Page:EB1911 - Volume 24.djvu/166

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152
SANKT PÖLTEN—SAN LUIS POTOSÍ

and then was united to form one municipality with Saarbrücken and Malstatt-Burbach (united population, 90,000).


SANKT PÖLTEN, an old town and episcopal see of Austria, in Lower Austria, 38 m. W. of Vienna by rail. Pop. (1900) 14, 510. It is situated on the Traisen, a tributary of the Danube, and contains an interesting old abbey church, founded in 1030 and restored in 1266 and again at the beginning of the 18th century. There are several religious educational institutions in the town, and a military academy for engineers. The industries include cotton spinning and milling, as Well as the manufacture of iron and hardware, and small arms. Sankt Pölten was an inhabited place in the Roman period. An abbey dedicated to St Hippolytus was founded here in the 9th century, around which the town developed. It was called Fanum Sancti Hippolyti, from which, by corruption, the actual name is derived. It was surrounded with walls and fortifications in the time of Rudolf of Habsburg, but these were demolished in modern times.

See Lampel, Urkundenbuch des Chorherrenstifts Sankt Pölten (Wien, 1891–1901, 2 vols.).

SAN LUCAR (or Sanlúcar de Barrameda), a fortified seaport of southern Spain, in the province of Cadiz; 27 m. by sea from Cadiz, on the left bank of the Guadalquivir estuary, and on the Puerto de Santa Maria-San Lucar and Jerez de la Frontera-Bonanza railways. Pop. (1900) 23,883. The town is divided into two parts, Alta (“upper”) and Baja (“lower”); for it is built partly on the fiat foreshore, partly on the rising ground to the south. The upper part is the older; it culminates in the ruins of a Moorish citadel. On the outskirts are many villas surrounded by pine, palm and orange groves, and often occupied in summer by families from Seville, who come to San Lucar for the excellent sea-bathing. The 14th-century church and the palace of the dukes of Medina Sidonia contain many valuable pictures. The hospital of St George was established by Henry VIII. of England in 1517 for English sailors. The Guadalquivir estuary is deep and sheltered, and lighted by four lighthouses. Bonanza, 2 m. by rail up the river, and on the same bank, is the headquarters of the shipping and fishing trades. It is named after a chapel dedicated here by the South American Company of Seville to the Virgin of Fair Weather (Virgen de la Bonanza). The fisheries and agricultural trade of San Lucar are considerable; there are flour mills in the town and a dynamite factory among the surrounding sand hills. Coal is imported from Great Britain, sulphur from France. The imports include sherry, manzanilla and other wines, salt, oats and fruit.

Inscriptions and ruins prove that San Lucar and Bonanza were Roman settlements, though the original names are unknown. San Lucar was captured from the Moors in 1264, after an occupation lasting more than five and a half centuries. After 1492 it became an important centre of trade with America. From this port Columbus sailed across the Atlantic in 1498, and Magellan started in 1519 to circumnavigate the world.


SAN LUIS, a province of Argentina, bounded N. by Rioja, E. by Cordoba, S. by the La Pampa territory and W. by Mendoza. Area, 28,535 sq. m. Pop. (1904, estimated) 97,458. San Luis belongs partly to the semi-arid pampa region, and partly to the mountainous region of the eastern Andes and Cordoba whose ranges terminate between the 33rd and 34th parallels. It is one of the least important of the Argentine provinces because of its aridity and lack of available resources. The rough northern districts, where an occasional stream affords irrigation for a fertile soil, are noted for a remarkably uniform, dry, mild and healthful climate. The Rio Quinto has its sources in these ranges; the Desaguadero, or Salado, forms its western boundary; and the Conlara flows northward among its broken ranges to the great salinas of western Cordoba. Only in the mountains are these streams available, as they soon become impregnated with saline matter on the plains. The southern part of the province is a great, arid, saline plain, practically uninhabitable. Agriculture and grazing occupy some attention in the north, but are handicapped by lack of water. The mountains are rich in minerals, however, and a number of gold mines have been opened. The exports include cattle, hides, skins, wool and ostrich feathers. The capital is San Luis (pop. 1904, about 10,500) on the Arroyo Chorillos, a little S. of the cerro called Punta de los Venados, 374 m. by rail (the Argentine Great Western) W. of Rosario, and magnificently situated on a plateau 2490 ft. above sea-level. Next in importance is the town of Mercedes or Villa Mercedes (pop. 1904, about 6000) on the Rio Quinto, an important railway junction where the railways from Buenos Aires, Rosario, Mendoza and San José unite.

San Luis, the capital, was founded in 1697 by Martin de Loyola and was for nearly 200 years only a frontier outpost. It suffered much in the civil wars of 1831–1865.


SAN LUIS POTOSÍ, a central state of Mexico, bounded N. by Coahuila, E. by Nuevo Leon, Tamaulipas and Vera Cruz, S. by Hidalgo, Querétaro and Guanajuato, and W. by Zacatecas. Area, 25,316 sq. m. Pop. (1900) 575,432. The state belongs wholly to the high plateau region, with the exception of a small area in the S.E. angle, where the tableland breaks down into the tropical valley of the Panuco. The surface is comparatively level, with some low mountainous wooded ridges. The eastern part borders on the Sierra Madre Oriental, where there are extensive forests. The mean elevation is about 6000 ft., insuring a temperate climate. The state lies partly within the arid zone of the north, the southern half receiving a more liberal rainfall through the influence of the “northers” on the Gulf coast. The rainfall, however, is uncertain and the state is poorly provided with rivers. The soil is fertile and in favourable seasons large crops of wheat, Indian corn, beans, and cotton are grown on the uplands. In the low tropical valleys, sugar, coffee, tobacco, peppers and fruit are staple products. Stock-raising is an important industry and hides, tallow and wool are exported. Fine cabinet and construction woods are also exported to a limited extent. At one time San Luis Potosí ranked among the leading mining provinces of Mexico, but the disorders following independence resulted in a great decline in that industry. The Catorce district has some of the richest silver mines in the country. Other Well-known silver mining districts are Peñón Blanco, Ramos and Guadalcázar. The development of Guadalcazar dates from 1620 and its ores yield gold, copper, zinc and bismuth, as well as silver. In the Ramos district, the Cocinera lode is said to have a total yield of over $60,000,000. Railway facilities are provided by the Mexican Central and Mexican National lines, the former crossing a corner of the state and having a branch from the capital to Tampico, and the latter passing through the state from N. to S. The capital is San Luis Potosí , and other towns, with their populations, are: Matehuala. (13,101 in 1895), a mining town 20 m. E. by W. of Catorce, with which it is connected by a branch railway; Catorce (9547 in 1895), an important mining town 110 m. N. (direct) of San Luis Potosí (capital) and 8 m. from its railway station on the Mexican National; at an elevation of 8780 ft., Santa Maria del Rio (8440 in 1900), 37 m. S.E. of the capital; Venado (5750 in 1895), 45 m. N. of the capital; Rio Verde (5759 in 1900), an agricultural centre with a national agriculture experiment station in its vicinity; Soledad Diez Gutierrez (5730 in 1895), near the capital.


SAN LUIS POTOSÍ, a city of Mexico and capital of a state of the same name, near the head of the valley of the Rio Verde (a tributary of the Panuco), 215 m. by rail N.W. of the city of Mexico. Pop. (1900) 61,019. The city is served by the Mexican Central and the Mexican National railways. It is built on a broad level space, laid out regularly with straight well-paved streets and shady plazas. The altitude of the city, 6168 ft. above sea-level, gives it a cool temperate climate, though the sun temperatures are high. The water-supply was formerly very deficient, but two artesian wells have been drilled to a depth of 450 ft. and furnish 30,000 gallons a day each, in addition to which a large dam 3 m. above the city has been built, having a storage capacity of 7,500,000 cubic meters (1,650,000,000 gallons), or 18 months’ supply, which is used for irrigation and domestic purposes. The better class of residences are usually