Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 09.djvu/247

LEFT SWORDFISH 203 SYDENHAM hard and strong, and capable of inflict- ing terrible wounds. Swordfishes seem to have a mortal antipathy to whales and other large Cetacea, attacking them whenever occasion offers, and, so far as is known, always coming off victorious. In their fury swordfishes often attack boats and vessels, evidently mistaking them for cetaceans; and sometimes the sword has been driven through the bot- >.^ SWORDFISH tom of a ship, and broken off by the fish in vain struggles to withdraw it. Sword- fishes are the largest of the Acanthopter- ygii; specimens of the genus Histioph- ortts (the sailorfish), from the Indian and Pacific oceans, reaching a length of from 12 to 15 feet, of which the sword occupies rather more than 3. The common or Mediterranean swordfish sometimes reaches a length of 10 feet, with a proportionately shorter sword; it is bluish-black above, merging into silver below. The flesh is of excellent flavor, and in recent years has become popular in the United States. SYBARIS, an ancient Greek city of Lower Italy, on the Gulf of Tarentum, supposed to have been built by a col- ony of Achasans and Troezenians about 720 B. C. It rapidly rose to an extraor- dinary degree of prosperity, and the in- habitants were proverbial for their lux- ury and voluptuousness. It was totally destroyed by the Crotonians, who turned the waters of the river Crathis against it (510 B. C). SYBEL (se'bl), HEINRICH, VON, a German historian; bom in Diisseldorf, Germany, Dec. 2, 1817; studied at Berlin under Ranke, and became professor at Bonn in 1844 and at Marburg in 1845. In 1861 he was elected by the university to the Prussian Landtag, and in 1874 was returned to the imperial Parliament. In 1878 he was nominated director of the state archives. Of his works the best known in England is his "History of the French Revolution." He died in Mar- burg, Germany, Aug. 1, 1895. SYCAMORE, the Acer pseudo-plata- nus, an umbrageous tree, 40 to 60 feet high; with spreading branches; large, five-lobed, coarsely and unequally serrate leaves, glaucous and downy on the veins beneath; pendulous racemes of greenish flowers, and glabrous fruit furnished with two long, membranous wings. It flowers in May and June. The wood is used for bowls, trenchers, and other turnery. The sap is sacchariferous. It grows wild in Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Italy, and Western Asia. It is a hardy tree, flourishing in spite of high winds or sea spray. When the leaves first appear (in April) they are covered with a clammy juice containing about one part in 11 of sugar, attractive to insects, by which they are perforated and disfig- ured. The name is also applied to the plane tree or buttonwood of America, and the fig mulberry in the countries of Egypt and Syria. In entomology, a European night moth, Acronycta aceris, so called because the caterpillar — which, when alarmed, rolls itself up like a millepede — feeds chiefly on the sycamore, though also on the horse chestnut and the oak. SYCOMORE, a tree of the genus Ficus, the F. Sycomorus, or sycamore of Scripture, a kind of fig tree. It is very common in Palestine, Arabia, and Egypt, growing thick and to a great height, and though the grain is coarse, much used in building and very durable. Its fruit is sweet and of a delicate flavor. SYDENHAM, THOMAS, the "somm.o Ippocratista inglese" (supreme English Hippocratist), as Puccinotti styles him; born in Winford Eagle in Dorsetshire in 1624. That he belonged to one of the county families; that at 18 he was en- tered at Magdalen Hall, Oxford; that his studies were, after two years, inter- rupted by his having to serve as an offi- cer in the parliamentarian ai'my; that his Oxford curriculum ended in 1648 when he graduated M. B., and shortly after became a Fellow of All Souls — is the sum of our knowledge as to his youth and early manhood. For the next 15 years we lose sight of him. We find him in London in 1663 as a licentiate of the College of Physicians, publishing his "Method of Curing Fevers" in 1666 ; and 10 years thereafter taking his M. D. at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge. The "latro- physical" and "Chemiatric" theories in fashion at the time he treated with scant consideration, and looked on chemistry itself as a mere branch of the apothe-