become the permanent headquarters of many of the official establishments. During the season Simla is the focus of Indian society; and viceregal and other balls, and entertainments of every description, are frequent. Simla is the headquarters of a volunteer rifle corps, and there are numerous libraries and institutes, of which the chief is the United Service Institution, with a subsidy from government. The two chief medical institutions are the Ripon and Walker hospitals. There are a theatre, concert room and numerous churches. Educational institutions include Bishop Cotton's school for boys, the Mayo industrial school for girls, several aided schools for European boys and girls, and two Anglo-vernacular schools for natives. The Lawrence military asylums are at Sanawar, near Kasauli.
The District of Simla has an area of 101 sq. m., and had a population in 1901 of 40,351. The mountains of Simla and the surrounding native states compose the S. outliers of the great central chain of the E. Himalaya. They descend in a gradual series from the main chain to the general level of the Punjab plain, forming a transverse S.W. spur between the great basins of the Ganges and the Indus. S. and E. of Simla the hills between the Sutlej and the Tons centre in the great peak of Chor, 11,982 ft. above sea-level. Throughout all the hills forests of deodar abound, while rhododendrons clothe the slopes up to the limit of perpetual snow. The principal rivers are the Sutlej, Pabar, Giri, Gambhar and Sarsa.
The acquisition of the patches of territory forming the district dates from various times subsequent to the close of the Gurkha War in 1816, which left the British in possession of the whole tract of hill-country from the Gogra to the Sutlej. Kumaon and Dehra Dun were annexed to the British dominions; but the rest, with the exception of a few localities retained as military posts and a portion sold to the raja of Patiala, was restored to the hill rajas, from whom it had been wrested by the Gurkhas. Garhwal state became attached to the North- Western Provinces; but the remaining principalities rank among the dependencies of the Punjab, and are known collectively as the Simla Hill States, under the superintendence of the deputy-commissioner of Simla, subordinate to the commissioner at Umballa. The chief of the Simla Hill States—which number 28 in all—are Jubbal, Bashahr, Keonthal, Baghal, Bilaspur and Hindur.
SIMLER, JOSIAS (1530–1576), author of the first book relating solely to the Alps, was the son of the former prior of the Cistercian convent of Kappel (Canton of Zurich), and was born at Kappel, where his father was the Protestant pastor and schoolmaster
till his death in 1557. In 1544 Simler went to Zurich to continue
his education under his godfather, the celebrated reformer,
Heinrich Bullinger. After having completed his studies at
Basel and Strasburg, he returned to Zurich, and acted as a pastor
in the neighbouring villages. In 1552 he was made professor
of New Testament exegesis at the Carolinum at Zürich, and in
1560 became professor of theology. In 1559 he had his first
attack of gout, a complaint which finally killed him. In 1555
he published a new edition of Conrad Gesner's Epitome of his
Bibliotheca universalis (a list of all authors who had written
in Greek, Latin or Hebrew), in 1574 a new edition of the Bibliotheca itself, and in 1575 an annotated edition of the Antonine
Itinerary. About 1551 he conceived the idea of making his
native land better known by translating into Latin parts of
the great Chronik of Johann Stumpf. With this view he collected
materials, and in 1574 published a specimen of his intended
work in the shape of a monograph on the Canton of the Valais.
He published in the same volume a general description of the
Alps, as the Introduction to his projected work on the several
Swiss Cantons. In this treatise, entitled De Alpibus commentarius, he collected all that the classical authors had written
on the Alps, adding a good deal of material collected from
his friends and correspondents. This Commentarius is the first
work exclusively devoted to the Alps, and sums up the knowledge
of that region possessed in the 16th century. It was republished
by the Elzevirs at Leiden in 1633, and again at Zürich in 1735,
while an elaborate annotated edition (prepared by Mr Coolidge) ,
with French translation, notes and appendices, appeared at
Grenoble in 1904. Another fragment of his vast plan was the
work entitled De Helvetiorum republic, which appeared at
Zürich in 1576, just before his death. It was regarded as the
chief authority on Swiss constitutional matters up to 1798.
See lives by G. von Wyss (Zürich, 1855), and in Mr Coolidge's book, pp. cxlvii.-clviii. (W. A. B. C.)
SIMMONS, EDWARD EMERSON (1852-), American
artist, was born at Concord, Massachusetts, on the 27th of October 1852. He graduated from Harvard College in 1874, and was a pupil of Lefebvre and Boulanger. in Paris, where he took a gold medal. He was awarded the prize by the Municipal Art Society of New York for a mural decorative scheme, which he carried out for the criminal courts building, later decorating the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York, the Library of Congress, Washington, and the Capitol at Saint Paul, Minnesota.
He was one of the original members of the Ten American
Painters.
SIMMS, WILLIAM GILMORE (1806–1870), American poet, novelist and historian, was born at Charleston, S.C., on the
17th of April 1806 of Scoto-Irish descent. His mother died
during his infancy, and his father having failed in business
and joined Coffee's Indian fighters, young Simms was brought
up by his grandmother. He was clerk in a drug store for some
years, and afterwards studied law, the bar of Charleston admitting
him to practice in 1827, but he soon abandoned his profession
for literature. At the age of eight he wrote verses, and in his
19th year he produced a Monody on Gen. Charles Colesworth
Pinckney (Charleston, 1825). Two years later, in 1827, Lyrical
and Other Poems and Early Lays appeared; and in 1828 he began
journalism, editing and partly owning the City Gazette. The
enterprise failed, and the editor devoted his attention entirely
to letters, and in rapid succession published The Vision of Cortes, Cain, and other Poems (1829), The Tricolor, or Three Days of Blood in Paris (1830), and his strongest poem, Atalantis,
a story of the sea (1832). Atalantis established his fame as an
author, and Martin Faber, the Story of a Criminal, was warmly
received. During the American) Civil War Simms espoused
the side of the Secessionists in a weekly newspaper, and suffered
damage at the hands of the Federal troops when they entered Charleston. He served in the state House of Representatives in 1844- 1846, and the university of Alabama conferred on him the degree of LL.D. He died at Charleston on the 11th of June 1870.
In addition to the works mentioned above, Simms published the following poetry:—Southern Passages and Pictures, lyrical, sentimental and descriptive poems (New York, 1839) ; Donna Florida, a tale (Charleston, 1843); Grouped Thoughts and Scattered Fancies, sonnets (Richmond, 1845); Areytos, or Songs of the South (1846); Lays of the Palmetto: a Tribute to the South Carolina Regiment in the War with Mexico (Charleston, 1848) ; The Eye and the Wing, poems, (New York, 1848); The City of the Silent (1850). To dramatic literature he contributed Norman Maurice, or the Man of the People (Richmond, 1851); and Michael Bonham, or the Fall of the Alamo (Richmond, 1852). His romances of the American Revolution—The Partisan (1835); Mellichampe (1836); Katherine Walton, or the Rebel of Dorchester (1851); and others—describe social life at Charleston, and the action covers the whole period, with portraits of the political and military leaders of the time. Of border tales the list includes Guy Rivers, a Tale of Georgia (1834); Richard Hurdis (1838); Border Beagles (1840); Beauchampe (1842); Helen Halsey (1845); The Golden Christmas (1852); and Charlemont (1856). The historical romances are The Yemassee (1835), dealing largely with Indian character and nature; Pelayo (1838); Count Julien (1845); The Damsel of Darien (1845); The Lily and the Totem; Vasconselos (1857), which he wrote under the assumed name of “Frank Cooper”; and The Cassique of Kiawah (1860). Other novels are Carl Werner (1838); Confession of the Blind Heart (1842); The Wigwam and the Cabin, a collection of short tales (1845–1846); Castle Dismal (1845); and Marie de Berniere (1853). Simms's other writings comprise a History of S. Carolina (Charleston, 1840); South Carolina in the Revolution (Charleston, 1853); A Geography Of South Carolina (1843); lives of Francis Marion (New York, 1844); Capt. John Smith (1846); The Chevalier Bayard (1848) and Nathanael Green (1849); The Ghost of my Husband (1866); and War Poetry of the South—an edited volume—(1867). Simms was also a frequent contributor to the magazines and literary papers, six of which he founded and conducted. In the discussion on slavery he upheld the views of the pro-slavery party. He edited the seven dramas doubtfully ascribed to Shakespeare, with notes and an introduction to
