Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 20.djvu/111

VERMONT.

. Gilman, Bibliography of Vermont (Burlington, 1891); Perkins, Archæology of Vermont (Philadelphia, 1881); Williams, Natural and Civil History of Vermont (2d ed., 2 vols., Burlington, 1809); Allen, Natural and Political History of Vermont (London, 1798); Robinson, Vermont, in American Commonwealth Series (Boston, 1892).  VERMONT,. A coeducational institution of learning at Burlington, Vermont, founded in 1791. The Vermont Agricultural College, chartered in 1862, was incorporated in 1865 with the university, under the title of the University of Vermont and State Agricultural College. The work of instruction is organized in (1) the Department of Arts, with a classical course leading to the B.A. degree, and a literary-scientific course, leading to the Ph.B. degree; (2) the Department of Sciences, including courses in civil and sanitary, mechanical and electrical engineering, chemistry, and agriculture, all leading to the degree of B.S.; (3) the Department of Commerce and Economics; and (4) the Department of Medicine, leading to the degree of M.D. The master's degree in arts or science is conferred on graduates of two years' standing. Certificates from preparatory schools are accepted in place of the entrance examinations. The curriculum is partially elective. Military theory and drill are required of male students. The university offers a number of scholarships and prizes in different departments and maintains a loan fund for the benefit of needy students who are residents of the State. In 1903 the students numbered 570, and the faculty 64. The library contained 65,000 volumes. The endowment was $584,000, with an income of $97,000.  VERNAL GRASS (Lat. vernalis, relating to the spring, from ver, Gk., ear, , ēr, spring), (Anthoxanthum odoratum). A sweet-scented grass common in meadows, woods, and pastures throughout Europe and the Western Hemisphere. It is about a foot high, with a spiked oblong panicle. It has little value, as stock do not eat it readily, and in some countries it has become a pest. See Plate of.  VERNATION. A fanciful name for the arrangement of leaves in the (q.v.).  VERNE,, (1828-1905). A French novelist. He was born at Nantes February 8, 1828, studied law, attempted the stage in 1850 with a comedy in verse, Les pailles rompues, and only after repeated dramatic failures struck, in 1863, with his Cinq semaines en ballon, a rich but not unexplored vein of scientific adventure. Of his very numerous works, most of which are available in fair translations, the more readable are Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870); The Mysterious Island (1870); Around the World in Eighty Days (1872); Michael Strogoff (1876); The Green Ray (1882); Christopher Columbus (1883); The Southern Star (1884); The Carpathian Château (1892). Several of his tales have been dramatized, and Le docteur Ox (1874) has been turned into an opera. The interest of his stories depends solely on incident; character drawing there is none.  VERNER,, (1840-90). A Danish philologist. He was born at Aarhus, and studied at the University of Copenhagen. He directed his attention mainly to the Slavic languages, visiting Russia in 1871-72. The succeeding years were spent at his old home, where he developed the law of Indo-Germanic accent that bears his name. In 1876 he was appointed an assistant in the university library at Halle, where he remained until 1883, when he became docent in Slavic languages at the University of Copenhagen, being made professor in 1888. He published little besides his famous article on his law.  VERNER'S LAW. A phonetic law of the Germanic group of, which was enunciated in 1875 by the Danish philologist (q.v.). It was the result of an investigation begun to explain certain apparent irregularities in the operation of, and was not only important in itself, but established the principle of phonetic laws on a scientific basis, thus marking an epoch in the development of philology. The law may be stated as follows. The surd Germanic spirants, þ, f, h, hw, and s, which represent Indo-Germanic t, p, k, or q, g, ṷ and s respectively, became the sonant spirants đ, ƀ, g, gṷ, and s, when the vowel immediately preceding them did not, according to the original Indo-Germanic accent-system, bear the primary accent of the word. The sonant spirants, excepting z, thus arising, are subject to the same changes in the various Germanic dialects as those which represent Indo-Germanic dh, bh, gh, and gh. The sonant z, however, is represented in German and Icelandic by r, while the sound-groups sp, st, sk, ss, ft, fs, hs, and ht throughout the Germanic group were exempt from the operation of the law. As examples of Verner's law the following examples from Gothic and Old High German may be cited, together with the corresponding changes according to Grimm's law: Sanskrit pitár, Greek, Gothic fadar, Old High German fatar, ‘father,’ but Sanskrit bhrā̇tar, Greek , Gothic brōþar, Old High German bruoder, ‘brother;’ Sanskrit saptá, Greek , Gothic and Old High German sibun, ‘seven,’ but Greek , Gothic hlifan, ‘to steal,’ Sanskrit nápāt, Old High German nefo, ‘grandson;’ Sanskrit daśát, Greek , Gothic tigus, Old High German -zug, ‘decade,’ but Sanskrit dáśa, Greek , Gothic taíhun, Old High German zehan, ‘ten;’ Pre-Germanic *segṷnis (cf. Sanskrit agní, ‘fire,’ vṛṣṇí, ‘ram’), Gothic siuns, ‘appearance,’ but Greek , ‘to leave,’ Gothic leihwan, Old High German līhan, ‘to lend;’ Sanskrit máhīyas, Gothic maiza, Old High German mōro, ‘more,’ but Sanskrit násatē, ‘unite,’ Gothic ganisan, Old High German ginesan, ‘to be healed.’ Verner's law seems to have been operative after the completion of the first Germanic sound-shifting, probably between 250 and  400. The uniformity of its action has been greatly disturbed by (q.v.), but enough traces of it survive to justify the important deduction that as late as the beginning of the Christian Era the Germanic languages retained the Indo-Germanic system of free accent.,