daries and corners are fixed by various natural and artificial marks. See Homestead-Laws and Preemption.
Susa (so͞o′sȧ), a city of Persia, the Shushan of Daniel and Esther, the modern Sus and one of the most important cities of the Old World. Its name and ground-plan are traced on Assyrian monuments of the reign of Asur-banipal about 600 B. C. At the time of Daniel's vision “at Shushan in the palace” it belonged to Babylon, but it was brought by Cyrus under Persian rule, and the later kings made it the capital and winter residence of the Persian empire, building a strong citadel and a treasure-house. Alexander is said to have found vast treasures here, and, though Babylon soon became the chief city, Susa still was very rich when it fell into the hands of Antigonus (315 B. C.). Later, its fortifications were destroyed by the Arabs. Its ruins, among them the palace described in Esther, cover about three square miles.
Suspen′sor (in plants), an organ of the embryo, by means of which it is placed in proper relation to its food-supply. It is mostly restricted to the embryos of seed-plants, and is usually a more or less filamentous structure, at the end of which the embryo proper develops. See Embryo.
Sus′quehan′na River is formed by two branches. The north branch, 350 miles long, rises in Schuyler Lake in central New York; the west branch, 250 miles long, in the Alleghany Mountains. The two unite at Northumberland, Pa., and the river flows south to Harrisburg, southeast into Maryland and, after a further course of 150 miles, into the northern end of Chesapeake Bay. It is a shallow stream, much broken by rapids. In the spring immense quantities of lumber are floated down. Canals have been dug along its banks for 125 miles along the northern branch, and for 124 miles along the western branch. Its lower course is noted for ducks and other wild-fowl. Its chief branch is the Juniata. The Susquehanna is also noted for its wild and picturesque scenery.
Suttee (sŭt-tē′), meaning a virtuous wife, a once common usage of India, in accordance with which, on the death of her husband, the faithful widow burned herself on the funeral-pyre with her husband's body, or, if he died at a distance, was burned on a pyre of her own. The custom was practiced in India as early as the time of Alexander the Great, and was grounded by the Hindus on sacred books and laws of theirs. But no countenance to this barbarous rite can be found in the oldest and most sacred Brahman books. Nevertheless suttee, though not enforced on an unwilling victim and not practiced except in certain castes and families of old descent, was made almost necessary for well-born widows by the force of public opinion, unless they were willing to risk their own happiness here and hereafter. The rite came from a belief, common to many savage races, that it was well to send wives, slaves, horses, favorite weapons etc. with great men into the other world, by burying them with them, burning them or slaying them at their tomb. In 1823 about 900 widows were burned in India. In 1829, through the efforts of Lord William Bentinck, any encouragement of suttee was made murder. The custom is now rarely practiced.
Swabia (swā′bĭ-ȧ), a southwestern German duchy, stretching from Franconia to Helvetia and from Burgundy and Lorraine to Bavaria. It was so named from the Germanic Suevi, who drove out the Celts of this region in the 1st century B. C. The Alemanni became a part of the Suevic nation in the 5th century, and from this time there were dukes of Swabia. Under the Hohenstaufen emperors, who were Swabians, this duchy became the richest, most powerful and most civilized country in Germany. But when the Swabian line died, Swabia became the scene of feudal wars, and this unhappy state of affairs lasted for centuries. Swabia suffered terribly in the Peasants' War of 1525, in the Thirty Years' War (1618-48) and in the wars of the French Revolution. From the time of the Reformation the rulers of Württemberg (q. v.) struggled with the Holy Roman emperors for the control of Swabia. This struggle ended in the founding, in 1806, of the kingdom of Württemberg, which includes most of the old duchy. The name now denotes the south-central part of Württemberg, the adjoining part of Baden and the southwestern part of Bavaria.
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Swal′lows, insect-eating birds with long pointed wings, noteworthy for rapidity of flight. Blanchan speaks of the swallow as “the typical bird of the air, as an oriole is of the trees and a sparrow of the ground.” There are about one hundred species in all parts of the world. Six are common in the United States. All devour an immense number of insects and are beneficial to the farmer. The common barn-swallow is widely distributed and abundant. It is a little larger than the English sparrow, has a wide wing-spread, above is of a glistening steel-blue shading into black, underneath a warm chestnut-brown and shining buff, tail
