Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XIV.djvu/781

 SEISIN are machine works and ship yards. It has im- portant fisheries. It is divided into the arron- dissements of Rouen, Havre, Dieppe, Yvetot, and JSTeufchatel. Capital, Rouen. SKIS1.N. See LIVERY OF SEISIN. SEISTAN (anc. Sacastane, the country of the Sacce), a province in the S. W. part of Afghan- istan, with an adjoining part included in Per- sia, It is between lat. 30 and 32 N., and Ion. 61 and 63 E., in the lower basin of the river Helmund. The lake of Seistan, or Ha- moon (in its S. "W. part known as Lake Zurrah or Zirreh), into which flow the Helmund from the south, the Khash-rud from the east, and the Furrah-rud and the Harut from the north, is a low and swampy expanse from 15 to 30 m. wide, and nearly 200 m. long from 1ST. to S., mainly between the 61st and 62d meridians. A great part of this depressed area, partly in- cluded in Persia and Beloochistan, is now dry, though subject to inundation. In the north, near lat. 31 30', it is occupied by two shallow and reedy lakes, about 15 m. apart, each of which is also called Hamoon. Seistan prop- er is a well watered and fertile alluvial plain of sand and clay W. of the Helmund in the lower part of its northward course, bounded S. by the main irrigation canal, and N. and W. by the Hamoon; estimated area, 947 sq. m. ; pop. about 45,000, of whom 20,000 are Seistanis, the purest type of Aryan Persians, and 10,000 nomadic Beloochees. The Afghans are few, but politically powerful. Wheat, barley, and melons are produced abundantly, with some cotton, peas, beans, and oil-seeds. Snow rarely falls, but the winters are windy and the mercury sinks to 5 F., rising above 90 in spring and summer. Traces of an elab- orate civilization abound, and among the nu- merous ruins those of Zaranj, the ancient cap- ital as the Arab writers call it, are the most celebrated. The principal existing towns are in the district watered by the main canal; among them is Sekuha, the modern capital. Outer Seistan is 30 m. wide, and extends from the mouth of the Helmund about 120 m. S. along the right or E. bank. It also includes a plain about 80 m. long and 40 m. broad, stretching southward from Seistan proper. The only important town is Charkansur, S. of the Khash-rud, containing a fort and 150 houses. Seistan was in antiquity a part of Drangiana or Zarangia. It is believed that the Aria Palus of Ptolemy was the lake of Seistan. Some time before the Christian era it was overrun by Scythian hordes, of which the paramount tribe were the Sacae, who gave their name to the country. The Scythians were overcome at the time of the Arab inva- sion, and Seistan afterward became a province of Persia. It now belongs mainly to Afghan- istan. In 1871 an arbitration commission un- der Sir F. J. Goldsmid fixed the boundary so as to give Persia nearly all of Seistan proper. SEJANCS, Lucius /Wins, a Roman conspirator, born at Volsinii in Etruria, put to death A. D. SELDEN 755 31. He was first attached to the interests of the infant Caius Caesar (Caligula^, the son of Germanicus, but shortly after the accession of Tiberius was appointed to the command of the praetorian guard in conjunction with his father, Seius Strabo, who had held the post under Augustus; and when his father became gov- ernor of Egypt, the sole command of the prse- torian cohort devolved upon Sejanus. As his popularity with the guard increased he aspired to the imperial power. To remove Drusus, the heir of Tiberius, he caused his wife Livia or Livilla to poison him, promising to marry her afterward. He procured the banishment of Nero and Drusus, the sons of Germanicus, and of their mother Agrippina. His wife Api- cata had been divorced soon after the death of Drusus, but Tiberius refused to consent to his marriage with Livia. In 26 he induced Tibe- rius to reside permanently in the island of Capraea, and give himself up to a life of sen- sual pleasure, and for nearly five years Sejanus acted and was recognized as the representative of the emperor. He was about to hasten the development of his plan when Tiberius, being informed of it, gave the command of the prae- torian guard to Nervius Sertorius Macro, and had the death of Sejanus decreed by the sen- ate. He was strangled, and his body was torn to pieces by the populace. SEJOIR, Victor, a French dramatist, born in Paris in 1816, died there, Sept. 20, 1874. His first drama, Diegarais, was performed at the Theatre Francais in 1844, and he wrote plays for the Porte Saint-Martin, Odeon, Ambigu, and Gait6 theatres, including Richard III. (1852), Les noces venitiennes (1855), Andre Gerard (for Lemaitre's farewell performances, 1857), and Les fils de Charles Quint (1864). SELACHIANS (Gr. cMaxog, a cartilaginous fish), a name applied from Aristotle to the present day to the families of cartilaginous fishes with fixed branchiffl, comprising the rays and sharks, also called plagiostomes. (See PLAGIOSTOMKS.) si:i.BOK. K, Lordt See PALMER, ROUNDELL. SELDEN, John, an English author, born at Salvington, Sussex, Dec. 16, 1584, died in Lon- don, Nov. 30, 1654. He was educated at Ox- ford, was called to the bar, and became known as "the great dictator of learning of the Eng- lish nation." He was a member of Ben Jon- son's Literary club. His earliest work, the Analecton Anglo- Britannicon (1615), was writ- ten in 1606. He also published "England's Epinomis," Jani Anglorum Fades Altera, and "The Duel or Single Combat" (1610), law treatises; "Titles of Honor " (1614); De Diis Syris (1617) ; and " History of Tithes " (1618). In the last named work he denied the divine right of the clergy to receive tithes, and was obliged to make a public acknowledgment of his regret at having promulgated his opinions, which however he was careful not to retract. In 1621 he underwent a brief imprisonment for advising the commons to insist upon certain privileges in dispute between themselves and