Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume V.djvu/546

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542 CSANAD CTENOIDS it was made a market town, it was known as " the largest village of Hungary." < sYl>. I. A county of Hungary, in the circle beyond the Theiss, bounded S. by the Maros; area, 638 sq. m. ; pop. in 1872, 95,847, the majority of whom are Magyars, and the re- mainder chiefly Slavs and Roumans. The soil is fertile excepting in the swampy regions. Maize, wheat, tobacco, wine, fruit, honey, and wax are produced. Pasturage is extensive ; cattle, swine, and horses are raised in great num- bers, and there are also fisheries. The principal places are the county town, Mako, and the mar- ket town Nagy-Lak, both on the Maros river. II. The former chief town of the county, on the Maros, 7m. S. E. of Mako ; pop. in 1870, 4,013 (formerly much larger). King Stephen made it the seat of a bishop, who now re- sides at Temesvar, but the diocese retains its former name. There are remains of an an- cient castle. In 1785 the emperor Joseph II. established in the vicinity a stud in which 3,000 of the finest breeds of Hungarian and foreign horses are kept. (SOKOMI, Vitez MlWUy, a Hungarian poet, born at Debreczin, Nov. 17, 1773, died Jan. 28, 1805. He was educated at the college of his native town, and appointed professor of classi- cal literature there in 1795, but was soon ex- pelled from this situation on account of his ir- regular habits. He then commenced the study of the law, which he soon gave up ; and during the rest of his life he had no regular employ- ment. His works, principally love poems and comic pieces, have been published in numer- ous editions, CSOMi DE KOROS (KoEosi CSOMA), Sandor, a Hungarian traveller and orientalist, born at Koros, in Transylvania, about 1790, died at Darjeeling, in India, April 11, 1842. Of a noble but poor family, he studied gratis at the school of Nagy-Enyed, where at an early age he avowed his intention to make the discovery of the original home of his race, the Magyars, the task of his life. The researches of Klaproth led him to seek the traces of the Uigurs, a people of central Asia mentioned by Arabian writers. In 1815 he went to Gottingen, where he studied medicine and oriental languages, and on his return finally started in 1820 for his great journey of discovery, with scanty means furnished by the liberality of a friend. He passed through the Balkan to Constantino- ple, visited Egypt and Syria, and wrote his first letter to his friends from Teheran, dated Dec. 21, 1820. The resemblance of a number of Thibetan words to Magyar incited him to ac- quire the language and to visit the country of Thibet. He traversed Little Bokhara and the desert of Gobi, reached the region of the Himalaya, wandered through its valleys, partly with the English traveller Moorcroft, partly alone, and spent four years (1827-'30) in a Buddhist monastery at Kanam, on a high mountain on the confines of Thibet and India. For his maintenance on his travels he relied upon his medical knowledge and the hospital- ity of the Asiatic people. But his tacitur- nity and modesty prevented him from com- municating the particulars of his travels and extraordinary sojourn among the Buddhists when he arrived at Calcutta with immense philological collections, gathered in the nar- row cells of the snow-bound monastery, and comprising 40,000 Thibetan words. A severe disappointment awaited him here. He had already given up the illusion in regard to the Magyar and Thibetan languages ; he now learned with deep grief that his collections, made for the purpose of tracing the Uigurs, were all superfluous, as his discovered sources were translations of well known Sanskrit works. But in the eyes of British scholars in India he had discovered incomparably more than was the object of his patriotic researches. He became the oracle of Thibetan literature and Buddhistic science, before him almost un- known. He was the object of general atten- tion in Calcutta, and Hungary and Transylva- nia learned from England the fame of their countryman. But he modestly withdrew from society, and destined the money which he re- ceived from home (the diet of Transylvania having voted him an ample pension) for works of science for the institutions of his country. When offered a remuneration by the Asiatic society of Bengal for an elaborate catalogue of the 1,100 Thibetan works of their library, which before had been like sealed books, he declared that if he were rich he would willing- ly pay for the pleasure of the work. With unabated zeal he continued his profound studies of the languages and religions of the East, until he again started in 1842 for the prosecution of his originally intended discov- ery ; but on his journey he was suddenly overtaken by illness and died. His works are : " Essay toward a Dictionary Thibetan and English " (Calcutta, 1834) ; " Grammar of the Thibetan Language" (1834); an "Analysis of the Kahgyur," the great sacred book of the Buddhists, published in vol. xx. of the " Asi- atic Researches;" and numerous articles on Thibetan literature in the " Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal." CSONGRiD. I. A county of Hungary, in the circle beyond the Theiss, intersected by that river and bounded S. E. by the Maros; area, 1,280 sq. m. ; pop. in 1872, 207,585, principally Magyars and Roman Catholics. The county is flat, and the soil very fertile, producing wheat, maize, hemp, tobacco, and fruits. There is excellent pasture for horses, cattle, sheep, and swine, which are raised in great numbers. Besides the capital, Szegedin, Vasarhely and Szentes are the largest places. II. A market town, formerly capital of the county, 31 m. N. of Szegedin, on the railway to Pesth, and on the right bank of the Theiss; pop. in 1870, 17,356. It contains the ruins of an ancient castle. CTENOIDS. See COMPARATIVE ANATOMY, vol. v., p. 183.