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STRATUM 116 STRATJSS will in most cases show whether strata are lacustrine, fluviatile, or marine. They prove that deposit was very slow. One stratum may overlap another, or a stratum may thin out, or an outcrop of it may exist As a rule, the lowest are the oldest, but some great convulsion may have tilted over strata in limited areas, so that the oldest have been thrown uppermost. A study of the same beds over a wide expanse of country prevents error in estimating the relative age of strata thus reversed. The thick- ness of the stratified rocks is believed to be about 20 miles, or 100,000 feet. They are not all present at one place, or even in one country. Though a sur- prisingly large number are to be found m America, yet some foreign beds re- quire to be inserted in the series, and even then great gaps remain, each rep- resenting a lapse of time. For the order of superposition, see Fossil: Geology. STRAUS, NATHAN, an American merchant and philanthropist, bom in Rhenish Bavaria in 1848. At the age of six he came to the United States with his family. He was educated in the pub- lic schools of Talbotton, Ga., and at Packard's Business College. In 1866 he became a member of his father's firm, NATHAN STRAUS engaged in the import of pottery and glassware. From 1888 to 1914 he was a partner in R. H. Macy & Co. and from 1892 to 1914 a partner in Abraham & Straus, two of the largest New York City department stores. From 1889 to 1893 he was park commissioner of New York City; in 1898 president of the Board of Health, New York City; in 1911 United States delegate to the In- ternational Congress for the Protection of Infants at Berlin, and in 1912 to the Tuberculosis Congress at Rome. After his retirement from active business in 1914, he devoted his time exclusively to the many charitable enterprises in which he had been interested for many years. The charity with which his name is especially associated, was the labora- tory and distribution system for pas- teurized milk to the poor of New York City, resulting in the saving of many thousands of infants annually. After carrying on this work for many years at his own expense he turned the entire plant over to the City of New York. as a gift. He also installed similar systems in many other cities of the United States and abroad. His gifts for other char- itable purposes were large. Amongst them should be mentioned the installa- tion and maintenance of depots for the distribution of coal to the poor in New York City, the establishment in 1912 of soup kitchens in Jerusalem, the estab- lishment of a health bureau in Pales- tine, etc. Besides making many ad- dresses on the pasteurization of milk and on other public topics, he wrote "Disease in Milk — the Remedy, Pasteuri- zation" (1917). STRAUS, OSCAR SOLOMON, an American diplomatist; born in Otten- berg, Rhenish Bavaria, Dec. 23, 1850; came to the United States in 1854 and was graduated at Columbia University in 1871. Subsequently he entered mer- cantile life. In 1887 he was appointed United States minister to Turkey. He was president of the New York Board of Trade and Transportation; a mem- ber of several historical and sociological societies, and the author of a number of books dealing with religion and history. In 1898 he was again appointed ministei to Turkey, which office he held till 1900; and on Jan. 14, 1902, President Roose- velt appointed him a permanent member of the Committee of Arbitration at The Hague, to succeed the late ex-president Benjamin Harrison. In 1906 he was ap- pointed Secretary of Commerce and Labor in the Roosevelt cabinet; ambassa- dor to Turkey 1909-1910 and Progres- sive candidate for governor of New York ; arbitrator in the dispute between en- gineers and managers of Eastern railroads in 1914; chairman of the New York Public Service Commission in 1915; president of the American Jewish His- torical Society. Publication: "The United States Doctrine of Citizenship." STRAUSS, ALBERT, an American banker and public official, born in New York City in 1864. He was educated