90 



ST KILDA 



ST LAWRENCE 



sent him to hU doom, quickly followed by the fall 

 of Dan ton and liU friends. Early in 1794 he laid 

 before the Convention a comprehensive report on 

 the police, and soon after proposed Robespierre's 

 famous civil institutions a ludicrous scheme for 

 a new organisation of society. Boys were to be 

 taken from their parents at seven and brought 

 up for the state, not the family; marriages were 

 not to be proclaimed till after the birth of the first 

 child ; friendship was to be no longer a domestic 

 tii-. lnit a public obligation, every citizen being 

 required on reaching twenty-one to declare in the 

 temple who were his friends, he that had none to 

 be banished. Until the citizens were sufficiently 

 educated for this splendid programme a strong dic- 

 tatorship was necessary, and the faithful follower 

 and his chief alike saw the one man in Robespierre. 

 Saint-Just fell with Robespierre, but unlike him 

 carried his head high on the tumbril, and died 

 without a word, 28th July 1794. 



See 8. Fleury, Saint-Jiitt et la Terreur ( 1851 ), and the 

 Life by Ernest Haniel ( 1859 ), the latter as eulogistic as 

 the former is the opposite ; also vol. ii. of Aulard's work, 

 Let Orattvn de la Legislative tide la Convention, 



SI Hilda, a lonely island in the Atlantic, be- 

 longing to Harris in Inverness-shire, and 40 miles 

 W. of North Uist. With an extreme length and 

 breadth of 3| and 1| miles, it is only ID sq. m. 

 in area ; has lofty precipitous cliffs almost every- 

 where, except at the south-eastern landing-place ; 



Tli,- Town and Bay, St Kilda. 



and attains a maximum altitude of 1220 feet. The 

 rocks are igneous, incuml>ent on sandstone ; the 

 climate is mild ; and the soil is black loam, with 

 very fine pasture, but only some 40 arable acres. 

 The live-stock includes nearly a thousand sheep 

 (which graze also on four neighbouring islete), 

 ulxmt forty West Highland cattle, and as many 

 mongrel collies ; but a principal source of \vi-.-iliii 

 i- t lie sea-birds fulmar petrels, solan geese, purlins, 

 &c. which supply feathers, oil, and meat. The 

 fisheries, though productive, are neglected ; coarse 

 tweed and blanketing are the only manufacture*. 

 The crofter inhabitants, all Gaelic-speaking, and 

 all Free Churchmim since 1844, enjoy Home Rule 

 and are practical Communists ; but these advan- 

 tages are well-nigh counterbalanced by the de- 

 structive tempest* and consequent famines, by 

 poverty, and by an absolute lack of amusement* 

 i-iglit hour*' worship on Sunday the only break 

 in the week. Crime is unknown; but the per 

 centage of illegitimate, birth-* during 1851-86 was 

 6"25. The 'boat-cold' is still communicated by 



strange boats that touch at the island ; but the 

 ' i-ight days' sickness ' seems dying out that 

 terrible infantile lockjaw which carried off fifty- 

 two children during lS.>6-86. The island was 

 the property of the MacLeods from time imme- 

 morial, was sold in 1779 by General Normand 

 MacLeod XX., chief of MacLeod, and was re- 

 purchased in 1871 for 3000 by his grandson, 

 Normand XXII., chief of MacLeod of MacLeod. 

 Its native name is Hirta (Carl. h-Iar-tir, 'the 

 western land ') ; and the name St Nil. la is probably 

 of Columban origin. Events in it.- ' history ' have 

 been the reduction of the population by smallpox 

 to four adulte and twenty -six clrildren ( 1724) : t In- 

 imprisonment of Lady (irunp- here by her Imsliand 

 ( 1734-42) ; the emigration of thirty six islanders 

 to Australia (1856); the drowning of six (1864); 

 and the establishment of a regular school (1884). 

 Pop. (1851, the maximum) 110; (1891) 71. 



See works by Dean Munro of the Isles (1585), Martin 

 (1098-1703), Kenneth Macaulay (1764), L. MacLean 

 <1838), J. Sands (1877), O. Seton (1878), and R. 

 Connell (1887). 



SI Kilda, a coast suburb of Melbourne (q.v.), 

 on i In- east side of Hobson's Bay. 



Si kilts. See ST CHRISTOPHER. 



St Lawrence, a great river of North America, 

 which, issuing from Lake Ontario, Hows north-east 

 for some 750 miles part of the way forming the 

 boundary lietween Canada ami t In- 

 United States and falls into the 

 Gulf of St Lawrence by a broad 

 estuary. But in its widest accep- 

 tation the name includes the whole 

 system of the Great Lakes and 

 tlieir connecting streams, with a 

 total length from source to mouth 

 of 2200 miles, and a drainage 

 basin of 297,600 q. m. (These 

 lakes, which are of comparatively 

 modern date, are nothing more 

 than a great system of river- 

 valleys, whose old outlets have 

 been blocked, but many of whose 

 former channels have been traced 

 within late years : see Wright, 

 The Ice Age in North America.) 

 The area of water-surface in the 

 five lakes alone is 94,650 sq. m., 

 and their aggregate basin 259,950 

 sq. in. The St Lawrence system, 

 or that of which the great river 

 is the outlet, thus constitutes by- 

 far the largest body of fresh water 

 in the world. This mighty artery 

 of North-east America rises, under the name of 

 the St Louis, on the spacious plateau which sends 

 forth also the Mississippi towards the Gulf of 

 Mexico, and the Red River of the North towards 

 Hudson Bay- Lake Superior (602 feet above 

 sea-level), the next link in the chain, finds ite 

 way to Lake Huron through St Mary's River, 

 whose rapids have a fall of 204 feet. Mow 

 Lake Huron, which receives Lake Michigan 

 from the south, St Clair River, Lake St Clair, 

 Detroit River, and Lake Erie maintain pretty 

 nearly the same level (there is a fall of some 8 

 feet, however, in Detroit River) till the river 

 Niagara descends 326 feet to Lake Ontario, which 

 is iteelf still 247 feet alxive the sea-level. The St 

 Lawrence proper, with a number of lake-like ex- 

 pansions (such as the Lake of the Thousand Isles, 

 of St Francis, St Peter, &c.), present* the character 

 first of a river, and then of an estuary, down to the 

 gulf. Prior to 1858 only vessels drawing not more 

 than 1 1 feet of water could pass up the river aliove 

 Quebec ; but since then a channel has been made 



