Chapter Stone Soup to Stops of S by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

fell between the combatants; part of this mass is now in the British Museum. In June, 1866, at Knyahinya, a village of Hungary, a shower of stones fell, the largest of which weighs above 5 cwt.; it was broken in the fall into two pieces, both of which are now in the Imperial Collection at Vienna. On December 13th, 1795, in the village of Thwing, Yorkshire, an aërolite fell weighing 56 lbs., now in the British Museum. On September 10th, 1813, at Adare, in Limerick,. fell a similar stone, weighing 17 lbs., now in the Oxford Museum. On May 1st, 1860, in Guernsey county, Ohio, more than thirty stones were picked up within a space of ten miles by three; the largest weighed 103 lbs. (Kesselmeyer and Dr. Otto Buchner: The Times, November 14th, 1866.)
   You have stones in your mouth. Said to a person who stutters or speaks very indistinctly. The allusion is to Demosthenes, who cured himself of stuttering by putting pebbles in his mouth and declaiming on the sea-shore.

“The orator who once
Did fill his mouth with pebble stones
When he harangued,”
Butler: Hudibras, i. 1.

   Precious stones. Said to be dew-drops condensed and hardened by the sun.

Stonebrash A name given in Wiltshire to the subsoil of the north-western border, consisting of a reddish calcareous loam, mingled with flat stones; a soil made of small stones or broken rock.

Stonehenge, says Geoffrey of Monmouth, was erected by Merlin (the magician) to perpetuate the treachery of Hengist, who desired a friendly meeting with Vortigern, but fell upon him and his 400 attendants, putting them all to the sword. Aurelius Ambrosius asked Merlin to recommend a sensible memento of this event, and Merlin told the king to transplant the “Giants' Dance” from the mountain of Killaraus, in Ireland. These stones had been brought by the giants from Africa as baths, and all possessed medicinal qualities. Merlin transplanted them by magic. This tale owes its birth to the word “stan-hengist,” which means uplifted stones, but “hengist” suggested the name of the traditional hero.

“Stonehenge, once thought a temple, you have found
A throne where kings, our earthly gods, were crowned,
When by their wondering subjects they were seen.” Dryden: Epistles, ii.

Stonewall Jackson Thomas J. Jackson, one of the Confederate generals in the American war. The name arose thus: General Bee, of South Carolina, observing his men waver, exclaimed, “Look at Jackson's men; they stand like a stone wall!” (1826-1863.)

Stony Arabia A mistranslation of Arabia Petræa, where Petræa is supposed to be an adjective formed from the Greek petros (a stone), and not, as it really is, from the city of Petra, the capital of the Nabathæans. This city was called Thamud (rock-built). (See Yemen .)

Stool of Repentance A low stool placed in front of the pulpit in Scotland, on which persons who had incurred an ecclesiastical censure were placed during divine service. When the service was over the “penitent” had to stand on the stool and receive the minister's rebuke. Even in the present century this method of rebuke has been repeated.

“Colonel Knox tried to take advantage of a merely formal proceeding to set Mr. Gladstone on the stool of repentance.”- The Times.

Stops Organs have no fixed number of stops; some have sixty or more, and others much fewer. A stop is a collection of pipes similar in tone and quality, running through the whole or part of an organ. They may be divided into mouth-pipes and reed-pipes, according to structure, or into (1) metallic, (2) reed, (3) wood, (4) mixture or compound stops, according to material. The following are the chief:-
   (1) Metallic. Principal (so called because it is the first stop tuned, and is the standard by which the whole organ is regulated), the open diapason, dulciana, the 12th, 15th, tierce or 17th, larigot or 19th, 22nd, 26th, 29th, 33rd, etc. (being respectively 12, 15, 17, etc., notes above the open diapason).
   (2) Reed (metal reed pipes). Bassoon, cremona, hautboy or oboe, trumpet, vox-humana (all in unison with the open diapason), clarion (an octave above the diapason and in unison with principal).
   (3) Wood. Stopt diapason, double diapason, and most of the flutes.
   (4) Compound or mixture. Flute (in unison with the principal), cornet, mixture or furniture, sesquialtera, cymbel, and cornet.
    Grand organs have, in addition to the above, from two to two and a half octaves of pedals.
   Stops, strictly speaking, are three-fold, called the foundation stop, the mutation stop, and the mixture stop.
   The foundation stop is one whose tone