Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 09.djvu/212

SUN WORSHIP 170 SUPERIOR, LAKE SUN WORSHIP, a form of nature wor- ship, widely, though by no means uni- versally diffused at the present day among races of low culture. Traces of sun worship appear in the earliest rec- ords of the human race. They are pres- ent in the old theology of Egypt. Put- ting aside the later sun gods of Greece and Rome, horses were sacrificed on Mount Taygetus to that Helios to whom Socrates did not think it wrong to pray; and Cicero exclaims at the number of suns set forth by Roman theologians. The worship of Mithra spread from the East into the Roman empire, and that Vedic divinity was at last identified with the sun. In the Old Testament there are solemn denunciations of sun worship (Deut. iv: 19, xvii: 3; Jer. xliii: 13; Ezek. viii: 16-18) ; for the Israelites were surrounded by sun worshipers, and it is clear from II Kings xxiii : 5, 19, that the rulers of Judah had adopted the cult. Modern Hinduism is full of sun worship, and it exists as a distinct cultus among the Kol tribes, the Khonds, and the Tar- tars. It is still widely spread among the native races of Central America, and probably found its highest form of devel- opment in Peru, where the sun was held to be at once the ancestor and founder of the dynasty of the Incas, who reigned as his representative, and made sun wor- ship the great State religion. SUPEREROGATION, the performance of more than duty requires. The doc- trine of supererogation in Church history is the doctrine founded on that of the communion of saints, that the merit of good works done by one Christian belong to the whole body of the faithful. The principle was affirmed in the "Institution of a Christian Man" published by author- ity of Convocation (a. d. 1537). At the time of the Reformation the sale of in- dulgences had brought discredit on the doctrine of supererogation, or "as it might more properly be called, the com- munion of saints in good works," and Article XIV. was directed against the popular belief. Works of supererogation, is a contro- versial phrase borrowed from Article XIV. of the Church of England, and there defined as "voluntary works, be- sides, over, and above God's Command- ments." SUPERFETATION, or SUPERFCETA- TION, the conception of a second em- bryo during the gestation of the first; the products of the two conceptions be- ing born together or at different times. SUPERIOR, a city, port of entry, and county-seat of Douglas co.. Wis.; on Lake Superior, and on the Northern Pa- cific, the Great Northern, the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul, the Minneapolis, St. Paul and Sault Ste. Marie, the Chi- cago and Northwestern and the Duluth, South Shore, and Atlantic railroads; op- posite Duluth, Minn. It shares with Du- luth the commercial advantage of being the extreme W. port of the Great Lake system of the United States. It has three connecting harbors, well sheltered, and deep, making a combined length of 13 miles, with an extreme width of 3 miles. The city comprises the ports knovsTi as East, West, South, and Old Superior. Here are the Finnish Uni- versity, high schools, street railroads, electric lights, a State Normal school, several hospitals, numerous churches, waterworks. National and State banks, and several newspapers. The industries include the manufacture of flour, lumber, lath, shingles, wagons, chairs, barrels, woolen goods, cement, furniture, hags, iron, steel, etc. There are also shipyards, sawmills, coal docks, many grain elevat- ors, and dry docks. Pop. (1910) 40,384; (1920) 39,671. SUPERIOR, LAKE, the extreme W. and most extensive of the great lakes of the St. Lawrence basin, in North Amer- ica, being the largest existing body of fresh water. It is of a triangular form, extending between lat, 40° 30' and 49 N., and Ion. 80° and 92° 20' W. Its length, E. to W., is about 360 miles, with a mean breadth of about 80 miles, so that its area may be taken at about 28,600 square miles. The mean depth is estimated at 900 feet, and the height of its surface at about 640 feet above the Atlantic. It receives upward of 50 rivers, but none is of much importance except the St. Louis which enters at its S. W. extremity, and the Riviere au Grand Portage. During the melting of the snow, these and the other rivers sweep into the lake vast quantities of sand, bowlder stones, and drift timber. It discharges itself at its E. extremity into Lakes Huron and Michigan, by the river and falls of St. Mary. This lake embosoms many large and well-wooded islands, the chief of which is Isle Royal. The country of the N. and E. is a moun- tainous embankment of rock, from 200 to 1,500 feet in height; the climate unfavor- able, and the vegetation slow and scanty. On the S. the land is also high, generally sandy, sterile, and the coast dangerous, subject to storms, and sudden transitions of temperature, and to fogs and mists. The mean heat in June and July is about 65° F., but an extremely cold winter prevails. The boundary line between Canada and the United States passes from Lake