Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XIV.djvu/720

 696 SCOPAS SCORPION mains of a fucoid plant, and afterward until recently to indicate the existence of a long marine worm, which inhabited the sanda not far below tide level. The most common form has been named S. linearis, and, whatever it be, is one of the earliest fossils. Since atten- tion has been paid to the habits of sponges, especially to those of cliona and its allies, which mine and perforate shells, some palse- ontologists are disposed to attribute the sco- lithus marks to these rather than to marine worms. Sponges are known to have existed at the period of the Trenton limestone, next above the Potsdam sandstone, and it is highly probable that most if not all of those burrows are due to ancient mining sponges. SCOPAS, a Greek sculptor, born in the island of Paros, flourished during the first half of the 4th century B. 0. He was a contemporary of Praxiteles, and with him stands at the head of the later Attic school of sculpture. Among his most famous works are the slabs from the mau- soleum of Halicarnassus representing a battle of Amazons. The celebrated group of Niobe and her children in the Uffizi gallery, Flor- ence, and the Venus of Milo in the Louvre, are also attributed to Scopas, though the lat- ter probably belongs to the school of Phidias. He was employed on the temples of Athena Alea in Arcadia and of Diana at Ephesus. His masterpiece, according to Pliny, jwas a group representing Achilles conducted to the island of Leuce by sea divinities. See Skopas's Leben und Werke, by Ulrichs (Greifswald, 1863). SCORESBY. I. William, an English navigator, born at Cropton, Yorkshire, May 3, 1760, died in 1829. Ho was bred a farmer, and at the age of 29 entered on a seafaring life ; and he became an adventurous and successful whaling master, having held command in 30 voyages. He made numerous improvements in whale- fishing apparatus and operations, and invented the observatory attached to the maintopmast, called the " round topgallant crow's nest," which was generally adopted by arctic navi- gators. II. William, an English arctic explorer and clergyman, son of the preceding, born at Cropton, Oct. 5, 1790, died in Torquay, March 21, 1857. At the age of 10 he ran away to sea in one of his father's ships, and in his 16th year attained the rank of chief mate. He was second officer of the Resolution, commanded by his father, which in 1806 sailed to lat. 81 30', the northernmost point that had then been reached. After several years spent in study, partly at the university of Edinburgh, he be- came in 1810 captain of the Resolution. Some communications which he made to Sir Joseph Banks resulted in the series of explorations in the north which have distinguished the present century. He was the first to attempt scientific observations on the electricity of the atmos- phere in high northern regions. He explored in the ship Baffin in 1822 the E. coast of Green- land, and after his return devoted himself to study, graduating at Cambridge as bachelor of divinity in 1834, and subsequently received the degree of D. D. After serving as chaplain of the mariners' church in Liverpool, he was ap- pointed in 1839 vicar of Bradford in Yorkshire. Here he labored until his failing health obliged him to retire to Torquay, where he engaged in scientific and philanthropic labors. He vis- ited the United States in 1847, and shortly before his death made a voyage round the world, reaching home Aug. 14, 1856. He was a member of the royal society. His principal works are : " An Account of the Arctic Re- gions" (2 vols. 8vo, 1820); "Journal of a Voy- age to the Northern Whale Fishery" (1823); "Discourses to Seamen" (1831); "Magneti- cal Observations" (3 parts, 8vo, 1889-'52) ; "American Factories and their Female Ope- ratives" (1848); "Zoistic Magnetism" (1849); "Sabbaths in the Arctic Regions" (1850); " The Franklin Expedition " (1850) ; " My Fa- ther" (1851); and "Voyage to Australia and round the World for Magnetical Research," edited by Archibald Smith (1859). His life has been written by his nephew, R. E. Scores- by-Jackson (London, 1861). SCORPION, an articulate animal of the class arachnida or spiders, division pulmonarice or those which breathe by air sacs, order pedipal- pi, and genus scorpio (Linn.). The body is long, the head and thorax in a single piece, the thorax and abdomen intimately united and followed by six joints of nearly equal breadth, and then by six others very narrow, and form- ing what is called the tail ; the last joint ends in a sharp curved sting connected with a gland secreting an oily, whitish, poisonous fluid, which is discharged by two small openings near the end ; the body is clothed with a firm, coriaceous skin composed of chitine. The mandibles, according to Siebold, are wanting, the parts usually called such being only anten- nas transformed into prehensile and masticatory organs ; the cheliceres have three joints, move vertically, and under them have the first pair of jaws changed into long prehensile palpi, like extended arms, ending in a didactyle claw or pincer, an in the lobster, endowed with a deli- cate sense of touch ; there are eight legs, three- jointed, ending each in a double hook ; the eyes are six or eight, one pair of which is often median and larger than the others; at the base of the abdomen are two laminated organs, called combs. On the lower and lateral parts of the abdomen are eight spiracles or stigmata, opening into as many pulmonary sacs, each en- closing 20 delicate laminfe for respiratory pur- poses; the heart consists of eight chambers, and at each end is prolonged into an arterial trunk ; there is also a venous system ; the blood is colorless, and contains a few cells and granules ; no blood vessels have been discov- ered on the pulmonary lamina?, and the blood is probably effused into the parts surrounding these sacs or lungs. The intestine is straight and narrow, with the anal opening on the penultimate caudal segment ; the liver is very