720 



STEPNEY 



STEREOTYPING 



and Birmingham line, the execution of which 

 immense work was ultimately almost wholly en- 

 trusted to him. In 1829 he married Frances, 

 daughter of John Sanderson, merchant in London. 

 Slic died in 1842 without i-sue. The London and 

 Birmingham line was complete<l in such a manner 

 as to raise Stephenson to the very highest rank in 

 his profession. Amongst his great achievements 

 were the Britannia and Conway Tubular Bridges, 

 the Victoria Bridge across the St Lawrence at 

 Montreal, the two bridges across the Nile at 

 Damietta, the Royal Border Bridge. Berwick, and 

 the High Level Bridge, Newr.-i.-tli', several of 

 wliich are descriled at BRIDGE, Vol. II. pp. 440-1. 

 In 1847 he was returned to the House of Commons 

 as member for \Vhitby. He was the recipient of 

 many honours from abroad, and was much con- 

 sulted about foreign railways. He died on 12th 

 October 1859, and was buried in Westminster 

 Abbey. Robert Stephenson inherited the kindly 

 spirit and benevolent disposition of his father, 

 to whom he was ever ready to attribute the chief 

 merit of his own achievements. ' It was his 

 thorough training,' he once said, ' his example, and 

 his character which made me the man I am.' 



See Smilea'a Story of the Life of George StepJienton 

 (1857) and Line* of the Kngineen, vol. v., and J. C. 

 Jeaffreson's Lift of Hubert Stepheiuon (2 vuls. 1864). 



Stepney. See LONDON, Vol. VL p. 703. 



Ktepniak ('Son of the Steppe'), the nom de 

 guerre of an exiled leader of the Russian revolu- 

 tionary party, was hum in is.vj of an old Little 

 Russian family called Kravchinsky. Sergius Mik- 

 hailovitch studied at Kieff, held a commission in 

 the artillery, and in 1870-73 was a professor at 

 Kieff; but having liecome obnoxious to the govern- 

 ment, and believed to have been the assassin of 

 General Mesenteeff, head of the Russian police, 

 he left Russia and settled (1876) in Geneva, and 

 suliseqnently (1885) in London. He published in 

 KM hui many articles and works on the ethnog- 

 raphy, history, folk-lore, and literature of Little 

 Russia, and lectured ami wrote for the magazines 

 in England and America, but was best known 

 as author of La Rtism'a Botttranea (Milan, 1881; 

 Eng. trans. Underground Kussia, 1883), sketches 

 of the Nihilist movement and its leaders; of Russia 

 itiiflrr tin' 'J':nm ( Kng. trans. 188o), a terrible indict- 

 ment ; and of Tin i',ii;-i-rnfii .V //////.>/. a novel (1889); 

 Russian Wit mul II iniiniir ( 1894) ; Xiliilism us it is 

 (1894); King atitrk inn! King Log (189">). With 

 Kropotkine (q.v.) and LnvrofT, he was one of the 

 heads of the Nihilist party. See NIHILISM. He 

 was run over by a train near London, _'.'(<! I )ec. 1 s!t.~>. 



St'p|M's.iht- broad plains of southern Russia and 

 wc-tern Siberia. See DKSKHT. 



Stcrrnliaren*. with the closely allied Mal- 

 vaceie and Byltneriaeen- and the TiliacMB form the 

 natural onler of Columnifene. The family ('(insists 

 of 130 species of large trees and shrubs', natives 

 of warm climates. Many species, particularly of 

 the sub-order Bombaceae, are trees of gigantic size, 

 amongst wliich is the Baobab (q.v.) or Adansonia 

 digitata. The hark of some species is very fibrous, 

 -') that it is made into ropes and coarse cloth. The 

 light wood of Oehrmna Ingopns is used in the West 

 Indies in-te.id of cork.' fifm-nti,, f,,-tiiln, an 

 Indian tree, with excessively fetid flowers, has 

 pale wood, which is very durahle, and susceptible 

 of a high polish. Spars of this wood are called 

 I'IHIH .S'/wint. The seeds of some species, as of the 

 Silk cotton (q.v.) trees, are surrounded with silky 

 hairs. The seeds of all the specie* are oleaginous ; 

 those of some are eatable, as those of the Chicha 

 (Stereulia rhirhn and S. lasfantha) of Brazil, which 

 are about the size of a pigeon's egg, and have a 

 pleasant flavour. They are roasted before being 



eaten. The Kola Nut (q.v.) of Africa u the seed 

 of a Stereulia. The whole order agrees with Mal- 

 vacen 1 in IM> essing mucilaginous and demulcent 



]nii|..-i-tie-. Tin- Gum Tra^acan th i see Gr.M) of 

 ,-al and Siena Leone ut produced by S/'-renliii 

 ti-Hiiiiriiiithii. The Durian (q.v.) U the fruit of a 

 tret- of this order. 



Stere (Or. stereos, 'solid'), the name given to 

 the unit of cubic measure in the French metrical 

 system. It is a cubic Metre (q.v.), and equivalent 

 to 35-3156 English cubic feet. The derastere is 

 equal to 10 steres, and the decistere to the tenth 

 part of a stere. This measure is much used for 

 wood, especially firewood. 



Stereoscope (Gr. stereos, 'solid,' and skopein, 

 'to see"). Each eye of an observer forms its own 

 retinal image of visible objects. These two images, 

 being taken from slightly different points of view, 

 are slightly different from one another, as may be 

 seen by looking at near objects with each eye 

 alternately ; and thev are the more so the nearer 

 or the narrower the objects are. These two retinal 

 images are blended by a process of interpretation 

 of sensation, which interpretation is based on ex- 

 perience, into a mental image of the object seen 

 as a solid object po->e in<_r three dimension-. 

 Professor (afterwards Sir Charles) Wheatstone 

 first pointed this out in 1838, and set himself the 

 question, ' What would be the visual effect of 

 simultaneously presenting to each eye instead of 

 the object itself its projection on a plane surface 

 as it appears to that eye?' He tried the experi- 

 ment with drawings of cubes, &c., and found that 

 when one eye was made to look at each drawing 

 the two images blended into one which appeared 

 to stand out in relief. Photography supplies more 

 accurate representations of views from two points 

 of view than the artist's eye and hand can 

 supply ; and if a view be taken by two lenses 

 upon different parts of a single sensitive plate 

 the print from the negative must be divided 

 into two and the two pictures transposed and 

 mounted. If this transposition be neglected the 

 effect U pseudoscopic i.e. instead of objects 

 standing out in relief they stand back as if their 

 more prominent surfaces were the walls of cavities. 

 The stereoscope is essentially an instrument in 

 which each picture is examined by a separate 

 lens, and the two lenses are inclined so as to shift 

 the images towards one another and thus to ensure 

 or to facilitate the blending of the two images into 

 one, besides which the lenses act as magnifying 

 glasses. The two lenses must be eoual. This may 

 be ensured by using instead of whole len-es two 

 halves of a single lens, the straight edges of which 

 halves must be fixed parallel to one another. 



Stereotyping (Gr. stereos, 'solid') is the art 

 of fabricating solid easts in type-metal from page* 

 of movable types. Unless when the numlier re- 

 quired of any printed matter is very small, the 

 actual printing is very seldom executed directly 

 from the types (see PKIXTIN<;)- \Vbenthepages 

 are all corrected and ready for the press casts are 

 taken from them either in *ty]>e-nietal (tereot\ pc-j 

 or in copper (electrotypes ). The latter method, 

 lieing sharper and much more durable, is generally 

 used when large numbers are to lie printed, and 

 will l>e found described in the article ELECTRO- 

 METALLURGY. 



Stereotyping lieing much cheaper, and quite 

 suitable where moderately large numbers are re- 

 quired, has also, in the papier-mach process, the 

 advantage that it can be executed in a very short 

 time an important matter in connection with 

 newspapers. It was invented bv William Oed (q. v. ), 

 a goldsmith in Edinburgh, about the year l7'-'">. 

 His process is as follows: after slightly oiling the 



