god. It is the oldest Aramaic inscription we possess, being in a dialect approaching the Canaanitish languages, and may be dated about B.C. 800. Another similar monument, now a torso, contains in a field of 1×1.5 meters an Aramaic inscription of twenty-three lines, in which a king of Sham'al records the history of his father, Panammu (different from the one above mentioned, but probably of the same dynasty). This and some smaller inscriptions refer to the suzerainty of Tiglathpileser III. (B.C. 745-727), whose own monuments also speak of Sham'al, so that we are able to date the monument—a connection of immense value to epigraphy and philology—and also to locate the ancient State of Sham'al, whose political and social conditions are interestingly described on this stone. Consult: Ausgrabungen in Sendschirli, in the Mittheilungen of the Berlin Museum; Craig, in the Academy, 1893, p. 441; D. H. Müller, in the Contemporary Review, April, 1894; Lidzbarski, Nordsemitische Epigraphik (Weimar, 1898).
SINKING FUND. See under Finance, section on Sinking Fund.
SIN′NETT, Alfred Percy (1840—). An English journalist and theosophist, born in London. He was educated at the London University School. In 1859 he became assistant sub-editor of the Globe and subsequently leader-writer on other London newspapers. In 1865 he went out to Hong Kong as editor of the Daily Press. Returning to England in 1868, he served on the staff of the Standard till 1872, when he became editor of the Pioneer of Allahabad in India. In 1879 he joined the Theosophical Society of London, of which he afterwards became president. His occult works have had extensive circulation. They include: The Occult World (1881); Esoteric Buddhism (1883); Life of Madame Blavatsky (1886); The Growth of the Soul (1896); and two occult romances, Karma (1885) and United (1886). He made contributions to the published transactions of the London Lodge of the Theosophical Society.
SINO′PE. An ancient city of Asia Minor. See Sinub.
SINTRAM (zīn′trȧm) AND HIS COMPANIONS. A German romance by Fouqué, published in 1814 as the fourth part of the Jahreszeiten, of which Undine formed the first.
SINUB, sē̇-no͞ob′. A town in the Vilayet of Kaslamuni, Asiatic Turkey, on the southern shore of the Black Sea. 185 miles northeast of Angora (Map: Turkey in Asia, F 1). It is defended by half-ruined fortifications, but its dock-yard and naval arsenal have been closed. The Bay of Sinub affords the finest anchorage for ships along the northern coast of Asiatic Turkey. The town exports timber, dried fruits, skins, and silk. Population, in 1901, 9749. The ancient city of Sinope was founded by a colony of Milesian Greeks in the eighth centuiy B.C. For two hundred years after the Peloponnesian War it was almost the mistress of the Euxine. Of its former splendor there remain only the 'Castle of Mithridates' and a few Roman substructures. The Bay of Sinub was the scene of a naval engagement, November 30, 1853, in which a Turkish squadron was destroyed by the Russian fleet.
SINUS (Lat., bend, hollow). The cells or cavities contained in certain bones, as the frontal, ethmoid, sphenoid, and superior maxillary, are called sinuses. The frontal sinuses are two irregular cavities extending upward and outward, from their openings on each side of the nasal spine, between the inner and outer layers of the skull, and separated from one another by a thin bony septum. They give rise to the prominences above the root of the nose called the nasal eminences. They are not developed till after puberty, and vary considerably in size, being usually larger in men than in women and young persons, in consequence of the greater prominence of the superciliary ridges in the former. They comnuinicate on each side with the upper part of the nostril by a tunnel-shaped opening, which transmits a prolongation of mucous membrane to line their interior. The sphenoidal sinuses are two large irregular cavities, formed, after the period of childhood, in the body of the sphenoid bone. They communicate with the upper part of the nose, from which they receive a layer of mucous membrane. Like the frontal sinuses, they serve to lessen the weight of the skull and to add to the resonance of the voice. The ethmoid sinuses or cells lie in the lateral masses of the ethmoid bone. They open into the cavities of the nose. The superior maxillary sinus, commonly known as the antrum of Highmore (after the anatomist who first accurately described it), is the largest of the facial sinuses. Its uses are the same as those of the others, and, like them, it communicates with the nasal cavities. The sinuses of the dura mater are quite distinct from the above described bony sinuses; they are irregular channels for the transmission of venous blood. In surgery the term sinus is nearly equivalent to fistula (q.v.).
SION, sē̇′ôn′ (Ger. Sitten). The capital of the Canton of Valais, Switzerland, situated on the Sionne, which flows through the town in an artificial channel, not far from its junction with the Rhone and 17 miles east of Saint-Maurice (Map: Switzerland, B 2). It is a little town of remarkable picturesqueness, with the ruins of the thirteenth-century Castle of Tourbillon on the north and the Castle of Valeria, the former residence of the canons, on the south. The town proper contains the fifteenth-century cathedral, the thirteenth-century Church of Saint Catharine, and the Gothic town hall. Population, in 1900, 6095.
SIOUAN (so͞o′an) STOCK. One of the most widely extended and important linguistic groups of North America, occupying within the recent historic period the greater portion of the Plains area, but in earlier times holding also the coast and midland region of Virginia and the Carolinas, with outlying tribes upon the Gulf coast. The universal tradition of the various tribes of the stock, as well as of their Algonquian neighbors, with historical and more particularly linguistic evidence, establishes the fact that their original home was east of the Alleghanies in the South Atlantic region. When or why the first emigrants crossed over the mountains into the central region of the Ohio Valley is not known. It was probably brought about by the pressure of Iroquoian tribes from the north and of Muskhogean tribes from the west. It was not so remote but that the Osage, Quapaw, Omaha, Mandan, and
