Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 22.djvu/845

 S Y E S Y L 809 about the same distance to the north at a depth of 600 feet. Coal is also brought into the city by railway from the Blue Mountains and from the Mittagong district, but it is inferior in Duality to that mined on the coast. The abundance and cheapness of coal, as well as the natural and commercial advantages of Sydney, have been favourable to certain lines of manufacturing industry, notwithstanding the high price of labour. In addition to the industries connected with shipping, those connected with the pastoral industry have also been devel- oped, such as tanning, glue -making, meat - preserving, &c. The large railway works have, under the patronage of the Government, led to the manufacture of locomotives, and nearly all the rolling stock is made in the colonies. Omnibuses, cabs, carriages, buggies, drays, and carts are made in every variety and of excellent quality, as is also harness. Bootmaking is an extensive business ; there are also manufactories of tobacco, sugar, kerosene, spirits, beer, tweed, paper, furniture, glass, pottery, and stoves, as well as a great variety of minor industries. Public schools abound, with merely nominal fees. There is a high school for boys and girls. The grammar-school, with an attendance of 400 boys, receives from Government 1500 a year, with the free use of the buildings. To the handsome university buildings a medical school is now being added. The great hall is the finest Gothic building in Australasia. The university is a teaching as well as examining institution, degrees being given in the four faculties of arts, medicine, law, and science. The univer- sity, which is governed by a senate elected by the graduates, has a Government endowment of 12,000 a year, and has been enriched by several donations and bequests (amounting to 250,000, of which about 180,000 by Mr Challis). To it are attached three denomi- national affiliated colleges, one belonging to the Anglican Church, one to the Roman Catholic, and one to the Presbyterian ; to each the Government contributed the land, 10,000 towards the build- ing fund, and an annual stipend of 500 a year for the principal. Technical education is conducted under the auspices of a board supported entirely at the cost of the Government. The pupils already number more than a thousand, and the attendance at the classes is steadily increasing. There is a good school of arts, with 400 members, and a good circulating library. The public free library is supported by the Government, and to it is attached a lending branch. The Royal Society has a roll of 500 members, meets periodically for the reading and discussion of scientific papers, publishes its transactions, and has a small library. The Linnaean Society is also well supported, and a Geographical Society has lately been started. The museum, in College Street, is managed by trustees and supported wholly at the cost of the Government. There is a small museum attached to the university, to which Mr Macleay has bequeathed his collection, which is especially rich in natural history. Sydney has many charitable institutions. It has three hospitals, the newest and largest, which is close to the university, having been built after the best European models. There are three large lunatic asylums in the suburbs ; the latest is on the pavilion prin- ciple. The benevolent asylum, which is mainly supported by the Government, gives a large amount of outdoor assistance, takes in all waifs and strays, and acts as a lying-in hospital. Old men are provided for in an institution at Liverpool. At Randwick is an asylum for destitute children, which receives a large amount of Government support ; and there are two orphan asylums at Parra- matta ; but the state children are now being boarded out under the auspices of a Government board. There are two soup-kitchens and refuges, supported by private contributions, and also a charity organization society. There is a home visiting and relief society, intended principally for those who have known better days, and a prisoners' aid society, besides numerous friendly societies. All the churches are well represented, and to each is attached one or more charitable agencies. The climate of Sydney is mild and moderately equable. It resembles closely the climate of Toulon. The mean temperature is 62" '6 Fahr. and the extreme range of the shade thermometer is from 106 to 36 Fahr. The sea-breeze which prevails during the summer comes from the north-east, and, while it tempers the heat, makes the air moist and induces languor. In winter the prevail- ing wind is from the west, and the air is dry and bracing. The annual rainfall is 50 inches. The hot north-west wind of summer sometimes sends the humidity down below 30, and once it has been as low as 16. In the cool westerly winds of winter it seldom falls to 55, and never below 45. The average humidity for the year is 74. The mean tide is 3 feet 3 inches. (A. GA.) SYENE (ASWAN). See EGYPT, vol. vii. p. 783. SYENITE. See GRANITE, vol. xi. p. 49. SYLBURG, FRIEDRICH (1536-1596), an eminent Greek scholar, and one of the greatest figures in the annals of German philology, was the son of a farmer, and was born at Wetter near Marburg in 1536. Wetter had then an ex- cellent school, taught by J. Foenilius and Justus Vulteius, and Sylburg also got help in his studies from the preacher J. Pincier, whose daughter he subsequently married. His studies were continued at Marburg and Jena, and then at Geneva (1559) and at Paris. Here his teacher was Henry Estienne (Stephens), to whose great Greek Thesaurus Sylburg afterwards made important contributions. Re- turning to Germany, he was for a time a schoolmaster at Neuhaus near Worms, and then head of a new gymnasium at Lich, where he edited a useful edition of Nicolas Cleynart's Greek Grammar (Frankfort, 1580), which was thrice reprinted during his lifetime. But the period of his important literary labours began when (having pre- viously, in 1581, declined a call to the Greek chair at Marburg) he resigned his post at Lich and moved to Frankfort to act as corrector and editor of Greek texts for the enterprising publisher J. Wechel. To his Frankfort period belong the editions of Pausanias (1583), Herodotus (1584), Dionysius of Halicarnassus (2 voLs., 1586 one of his best pieces of work), Aristotle (5 vols., 1587 dedi- cated to the landgraves of Hesse, from one of whom, Louis IV., he received a pension), the Greek and Latin sources for the history of the Roman emperors (3 vols., 1589-90), and the TLepl o-wra^ewsof Apollonius. In 1591 he was attracted to Heidelberg by the treasures of the library, not yet scattered by the Thirty Years' War. Here he became librarian to the elector palatine, and was un- tiring in collecting further MS. treasures. At the same time the series of editions, which Wechel had begun to find too costly, was continued by the Heidelberg publisher Hieronymus Commelinus. At Heidelberg were printed Clement of Alexandria (1592), Justin Martyr (1593), the Etymolof/u'UHi ^f(lynutll (1594), the Scriptores de Re Rustii-a (1595), the Greek gnomic poets (1596), Xenophon (1596), Nonnus (1596), and other works. All Sylburg's editions show great critical power and indefatigable industry. Indeed he wore himself out with work, and died on 16th February 1596, "nimiis vigiliis ac typographies laboribus consumptus," as his tombstone in the churchyard of St Peter's in Heidelberg has it. There is a careful notice of his life by K. W. Justi in Strieder's Hessische Gelehrten-Geschichte, xviii. 481 sq. SYLHET, a British district of India, in the province of Assam, lying between 25 12' and 23 59' N. lat. and 91 and 92 38' E. long., with an area of 5381 square miles. It is bounded on the N. by the Khasi and Jaintia Hills district, on the E. by Cachar, on the S. by the state of Hill Tipperah and the district of Tipperah, and on the W. by the district of Maimansinh. Sylhet consists of the lower valley of the Surma or Barak river, and for the most part is a uniform level, broken only by scattered clusters of sandy hillocks called til as, and intersected by a network of rivers and drainage channels. In the south eight low ranges of hills, spurs of the Tipperah Mountains, run out into the plain, the highest range being about 1500 feet above sea-level. There is also a small detached group in the centre of the district called the Ita Hills. Entering the district from Cachar, the Surma bifurcates into two branches : the main branch flows beneath the hills border- ing the north-east part, while the minor branch, the Kusiara, flows in a south-westerly direction across the district ; they again unite on the south-western boundary and fall into the Meghna under the name of Dhaleswari. Both branches are navigable by large boats and support a busy traffic. The wild animals of the district comprise elephants, tigers, buffaloes, bison, and several varieties of deer. The climate of Sylhet is extremely damp and the rainfall is heavy, reaching an annual average of over 150 inches; the rainy season generally lasts from April to October. XXII. 102