Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XV.djvu/76

 68 SIOUX sioix, .1 X. W. county of Iowa, bounded the Big Sioux river and intersected by ver and affluents of Floyd's river ; are* nUut 750 sq. m.: pop. in 1870, 576 Ihe surface is nearly level and the soil productive. The Sioux City and St. Paul railroad passes through it. Capital, Calliope. MOI UT1, a city and the county seat of Woodbury co., Iowa, on the Missouri river be- tween Perry and Floyd's creeks at the inter- s,,tiou of the Sioux City and Pacific Sioux Citv and St. Paul, Illinois Central, and Dako- ta Southern railroads, 156 m. N. W. of Des Moines; pop. in 1870, 3,401; in 1875, about 6500 The business portion of the city is built upon a dry, well drained bench, which almost imperceptibly slopes N. from the river. N. and W. of the thickly settled part of the city rise low ranges of bluffs, upon whose sides are built some of the finest residences. The streets cross each other at right angles, and the prin- cipal ones are graded and furnished with side- walks. Tho city is lighted with gas and has a fire department. It has an extensive trade with N. W. Iowa, N. E. Nebraska, and S. Da- k-.ta. There are four grain elevators, a pork- packing establishment, a national bank, a pri- vate bank, a savings institution, three saw mills, two flouring mills, a foundery and ma- chine shop, three breweries, a gun factory, mar- ble works, &c. The workshops of the Sioux City and St. Paul railroad employ about 75 men. The city has two fine graded school buildings and three or four ward school houses, attended by about 1,000 pupils; one daily and three weekly (one German) newspapers; a pub- li- ball, seating 1,000 persons; a library asso- ciation; and six churches. Sioux City was laid out in 1854 and incorporated in 1857. SIR DARYA. See JAXARTES. SIREDON. See AXOLOTL. SIKKV a Xorth American long-tailed batra- cliian, with stout eel-like body, naked skin, persistent branchia, and only the two anterior legs. The best known species, the S. lacertina ( I /mu.), or mud eel, has a small and short head, u itli elevated forehead and depressed and trun- snout, three branchial tufts, and three spiracles on each side ; the mouth is small, with distinct lips, and arrow-shaped tongue free at the tip and sides; no teeth in the upper law, but a broad band of very minute ones along the outer border of the palate bones ; nostrils and eyes small, the latter black ; the tail late- rally compressed, with a rayless fin above and In-low ; limbs with four short and small fingers with horny tips. It attains a length of from 2 to 3 ft., and is dusky above with numerous whitish spots, and purplish below; it lives chiefly in the mud and muddy water of the 1 n rice fields, and occasionally comes on land. Its food consists of worms, insects and the eggs ef fish and frogs; it is founc from lat. 86* N. to E. Florida. In this group there are about 90 vertebra?, connected by coni- cal cavities filled with a gelatinous substance lo in fishes ; eight pairs of short ribs, of which he first pair is attached to the second verte- >ra; no trace of pelvis; three cartilaginous >raiichial arches attached to an osseous tongue one; the lungs two long sacs, accessory to the lls, but, as in the menobranchus, insufficient or respiration. SIREN, in acoustics. See LIGHTHOUSE, vol. x., p. 458, and SOUND. SIRENIA, an order of placenta! mammals ontaining the dug<jng and manatee, formerly called herbivorous cetaceans. They are whale- ike in the swimming paddles of the anterior imbs, the absence of the posterior, and In the .n having the nostrils at the anterior part of the muzzle, molar teeth with flat crowns adapt- ed for a vegetable diet, a head not dispropor- tionately large, a tolerably distinct neck, more fleshy and bristly lips, and more hairy body. SIRENS (Gr. ceipTjves, from ceipaeiv, to draw, to entice), mythical female beings who en- chanted the listeners to their so-ng, and after getting them into their power destroyed them. En the legends of the Argonauts they are said Dut Orpheus surpassed them in singing ; there- upon they threw themselves into the sea, and were changed into rocks, as it had been fated that they were not to live after any one passed by them unaffected. In Homer the sirens are connected with the voyage of Ulysses, who, preparatory to sailing by the islands on which bhey were sitting, by the advice of Circe plug- ged the ears of his companions with wax and fastened himself to the mast of the vessel, until he was out of the sound of their voices. The island in Homer's account was between sea and the rock of Scylla, in the strait of Messina ; but the Roman poets place them near the shore of Campania, in the island of Caprero (Capri) or in the Sirenusian islands near Pses- tum. They were called daughters of Phorcus, of Achelous and Sterope, of Terpsichore, of Melpomene, of Calliope, or of Gsea. While Homer mentions only two sirens, the later traditions assume that there were three, and sometimes four. In later times they were re- presented as birds with the face of a woman. See Schrader, Die Sirenen im Alterthum (Berlin, 1868). SIKHIND. I. A geographical designation ap- plied to that part of India lying between the upper courses of the Sutlej and the Jumna, but not now coterminous with any political division, being for the most part a plain sloping from N. E. to S. W., and having an area of about i 7,000 sq. m. In the extreme north- east a spur of the Himalaya, which divides the head waters of the Sutlej from those' of the Jumna, projects into the territory, which is bounded N. and S. by certain outlying dis- tricts of the Punjaub, E. by the Northwest Provinces, and W. by Bhawalpoor. It com- prises the Punjaub districts of Ambaln, Loo- diana, Ferozepoor, Sirsa, Hissar, and Kurnal,
 * ransverse tail fin ; they differ from cetaceans
 * o have endeavored to entice those wanderers,