901 



STILPNOMELANE. 



STOMACH. 



912 



autumn. It was met with in Chusan by the late expedition, and seeds 

 sent home by Dr. Cantor, which have been sown in the Horticultural 

 Society's Garden at Chiswick. The fruit of this tree furnishes the 

 Chinese with candles, and oil for their lamps. The seed-vessels and 

 seeds are bruised, and then boiled in water. The fatty particles rising 

 to the surface are skimmed off, and on cooling condense into tallow. 

 To give it greater consistence some wax is added, together with 

 linseed-oil, in the proportion of three parts to ten of the tallow. The 

 candles made with it are beautifully white. Sometimes they are 

 coloured red by the addition of vermilion. These candles are some- 

 times said to be coated with wax procured from another Chinese tree 

 (probably Liguttrum lucidum), which forms an external crust and 

 prevents them running. This tallow is also employed in medicine 

 instead of lard. 



STILPNOMELANE, a Mineral, occuring hi crystalline, lamellar, and 

 fibrous masses. Cleavage in one direction. Colour greenish or black. 

 Streak greenish to liver brown. Lustre vitreous. Hardness 3'0 to 

 4'0. Specific gravity 3'27 to 3-4. It is found at Obergrund and 

 Zinkmautel, in Silesia, Its analysis by Rammelsbcrg gives 



Silica . 



Protoxide of Iron 



Alumina 



Lime . . . 



Magnesia 



Water 



46-500 



33-892 



7-100 



0-197 



1-888 



7-000 



-96-577 



STILT-PLOVER. [CHARADRIAD.E.] 



STINGS, in Botany. [HAIRS.] 



STINT. [TWSOA.] 



STIPA, a genus of Grasses belonging to the tribe Stipacece. It has 

 stalked florets, the pales; coriaceous, the inner entire. & pennata, the 

 only British species, haa a very long twisted feathery awn, with a 

 glabrous base. It is a very beautiful plant, and is common in our 

 gardens. Found on rocks in Long Seadale near KendaL [GRAMIN 



ACES.] 



STIPES, in Botany, a term applied to almost all parts of a plant 

 performing the functions of a stalk, with the exception of the petiole 

 and flower-stalk. 



STIPULES, in Botany, are those organs which are found at the 

 bare on each side of the axils the of leaves of plants. They are not of 

 constant occurrence, not being found in all plants, but where they 

 occur they frequently characterise a whole family, as in Leguminosce, 

 Roiacecc, Mahaccte, &c. These organs are frequently very like leaves, 

 and present themselves in the various forms in which leaves are 

 found. But they are always to be distinguished from leaves by their 

 position at the base of the leaf-stalk. In many cases they are green, 

 like the leaf; they sometimes have petioles, and are sometimes sessile 

 and cut into teeth, lobes, Ac. In the Mimosas the stipules frequently 

 degenerate into hardened spines. In the family of Polyyonacea they 

 are membranous, and being united together they form a sheath around 

 the stem, which is called an ' oclirea.' The stipules in Cucurbitacece 

 assume the character of tendrils, and in Trapa natans they appear 

 under the form of elongated filamentous bodies. 



The stipules appear to be modifications of the leaves, but may 

 always be distinguished from these organs by their being placed ai 

 the base of the leaf-stalk. Another distinction would also be found 

 in their not possessing buds in their axils. 

 STITCHWORT. [STELLARIA.] 



STIZOLO'BIUM, a genus of Plants which was so named by Persoon, 

 from ffrifw, to prick, and \o06s, a lobe or pod, from the pods of the 

 several species being covered with hispid hairs. The species have now 

 been removed chiefly to Pachyrhizui [Doncnos] and to Mucuna ; o 

 the latter of these Stizolobium now forms a sub-genus. The principa 

 species are mentioned under COWITCH and MUCONA. Cowitch is no 

 doubt a corruption of the Hindustanee name Kiwach, which is the 

 Mucuna prurita of Hooker, indigenous in various parts of India, bu 

 usually confounded with M. prurient, a native of the West India 

 Islands. The Indian M. prurita is distinguished by its smaller leaves 

 its more obtuse leaflets, the middle one being more truly rbomboidal 

 its flowers more constantly in threes, and by its legumes being much 

 broader, compressed, and free from any raised line on the back of the 

 valve, whilst in the American M. prurient the pods are narrower 

 terete, and keeled on the valves. Another valuable but little knowi 

 species is M. niilit, the Pois Noire of the islands of Mauritius am 

 Bourbon, and thought to be a native of Arabia. It is universally em 

 ployed in the above islands for enriching the soil for the cultivation 

 of sugar. The thick covering of herbage with which the soil become 

 covered, must be useful in preventing the soil from becoming parchec 

 while the whole crop, being afterwards ploughed in, is found to b 

 emimently useful in enriching the soil. The seed has been introduce! 

 into India and is spreading over the country. 

 STOAT. [MOSTELID/K ] 



STOCK. [MATHIOLA.) 



STOCK-DOVE. [COLUMBIA.;] 



STOMACH. One of the most constant characters by which animal 

 are distinguished is the possession of an internal digestive cavity, i 

 which their food is received and subjected to a peculiar chemica 



lange before it is appropriated to the nutrition of the different parts 

 f the body. In some animals the chemical change is effected in 

 very part of the cavity ; in others it goes on in one portion of it 

 xclusively, and this portion is named the Stomach. 



The Human Stomach is a membranous sac of an irregularly conical 

 orm, which lies almost transversely across the upper and left portion 

 f the abdominal cavity. [ABDOMEN.] Its larger extremity is directed 

 o the left, its smaller to the right. To the left it is in contact with 

 be spleen ; to the right with the liver : above it is covered by the 

 iaphragm, and, at about one-third of the distance from its left to its 

 iht extremity, it communicates, by an orifice called the Cardia, with 

 be oesophagus : at its right end it opens by another orifice, named 

 ''ylorus, into the intestinal canal. Of these orifices the pyloric lies 

 rather lower than the cardiac : they are separated from each other by 

 he upper and shorter border, or small arch, of the stomach, the 

 ;reater part of the cavity being formed as if by the dilatation of the 

 eft side of the oesophagus into a great cul-de-sac and great arch, which 

 orm the left and inferior boundary of the stomach. 



The coats or walls of the stomach are composed of three distinct 

 membranes, connected by a firm but very extensible cellular tissue. 

 ?he external or peritoneal coat is a layer of fine compact cellular 

 ;issue, woven into a thin membrane, and covered by a fine cuticle or 

 epithelium, from which, like all the other organs within the abdomiual 

 cavity, it obtains a perfectly smooth and polished surface. The peri- 

 .oneum invests every part of the stomach except the upper and lower 

 >orders, where there are spaces in which the trunks of the blood- 

 essels run, and from each of which the peritoneum is continued in a 

 double layer to form the greater and less omenta. [OMENTUM.] Its 

 only purpose seems to be to permit the stomach to move easily upon 

 the adjacent organs. 



Between the peritoneal and the internal or mucous membrane, there 

 s a stratum of loose cellular tissue, in which are inlaid the fibres of 

 the middle or muscular coat. This is composed of three different sets 

 of fibres, resembling in their structure those of most involuntary 

 muscles. [MUSCLE.] The fibres in the first and most superficial layer 

 run longitudinally : they are continued from those of the outer coat 

 of the oesophagus, which, at the cardia, expand or radiate, and pass in 

 'asciculi at some distance apart, from left to right, along both the 

 anterior and posterior surfaces of the stomach. The second layer ia 

 composed of circular fibres which form numerous fasciculi, each of 

 which encompasses a considerable portion of the circumference of the 

 stomach. The third and internal layer consists of two principal 

 "ascieuli of muscular fibres, which proceed from the cardia and expand 

 over the great cul-de-sac and middle portion of the organ. 



The interior or mucous coat of the stomach is that in which the 

 essential apparatus for the production of the digestive material is 

 placed. To the naked eye it appears a soft spongy membrane, about 

 one-tenth of an inch thick, with a polished slippery surface. After 

 death it varies considerably in its colour, but during life has a light 

 pinkish tinge, and, accordingly as the stomach ia distended or con- 

 tracted, is either perfectly smooth or is thrown into various deep and 

 irregular but chiefly longitudinal wrinkles. At the pylorus it forir.j a 

 deep fold, between the two layers of which are strong fasciculi of 

 circular muscular fibres : these constitute the Pyloric Valve, by which 

 the aperture between the stomach and the intestines ia guarded. At 

 the cardiac orifice the boundary between the mucous membrane of the 

 stomach and that of the oesophagus is marked by a jagged line, at 

 which the thick and opaque epithelium of the latter terminates, and 

 the much finer epithelium lining the stomach commences. 



The more intimate structure of the mucous membrane can be seen 

 only with the aid of the microscope. If its surface be examined with 

 a lens whose magnifying power multiplies about forty diameters, it 

 appears to be covered by minute polygonal fossae, from l-100th to 

 l-350th of an inch in width, surrounded by narrow sharp-edged 

 borders, to which little leaf-like processes are sometimes attached. 

 At the bases of each of these fossae there are, at least during digestion, 

 from six to ten minute apertures leading into tubes which pass ver- 

 tically into the substance of the mucous membrane. A thin section 

 of the membrane, made perpendicularly to its surface, shows that 

 nearly its whole substance is composed of these tubes, which are 

 minute cylindrical glands, opening on the surface in the fosssc just 

 described, but closed below, and set compactly side by side in groups. 

 They vary in length from one-fourth of a line to nearly a line, the 

 longest being situated near the pylorus. Near their bases they 

 measure about l-300th of an inch in diameter, and near their orifices 

 about l-500th of an inch. Their lower closed extremities sometimes 

 seem (but only seem) a little convoluted or baccated. They lie in every 

 part of the mucous membrane, but are largest and most densely set, 

 so that they are actually in contact, near the pylorus ; a few of them 

 are branched, two or more tubules opening by a single orifice. The 

 small blood-vessels pass vertically in the cellular tissue between the 

 groups of tubules from the submucous tissue to the surface of the 

 stomach, on which they form an angular network, marking out the 

 borders of the shallow fosf so. 



The walls of these little tubular glands are composed, near the 

 surface of the stomach, of a fine structureless membrane, and at the 

 deeper part of minute nucleated cells adhering by their edges. Their 

 office seems to be the production of cells containing the fluid for 



