(exclusive of the site of buildings), of which about eighty were then arable, about fifty occupied by market gardeners, and the remainder meadow, pasture, and marshy land.' But, since that year, the increase of buildings has produced a considerable diminution in the ground appropriated to agricultural and horticultural purposes. In 1299 Edward I. held a parliament here, in the house of Henry Walleis, lord mayor of London, and gave his confirmation to the great charter. The manor of this place was formerly possessed by the bishops of London; and Roger Niger is thought to have died at the manorial residence in 1241. It passed, however, from that see to king Edward VI., by gift from the ill-fated Ridley; and, after having been granted to lord Wentworth, descended through him to Thomas, earl of Cleveland; by whose influence with the king it was endowed with a court of record, a weekly market at Ratcliffe cross, and an annual fair on Michaelmas day. Stepney manor is now vested in the family of Colebrook. Exclusive of this, the principal manor, the Domesday Survey states that the parish of Stepney contained several smaller ones; all these were held, with the exception of two, of the bishop of London, and were entitled Stepney-Huskarls, Pomfret, lord Wake's, Helles, Poplar, Cobham, Mile-End, Ewell, and Rumbalds. In 1567 a water-course, which had formerly belonged to the convent of Friars-Minors, was granted to William, marquis of Winchester, with liberty to conduct its streams to his mansion-house in

London.

Opposite the present rectory house, Henry, first marquis of Worcester, possessed a large mansion in 1663, of which the gateway only remains. It afterwards devolved to the family of Mead; and in this dwelling Dr. Richard Mead was born, and commenced the practice of his profession. The church, dedicated to St. Dunstan and All Saints, is large, and consists of a chancel, nave, and two aisles, separated by columns and pointed arches. At the west end is a square tower. Tombs of several illustrious characters are to be found here, as of Sir Henry Colet, lord mayor in 1486 and 1495, the father of Dr. John Colet, who founded St. Paul's school; Sir John Berry, a distinguished officer in the reign of Charles II., by whom he was knighted; and Sir Thomas Spert, comptroller of the navy to Henry VIII., and founder of the Trinity House. The font stands on a circular pillar, surrounded by four others of a smaller size. The wall of a porch towards the northeast contains a stone, on which some verses, dated 1663, state it to have been brought from Carthage. The church-yard contains, with many other celebrated names, those of Dr. Mead and his father. A short distance to the west is an ancient wooden mansion, built, it is supposed, in 1524, by Sir Henry Colet, and leased to Thomas, earl of Essex. Another of these relics of antiquity stands on Mile-End Green, and is now let in separate apartments. This latter, with some other contiguous habitations, are held under Clare Hall, Cambridge. John Colet, before mentioned, who was vicar of Stepney, lived at the north end of White Horse Street,

Ratcliffe. Some time after his resignation, it was received by Dr. Pace, who died here in 1532, and was buried in Stepney church. This parish likewise contains several Dissenting and Methodist meeting-houses; Sion chapel; a chapel belonging to the Society of Friends in Brook Street, Ratcliffe; that formerly occupied by Mr. Brewer, and some others of recent erection.

STEPPING OFF TO MUSIC. In stepping off to music, or to the tap of the drum, it will be recollected that the word of command is the signal to lift up the left foot, and that it comes down, or is planted, the instant the tap is given, or the music completes its first note, so that the time must be invariably marked by the left foot, and not by the right, as has been practised by the guards and the artillery, until a recent regulation. STERCORARIANS,

STERCORANISTE,

or

STERCORISTS, from stercus, dung, a name which those of the Romish church anciently gave to such as held that the host was not only liable to digestion, but to all its consequences, as well as other food. See SCOTUS.

STERCORA'CEOUS, adj. Lat. stercoraceus Belonging to or partaking of the nature of dung.

quire a heat equal to that of a human body; then a Green juicy vegetables, in a heap together, acputrid stercoraceous taste and odour, in taste resembling putrid flesh, and in smell human fæces. Arbuthnot on Aliments.

STERCORATION, n. s. Lat. stercora. The act of dunging; the act of manuring with dung. The first help is stercoration: the sheep's dung is one of the best, and the next dung of kine and that of horses.

Bacon.

The exterior pulp of the fruit serves not only for the security of the seed, whilst it hangs upon the plant, but, after it is fallen upon the earth, for the stercoration of the soil, and promotion of the growth, though not the first germination of the seminal plant.

Stercoration is seasonable.

Ray on the Creation. Evelyn's Kalendar. STERCULIA, in botany, a genus of plants belonging to the class of monccia, and order of monodelphia; natural order thirty-eighth, tricocceæ: MALE CAL. quinquepartite: coR. none, but there are fifteen filaments: FEMALE CAL. quinquepartite; COR. none the germen is placed on a pillar, and the CAPS. quinquelocular, and many seeded. There are three species; viz. 1. S. balanghas; 2. S. fœtida; and 3. S. platanifolium; which are all foreign plants.

STERE, a denomination, or rather a radica! part of a denomination, in the new system of French measures, compounded like metre, litre, gramme, &c., with myria, kilo, &c., and producing the new terms, myriastere, kilostere, hectostere, decastere, decistere, centistere, and millistere. All these are new terms for measures of wood for fuel. See MEASURE.

STEREOGRAPHIC PROJECTION is the projection of the circles of the sphere on the plane of some one great circle, the eye being placed in the pole of that circle. See PROJECTION OF THE SPHERE.

STEREOMETER, an instrument invented in France for measuring the volume of a body however irregular, without plunging it in any

liquid. If the capacity of a vessel, or the volume of air contained in that vessel, be measured when the vessel contains air only, and also when the vessel contains a body whose volume is required to be known, the volume of air ascertained by the first measurement, deducting the volume ascertained by the second will be the volume of the body itself. Again, if it be admitted as a law that the volume of any mass of air be inversely as the pressure to which it is subjected, the temperature being supposed constant, it will be easy to deduce, from the mathematical relations of quantity, the whole bulk, provided the differences between the two bulks under two known pressures be obtained by experiment. Let it be supposed, for example, that the first pressure is double the second, or, which follows as a consequence, that the second volume of the air be double the first, and that the difference be fifty cubic inches; it is evident that the first volume of the air will likewise be fifty cubic inches. The stereometer is intended to ascertain this difference at two known pressures. The instrument is a kind of funnel A B fig. 6, plate STEEL-YARD, &c. composed of a capsule A, in which the body is placed, and a cube B, as uniform in the bore as can be procured. The upper edge of the capsule is ground with emery, that it may be hermetically closed with a glass cover M slightly greased. A double scale is pasted on the tube, having two sets of graduations; one to indicate the length, and the other the capacities, as determined by experiment. When this instrument is used it must be plunged in a vessel of mercury with the tube very upright, until the mercury rises within and without to a point C of the scale. See fig. 2. The capsule is then closed with the cover, which being greased will prevent all communication between the external air and that contained within the capsule and tube. In this situation of the instrument, in which the mercury stands at the same height within and without the tube, the internal air is compressed by the weight of the atmosphere, which is known and expressed by the length of the mercury in the tube of the common barometer. The instrument is then to be elevated, taking care to keep the tube constantly in the vertical position. It is represent ed in this position, fig. 7, second position. The mercury descends in the tube, but not to the level of the external surface, and a column D E of mercury remains suspended in the tube, the height of which is known by the scale. The interior air is therefore less compressed than before, the increase of its volume being equal to the whole capacity of the tube from C to D, which is indicated by the second scale. It is known therefore that the pressures are in proportion to the barometrical column, and to the same column diminished by the subtraction of D E. And the bulks of the air in these two states are inversely in the same proportion; and again the difference between these bulks is the absolute quantity left void in the tube by the fall of the mercury; from which data, by an easy analytical process, the following rule is deduced:Multiply the number which expresses the less pressure by that which denotes the augmentation

of capacity, and divide the product by the number which denotes the difference of the pressures. The quotient will be the bulk of the air when subject to the greater pressure. To render this more easy by an example, suppose the height of the mercury in the barometer to be seventy-eight centimetres, and the instrument being empty to be plunged in the mercury to the point C. It is then covered, and raised until the small column of mercury D E is suspended, for example, at the height of six centimetres. The internal air, which was at first compressed by a force represented by seventy-eight centimetres, is now compressed only by a force represented by 78—6, 01 72, centimetres. Suppose it to be observed, at the same time, by means of the gradations of the second scale, that the capacity of the part C D of the tube which the mercury has quitted is two cubic centimetres. Then by the rule × 2 give twenty four cubical centimetres, which is the volume of the air included in the instrument when the mercury rose as high as C in the tube. The body of which the volume is to be ascertained must then be placed in the capsule, and the operation repeated. Suppose, in this case, the column of mercury suspended to be eight centimetres, when the capacity of the part CD of the tube is equal to two centimetres tube. Then the greatest pressure being denoted by seventy-eight centimetres, as before, the least will be seventy centimetres, the difference of the pressures being eight, and the difference of the volumes two cubical centimetres. Hence x 2 gives the bulk of the included air under the greatest pressure 17.5 cubic centimetres. If therefore 17.5 centimetres be taken from twentyfour centimetres, or the capacity of the instrument when empty, the difference 6.5 cubic centimetres will express the volume of the body which was introduced. And if the absolute weight of the body be multiplied by its bulk in centimetres, and divided by the absolute weight of one cubic centimetre of distilled water, the quotient will express the specific gravity of the body in the common form of the tables where distilled water is taken as unity, or the term of comparison. After this description and explanation of the use of his instrument, the author proceeds with the candor and acuteness of a philosopher to ascertain the limits of error in the result; an object seldom sufficiently attended to in the investigation of natural phenomena. From his results it appears that with the dimensions he has assumed, and the method prescribed for operating, the errors may affect the second figure. He likewise gives the formulæ by means of which the instrument itself may be made to supply the want of a barometer in ascertaining the greatest pressure. He likewise adverts to the errors which may be produced by change d temperature. To prevent these, as much as possible, the actual form of the instrument and arrangements of its auxiliary parts are settled, as in fig. 3, by which means the approach of the hand near the vessel and its tube is avoided. In this figure the vertical position of the tube is secured by the suspension of the vessel, and a perforation in the table through which the tube passes. The table itself supports the capsule in

its first position, namely, that at which the cover is required to be put on. Mr. Nicholson, from whose Journal this abstract is immediately taken, supposes, with great probability, that the author of the invention had not finished his meditations on the subject, when the memoir giving an account of it was published. If he had, says the ingenious journalist, it is likely that he would have determined his pressures, as well as the measures of bulks by weight. For it may be easily understood that if the whole instrument were set to its positions, by suspending it to one arm of a balance at H (fig. 8), the quantity of counterpoise, when in equilibrio, might be applied to determine the pressures to a degree of accuracy much greater than can be obtained by linear measurement.

STEREOMETRY, Στερεομετρία (οι τερεος solid and μerpov measure), is that part of geometry which teaches how to find the solidity or solid contents of bodies; as globes, cylinders, cubes, vessels, ships, &c.

STEREOTOMY, (from sepeos, and Toμn, section), the art or act of cutting solids, or making sections thereof, as walls and other membranes in the profiles of architecture. STEREOTYPE PRINTING. See PRINTING: STERIL, adj. Fr. sterile; Lat. sterilis. STERILITY, n. s. Barren; unfruitful; not STERILIZE, v. a. productive; wanting fecundity the noun substantive and verb corresponding.

Our elders say,

The barren, touched in this holy chase,
Shake off their steril curse.

Shakspeare. Julius Cæsar. The sea marge steril, and rocky hard. Id. Tempest. In very steril years, corn sown will grow to another kind. Bacon's Natural History. Spain is thin sown of people, by reason of the sterility of the soil, and because their natives are exhausted by so many employments in such vast territories. Id. War with Spain. To separate seeds, put them in water; such as are corrupted and steril swim.

Browne's Vulgar Errours. She is grown steril and barren, and her births of animals are now very inconsiderable.

More against Atheism. When the vegetative stratum was once washed off by rains, the hills would have become barren, the strata below yielding only mere sterile and mineral matter, such as was inept for the formation of vegetables.

Woodward.

are barren; but this does not hold universally, even with the mule, which is the instance most generally adduced. See MULE. Sterility in women sometimes happens from a miscarriage, or violent labor, injuring some of the genital parts; but one of the most frequent causes is the suppression of the menstrual flux.—There are other causes arising from various diseases incident to those parts, by which the uterus may be unfit to receive or retain the male seed;

from the tubæ fallopianæ being too short, or having lost their erective power; in either of which cases no conception can take place;— from universal debility and relaxation; or a local debility of the genital system; by which means, the parts having lost their tone or contractile power, the semen is thrown off immediately post coitum ;—from imperforation of the vagina, the uterus, or the tubæ, or from diseased ova, &c. Hence medical treatment can only avail in cases arising from topical or universal debility; in correcting irregularities of the menstrual flux, or in removing tumors, cicatrices, or constrictions of the passage, by the art of surgery.

STERIS, in botany, a genus of the digynia order, and pentandria class of plants: CAL. quinquepartite: COR. wheel-shaped; the berry is unilocular, and many seeded. There is only one species, viz. S. Javana, a foreign plant; a native of the isle of Java.

STERLING, adj. & n. s.

Camden derives this word from the Easterlings, or inhabitants of the Hanse towns, who were employed as coiners. An epithet by which genuine money is discriminated.

The king's treasure, that he left at his death, amounted unto eighteen hundred thousand pounds sterling. Bacon.

Several of them would rather chuse to count out a sum in sesterces than in pounds sterling. Addison.

This visionary various projects tries, And knows that to be rich is to be wise : By useful observation he can tell The sacred charms that in true stirling dwell; How gold makes a patrician of a slave, A dwarf an Atlas, a Thersites brave. Great name! which in our rolls recorded stands, Leads honours, and protects the learned bands, Accept this offering to thy bounty due, And Roman wealth in English sterling view.

Garth.

C. Arbuthnot.

There is not one single witty phrase in this collection, which hath not received the stamp and approbation of one hundred years: he may therefore be secure to find them all genuine, sterling, and authentick. Swift's Polite Conversation.

STERLING, among goldsmiths, is used synonymously with standard, and applied to gold and silver plate of the same degree of fineness with the sterling money of Great Britain; i. e. with a mixture of one-twelfth of copper alloy in each metal; which reduces the silver to eleven deniers, or eleven deniers two grains fineness per ounce. All goldsmiths in both kingdoms are bound to make every piece of gold or silver plate that is sold by weight of this standard or sterling fineness; and assay-masters are appointed and sworn, in the principal cities in both kingdoms, to try their work and stamp it, when found sterling (see ASSAY-MASTER), and to break it down, if found deficient. Trinkets not