Speer
ROBERT ELLIOTT, an American missionary secretary, born in Huntingdon, Pa., in 1867. He graduated from Princeton University in 1889, and from the Princeton Theological Seminary in the following year. In 1891 he was appointed secretary of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, and made tours in connection with this work in China, Persia, Korea, and Japan in 1896-7. In 1909 he visited South America, and in 1915 Japan, China, the Philippine Islands, and Siam. During the World War he was a member of the advisory committee on the religious and moral activities of the Army and Navy. He wrote "Missions and Politics in Asia" (1898); "Missionary Principles and Practice" (1902); "Christianity and the Nations" (1910); "South American Problems" (1912); "Studies in the Gospel of John" (1915).
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Spelt
in botany, an inferior kind of called also Gerwheat, Triticum spleta; stout, almost solid man wheat. It has a of grain. It straw, with strong spikes common wheat, and is more hardy than and other parts of grows in in Bavaria France, and in Germany, in the south of Switzerland where elevated situations in not ripen. common wheat would
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Spencer Gulf
an extensive inlet of South Australia; length about 200 miles, breadth at at widest about 90 miles, and at inner extremity about 3 miles.
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Spender
E. HAROLD, a British author and journalist, born at Bath, England, in 1864. He was educated at Bath College and was Exhibitioner at University College, Oxford. He went on the staff of the "Echo" in 1887, and in 1889 became lecturer for the Oxford University Extension Delegacy. He was on the staff of the "Pall Mall Gazette," 1891-1893; "Westminster Gazette," 1893- 1895; "Daily Chronicle," 1895-1899; "Manchester Guardian," 1899-1900, and "Daily News," 1900-1914. He devoted himself to propaganda during the World War. His works include: "Story of the Home Rule Session"; "At the Sign of the Guillotine"; "Through the High nd social phe- "General Pyrenees"; Botha"; "The Arena"; Arena"; "David Lloyd "Home George." Rule";
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Sperm Oil
the oil of the spermaceti whale, which is separated from the spermaceti and the blubber (see SPERM- ACETI). This kind of oil is much purer than train oil, and burns away without leaving any charcoal on the wicks of lamps. In composition it differs but slightly from common whale oil.
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Sperm Whale
or CACHALOT, the Physeter macrocephalus, a species of cetacea belonging to the section of the whale order denominated "toothed" whales, generally met with in the Pacific, but occasionally also on the coast of Greenland. The large blunt head in an old male is sometimes thirty feet long, and forms about a third of the total length of the body; while the "blowholes" or S-shaped nostrils are situated in the front part of the head. The weight of an adult animal is estimated at about 200 tons, and in a male 66 feet long the flipper measured 5 feet 3 inches, and the two-lobed tail fin had a breadth of nearly 20 feet. The top of the back is continued almost in a straight line from the upper part of the head; the belly is enormous, but the body thins off toward the wide tail. The color is a blackish-gray, which may exhibit greenish or bluish hues on the upper parts. The teeth of the lower jaw average each about three inches in length. This whale is of considerable commercial value. See SPERMACETI.
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Spes
The personification of Hope, was worshipped at Rome, where she had several temples. The Greeks also worshipped the personification of Hope, Elpis. Hope was represented in works of art as a youthful figure, lightly walking in full attire, holding in her right hand a flower, and with the left lifting up her garment.
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Spezzia
a Greek island at the entrance to the Gulf of Nauplia; area, 6½ square miles; pop. 6,899, engaged chiefly in commercial pursuits. The town of Spezzia has a good harbor.
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Sphagnum
sfag'num, a sort of moss growing in bogs and moist places. The upper ends of the branches produce soft, feathery, lightish green branchlets. There are about twenty-five species in North America . They form the characteristic and chief vegetation of the peat bogs. The lower parts of the stems turn into peat while the upper parts continue to extend branches and multiply. New plants are propagated by means of spores also. The tiny, translucent leaves and stems are penetrated by water ducts that enable a bunch of the moss to hold water like a sponge. Sphagnum is accordingly a favorite material with the nurseryman, who employs it to pack around the roots of nursery stock in shipment. A sphagnum bog, even on high land and well ditched, holds water tenaciously. The dead moss packs down but so long as it is moist it is proof against decay. See Peat
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Sphalerite
or ZINC BLENDE, Native Zinc Sulphide. Also known as Blende and Black Jack, the iron which it usually contains giving it a black color. It is an important ore of zinc, containing approximately 67 per cent. of the metal. It is very widely distributed.
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Spheroid
in geometry, a solid, resembling a sphere in form, and generated by the revolution of an ellipse about one of its axes. If an ellipse be revolved about its transverse axis, the spheroid generated is called a prolate spheroid; if it be revolved about its conjugate axis, the spheroid generated is called an oblate spheroid. The earth is an oblate spheroid that is, flattened at the poles so that its polar is less than its equatorial diameter.
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Sphex
a genus of hymenopterous insects of the family Sphegida, closely allied to the true wasps. The sphex wasps are solitary in habit, and there are no workers as in the social forms. The female hollows out, at the end of a long passage, three or four chambers, in each of which she deposits an egg and a store of food for the larva she will never see. The food consists of grasshoppers or other insects, and Fabre gives a minute account of the way in which the sphex attacks her victim, and, after a long and violent struggle, throws it on its back and stings it in the neck and between the thorax and abdomen, each time piercing a ganglion. The intherefore not liable to putrefaction, is then dragged to the mouth of the nest, where it is relinquished for a short time while the wasp enters alone to see that all is right. So automatic is this habit of reconnoitering that if the grasshopper be removed a little distance the wasp drags it back to the same spot and again enters alone. This was tested by the ob-- server 40 times in succession, and each time the wasp paid her preliminary visit of inspection. Four paralyzed insects are placed in each chamber, which is sealed up as it is finished. When all are full the mouth of the passage is also closed, and the nest is abandoned.
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