SUNIUM (Σούνιον; mod. Cape Colonna), a cape at the southern extremity of Attica, with a temple of Poseidon upon it, which serves as a landmark for all ships approaching Athens from the east. The rocky promontory on which the temple stands was fortified by a wall with towers, in 413 B.C., as a protection against the Spartans in Decelea; but it was soon after seized by a body of fugitive slaves from the Laurium mines. In the 4th century it was still kept up as a fortress. The temple was shown by an inscription found in 1898 to be dedicated to Poseidon, not, as formerly supposed, to Athena, the remains of whose temple are to be seen about a quarter of a mile away to the north-east; they are of a peculiar plan, consisting of a hall with a colonnade on two sides only. The extant temple on the promontory was probably built in the time of Pericles. It took the place of an earlier one, of similar proportions but built of tufa or “poros” stone. There are still standing nine columns of the south side and two of the north of the peristyle, and one of the antae and an inner column of the pronaos. They are built of local white marble, which has suffered much from the weather. In form they resemble those of the Parthenon and Theseum, but they have only sixteen flutings. Recent excavations have revealed porticoes, a gateway and other buildings, and also the remains of several colossal early statues, the best preserved of which is now in the museum at Athens. The site of Cape Colonna is extolled by Byron, and is the scene of Falconer's “Shipwreck.” (E. Gr)
SUNN, or India Hemp (Crotalaria juncea), a plant which is a native of India and Ceylon. It frequently receives other names, e.g. false hemp, brown hemp, Bombay hemp, Jubbulpore hemp, sana, &c. The plant is an annual, requires a light soil, and is easily cultivated. The ground is ploughed two or three times, and from 80 to 100 ℔ of seed are sown broadcast. The seedlings quickly appear above the surface, but it is about four months before the plant begins to flower. Sometimes the seed is sown in October for the winter crop, and sometimes in May or June for the summer crop. When the seeds are sown in May, the bright yellow flowers appear in August, when the plant may be gathered. It is not unusual, however, to defer this operation until the seed is ripe, especially if a fibre of great strength is desired. The stems may be pulled up, as is the case with flax, or they may be cut down. Different opinions exist as to whether the stems should be steeped immediately after they are pulled, or left to dry and then steeped: in the wet districts they are taken direct to the water. Since the root ends are much thicker and coarser than the tops, it is common to place the bundles erect, and to immerse the root ends in about a foot of water. Afterwards the bundles are totally immersed in the ponds, and in two to four days the fibre should be ready for stripping. There is the same danger of over-retting and under-retting as in other fibres, but when the retting is complete, the workmen enter the ponds, take up a handful of stems, and swish them upon the surface of the water until the fibre becomes loose. After the fibre has been peeled off it is hung over poles to dry. When intended for cloth it is combed in order to remove any foreign matter, but if it is intended to be used for rope or similar purposes, the fibres are simply separated and the woody matter combed out with the fingers. The fibre is of a light grey colour, and has an average length of 3 to 4 ft. It is extensively used for rope and cordage and also for paper-making in its native country, but it has made little, if any, progress in this country. According to Warden, the fibre was tried in Dundee in the beginning of the 19th century. About 1820 the price of India hemp bagging, as quoted in the Dundee Advertiser, was 1½d. per yard below hemp bagging, and ¾d. a yard below tow warp bagging.
It is stated in Sir G. Watt's Dictionary of the Economic Products of India that a cord 8 in. in size of best Petersburg hemp broke with 14 tons, 8 cwt. 1 qr., while a similar rope of sunn only gave way with 15 tons, 7 cwt. 1 qr. Roxburgh's experiments with ropes made from this and other fibres appear on p. 607 of the above work. The ropes were tested in the fresh state, and also after having been immersed in water for 110 days. His results, reproduced in the following table, show the comparison.
| Names of the Plants. | Average Weight at which each sort of line broke. | ||||||||
| When fresh. | After 110 days' maceration. | ||||||||
| White. | Tanned. | Tarred. | White. | Tanned. | Tarred. | ||||
| English hemp, a piece of new tiller-rope |
|
— | — | Rotten, as was also the English log-line. | |||||
| Hemp from the East India Company's farm near Calcutta |
|
139 | 45 | All rotten. | |||||
| Sunn hemp of the Bengalese |
|
69 | 60 | Rotten | 51 | 65 | |||
| Jute (Bunghi-pāt) | 68 | 69 | 61 | 40 | 49 | 60 | |||
It would appear that, after maceration, neither ordinary hemp nor sunn hemp can compare with jute for strength.
SUNNITES, literally, “those of the path,” sunna, i.e. followers of the Prophet's directions, the name of one of the two main divisions of Islam, the other being the Shī‘ites (q.v.). The Sunnites, who accept the orthodox tradition (Sunna) as well as the Koran as a source of theologico-juristic doctrines, predominate in Arabia, the Turkish Empire, the north of Africa, Turkestan, Afghanistanand the Mahommedan parts of India and the east of Asia; the Shī‘ites have their main seat in Persia, where their confession is the state religion, but are also scattered over the whole sphere of Islam, especially in India and the regions bordering on Persia, except among the nomad Tatars, who are all nominally Sunnite. Even in Turkey there are many native Shī‘ites, generally men of the upper classes, and often men in high office (see generally Mahommedan Religion). Orthodox Islam preserves unchanged the form of doctrine established in the 10th century by Abū ‘l-Ḥasan al-Ash‘arī (see Ash‘arī). The attacks of rationalism, aided by Greek philosophy, were repelled and vanquished by the weapons of scholastic dialectic borrowed from the enemy; on most points of dispute discussion was forbidden altogether, and faith in what is written in Koran and tradition was enjoined without question as to how these things were true (bilā kaifa). Freer allegorical views, however, were admitted on some specially perplexing points, such as the doctrine of the eternity of the Koran, the crude anthropomorphisms of the sacred text, &c.; and, since Mo‘tazilite (Mu‘tazilite) views had never taken deep root among the masses, while the caliphs required the help of the clergy, and from the time of Motawakkil (A.D. 847) became ever more closely bound to orthodox views, the freethinking tendency was thoroughly put down, and to the present day no rationalizing movement has failed to be crushed in the bud. Philosophy still means no more than scholastic dialectic, and is the humble servant of orthodoxy, no man venturing on devious paths except in secret. In the years 1872-1878 the Afghan Jamāl ud-Dīn, a professor in the Azhar mosque at Cairo, attempted to read Avicenna with his scholars, and to exercise them in things that went beyond theology, bringing, for example, a globe into the mosque to explain the form of the earth. But the other professors rose in arms, forbade him to enter the mosque, and in 1879 procured his exile on the pretext that he entertained democratic and revolutionary ideas. Thus the later movements of thought in Islam never touch on the great questions that exercised Mahommedanism in its first centuries e.g. the being and attributes of God, the freedom of the will, sin, heaven and hell, &c. Religious earnestness, ceasing to touch the higher problems of speculative thought, has expressed itself in later times exclusively in protest against the extravagances of the dervishes, of the worship of saints, and so forth, and has thus given rise to movements analogous to Puritanism.
That even in early times the masses were never shaken in their attachment to the traditional faith, with all its crude and Ulemā. grotesque conceptions, is due to the zeal of the ulemā (clergy). Mahommedanism has no priesthood standing between God and the congregation, but Koran and Sunna are full of minute rules for the details of private
