religious parties, and in 1572, at the Diet of Warsaw, proclaimed universal religious freedom. With his death the Jagellon race became extinct. See POLAND.

SIGISMUND III, or SIGISMUND VASA, king of Poland and Sweden: b. 1566; d. Warsaw, 1632. He was the only son of John III, king of Sweden, and of the Polish princess Catharina, a sister of Augustus Sigismund II. After the death of Stephen Bathori he was invited, in 1587, to become king of Poland, and having sworn the Pacta Conventa was crowned at Cracow. He was a very zealous Catholic, and his principal aim was the extension of the Roman Catholic faith in Poland. On the death of his father, John III, in 1592, he set out for Sweden to take possession of the throne to which he had succeeded, and was crowned in 1594. On his return to Poland he was obliged to leave Sweden under the regency of his uncle who ultimately reigned over it as Charles IX. Sigismund's refusal to give up the Swedish crown, of which he became deprived, involved Poland in a disastrous war with Sweden, which lasted for 60 years. Consult Niemojewski, S., Mémoires) (Lemberg 1899); Niemcewicz, J. U., History of the Reign of Sigismund III (Breslau 1836); 'Sveriges Historia' (Vol. III, Stockholm 1881); Rembowski, A., The Insurrection of Zebrzydowski' (Cracow 1893).

SIGL, ze'gl, Georg, mechanical inventor: b. Breitenfürth, Lower Austria, 1811; d. Vienna, 9 May 1887. He was in youth apprenticed to a locksmith and practised his trade in Bavaria, Württemberg and Switzerland. In 1832 he took employment in the rapid printing press factory of Helwig and Müller, and in 1837 introduced the manufacture of rapid printing presses into the hand press factory of Dingler in Zweibrück, and opened a branch factory of the same sort in Vienna, where he constructed the first rapid lithographic press (1851). Later he manufactured rotary presses, and applied himself to improving the locomotive and other machinery.

SIGMA XI (Eπovôāv Evvaves, "companions in zealous research"), a college honorary society for scientific students, founded at Cornell University in 1886 and now possessing chapters in 30 colleges and schools. It provides for scientific students a society similar to that of Phi Beta Kappa in literature. Its object is to provide meetings for the discussion of the work of its members, promotion of a fraternal feeling among them, the encouragement of original research in pure and applied science and to aid scientific progress by the publication of material dealing with its development and achievements. The membership includes resident professors and instructors, graduates and, in limited numbers, undergraduates who evidence unusual promise. Honorary membership is accorded scientists who have achieved important work in either pure or applied science. The badge or insignia is a gold watch pendant in the form of a monogram of the two letters of the Society. Annual conventions are held, each chapter sending three delegates who meet with the council of the Society. The Society was at first averse to extending its organization, but there are now 30 chapters, of which that at Yale University was established

799

in 1895 and that at Columbia in 1915. The combined membership of the Society is about 10,000, of whom about 2,300 are active members. Since March 1913 the Society has published the Sigma Xi Quarterly. Consult Ward, H. B., 'Sigma Xi Quarter Century Record and History, 1886-1911) (1911).

SIGN LANGUAGES are vehicles of communication by gestures, principally employed by primitive peoples, such as the American Indians. They are of two kinds, the descriptive and the characteristic or indicative signs. Descriptive signs involve an account, more or less complete, of the appearance, qualities and uses of an object, or the circumstances of an event, for the purpose of description or explanation; and must, from their nature, be varied, like a painting, only by the point of view from which the objects are described, or the capacity and accuracy of the person that describes. The indicative signs, on the contrary, which are employed in common conversation, are usually mere abbreviations of these, involving a single striking feature of the person, or object, or event; as an elephant is indicated by its trunk, a flower by its fragrance or a town by a collection of roofs. The signs of persons are usually conventional, and derived from some feature, or mark, or habit but often from an accidental circumstance in dress, etc., which struck the deafmute on first seeing the person and is still referred to when it no longer exists. This form of expression, as developed in certain institutions for deaf-mutes, is of a character which those who value it least admit to surpass speech in the force with which it communicates the feelings and states of mind. Like painting (as Condillac observes) it has the immense advantage of presenting a group of ideas at once, which lose much of their force and beauty by being detailed in the successive words and artificial arrangements of written language. The eye, the hand, the whole body, speak simultaneously on one subject; the representation changes every moment, and these peculiarities, with the elliptical form of expression which is adopted in conversation, give a rapidity to communication by the sign language which, on common subjects among those familiar with it, surpasses that of speech. If we remark the new shades of meaning given to the same words by the varying attitude and general expression of the speaker, and the accuracy with which a nice observer will discover, in these signs, the thoughts, and feelings, and intentions, even of one who wishes to conceal them, we shall find reason to believe that they are capable of conveying the most delicate shades of thought. Generie and abstract terms, as their objects do not exist in nature, have no corresponding terms of equal clearness in the sign language; and the abbreviated manner in which we express relations by conjunctions, prepositions, relatives and inflections, can only be imitated by adopting similar conventional signs, which do not easily fall in with the idiom of the language. In these respects, therefore, the sign language lacks the algebraic brevity and accuracy which are found in artificial languages, and which render these so invaluable as mediums of thought and instruments of philosophical investigation; at

the same time it is capable of describing what is conveyed by these forms, with an accuracy at least as great as that of words by circumlocution and example. It is worthy of remark that the order of expression in the sign language is that which we term inverted - the subject before the quality, the object before the action and, generally, the thing modified before the modifier. This language, in its elements, is to be found among all nations and has ever been the medium of communication between voyagers and the natives of newly-discovered countries. It is employed by many savage tribes to supply the paucity of expression in their language, or to communicate with other tribes, as has been observed among the Indians of North America. Among the Indians of the western regions of the United States, Major Long found it an organized language employed between tribes who spoke different articulate languages. His account, as well as others given by subsequent inquirers, shows that it corresponds very closely with that adopted in the school of Paris; and a Hawaiian, who visited an American asylum for deaf-mutes, gave a narrative of his life in the sign language, which was perfectly understood by the pupils. As a proof that the sign language does possess a universal character in its cultivated form, a trustworthy authority, who himself acquired it in this form, has asserted that he employed it, or had seen it employed, with success, in communicating with an American Indian, a Hawaiian, a Chinese and the deaf and dumb in various parts of the United States, in England, Scotland, France, Germany, Switzerland and Italy. Consult Clark, W. P., The Indian Sign Language (Washington 1885); Mallery, G., 'Introduction to the Study of Sign Language among the North American Indians' (Washington 1880); id., A Collection of Gesture Signs,' etc. (ib.); id., 'Sign Language among North American Indians' (1881); Roth, W E. 'Ethnological Studies Queensland Aborigines) (London 1897).

SIGNAL CORPS. See ARMY AND NAVY MANOEUVRES; UNITED STATES, ARMY OF THE.

SIGNAL SERVICE, The. See METEOR

OLOGY.

SIGNALS, Naval, the means of transmitting intelligence at sea by the agency of sight or hearing. These means are divided into three classes: day signals, night signals and day and night signals. The first consist of flags or shapes, moving arms or shapes or the waving of them. The day and night signals used in the United States navy are found in the 'General Signal Book' and the 'Fleet Drill Book.' The first comprises about 7,000 words and sentences arranged alphabetically and regularly numbered. Resort is had also to a vocabulary of about 10,000 conversational terms, to which is added an alphabet and a geographical list of about 11,000 places, each letter and word having its appropriate number. The Fleet Drill Book' relates to the tactical formations of a fleet or squadron. Every naval vessel having a set of these books, it is only necessary, in order to signal a message from one ship to another, to indicate the volume and the number in that volume corresponding to the required words or sentences. To do this there are nine rectangular flags representing the

- SIGNALS, NAVAL

digits, one to stand for zero or 10 and three triangular pennants called repeaters, wherewith to duplicate numbers. The lowest flag in the hoist represents the units. In addition there are special flags, comet danger signal, annulling flag, quarantine, convoy flags, etc., also the interrogatory answering, preparatory, numeral, geographical and position pennants. Flags of various colors are available as signals only for a distance but little over three miles. Beyond that long-distance signals are used, such as the semaphore, the collapsing drum or the use of cones, balls and squares in which the shape takes the place of color. The wireless telegraph and wireless telephone have displaced to a great extent the older methods of signaling. Naval signaling according to the international code is mainly effected by flags, either singly or in groups, interpreted in accordance with the international code book. The present system is of gradual growth out of the earlier ones devised by Sir Home Popham (1803), Captain Marryat (1817) and others. The old international code introduced in 1857 was superseded by a new one in 1902. The latter was prepared in consultation with foreign governments and differs from the old mainly in having a complete flag alphabet, and in the substitution of three-flag signals for all the four-flag signals of the 1857 code, except in the names of places and of ships. See SIGNALS AND SIGNALING for a fuller description of the international code and illustrations of its symbols, etc.

Night signals are made by means of lights, rockets or torches. The waving of a lamp phore systems. Night signals are also made or torch approximates the wig wag and semaaccording to the system of Lieut. E. W. Very, United States navy, by which fire-balls or stars are shot to a height of about 400 feet. Only two colors are used, red and green, with which any desired signal may be made, a rocket being used to indicate a ship's number and as a signal of execution. Very lights are visible at a distance of 10 miles or more according to the state of the atmosphere. Ardois lamps are much used in the navies of the world-as used by the United States they consist of four pairs of lamps suspended along a cable exending to a masthead. The telegraph code is used, reading the lights from top downward, the red and white lights corresponding to the dot and dash of the telegraph or the one, two of the wigwag. system. The lights are now operated by a keyboard and a message may be transmitted quite rapidly. White lights are also flashed, long and short flashes indicating the dashes and dots respectively of the telegraphic system. The search light may be used for signaling a ship below the horizon, by reflecting the light on a cloud. Signals have been exchanged in this manner between two ships 60 miles apart. Day and night signals are those transmitted by sound or by wireless telegraph. By long and short blasts of a whistle or double and single strokes of a bell a telegraphic system is possible but only for limited distances. Fogsignals are made by firing guns, blowing horns, the steam-whistle and by sounding the ship's bell. Signals of distress are variously made, by hoisting the national colors upside down, by rocket, by blue lights, etc., or by the wireless

SIGNALS AND SIGNALING. The most perfect means for the communication of messages by means of audible or visible signs to distances greater than can be reached by the human voice consists in the use of electricity, The telegraph and the telephone have displaced many old methods of signaling; but until the recent invention of wireless telegraphy the use of electricity required a more or less fixed connection between the place signaled from and the place signaled to. Flags of various shapes and colors, cones, balls, drums, movable arms or semaphores (as in railways), blasts of sound, flashes of light and other signaling media have been adopted for different purposes.

Marine Signals.- Signaling at sea according to the international code is mainly effected by flags, either singly or in groups, interpreted in accordance with the international code-book. The present system is of gradual growth out of the earlier ones devised by Sir Home Popham (1803), Captain Marryat (1817) and others. The old international code introduced in 1857 was superseded by a new one in 1902. The latter was prepared by a committee appointed by the Board of Trade and took its final shape after foreign governments had been consulted. The new code differs from the old one mainly in having a complete flag alphabet and in the substitution of three-flag signals for all the four-flag signals of the 1857 code, except in the names of places and of ships. The 27 flags used in the code comprise the "code

flag," or

801

"answering pennant," hoisted before a code signal is given and as a sign that a signal has been understood; five pennants, denoting the letters C-G; two burgees, denoting A and B; and 19 square flags, representing the other letters of the alphabet. The number of three-flag combinations possible with the alphabetic flags is 15,600, thus affording scope for an immense variety of signals of all degrees of importance. PCJ, for instance, means, "You will find great difficulty in getting through the ice at the place being indicated by a following geographical signal. The code flag above two alphabetic flags gives latitudes and longitudes; under two flags, numbers. As already stated, in the new code four-flag signals are not used for general purposes. They may be used, however, in spelling words alphabetically; and as there is now a complete alphabet of flags, any word may be spelled in this way, but the code signals, having their own special conventional significations (all given in the code-book), are a means of more rapid communication. There are never more than four flags hoisted at once. When, owing to distance or the state of the atmosphere, the colors of flags cannot be made out, a system of distant signals must be selected. There are three systems of these in the code-book, so constructed that any one can be interrupted in terms of the elements of another, and all three in terms of the flag code. These systems involve respectively the use of (1) cones, balls and drums; (2) balls, square flags, pennants and whefts; and (3) a fixed semaphore. If the shapes are not to be had flags may be substituted; but shapes are more easily read than flags, because the latter flutter. A square flag is equivalent to a cone pointing upward, a pennant to a cone pointing downward and a wheft (or tied flag) to a drum. The code signals in all these systems denote things or meanings rather than words, and thus they can be interpreted by ships of all nations. The international code of signaling by cones, balls and drums, involves the use of the following alphabet:

802

In the most simple form of two-flag signaling, the code flag is hung up at the masthead or wherever it can be most easily seen, and single flags representing the alphabet are hung successively below. These flags do not bear a letter, but a design, which is more easily recognized at a distance than a letter. Each of the letter flags may be used to represent numerals, A to K standing for 1 to 11, L to S for 22, 33, 34, etc., to 99; T is 100, U is 0, V is 00,

in passing each other or a signal station, commonly signal their name, where from and where bound, number of days out and longitude of their chronometer. Naval vessels, of course, have their private codes, which are carefully guarded during war-time, that their signals may not be understood by the enemy. All officers are supposed to have glasses convenient for reading signals, when on active duty. Towing signals are made with a flag in the hand at the

W is 000, etc. The letter flags also each stand for a simple message, as follows:

When a ship desires to signal, the method is to first hoist her ensign, with the code flag below. If several vessels are within signaling distance, she gives the signal letters of the vessel she desires to communicate with. To make reply, the other vessel hoists her answering pennant at "dip." The first ship then signals and holds the signal until the answering ship signals "Close up." Hauling down the ensign indicates that she has finished signaling. If the replying vessel cannot make out or understand signals, instead of answering "Close up" she signals OLW or WCX. Friendly ships,

୮

gunwale. The distress signals begin with N, as NA, Aground; NB, Cannot save ship- take people off; NM, Am on fire, etc.

Army and Land Signaling. For mechanical signaling the semaphore alphabet is still chiefly used. It can be rendered from signal stations by fixed semaphores or it can be worked in the field by a man with a flag in each hand. In such case the signal for starting is to cross the flags downward. The semaphore alphabet, as commonly rendered, is shown above.

The signal flags of infantry are valuable in locating companies and regiments when dispersed, as at the close of an engagement. The United States infantry signaling flags are:

FIRST BATTALION

SECOND BATTALION

THIRD BATTALION

Co. A, red flag with white square.
Co. B, red flag with blue square.
Co. C, red flag with white diagonal.
Co. D, red flag with blue diagonal.
Co. E, white flag with red square.
Co. F, white flag with blue square.
Co. G, white flag with red diagonal.
Co. H, white flag with blue diagonal.
Co. I, blue flag with red square.
Co. K, blue flag with white square.
Co. L, blue flag with red diagonal.
Co. M, blue flag with white diagonal.

In the United States infantry, mounted orderlies and some others are required to carry in their kits two standard sets of flags and field glasses for reading them at a distance. Officers carry glasses that they may read signals. For heliograph signals, see HELIOSTAT

Weather Signals. These have been highly elaborated by the United States Weather Bureau. For signaling forecasts a series of five flags is employed:

Whistle blasts as weather signals are used in many localities. There is sounded first a very long blast to attract attention. Then for fair weather, one long blast; rain or snow, two long blasts; falling temperature, one short blast; rising temperature, two short blasts; cold wave, three short blasts. These signals are usually repeated for exactitude.

Miscellaneous Signals. In many cities fire alarm signals are given by a whistle system, sounding numbers, which can be interpreted by any one having a fire map and key. Such fire map and key are often printed in the local directory. Electric lamps have come to supersede lanterns in many fields of signaling. Different arrangements of red and white lamps can be made to give a great variety of information, when used with a code.

Common life-saving signals in the United States are a red light or rocket exhibited to a wreck, indicating that they are seen and help is coming. A red flag by day or a red light at night between the men in the service means "Haul away." A white flag or white light swung slowly means "Slack away." A white and red flag together (or white and red light at night) swung slowly means "Do not attempt to land by boats; is impossible." A blue pyrotechnic light has been used for the same purpose. Two torches burned close together at

SE Storm

Hurricane

maketh... herbs for the use of men, and hath not only stamped upon them a distinct form, but also given them particular signatures, whereby a man may read even in legible characters the use of them." Many names of plants were derived from these "legible characters." Thus, the color of plants often designated the particular kind of diseases to be cured by them. Such plants as the Sanguinaria, or bloodroot, so-called from the red juice which flows instantly upon bruising its fleshy stems, or roots, were naturally considered a cure for blood affections; and the herb-robert (Geranium robertianum), which assumes a beautiful red tint when dying, would stanch wounds. An infusion of the yellow bark of barberries (Berberis) was said to have been a cure for jaundice, as was also the saffron. Form was another index of medical virtues. The liverwort (Hepatica triloba), having a three-lobed leaf somewhat in the shape of the liver, and, furthermore, mottled with purple, when old was a cure for liver troubles; and the saxifrage, the "stonebreaker," so-called from its habit of growing in the fissures of rocks, as well as the stony seeds of gromwell, were believed to be able to break up gravel. The well-known mandrake (Mandragora), and the ginseng (Aralia); valued by the Chinese, as love-charms and aphrodisiacs, gained their supposed virtues