S T I 
S T 0 
STO 
heir foreheads, till a fair impression was 
lade, and then pouring ink into their fur- 
ows, that the inscription might be the more 
Conspicuous. Stigmatizing, among some na- 
tions, was, however, looked upon as a distin- 
guishing mark of honour and nobility. 
STILAGO, a genus of plants belonging to 
the class of gynandria, and order of triandria. 
There is one female. The calyx is monophyl- 
Jous, and almost three-lobed. There is ho 
corolla, and the berry is globular. 'There 
are two species, the bunius and diandria, trees 
of the East Indies. 
STILBE, in botany, a genus of plants be- 
longing to the class of polygamia, and order 
of dicecia. The exterior calyx of the her- 
maphrodite flower is tripliy llous ; the interior 
is quinquedentate and cartilaginous. The 
corolla is funnel-shaped and quinquetid. 
There are four stamina ; and there is one 
seed in the interior calyx calyptrate. The 
female flower is similar, has no interior calyx 
nor fruit. There are three species, the pi- 
nastra, ericoides, and cernua, ail foreign 
plants. 
STILBITE. This stone was first formed 
into a distinct species by Mr. TIauy. For- 
merly it was considered as a variety of zeo- 
lite. 
The primitive form of its crystals is a rec- 
tangular prism, whose bases are rectangles. 
It crystallizes sometimes in dodecahedrons, 
consisting of a four-sided prism with hexa- 
gonal faces, terminated by four-sided sum- 
mits, whose faces are oblique parallelograms ; 
sometimes in six-sided prisms, two of whose 
solid angles are wanting, and a small trian- 
gular face in their place. 
Its texture is foliated. The laminae are 
easily' separated from each other, and are 
somewhat flexible. Lustre pearly. Hard- 
ness inferior to that of zeolite, which scratches 
stilbite. Brittle. Specific gravity 2.500. Co- 
lour pearl white, or greasy. Powder bright 
white, sometimes with a shade of red. This 
powder, when exposed to the air, cakes and 
adheres as if it had absorbed water. It 
causes syrup of violets to assume a green 
, colour. When stilbite is heated in a porce- 
lain crucible, it swells up and assumes the 
colour and semitransparency of baked porce- 
lain. By this process it loses 0.185 of its 
weight. Before the blowpipe it froths like 
borax, and then melts into an opaque white 
coloured enamel. Does not gelatine in acids. 
Not electric, by heat. 
According to the analysis of Vauquelin, it 
is composed of 
52.0 silica 
17.5 alumina 
9 0 lime,, 
18.5 water 
97.0. 
It occurs most commonly in lava, but is 
found also, in primitive rocks. 
STILL. See Distillation. 
STILLING! A, a genus of plants belong- 
ing to the class of moncecia, and to the order 
of monadelphia. The male calyx is hemi 
spherical and multiflorous. The corolla is 
tubulous, and erose or gnawed. The female 
calyx is uniflorous and inferior. The corolla 
is superior. The style is trifid, and the cap 
; sule three-grained. There is only one species, 
the svlvatica. 
STING, an apparatus in the body of cer- 
tain insects, in form of a little spear, serving 
them as a weapon of ofience. The sting of a 
bee or wasp is a curious piece of mechanism : 
it consists of a hollow tube, at the root where- 
of there is a bag full of sharp penetrating 
juice, which in stinging is injected into the 
flesh, through the tube; within the tube, Mr. 
Durham has observed, there lie two sharp 
small bearded spears. In the sting of a wasp 
he told eight beards on the side of each spear, 
somewhat like the beards of fish-hooks. One 
of these spears in the sting, or sheath, lies 
with its point a little before the other, to be 
ready, as should seem, to be first darted into 
the flesh, which once fixed by means of its 
foremost beard, the other then strikes too, 
and so they alternately pierce deeper and 
deeper, their beards taking more anti more 
hold in the flesh ; after which the sheath or 
sting follows to convey the poison into the 
wound, which, vhat it may pierce the better, 
is drawn into a point with a small slit below 
that point for the two spears to come out 
at. By means of these beards it is, that the 
animal is forced to leave its sting behind it, 
when disturbed, because it can have no time 
to withdraw the spears into the scabbard. 
ST 1 PA, feather-grass, a genus of plants 
belonging to the class of triandria, and order 
of digynia, and in the natural system ranging 
under the 4th order, gramma. The calyx 
is bivalved. The exterior valve of the co- 
rolla is terminated by an awn ; the base is 
jointed. There are 14 species. Of these 
one only is British ; the pennata, or common 
feather-grass. The beards are feathered. 
The plant rises to the height of ten inches, 
grows on mountains, and flowers in July or 
August. 
STIPULA. See Botany. 
STIRRUP of a ship, a piece of timber put 
upon a ship’s keel, when some of her keel 
happens to be beaten off, and they cannot 
come conveniently to put or fit in a new 
piece ; then they patch in a piece of timber, 
and bind it on with an iron, which goes under 
the ship’s keel, and comes up on each side of 
the ship, where it is nailed strongly with 
spikes, and this they call a stirrup. 
STOCKING, the clothing of the leg and 
foot. Antiently the only stockings in use 
were made of cloth, or of milled stuffs, sewed 
together; but since the invention of knitting 
and weaving stockings of silk, wool, cotton, 
thread, See. the use of cloth - stockings is obso- 
lete. The modern stockings, whether woven 
or knit, are a kind of plexuses, formed of an 
infinite number of, little knots, called stitches, 
loops or mashes, intermingled with one an- 
other. Knit stockings are wrought with 
needles made of polished iron or brass wire, 
which interweave the threads, and form the 
meshes the stockings consist of. This opera- 
tion is called knitting, the invention whereof 
is commonly attributed to the Scots, on this 
ground, that the first works of this kind came 
from thence. It is added, that it was on this 
account that the company of stocking-knit- 
ters established at Paris, in 1527, took for 
their patron St. Fiacre, who is said to be the 
son of a king of Scotland. Woven stockings 
are ordinarily very fine ; they are manufac- 
715 
stocking frame, or engine, I. Are thy 
treadles, like those of other sorts of looms : 
2. is the bobbin of twisted silk, &c. fixed on 
the bobbin-wire, which it turns with ease to 
feed the engine : 3. is the wheel, by whose 
motion the jacks are drawn together upon 
the needles: 4. is the- silk, &c. which runs 
off the bobbin, and is in that posture directed 
up to the needle to be looped : 5 is the needle 
on which the stockings are made according 
to art. 
The loom has received many improve- 
ments, so that stockings of all sorts can be 
made Oil it with great expedition. By means 
of some' additional machinery to the common 
stocking-lrame, the turnedribbed stockings 
are made as well as those done with knitting- 
needles. Stocking-looms will cost from fifty 
to a hundred arid fifty guineas each. 
STOCK-JOBBING, a species of trade, 
or of commercial gambling, which has arisen 
in most states which are encumbered with 
national debts. It consists chiefly in making 
contracts for shares in, the public funds 
against any certain period of time, without 
an actual transfer of stock being made at 
the time the bargain is concluded, and gene- 
rally without any intention of making- a 
transfer at all, the object of the transaction 
being to pay or receive at the time agreed 
for the difference between the price the funds 
may then be at, and the price when the bar- 
gain was made. Agreements to deliver stock 
at a certain price at a future period, began in 
England about the year 1093, in East India 
stock, and the practice increased greatly 
during the high discount upon all government 
securities about the year 1696, in conse- 
quence of which an act was passed for re- 
straining the ill practices of brokers and 
stock-jobbers, by which the number of bro- 
kers was limitted to 100. The establishment 
of the new East India company, and the sub- 
sequent union of the two companies, had 
probably greater effect in lessening this spe- 
cies of gambling than the restrictions of the 
act; for while opportunities for speculation 
exist, some mode of carrying it on will ge- 
nerally be found. Thus* in the year 1720, 
the fallacious project of the South Sea com- 
pany - offering a strong temptation to specula- 
tors, stock-jobbing was carried to an enor- 
mous extent, which ended in therein of thou- 
sands. When the mischief was done, a bill 
was brought into parliament to prevent this 
c ‘ infamous practice,” though the experience 
of the past might have been considered as 
the best security that it would never again 
be carried to the same height. The act 
passed was soon found ineffectual, in conse- 
quence of which another bill was brought in 
by sir John Barnard in 1732, which being re- 
jected, it was brought forward again in 1734, 
and passed. It is stat. 7. and 8. Geo. 2. c. 8. 
and declares all contracts and agreements 
whatsoever, upon which any premium shall 
be given or paid for liberty to deliver, re- 
ceive, accept, or refuse any public or joint 
stock, or other public securities, or any part, 
share, or interest therein, and all wagers and 
contracts in the nature of puts and refusals 
to the then present or future price of such 
stock or securities, to be null and void, and 
tured in a frame, or machine of polished iron, the money paid thereon shall be restored, or 
the structure and apparatus whereof beim 
exceedingly ingenious, are represented in 
Plate Miscel. fig. 225. where E is the 
4X2 
it may be recovered by action commenced 
thereon within six months, with double costs. 
All contracts and agreements whatsoever, 
