Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XVI.djvu/572

 552 WEN- century, these are all the leaves or foliaceous organs it ever has. All the vegetative portions of the plant are the short, broad trunk, rapidly tapering to a strong descending root, and the cotyledons, which reach the length of 6 ft. and the width of 2 or 3 ft., and spread out upon the ground in opposite directions; they are green, very thick and leathery, and are often torn into segments or split up into shreds by the winds. The trunk each year increases slightly in diameter both above and below these leaves, so that they appear as if inserted in a deep slit or cavity ; from this slit, at the upper side of the leaves, are produced the flow- er stalks, 6 to 12 in. high, much forked, and bearing at the end of each branch a cone the brilliant scarlet scales of which overlap each other in four rows, each containing a flower ; when mature, the cones are about 2 in. long and half as thick. The country where this plant is found is a sandy and stony plateau from 800 Welwitschla mtrabllls. to 400 ft. above the sea, where rain seldom or never falls ; in some places the whole surface is completely studded with these tabular mass- es, varying in size from a few inches to 6 ft. across, which have been likened to gigantic hat blocks; it is computed that the trunks of 18 in. diameter are over 100 years old. WE., an encysted tumor, usually growing upon some part of the hairy scalp. It consists of a closed sac, of fibrous texture, more or less closely connected with the neighboring parts, but generally capable of being enucleated entire by careful dissection, and filled with a soft, whi- tish, opaque, curdy material. The contents of the sac consist of granular fat mixed with fluid oil globules, a great abundance of epithelium scales, and very often crystals of cholesterine. Wens are regarded as usually resulting from the accidental closure and subsequent hyper- trophy and distention of one of the sebaceous follicles, the epithelium cells and semi-solid oleaginous or sebaceous materials gradually ac- cumulating. They become inconvenient after a time by the distention of the skin over their more prominent portion, but are usually easily removed by a simple surgical operation. WEXCESLAS, or Wenzel, a German emperor, of the house of Luxemburg, born in Nuremberg, Feb. 26, 1361, died near Prague, Aug. 16, 1419. He was the eldest son of Charles IV. and his third wife Anna, and was crowned king of Bohemia in his 3d year, and in his 18th suc- ceeded his father as emperor. In a diet at Eger in 1389 he abandoned the cause of the cities, which he had before favored, and soon after annulled all debts due to Jews on the payment to himself of 15 to 30 per cent, of the amount ; the mob of Prague having slaughtered 3,000 Jews, he also confiscated to his own use the property of the victims. He compelled the Bohemian nobles to return without pay- ment the estates of the crown, on the pledge of which they had loaned money. He is also said to have tortured John Nepomncen with his own hand, and to have thrown him bound into the Moldau. (See NEPOMUOEN.) In 1394 Wenceslas was seized and imprisoned at Prague by a conspiracy among the nobles, headed by Jodocus of Moravia, but was set free at the instance of the German princes. In the con- troversy between the popes and antipopes, he adhered to the cause of the former until he finally united with France to urge the abdica- tion of Boniface IX. and Benedict XIII. in order that a new pope might be chosen in place of the two. Hereupon several power- ful German princes formally deposed him at Frankfort in 1400, electing as his successor Rupert of the Palatinate. New troubles in Bohemia resulted in his being seized by his brother Sigismund and imprisoned for 19 months in Vienna. He favored the agitation of Hnss and his followers in Bohemia, out of hatred to the Catholic clergy. In 1410 he abdicated his claims to the imperial crown in favor of Sigismnnd, and, recklessly neglect- ing the affairs of his Bohemian kingdom, gave himself up to drinking and excesses till he died of apoplexy. His life has been written by Pelzel (2 vols., Prague, 1788-'90). WEYDS, the name of a Slavic tribe, forming a subdivision of the northwestern stem of the Slavs. (See SLAVIC RACE AND LANGUAGES.) Roman writers called all the Slavs with whom they were acquainted Venedi (Wends), and the Germans also gave the name of Wends to all Slavic peoples, but more especially to that divi- sion of them which Schafarik has designated as Polabs (embracing Obotrits, Sorabs, and others). These inhabited, from the 4th to the 9th century, the eastern portion of Germany, from the Saale and Elbe as far north as the Eider. Charlemagne drove the Wends back toward the Vistula, and by the close of the 13th century his successors in Germany had almost extirpated them. In the 16th century remnants of this Slavic population were still scattered over the whole region between Ber- lin and Frankfort-on-the-Oder, and there was a remnant of Wends also in Hanover, where they kept tip their language until the middle of the 18th century. They are now found in