Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 20.djvu/891

* z ZThe twenty-sixth and last letter in the English alphabet. Z is the Greek zeta (I), and, like 1/ (q.v. ), was introduced into the Roman alphabet in the reign of Augustus to transliterate Greek words. In the Phoenician alphabet it was the seventh letter. Its development was as follows: Pha?nician. Earl.v Greek. X^ater Greek. Latin. Phonetic Character and Philological Value. As a phonetic character Z is the voiced alveolar spirant. In its formation the blade of the tongue approximates the sockets of the upper front teeth and the air rushes over the flattened edge of the tongue with a sibilant sound, zehra, zinc, squeeze, yaze. In English and other modern languages this sound is frequently represented by s, as noses, propose, cliecse : French plaisir, Ger- man gesimgen. The letter z has also the sound iif .;/i in fi~ure, seizitre ; this latter sound is more frequently represented by s, as in measure, treas- ure. In derivation English s represents Anglo- Saxon s, which became voiced when unaccented, as freeze, Anglo-Saxon freosan ,- sneeze, Anglo- Snxon snrosan. Initially, however, z generally indicates a word of foreign origin, as in zeal, zoflinr, zenith, from the Greek, Arabic, etc., ))ut in tlic old exclamation zounds the z stands for s ('God's wounds'). ZAANDAM, z-in'dam', or SAARDAM. A town in the Province of Nortli Holland. Nether- lands, at the meeting of the canalized Zaan and the Y, six miles north-northwest of Amsterdam (ilap: Netherlands, C 2). It is a tj'pical Dutch town, famous for its cleanliness. The small brick or wooden houses are surrounded by stiffly arranged gardens in which the favorite tulip pre- dominates. Along the banks of the Zaan — in the 'Zaanstreek' — there were formerly more than 400 windmills, but the raacliinery is now mostly run by steam. These mills are employed in sawing wood, grinding corn, and manufactur- ing oil, cement, and paint. The cabin occupied for a week in 1697 by Peter the Great, while he worked as a .ship carpenter, is an object of great local pride. During the seventeenth century the town had large interests in the whale fishery, and shipbuilding flourished. Population, in 1901, 22,022. ZABEL, tsii'bel. Ei'gen (1851—). A German author, born at Konigsberg, where he studied phi- 753 losophy and philology. In 1870 he went to Berlin and liecame associate editor of the National Zeit- tiiiij. Besides the monographs lierlhold Aiierbach (1SS2), Ivan Turgenieff (1884), Graf S'chack (1885), Anton Rubinstein (1892), Hans von Bilious (1894), Vcrestchagin (1900), and Tolstoi (1901), he publislied Litterarische Slreifziige dunli Rnssland (1887), Im Rciche des Zaren (1898), Russische Litteraturhilder (1899), Eu- ropiiische Fahrten (1901), Zur modernen Dra- maturgic {lQO-2), Moskau ( 1902), and others. He is also the author of several short stories and comedies, and translated from Sophocles, besides dramatic works from the Russian, Frencli, Span- ish, and English. ZABERN, tsiiljern (Fr. 8arerne) . A town in Alsace, 20 miles northwest of Strassburg, on the Zorn and on the Rhine-Marne Canal (Map: Germanv, B 4). The manufactures include agri- cultural implements, grindstones, leather, and spectacle glasses. Population, in 1900, 8498. Conspicuous are the castle of the bi.shops of Strassburg, erected in its present form in 1779 and now used as a barrack, and the Hauptkirche, built in the late Gothic style and dating from the second half of the fifteenth century. Zabern, which was the Tres Tabirn;e of the Romans, was destro.yed by the Alemanni in 357, but in the same year was rebuilt and fortified by Julian. In the tenth centui-y it belonged to the bishops of Metz and then to the bishops of Strassburg. At Zabern in 1525, 18,000 insurgent peasants were massacred. In 1G22 it withstood the Count von Mansfeld; and subsequently was taken by the French, who in 1696 destroyed the fortifica- tions. ZABRZE, ziibr'zhe. A village of Silesia, 95 miles southeast of Breslau (Slap: Germany, H 3). It lies in the coal-mining district aiid near one of the richest mines of Silesia, operated by the State. The place contains a number of machine shops, wire mills, and coke ovens. Popu latinn, in 1900, 19.562. ZACATECAS, ts-i'ka-t.a'kas. An interior State of Mexico, bounded by the States of Coa- huila on the north. San Luis PotosI on the east. Jalisco and Aguascalientes on the south, and Jalisco and Durango on the west (Map: Mexico, GO). Area, 24,757 square miles. The State belongs to the central plateau of Mexico and has a mean altitude of over 7000 feet. The western part belongs to the region of the Sierra Madre and rises to about 10,000 feet. The climate is