Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 08.djvu/396

LEFT SENUSSI 340 SEPTARIA scurity as to the upward sensory con- ducting tracts is even greater than in the cord, not only in the case of the senses above mentioned, but also of the sense of hearing and taste. SENUSSI, MOHAMED IBN ALI EL, founder of the religious order which bears his name; born near Mostaganem, Al- geria; died in 1851. He organized the secret brotherhood in 1837, with the ob- ject of purifying the Mohammedan re- ligion. Eventually it spread all over the world of Islam and centers were established in Damascus, Constantinople and the big cities of India. He was suc- ceeded as the head of the order by his son, Sidi el Mahdi, who died in 1902 and who was succeeded by the present head, Sidi Ahmed el Sherif. SEOUL, the capital of Korea; about 3 miles N. of the Han river, 75 miles from its entrance into the Yellow Sea, and about 20 miles from its port Che- mulpo, with which it has been connected by rail since July, 1900. It lies in a natural basin, among granite hill ranges, and is surrounded with walls. The streets are very narrow and very dirty, and the houses beggarly in the extreme. The city includes several wide, desolate squares. The royal palace and its ad- juncts cover 600 acres of ground. Silk, paper, tobacco, mats, fans, and similar commodities are the principal products of native industry. There are schools for the teaching of Japanese, French, Chi- nese, Korean, Russian, and English, and an American Mission School, which is subsidized. There are also an electric light plant, an electric street railway, railways to Fusan and Wiju, and tele- graph. Pop. including extensive suburbs, about 303,000. SEPARATIST, a small sect calling themselves Separatists or Protestant Separatists, and holding aloof from the Church of England, believing it not suf- ficient to maintain its Protestant char- acter. SEPARATOR, the name commonly applied to machines which separate the component parts of emulsions or suspen- sions, especially to the apparatus used in the separation of cream from milk. All these machines work by centrifugal action. The simplest form consists of a number of buckets (usually two or four) suspended around a central shaft which can be caused to revolve at high speed by means of gears turned either by hand or by machinery. As the buckets revolve, they assume a horizontal position, the heavier portion of the mixture being forced to the bottom. Modern machines consist of a bowl cr drum, frequently con- taining a number of conical plates. They are continuous in action. For instance, in the De Laval separator, commonly used in dairies for separating cream, a steady stream of milk is introduced into the machine, while a stream of skim milk flows from one point and a smaller stream of cream from another. These machines are highly efficient and, when properly used, leave less than one-tenth of a per cent of fat in the milk. An- other type of centrifugal separator is largely used in the sugar industry. This type consists of a cylindrical basket which can be made to revolve at high speed. The sides of the basket are of fine wire screens or of cloth. Wet sugar is introduced into the basket and is flung, by centrifugal action, against the sides. The water is forced through the fine mesh, while the dry sugar is retained. SEPIA, in zoology, the typical and only recent genus of Sepiidse; body ob- long (varying in length from 3 to 28 inches), with lateral fins as long as it- self; arms with four rows of suckers; mantle supported by tubercles fitting into sockets on neck and funnel; shell broad and thick in front, laminated, and ter- minating in a permanent mucro. Wood- ward puts the species at 30, universally distributed. In palaeontology; fossil spe- cies 10, from the Jurassic to the Eocene Tertiary. Several species have been based on mucrones from the London Clay. In comparative anatomy: the black secretion of the cuttlefish. In chemistry and art: a dark brown pigment prepared from the black secretion of the cuttlefish, S. offi- cinalis. SEPOY, a slight alteration of the ordinary word used for centuries by the natives of India for a soldier in general, but confined by Anglo-Indians to the Hindu and Mohammedan troops, espe- cially to those in British pay. SEPTARIA, ovate flattened nodules of argillaceous limestone or ironstone, internally divided into numerous angular fragments by reticulating fissures which radiate from the center to the circum- ference, and are filled with some mineral substance, as carbonate of lime or sul- phate of barytes, that has been infiltrated subsequent to their formation. The radi- ating figure and the striking contrast between the dark body of argillaceous limestone or ironstone and the more or less transparent sparry veins when the nodule is cut and polished have caused them to be manufactured into small tables and similar objects. Calcareous septarian nodules are ex- tensively employed in the manufacture of what is known commercially as Roman