STERILITY 



STERLING 



721 



surface of the types with a soft brush, stucco mixed 

 to the consistency of thick cream is poured over 

 them and allowed to ' set ; ' the stucco, when taken 

 off and baked in an oven till quite hard, forms a 

 perfect matrix from which a cast in type-metal 

 (see TYPE) is taken by means of a hollow casting- 

 box which dips the mould into the molten metal. 

 The cast, which should be a perfect fac-simile of 

 the types, is finally trimmed, planed on the back 

 down to the required thickness (about J inch), and 

 carefully sized to fit the blocks on which it is to be 

 printed. This process was universally employed 

 tor all purposes till it began to be superseded t>y the 

 papier-mac^ process, invented by Genoux (1829), 

 and introduced into England from theContinent. Its 

 advantages, in cheapness and rapidity, were at once 

 apparent, and now Ued's process is nearly if not 

 quite extinct. The process is as follows : several 

 plies of soft thin paper, very carefully pasted 

 together, are placed in a wet state on the face 

 of the types, beaten in with a hard brush, and 

 impressed as deeply as possible into all the in- 

 terstices. The hollows on the outside of the paper 



are filled up with pipeclay or similar material to 

 give solidity to the mould, and a strong piece of 

 brown paper pasted over all. It is then dried on 



a hot plate till hard enough to be lifted off the 

 types. It is next put into a flat casting-box, the 

 sides of which are, when closed, just far enough 

 apart to allow the cast to be of the required thick- 

 ness. The metal must be poured in hot enough to 

 run properly, but not hot enough to burn the paper. 

 The cast is then trimmed and made ready for the 



Srinting-machine as in Ged's process. Any acci- 

 entally bad letters can be replaced by cutting a 

 hole in the plate, and inserting and soldering in a 

 type. Whole lines or sentences can also be altered, 

 the required new pieces being cast separately and 

 soldered into the plate. The papier-mache mould 

 is not destroyed l>y the casting like the stucco 

 matrix, but can be kept, and, if carefully used, 

 almost any number of casts may be made from it. 



It is a modification of this process which has 

 made the printing of newspapers on the rotary 

 printing-machine successful (see PRINTING). In 

 this process, where the stereotype plates are re- 

 quired to be fitted round a cylinder, and great 

 rapidity is necessary, the following changes are 

 made on the method already described. The paper, 

 instead of being beat into the type with a brush, is 

 pressed in with a soft roller, and is then rapidly 

 dried by means of hot blankets in a hot press. 

 When ready the mould is bent inside a cylindrical 

 casting-box, the core of which is exactly of the 

 same diameter as the printing cylinder. The cast 

 when taken out consequently fits the machine 

 exactly. So complete are the stereotyping arrange- 

 ments in the larger newspaper offices that duplicate 

 casts of a page of the paper can be prepared in ten 

 or twelve minutes. See F. J. F. Wilson, Stereo- 

 typing and Electrotyping (3d ed. 1887 ). 



Sterility, barrenness in regard to reproduction 

 of the species, is a term applied lioth to plants and 

 animals, and may be due to external conditions, 

 functional disorder, organic defects, or, in human 

 lieings, the results of surgical treatment. See 

 FLOWERS (FERTILISATION OF), REPRODUCTION, 

 EMBRYOLOGY, SEX, HYBRID, PUBERTY, &c._ Im- 

 potency renders a marriage void ; sterility in no 

 way invalidates the marriage tie. As is well 

 known, it frequently happens that children are 

 born to parents who have neen childless for many 

 years. See works cited at OBSTETRICS and MEDI- 

 CAL JURISPRUDENCE; Dr S. W. Gross, On Impo- 

 tence and Sterility of Males ( 1881 ) ; Dr Matthews 

 Duncan, On Sterility in Women (1884). 



Sterlet. See STURGEON. 



Sterling* originally a substantive, 'a coin ci 

 true weight," as applied at first to the English 

 penny, then to all current coin. Skeat accepts the 

 old and often doubted etymology that the name is 

 derived from the Hanse merchants or Fosterlings 

 (i.e. 'men from the east'), who had many privi- 

 leges in England in the 13th century, including 

 probably that of coining money (see Vol. V. p. 

 541 ). The adjective is now used of all the money 

 of the United Kingdom, and has long been a 

 synonym for pure and genuine. 



Sterling, a city of Illinois, on Rock River (here 

 crossed by two bridges, one of iron, 1100 feet long), 

 109 miles W. of Chicago by rail. A large dam 

 supplies water-power to most of the fifty factories, 

 which produce farming implements, barbed wire, 

 pumps, windmills, wagons, paper, flour, &c. ; and 

 there are five foundries. Pop. ( 1890 ) 5824 



Sterling, JOHN, was born at Kames Castle in 

 Bute, 20th July 1806, where his father, Captain 

 Edward Sterling (1773-1847), was then making 

 trial of farming. Ill-success drove him to Llan- 

 bethian, near Cowbridge, Glamorganshire, in 1809, 

 thence to Paris, and finally to London, where he 

 became one of the chief oracles of the Times. Of 

 his seven children, John and an elder brother alone 

 lived to grow up. John was educated at private 

 schools, at sixteen went to Glasgow University, and 

 at nineteen entered Trinity College, Cambridge, 

 where he had Julius Hare as his tutor. Impulsive, 

 quick-witted, ' able to argue with four or five at 

 once,' he was recognised as the most brilliant 

 member of the famous debating society the Union 

 members of which were Maurice, John Kemble, 

 Spedding, Venables, Charles Buller, and Richard 

 M. Milnes. After a year Sterling followed Maurice 

 to Trinity Hall, but left Cambridge without a 

 degree in 1827. He first thought of law, but soon 

 became busy on the Athenaeum, which had not 

 yet begun to flourish. A Liberal in thought and 

 in politics, he came under the influence of Cole- 

 ridge, and formed a fast friendship with General 

 Torrijos, chief of a group of Spanish exiles. In- 

 deed his own uncertain health and his becoming 

 at the hour of parting engaged to Miss Barton 

 alone prevented his sailing on that crazy expedi- 

 tion which came to its inevitable close in the 

 execution of Torrijos and Sterling's cousin Boyd 

 at Malaga a tragedy which haunted Sterling 

 with a lasting horror. He married in November 

 1830, but soon after fell dangerously ill, and spent 

 fifteen months in the island of St Vincent, return- 

 ing in August 1832. In June of next year he met 

 Hare at Bonn, and partly through his influence 

 took orders, and served with characteristic zeal as 

 Hare's curate at Hurstmonceaux for eight months. 

 His health again giving way, he resigned, and 

 though he sometimes for some time after, as 

 Carlyle tells us, took duty for a friend in London, 

 he never advanced to priest's orders ; indeed, the 

 divergence between his opinions and the church's 

 soon widened beyond even the Coleridgean capa- 

 bility of accommodation. Carlyle first met him 

 in February 1835, and his friendship with Maurice 

 was knit still faster by the latter's marriage to 

 Sterling's sister-in-law. He wrote for Black- 

 wood and Mill's review the Westminster, busied 

 himself with projects for tragedies, one of which, 

 Strafford, saw the light for a little in 1843, and 

 wrote poems, one of which, The Election, was 

 published in 1841. In August 1838 he formed 

 the club first called the Anonymous, then the 

 Sterling Club, among whose members were Carlyle, 

 Allan Cunningham, G. C. Lewis, Maiden, Mill, 

 Milnes, Spedding, Tennyson, Thirlwall, W. H. 

 Thompson, and Venables. His winters were spent 

 abroad at Bordeaux, Madeira, or in Italy, in the 



