Id. Shakspeare. I fear me, Id. Henry VI. Shakspeare. In the sifting of such favour, all that came out could not be expected to be pure meal, but must have a mixture of padar and bran. Wotton. Opportunity I here have had Id. When yellow sands are sifted from below, One would think that every member, who embraces with vehemence the principles of either of these parties, had thoroughly sifted and examined them, and was secretly convinced of their preference to those he rejects. Addison. SIEUR, n. s. a ci-devant title of respect among the French, like that of master among us, restored, we suppose, with many worse things of the old system. It was much used by law yers, as also by superiors in their letters to inferiors. the god Fo, which amount to very little, they molest none of their subjects. The greater part of the Si-fans live in tents; but some of them have houses built of earth, and even brick. Their habitations are not contiguous; they form at most but some small hamlets, consisting of five or six families. They feed a great number of flocks, and are in no want of any of the necessaries of life. The principal article of their trade is rhubarb, which their country produces in great abundance. Their horses are small; but they are well shaped, lively, and robust. These people are of a proud and independent spirit, and acknowledge with reluctance the superiority of the Chinese government, to which they have been subjected': when they are summoned by the mandarins they rarely appear; but the government, for political reasons, winks at this contempt, and endeavours to keep these intractable subjects under by mildness and moderation: it would, besides, be difficult by rigorous means to reduce them to perfect obedience; their wild and frightful mountains (the tops of which are always covered with snow, even in July) would afford them places of shelter, from which they could never be driven by force. The customs of thèse mountaineers are totally different from those of the Chinese. It is, for example, an act of great politeness among them to present a white handkerchief of taffety or linen when they accost any person whom they are desirous of honoring. All their religion consists in their adoration of the god Fo, to whom they have a singular attachment: their superstitious veneration extends even to his ministers, on whom they have considered it as their duty to confer supreme power and the government of the nation. SIGÆUM, or SIGEUM, in ancient geography, a celebrated town of Troas, on a promontory so named, near the mouth of the Scamander, extending six miles along the coast. Near this town and promontory most of the battles between the Greeks and Trojans were fought, according to Homer, and there too Achilles was buried. This cape is now called Inehisari. SIGAULTIAN OPERATION, a method of delivery in cases of difficult labor, first practised by M. Sigault. It consists in enlarging the dimensions of the pelvis, in order to procure a safe passage to the child without injuring the mother. See MIDWIFERY. SIGESBECKIA, in botany, a genus of plants belonging to the class of syngenesia, and to the order of polygamia superflua; and in the natural' system ranging under the forty-ninth order, composite. The receptacle is paleaceous; the pappus is wanting; the exterior calyx is pentaphyllous, proper, and spreading; the radius is halved. There are three species: 1. S. flosculosa, a native of Peru; 2. S. occidentalis, a native of Virginia; 3. S. orientalis, a native of China and India. SI-FANS, or ToU-FANS, a people inhabiting the country on the west of China. Their country is only a continued ridge of mountains, enclosed by the rivers Hoang-ho on the north, Yalong on the west, and Yang-tse-kiang on the east, between lat. 30° and 35° N. The Si-fans are divided into two kinds of people; the one are called by the Chinese Black Si-fans, the other Yellow, from the different colors of their tents. The black are the most clownish and wretched; they live in small bodies, and are governed by petty chiefs, who all depend upon a greater. The yellow Si-fans are subject to families, the oldest of which becomes a lama, and assumes the yellow dress. These lama princes, who command in their respective districts, have the power of trying causes, and punishing criminals; but their government is by no means burdensome; provided certain honors are paid For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of them, and they receive punctually the dues of the needy, will I arise. Psalm xii. 5. Dut. suchten. To emit the breath audibly, as in SIGH, v. n., v. a. & n. s. Sax. sican, sicettan; grief: to lament; mourn: a violent and audible emission of the breath, as in sadness. Ages to come, and men unborn, Shall bless her name, and sigh her fate. Prior. SIGHT, n. s. Sax. geride; Belg. sickt; SIGHT'ED, adj. Swed. sigte. Perception by SIGHTFUL, the eye; the sense of seeing; SIGHT LESS, view; notice; knowledge; SIGHT'LY. eye; opening for the eye; to use; show; object of vision: sighted is, seen in a particular manner: sightful, watchful: sightless, blind; not sightly: sightly, agreeable to the sight. Moses said, I will turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt. Exodus iii. 3. Thus are my eyes still captive to one sight; Thus all my thoughts are slaves to one thought still. Sidney. As they might, to avoid the weather, pull the oints of the coach up close, so they might put each end down, and remain as discovered and open sighted as on horseback. Id. Not proud Olympus yields a nobler sight, Though gods assembled grace his towering height, Than what more humble mountains offer here, Where, in their blessings, all those gods appear. Id. Before you pass the' imaginary sights Of lords, and earls, and dukes, and gartered knights, While the spread fan o'ershades your closing eyes, Then give one flirt, and all the vision flies. Id. Spenser. My eyes are somewhat dimmish grown; For nature, always in the right, Swift. Full of unpleasing blots and sightless stains, Patched with foul moles, and eye-offending marks. Shakspeare. It lies as sightly on the back of him, As great Alcides shews upon an ass. Id. King John. Their armed staves in charge, their beavers down, Their eyes of fire sparkling through sights of steel. Shakspeare. Not an eye But is a-weary of thy common sight, To your decays adapts my sight. Their having two eyes and ears so placed is more sightly and useful. More's Antidote against Atheism. SIGIL, n. s. Lat. sigillum. Seal; signature. And sigils framed in planetary hours. Sorceries to raise the' infernal powers, Dryden's Knight's Tale. SIGISMUND, of Luxemburg, emperor of Germany, was the son of Charles IV. and born in 1368. He married Mary, queen of Hungary, daughter of Louis the Great, and was elected king of Hungary in 1386. In 1396 he was defeated by Bajazet I. emperor of the Turks, and obliged to fly for refuge to Manuel, emperor of the East. See CONSTANTINOPLE. After the defeat of Bajazet by Tamerlane (see BAJAZET I.), he recovered his dominions, and in 1410 was elected emperor. See GERMANY. To restore peace to the church, then disturbed by the schisms occasioned by the antipopes John XXIII. and Benedict XIV., he called the Council of Constance, 1414. To this council the celebrated John Huss was summoned, and obtained a safe conduct from Sigismund for his protection; notwithstanding which he was basely murdered. See Huss. This infamous treachery provoked the Hussites to take up arms under Zisca, and gave rise to a bloody and barbarous war, which lasted eighteen years. Sigismund died in 1437. SIGMA, Greek diypa, in archaiology. Among the Greeks the letter S had at first the form of a C, and the Romans having adopted this form in the construction of their tables, instead of the triclinium, the name of sigma was given to those which resemble the shape of a horseshoe, round which was placed a couch following the diameter of the table. The most honorable places were those at the two extremities of this bed, and at the void space left by the semicircle the servants introduced the meats. SIGN, n. s. & v. a. I Fr. signe. A token; SIGN-POST, n. s. that by which any thing is shown; a wonder; prodigy; memorial; distinctive mark; a constellation of the zodiac; a typical representation; symbol; to betoken; mark; ratify by signature: a sign-post is a post on which a sign is exhibited. If they will not hearken to the voice of the first sign, they will not believe the latter sign.' Exodus iv. 8. The fire devoured two hundred and fifty men, and they became a sign. Numbers xxvi. 10. of an inward and Common Prayer. They made signs to his father. Luke. Signs must resemble the things they signify. Hooker. Underneath an alehouse' paltry sign. Shakspeare. Henry VI. There stay until the twelve celestial signs Have brought about their annual reckoning. Shakspeare. You sign your place and calling in full seeming, With meekness and humility, but your heart Is crammed with arrogancy. Id. Henry VIII. Now did the sign reign, and the constellation was come, under which Perkin should appear. Bacon's Henry VII. He barely named the street, promised the wine, But his kind wife gave me the very sign. Donne. He should share with them in the preserving A shed or signpost. Ben Jonson's Catiline. True sorrow's like to wine, That which is good does never need a sign. Suckling. The holy symbols or signs are not barely significative; but what they represent is as certainly delivered to us as the symbols themselves. Browne. The sacraments and symbols are just such as they seem; but, because they are made to be signs of a secret mystery, they receive the names of what they themselves do sign. Taylor. The ensign of Messiah blazed, Aloft by angels borne, his sign in heaven. Milton. Compelled by signs and judgments dire. Id. Signs for communication may be contrived from any variety of objects of one kind appertaining to either sense. Holder. After every foe subdued, the sun Thrice through the signs his annual race shall run. Dryden. SIGN, in general, is the mark or character of something absent, or invisible. See CHARACTER. SIGN, among physicians, denotes some appearance in the human body, which serves to indicate or point out the condition of the patient with regard to health or disease. SIGN, in algebra. See ALGEBRA. Fr. signal. Notice by a sign; the sign that gives notice: as an adjective, noted; eminent; remarkable: the adverb corresponding signality, remarkable quality (obsolete): to signalize is to make eminent or noted: signation, sign given; act of betokening. The weary sun hath made a golden set, And, by the bright track of his fiery car, Gives signal of a goodly day to-morrow. Shakspeare. Richard III. He was esteemed more by the parliament, for the signal acts of cruelty committed upon the Irish. Clarendon. The grenadier march{ advance, except when intended for a salute. To advance quick. To perform the flank firing. To open the battalion. To make ready and fire. To bring or lodge the colors. SIGNALS, NAVAL. When we read the account of an engagement, or other interesting operations of an army, our attention is generally so much engaged by the results that we give but little heed to the movements which led to them, and produced them, and we seldom form any distinct notion of the conduct of the day. But a professional man follows every regiment in its move ments, endeavours to see their connexion, and the influence which they have had on the fate of the day, and even to form to himself a general notion of the whole scene of action. He looks with the eye of the general. But few trouble themselves farther about the narration. The movement is ordered; it is performed; and the fortune of the day is determined. Few think how all this is brought about; and when they are told that, during the whole of the battle of Custrin, Frede ric the Great was in the upper room of a country inn, whence he could view the whole field, while his aids-de-camp, on horseback, waited his orders in the yard below, they are struck with wonder, and can hardly conceive how it can be done; but, on reflection, they see the possibility of the thing. Their imagination accompanies the messenger from the inn yard to the scene of action, where the general's orders are delivered and executed. But when we think on the situation of the commander of a fleet, confined on board one ship, and this ship as much, or more closely, engaged than any other of the fleet; and when we reflect that here are no messengers ready to carry his orders to ships of the squadron at the distance of miles from him, and to deliver them with precision and distinctness, and that, even if this were possible by sending small ships or boats, the vicissitudes of wind and weather may render the communication so tedious that the favorable moment may be irretrievably lost before the order can be conveyed; when we think of all these circumstances, our thoughts are bewildered, and we are ready to imagine that a sea-battle is nothing but the unconnected struggle of indi vidual ships; and that when the admiral has once Cried havoc, and let slip the dogs of war;' he has done all that his situation empowers him to do, and he must leave the fate of the day to the bravery and skill of his captains and sailors. Yet it is in this situation, apparently the most unfavorable, that the orders of the commander can be conveyed with a despatch that is not attainable in the operations of a land army. The scene of action is unincumbered, so that the eye of the general can behold the whole without interruption. The movements which it is possible to execute are few, and they are precise. A few words are sufficient to order them, and then the mere fighting the ships must always be left to their respective commanders. This simplicity in the duty to be performed has enabled us to frame language fully adequate to the business in hand, by which a correspondence can be kept up as far as the eye can see. This is the language of signals, a language by writing, addressed to the eye, and which he that runneth may read. As in common writing certain arbitrary marks are agreed on to express certain sounds used in speech, or rather, as in hieroglyphics certain arbitrary marks are agreed on to express certain thoughts, or the subjects of these thoughts; so here certain exhibitions are made, which are agreed on to express certain movements to he executed by the commander to whom they are addressed, and all are enjoined to keep their eyes fixed on the ship of the conductor of the fleet, that they may learn his will. It is scarcely possible for any number of ships to act in concert, without some such mode of communication between the general and the commanders of private ships. HISTORY OF NAVAL SIGNALS.-We have no direct information in the naval tactics of the ancient nations, how the Greeks and Romans managed their signals; but the necessity of the thing is so apparent that we cannot suppose it to have been omitted by the most ingenious and the most cultivated people who have appeared on the great theatre of the world; and we are persuaded that Themistocles, Conon, and other renowned sea commanders of Athens, had signals by which they directed the movements of their fleet. One signal was invented so early as the reign of king Egeus; but so little were the Athenian tars then accustomed to signals that Theseus forgot to change it, and so the king perished. See ÆGEUS. We find, in the history of the Punic wars by Polybius, frequent allusions to such a mode of communication; and Ammianus Marcellinus speaks of the speculatores and vexillarii who were on board the ships in the Adriatic. The coins both of Greece and Rome exhibit both flags and streamers. In short, we cannot doubt of the ancients having practised this hieroglyphical language. In the naval occurrences of modern Europe, mention is frequently made of signals. We find, in particular, that queen Elizabeth, on occasion of the expedition to Cadiz, ordered her secretaries to draw up instructions, which were to be communicated to the admiral, the general, and the five councillors of war, and by them to be copied and transmitted to the several ships of |