Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XIV.djvu/770

744 SECCHI SECOND but only 4,500 women. Much of it has since been rebuilt. SECCHI, Pletro Angeto, an Italian astronomer, born in Reggio in Emilia, July 29, 1818. He became a Jesuit Nov. 8, 1833, studied mathe- matics under Padre de Vico, and taught phys- ics in the college of Loreto from 1841 to 1843. In 1844 he began his course of theology in the Roman college, completed it at Georgetown college, D. C., in 1848-'9, and taught physics and mathematics there till the autumn of 1850, when he was recalled to Rome. He was then appointed director of the observatory of the Roman college, reconstructed it on a new site and plan, invented and perfected a system of meteorological observation, published a month- ly bulletin continued till 1873, and constructed a meteorograph much admired at the Paris exhibition of 1867. He was commissioned by Pius IX. to complete the trigonometrical sur- vey of the Papal States begun by Boscovich in 1751, and to rectify the measurements already made of the meridional arc, and executed suc- cessfully a commission to bring a supply of water to Rome from Frosinone, 48 in. distant. The results of his labors in every field of as- tronomical research since 1850 are chronicled in the scientific periodicals of Italy, France, Germany, and England. He is especially dis- tinguished for his discoveries in spectroscopio analysis and in solar and stellar physics. After the closing of the Roman college and the ex- pulsion of the Jesuits (1870-'73) Secchi was allowed to retain his post, continued to lecture on astronomy in the ecclesiastical schools of Rome, and in 1875 he was sent by the Italian government on a scientific mission to Sicily. Among his important publications are : " Re- searches on Electrical Rheometry," originally in the "Smithsonian Contributions to Knowl- edge " (Georgetown, 1852) ; Quadra fiico del tisteina tolare teeondo le piu reeenti otterva- zto;u(Roine, 1859); Catalogo dalle ttelle (Paris, 1867) ; Sugli spettri prismatici dalle ttelle fitse (Rome, 1868); Le reeenti scoperta a&tronomiche (1868) ; None ricerche guile protubarama solari (1889) ; Sur V influence de Fattnosphere ur let raiet du spectre et sur la constitution du toleil (1869); Fitica tolare: tulle ultima tcoperte tpettrotcopiche fatte nel tola (1869) ; " Spec- trum Observations on the Rotation of the Sun" (London, 1870); Le soleil: expose dot principales decouvertct modernet sur la struc- ture de cat astre, son influence et tet relations atec let autret corps celestas (Paris, 1870; Gor- man translation by Schellen, Brunswick, 1872); and DelF unitd dellefortefltiche (Rome, 1875 ; French translation, Paris, 1875). SECK.E3DORF. I. Veit Lvdwig Ton, a German scholar, born near Erlangen, Dec. 20, 1626, died in Halle, Dec. 18, 1692. In 1642 his father, Joachim Ludwig von Seckendorf, was executed for attempting to desert from the Swedish army, in which he was a colonel, and the son found a patron in Duke Ernest the Pious of Gotha. Shortly before his death the elector Frederick III. of Brandenburg (the future king Frederick I. of Prussia), to whom he had dedicated his often republished Far- stenstaat, appointed him chancellor of the new university of Halle. The most celebrated of his works, Commentariut Historicut et Apo- logeticut de Lutheranismo (3 vols., Leipsic, 1688-'92), was written in refutation of Maim- bourg's Histoira du Lutheran isme. II. Frie- drich Hciiirioli, count, a German soldier, nephew of the preceding, born at Konigsberg, Fran- conia, July 5, 1673, died at Meuselwitz, near Altenburjg, Nov. 23, 1763. In 1695 he entered the English and Dutch service, but afterward joined the imperial army and fought under Prince Eugene against the Turks and in the war of the Spanish succession. He subse- quently became a major general in the army of Augustus II. of Poland and Saxony, and in 1713 was the Polish ambassador to the Hague in the conferences which led to the peace of Utrecht. After the fall of Stralsund in 1715 he reentered the imperial service, in 1719 be- came count of the empire, and in 1721 Feld- zeugmeister and governor of Leipsic. Five years later he was sent as ambassador to Ber- lin by the emperor Charles VI., and in Octo- ber, 1726, concluded the treaty of Wuster- hausen. Subsequently he negotiated the mar- riage of the future Frederick the Great with the princess Elizabeth, for which the former never forgave him. In the war of the Polish succession he defeated the French at Klausen, Oct. 20, 1785. On the death of Prince Eugene in 1736, he received the command of the army against the Turks. In the campaign of 1737 Seckendorf s intentions were all thwarted by orders from the court of Vienna, and he was recalled and imprisoned for three years in the castle of Gratz. After his release he com- manded the troops of the elector Charles Al- bert of Bavaria (crowned in 1742 as Charles VII. of Germany), with varying success, against Austria, and finally in 1744 recovered Munich for Charles. In April, 1745, he appeared at Fussen in what Carlyle calls " the questionable capacity" of negotiator of a peace with Aus- tria, which caused his reinstatement in his dignities at Vienna, but gave umbrage to Fred- erick the Great, who had him imprisoned at Magdeburg on some slight pretext, and released after six months on his paying 10,000 thalers. SEC&ER, Thomas, an English prelate, born at Sibthorpe, Nottinghamshire, in 1693, died in London, Aug. 3, 1768. He belonged to a fam- ily of nonconformists, and studied for the dis- senting ministry, but became a physician. Sub- sequently he was induced to conform, and was ordained in 1723. He was distinguished as a preacher, and became bishop of Bristol in 1735 and of Oxford in 1737, and in 1758 archbishop of Canterbury. His works comprise sermons, lectures, and charges (last ed., with a memoir by Bishop Porteous, 6 vols., London, 1811). SECOND, the 60th part of a minute, whether of an hour or of a degree. The minutes, being