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STRAUSS

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STRENGTH OF MATERIALS

and The Old and the New Faith are his latest works. His style of writing places him very high among German writers. He died on Feb. 8, 1874. See Life by Zeller.

Strauss, Johann, Austrian dance-music composer and conductor, known familiarly as The Waltz-King, was born at Vienna, Oct. 25, 1825, and died there on June 3, 1899. He came of an eminently musical family, his father being a noted musician, while two of his brothers were composers of dance-music. On his father's death he became conductor, and toured the world with his own and his late father's orchestra. At the same time, from an early age, he composed waltzes and operettas, which have held the stage with great favor. In 1872 he conducted an orchestra of 1,000 performers at the Boston Peace Jubilee; he for a time also was musical director to Emperor Joseph at Vienna. His most famous waltz-pieces are Wiener Blut, Kun-sterleben and An der schonen blauen Donau. Of his operettas the following are best-known: Indigo Cagliostro, La Tsigane, Die Fledermaus (The Bat), Der Lustige Krieg (The Merry War), Simplicius, Eine Nacht in Venedig and The Gypsy Baron.

Strauss, Richard (1864- ), a distinguished German composer and conductor, born at Munich, his father being the finest horn-player of his day. By musical critics Richard Strauss is variedly estimated, some esteeming his work but cacophony, while others recognize it as "the music of the future" and deem him the most eminent of living German musicians. In like manner, his Domestic Symphony, Heldenleben and other tone-poems have provoked the most acrimonious discussion; but much the same, it will be recalled, was said of Wagner and his work, and hence the balance must be struck midway between the two varied estimates current in regard to the author's productions and their effect on the ear of the listener and critic. In his earliest years Strauss was musical director at Meiningen, chapel-master twice at Munich, then at Berlin; and afterwards he occupied himself as a composer, and that of the ultramodern school. His chief symphonic works include Italia (a fantasy), Don Juan, Macbeth, Death and Apotheosis, Don Quixote, Thus Spake Zarathustra and A Hero's Life. He has also published many songs (not far short of 50), and almost all have been very popular. Great successes also have been his operas of Guntram, Feuersnot and Salome (q. v.), adapted from Oscar Wilde's text, which reveal special gifts as an imaginative and daringly original composer. In 1905 Strauss paid a professional visit to this country, where he conducted many of his more admired compositions.

Straw is the stem of grasses, as wheat, oats and barley It is used on farms for

feeding and for bedding animals. Its chief use in the arts is in making paper and hats. Wheat-straw is most used for plaiting, the process by which the straw is prepared for hats, bonnets and baskets. The straw is usually split into strips and plaited or braided by women and children. They are sold by the score or 20 yards in a piece. The finest straw-plaits are made in Tuscany, and are made from whole wheat. The wheat is sown very thickly and the crop pulled up and cut off by hand for threshing. The plaiting of the finer straws is so trying to the eyes that the plaiters cannot work more than two hours a day. Large quantities of straw-plait are also sent out from Canton, China. The straw-braids which are brought to this country are made into hats and bonnets by a machine which sews a hundred a, day, and are pressed by another machine at the rate of four a minute. Panama hats are made from straw from the leaves of a palm, and are braided by the Indians in South America.

Straw'berry, species of Fragaria, a genus of the rose family. It contains about 12 species, which are found in the temperate regions of the northern and southern hemispheres. The fruit really is a much enlarged and fleshy receptacle, in the surface of which the very small, seed-like akenes are more or less imbedded. The strawberry is comparatively recent in cultivation, and in America it is said to be the most important of the small fruits. The ordinary commercial varieties are all from the Chilean strawberry (F. Chiloensis), whose name indicates its origin. The common, wild strawberry of the eastern United States was once extensively cultivated, but it has about passed into disuse.

Strea'tor, 111., a city of La Salle County, on the Vermilion River, the center of a productive agricultural and coal-mining district, 92 miles southwest of Chicago. It is served by the Chicago and Alton; Wabash; Chicago, Burlington and Quincy; Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe*; and Chicago, Indiana and Southern railways. Its industrial establishments embrace foundries and machine-shops; flour and planing mills; brick, tile and sewer-pipe works; and manufactories of flint and Bohemian ware, window and rolled plate glass and locomotive-repair shops etc. The city has fine churches, schools, banks, libraries, a hospital, a home for the aged, a Y. M. C. A. building, opera-house and other civic institutions. Population 14,253.

Street-Railways. See ELECTRIC RAILWAYS.

Strength of Mate'rials, the resistance which materials offer to changes in form, such as elongations, compression, bending and twisting. Such changes in form are called strains, and the force with which the material resists a strain is called a stress.