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LEFT SEYCHELLES 362 SEYMOUR tional interpretation of the variations which he was previously content to pos- tulate as facts. For he says that "orna- ment is the natural outcome and direct product of superabundant health and vigor," and is "due to the general laws of growth and development." It seems to some that this mode of interpreting characters is of far-reaching importance, and that it affects not only the theory of sexual selection but that of natural se- lection as well. To sum up, the problems involved in sexual selection are (1) what physio- logical conditions explain the secondary sexual characters which so often distin- guish males and females; (2) to what extent and in what degree of refinement does preferential mating occur; and (3) to what extent has sexual selection guided the differentiation of the sexes alike in distinctive qualities and in aes- thetic sensitiveness? Before these prob- lems can be adequately solved many more facts must be accumulated. SEYCHELLES (sa-shel'), a group of about 90 islands in the Indian Ocean ; between lat. 3° 40' and 5° 35' S., and Ion. 55 6 15' and 56° E. They were first occu- pied by the French, and were ceded to the British in 1814. The settlers are mostly of French extraction. The largest island is Mahe, the majority of the others being mere rocks. With the exception of two consisting of coral, they are composed of granite piled up in huge masses, and terminating in peaks. Most of them are covered with verdure, and yield good tim- ber. Cotton, coffee, cocoa, spices, tobacco, maize, rice, and tropical fruits are cul- tivated; and cocoanut oil, soap, vanilla, etc., exported. Pop. (1918) 24,572. SEYCHELLES COCOANUT, the Lodo- icea Sechellarum, a remarkable palm found only on two or three small rocky islands of the Seychelles group. The fruit takes several years to come to ma- turity, when it attains a gigantic size, weighing often 40 to 50 pounds, and con- sists of a thick fibrous rind inclosing one or more nuts divided half-way down into two lobes. The unripe fruit is eaten, and the hard black shell of the nut is carved into ornaments and fakirs' drinking cups. The leaves when young yield a beautiful material for basket and plaited work; hats, fans, etc., are made from them; when full grown they are used for par- titions and roofs of houses. See Palm. SEYMOUR, a town of Connecticut, in New Haven co. It is on the Naugatuck river, and on the New York, New Haven, and Hartford railroad. It is an impor- tant industrial city and has manufactures of paper, iron castings, wire, tools, sub- marine cables, copper, fountain pens, etc. Pop. (1910) 4,786; (1920) 6,781. SEYMOUR, a city of Indiana, in Jack- son co. It is on the Baltimore and Ohio Southwestern, the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago, and St. Louis, and the Chicago, Terre Haute, and Southeastern railroads. Its industries include woolen mills, flour mills, printing houses, saw mills, furni- ture factories, carriage factories, etc. It has the repair shops of the Baltimore and Ohio Southwestern railroad. Its public buildings include a public library and a farmer's club building. Pop. (1910) 6,305; (1920) 7,348. SEYMOUR, an historic family, origi- nally settled in Normandy at St. Maur — whence the name. Going over to Eng- land, they obtained lands in Monmouth- shire as early as the 13th century, and in the 14th at Hatch Beauchamp, Somer- setshire, by marriage with an heiress of the Beauchamps. In 1497 Sir John Sey- mour helped to suppress the insurrection of Lord Audley and the Cornish rebels, and subsequently he accompanied Henry VIII. to his wars in France, and to the Field of the Cloth of Gold. For his daughter, see Seymour, Lady Jane; his fourth son, Thomas, created Lord Sey- mour of Sudeley, became Lord High Ad- miral of England and the second husband of Henry's widow (Catharine Parr), but ended his life on the scaffold (1549). Sir John's eldest son, Edward, was succes- sively created Viscount Beauchamp, Earl of Hertford, and Duke of Somerset, and as Protector played the leading part in the first half of the reign of Edward VI. (q. v.). The Protector's eldest son by his second marriage, being created by Elizabeth Earl of Hertford, married the Lady Catharine Grey, a grand-niece of Henry VIII., and sister of the unfortu- nate Lady Jane Grey — a marriage which entailed on him a nine years' imprison- ment and a fine of $75,000. His grand- son, who in 1621, succeeded him in the earldom of Hertford, also fell into dis- grace for attempting to marry the Lady Arabella Stuart, cousin of James I., but subsequently, playing a conspicuous part in the royalist cause in the Great Rebel- lion, obtained a reversal of the Protector's attainder, and in 1660 took his seat in the House of Peers as 3d Duke of Somer- set, though the descendants of the first duke, by his first marriage, were then in existence. He died unmarried in 1671, and the ducal title ultimately passed to a cousin, on whose death it was inherited by Charles Seymour (1661-1748), known in history as the "Proud Duke of Somer- set," a nobleman whose style of living was ostentatious and haughty in the ex- treme, and who filled several high posts