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SPENSER, EDMUND 20 SPEY tions of the utmost subtlety and varia- tion. At times the allegory is confusing to the lay reader, and the narrative seems inconsequent. It is not a poem that can be read continuously, but is rather for times and seasons. So read, one realizes the influence it has had on every great English poet since its pub- lication. After his great success, Spenser col- lected some earlier poems in a small anthology, wrote a charming pastoral called "Colin Clout's Come Home Againe," in v/hich he told of his Lon- don experiences and paid tribute to Raleigh, and continued his epic. The second section of the poem, containing books IV-VI appeared in 1596. A frag- ment consisting of two cantos of Muta- bility was not printed until after his death ; the design was only half finished. Besides the works already named there are many shorter poems, chief among them two marriage hymns of enduring beauty, a sonnet sequence addressed to the lady whom he married in 1595, and four hymns in which he expressed in perfect verse the mystical and Platonic philosophy with which his name is in- separably linked. He died in London in 1599. SPERMACETI, a neutral, inodorous, and nearly tasteless, fatty substance, ex- tracted from the oily matter of the head of the sperm whale by filtration and treatment with potash-ley. It is white, brittle, soft to the touch, sp. gr., 0.943 at 15°, melts from 38° to 47°, and is chiefly used in ointments and cerates. Sperm- aceti was formerly given as a medicine; now it is chiefly employed externally as an emollient and in the preparation of a blistering paper. SPERM OIL, the oil of the spermaceti whale, which is separated from the spermaceti and the blubber (see Sperm- aceti). This kind of oil is much piirer than train oil, and burns away without leaving any charcoal on the wicks of lamps. In composition it differs but slightly from common whale oil. SPERM WHALE, or CACHALOT, the Physeter macrocephalus, a species of cetacea belonging to the section of the whale order denominated "toothed" whales, generally met with in the Pa- cific, but occasionally also on the coast of Greenland. The large blunt head in an old male is sometimes thirty feet long, and forms about a third of the total length of the body; while the "blow- holes" or S-shaped nostrils are situated in the front part of the head. The weight of an adult animal is estimated at about 200 tons, and in a male 66 feet long the flipper measured 5 feet 3 inches, and the two-lobed tail fin had a breadth of nearly 20 feet. The top of the back is continued almost in a straight line from the upper part of the head; the belly is enormous, but the body thins off toward the wide tail. The color is a blackish-gray, which may exhibit green- ish or bluish hues on the upper parts. The teeth of the lower jaw average each about three inches in length. This whale is of considerable commercial value. See Spermaceti. SPERRY, CHARLES STILLMAN. an American naval officer, born in Brooklyn, N. Y., in 1847. He graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1866, and rising through the various grades, became a commander in 1894, captain in 1900, and rear-admiral in 1906. Dur- ing the Spanish-American War he was on ordnance duty at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. He served in the Philippines, in command of the Yorktown, in 1899, and took an active part in the campaign for the pacification of the islands. In 1903 he was appointed president of the Naval War College, and in 1907 was one of the American representatives at the Second Hague Conference. He was in command of the Second Squadron on the cruise of the American battleships around the world in 1908, was retired in 1909 and died in 1911. SPERRY, ELMER AMBROSE, an American electrical engineer, born at Cortland, N. Y., in 1860. He was edu- cated at the State Normal and Training School, Cortland, N. Y., and at Cornell University. He was the founder of the Sperry Electric Co., of Chicago; of the Sperry Electric Railway Co., Cleveland, Ohio, and of the Sperry Gyroscope Co., Brooklyn, N. Y. An inventor of great originality, he held over four hundred patents issued in the United States and in Europe. Some of these covered his gyro-compass, aeroplane and ship stabil- izers, fire-control apparatus, electric chain mining machinery, etc. He was a member of the Naval Consulting Board and of many scientific societies. His in- ventions brought him medals at exhibi- tions and from several scientific socie- ties. SPEY, a river in Scotland, issues from a lake of the same name in Inverness- shire, between Loch Laggan and Loch Lochy, flows N. E. through the beautiful valley of Strathspey, forming in part of its course part of the boundary between the counties of Elgin and Banff, and falls into the Moray Firth a little below