The genus Spirula is not known in a fossil state, but it has ancestors, Spirulirostra and Spirulirostrina, in the Tertiary deposits of Italy. These latter have remnants of the 'guard' at the apical portion of the shell, which feature seems to indicate the descent of Spirula from some form of shell like Belemnites. See CEPHALOPODA.

SPIT ALFIELDS. An eastern district of London, England, in Whitechapel, adjoining Bethnal Green. It is a manufacturing district inhabited chiefly by the poorer class of population, and by silk-weavers, descendants of French Huguenots. It is the seat of the Spitalfields market. Spitalfields derives its name from the Hospital of Saint Mary, founded in 1197. Population, in 1891, 26,594; in 1901, 27,965.

SPIT HEAD. A roadstead off Portsmouth, England, between Portsea Island and the Isle of Wight (Map: England, E 6). It is 14 miles long by 4 miles in average breadth, and receives its name from the 'Spit,' a sand-bank stretching south from the English shore for three miles. Fortified by circular towers, and, except on the southeast, protected from all winds, it is a favorite anchorage of the British navy, styled by sailors 'the King's bedchamber,' on account of its security.

SPITTA, KARL JOHANN PHILIPP (1801-59). A German religious poet, born in Hanover. He was educated at Göttingen, and from 1824 to 1828 he was a tutor at Lüne, and there wrote the best of his hymns. Afterwards he was vicar or pastor in several churches, and in 1859, shortly before his death, was made superintendent at Burgdorf. His hymns, contained in Psalter und Harfe (1833; revised with biographical note by his son, Ludwig, 1890; 'Jubilee' ed., 1901), and in the Nachgelassene geistliche Lieder (1861 and often), rank high in the German spiritual song of the century, and attained great popularity by their freshness of thought, purity of style, and depth of senti

ment.

SPITZ BERGEN. A group of islands in the

Arctic Ocean, situated about 430 miles north of the northern extremity of Norway, between 76° 30′ and 80° 48′ north latitude, and between 10° and 30° east longitude (Map: Arctic Regions, H 3). The group consists of three large islands, West Spitzbergen, North East Land, and Edge Island, whose areas are, respectively, about 15,000, 4000, and 2500 square miles, and a number of smaller islands. All of them are of a rocky and mountainous character and very irregularly indented. West Spitzbergen has an ice-covered plateau running along its eastern coast and eroded toward the west into deep and narrow valleys terminating in fiords, and carrying the overflow of ice in the form of glaciers to the sea. These valleys and fiords are separated by rugged and rocky mountain spurs, here and there form ing a network of craggy peaks and ridges interspersed with glaciers. The highest point is the Horn Sund Tind with an altitude of 4560 feet. North East Land is almost wholly covered with an ice sheet, while the other islands are free. from permanent ice, or carry only isolated glaciers on their eastern slopes. The mean monthly temperatures range from 10° below zero in February to 37° above in August. Snow falls at all seasons, but in summer a considerable herbaceous growth covers the lower western

slopes. This consists largely of mosses, though there are 130 species of flowering plants and ferns, with sedges predominating along the shores. The fauna includes the reindeer, which, however, is fast disappearing, the polar bear, and the fox. The walrus is still found along the coast, but the birds are becoming fewer.

Spitzbergen has no permanent inhabitants, and no country claims possession of it. The islands were discovered by the Dutch in 1596. The interior was first explored in 1892 by Rabot, and in 1896 by Sir Martin Conway, who was the first to cross the large island. Spitzbergen has been an important base for polar expeditions, and in 1897 Andrée made it the starting point in his ill-fated attempt to reach the Pole by balloon. In recent years the west coast has been visited by a numservice during summer was established from Norber of tourists, and in 1896 a weekly steamship

way, and a small hotel was built on the coast.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. Nordenskjöld, Die schwedischen Expeditionen nach Spitzbergen und Bären Eiland (Jena, 1869); Zeppelin, Reisebilder aus Spitzbergen, Bäreneiland und Norwegen (Stuttgart, 1892); Conway, The First Crossing of Spitzbergen (London, 1897); Hafter, Briefe aus dem hohen Norden (Frauenfeld, 1900).

SPITZ DOG, or POMERANIAN DOG. See SHEEP DOG.

SPITZ/KA, EDWARD CHARLES (1852-). An American psychiatrist, born in New York City. He was educated at New York University, in Germany, and in Vienna. He served as interne in the New York City Asylum for the Insane, was professor of medical jurisprudence and diseases of the nervous system in the New York Post Graduate Medical School and Hospital from 1881, consulting surgeon to the Northeastern Dispensary, physician to the department of nerve diseases in the New York Polyclinic, and physician to the Metropolitan Throat Hospital. His writings include A Treatise on Insanity (New York, 1883), besides many monographs.

On the

SPITZWEG, spĬts'vâK, KARL (1808-85). A German genre and landscape painter, one of the most original figures in the art world of Munich, the most genial exponent of the humorous genre. Born and educated in Munich, he dispensed drugs for several years, then studied at the university, and in 1833 was won to art by his accidental surroundings in a watering place. Under the introductory guidance of the historical painter Hansonn (1791-1863), he took to brush and palette, but, practically self-taught, developed his rare talent for the depiction of those inimitable types of German philistinism amusingly associated with his name. establishment of the Fliegende Blätter in 1844, he became one of its most diligent contributors, whose incomparable humorous drawings were for years the delight of the entire reading world. Among his finely colored pictures of old bachelors, bookworms, hermits, etc., and his poetic landscapes with fanciful accessories, may be mentioned: "The Poor Poet" (1837), "Two Hermits" and a "Scholar in the Attic" (1882), all in the Pinakothek, Munich; "Spanish Serenade,” "The Hypochrondriac," "Herd-Girls on an Alp," and "Turkish Coffee-House," all in the Schack Gallery, Munich; "Going to Church Near Dachau" (1862), in Dresden; "His Reverence" and

"Village Street," both in the National Gallery, Berlin. Reproductions of his works appeared in the collections Spitzweg Mappe (Munich, 1887) and Spitzweg Album (ib., 1888). Consult: Regnet, in Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst (Leipzig, 1886), and Holland, in Allgemeine deutsche Biographie, xxxv. (ib., 1893).

SPLAY. The sloping or bevelled opening in window recesses and other such openings. Also the corner taken off the outer angle of such openings. SPLEEN (Lat. splen, from Gk. σλý, spleen; connected with Lat. lien, Skt. plihan, spleen). The largest and most important of the so-called ductless glands. It is generally oval in form, somewhat concavo-convex, soft, of very brittle consistence, highly vascular, of a dark bluish-red color, and situated in the left hypochondriac region, with its interior slightly concave surface embracing the cardiac end of the stomach and the tail of the pancreas. In the adult it is usually about 5 inches in length, 3 or 4 in breadth, and an inch or an inch and a half in thickness, and weighs about 7 ounces. At birth its weight in proportion to that of the entire body is as 1 to 350, which is nearly the same ratio as in the adult; while in old age the organ decreases in weight, the ratio being as 1 to 700. The size of the spleen is increased after gastric digestion, and is large in highly fed and small in starved animals. În intermittent fevers and leucocythæmia it is much enlarged, weighing occasionally from 18 to 20 pounds, and constituting what is popularly known as the ague-cake.

The spleen is invested externally by the peritoneum and inside this by a fibrous capsule giving off from its inner surface numerous small fibrous bands termed trabecula, which unite at numerous points with one another, and run in all directions. The parenchyma or proper substance of the spleen occupies the interspaces of the above-described areolar framework, and is a soft pulpy mass of a dark reddish-brown color, consisting of colorless and colored elements. The colorless elements consist of granular matter, of nuclei about the size of the red, blood-disks, and a few nucleated vesicles, and constitute onehalf or two-thirds of the whole substance of the pulp in well-nourished animals, while they diminish in number, and sometimes altogether disappear, in starved animals. The colored elements consist of red blood-disks and of colored corpuscles either free or included in cells; sometimes enlarged blood-disks are seen included in a. cell, but more frequently the inclosed disks are altered in form and color, as if undergoing retrograde metamorphoses. Besides these, numerous deep-red, or reddish-yellow, or black corpuscles and crystals, closely allied to the hæmatin of the blood, are seen diffused through the pulp substance.

The venous blood of the spleen is carried away by the splenic vein, which contributes to form the great portal venous system, distributed through the liver; while arterial blood is supplied by the splenic artery, the largest branch of the coeliac axis. The branches of this artery subdivide and ramify like the branches of a tree, with the Malpighian or splenic corpuscles attached to them like fruit. These splenic corpuscles, originally discovered by Malpighi, are whitish spherical bodies, which are either connected with the smaller arterial branches by

VOL. XVIII.-30.

SPLINT.

short pedicles, or are sessile upon their sheaths. They vary considerably in size and number, their diameter usually ranging from 1-30 to 1-60 of an inch. Each consists of a membranous capsule, homogeneous in structure, and formed by a prolongation from the sheath of the artery. The blood capillaries form a delicate plexus within these corpuscles.

With regard to its uses the spleen may be regarded as a storehouse of nutritive material, which may be drawn upon according to the requirements of the system, and the constant presence in large amounts of certain nitrogenous substances seems to indicate that some special nitrogenous metabolism takes place in it. The formation of both white and red blood cells probably also occurs in the spleen as well as the disintegration of exhausted blood corpuscles. SPLEENWORT. See ASPLENIUM, and Colored Plate of FERNS.

SPLICING. See KNOTTING AND SPLICING. SPLINT (Swed. splint, spike, forelock, flat iron peg, Dan. splint, splinter; connected with Eng. split). In surgery, a certain mechanical contrivance for keeping a fractured limb in its proper position, and for preventing any motion of the fractured ends; it may also be employed for securing perfect immobility of the parts to which it is applied in other cases, as in diseased joints, after resection of joints, etc. Many dif ferent kinds of splints are used, but wood and plaster of Paris are most common. In using wooden splints we take light strips slightly wider than the limb and long enough to reach beyond the joints that lie to either side of the injury. The fractured ends are brought as nearly as possible into their normal relation, thoroughly padded with absorbent cotton to prevent pressure or friction, and then the splints are applied and firmly bandaged to the limb, so as to prevent all motion. Wire netting, gutta percha, leather, and other materials are also frequently employed, as they can be molded to the shape of the limb. In the same way plaster of Paris can be applied to one side of a limb, carefully molded to it, and held in place by bandages. All movable splints, however, have the disadvantage that they must be readjusted from time to time, and thus the fractured limb is subjected to handling. The plaster of Paris splint is desirable, therefore, in many cases. The limb is carefully protected with a light layer of non-absorbent cotton, especial care being used to guard bony prominences and to avoid any unevenness. Coarse, wide-meshed bandages well rubbed with dry plaster of Paris are immersed for a moment in water and then applied like ordinary bandages, each layer being rubbed into the one beneath so as to make a firm cohesive splint. The plaster should include the joints to either side of the injury. This splint may be both strengthened and lightened by the introduction of wooden or metal strips between the layers of plaster. Drying takes place rapidly and gives a firm resisting splint. In compound fractures or in operative cases a fenestrum may be left over the wound proper and an opportunity thus given to attend to the required dressings without disturbing the splint.

SPLINT. A bony enlargement on the horse's leg between the knee and the fetlock, usually ap pearing on the inside of the fore leg, frequently situated between the large and small canon bones.

It is usually caused by concussion, and is most common in young horses that have been driven rapidly along hard roads before their bones have become firm.

SPLÜGEN, sply'gen. An Alpine pass leading between the Tambohorn and the Surettahorn from the Swiss Canton of Grisons into Italy at an altitude of 6946 feet (Map: Italy, D 1). The southern or Italian descent has three great galleries built to protect the road from avalanches, and completed by the Austrian Government in

1834.

SPODUMENE (from Gk. жоdοúμεvos, spodoumenos, pres. part. mid. of odour, spodoun, to burn to ashes, from σrodós, spodos, ashes). A mineral lithium and aluminum silicate crystallized in the monoclinic system. It has a vitreous lustre and is light green, gray, yellow, or purple in color. It occurs commonly in the coarse granitic veins, and is found in Sweden, the Tyrol, Scotland, Brazil, and in Massachusetts, Maine, Connecticut, North Carolina, and South Dakota. The yellow green to emerald green crystalline variety found in Alexander County, N. C., is highly valued as a gem, and is known as hiddenite, from its discoverer, W. E. Hidden, of New York.

SPOF/FORD, AINSWORTH RAND (1825-). An American librarian, born at Gilmanton, N. H. He was privately educated, became a bookseller, then associate editor of the Cincinnati Daily Commercial (1859), and in 1861 assistant librarian of Congress. From 1864 to 1899 he was librarian in chief of the Congressional Library, and became widely known for exceptional knowledge of books. He wrote much for periodicals on literature, economics, and history, and edited with others a Library of Choice Literature (10 vols., 1881-88), a Library of Wit and Humor (5 vols., 1884), and a Practical Manual of Parliamentary Rules (1884). He published annually The American Almanack and Treasury of Facts, Statistical,

Financial, and Political (1878-91), and A Book for All Readers (1900), on the collection and preservation of books and the founding of libraries.

SPOFFORD, HARRIET ELIZABETH (PRESCOTT) (1835-). An American novelist, born at Calais, Me. Educated at Newburyport, Mass., and Derry, N. H., she adopted literature as a profession and first attracted attention in 1859 by a story of Parisian life, In a Cellar, printed in the Atlantic Monthly. In the same year she published Sir Rohan's Ghost, followed by The Amber Gods and Other Stories (1863), and Azarian, an Episode (1864). In 1865 she married Richard S. Spofford, a Boston lawyer. The more noteworthy of her later books were: New England Legends (1871), The Thief in the Night (1872), Art Decoration Applied to Furniture (1881), Marquis of Carabas (1882), Poems (1882), Hester Stanley at Saint Marks (1883), The Servant Girl Question (1884), Ballads About Authors (1888), Scarlet Poppy and Other Stories (1894), A Master Spirit (1896), and In Titian's Garden and Other Poems (1897).

SPOHR, spōr, Louis (1784-1859). A German composer and violinist, born at Brunswick. He studied there under Kunisch and Maucourt and in 1802 became a pupil of the celebrated Franz Eck. In 1805 he accepted the appointment of concertmeister at Gotha and in 1812 went to Vienna as leader at the Theater an der Wien,

where he remained until 1815. From 1817 to 1819 he filled a similar position at Frankfort and in 1821 received a life appointment as Court conductor at Cassel. It was in connection

his

with this last position that he won greatest successes as a violinist, composer, and conductor; besides which he succeeded in bringing his orchestra to a pitch of perfection that earned it a world-wide reputation. In 1831 he completed his work, The Violin School, which has remained one of the standard works of instruction for that instrument. His oratorio Calvary received its first presentation on Good Friday, 1835. He was a prolific composer and wrote in all nearly 200 works. operas were little known outside of Germany, but his oratorios have been very popular in England and America, particularly Die letzten Dinge (The Last Judgment). As a composer of distinct individuality he ranks but little below the greatest representatives of German music. He died at Cassel. Consult: Autobiography (Cassel, 1860; Eng. trans., London, 1865); Schletterer, Louis Spohr, in Waldersee's Sammlung (Leipzig, 1881).

Most of his

SPOILS SYSTEM. See CIVIL SERVICE RE

FORM.

SPOKAN, spô-kan'. An Indian tribe of Salishan stock (q.v.) formerly occupying the whole basin of Spokane River in Washington and Idaho, and now chiefly gathered upon reservations in the same States. They were visited in 1806 by Lewis and Clark, who call them Liartielo. In language, customs, and alliance they were closely connected with the Sanpoil (q.v.). All are now civilized and Christianized, about equally divided between Catholic and Protestant. The majority are reported to be thrifty and industrious, promising soon to become self-supporting and good citizens. They numbered about 700 in 1903.

SPOKANE, spô-kan'. The county-seat of Spokane County, Wash., 450 miles east of Puget Sound, on the Spokane River and on the Northern Pacific Railway, the Great Northern Railway, the Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company, and several local branch lines (Map: Washington, H 2). The city was formerly known as Spokane Falls. Elevation, 1900 feet above sea level. The Spokane River flows through the heart of the city from east to west in a series of waterfalls, having a total descent of 142 feet, from which, at the lowest stage of water, 30,000 horse-power is available. Electrical power generated here is transmitted to the famous Cour d'Alêne silver and lead mines of Idaho, 100 miles away. Spokane has the Gonzaga College (Roman Catholic), opened in 1887, Brunot Hall, an Episcopal school for girls, and Saint Stephen's School for Boys. The city is well provided with hospitals and charitable institutions, and expends about $8000 annually for a public library (Carnegie). The notable buildings are the court house, city hall, post office, and Auditorium Theatre. Twenty-three bridges span the river within the city limits. Fort Wright, a large United States army post, is situated on the river just outside the city. Spokane is the mining centre of the Pacific Northwest, the tributary mines producing over $21,000,000 annually in gold, silver, copper, and lead. The city is sur rounded on the north, east, and south by large

ranean. Spongia gossypina, the wool sponge of Florida and the Bahamas, corresponds to Spongia equina, the horse or bath sponge of the Mediterranean. This wool sponge of Florida attains under favorable circumstances a weight of onetenth pound, in six months, and reaches a size of commercial value in a year.

Fossil sponges are known in rocks of all ages. They appear first in the Cambrian as Protospongia and Archæoscyphia, representing the hexactinellids and lithistids. They are represented in the Ordovician by the curious Brachiospongia, and a number of irregular forms; in the Silurian by Astræospongia, Astylospongia; in the Devonian by Hindia and the Dictyospongi dæ, which latter enjoyed such great expansion in the shallow seas of western New York during Chemung time. Receptaculites is a peculiar sponge that is common in the Ordovician. During the Mesozoic sponges attained a great development, became especially abundant during the Cretaceous period, and declined during the succeeding Tertiary. Noteworthy Cretaceous genera are Ventriculites and Cœloptychium.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. Hyatt, "Revision of North American Poriferæ," in Memoirs Boston Society of Natural History (vol. ii., Boston, 1875); Rauff, "Palæospongiologia,” in Palæontographica, vol. xl. (Berlin, 1893); Hinde, Catalogue of Fossil Sponges of the British Museum (London, 1883); Hall and Clarke, "A Memoir on the Palæozoic Reticulate Sponges Constituting the Family Dictyospongida," in Memoirs of the New York State Museum, vol. ii. (Albany, 1898).

SPONGIOZOA (Neo-Lat. nom. pl., from Gk. ooyyia, spongia, sponge + Sov, zoon, animal). One of the branches or phyla of Invertebrates, intermediate between the Protozoan and the Colenterati, and represented by a single class, Parifera, which comprises the sponges.

SPONSORS (Lat. sponsor, surety, from spondere, to promise; connected with Gk. omévdeɩv, spendein, to pour a libation). The persons, also called godfathers and godmothers, who present a candidate for baptism, and in the Roman Catholic Church for confirmation also, to the minister of those sacraments. In the case of

infants they are representatives who make the vows the child is incapable of making; with adults they act rather as witnesses, and among their duties is a subsequent general oversight in spiritual matters, with a view to preserving religious life in their godchildren. The spiritual bond resulting from this relation is supposed by

Roman Catholic theologians to constitute a species of affinity, and hence an impediment of marriage, extending to the parents of the baptized, and even at one time operating between the sponsors themselves.

SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION (Lat. spontaneus, willing, of one's own accord, from sponte, abl. sg. of *spons, will). The ignition of substances at a given moment apparently without the intervention of any causative agency. The spontaneous combustion of organic materials is a frequent cause of fires. When large quantities of cables, etc., are soaked with relatively small soot, linen, paper, cotton or woolen stuffs, ship's amounts of oils (especially drying oils) and exposed to a limited access of air, they may be expected to take fire sooner or later. Similarly, trimmings of lamp-wicks have been known to take fire if kept in open boxes. The presence of moisture frequently aids spontaneous combustion, and piles of damp hay, freshly mown grass, sometimes take fire spontaneously. The phenomenon is not, however, without a clearly defined cause. Fats and oils can be shown to undergo a slow process of combustion at but slightly elevated, if not at the ordinary, temperatures. This fact may be demonstrated by placing a little oil on a hot combustion of the oil will cause a peculiar odor (but not red-hot) metallic surface, when the and will render the oil faintly luminous in the

dark. The combustion of a small amount of oil causes the evolution of a corresponding amount of heat; the consequent rise of temperature ac.celerates the combustion, and hence produces a further elevation of temperature, and so forth, until at a given moment the temperature may become so high as to cause the inflammation of the oil, and with it of the entire mass of organic material containing it. The more porous the material, the greater the surface of oil exposed to enough to fill the pores completely. Free acthe air, provided the amount of oil is not large cess of air might prevent spontaneous combustion by effecting a lowering of the temperature; nor could combustion take place if too little or no air at all were admitted. As to the spontaneous combustion of human bodies, it is an impossibility, and all reports of such cases can be clearly shown either to be due to erroneous observation or to be intentionally fraudulent. See PYRO

PHORUS.

SPONTANEOUS GENERATION and PROTOGENESIS. The doctrine that different forms of life, especially the lower, have arisen by phy

7. One form of siliceous fibrous skeleton.

9. A bath-sponge (Spongia).