ZITHER 601 ZODIACAL LIGHT cisively defeated Siegmuna in the battle of Bohmisch-Brod. At the head of the Taborites Ziska then advanced against the moderate Calixtines, whose posses- sions he ravaged in the most wanton manner. Though at the siege of the Castle of Raby in 1421 he lost his second eye, he still continued not only to order the march, following his officers' descrip- tions of the ground, but to direct in battle his "invincible legion of brothers." The emperor had already begun to de- spair of success in the contest, and had opened negotiations with Ziska. promis- ing full liberty of conscience, when the latter died, during the siege of Przibis- law, Oct. 11, 1424. He was buried in the Church of SS. Peter and Paul at Czaslau, with his battle axe suspended above his grave. In 1623 the tomb was opened by imperial command, and his bones re- moved to Vienna. Ziska was an able commander, quick in thought and action, of great presence of mind, and of iron firmness, a merciless and relentless op- ponent of the enemies of his country and his faith. ZITHER (tsit^ur), or ZITHERN (tsif urn), a development of the musical in- strument known to the Greeks as cithara. In the early part of the 19th century it became a favorite with the peasantry of the Styrian and Bavarian Alps, and was introduced into England about 1850,, chiefly by Herr Curt Schulz. The zither consists of a resonance box, with a large circular sound hole near the middle; the strings, 32 in number, in some cases in- creased to 40 and even 46, being made of steel, brass, catgut, and silk covered with fine silver or copper wire, and tuned by pegs at one end. Five of the strings are stretched over a fretted keyboard, and are used to play the melody, the fingers of the left hand stopping the strings OH the frets, the right-hand thumb, armed with a metal ring, striking the strings, which are tuned in fifths, and have a chromatic range from c in the second space of the bass staff to d in the sixth ledger line above the treble. The remainder, called the accompaniment strings are struck by the first three fingers of the right hand, and, as they are not stopped, produce only the single note to which they are tuned. While plajang, the performer rests the instru- ment on a table with the keyboard side nearest to him. The viola zither, in which the resonance box is heart-shaped, is tuned like the violin, and is played with a bow. The form of the instrument is like that of the viola, but the body rests on the lap of the seated player, while the head is placed on the edge of a table. ZITTATT (tsit'tou), a town of Saxony; on the Mandau, near its junction with the Neisse; is an important railway cen- ter, 26 miles S. E. of Bautzen and 21 S. S. W. of Gorlitz. The chief buildings are the Church of St. John and the By- zantine Rathhaus. Zittau stands in the center of a district rich in lignite, and in its neighborhood is a group of busy manufacturing villages. It is also the center of the linen and damask industry of Saxony, and has manufactures of woolens, besides bleach-fields, dye works, and iron foundries. Pop. about 40,000. ZITTEL, KARL ALFRED VON, a German geologist and palaeontologist; born in Bahlingen, Sept. 25, 1839. He became professor in the University of Munich in 1866. He was author of "Travels in Sweden and Norway" (1860) ; "From Primordial Time" (2d ed. 1875) ; "Letters from the Libyan Desert" (1875); "The Sahara" (1885). Died in 1904. ZODIAC, in astronomy. The zone or broad belt of constellation which the sun traverses during the year in passing around the ecliptic. The moon and major planets also move within the same area. The breadth of the zodiac is about eight and a half degrees on each side of the ecliptic, or 17 in all. It is inclined to the equinoctial at an angle of 23° 28', the points of intersection being reached by the sun, one at the vernal and the other at the autumnal equinox. The great circle of the zodiac was divided by the ancients into 12 equal portions called signs. They were named from the con- stellations then adjacent to them in the following order: Aries, the Ram; Tau- rus, the Bull; Gemini, the Twins; Cancer, the Crab; Leo, the Lion; Virgo, the Virgin; Libra, the Balance; Scorpio, the Scorpion; Sagittarius, the Archer; Capricornus, the Goat; Aquarius, the Waterbearer; and Pisces, the Fishes. The sun formerly entered Aries on March 20; now, owing to the precession of the equinoxes, the point of the heavens intersected by the celestial equator and the ecliptic, technically called the first point of Aries, has moved well into Pisces. ZODIACAL LIGHT, a pearly glow spreading over a portion of the sky near the point at which the sun is just about to rise in the morning, or has just set in the evening. It extends from the hor- izon to a considerable distance toward the zenith, and is best seen in the tropics in spring evenings, about the time of the vernal equinox. In the latitude of Lon- don it is seen chiefly in the W. part of the sky in early spring after the evening
