Six Companies
an orga rters in San Fran- Chinamen with headquarters in cisco, Cal., partly benevolent and partly commercial, their functions being to loan money, give advice, act as bankers, care for the sick, and protect their countrymen in all ways. Originally, they guaranteed to send back, dead or alive, the body of every Chinaman who sailed from home to this country, but they now ship back to China the bones only of those whose families desire those relics buried in the sacred earth of the Flowery Kingdom. They began in 1850 and 1851 hiring men in China to meet the demand for labor in California. The business grew and other Chinese firms went into it. Then the agents of all these firms found it necessary to unite for self-protection. There were six of these agencies, and they called themselves the Six Companies. A contractor in need of newly imported labor goes to one of these companies and gives his order for so many men. He pays the fees for that number to the company he deals with. If he hires laborers already here they will be members of the company, and the charge will be only the rate exacted for the service. The names of the Six Companies are: the Ning Yeung, the Hop Wo, the Kong Chow, the Yung Yo, the Sam Yup, the Yang Wo. The Six Companies have added arbitration bureaus and banking operations to their original scheme.
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Six Nations
. See Iroquois
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Sixth Sense
A term used to denote the faculty of spiritual perception, which is distinct from, and higher than, the five physical senses. It is the possession of the medium, the psychic or sensitive, and in some measure of all hypnotic subjects. It is not properly a separate sense at all, but is compounded from the spiritual correlates of the physical senses.
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Sizes and Weights of Balances
The size and weight of the balance are two very important elements in the timing of a watch and especially in adjusting to positions. The rules governing the sizes and weights of balances, says Mr.
Only in American Watchmaker and Jeweler
Sizes of Watch Movements
Swiss and French watches are measured by the French ligne (line) which is one-twelfth of an inch of a Paris foot. One line equals .088814 of an English inch, or 2.25583 mm. The movements are spoken of as 14-line, 18-line, 19-line, etc. Mr. Aaron L. Dennison is said to be the inventor of the system employed for the sizing of American watches and he first applied it to the watches made by the American Horologe Company, about 1851. One inch was taken as a basing figure and to this 5/30 of an inch was added for a "fall" or drop, this being allowed so that the movement could be tipped into its place of seating in a ring or case; then every 1/30 of an inch formed a size. A 16-size would then be 1 inch + 5/30 + 16/30 = 1 21/30.
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Skagen
CAPE, or THE SKAW, the extreme N. point of the province of Jutland, Denmark. A lighthouse, 67 feet high, built by Frederick II. in 1564, is II. situated on the cape. The village of Skagen, close by, has 2,000 inhabitants.
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Skager Rack
a broad arm of the German Ocean, which washes Norway on the N., Jutland on the S., and Sweden on the E., where it communicates with the Cattegat; length, W. S. W. to E. N. E., about 150 miles; breadth, 80 miles. Its depth varies from 30 to upward of 400 fathoms. There are several good harbors on the Norwegian and Swedish coasts.
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Skagway
a town on Chilkat Inlet, Alaska; at the head of Lynn canal, and at the entrance to the White Pass. It is a result of expeditions to the Yukon gold fields in 1897, when the White Pass began to be used as a means of reaching the Klondike and its vicinity. Skagway is a landing-place for steamers and a distributing point for supplies to and from the Canadian Klondike. Its name is derived from the Indian name of a river which flows into the sea near the town. Pop. (1920) 494.
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Skald
or Scald, an ancient Scandinavian poet. The skald composed songs and poems, and on public occasions sang and recited them. While the skald corresponded in some measure to the bard of the Britons, the word designates specifically those poets whose art required a learned education; that is, a thorough knowledge of the construction of verse. The chief aim of the skald was to celebrate the deeds of some living prince or warrior. A skillful skald was therefore in demand and was well rewarded for his labor. Few complete skaldic poems have been preserved. Many fragments, however, are extant. Some of them are to be found in the Younger Edda and others in the sagas. See Saga ; Edda
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Skate
in ichthyology, the popular name of any individual of a section of the genus Raia, differing from the rays proper in having a long pointed snout. R. batis, the true skate, is one of the commonest fishes in European waters, and attains a large size. The upper part of the body is dusky ky gray or mottled. The long-nosed skate (R. vomer), between four and five feet in length, has the snout excessively prolonged. The Burton skate (R. marginata) is thicker and heavier than the true skate, and is frequently eight feet SKATE long; the shagreen skate, or Ray (R. fullonica), is rather less than three feet long.
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Skating
progression on ice accomplished by means of instruments composed of steel blades which are fastened to the soles of the boot, and which are called skates. In early times the shinbones of animals were bound to the feet, and skaters glided over the frozen surface on these by propelling themselves with the aid of a spiked stick. At a later period the iron or steel blades were introduced, the cutting edge of which enabled the wearer to dispense with the stick, and to push off with one foot and glide on the other with alternate strokes. Skates are now of two kinds-viz., those made for speed skating and those for figure skating. Both were formerly constructed by inserting the steel blade into a wooden bed, which was approximately shaped to the foot and bound to it by means of leather straps. Modern skates are made entirely of metal, and are fixed either by screws passing through plates (to which the blade is attached) into the sole of the boot, which form of skate is known as the Mount Charles; or they are fixed to the boot by various mechanical devices which enable the skate to be quickly and firmly attached to the boot, and as quickly removed. CC-Cyc Vol 8
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