Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XV.djvu/443

 STRUENSEE STRUVE 427 Der Wunderdoctor, He lost heavily during the war of 1870-'71, became inextricably in- volved in 1872 after a ruinous settlement with the Roumanian government on account of un- fulfilled railway contracts, failed in 1875, and in November was imprisoned at Moscow for alleged fraudulent transactions with a bank. STRUENSEE, Johann Friedrieh, count, a Danish statesman, born in Halle, Aug. 5, 1737, exe- cuted at Copenhagen, April 28, 1772. He be- came in 1768 the physician and favorite of King Christian VII., and subsequently of his queen, Carolina Matilda. The king gave him- self up to vicious indulgence, while the queen dowager led by Count Bernstorff, and the party of the queen led by Struensee, strove for power. The latter triumphed, and Struensee was appointed prime minister. After insti- tuting important reforms, he became obnox- ious on account of his arbitrary measures and his alleged illicit relations with the queen, and his enemies finally procured his ruin. (See CHRISTIAN VII., and CAROLINA MATILDA.) STRl'TT, Joseph, an English antiquary, born in Springfield, Essex, Oct. 27, 1742, died in London, Oct. 16, 1802. He studied painting and engraving, afterward engaged in antiqua- rian researches in the British museum, and published "The Regal and Ecclesiastical An- tiquities of England, containing the most au- thentic Representations of the English Mon- archs from Edward the Confessor to Henry VIII." (4to, 1773 ; new ed. by J. R. Planche, 1842) ; " Horda-Angel-Cynnan, or a Complete View of the Manners, Customs, Arms, Habits, &c., of the Inhabitants of England from the arrival of the Saxons till the Reign of Henry VIII." (3 vols. 4to, 1774-'6) ; " The Chronicle of England" (2 vols. 4to, 1777-'8), intended to comprise 6 vols., but terminated with the Norman conquest ; " Biographical Dictionary of Engravers" (2 vols. 4to, 1785-'6) ; "Com- plete View of the Dress and Habits of the People of England, from the Establishment of the Saxons in Britain to the present Time" (2 vols., 1796-'9; new ed., 1875); and "The Sports and Pastimes of the People of Eng- land" (4to, 1801), well known by Hone's edi- tion (8vo, 1830; latest ed., illustrated, 1875). He left a fragment of a romance entitled " Queen Hoo Hall," edited by Sir Walter Scott (1808), and other writings published posthii- mously. Strutt engraved a series of plates illustrating the " Pilgrim's Progress." STRIVE. I. Friedrich Georg Wilhelm TOD, a Russian astronomer, born in Altona, April 15, 1793, died in St. Petersburg, Nov. 23, 1864. He was educated at Dorpat, and in November, 1813, was appointed extraordinary professor of mathematics and astronomy there, two years later becoming ordinary professor. His duty in that office -was not only to attend to the observatory, but also to lecture on astronomy and mathematics ; but in 1822 the two offices were separated, and Struve was henceforth free to Avork exclusively as an astronomer. In 1839 he was made director of the observatory of Pulkova, which had been built under his direction, and not long after he was made councillor of state. He confined his labors as an astronomer principally to the observation of fixed and double stars, and made large addi- tions to the knowledge of these bodies. He also conducted the triangulation of Livonia, and measured the degrees of latitude in the Baltic provinces, and an arc of the meridian between Norway and southern Russia. In 1857 Struve visited England to organize and arrange the measurement of an arc of parallel through the entire breadth of Europe, from Orsk at the foot of the Ural mountains to Va- lentia at the western extremity of Ireland. This work he fairly initiated, but in 1858 he was attacked by a malady which prevented him from cooperating further in it save by ad- vice and calculation ; and in December, 1861, he was compelled to resign his active duties as director of the observatory. His most im- portant works are : Observation es Dorpatenses (8 vols., Dorpat, 1817-'39); Catalogue Novus Stellarum Luplicium, (1827) ; Stellarum Du- plicium Mensurce Micrometricw (St. Peters- burg, 1827) ; Description de Conservatoire as- tronomique central de Eussie (1845, with 36 plates) ; Etudes d^astronomie stellaire sur la tsoie lactee et la distance des etoiles fixes (1847) ; and Stellarum Fixarum imprimis Duplicium et Multiplicium Positioner Mediae pro Epocha 1830, &c. (fol., 1852). See a memoir by Prof. Cleveland Abbe, in the appendix to the report for 1869 of the secretary of the Smithsonian institution. II. Otto Wilhelm, son of the prece- ding, born at Dorpat, May 7, 1819. He became his father's assistant at Pulkova in 1839, and succeeded him as director in 1862. From 1847 to 1862, as consulting astronomer, he had the oversight of all investigations conducted by the Russian army and navy. His labors relate chiefly to nebulee, double stars, faint satellites, and comets, and include a new determination of the constant of precession, the discovery of about 500 new double stars, most of them barely separable, the determination of the mass of Neptune, investigations in regard to Saturn and his rings and to the parallax of various fixed stars, and observations of the nebula of Orion. He first showed that the red promi- nences visible in a total solar eclipse belong to the sun's surface. Besides numerous papers in the Memoires of the academy of St. Petersburg, he has published Uelersicht der Thatiglceit der Nikolai- Hauptsternwarte wahrend der ersten 25 Jahre ihres BesteTiens (St. Petersburg, 1865). STRUVE. I. Georg Adam, a German jurist, born in Magdeburg, Sept. 26, 1619, died in Jena, Dec. 15, 1692. He studied law at Jena and Helmstedt, and in 1646 was appointed professor of law at Jena, and in 1648 assessor to the high court of the circle of Saxony. In 1667 he was appointed privy councillor to the duke of Weimar, and was selected as his ad- vocate in the case of the succession to the