Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 18.djvu/82

SHEATHBILL. 62 SHECHEM. the bill yellowish, and Chionis. minor of Kergue- len Island, smaller and with the sheath black. Both have white plumage, and feed upon mol- lusks, crustaceans, and animal substances found along the beach, and both are called 'sore-eyed pigeons' by sailors. SHEATHING (from sheath, AS. scoe)), scdf, scca |>,t)llCi. xcciila, Ger. Scheide, sheath; prob- ably connected with xVS. sceadan, scudan, Goth. sica'idan, OlIG. sceidaii, Ger. seheiden, to separate, Lat. scindere, Gk. o-x'Jf'", sdiizein, to split, Lith. skedzu, skedu, I separate, Skt. chid, to split). The covering of a ship's hull, usually of metal. In the daj'S of wooden sliips it was founil that barnacles and otlicr marine parasites attached themselves so firmly to the bottom as to neces- sitate injury to the wood in dislodging them; moreover, some marine animals (e.g. the teredo) bored into the wood and destroyed it. Sheathing with very hard wood was first resorted to. Lead sheatliing seems to have been used as early as 1620 at least, and was probably used to cover the wood along the water-line several centuries before. A Japanese junk of about 800 tons sheathed with iron was seen in 1013. In ITtil copper was first used as sheathing, and in course of time copper or a copper alloy displaced all the other metals except zinc, which is still, though rarely, used. When iron ships were built it was noticed that their bottoms became foul very quickly. The best remedy found was paint, and it was only a partial one. To avoid excessive fouling, many iron and steel vessels of war have their bottoms slieathed with wood and coppered as in the days of wooden ships. Iron merchant vessels have rarely been sheathed, and the wis- dom of sheathing and coppering any iron or steel vessel is doubted. Zinc sheathing has been used to some extent because in the battery formed by zinc and iron it is the zinc which is eaten away. The bottoms of ships are generally cleaned every year or oftener (once in six months is desirable) and coated with two kinds of paint. The first is anti-corrosive and is designed to protect the metal against rusting. The other is anti-fouling. It is mueli softer than the other paint, is poison- ous to marine growths, and if any adhere to it they are ajjt to be washed off together with a thin film of the paint. No paint yet devised is regarded as fully satisfactory, but several vari- eties give fairly good results for five or six months. See Paints. SHEAVE. See Block ; and Tackle. SHE'BA (Heb. Sheba, At. Saba, Assyr. Sab'it). Hebrew eponym of the Sab;pan people, represented in Gen. x. 28 as one of the thirteen (originally twelve) sons of Joktan, Eber's son; in Gen. x.xv. 3 as a son of Jokshan, Abraham's son by Keturah : in Gen. x. 7, as a son of Haamah, Ham's grandson. That some Sabipans were made Hamites by the priestly redactor may be due to the knowledge of Saboean settlements along the caravan route from INIeroe to the Erythraean Sea in the Persian period. The de- sire to make Abraham the father of a mul- titude of peoples accounts for the divergent genealogy iu Gen. .xx^■. 3. Sheba is correctly associated with southwest Arabian tribes iu the oldest documents. In I. Kings x. 1 et secj. there is a story of a visit to Solomon by a queen of Sheba not mentioned by name. While it is difficult to account for a queen on the throne of Sheba in the tenth century B.C. (see Sab.'EANS), it is conceivable that such a queen, cherishing de- signs to wrest the ancestral home in Yemen from the MiniPans (q.v.), should have sought alliance with Solomon, who on the Elamitic Gulf was the neighbor anil rival of the Kingdom of Jlain. In this way a nucleus of historic fact may be as- sumed. Legendary embellishments naturally be- gan at an early date, and the notion of the riddle may go back to Hebrew antiquity. Accord- ing to the late Arabic version of the story the queen's name was Bilkis, and it was Solomon who visited her in Yemen, where she tried him with many riddles. From the Hebrews or the Arabians the Abyssinians learned the story. They give the name of the queen as Makeda, and main- tain in their lists of kings that Ibn al-Hakim was the son of Makeda and Solotnon, and that consequently the legitimate rulers of Abyssinia are Solomonitic. Frankincense from Sheba is referred to in Jer. vi. 20 and Job vi. 19. Saba-ans appear in caravans; in Ezek. xxv. 22 they are mentioned with Raaniah as traders in jewels, balms, and gold; in Isa. Ix. G they bring gold and incense. Consult: Gimkel, Genesis (Gottingen, IDOl); Glaser, Oeschichte und Geoflraphie Ara- biens (Berlin, 1890) : Stade, Geschichte des Tolkes Israel (ib., 1889) ; Winekler, Geschichte Israels, vol. ii. (Leipzig, 1900). For the story of Bilkis, consult BriinuoWj Chrestomathy of Ara- bic Prose Pieces (Berlin, 1895) ; for the story of Makeda, Prietorius, Tabula de Rcr/ina ^dbiea apiid .iEthiopes (HaVie, i870) ; on the occurrence of the name Shabat in Egyptian inscriptions of the Persian and Greek period, consult W. Max Miiller, in Mittheilnnqen der vorder-asiatischen Gesellschaft (Berlin, 1898). See Sab.5:ans. SHEBOYGAN, she-boi'gan. The county-seat of Sheboygan County, Wis., 52 miles north of Milwaukee; at the mouth of the Sheboygan River, on Lake Jlichigan, and on the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad (Map: Wisconsin, F 5). It has a public library and a handsome Federal building. Other features are the Sheboygan County Chronic Insane Asylum, Saint Nicholas Hospital, and the Sheboygan Home for the Friendless. The shipping point for a farming and dairying section, Sheboygan also has im- portant fishing and industrial interests. There are large cheese warehouses, and large coal and salt docks. In the census year 1900 the various nianuf.actories had an invested capital of .HT.TliC),- filfi, and an output valued at .$7,469,202. The principal establishments are chair, fttrniture. and toy factories, foundries and machine shops, bot- tling works, brick yards, breweries, and manu- factories of excelsior wrappers, carriages, leather, beehives and bee-keepers' supplies, leather gloves and fnittens. knit goods, etc. Population, in 1890, IG.3.59; in 1900, 22,962. SHECHEM, she'kera (Heb. SheK-enu the back, hence, perhaps, applied to a w.atershed). An ancient city of Palestine, in the centre of Mount Ephraim. the modern Nabulus (Map: Palestine, C 3). It lay between the motmtains of Kbal and Gerizim, in a fair and well-watered valley, which is the meeting-place of several natural lines of roads. Mentioned in an early Egyptian papyrus, it constantly appears in the Old Testament. It is connected with the tradi- tions of Abraham (Gen. xii. 6) and Jacob, the latter's sons taking it with the sword (Gen.