SIGISMUND 426 SIGNALING, TELEGRAPHING of emperor. At the same period there were also three rival Popes. But the death of Jobst and the acquies- cence of Wenceslaus left Sigismund with- out a rival in the following year. He was crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle in November, 1414, and went thence to the great Coun- cil of Constance. He surrounded the town with his troops, and remained mas- ter of its gates during the council. The Bohemian reformer, John Huss, had come to Constance under a safe conduct of the emperor; but he was nevertheless burnt, as was also his disciple, Jerome of Prague. Sigismund had a conference with the Pope, Benedict XIII., at Perpig- nan, hoping to induce him to resign the tiara, but he failed. About the same time he sold Brandenburg to Frederick of Hohenzollern, Burgrave of Nuremberg; raised Savoy into a duchy for Amadeus VIII., and visited France and England. He professed to negotiate a peace between Charles VI. and Henry V., but perfidi- ously made a secret alliance with the latter, hoping to recover Aries. By the death of his brother, Wenceslaus, in 1419, he succeeded to the crown of Bohemia, and the Hussite war began, which lasted 15 years. The famous Zisca defeated Sig- ismund before Prague in 1420, but agreed to a truce, and Sigismund was crowned soon after. After the death of Zisca the war was ably carried on by the two lead- ers, named Procopius the Great and Pro- copius the Less. In 1431, Sigismund was crowned King of Italy at Milan; and in 1433, Emperor of Rome by Eugenius IV. He died Dec. 9, 1437. SIGISMUND I., KING OF POLAND, The Great, son of Casimir IV.; born Jan. 1, 1467; and succeeded his brother, Alex- ander, in 1507. He died April 1, 1548. SIGISMUND II., surnamed Augustus ; born Aug. 1, 1520, was son of the preced- ing, and succeeded him in 1548. He died in 1572. SIGISMUND III., surnamed De Vasa; born in 1566, was son of John III., King of Sweden, and of Catharine, the daugh- ter of Sigismund I. He was elected King of Poland in 1587, and succeeded to the crown of Sweden in 1594. Being a Cath- olic, his uncle, Charles, Duke of Suder- mania, easily undermined his authority in Sweden, and he lost that kingdom in 1604. In 1610 he succeeded in placing his son, Vladislaus, on the throne of Russia, but was afterward obliged to succumb, and besides that, was involved in a war with Gustavus Adolphus. He died in Warsaw in 1632. SIGN, in astronomy, a portion ol the ecliptic or zodiac, containing 30 degrees, or a 12th part of the complete circle. The first commences at the point of the equator through which the sun passes at the time of the vernal equinox; and they are counted onward, proceeding from W. to E., according to the annual course of the sun, all round the circle. The names of the 12 signs, in the order in which they follow each other, are as follows: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Li- bra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricornus, Aquarius, Pisces. It is to be remarked that the above are also the names of the 12 constellations of the zodiac ; and in an- cient times (more than 200 years before our era), the places of the signs and the constellations were coincident; but owing to the motion of the earth's equator, by which the equinoctial points are carried backward on the ecliptic about 50' 6" an- nually, the intersections of the ecliptic and equator, and consequently the com- mencement of the signs, now correspond to different stars, the first point of the sign Aries being at present near the be- ginning of the constellation Pisces. On this account care must be taken not to confound the signs of the zodiac, which are fixed in respect of the equinoxes, with the constellations, which are movable in respect of those points. In algebra, a symbol indicating an op- eration to be performed, or a relation sub- sisting between two quantities. Of the former kind, those most commonly used are, + for addition, — for subtraction, X for multiplication, -s- for division, V for the square root, 3 V for the cube root, n V for the nth root, etc. The sign de- noting relations are, = equal to, ;> great- er than, <; less than, etc. SIGNALING AND TELEGRAPH- ING, MILITARY. The art of trans- mitting information by visual signals is of very ancient origin, and has, no doubt, been practiced by all races in every part of the world. The simplest form of sig- nal is, probably, the beacon fire, used for centuries to warn neighboring tribes of the approach of enemies and for other purposes. Very early in history, how- ever, the art of signaling for military purposes reached a high stage of devel- opment, and even in these days of teleg- raphy, telephony and wireless telegraphy, communicating by visible signs still has its uses. In the modern army, the stand- ard equipment used for signaling is a flag attached to a light pole, but any other easily visible object may be used, a torch or lantern being employed at night time. The two systems most commonly used are the Morse code and the Myer code. The former makes use of a system of dots and dashes, a definite number of dots and dashes representing each letter of the al- phabet. Thus, a is represented by , 6
