publications include 367 pamphlets and 18 other volumes, among which are: History of the Public Revenue of the British Empire' (3 vols. 1785-9); 'Code of Health and Longevity' (4 vols. 1807); 'Code of Agriculture) (1819); etc. Sinclair, William Macdonald, English Anglican clergyman: b. Leeds 3 June 1850. He was educated at Balliol College, Oxford, took holy orders, is examining chaplain to the bishop of London, honorary chaplain to the king, and since 1889 has been archdeacon of London and canon of Saint Paul's. He has written: The Psalms in the Original Rhythm (1879); Lessons on the Gospel of Saint John (1882); 'Christ and Our Times' (1894); The Churches and the East' (1898); The Church and the Nonconformists (1902); The Authority of Sunday) (1903); etc.

Sind, Sindh, or Scinde (From sindhu, a collection of waters), British India, an extensive territory and division of the province of Bombay, comprising the lower course and delta of the Indus, and bounded on the west and northwest by Baluchistan and Afghanistan; northeast by the Punjab; east by Rajputana; and south by the Rann of Cutch and the Indian Ocean; length, north to south, about 380 miles; greatest breadth, east to west, 280 miles; area, estimated at 53,898 square miles. The capital is Hyderabad, the chief port Karáchi, connected by rail. The seacoast, except at the western extremity (Cape Monza), is very low, being composed of mud-banks deposited from the rivers of the delta, or of low hills of sand blown in from the beach, the whole shore being a dreary swamp, destitute of trees or shrubs, and submerged at spring tides. In the dry season the stiff clay soil, which is strongly impregnated with nitre, bears an abundant crop of gigantic grass, with furze, mimosas, and cacti, and affords pasture to numerous herds of buffaloes. West of the Indus the Hala Mountains approach the river at Sihwan, and come close to the sea at Cape Monza; and between the former place and Karachi, on the northwest mouth of the Indus, is a maze of hills, the highest of which reach an elevation of about 1,500 feet, terminating abruptly on the west bank of the stream. The general appearance of Sind is that of a jungly wilderness; spontaneous vegetation takes the place of cultivation.

The climate is dry and sultry, the country being seldom visited by rain. The mean temperature of summer at Sakkar in the extreme north is about 102.4 F. In the upper districts frost is not unknown, and the heat often varies in the 24 hours from 40° to 84° F. The hot season lasts from March to September, the cold from October to March; and the changes from the one to the other are so rapid, that spring and autumn are not experienced. The exhalations, caused by the evaporation during summer from the stagnant waters and rank decayed vegetation, are extremely injurious to health.

Agriculture is still in a primitive state. In those parts that are under tillage the land yields two crops annually; the spring crop consisting of wheat, barley, millet, sesamum and other oilseeds, hemp, opium, and tobacco; the autumn crop of rice, maize, cotton, sugar, and indigo. Rice, wheat, and maize form the principal staples, being both extensively used for food

and exported. Pulse, pumpkins, and other suc culent plants are raised, and the date, mango, plantain, pomegranate, lime, citron, tamarind, fig, mulberry, pistachio, melon, grape, etc., are among the principal fruits. In moist situations gigantic grasses abound. The wild animals include the tiger, panther, hyena, jackal, wolf, fox, antelope, and other kinds of deer, wild ass, wild hog, etc. The domestic animals include camels, buffaloes, horses, sheep, and goats. The camels are valuable, both as beasts of burden and as furnishing a rich milk, and hair for shawls and cloths; the buffaloes are prized for their hides, flesh, and milk, of which last ghee is made, which is an important article of traffic in Indian Birds are in great variety. Fish commerce. form a chief part of the food of the poorer people. Venomous snakes, scorpions, and centipedes are common.

The Sindians, a mixed race of Jats and Baluchis, are partly of the Hindu and partly of the Mohammedan faith. They are well made, and handsome; tall, inclined to corpulence, and of dark complexion; the women are noted for their beauty. The moral character of the people is low. The language differs little from the pure Hindi of Upper India, though more regular and complete in the inflexions of its nouns and verbs. Baluchi is also much spoken, especially in the districts west of the Indus; and Persian may be considered as the language of the higher orders. The natives are very ingenious as weavers, turners, and artisans, and are specially noted for their skill in the production of wooden lacquer work, famed throughout India. leading textile fabrics are coarse silk, cotton, or mixed cloths. The coarse silk goods are woven from silk imported from China and Persia. Sind imports British manufactured goods, sugar, groceries and spices, raw silk, etc. Its exports, principally its own productions, comprise rice and other grains, ghee, indigo, potash, dried fish, wool, hides, etc. There is a transit trade with the Punjab, Persia, and Afghanistan, which has been improved by the Indus Valley railway. The harbor of Karáchi has been improved at considerable expense, and trade is increasing.

The

Sind was governed by Hindu rajas at the time of its invasion by Alexander the Great, but subsequently, after many changes, it became an independent state. It was finally subdued by the Emperor Akbar in 1580, since which period it has always been either nominally or really tributary. In 1739 it fell under the power of Nadir Shah, but on his death it reverted to the imperial sway of Delhi. It was, in 1756, presented by the Mogul court as a dowry to Timur Shah Derani, king of Kabul, to which country it was down to its annexation to British India deemed subordinate. The country, however, was, during the whole of the 18th and the early part of the 19th century, a scene of almost constant civil dissension, caused by disputes between the two leading tribes of Baluchis, which led at last to the elevation of the Talpur dynasty of the "Amirs." The government under these Amirs was a wholly unchecked military despotism, upheld by a feudal soldiery, supported by their respective chieftains, and estimated to have numbered about 102,000 men. The hostility displayed by the Amirs of Sind against the British, during and after the operations against the Afghans, led ultimately to its invasion by

British troops, and final conquest by Sir C. Napier's victory at Miani, 17 Feb. 1843. It was soon after annexed to the presidency of Bombay. Pop. about 3,500,000.

Sindhia's (sin'di-az) Dominion, or Gwalior, India, a Mahratta state, forming part of the Central India Agency. It is of irregular form, about 420 miles long from northeast to southwest, and has an area of 25,041_square miles. The main portion forming the Gwalior assistant agency, lies between Rajputana and the United Provinces; other portions are contained in the Indor Residency, and the Bhopal, West Malwa, Bhopawar, and Guna assistant agencies, between the Central Provinces and Rajputana. The surface is mostly undulating, with a general slope to the north, where it comprises a part of the great plain of the river Jamna; in the south, portions of it are traversed by the Vindhya Mountains. The Chamba partly bounds it on the northwest; other rivers are the Sind, Betwah, Dussam, etc., tributaries to the Jamna with their affluents, having mostly a northern course; south of the mountains the Narbada carries part of the drainage to the west. The soil is generally of high fertility; opiumpoppy is an important staple of culture, and an abundance of corn and oleaginous plants, sugarcane, barley and pease on the dry lands in winter, cotton and tobacco, are raised. The population are mostly Mahrattas, but include also Bhils, Minas, and Coolies, numerous Brahmans, a few Rajputs, and a peculiar sect of Mohammedans called Bhoras, who are supposed to be of Jewish origin. The chief towns are Gwalior (the capital), Ujjain, and Mandesur. This state was founded after the successes obtained by the Mahrattas over the Mogul forces in 1738, by Sindhia, a chief who raised himself from obscurity by his own merits. He died in 1754. In 1781 Madaji Sindhia negotiated a peace between the British and the Mahrattas, and having introduced European discipline and tactics into his army, possessed himself of Delhi, Agra, and the person of the Mogul emperor, in whose name he subsequently acted. He was the most powerful member of the Mahratta confederacy. His successor Dowlat Rao Sindhia was defeated by Wellington at Assaye, and at Delhi and Laswari by Lord Lake. After his death in 1827 the state became disorganized, and order was only restored after the battles of Maharajpur and Pennair (1843), in which the British troops were victorious. The state was then constituted subsidiary to the British government. At that time the subsequent chief, Ali Jah Jaiaji Rao Sindhia, was a minor. He was loyal during the mutiny of 1857. In 1877 he was made a G.C.B., and in 1878 was invested with the Star of India. At his death in 1886 he was succeeded by his son Madho Rao. Pop. about 3,200,000.

Sine, in mathematics, one of the most commonly used trigonometrical ratios of an angle. With the usual notation it is the ratio of the perpendicular to the hypotenuse. The sine of an arc is the sine of the angle subtended by the arc. In plane triangles the sides are to each other as the sines of the opposite angles; in spherical angles, the sines of the sides are to each other as the sines of the opposite angles.

Hence it appears how important the sine is for finding certain parts of triangles, from certain given parts.

Si'necure, strictly speaking, an office which has no work attached to it, but generally applied to a political office with liberal salary, and comparatively little to do. In the United States no office is supposed to be absolutely free from actual service on the part of the incumbent, but sinecure_offices were formerly very numerous in the English public service. They were used to enrich ministers of state and their families; Sir R. Walpole, for example, presented his son Horace to three or four sinecure places which brought him in a large inThe number of such places has been greatly diminished by modern reforms; the stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds and some other offices of merely nominal profit are retained, because by accepting one of them a member of the House of Commons is enabled to vacate his seat.

come.

Sing Sing, N. Y. See OSSINING, N. Y.

Singan-fu, sẽ-ngänfoo, China, the capital of the province of Shen-si, near the centre of the province, a few miles south of the Wei-ho River. It lies on one of the principal commercial roads of the empire, and at the head of navigation for large junks on the river. The city is surrounded by well-preserved walls, and contains many objects of historic interest. During the 12th century B.C. it was the capital of China, and the Chinese court retired to this city when the allied Powers occupied Peking in 1900. For additional information see SIAN-FU.

Singapore, sing-ga-pōr', East India, a British possession consisting of a small island and a strongly fortified seaport city, the capital of the crown colony of the Straits Settlements, off the southern extremity of the Malay Peninsula, commanding the eastern entrance to Malacca Strait, the chief route to the Far East.

The town is well-built, has a sea frontage of about six miles, and a fine harbor with extensive

docks and wharves. It has become the commercial entrepôt of southern Asia and the Indian Archipelago, and carries on such extensive transactions that it has been termed "the Liverpool of the East." The port is free to vessels of all kinds and nations, without charges on exports and imports, anchorage, etc., only light dues being payable. Singapore is a coaling station of the British navy, and is defended by forts carrying heavy ordnance, and by submarine mines. The imports from Great Britain comprise cottons (the largest import), iron, machinery, coals, hardware, and various manufactures; the exports thither consist of tin, coffee, rice, sugar, nutmegs, mace, sago, tapioca, catechu, gambier, hides, rattans, gutta-percha, and numerous sundries. The imports from the continent of Europe and the United States consist of wines, spirits, and liquors, manufactured goods, provisions, etc., in exchange for similar commodities to those sent to Britain. Singapore also carries on an extensive trade with Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay. The annual value of exports from and imports into Singapore, taken together, is as much as from $200,000,000 to $250,000,000. A railway has been constructed from Singapore to Kranji, on the Johore Straits.

The town is well supplied with water, but in other respects its sanitary arrangements are somewhat backward.

The island of Singapore is of rhomboidal shape, about 27 miles long and 14 miles broad; area, 206 square miles. It is separated from the mainland by a narrow strait two miles to one half a mile in breadth. Its surface is generally undulating, rising in some parts into round verdureclad hills, the highest of which called BukitTima or the Tin-hill, rises 520 feet above the sea. Tin smelting is the chief of the settlement's industries, more than half of the world's tin product coming from the smelting works of Pulan Brani. The fisheries also are very productive and give employment to a large number of people. The chief cultivated plants include coffee, pineapples, and other fruits, cocoanuts, aloes, gambier, pepper, indigo, sugarcane, Fruits and vegetables are grown in immense variety and to great perfection. The British settlement dates from 1819 when permission was obtained to build a factory on the southern shore of the island. By treaty in 1824 they purchased for 60,000 Spanish dollars and a life annuity to the Sultan of Johore and his resident officer of 24,000 dollars, the sovereignty and fee simple of the island, as well as of all the seas, straits, and islands to the extent of 10 geographical miles (111⁄2 miles) around. Pop. about 235,000 (mostly in the town), including about 3,000 whites. See STRAITS SETTLEMENTS.

etc.

Singer, Isaac Merritt, American inventor: b. Oswego, N. Y., 27 Oct. 1811; d. Torquay, England, 23 July 1875. He was a machinist, and having spent years of study on the improvement of sewing machines obtained a patent on a single-thread, chain-stitch machine. He established a factory in conjunction with Edward Clark, a wealthy lawyer, and made a fortune in the manufacture of machines which bore his name. He resided at Paris and Torquay during the later years of his life.

Singhalese, sin-ga-lēz' or -lēs', or properly Sinhalese, Language, the speech of 70 per cent of the native inhabitants of Ceylon. It is an Aryan tongue and nearly allied to Pali, the sacred language of the Buddhists. There is a material difference between the vernacular and the written language, which latter has a copious vocabulary and a regular grammar, and is capable of elegant style. Its alphabet has 50 letters, but these represent only 30 sounds (7 vowels, 23 consonants), belonging to the Singhalese; the other sounds are heard only in Sanskrit words or are indistinguishable. In the Singhalese words occurring in the following illustrations of the grammar of the language the vowels have the values they have in Italian, the consonants, including ch, sh and j have the sounds given to them in English, except that g is always hard, and that the diphonics chh, jh, th, dh, ph and bh stand for sounds peculiar to Singhalese. In Singhalese grammar there are three genders; nouns masculine end mostly in a, plural o, an, aru; feminine in i, plural u, varu; neuter in a, u, plural adding val, or dropping the final syllable: nuvara, city, nuvaraval, cities; kaduva, sword, kadu, swords. The principal case endings, masculine and feminine, are: genitive, ge, ne; dative, ta, da; accusative, va; ablative, gen, nen

The neuter endings of the above four cases respectively are, e, ata, ava, en; examples manuspaya (Lat. homo), man; gūnī (Lat. mulier), woman; oluva (Lat. caput), head; genitive manuspayage, hominis; gūnīge, mulieris; oluvaě, capitis; dative, manuspaya, homini, etc.; accusative, gūnīva, mulierem, etc.; ablative, oluven, capite, etc., as above detailed: plural, manuspayo, homines; olu, capita; manuspayinne, hominum, etc. The adjectives are indeclinable. There are no less than 14 different pronouns of the second person, the use of them being regulated by the rank, both of the speaker and the person addressed. The Singhalese literature comprises several original poems of some merit, and an extensive and interesting series of native chronicles.

Singhara Nut, the fruit of a floating aquatic plant Trapa bispinosa. The nut is large, about three quarters of an inch thick, having normally four spines, two of which are often absent. It has a sweet starchy kernel, which is a staple food of the natives of Cashmere.

Singing. See VOICE AND VOICE CULTURE.
Single Standard. See BIMETALLISM.

Single Tax, a tax levied upon the value of land, irrespective of the value of improvements, and so regulated as to equal the economic rent, or "unearned increment," of land. (See POLITICAL ECONOMY.) By taking the full rent of land, the government would in effect assume the ownership and become sole landlord. The primary principles of the single tax were enunciated by the Physiocrats, French political economists of the 18th century (see PHYSIOCRATIC SCHOOL); but Henry George (q.v.) was the first to fully develop the theory in his 'Progress and Poverty' (published 1879), which made the question of the single tax an issue in modern politics and political economy. Accepting the "classic" law of rent, that "the rent of land is determined by the excess of its produce over that which the same application can secure from the least productive land in use," he derives as the law of wages that "wages depend upon the margin of production or upon the produce which labor can obtain at the highest point of natural productiveness open to it without payment of rent," and as the law of interest that "the relation between wages and interest is determined by the average power of increase which attaches to capital; as rent rises interest will fall as wages fall, that is, will be determined by the margin of cultivation." Thus the economic basis of the single tax theory is that wages and interest in the last analysis are determined not by the productiveness of labor and capital, but by the value of land, and that as land becomes more valuable (that is, the economic rent greater), wages and interest will become relatively less. Therefore the only way to prevent the landowners alone from reaping the benefit of increase in the value of land to the detriment of labor and capital, is to make land common property; and this is best accomplished by society's appropriating all rent in the form of taxation, and thus obtaining for society the full benefit of increase in land values. The single tax is also defended on the grounds of justice, and expediency as a method of taxation. (1) From