SMYRNA, GULF OF, an inlet of the AEgean Sea, 40 m. in length by 20 m. in breadth, with an excellent anchorage.

SNAKE RIVER, chief tributary of the Columbia; rises in Wyoming amid the Rockies; flows S. and NW. through Idaho, forming the Shoshone Falls, rivalling Niagara, which they exceed in height; through Southern Washington it flows W. under the name of the Lewis River or Fork, and discharges into the Columbia after a course of 1050 m.

SNAKE-STONES, stones popularly believed to cure the bites of snakes, probably due to a porosity in their substance drawing off the poison.

SNIDER, JACOB, American mechanical genius; invented a method of converting muzzle-loading rifles into breech-loading; died unrewarded in 1866.

SNODGRASS, AUGUSTUS, a member of the Pickwick Club in the “Pickwick Papers.”

SNORRI STURLASON, Icelandic historian and poet; published the collection of sagas entitled “Heimskringla,” among which were many songs of his own composition; was a man of position and influence in Iceland, but having provoked the ill-will of Haco was at his instigation assassinated in 1241.  See EDDA.

SNOWDON, a mountain range in Carnarvon, North Wales, extending from the coast to near Conway; it has five distinct summits, of which Moel-y-Wyddfa (the conspicuous peak) is the highest, being 3560 ft.; the easiest ascent is from Llanberis on the N., and is the route usually taken by tourists, for whose behoof there is a house on the summit.

SOANE, SIR JOHN, English architect, who left his house in Lincoln’s Inn Fields with art collection to the nation at his death in 1837.

SOBIESKI, surname of the great patriot king of Poland, John III., in the 17th century; born at Olesko, in Galicia; was elected king of Poland in 1674, having, by repeated victories over the Turks and Russians, shown himself the greatest soldier of his country; proved a wise and brave ruler, a true leader of his people, and with unbroken success defied the utmost efforts of the infidel Turks (1624-1696).

SOBRAON (4), a town in the Punjab, India, on the Sutlej, in the vicinity of which Sir Henry Gough won the decisive victory over the Sikhs, 10th February 1846.

SOCAGE, name given to a feudal tenure by a certain and determinate service other than knight service.

SOCIAL WAR, name given to an Insurrection of the allied States in Italy against the domination of Rome, and which lasted from 90 to 88 B.C., in consequence of their exclusion from the rights of citizenship and the privileges attached; they formed a league to assert their rights, which ended in defeat.

SOCIALISM, a social system which, in opposition to the competitive system that prevails at present, seeks to reorganise society on the basis, in the main, of a certain secularism in religion, of community of interest, and co-operation in labour for the common good, agreeably to the democratic spirit of the time and the changes required by the rise of individualism and the decay of feudalism.