the granite quays lined and adorned with architectural beauty, with statues and monuments of art. The various subdivisions of the city, intersected by the waters of the lake and by the sinuosities of the sea, are chiefly islands connected by bridges, some of which are of superb granite masonry. Picturesque ferry boats, propelled by Dalecarlian women in their showy provincial costume, add greatly to the originality of the scene in summer. In winter the waters are compact plains of snow-clad ice, covered with all the moving activity of thoroughfares.-The whole city is contained within a circumference of about 16 miles; but the great park, about 2 miles in circumference and occupying an entire island nearly opposite the Stad, is not comprised within this area. It is probably the most beautiful public resort in the world. There are over 25 churches; and one of the most interesting objects in the town is the Riddarholm church, containing the tombs and trophies of many heroic personages, and among them those of Gustavus Adolphus, Charles XII., and Charles XIV. (Bernadotte). The houses of the city, about 5,500 in number, are large and convenient, usually 4 stories high, and occupied by families living independently in flats or étages; they are generally of brick stuccoed, and colored usually of uniform buff or yellow. Their aspect is cheerful and agreeable, but undistinguished by architectural elegance. In the principal streets, especially in the Norrmalm, there are a few elegant shops; but this species of luxury is still almost in its infancy in Stockholm. In the Norrmalm, the fashionable quarter, are the residences of the wealthy classes and of the nobility. Here the streets are wider and straighter than in most European capitals of the second class. It is so also in the Södermalm, which is the site of the principal factories. In the Stad, on the contrary, the commercial quarter, the streets, with 2 or 3 exceptions, are crooked, narrow, and dark. The city generally is sheltered from high winds. The air is pure and healthy, and the climate in all respects preferable to that of St. Petersburg. The mean annual temperature of Stockholm is 42° F., and the mean temperature of 6 winter months has been observed at 29.4° F. The harbor is one of the finest in the world, and the largest sized ships may penetrate into the very heart of the city. As the seat of government and residence of the king, Stockholm is the central point of Swedish public affairs, of diplomacy, of several academies of belles-lettres, science, and the arts, of elegant society, and of a great number of institutions useful and charitable. There are several fine theatres and other public places of amusement. The city government is confided to a governor, lieutenant-governor, and a municipal corps composed of 3 burgomasters and 19 councillors. A strong military garrison of lifeguards is always quartered in the handsome barracks built by Charles XIV.; and there is also a burgher guard always on duty. A naval squadron, chiefly of

gun boats, is stationed at an island opposite the palace, called Skeppsholm (ship island). The city, covered by a strong fortress in the neighborhood (Waxholm), is perhaps impregnable by water. By land it is quite without defensive works.-Stockholm is the chief seat of Swedish manufactures, which are here extensive, and include woollen, linen, cotton, and silk fabrics, iron ware, leather, earthenware, tobacco, refined sugar, soap, &c. Iron is the principal article of export, amounting in 1857 to 49,461 tons, in 1858 to 34,984, and in 1859 to 45,162. The other chief exports are tar, planks and boards, and copper. The imports consist principally of cotton and cotton yarn, coffee, grain, rice, hides, tobacco, wool, sugar, salt, coal, breadstuffs, and spirits. The imports of coffee in 1856 amounted to 6,087,741 lbs., of tobacco to 2,076,870 lbs., of sugar to 11,553,425 lbs., and of hides to 1,970,588 lbs. In the same year 217,026 barrels of breadstuffs were imported, and 135,817 barrels exported. The total imports in 1856 amounted to about $9,000,000, and the exports to $3,000,000. The following is compiled from the official Swedish reports of tonnage owned in Stockholm:

-The foundation of the town of Stockholm has been ascribed to Birger Jarl, the father and guardian of Waldemar, elected king in 1250. A settlement had been in existence at the spot, however, since the destruction of Sigtuna by Finnish pirates in 1187. At this epoch the island upon which the modern palace stands was originally fortified with walls and towers of wood, and the pirates were kept in check by works which thus defended 7 towns which stood on the banks of the lake. The strength of its fortifications subsequently exposed the city to repeated sieges. It became the resi dence of the Swedish monarchs soon after Birger's death, but Upsal continued long afterward to be the seat of government. With Lubeck and Hamburg reciprocity of free trade was established; and similar relations with Riga soon followed. Birger also sought to form commercial relations with England. On two memorable occasions Stockholm was defended by women-"Shakespearian women," as a Swedish historian aptly terms them. In 1501 the citadel was held against insurgents by Christina, queen of Denmark, whose husband, King John, ruled over the 3 united kingdoms of Scandinavia. King John had left his queen in command of a garrison of 1,000 men, whose number, after a siege of 5 successive months, was reduced by famine and the sword to 80. She was compelled to capitulate. A still more heroic defence was that originated and conducted by Christina Gyllenstierna, the widow

tioned in detail in this article, produce what is called the stocking stitch or chain work, the same as in common hand-knitting with two or more needles, or in crocheting, which consists of loops formed in succession upon a single thread, each one locked by that which follows it. The fastening of the end finally secures the whole and prevents its ravelling. These machines may be distinguished by the different kinds of needles they employ, and also by the manner in which these are arrangedwhether on a straight horizontal line, all pointing the same way, as in the common stocking loom, or around an open horizontal circle, all pointing toward the centre. The latter are known as the rotary round machines. All the needles are hooked at the end, so as to hold the thread laid across it that is to form the next loop, while the loop previously formed on the same needle slips back on the shank as the needle is pushed forward, and with its return runs over the hook and off the end. The contrivance by which this is effected distinguishes the several needles. In the spring or bearded needle used in the original stocking frames, and still in common use, the hook is drawn out to considerable length and is made elastic, so that when its point is pressed down into the groove upon its shank it may spring up when the pressure is removed. In the machines this pressure is applied by means of a wheel bearing down upon the beard of the hook for an instant with the production of every loop. A very efficient rotary round machine using this needle, and introduced in many of the factories of the United States, is that invented by Mr. Goff of Seneca Falls, N. Y. A second needle is that used in the McNary patent seamless hosiery machine. It is a short slender needle with a groove upon the top of the shank, in which works a tongue distinct from the needle. This is a rotary round machine, and is distinguished for producing the whole stocking without seam. The stocking was patented in 1856, the machine in 1860, and improvements in 1861. The capacity of each machine is to produce from 2 to 3 dozen pairs of half hose per day, and one female operator of ordinary skill will tend 3 or 4 machines. Another needle is known as the latch needle, and this is used in the machines of Mr. J. B. Aiken, of Franklin, N. H. It has a very short hook, and is provided with a little tongue or latch working upon a pivot in the shank, so as to close down upon the point of the hook and thus allow the loop to run over it. The latch works back and forth as it is pushed by the loop when the needle moves first forward and then back. The first movement, sending the loop on to the shank from the hook, first throws back the latch for the loop to slide over it, and the next closes the latch upon the point of the hook, allowing the loop to run off the end of the needle. In the working of the machine, the thread while the latch is open is laid across the needle in the hook; and when

the previous loop is slipped off, this serves as a new one to support the work. This consequently hangs upon the needles by a single loop upon each one. The thread as the operation goes on is rapidly carried to each needle in turn, and the movement is instantly produced that adds a new loop and slips off the old one. In the straight frames the work is done first across the needles in turn in one direction and then back in the other, and so on; but in the rotary round machines the revolution carries the needles constantly round in the same direction, each one taking up the thread in turn, and so rapidly that the movements cannot be clearly perceived. The one class of machines produces a flat web, and the other a cylindrical or tubular one, each of which hangs from the needles and is drawn down as it increases in length, by means when necessary of a weight attached to it. The number of stitches or loops which each machine can form in a minute varies with the gauge of the needles or the distance apart at which they are set. The machine of Mr. Aiken for ordinary stockings, containing 92 horizontal needles and run by power in the factories, may make from 100 to 200 revolutions per minute, producing the same number of stitches to each needle, thus amounting to 9,200 to 18,400 stitches per minute. The machines constructed for family use, and worked by a treadle or crank like a sewing machine, make about half as many stitches as the factory machines. In the factory 3 or 4 machines are easily tended by one boy. Ribbed work is performed in the same machines by bringing in play a set of vertical needles, so arranged as to work in connection with the horizontal and produce the additional stitches required. As the needles are set to a particular gauge, they necessarily produce the same number of stitches to the inch; and the only variations practicable in the work are in using yarns or threads of different degrees of fineness, and in altering the tension so as to make the work closer or more open. In the stocking frames this is of no great importance; but in the various kinds of fancy work, subject to the fluctuations of fashion, the machines adapted for special patterns may be suddenly rendered almost worthless by the demand for those patterns ceasing. The shaping of the web to fit the foot is a matter of no little ingenuity. The flat web is either knit in long strips of sufficient width to make when turned over several stockings which are cut out from these; or the web is at once knit upon the machine in the shape required for making a stocking when the parts are properly folded over. The former is known as cut work, and the latter as regular work. In the latter the wider part, when turned over and fastened, either by lapping and sewing with the sewing machine, or by seaming with a needle and thread, forms the leg of the stocking. Two narrow strips at the base of this part, turned under and joined together upon the machine

or by other means, form the heel; while a central strip twice the length of the foot, being turned over at the toe, forms the top and bottom of the foot, and is neatly united to the heel and around its edges by knitting or seaming. The cutting and fitting of the broad webs cannot be intelligibly described without the aid of drawings. In forming the foot to the circular webs after these are cut off in suitable lengths, a slit is made above the heel half across the web, which admits of the part designed for the foot being curved out at the instep. The loops along the edges of the cut are then taken up on hand needles, and the space for the heel is filled out by hand knitting, the edges being carefully united. In the same manner the toe is completed; and thus the stocking is finished without a seam. An important machine was very recently invented by Mr. Leslie of Brooklyn, N. Y., which accomplishes what has never been done before upon rotary round machines -the narrowing of the work in any manner desired.—Notwithstanding the large number of machines employed in knitting, stockings are still largely produced by the old method of hand knitting, which admits of the use of a harder and firmer yarn than that adapted to the machines; and even where the machine work is produced in large mills employing steam power, the hand looms are also in extensive use, many of them in the houses of the operatives, who work at their own hours and at their own convenience. In the factories the knitting machines are also made to produce many other articles of apparel, as undershirts, drawers, comforters, scarfs, opera hoods, talmas, nubias, gloves, mits, &c. One factory in Philadelphia, that of Martin Landenberger, employs about 500 hands, and consumes annually more than 250,000 lbs. of American wool. The total operations in Philadelphia for the year 1857 have been estimated as follows: 500 knitting frames averaging $1,657.50

¡ factories in Germantown and Kensington.....

Total value of woollen hosiery......

200 knitting frames on cotton hosiery, $897 each.. Total......

$828,750 800,000 $1,628,750

179.400

$1,808,150 The other principal establishments in the United States are the factories in Cohoes, Troy, and Seneca Falls, N. Y., Paterson, N. J., and the Brooklyn knitting works, Brooklyn, N. Y. STOCKPORT, a manufacturing and market town and parliamentary borough of Cheshire, England, at the junction of the Mersey and the Thame, 5 m. S. E. from Manchester; pop. in 1861, 54,681. It stands upon a hill, and the houses rise above each other in irregular tiers. The river is crossed by 4 bridges, and there are several suburbs, the most extensive of which are Heaton-Norris, Edgeley, and Portwood. The principal public buildings are the barracks, court house, union workhouse, and the building for the Sunday school, which is attended by nearly 4,000 children. In former times the manufacture of silk was extensively carried on here; but lat

terly it has been supplanted by that of cotton, for the spinning and weaving of which there are in the town and suburbs about 100 factories, employing nearly 4,000 horse power. One of these buildings is 300 feet long, 200 feet broad, and 6 stories high, and has 100 windows in each story. There are also several establishments for bleaching, dyeing, and printing cotton, brass and iron founderies, &c. Rich coal mines are worked in the vicinity, and great facilities are given to trade by the Manchester and Ashton canal, and by several lines of railway which have their junction at Stockport.-The town is believed to occupy the site of an old Roman station. Stockport castle, which has now disappeared, was held against Henry II. in 1173 by Geoffrey de Constantin. During the civil wars the town was garrisoned by parliamentary troops, was taken by Rupert in 1644, and retaken by Lesley the next year. It was occupied by Prince Charles Edward in 1745.

STOCKS, a wooden machine once universally employed in England for confining unruly persons by the feet or hands, and sometimes by both. It has long gone out of use, but is still to be seen in secluded rural districts.

STOCKS. See STOCK EXCHANGE. STOCKTON, a town, 'port of entry, and capital of San Joaquin co., Cal., situated on a channel of its own name, near the San Joaquin river, and 130 m. E. S. E. from San Francisco; pop. in 1860, 3,679. It is an important commercial point, vessels of 400 tons being able to navigate the channel. It is on the main road from Los Angeles to Sacramento, and is the chief point of trade with the southern gold mines. It has 3 newspapers, several churches, and a hospital.

STOCKTON, RICHARD, an American statesman, and a signer of the declaration of independence, born near Princeton, N. J., Oct. 1, 1730, died there, Feb. 28, 1781. He was graduated at the college of New Jersey, at Newark, in 1748, studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1754, and rose rapidly to the first rank as a lawyer. In 1766 he visited England. He was made a member of the executive council of New Jersey in 1768, and in 1774 appointed a judge of the supreme court. In 1776 he was elected to congress, and, though at first doubtful of its policy, cordially supported the declaration of independence. In the same year he served on the committee appointed to inspect the northern army and report its state to congress, and after his return to New Jersey was captured by the British and confined in the common prison at New York. The unusual severity with which he was here treated broke down his strength, and eventually caused his death.ROBERT FIELD, an officer of the U. S. navy, grandson of the preceding, born in Princeton, N. J., in 1796. In his 15th year, while a student in Princeton college, he entered the navy as midshipman, became an aid to Commodore Rodgers on board the frigate President, receiving honorable notice for his gallantry in several bat