Page:EB1911 - Volume 24.djvu/216

 blue and a bluish or yellowish green. In blue tourmaline and in iolite &mdash; stones sometimes mistaken for sapphire &mdash; the dichroism is much more distinct. The blue colour in sapphire has been variously referred to the presence of oxides of chromium, iron or titanium, whilst an organic origin has also been suggested. On exposure to a high temperature, the sapphire usually loses colour, but, unlike ruby, it does not regain it on cooling. A. Verneuil succeeded in imparting a sapphire-blue colour to artificial alumina by addition of 1.5% of magnetic oxide of iron and 0.5% of titanic acid (Comptes rendus, Jan. 17, 1910). According to F. Bordas, the blue colour of sapphire exposed to the action of radium changes to green and then to yellow.

Under artificial illumination many sapphires appear dark and inky, whilst in some cases the blue changes to a violet, so that the sapphire seems to be transformed to an amethyst. According to lapidaries the hardness of sapphire slightly exceeds that of ruby, and it is also rather denser. Notwithstanding its hardness it has been sometimes engraved as a gem.

SAPPHO (7th-6th centuries B.C. ), Greek poetess, was a native of Lesbos, contemporary with Alcaeus, Stesichorus and Pittacus, in fact, with the culminating period of Aeolic poetry. One of her brothers, Charaxus, fell in love with a courtesan named Doricha upon whom he squandered his property. Sappho wrote an ode, in which she severely satirized and rebuked him. Another brother, Larichus, was public cup-bearer at Mytilene &mdash; a position for which it was necessary to be well born. It is said that she had a daughter, named after her grandmother Cleis, and she had some personal acquaintance with Alcaeus. He addressed her in an ode of which a fragment is preserved: &ldquo;Violet-weaving (or dark-haired), pure, sweet-smiling Sappho, I wish to say somewhat, but shame hinders me&rdquo;; and she answered in another ode: &ldquo;Hadst thou had desire of aught good or fair, shame would not have touched thine eyes, but thou wouldst have spoken thereof openly.&rdquo; The story of her love for the disdainful Phaon, and her leap into the sea from the Leucadian promontory, together with that of her flight from Mytilene to Sicily, has no confirmation; we are not even told whether she died of the leap or not. Critics again are agreed that Suïdas was simply gulled by the comic poets when he tells of her husband, Cercolas of Andros. Both the aspersions which these poets cast on her character and the embellishments with which they garnished her life passed for centuries as undoubted history. Six comedies entitled Sappho and two Phaon, were produced by the Middle Comedy; but, when we consider, for example, the way in which Socrates was caricatured by Aristophanes, we are justified in putting no faith whatever in such authority. We may conclude that Sappho was not utterly vicious, though by no means a paragon of virtue. All ancient tradition and the character of her extant fragments show that her morality was what has ever since been known as &ldquo;Lesbian.&rdquo;

At Lesbos she was head of a great poetic school, for poetry in that age and place was cultivated as assiduously and apparently as successfully by women as by men. Her most famous pupils were Erinna of Telos and Damophyla of Pamphylia. In antiquity her fame rivalled that of Homer. She was called &ldquo;the poetess,&rdquo; he &ldquo;the poet.&rdquo; Different writers style her &ldquo;the tenth Muse,&rdquo; &ldquo;the flower of the Graces,&rdquo; &ldquo;a miracle,&rdquo; &ldquo;the beautiful,&rdquo; the last epithet referring to her writings, not her person, which is said to have been small and dark.

(Author:John Arthur Platt)

 SAPPORO, the official capital of the island of Yezo, Japan, situated in 43° 4' N. and 141° 21' E. Pop. 39,000. It was chosen in 1870, and owed its prosperity at the outset chiefly to the public institutions established by the japanese government in connexion with the colonization bureau, which had for its object the development of the resources of Yezo. It is now a garrison town