ZIRKEL, FERDINAND (1838–), German geologist and petrographer, was born at Bonn on the 20th of May 1838. He was educated in his native town, and graduated Ph.D. at the university in 1861. In early years he was engaged in teaching geology and mineralogy in Vienna. He became professor of geology in 1863 in the university of Lemberg, in 1868 at Kiel, and in 1870 professor of mineralogy and geology in the university of Leipzig.
His numerous papers and essays include Geologische Skizze von der Westküste Schottlands (1871); Die Struktur der Variolite (1875); Microscopical Petrography (in Report of U.S. Geol. Exploration of 40th Par., vol. vi., 1876); Limurit aus der Vallée de Lesponne (1879); Über den Zirkon (1880). His separate works include Lehrbuch der Petrographie (1866; 2nd ed. 1893, 1894); Die mikroskopische Beschaffenheit der Mineralien und Gesteine (1873).
ZITHER (Ger. Zither, Schlagzither, Streichzither; Ital. cithara),
a name applied in modern Germany to the ancient cithara (q.v.),
to the cittern (q.v.), and to an instrument which is a kind of
psaltery, consisting of a shallow sound-chest with ribs having
the outline of a flattened jug (termed in German Flaschenform,
bottle-shape). In the centre of the sound-board is a rose
sound-hole, and the finger-board with frets lies along the straight
side of the zither in front of the performer. The number of the
strings varies, but 36, 38 and 42 are the most usual. Over the
finger-board are four or five strings known as violin, on which the
melody is played. These five melody strings are stopped with
No. 1 is only used for
passages in double notes and
for chords.
the thumb and fingers of the left
hand and plucked with the thumb
of the right hand, which usually
has a thumb ring with plectrum.
Nos. 1 and 2 are steel strings;
No. 3 of brass, and 4 and 5 of
spun wire; the bass is played
with the fingers of the right
hand, and in order to facilitate
the fingering the strings are tuned in fourths and fifths.
Most of the other strings from the 6th are of gut. All the
strings lie horizontally across the sound-board, being fastened
in the usual manner to hitch and wrest pins. The zither is
placed on the table in front of the performer, who holds his right
arm so that the wrist rests on the side of the zither parallel with
the hitch pins, the thumb being over the finger-board.
The foregoing remarks apply to the discant and concert zither; the elegiac or bass zither is of similar construction but larger, and is a transposing instrument, having the same notation as the former, the real sounds being a fourth lower. These zithers are the favourite instruments of the peasants in the Swiss and Bavarian highlands, and are sometimes seen in the concert halls of north and western Germany. The Streichzither, or bowed zither, has a body of heart- or pear-shape similar to that of the cittern, but without the long neck of the latter. The finger-board covers the whole of the sound-board with the exception of a few inches at the tapering end, which is finished off with a raised nut or bridge, the bow being applied in the centre of this gap. The bowed zither has little feet and is placed on a table when being played. There are four strings corresponding to those of the violin or viola, but the tone is nasal and glassy.
The spelling of the word with a “Z” had already become usual in the early 17th century, for, although the instrument described above did not then exist, Cither was the name by which the cittern was known in Germany, and Michael Praetorius, writing in 1618, spells it with both “C” and “Z.”
ZITTAU, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Saxony, on the left bank of the Mandau, near its confluence with the Neisse, close to the Bohemian and Silesian frontier, 25 m. by rail S.E. of Bautzen, 48 E.S.E. of Dresden and at the junction of lines to Reichenberg (in Bohemia), Eibau and Hermsdorf. Pop. (1905) 34,706. The town hall dates from 1844, and contains a beautiful hall with rich stained glass windows. Among the six Evangelical churches, the following are noticeable: that of St John, rebuilt in 1834–37, with twin spires, and the church of St Peter and St Paul, with its elegant tower, which formerly belonged to an old Franciscan monastery. The latter was restored in 1882 and part of it fitted up as an historical museum. Another wing of this building contains the municipal library of 40,000 volumes and valuable manuscripts. Zittau is well equipped with schools, including a gymnasium and a commercial school, which are both accommodated in the Johanneum, and several technical institutions. There are also a theatre, well-equipped public baths and a richly endowed hospital. Zittau is one of the chief manufacturing towns of Saxony. The leading branch of industry is linen and damask weaving; but woollen stuffs, trimmings, &c., are also produced in the factories of the town, and in the surrounding weaving villages, sixty-six of which, with 113,455 (1900) inhabitants, are included in the municipal jurisdiction. The corporation owns valuable forests on the mountains of Upper Lusatia and other estates, the annual income of which is about £15,000. There are various steam-mills, iron-foundries, brick-fields and potteries near the town, and extensive deposits of lignite.
Zittau is of Wendish origin (Chytawa is its Wendish name), and was made a town by Ottocar II. of Bohemia. It was one of the six towns of the Lusatian League (1346), at which period it belonged to Bohemia. It suffered severely in the Hussite wars and in the Thirty Years' War, and was bombarded and burnt by the Austrians in 1757 during the Seven Years’ War. The musical composer Marschner (1795–1861) was born at Zittau.
See Carpzov, Analecta fastorum Zittaviensium (Leipzig, 1716); Moschkau, Zittau und seine Umgebung (5th ed., Zittau, 1893); and Lamprecht, Wegweiser durch Zittau und das Zittauer Gebirge (Zittau, 1901).
ZITTEL, KARL ALFRED VON (1839–1904), German palaeontologist, was born at Bahlingen in Baden on the 25th of September 1839. He was educated at Heidelberg, Paris and Vienna. For a short period he served on the Geological Survey of Austria, and as assistant in the mineralogical museum at Vienna. In 1863 he became teacher of geology and mineralogy in the polytechnic at Carlsruhe, and three years later he succeeded Oppel as professor of palaeontology in the university of Munich, with the charge of the state collection of fossils. In 1880 he was appointed to the geological professorship, and eventually to the directorship of the natural history museum of Munich. His earlier work comprised a monograph on the Cretaceous bivalve mollusca of Gosau (1863–66); and an essay on the Tithonian stage (1870), regarded as equivalent to the Purbeck and Wealden formations. In 1873–74 he accompanied the Rohlfs expedition to the Libyan desert, the primary results of which were published in Über den geologischen Bau der libyschen Wüste (1880), and further details in the Palaeontographica (1883). Dr Zittel was distinguished for his palaeontological researches. From 1869 until the close of his life he was chief editor of the Palaeontographica (founded in 1846 by W. Dunker and H. von Meyer). In 1876 he commenced the publication of his great work, Handbuch der Palaeontologie, which was completed in 1893 in five volumes, the fifth volume on palaeobotany being prepared by W. P. Schimper and A. Schenk. To make his work as trustworthy as possible Dr Zittel made special studies of each great group, commencing with the fossil sponges, on which he published a monograph (1877–79). In 1895 he issued a summary of his larger work entitled Grundzüge der Palaeontologie (ed. 2, part 1, Invertebrata, revised by Dr Zittel in 1903; the American edition of 1900 by C. R. Eastman is so revised, sometimes in opposition to Zittel’s views, as to be practically an independent work). He was author of Aus der Urzeit (1873, ed. 2, 1875); and Die Sahara (1883). In 1899 he published Geschichte der Geologie und Palaeontologie bis Ende des 19 Jahrhunderts, a monumental history of the progress of geological science (Eng. trans., Mrs Maria M. Ogilvie-Gordon, 1901). Dr Zittel was from 1899 president of the Royal Bavarian Academy of Sciences, and in 1894 he was awarded the Wollaston medal by the Geological Society of London. He died on the 5th of January 1904.
Obituary with portrait and bibliography, by Dr F. L. Kitchin, Geol. Mag. (February 1904).
