the visual axes of the eyes. Except in cases where it is caused by paralysis, spasmodic or hydropical affections, or irritation of the brain, it is not a disease, and is accompanied with no pain or lack of visual power. Ophthalmic surgeons notice 3 degrees of squinting: 1, where there is but a slight convergence or divergence from the normal axis, such as is ordinarily called a "cast of the eye;" 2, where the inclination is strongly marked, but less than half the cornea is thrown under the eyelid or within the orbit, which is the most frequent variety; 3, where the cornea is nearly or quite thrown under the eyelid or within the orbit, common among those who are born blind, but rare in the case of those who can see. The surgeons also distinguish it according to the departure from the normal axis; as convergent, where the pupil is drawn toward the nose; divergent, where it is drawn toward the outer corner of the eye; ascendent, where it is drawn upward; and descendent, where it is drawn downward. Of these, the convergent form is by far the most frequent, and next in order the divergent and ascendent. The descendent is the rarest of all. Squinting may also be double or single as one or both eyes are affected; it may be congenital, i. e., existing from birth, or accidental, occurring from accident or improper treatment of the eye; the former is rare. It may be also continuous, or rarely intermittent. The cause of ordinary strabismus or squinting is the lack of equal power in the muscles which move the eye. (See EYE.)-The treatment prior to 1839 consisted in attempting by various methods to strengthen the weaker muscles, bandaging the normal eye, and compelling the constant use of the other; or by the use of goggles, spectacles, &c., in which all except the centre was opaque. In 1838 Stromeyer described the operation of dividing one of the recti muscles, but without having tried it on the living subject. In 1839 Dieffenbach, an eminent surgeon of Berlin, performed it successfully, and was followed by many English and French surgeons. The operation has now become very common, though the best surgeons admit that there are 3 classes of cases in which it should not be performed, viz.: those in which the position of the eye is fixed, those which result from the paralysis of the antagonist muscle, and those occurring in infants before dentition. The operation is not difficult nor particularly dangerous, and in about of the cases proves partially or entirely successful. There are two methods of performing it, the ordinary or that of Dieffenbach, where the conjunctiva is divided and the muscle to be severed is laid bare, and the subconjunctival method, where the conjunctiva is only punctured by the instrument which divides the muscle beneath it. The former is generally preferred. The operation was introduced in the United States in 1840 by Dr. Detmold. SQUIRE. See ESQUIRE. SQUIRREL, the popular name of the rodents of the family sciurida, which is very numerous in species, and widely spread over the world, except in Australia. These well known, active, and familiar animals are characterized by a broad head, the frontal bone being dilated into a post-orbital process; the muzzle wide, from the development of the frontal and nasal bones; eyes large and prominent, ears moderate, and whiskers long; the hind feet 5-toed, the fore feet 4-toed, with a wartlike thumb, all the fingers and toes with compressed and curved claws; the fur is generally soft, especially in the northern species, and the tail is long, hairy, expanded laterally in the arboreal genera, and shorter and bushy in the terrestrial, and in both carried gracefully over the back; the upper lip is cleft, the cæcum large, clavicles perfect, enabling them to use the fore limbs to convey food to the mouth, and the tibia and fibula distinct; some have a membrane extended between the fore and hind limbs, as has been noticed under FLYING SQUIRREL. The incisors are 2, smooth in front, brown or orange, the lower compressed and sharp; molars, rooted, tuberculate, with projecting transverse striæ enamelled continuously, the anterior upper one the smallest and sometimes deciduous. The food is chiefly vegetable, though some American species are known to suck eggs and destroy young birds. The family is very abundant in North America, nearly of all the species being found here; the prairie dogs and prairie squirrels are peculiar to this continent, as well as most of the flying squirrels. (See FLYING SQUIRREL, PRAIRIE DOG, and PRAIRIE SQUIRREL.)—The genus sciurus (Linn.) is the type of those of the family which live in trees; the species of the United States are hard to determine from the tendency to variation in color (red, gray, and black being the predominating tints), and the diminution in size in the southern states. Mr. Baird states it as a general rule that, when a squirrel has the fur of the throat or belly annulated, it is a variety of some species which normally has the under parts uniformly white or reddish to the roots, or the latter plumbeous. The bones of the red-bellied squirrels are generally red, and of the white-bellied white. The largest of the North American species is the fox squirrel of the southern states (S. vulpinus, Gmel.), about 24 feet long, of which the tail is 15 inches; the head is rather slender and pointed, and the tail rather cylindrical; the upper molars are permanently 4. The color varies from a gray above and white below, through various shades of rusty, to uniform shining black; the fur is coarse and harsh, and the ears short; the ears and nose are white in all its varieties. It is found from North Carolina through the S. Atlantic and gulf states to Brazos river in Texas. The gray variety is the S. capistratus (Bosc), and the black the S. niger (Linn.) and the black squirrel of Catesby. It prefers elevated and open pine ridges where there are occasional oak, hickory, and nut trees; the nest for the winter and breeding seasons is made in a hollow tree, and in summer in the forks between the branches. The young are born in March and April, being fed by the parents for 4 or 5 weeks. The food consists of acorns, nuts, fruit of the pine cones, green corn in the summer, buds and roots in spring, and whatever it can get in the winter, as it does not appear to lay up any winter stores, or to resort to any hoards previously buried in the ground. When alarmed, it makes for a hollow tree; it is a swift runner, defends itself boldly, and is very tenacious of life; it is generally seen toward the middle of the day; it is easily domesticated, but is less active in the cage than the smaller species; its flesh is frequently eat-fornia gray squirrel (S. fossor, Peale) is as large en. The cat squirrel (S. cinereus, Linn.), the fox squirrel of the middle states, is 25 or 26 inches long, of which the tail is about 14; the head is very broad, the muzzle short and catlike, the body thick and heavy, and the tail large and flattened; the color varies from light gray tinged with rusty above and white below to grizzly above and black below; it is never pure black; the ears are low and broad, and never white; the hair is less coarse and stiff than in the preceding species. It is found chiefly in the middle states, rarely in southern New England; it is rather a slow climber, and of inactive habits; it becomes very fat in autumn, when its flesh is excellent, bringing in the New York market 3 times the price of that of the common gray squirrel. The species called fox squirrel in the western and southwestern states (S. Ludovicianus, Harlan) has a very full and broad tail; it is rusty gray above and ferruginous below. The common gray squirrel (S. Carolinensis, Gmel., and S. migratorius, Aud. and Bach.) is about 22 inches long, of which the tail is 12; the upper molars are permanently 5. The general color is gray above and white below, with a yellowish brown wash on the back and sides; the region behind the ears has usually a white woolly tuft; there is a black variety, the S. niger of Godman. The ears are very high, narrow, and acute, the tail flattened, feet large, claws strong, thumb a rudimentary callosity; the palms naked, and soles mostly so in summer; whiskers longer than the head. It is found extensively over the United States, being much the smallest at the south; this difference in size and some modifications of the habits, according to climate and locality, have led authors to make two species, with the names given above, which Mr. Baird unites in one. It is a very active animal and an excellent climber, in the south preferring the low cypress swamps; it is often met with late in the evening and on moonlight nights, when it falls a victim to owls, foxes, wild cats, &c., as well as to hawks and snakes by day; the young are 4 to 6, born in May or June. They are easily domesticated, and gentle in confinement, and are often kept as pets in wheel cages; they do not lay up any great amount of winter stores, being partially torpid at this season and requiring but little food; they are very fond of nuts, and of green corn and young wheat, on which last account wars of extermination are often waged against them, whole villages turning out on an appointed day to hunt them, killing great numbers. At irregular periods they sometimes collect in large troops in the north-west, migrating eastward, crossing rivers and mountains, and committing great destruction in the fields in their course. Of late years many of this species have been domesticated in the public parks of northern cities; though pets of children and loungers, they drive away the birds by destroying their eggs and young. The Calias the fox squirrel, but more slender; it is grizzled bluish gray and black above and white below; tail black, white on the exterior and finely grizzled below; back of ears chestnut. It represents on the west coast the gray squirrel of the east. It runs very swiftly on the ground, not readily taking to trees when pursued; like the other squirrels, it has a kind of bark; the food consists principally of nuts, which it sticks in holes of pine trees bored by woodpeckers, resembling pegs placed in the wood. The red or Hudson's bay squirrel (S. Hudsonius, Pall.) has a stout body 7 or 8 inches long, and the tail rather less, narrow and flat; ears moderate, broad, tufted at the tip. The color above and on the sides is a mixed black and grayish rusty, with a broad wash of bright ferruginous down the back and the upper surface of the tail; dull white below; tail rusty on the margin, within which is a narrow black band; there is often a black line on the flanks, separating the colors of the sides and belly; the soles are hairy or naked according to the season. It is found from high northern latitudes to the Mississippi, and throughout the northern and middle Atlantic states in elevated regions. It is active, graceful, fearless of man, cleanly, and industrious in laying up a winter supply of food; it sometimes makes its nest in outbuildings; it is very lively all winter, eating its supply of nuts, and the seeds of pines and firs; in cold climates it burrows in the ground at the foot of some large coniferous tree. It is called chickaree from its loud chattering note; its flesh is tender and well flavored; it is less gentle and easily tamed than the gray squirrel. The common European squirrel (S. vulgaris, Linn.), much resembling the last, is about 14 inches long, of which the tail is about; the color is reddish, chestnut brown on the back, white below, becoming gray in winter in the north, and yielding then the much prized fur called minever; the ears are tufted, and the hair on the tail is directed to the two sides. It is found throughout Europe and N. Asia; it feeds in summer on buds and shoots, especially the young cones of the pine, and in winter on a supply of nuts which it gathers in autumn and hides in some hollow tree. It is an excellent climber, and makes a nest of moss, leaves, and fibres very neatly interwoven, in a hole or fork of a tree, and well concealed; a pair live together, frequenting the same tree for many years; the young are born in June, and remain with their parents till the following spring; they remain torpid in the very coldest days. The largest of the squirrels is the Malabar squirrel (S. maximus, Schreb.), 33 inches long, as large as a cat; it is black above, the sides and top of head chestnut, and lower parts pale yellow; it lives in palm trees, feeding on the milk and meat of the cocoanut. The ground squirrels (tamias, Illig.) have cheek pouches extending to the occiput and opening internally; the tail is shorter than the body, the feet large with well developed claws adapted for digging, and the anterior basal plate of the zygoma perforated by a nearly circular foramen; the permanent upper molars are 4, the tail is not bushy, and there are 3 to 5 longitudinal stripes on the back. They burrow in the ground near the roots of trees, and their nest is well supplied with winter food; they form a connecting link between the squirrels proper and the spermophiles or prairie squirrels. The common American ground, striped, or cheeping squirrel, chipmunk, or hackee, has the body 5 to 6 inches long, and the tail about 43; on the back and sides are 5 longitudinal black stripes, not extending over the rump, the outer 2 on each side separated only by a white line; rump pale chestnut, and the upper parts generally finely grizzled yellowish gray and brown; lids and under parts white, and a downy white spot behind the ears; it is the T. striatus (Linn.). It varies but little, and is found from Canada and Lake Superior to Virginia and Missouri. It is lively, playful, and busy, and may be said to occupy among mammals the place of the wren among birds; it is very commonly seen running along the fences and walls in New England, cheeping like a young chicken, the cheek pouches distended with nuts or seeds, occasionally stopping and standing upright, watching against enemies, and disappearing in some hole at the least alarm. The young are born in May, 4 or 5 at a birth. They are hardly injurious to the farmer, not disturbing the grain before it is ripe, and only gleaning after the harvest; they feed chiefly on nuts, wheat, buckwheat, Indian corn, cherry stones, and grass seeds, with which their winter burrows are plentifully supplied. They are easily captured in traps, but are not readily tamed, and are rarely seen in cages; their worst enemy is the weasel, which pursues them into their burrows. The Missouri striped squirrel (T. quadrivittatus, Wagn.) is smaller, with the intervals between the stripes all grayish white; beneath it is dirty grayish white, and the general color is more ferruginous; it most resembles the T. Pallassii (Baird) of N. Asia and Siberia. SQUIRREL CORN. See DICENTRA. SQUIRREL, FLYING. See FLYING SQUIRREL. STAAL, MARGUERITE JEANNE CORDIER DE LAUNAY, baroness de, a French writer, born in Paris in 1693, died June 15, 1750. She was educated by charity at a convent in Rouen; in 1710 she became chambermaid to the duchess de Maine at Sceaux, but soon attracted attention by her superior knowledge and abilities, having among her friends Fontenelle, Marivaux, Montesquieu, and Mme. du Deffand. Being an active agent in the conspiracy of Cellamare, she was arrested, and was for two years confined in the Bastile; she then resumed her situation at Sceaux, and afterward married an old Swiss officer, the baron de Staal, who was appointed commander of a company in the duke of Maine's guards, with the rank of major-general. She left personal Mémoires, and letters that are still sought for on account of their terseness and wit. The former have been frequently reprinted separately or in historical collections; the latter are found in her Euvres complètes (2 vols. 8vo., Paris, 1821). STABAT MATER, the first words of a celebrated Latin hymn of the church, generally sung on the festival of the seven sorrows of the Virgin, and during Holy Week. It was probably composed by Jacobus de Benedictis, commonly called Jacopone, a Franciscan friar, who flourished in the latter half of the 13th century; but the words have received several changes. It has been set to music by many of the most eminent composers, including Palestrina, Pergolesi, Astorga, Haydn, Neukomm, and Rossini. The composition of Pergolesi (for two voices with an accompaniment), commenced upon his deathbed and finished by another hand, is the most celebrated, although that of Rossini is the most popular in the concert room. STADIUM (Gr. σradiov), originally a Grecian course for foot races at the places where games were celebrated, and sometimes in the gymnasia of cities where there were no games. The most celebrated stadia were those at Olympia, Delphi, Thebes, Epidaurus, and the Panathenaic at Athens. The stadium was an oblong area terminated at one end by a straight line, and at the other by a semicircle, with ranges of seats rising above one another in steps around the circumference. The length of the stadium at Olympia was 600 Grecian feet, equal to 606 feet 9 inches English; and from continual reference to it as a comparison, this length became used throughout Greece as the standard of measurement for itinerary distances, and was subsequently adopted by the Romans, chiefly for nautical and astronomical measurement. From discrepancies in the distances recorded by Greek writers, it has been thought that different stadia were referred to; but such discrepancies probably arose from the distances in question being computed, and not measured. Thus, a certain number of stadia were allowed for a day's journey; one man would make the same journey in less time than another, and would record the distance as so many stadia less in proportion to this difference. STADTHOLDER (Dutch, stadhouder, a city or state holder or keeper, a governor; Ger. Statthalter), the title given by certain of the United Provinces of the Netherlands to William of Orange, who thereupon became the chief magistrate or president of those provinces and commander-in-chief of their forces. In 1587 Maurice, his 2d son, was appointed stadtholder of the United Provinces, and the dignity continued in the house of Orange, with occasional intermissions during which the statesgeneral governed without a stadtholder, until 1747, when William IV., of a collateral branch of the Orange family, was declared hereditary stadtholder. After the restoration of the Orange family in 1814, the title was exchanged for that of king, which is also hereditary. STAËL-HOLSTEIN, ANNE MARIE LOUISE GERMAINE (NECKER), baroness de, a French authoress, born in Paris, April 22, 1766, died there, July 14, 1817. She was the only child of Necker, the wealthy Swiss banker and minister of finance to Louis XVI. Her early education, under the direction of her mother, was severe and systematic, and almost from infancy she was thrown into the society of the many distinguished persons who frequented the salon of Mme. Necker, whence she acquired the art of brilliant and thoughtful conversation, for which she was always remarkable. At the age of 20 she was married, through her mother's management, to the baron de Staël-Holstein, the Swedish minister to the French court-an alliance which, while it gave her rank and position in society, had little in the wishes or sympathies of the parties to recommend it. In 1788 appeared her first work of importance, Lettres sur les ouvrages et le caractère de J. J. Rousseau, which, notwithstanding an unreasonable admiration for her subject, contains a masterly exposition of some of the sophisms of the Nouvelle Héloïse. With the outbreak of the French revolution her imagination kindled at the prospect of political and social reform which seemed about to dawn upon the country. But gradually, as popular violence and fanaticism gained a place in the public councils, she employed her pen boldly in denunciation of the factious course of parties, and in defence of the royal family and others, whom she now considered the oppressed instead of the oppressors. Compelled during the reign of terror to leave Paris, she resided first at her father's estate of Coppet, Switzerland, and afterward at Richmond, England, in society with Talleyrand, the count de Narbonne, and other distinguished emigrants, some of whose lives she had saved at the commencement of that period. She returned after the establishment of the directory, and until the usurpation of supreme power by Napoleon made her saloons the rallying point of those who favored a compromise between monarchy and the principles of 1789, and looked with distrust upon the designs of Bonaparte. The latter, having attempted in vain to secure her support, finally ordered her to leave Paris, and not to remain within 40 leagues of the city. Passionately fond of the social attractions of the capital, and of the literary and fashionable celebrity which she there enjoyed, she obeyed with extreme reluctance the command of the first consul, and retired to Coppet, where she prepared for the press her novel Delphine (1802). She then travelled to Italy, her impressions of which country are recorded in Corinne (Paris, 1807), a work defective in plot and dramatic interest, but full of eloquent remarks on scenery, manners, and art, and unsurpassed as a poetical description of a poetical country. It has been repeatedly translated into every European language, and is still the work on which her literary reputation mainly rests. A subsequent residence in Germany, where she was intimate with Goethe, the Schlegels, and other eminent men, afforded the materials for her De l'Allemagne, which was in 1810 seized in Paris by the police, after 10,000 copies had been printed, notwithstanding it had passed the test of the French censorship. The emperor's hostility probably prompted this arbitrary act, although the authoress was informed by the minister, Savary, in answer to her remonstrance, that the publication had been stopped because "the work was not French." Being closely watched at her residence in Coppet after this, she succeeded in 1812 in making her escape to England, whither she was obliged to proceed by a tedious overland journey through Germany, Russia, and Sweden, the seaports being closely watched by the French. De l'Allemagne appeared in London in 1813. After the abdication of Napoleon she returned to Paris, and resumed her old position as a literary celebrity and a leader of public opinion. She passed through the Hundred Days unmolested by Napoleon, but after the second restoration retired to Switzerland, and seemed to have lost her interest in active politics. She travelled again to Italy in the hope of restoring her health, and, returning to Paris, busied herself with preparing for the press her last work, Considérations sur la révolution Française, published posthumously by her son in 1819 (3 vols. 8vo.). It is written with commendable temperance and impartiality, and is remarkable for graphic portraits of public men of the revolutionary period. Her friend Benjamin Constant observed that if she had painted individuals more frequently and more in detail, her work might have ranked lower as a literary composition, but would have gained in interest. She also wrote De l'influence des passions (1796); De la littérature considérée dans ses rapports avec les institutions sociales (1800); Réflexions sur le suicide; Essai sur les fictions; Vie politique de Necker; Dix années d'exil, an autobiographical narrative; and a variety of minor productions, some of which appeared posthumously. She was buried in the family tomb at Coppet, which bears the inscription: Hic tandem quiescit, quæ nunquam quievit. The baron de Staël-Holstein had died in 1802; and by the dispositions of her will it appeared that for several years previous to her death she had been secretly espoused to a young officer, M. de Rocca, by whom she had a son, the concealment of the marriage being due to her reluctance to part with a name so long identified with her literary fame. She left two children by her first husband, the baron Auguste de Staël, and Albertine, duchess de Broglie, both eminent for virtues and piety. The former edited the complete works of his mother in 18 vols. (Paris, 1820-21), and a memoir of her was published by Mme. Necker de Saussure (8vo., Paris, 1821). In 1862 was published her inedited correspondence with the grand duchess Louisa of Saxe-Weimar, from 1800 to 1817 (8vo., London). STAFF, in military science, a corps of officers attached to a commander for the purpose of assisting him in carrying his designs into execution. The staff of an army may be distinguished under 3 heads: 1, the general staff, consisting of adjutants general and assistant adjutants general, aides-de-camp, inspectors general and assistant inspectors general, &c., whose duties, apart from the communication of the orders of the general-in-chief, embrace the whole range of the service, whence their title of general staff officers; 2, the staff corps, whose duties are confined to distinct branches of the service, as the engineers, topographical engineers, ordnance, quartermasters', subsistence, medical, and pay departments; 3, the regimental staff, which includes regimental officers and certain non-commissioned officers, whose duties assimilate to those of adjutants general, quartermasters, and commissaries. The employment of a military staff, as a regular branch of the service, dates from the reign of Louis XIV.; but in European armies it cannot be said to have constituted a permanent corps until upward of a century later. The wars of the French revolution and of Napoleon were conducted by the French army without such a corps, the officers employed on the staff being detailed from the various arms of the service for that purpose, and returning afterward to their own regiments. The French have now however a special school for the instruction of staff officers, who form a permanent corps, and the same may be said of the principal military establishments of Europe. A permanent general staff is however discountenanced by some military authorities, who favor a system which admits of supernumerary general and regimental officers selected temporarily for staff duties by commanders of troops. Such a system has always prevailed in the army of the United States. "The leading qualifications," says Napoleon, "which should distinguish an officer selected for the head of the staff are: to know the country thoroughly; to be able to conduct a reconnoissance with skill; to superintend the transmission of orders properly; to lay down the most complicated movements intelligibly, but in few words and with simplicity." STAFFA, a small uninhabited island of Scotland, one of the inner Hebrides, Argyleshire, 6 to 8 m. W. from Mull. It is of irregular elliptical form, about 1 m. in circumference. Its surface is an uneven plateau, elevated from 50 to 144 feet above the sea, the upper rock being composed of a shapeless basaltic mass, with occasional small columns, resting upon a columnar basalt, hard, grayish black, compact, and of per. fectly regular forms, which has for its foundation a conglomerate trap or tufa. This columnar basalt, strongly resembling architectural designs, is indented with numerous caves, of which the most remarkable is that known as Fingal's cave. It opens with a noble gateway, of an absolute height from the rocky floor to the top of the entablature of 117 feet 6 inches, and from the surface of the water at mean tide to the top of the arch inside of 66 feet, and nearly 54 feet in breadth. The sea at all times flows into the cave, and has at the entrance a mean depth of 18 feet, but at the inner terminus shoals to 9 feet. The action of the waves has broken a number of the columns at the entrance. Sir Joseph Banks measured the depth of the cave from the entrance to the terminus, and found it 371 feet 6 inches, but it is now reckoned as only 227 feet. For the whole distance the sides of the cave are supported by massive columns of basalt, usually pentagonal or hexagonal, but sometimes with 7 or 9 sides, and very rarely triangular or rhomboidal, 2, 3, or 4 feet in diameter; from the roof depend, for the whole length of the cave, clusters of columns, whitened with calcareous stalactites and sparkling with innumerable crystals. The whole cave is lighted from without, so that the furthest extremity is plainly distinguished, and the air is said to be dry and wholesome. The basaltic columns, which form the façade of the entire island, are found in all positions, erect, oblique, horizontal, and curved or bent. The other principal caves are the Boat cave, the Cormorant cave, so called from the number of these birds which visit it, and the Clam Shell cave, which derives its name from the peculiar form in which the basaltic columns are inclined, giving it the appearance of a shell of the genus pecten; it is 30 feet high, 16 to 18 feet broad, and 130 feet long. STAFFORD, an E. co. of Virginia, bordering on the Potomac, bounded S. W. by the Rappahannock, and drained by Aquia and other creeks; area, 335 sq. m.; pop. in 1860, 8,555, of whom 3,314 were slaves. The surface is hilly, and the soil along the Potomac is moderately fertile. The productions in 1850 were 178,651 bushels of Indian corn, 58,923 of wheat, 38,750 of oats, and 2,018 tons of hay. There were 2 cotton factories, 5 grist mills, 2 saw mills, 12 churches, and 245 pupils attending public schools. Gold has been discovered, and granite and freestone of an excellent quality are found. The Richmond and Fredericsburg railroad intersects the county. The value of real estate in 1856 was $1,695,768, showing an |