formed in Feb. 1858, and in the succeeding May assumed the presidency of the board of control upon the resignation of the earl of Ellenborough, with the title of "her majesty's commissioner for the affairs of India." Upon the transfer of the government of India from the East India company to the imperial crown (Aug. 1858), he became the first secretary of the new department of India then created. Since the retirement of the Derby ministry in June, 1859, he has not held office. STANLEY, THOMAS, an English author, born in 1625, died in London, April 12, 1678. He was educated at Pembroke hall, Oxford, and subsequently resided for several years in the Middle Temple. In 1649 he published a volume of "Poems and Translations," followed in 1655-'60 by his "History of Philosophy, containing the Lives, Opinions, Actions, and Discourses of the Philosophers of every Sect" (3 vols. fol.), by far his most important production. A Latin translation of it by Olearius was published at Leipsic in 1711. In 1663 appeared his edition of Eschylus, including the fragments and the Greek scholia, together with a commentary and a Latin version. A reprint of this edition, with the commentary enlarged and corrected, was published at Cambridge in 1809 by Dr. Butler (4 vols. 4to.). In 1814-'15 appeared an edition of his poems with a biographical memoir by Sir Egerton Brydges. STANZA (Ital.), a certain number of lines regularly adjusted to each other, and forming one of the divisions of a poem. The stanza should properly terminate with a full point or pause, whence its name, which signifies a station or resting place; but in practice this rule is not always observed, even in such varieties as the Spenserian stanza, where the metre would seem especially to require a full pause. STAR. See ASTRONOMY. STAR CHAMBER, COURT OF THE (curia camera stellatæ, so called from the gilded stars on the ceiling of the old council chamber of the palace of Westminster, in which it sat), a tribunal famous in the political history of England, and of which mention is made as early as the reign of Edward III. It appears to have been then, and for upward of a century and a half afterward, identical with the ancient concilium regis, or king's ordinary council, which alone exercised jurisdiction, the concilium secretum, or privy council, being a deliberative body; and at the accession of Henry VII. its powers had become so greatly abridged by restraining statutes as to render it almost inoperative as a court of justice. The statute of 3 Henry VII. (1488) placed the jurisdiction of the council, or rather of a part of the council, on a permanent basis by establishing a court composed of three high officers of state (to whom a fourth was subsequently added), a bishop and temporal lord of the council, and two justices of the courts of Westminster, which took cognizance of riots, perjury, the misbehavior of sheriffs, and other offences against the administration of justice, in examining which they invariably proceeded without the assistance of a jury. This tribunal, however, was distinct from the council itself, of which it may be considered a committee having delegated powers; nor did the act cited give the first legal authority to the criminal jurisdiction exercised by that body. It received an augmentation of its powers by act of 31 Henry VIII., "which," says Sir Thomas Smith, "was at that time marvellous necessary to do to repress the insolence of the noblemen and gentlemen of the north parts of England, who made their force their law;" and after an existence of nearly 60 years it was during the minority of Edward VI. merged in the general body of the council, which thenceforth, as in earlier times, constituted the real court of the star chamber. The latter continued under the Tudors and their successors, in spite of numerous restraining statutes, to exercise a jurisdiction, particularly in criminal matters, unauthorized by the act of Henry VII. erecting a new court, and which gradually rendered it one of the most odious instruments in overthrowing the liberties of the people. Every misdemeanor, and especially those of public importance for which the law, owing to the timidity and narrow-mindedness of its judicial interpreters, had provided no sufficient punishment, seems to have come within the scope of its inquiry. Among these were corruption, breach of trust, and malfeasance in public affairs, attempts to commit felony, or breach of proclamations; and to such an extent was its authority stretched under the Stuarts, that, according to Clarendon, "any disrespect to any acts of state, or to the persons of statesmen, was in no time more penal, and the foundations of right never more in danger to be destroyed." The mode of process was generally by information filed at the suit of the attorney-general, or, in certain cases, of a private relator, and in other respects resembled that familiar to the court of chancery. Although the court was held incompetent to pronounce sentence of death, fines, imprisonment, the pillory, whipping, branding, and various species of maiming were freely resorted to; and "the greater certainty of conviction," says Hallam, "and the greater severity of the punishment, rendered it incomparably more formidable than the ordinary benches of justice." According to the same authority, "the object of drawing so large a number of criminal cases into the star chamber seems to have been twofold: first, to inure men's minds to an authority more immediately connected with the crown than the ordinary courts of law, and less tied down to any rules of pleading or evidence; secondly, to eke out a scanty revenue by penalties and forfeitures. After flourishing with constantly increasing power for upward of a century, the court of the star chamber was finally abolished by act of parliament in 1641, although such was the reverence for precedent still remaining, that at first nothing more than a bill to regulate the tribunal was intended, and according to Clarendon the act finally passed was due to a suggestion from one not connected with the more ardent reformers. STAR FISH, the popular name of the radiated animals of the class of echinoderms and the order asteroidea, well exemplified by the common species of the New England coasts, the 5-fingered Jack of the sailors. The quinary arrangement prevails to a remarkable extent in the star fishes; one of the problems proposed by Sir Thomas Browne was: "Why, among sea stars, nature chiefly delighteth in 5 points?" The body of the star fishes is depressed, and divided into rays like a star; the upper surface is studded with rough knobs, varying in color with the species, but generally reddish or yellowish, between which are the openings of many very minute tubes for the passage of water in and out of the body; the skin is coriaceous, and contains the above named corpuscles, beneath which is a cutaneous skeleton of porous calcareous pieces, movably articulated, and extending on the lower surface from the mouth in the centre to the end of the rays. In the lacunæ between these pieces are the ambulacral pores, along the centre of the lower surface of each ray, through which are protruded the ambulacral tubes; these are the principal organs of locomotion, are arranged in a double or quadruple row, and are provided with contractile sacs or vesicles on the inner surface of the envelope; the tubes are constantly in motion, each ending in a suctorial disk, and pull the animal along as by the successive action of so many little anchors. On the external edges of the rays are series of stiff spines, probably serving for protection, and at the end of each ray is a small reddish eye speck; there are also scattered over the upper surface small processes ending in calcareous hooks or pincers. The mouth opens into the stomachal cavity, from which branching cæcal tubes extend to the extremity of each arm; having no long tentacles like the sea anemone (actinia), the stomach can be everted over their food and then be turned back again; the mouth is very dilatable, and will admit large mollusks with the shell, the hard parts being ejected after the soft portions are digested. There is great variety in the spreading, division, and subdivision of the arms, and in the relative size of the central disk, but all are arranged after the radiated plan; the rays can be bent in any direction, according to the will or need of the animal, by the contractile skin and muscles. The slender ophiurans progress by the undulatory movements of the rays, which, when very slender, long, and branching, have no eyes at the tips; there is generally no anal aperture, and when present it is on the dorsal surface. By the action of cilia water flows through the body, through the aquiferous system, distending and protruding the ambulacral feet, filling the circular vessel around the mouth, and serving for respiration, which, according to Siebold, is performed partly by the vesicular appendages attached to the central ring; all the viscera are bathed in water, and respiration is also effected through the delicate blood vessels thereon distributed. The vascular system is very simple; the nervous ganglia are 5, arranged around the mouth, each sending filaments to the arm at whose base it lies; the sense of touch is very acute; the power of reproducing lost parts is very great, as every one knows from the mutilated and irregular specimens so commonly seen in the sea and in aquaria. On the upper surface, to one side of the centre and between two of the arms, is a round bright-colored spot, the madreporic plate or body, communicating with a canal leading to the water vessel around the mouth; this, according to Sharpey, is a sieve through which the water is filtered as it enters the aquiferous system for circulation through the whole body. They propagate by eggs only, and the sexes are in separate individuals; the larvæ are at first oval, ciliated bodies, without external organs or distinct parts; from these, which have a strictly bilateral symmetry, the radiated perfect animal is developed, at various stages of its growth, by a process of internal gemmation. The crinoid comatula, or feather star, free when adult, has its young attached on a long slender stem; Sars, a Norwegian naturalist, has traced the growth of echinaster from a spheroidal freemoving mass to the perfect star fish. Some species secrete a reddish fluid on the surface, probably the coloring matter, often irritating to the skin of persons handling them; according to Deslongchamps, they can inject a fluid into the shells of their victims, which stupefies and renders them an easy prey. Rymer Jones says star fishes may be considered as mere walking stomachs, their office in the economy of nature being to devour all kinds of garbage which would otherwise accumulate on the shores; they eat also living crustaceans, mollusks, and even small fish, and are believed to be very destructive to oysters; they are not used as food by man, but are in many places highly esteemed as manure. For a popular account of the British species the reader is referred to the "History of British Starfishes," by Edward Forbes (London, 1841), illustrated by excellent figures. In that work are described comatula (Lam.), the crinoid feather star; ophiura (Lam.), the sand star; ophiocoma (Ag.), the brittle star, so named from the facility with which the delicate arms are broken, but which are also readily repaired; astrophyton (Link), the Medusa's head, so called from the curling and interlacing of the very numerous ends of the rays; uraster (Ag.), the cross fish; solaster (Forbes), the sun star; palmipes (Link), the bird's foot star; goniaster (Ag.), the cushion star; and asterias aurantiaca (Linn.), the common star fish. The common star fish of the North American coast (asterias rubens, Linn.), generally considered the same as the European species, is too well known to need description; the colors vary from reddish to yellowish, and the diameter from an inch to more than a foot; it is a very common inhabitant of public and private aquaria, and very interesting to study. STAR OF BETHLEHEM (ornithogalum umbellatum, Linn.), a pretty liliaceous plant with white bulbs, numerous radical smooth green leaves striped with a white longitudinal line, and corymbose racemes of starry white flowers consisting of 6 sepals, greenish without and with white margins. The plant is a native of Europe, but, escaping from gardens, has become naturalized in fields and orchards in the United States by means of its tendency to multiply its bulbs, which, remarkably tenacious of life, have been conveyed from the compost heap and barn yard. The foliage is however very transient, perishing in early summer, so that its presence is not very detrimental to grass. There are many species of the ornithogalum which bear the same trivial name. STARBOARD, the right hand side of a vessel to a person standing in the stern and looking toward the bow; opposed to larboard. STARCH (also called amylaceous matter, and fecula), a proximate vegetable principle existing in almost all plants. It has also been detected in animal tissues, in the brain, and in some other organs when these are in a diseased condition; but being recently found always present in dust wherever collected, it is not improbable that the slight quantities observed in these matters may have been derived from this source. Its composition is represented by the formula C12 H10 O10, and differs from that of grape sugar only by the latter containing the elements of 4 atoms of water in addition. By artificially producing this combination with water, starch is wholly converted into this sugar. In the animal system its elements readily enter into new combinations, and by its deoxidation it is supposed that the fats and fixed oils are produced that are found in both the animal and vegetable kingdoms. Its specific action is regarded as promoting animal heat and respiration. That it must play an important part in the animal as well as in the vegetable economy, is evident from the fact that it is the chief ingredient in most vegetable substances employed for food. In the farinaceous grains, as rice, barley, and maize, it exists in great purity. In wheat it is associated with gluten; in beans, peas, and other leguminous seeds, and also in oats, with saccharine matter; in potatoes, rye, and Windsor beans, with viscous mucilage; in the emulsive seeds, that afford oil by expression, as the nuts, linseed, and cocoa, with fixed oil and mucilage. In some roots, as those of different species of arum and of the manihot utilissima (see CASSAVA), it is accompanied by a poisonous juice, which however does not interfere with its easy separation and conversion into simple articles of food, as arrowroot, cassava bread, &c. From wheat flour, the raspings of potatoes, and similar substances, starch is readily obtained by kneading them with cold water on a cloth strainer. The fluid passes through milky from the particles of starch taken along with it, and being left to repose, these after a time subside. When pure they appear as a white glistening powder; and when magnified 300 to 400 times, distinct grains are seen of flattened ovate forms, varying in size and exhibiting peculiar marks according to the particular vegetables that furnished them. Such are the concentric rings or rugæ surrounding a minute circular hole or hilum at one or both ends of the granule. Thus it is that the adulteration of wheat flour by potato starch or flour may be detected. Several phenomena exhibited by starch have led chemists to the opinion that the microscopic granules are made up of a thin integument, which is insoluble in cold water and contains the same substance within, but in a soluble condition. When starch is ground in a mortar it is rendered partially soluble in cold water, and the. same effect is produced by roasting it slightly. (See DEXTRINE.) But without this preparation starch may remain in water unchanged until the temperature is raised to a little more than 140° The granules then absorb water and swell, and the mixture suddenly assumes a viscous pasty condition, in which state it is applied by laundresses to stiffening linen. A cold solution of soda or potash containing two per cent. or more of alkali will also cause the granules to swell and form a tenacious paste; but if much water be then added, a small portion of the starch only remains in solution, the rest subsiding. The presence of starch is recognized by the blue color it acquires on the addition of free iodine to its solution, the intensity of the color increasing with the proportion of iodine employed, till with a large excess of this it is blackish blue. At a temperature of 200° the solution becomes colorless, and on cooling recovers its former shade. Boiling for some time destroys the color altogether, the starch first forming dextrine and then sugar. The presence of sulphuric acid hastens this change. Starch is insoluble in alcohol and ether. In its commercial form it is agglutinated in columnar masses, which are easily reduced to powder. It is without smell or taste, and when pressed in the fingers emits a peculiar sound and feels as if elastic. Its specific gravity is about 1.5. Its properties as an aliment differ somewhat with the sources that furnish it; thus, wheat starch is considered the most nutritious, probably from the presence of some gluten; arrowroot starch is the most digestible and the most free from gluten; starch from potatoes and rice is regarded as the poorest aliment, neither nutritious nor digestible.-There are but few historical notices of starch. Pliny speaks of it as being made in the island of Chios, and the best from summer wheat.. Nothing more is known of its history until the time of Queen Elizabeth, when it was in use for stiffening the enormous ruffs of that period. It must have been rather an inferior article, as in the occasional allusions to it that have been preserved it is spoken of as of yellow or greenish color. In the last century the manufacture attained considerable importance in England; and starch was applied to numerous uses in the arts, in medicine, and for purposes of the toilet. It was employed with smalt and the stone blue or indigo color to stiffen and clear linen, as still practised by laundresses; in printing with colors it was used in strong gum water to make them work more freely and prevent their cracking; and the perfumers employed it in making their hair powders. In the reigns of Anne and George I., II., and III., the use of any other material as a substitute for starch in any of its applications was most strictly prohibited under severe penalties, and the manufacture was subject to extraordinary restrictions and taxes, most of which continued in force until 1833. About the close of the century its production was a subject of no little interest. In 1796 the society of arts awarded a prize medal to a Mrs. Gibbs of Portland for her discovery of the arum maculatum as a fruitful source of it, and the starch thus obtained was afterward sold as the Portland arrowroot. The same year Lord William Murray discovered a method of extracting it from horse chestnuts. The great development of the cotton manufacture created a new demand for starch, and the calico print works consumed it in enormous quantities. In 1859 a single establishment of this kind in Manchester used 6,000 cwt.-Starch is manufactured in different countries from those vegetable products that yield it most cheaply: in England from wheat, barley, and rice; on the continent from potatoes and leguminous seeds; and in France from the horse chestnut also, which has been collected of late years for the factory at Nanterre at prices equal to those for which potatoes are sometimes sold there. In the United States Indian corn and potatoes are most commonly used for starch. The application of the former to this use was patented by James Colman in 1841, and was successfully practised by Thomas Kingsford of Oswego, N. Y., in 1842. In 1849 he had a large factory at that place, which is still in successful operation under the direction of Messrs. T. Kingsford and son, having up to the end of the year 1860 made nearly 30,000 tons of starch. Its annual production for 5 years was as follows: 1856, 6,328,453 lbs.; 1857, 8,018,778 lbs. ; 1858, 8,686,516 lbs.; 1859, 6,747,586 lbs.; 1860, 8,500,000 lbs. ; far exceeding that of any other starch factory in the world for the same time. The total consumption of raw material in the 12 years from Jan. 1, 1849, was 2,476,000 bushels of Indian corn and 164,448 bushels of wheat, beside some damaged flour. The boxes for packing the starch have required 15,000,000 feet of basswood, supplied chiefly by the farmers in the neighborhood. The building has a front of 510 feet, and extends back over the Oswego river 250 feet. Its flooring covers 250,600 feet, or nearly 6 acres. For grinding the corn there are 15 pairs of buhrstones, and 6 pairs of large, heavy iron rollers. The river furnishes the power to drive the machinery, and a steam engine of 150 horse power is provided to make up any deficiency in very dry seasons. The vats employed in purifying the starch have a capacity of 2,200,000 gallons, and the length of gutters for conveying and distributing the starch waters is over 3 miles. A similar factory, almost or quite equal to this in capacity, commenced operations at Glen Cove, on Long island, in 1858. This also uses Indian corn, which is more cheaply transported from the western states than the starch from it would be. The product for each bushel is about 23 lbs., and the boxes of the starch, on account of their bulk and the extra care they require, make more expensive freight than the raw material. Potato starch factories are more numerous, but not so extensive. In the town of Stowe, Vt., there are 5 of them, each one of which consumes from 16,000 to 20,000 bushels of potatoes yearly, and produces about 8 lbs. of starch to the bushel.-The production in starch of the several materials employed in the manufacture is variously given by different authorities, probably by reason of the influence on the same plant of difference of soil and climate, and its condition as regards maturity, and possibly also of the more or less complete separation of the starch from other accompanying substances; and some perhaps give results of the factories, and others of the laboratories; and some of the grains, and others of their flour. Thus in wheat the proportion of starch is rated from 35 to 77 per cent., or as an average at 60; rice contains from 75 to 87 per cent.; Indian corn, 64.5 to 80; barley, 60 to 68; rye, 60 to 65.5; oats, 37 to 65; buckwheat, 44 to 52; peas and beans, 37 to 66; horse chestnut, 25; potatoes and arrowroot, 20. Wheat is treated by two processes. The old method is to expose the flour mixed with water and the spent waters of previous operations to fermentation for several weeks. The gluten undergoes putrefaction, emitting a most noisome odor. The sugar and a portion of the starch are converted into alcohol, and a part of this into lactic and acetic acids, which dissolve the gluten that has escaped putrefaction. Thorough washing and draining remove the soluble matters, and the starch left behind is next dried in blocks about 6 inches square; as the water escapes from them, the masses break up into the columnar fragments peculiar to starch. The other method, introduced by M. Emile Martin of Vervins, France, consists in kneading the flour into dough with water, and then washing on a sieve of No. 120 wire in a stream of water as long as the water passes through milky. The starch in suspension and the sugary portion in solution are caught below the sieve, and the gluten nearly all remains behind in a sticky mass. What passes through is left to ferment 24 hours in an oven at 68° F., and a little leaven is added, or the skimmings of a former operation, to hasten the process. The portion of gluten carried through with the starch is thus separated and removed by skimming. The starch is then treated like that otherwise obtained. The product by this method is about 50 per cent. of the weight of the flour, while by the other process it is only from 35 to 40 per cent. Nearly the whole of the gluten also is saved in a condition suitable for food, either by mixing it with flour and making of it macaroni and similar pastes, or, as recommended by M. Robine, with boiled potatoes, and thus making a cheap and nutritious bread, by adding to the potatoes a nutritive element in which they are deficient. Potato starch is made from rasped or grated potatoes, by a process similar to that just described. This variety does not assume the columnar form in drying, and is also peculiar in retaining a large amount of moisture, generally 20 per cent., or when saturated 23 per cent. It is largely consumed for a variety of farinaceous preparations sold by the druggists as delicate food for invalids, under numerous high-sounding names. (See ADULTERATION.)-The corn used for starch is the white flint kind. Received at the factory, it is hoisted to the top of the building, winnowed to remove foreign substances, and then transferred to vats, where it is long soaked before grinding. It is run through troughs with water to the mills, and when ground the mixed meal and water is conveyed in a similar manner to the tubs in which the separation of the starch is effected. The gluten fluid that flows from these has a musty and disagreeable odor and appearance in the troughs, and the substance lacks when concentrated the consistency of wheat gluten, not "rising" like it in fermentation by the expansive action of the carbonic acid gas generated in this process. Its only value is for feeding horses, cattle, and swine. The starch fluid is conveyed through troughs to great vats in the basement of the building, where the water is partially removed, and then it flows into smaller wooden vessels from which a portion of the surplus water drains away through a cloth laid in the bottom of each. The mass of starch, then tolerably solid, is placed upon shelves made of loose bricks, when more moisture escapes by absorption and evaporation. Kiln drying finishes the process, and the starch is obtained in prismatic forms ready to be put up in papers or boxes for the market.-Rice is treated by a process patented in 1840 by Mr. Orlando Jones, which is also quite as applicable to the other grains, and by the use of which the offensive odors from the putrefactive fermentation are avoided. The rice is macerated in a weak alkaline solution, a gallon of water to every 2 lbs. of rice, and about 200 grains of caustic soda or potash to the gallon. Of this strength the solution takes up the gluten, leaving the starch. After standing about 24 hours, the alkaline li quid is drawn off, and the rice after being well washed is drained, and is then ground into flour. A fresh quantity of lye is added to it, and it is again digested for 24 hours, with frequent stirring. It is now left for 70 hours, in which time the dissolved gluten rises and is all found in a turbid, yellowish stratum at the top. This portion is carefully drawn off, leaving the fibrous portion of the grain at the bottom intermixed and covered with starch. The deposit is then stirred up and washed with abundance of cold water, and the mixture being left to repose, the fibrous portion is deposited with very little starch, and the remainder is drawn off by a siphon through a fine sieve into a cistern. Further washings of the deposit are added to this, and the water is finally removed, and the starch is dried in the usual way. The gluten is recovered by neutralizing its solution with the exact quantity of sulphuric acid required for this, when it is set free and falls in flakes to the bottom. These are collected, washed, and ground into flour, when the substance is prepared for culinary purposes. This process applied to wheat results in the saving of all the gluten for food.-The principal use of starch has already been noticed. It has at present a very limited application in medicine; it is used externally as an absorbent of irritating secretions; it may also be given as an antidote to iodine taken in poisonous quantities. Those varieties described under ARROWROOT, CASSAVA, and SAGO, form a mild nutritious diet for the sick. Starch is sometimes adulterated with carbonate and sulphate of lime, and is purposely charged with water, sometimes to the extent of 12 per cent.-The importations of starch into the United States in 1860 amounted only to $1,400, the largest quantities coming from Scotland, China, and England.-The subject of starch is treated by Dumas in Chimie appliquée, vol. vi., and by Parnell in "Applied Chemistry;" and the manufacture from the potato is described by M. Payen in Précis de chimie industrielle (Paris, 1851). STARGAZER, a spiny-rayed percoid fish of the family trachinide or weevers, and genus uranoscopus (Linn.), so called from the position of the eyes, which look directly upward. The body is elongated, covered with smooth cycloid scales; head depressed, large and wide, bony and rough, with the gape ascending or vertically cleft, the upper jaw the shorter, and the teeth small and crowded on the jaws, palate, and vomer; branchiostegal rays 6; dorsals 2, of which the 1st is small and spinous, the 2d and the anal long; ventrals in front of the large pectorals and on the throat; anus very far forward; air bladder absent. In some of the family the dorsal and opercular spines are capable of inflicting painful wounds; they have the power of raising the eyeballs from and retracting them within their sockets. There are more than a dozen species of the genus, mostly East Indian, of which the best known is the U. scaber (Linn.) of the Mediterranean, about a foot |