STEELE 



5543 



STEEN 



hearth furnace has been very marked. An idea 

 of the rapid growth of the steel industry in the 

 United States is conveyed by the fact that in 

 the five years prior to 1909 the value of the 

 output increased 46.3 per cent. The production 

 in 1915 amounted to 32,151,036 tons. The an- 

 nual production of Canada is over 1,000,000 

 tons. The two leading European steel coun- 

 tries are Germany and Britain. C.H.H. 



Consult Campbell's Manufacture and Proper- 

 ties of Iron and Steel; Stough ton's Metallurgy of 

 Iron and Steel. 



Related Subjects. In connection with this 

 article on steel, the reader may consult the fol- 

 lowing topics in these volumes : 

 Annealing Damascus, subhead 



Bessemer, Sir Henry Damascus Steel 



Iron Tempering 



STEELE, steel, SIR RICHARD (1672-1729), a 

 British writer, famous chiefly for his influence 

 upon the early development of the magazine. 

 He was born in Dublin, and educated at the 

 Charterhouse School and at Oxford. After en- 

 tering the Life Guards in 1694, he wrote a 

 poem in honor of Queen Mary's funeral, and in 

 consequence was given the rank of captain. He 

 had been serving in the army for seven years 

 when he produced The Christian Hero, a work 

 intended for his own moral instruction. Soon 

 afterward appeared his comedy, The Funeral, 

 succeeded by two others, The Lying Lover and 

 The Tender Husband. 



In 1705 he married a widow, Mrs. Margaret 

 Stretch, who lived for only a year afterward. 

 Following her death Steele was made gazetteer 

 by the government, and shortly afterward mar- 

 ried a rich Welsh lady. Later he became com- 

 missioner of stamps, justice of the peace in 

 Middlesex, and in 1713 a member of Parlia- 

 ment. Within a year he was expelled from 

 that body because of ideas expressed in an 

 essay on politics, but in 1715 he was again re- 

 turned. His later life was devoted largely to 

 work on his periodicals. In 1722 he produced a 

 comedy, The Conscious Lovers, which was well 

 received and was recognized by the king with 

 a generous gift of money. 



Steele stands out in the history of English 

 literature as the originator of the periodicals in 

 which appeared essays on manners and cus- 

 toms, morals, politics and other subjects of 

 public interest. The Taller (1709-1711), issued 

 three times a week, was the first of these publi- 

 cations. Addison, a university friend of 

 Steele's, became a contributor to it as well as 

 to its successor, the famous Spectator, for which 

 he wrote 274 essays and Steele 236. The 



Guardian, a third undertaking not long con- 

 tinued, was followed by a series of much less 

 successful periodicals of the same type. The 

 influence for good which the Spectator had on 

 the morals and manners of the age was due 

 in large part to Steele. 



STEEL 'TON, PA., an industrial borough in 

 Dauphin County, three miles southeast of Har- 

 risburg, on the Susquehanna River and on the 

 Pennsylvania and the Philadelphia & Reading 

 railroads. It is the center of extensive steel 

 enterprises, including bridge and construction 

 works, blast furnaces and rail mills, and has 

 manufactories of cigars and hosiery. It con- 

 tains a Federal building, churches and schools. 

 In 1910 the population was 14,246; it was 15,548 

 (Federal estimate) in 1916. The area of the 

 borough is about two square miles. 



STEEL 'YARD, in mechanics, a device in 

 common use for weighing groceries and other 

 commodities. It consists of an iron bar having 

 one long arm and one short one, and is a lever 

 of the first class (see LEVER) . The article to be 



THE COMMON STEELYARD 



weighed is usually hung by a hook, or scale 

 pan, from the end of the short arm; the coun- 

 terpoise, whose weight is known, is hung on 

 the long arm, which is marked off into notches 

 (see illustration). To obtain the weight of an 

 article the movable weight 'is shifted on the 

 long arm until there is a balance, and the 

 number at which the weight rests indicates the 

 number of pounds or other unit. The device is 

 usually hung from a fixed support by a ring 

 or hook. 



STEEN, stayn, JAN (1626-1679), a foremost 

 painter of Holland, ranking next to Rembrandt, 

 among painters of the Dutch school, in range 

 of subjects and ability to portray scenes of 

 everyday life with dramatic effect. Like the 

 English painter Hogarth, he could put a touch 

 of satire into his work, but usually he painted 

 with genial good humor. There was no phase 

 of Dutch life that Steen did not depict; he 

 represented with admirable insight the joys and 

 the sorrows of people in all classes of society. 

 His best canvases are distinguished for their 



