Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/683

Rh S E M S E N 657 1774), Uebcr historische, gesellschaftliche, und moralische Religion der Christen (1786), and his autobiography, Scmler's Lebensbeschreibung, von ihm sclbst abgefasst (Halle, 1781-82). For estimates of Semler's labours, see Gass, Gesch. der prot. Dogmatik (Berlin, 1S54-G 1 He 187 _ _ Gesch.' des Pi'etinmus (Bonn, 1880-84). SEMLIN (Hung. Zimony ; Servian, Semun), a town ot Austria-Hungary, the easternmost in the Military Frontier district, stands on the south bank of the Danube, on a tongue of land between that river and the Save. It is the. see of a Greek archbishop, has a real school of lower grade, five Roman Catholic and two Greek churches, a synagogue, a theatre, and a custom-house. The population (10,046) consists mostly of Servians, with a few Germans, Greeks, Illyrians, Croats, Gipsies, and Jews. Semlin has recently undergone improvement in its streets and build- ings ; but its suburb Franzenthal near the Danube consists mostly of mud huts thatched with reeds. The town is surrounded by a stockade. On the top of Zigeunerberg are the remains of the castle of John Hunyadi, who died here in 1456. Semlin has a considerable trade, sending woollen cloth, porcelain, and glass to Turkey, and obtain- ing in return yarn, leather, skins, honey, and meerschaum pipes. It is a principal quarantine station for travellers from Turkey. Steam ferry boats cross to Belgrade several times a day, and larger vessels run up the Save as far as to Sissek. SEMPER, GOTTFRIED (1803-1879), German architect and writer on art, was born at Altona on 29th November 1803. His father intended him for the law, but irresist- ible impulse carried him over to art. His early mastery of classical literature led him to the study of classic monu- ments in classic lands, while his equally conspicuous talent for mathematics gave him the laws of form and proportion in architectural design. While a student of law at the university of Gottingen he fell under the influence of K. O. Miiller, and in after years followed closely in his foot- steps. Semper's architectural education was carried out successively in Hamburg, Berlin, Dresden, in Paris under Gau, and in Munich under Gartner ; afterwards he visited Italy and Greece. In 1834 he was appointed professor of architecture in Dresden, and during fifteen years received many important commissions from the Saxon court. He built the opera-house, which made his fame, the new museum and picture gallery, likewise a synagogue. In 1848 his turbulent spirit led him to side with the revolu- tion against his royal patron ; he furnished the rebels with military plans, and was eventually driven into exile. Semper came to London at the time of the Great Exhibition of 1851, and the prince consort found him an able ally in carrying out his plans. He was appointed teacher of the principles of decoration ; and his lectures in manuscript, preserved in the art library, South Kensington, deserve to be better known. He was also employed by the prince consort to prepare a design for the Kensington Museum ; he likewise made the drawings for the Wellington funeral car. In 1 853 Semper left London for Zurich on his appoint- ment as professor of architecture, and with a commission to build in that town the polytechnic school, the hospital, &c. In 1870 he was called to Vienna to assist in the great architectural projects since carried out round the Ring. A year later, after an exile of over twenty years, he received a summons to Dresden, on the rebuilding of the first opera- house, which had been destroyed by fire in 1869 ; his second design was a modification of the first. The closing years of his life were passed in comparative tranquillity between Venice and Rome, and in the latter city he died on 15th May 1879. Semper's style was a growth from the classic orders through the Italian Cinque Cento. He forsook the base and rococo forms he found rooted in Germany, and, reverting to the best historic ex- amples, fashioned a purer Renaissance. He stands as a leader in the practice of polychrome, since widely diffused, and by his writings and example did much to reinstate the ancient union between archi- tecture, sculpture, and painting. Among his numerous literary works are Ueber Polychromie u. ihren Ursprung (1851), Die An- wendung der Farben in der Architektur u. Plastik bei den Alten, Der Stil in den technischcn u. tektonischen Kiinsten (1860-63). His Notes of Lectures on Practical Art in Metals and Hard Materials : its Technology, History, and Style, remains in MS. His teachings are sometimes encumbered by speculations reaching far beyond the domain of his art. SENAAR (SENNAAR, properly SENNAR), a country of east Central Africa, commonly identified with the " Island of Meroe" of the ancients, and included in the central division of Egyptian (Eastern) Sudan, as reorganized in the year 1882. By European writers the term is often applied to the whole region lying between the Atbara (Takazze) and the White Nile, but by native usage is restricted to the district confined between the latter river and the Bahr- el-Azrak (Blue Nile), and its eastern tributaries, the Rahad and the Dender. It is bordered north and north-east by Upper Nubia, east by Abyssinia, west by the White Nile (Bahr-el-Abiad), separating it from Kordofdn, and stretches from the confluence of the two Niles at Khartum south- wards, in the direction of the Berta highlands in the east and the Bunin and Dinka plains in the west. As thus de- fined, Sennar extends across five degrees of latitude (16 to 11 N.), with a total length of about 350 miles, a mean breadth of 120 miles, an area of 40,000 square miles, and an approximate population of 300,000. It comprises two physically distinct tracts, the densely wooded and well- watered Jezirat el-Jesirat ("Isle of Isles") between the Rahad and the Blue Nile, and the "island" of Sennar proper, a nearly level steppe land confined between the two main streams. This western and much larger division, which has a mean elevation of under 2000 feet above sea-level, consists mainly of alluvial and sandy matter, resting on a bed of granite and porphyritic granite, which first crops out some ten days' journey south of Khartum, in the Jebel es- Segati and the Jebel el-Moye, near the town of Sennar on the Bahr-el-Azrak. Between these two groups the plain is dotted over with isolated slate hills containing iron and silver ores. But beyond Sennar the boundless steppe, either under a tall coarse grass, or overgrown with mimosa scrub, or else absolutely waste, again stretches uninterruptedly for another ten or eleven days' journey to the Rose"res (Rosaires) district, where the isolated Okelmi and Keduss Hills, con- taining quartz with copper ore, rise 1000 feet above the right bank of the Blue Nile and 3000 above the sea. Here the plain is furrowed by deep gullies flushed during the rainy season ; and farther south the land, hitherto gently sloping towards the north-west, begins to rise rapidly, breaking into hills and ridges 4000 feet high in the Fazogl district, and farther on merging in the Berta high- lands with an extreme altitude of 9000 to 10,000 feet. In these metalliferous uplands, recently explored by Marno and Schuver, rises the Tumat, which is washed for gold, and which after a northerly course of nearly 100 miles joins the left bank of the Blue Nile near Fazogl and Famaka. South of and parallel with the Tumat flows the still unexplored Jabus (Yabus), on which stands Fadasi, southernmost of the now abandoned Egyptian stations in the Bahr-el-Azrak basin. This point also marks the present limit of geographical exploration in the direction of the conterminous Galla country, Schuver being the only European traveller who has hitherto succeeded in pene- trating to any distance south of the Jabus. Sennar lies within the northern limits of the tropical rains, which reach to Khartum, and fall between June and September. In this part of its course the Blue Nile rises from May to August, when the northern and western winds prevail, nearly coinciding with^the cool and healthy season. But they are followed by the hot khamusm from the south or the samum (simoom) from the north-west charged XXI. 83