Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 13.djvu/839

 SIBOUR

769

SIBOUR

Bering during the years 1733-43, in which distin- guished scholars from all parts of Europe took part. Bering himself proved the connexion of the Pacific and Arctic Oceans by Bering Strait; as early as 1648 the Cossack Dejneff had discovered this strait and had an- nounced his discovery, but the fact had been forgot- ten. The economic development of the country was aided by the discovery in 1723 of rich mineral treas- ures in the Altai mountains. From 1754 the Russian Government began the systematic exiUng of convicts and prisoners of war to Siberia, where they were partly settled on the land and partly employed in the mines. The colonizing of free peasants was also taken up again systematically. Consequently by the end of the eighteenth century the Russian population of Siberia was about 1,500,000 pensons.

In the second and third decades of the nineteenth century the Russian supremacy over the nomadic Kir- gliiz tribes living on the south-western steppes was strengthened, and important settlements were estab- lished (1824 Koktchtaff, 1829 Akmolinsk). The dis- covery in 1849 of the estuary of the Amur River by a Russian ship led to a renewed strengthening of the Russian settlements along the Amur; this impulse waa powerfully aided by the desire to have a large stretch of coast along an ocean. In 1849 the Russian flag was hoisted without opposition at the mouth of the Amur; in 1851 a bay near the coa.st of Korea was occupied, and here later Vladivo.stok was built, in 1854 a fleet under Count Nikolai Muravieff Amurski was sent from the upper Amur to its mouth and the post of Nikolaievsk was more strongly fortified. The Chi- nese Government indeed made a complaint, but as it could not venture to go to war it acknowledged, in the Treaty of Pekin, 2 November, 18G0, Rus- sia's right to the Amur and the entire basin of the Ussuri River, together with all the coast down to Korea. As by the founding of Vladivostok a port nearly free from ice was secured, Russian ad- vance ceased for some time. In the interior of Siberia there was a great increase of the coloniz- ing movement in the nineteenth century; from the thirties on especially there was a great number of exiles. Numerous Decembrists, Lithuanians, and Ruthenians, who had opposed the forcible union with the Orthodox Chur(!h, and Poles who had joined in the revolt, were banished to Siberia. The importance of exile as a factor in colonizing was le.s.sened by the fact that the exiles were not permitted to settle on inde- pendent estates but were obliged to live in small towns already established. Moreover a large part of the exiles were exhausted in mind and body by their pre- vious terrible sufferings in the Ru.ssian i)risons and by the long and severe transportation to Siberia. Con.se- quently it was of much more importance for the de- velopment of the country that a constantly increasing stream of free peasants migrated from the most widely differing parts of Russia to Siberia, especially after the suppression of serfdom in Russia in 1861. This migration has continued in undiminished numbers up to the present time; it has been greatly encouraged by the law of 1889 by which every Russian emigrant who has received the permission of the Government to go is granted 15 dessialines (401^ acres) of farming land as his own property, besides three years without taxes and nine years release from military duty.

While the European population has rapidly in- creased, the native population has con.stantly de- clined. Among the causes for this decline, outside of the small natural increase of the aborigines, are such diseases as small-pox and typhus that have been in- troduced by Europeans, the injury done by brandy, the decline of the chase, and the steady advance of the Ru.ssian peasant. The construction of the great Si- berian railway, which was begun in 1891 and com- pleted in 1904, has opened immense possibilities for the economic development of the country and has en- XIII.— 49

abled Siberia to overcome quickly thf injuries caused by the defeat of Russia in the war against Japan dur- ing the years 1904-5. The intellectual life of Sib(>ria has also been gradually raised, a result brought about partly by the large number of educated exiles. A fur- ther aid has been the establishment of a university at Tomsk in 1888, of a high-school for Eastern Siberia at Vladivostok in 1899, of a polytechnic in 1900, and a high-school for women in 1907, both the last named institutions being at Tomsk. The very decided lim- itation of the exile of convicts which will soon be fol- lowed by the revocation of the law of e.xile, will con- tribute greatly to the elevation of the moral level of the population of Siberia.

De Win-dt, The New Siberia (London, 1896) ; Kennan, Siberia and the Exile System (4th ed., London, 1897); Wirth, Gesch. Sibiriens utid der Mandschurei (Munich, 1899); Legras, En Siberie (Paris, 1899); Lutschg, Wegweiser auf der Grossen Stbirischen Eisenbahn (Berlin, 1901) ; Fraser, The Real Siberia (London, 1902); Zabel, Durch die Mandschurei und Sibirien (Leipzig, 1902) ; Beveridge, The Russian Advance (New York. 1903); Wright, Asiatic Russia (London, 1903); Meschow, Sibirische Bibliographie (St. Petersburg, 1903-4), in Russian; SwAYNE, Through the Highlands of Siberia (London, 1904); Deutsch, Sixteen Years in Siberia (London, 1905); Henning, Reiseberichte Uber Sibirien von Herberstein bis Ides (1906); Semenow, Russland, XVI (St. Petersburg, 1907), in Russian; VON Zepeu.n, Der feme Osten (Leipzig, 1908-9); Paqdet, SUdsibirien und Nordwestmongolei (Jena, 1909) ; Taft, Strange Siberia: Along the Trans-Siberian Railway (New York, 1910); CuRTiN, A Journey in Southern Siberia (London, 1910) ; A.vo.w- Mous, Johann Georg Gmelin: Der Erforscher Silnriens (Munich,

Joseph Lins.

Sibour, MARiE-DomNiQUE-AuGUSTE, b. at Saint- Paul-Trois-Chateaux (Drome, France), 4 August, 1792; d. in Paris, 3 January, 1857. After his ordina- tion to the priesthood at Rome in 1818, he was assigned to the Archdiocese of Paris. He was named canon of the ca- thedral of Nimes in 1822, became favourably known as a preacher, and contributed to "L'.\venir". In 1837, during a va- cancy, he was chosen adminis- trator of the Dio- cese of Nimes, and two years later was raised to the episcopal See of Digne. His ad- ministration was marked by his en- couragement of ec- clesiasticalstudies, a practical desire to increase the im- portance of the

MARIE-DoMTXIQUK-AtTGUSTE SiBOTJR

functions exercised by his cathedral chapter, and a faith- ful observance of canonical forms in ecclesiastical trials. The same principles actuated him in his rule of the Archdiocese of Paris, to which he was called largely because of his prompt adhesion to the new govern- ment after the Revolution of 1848. He held in 1849 a provincial council in Paris, and in 1850 a diocesan synod. In 1853 he officiated at the marriage of Napoleon III, who had named him senator the pre- vious year. Although in his answer to Pius IX he declared the definition of the Immaculate Conception inopportune, he was present at the promulgation of the Decree and shortly afterwards solemnly published it in his own diocese. The benevolent co-operation of the imperial government enabled him to provide for the needs of the poor churches in his diocese and to organize several new parishes. He also aimed at introducing the Roman Rite in Paris and was pro-