I hope her stubborn heart to bend,
And that it then more stedfaft will endure.

Spenfor. -Be faithful to thy neighbour in his poverty; abide fredfast unto him. Eccluf. xxii. 23.- Him refist stedfaft in the faith. 1 Pet. v. 9. 3. Not turned afide by fear.

What form of death could him affright, Who unconcern'd, with stedfuft light, Cou'd view the furges mounting steep, And monsters rolling in the deep?

Dryden. * STEADFASTLY. adv. [from Steadfast.] Firmly conftantly.-God's omnifcience freadfaftly grafos the greatest and most lippery uncertainties. South-Stedfeftly believe, that whatever God hath revealed is infallibly true. Wake.

STEADFASTNESS. z. f [from steadfast 1. Immutability; fixednefs.

The more of steadfast minds to be admir'd, The more they stayed be on ftedfaftnefs. Spenf. 2. Firmness; constancy; resolution.

* STEADILY. adv. [from steady. 1. Without tottering; without shaking.-Sin has a tendency to bring men under evils, unlefs hindered by fome accident, which no man can steadily build upon. South. 2. Without variation or iriegularity.

So fteadily does fickle fortune fteer
Th' obedient orb.

Blackmore. * STEADINESS. n. f. (from steady.] 1. State of being not tottering nor eafily fhaken. 2. Firmnefs; conftancy.-John got the better of his cholerick temper, and wrought himself up to a great freadiness of mind. Arbuthnot. 3. Confiftent unvaried conduct.—Steadiness is a point of prudence as well as of courage. L'Efrange.—A friend is ufeful to secure steadiness of conduct. Collier.

* STEADY. adj. [ftedig, Saxon.] 1. Firm; fixed; not tottering. Their feet steady, and their hearts refolute. 2. Regular; conftant; undeviating; unremitted.

He fails 'tween worlds and worlds with steady
wing.
Milton.
Steer the bounding bark with fieady toii.

ed he had cured him very well, and offered to eat the first stake of him. Tatler.-

Fair ladies who contrive To feast on ale and stakes.

Swift.

(1) To STEAL. v. a. preterite I stole, part. paff. Stolen. ftelan, Saxon; ftelen, Dutch.] 1. To take by theft; to take clandeftinely; to take without right. To steal generally implies fecrecy; to rob, either fecrecy or violence.

Thou ran't a tilt in honour of my love, And ftoit away the ladies hearts of France. Shak.

There are fome shrewd contents in yon fame

paper,

That fteal the colour from Baffanio's cheek; Some dear friend dead. Shak.

-How fhould we stea! fiver or gold? Gen. xav. 8.A fchoolboy finding a bird's neft, fhews it his companion, and he steals it. Shak. 2. To with. draw or convey without notice.-The law of England never was properly applied to the Irish, by a purpofed plot of government, but as they could infinuate and steal themselves under the fame by their humble carriage and fubmiffion. Spenfer.

Let us shift away, there's warrant in that theft

Which Steals itfelf when there's no mercy left. Shak. 3. To gain or effect by private and gradual means.

Young Lorenzo

Shak.

In my conduct fhall your ladies come, From whom you now must steal. Others weary of the long journey, lingering be. hind, were ftolen away. Knolles.

A bride

Should vanish from her cloaths into her bed, As fouls from bodies steal.

Donne.

The vapour of charcoal hath killed many; and

out any ill smell, and stealeth on by little and littie. Baron.

A soft and folemn breathing found,
Rofe like a fteam of rich diftill'd perfumes,

A a a

And

And frole upon the air, that even filence

Was took ere he was 'ware.

Milton.

Black steals unheeded from the neighb❜ring white,

So on us stole our bleffed change. ' Dryden. -When he had no fteward, he stole away. Swift

Now fighs steal out, and tears.

2. To practife theft; to play the thief; to take any thing thievishly; to have the habit of thiev ing-Stealing is the taking from another what is his, without his knowledge or allowance. Locke. -The good humour is to steal at a minute's reft. -Convey, the wife it call; steal! a fico for the phrafe! Shak.

*STEALER n.. [from steal.] One who fteals;

a thief.

The tranfgreffion is in the stealer. Shak. * STEALINGLY, adv. from stealing. Shly; by invitibie motion; by fecret practice.-They were diverse motions, they did fo stealingly flip one into another, as the latter part was ever in hand before the eye could difcern the former was ended. Saney.

* STEALTH. n. S. [from steal.] 1. The ac of fealing; thert. -The owner proveth the stealth to have been committed upon him by fuch an outlaw. Spenfer

The stealth of mutual entertainment With character too grofs is written on Juliet. Shak,

Spenfer.

In the fecret dark that none reproves, Their pretty stealths fhall work. The gods perfuaded Mercury, Their good obferver, to this stealth. Chapman. 2. The thing stolen.·

1

On his back a heavy load he bare Of nightly stealths. Fairy Queen. -Store of cabbins are but fluttish dens, that breed fickness in peace, ferving to cover stealths. Raleigh. 3. Secret act; clandeftine practice. By stealth means fecretly; clandeftinely with defire of concealment: but, like steal, 18 often ufed in a good fenfe.The wifdom of the fame spirit bor rowed from melody that pleasure, to convey as it were by stealth the treasure of good things into man's mind. Hooker.

I feel this youth's perfections, With an invinble and fubtile stealth, To creep in at mine eyes.

Shak. The monarch blinded with defire of wealth, With fteel invades his brother's life by stealth, Before the facied altar. Dryden.

Let humble Ailen, with an aukward fhame, Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame. Pope. * STEALTHY. adj. [from stealth.] Done clandeftinely; performed by ftealth.--`

Now wither'd murder with his stealthy pace, Moves like a ghost. Shak. (1.) * STEAM. n. f. [steme, Saxon.] The smoke or vapour of any thing moift and hot.-Sweet dours are, in fuch a company as there is steam and heat, things of great refreshment, Bacon His offering foon propitious fire from heaven Confum'd with nimble glance and grateful Milton.

steam

(2.) STEAM is the vifible moift vapour which arifes from all bodies which contain juices easily expelied from them by heats not fufficient for their combustion. It is diftinguished from smoke by its not having been produced by combuftion, by not containing any foot, and by its being condenfible by cold into water, oil, inflammable ipirits, or liquids compofed of thefe. We fee it rife in great abundance from bodies when they are heated, forming a white cloud, which diffufes itfelf and disappears at no very great distance from the body from which it was produced. In this cafe the furrounding air is found loaded with the water or other juices which feem to have produ ced it, and the steam seems to be completely foluble in air, as falt is in water, compofing white thus united a transparent elaftic fluid. But for its appearance in the form of an opaque white cloud, the mixture with or diffemination in air feems abfolutely neceffary. If a tea kettle boils violently, so that the steam is formed at the spout in great abundance, it may be obferved, that the visible cloud is not formed at the very mouth of the pout, but at a small diftarce before it, and that the vapour is perfectly transparent at its first emiffion. This is rendered still more evident by fitting to the spout of the tea kettle a glass pipe of any length, and of any diameter. The steam is produced as copiously as without this pipe, but the vapour is tranfparent through the whole length of the pipe. Nay, if this pipe communicate with a glass vellel terminating in another pipe, and if the vellel be kept fufficiently hot, the team will be as abundantly produced at the mouth of this fecond pipe as before, and the veffel will be quite tranfparent. therefore, of the matter which conftitutes the fteam is an accidental or extraneous circumftance, and requires the admixture with air; yet this quality again leaves it when united with air by folution. It appears therefore to require a diffe mination in the air. The appearances are quite agreeable to this notion; for we know that one perfectly transparent body, when minutely divid ed and diffused among the parts of another tianIparent body, but not diffoived in it, makes a mafs which is v fible. Thus oil beat up with water makes a white opaque mafs. In the mean time, as fteam is produced, the water gradually waftes in the tea kettle, and will foon be totally expended, if we continue it on the fire. This fteam is therefore nothing but water changed by heat into an aerial or elaftic form; which is fully verified by experiment; for if the pipe fitted to the fpout of the tea kettie be furrounded with cold water, no fteam wiil iflue, but water will continually trickle from it in drops; and if the procefs be conducted with the proper precau

The visibility,

tions

tions, the water which we thus obtain from the pipe will be found equal in quantity to that which difappears from the tea kettle. This is evidently the common procefs for DISTILLING; and the whole appearances may be explained by faying, that the water is converted by heat into an elaftic vapour, and that is, meeting with colder air, imparts to it the heat which it carried off as it arofe from the heated water, and being deprived of its heat, it is again water. The partieles of this water being vastly more remote from each other than when they were in the tea kettle, and thus being diffeminated in the air, become vifible, by reflecting light from their anterior and pofterior furfaces, in the fame manner as a tranfparent fait becomes vifible when reduced to a fine powder. This diffeminated water being prefented to the air in a very extended furface, is quickly diffolved by it, as pounded salt is in water, and again becomes a tranfparent fluid, but of a different nature from what it was before, being no longer convertible into water by depriving it of its heat.

(3.) STEAM, BLACK'S THEORY OF. The above opinion, or fomething very like it, had been long entertained. Mufchenbroeck exprefsly fays, that the water in the form of vapour carries off with it all the heat which is continually thrown in by the fuel. But Dr Black was the firft who attended minutely to the whole phenomena, and enabled us to form diftinct notions of the fuhject. He had discovered that it was not fufficient for converting ice into water that it be raised to that temperature in which it can no longer remain in the form of ice. A piece of ice of the temperature 32° of Fahrenheit's thermometer will remain a very long while in air of the temperature 50° before it be ail melted, remaining all the while of the temperature 32o, and therefore continually absorbing heat from the furrounding air. By comparing the time in which the ice had its temperature changed from 28 to 32° with the fubfequent time of its complete liquefaction, he found that it abforbed about 130 or 140 times as much heat as would raife its temperature one degree; and he found that one pound of ice, when mixed with one pound of water 140 degrees warmer, was just melted, but without rifing in its temperature above 32°. Hence he juftiy concluded, that water differed from ice of the fame temperature by containing, as a conflituent ingredient, a great quantity of fire, or of the caufe of heat, u nited with it in such a way as not to quit it for another colder body, and therefore fo as not to go into the liquor of the thermometer and expand it. Confidered therefore as the poffible caufe of heat, it was latent, which Dr Black expreffed by the abbreviated term LATENT HEAT. If any more heat was added to the water it was not latent, but would readily quit it for the thermometer, and, by expanding the thermometer, would fhow what is the degree of this redundant heat, while fluidity alone is the indication of the combined and latent heat. Dr Black, in like manner, concluded, that to convert water into an elastic vapour, it was neceffary, not only to increase its uncombined heat till its temperature is 212°, in3

which state it is juft ready to become elastic; but alfo to pour into it a great quantity of fire, or the caufe of heat, which combines with every parti cle of it, fo as to make it repel, or to recede from, its adjoining particles, and thus to make it a par tice of an elaftic fluid. He fuppofed that this additional heat might be combined with it fo as not to quit it for the thermometer; and there fore so as to be in a latent state, having eiaftic fluidity for its fole indication. This opinion was very confiftent with the phenomenon of boiling off a quantity of water. The application of heat to it caufes it gradually to rife in its temperature till it reaches the temperature 212°. It then be gins to fend off elastic vapour, and is flowy expended in this way, continuing ail the while of the fame temperature. The team alfo is of no higher temperature, as appears by holding a thermometer in it. We must conclude that this team contains all the heat which is expended in its formation. Accordingly the fcalding power of fteam is well known; but it is extremely difficult to obtain precife meatures of the quantity of heat abforbed by water during its conversion into steam. Dr Black endeavoured to afcertain this point, by comparing the time of raifing its temperature a certain number of degrees with the time of boiling it off by the fame external heat; and he found that the heat latent in team, which balanced the preffure of the atmosphere, was not iefs than 80ɔ degrees. He alfo directed Dr Irvine of Glasgow to the form of an experiment for measuring the heat actually extricated from fuch team during its condenfation in the refrigeratory of a fini, which was found to be not lefs than 774 degrees. Dr Black was afterwards informed by Mr Watt, that a courfe of experiments, which he had made in each of thefe ways with great precifion, determined the latent heat of fleam under the ordinary preffure of the atmosphere to be about 948 or 950 degrees. Mr Watt alfo found that water would diftil with great eafe in vacuo when of the temperature 70°; and that in this cafe the latent heat of the fteam is not less than 1200 or 1300 degrees and a train of experiments, which he had made by diftilling in different temperatures, made him conclude that the fum of the fenfible and latent heats is a conftant quantity. This is a curious and not an improbable circumftance; but we have no information of the particulars of thefe experiments. The conclufion evidently prefup. poles a knowledge of that particular temperature in which the water has no heat; but this is a point which is still fub judice.

(4.) STEAM, COMBINATION OF, WITH HEAT, AND CONSEQUENT ELASTICITY AND EBULLI. TioN. This converfion of liquids (for it is not confined to water, but obtains alfo in ardent spi rits, oil, mercury, &c.) is the cause of their boni. ing. The heat is applied to the bottom and fides of the veffel, and gradually accumulates in the fluid, in a fenfible ftate, uncombined, and ready to quit it and to enter into any body that is colder, and to diffuse itself between them. Thus it enters into the fluid of a thermometer, expands it, and thus gives us the indication of the degree in which it has been accumulated in the water;