[St. Michael's Mount], an islet, forming a precipitous granite mass, in Mount's Bay, Cornwall, connected with the mainland by a low causeway passable only at low tides; a fine old castle crowns its rocky height, and a small fishing village lies sheltered on the northern side.
[St. Michel, Mont], a remarkable islet in St. Michel Bay, SW. corner of Normandy, 18 m. W. of Avranches; is formed of a single cone of granite, 242 ft. high, crowned by a historic Benedictine monastery; on the lower slopes is built a little fortified town; a causeway 1 m. long joins it to the mainland.
[St. Nazaire] (26), a flourishing seaport of France, on the Loire, 40 m. W. of Nantes, where large sums have been expended in improving its spacious docks to accommodate an increasing shipping-trade; its exports, brandy, coal, wheat, &c., are mainly from Nantes and the interior.
[St. Neots] (4), an old market-town of Huntingdonshire, on the Ouse, 8 m. SW. of Huntingdon; has an interesting old parish church, a corn exchange, and iron and paper works.
[St. Nicholas], the patron saint of boys, who was fabled to bring presents to good children on Christmas eve; was bishop of Myra in the 4th century, and had taken a special interest in the young.
[St. Omer] (20), a fortified town of France, on the Aa, 26 m. SE. of Calais; has a fine old Gothic cathedral, a ruined Benedictine abbey church, a Catholic college, arsenal, &c.; manufactures embrace light textiles, tobacco pipes, &c.
[St. Paul] (168), capital of Minnesota State, finely situated on the Mississippi, a little below the mouth of the Minnesota River; in 1849 a village of 500 inhabitants; is now a beautiful and spacious city, equipped with colleges, libraries, government buildings, electric street-railways, &c.; is a centre for 10 railways, and carries on a large trade in distributing groceries and dry goods throughout the State.
[St. Paul's School], at West Kensington, London, a famous charity school founded by [John Colet] (q. v.), dean of St. Paul's, for children of "every nation, country, and class"; originally stood in St. Paul's Churchyard, but was burned out by the Great Fire of 1666; the present building was opened in 1884. The endowment amounts to £10,000 a year, and 1000 boys and 400 girls are provided with education and board. There are a number of Oxford and Cambridge exhibitions.
[St. Petersburg] (1,036), capital of Russia, an imposing city, occupying a dreary, isolated site at the head of the Gulf of Finland, on the banks and delta islands (100) of the Neva, founded in 1702 by Peter the Great; a large number of bridges span the main stream and its numerous divisions; massive stone quays hold back the waters, but a rise of 12 ft. floods the city (a yearly occurrence in the poorer parts); the river is ice-bound nearly half the year, and is given over to sleighing, &c.; the short summer is hot; covers nearly 48 sq. m.; its palaces and government buildings for number and grandeur are unsurpassed; Neva View is the finest street in Europe; is the centre of Russian political, literary, scientific, and artistic life; has a university, numerous academies, cathedral, technical and training colleges, and libraries (the Imperial Public Library contains 1,200,000 vols.); connected with the Volga basin by a canal, and the centre of four railways, it is the commercial metropolis and chief port of Russia, and carries on half the foreign trade; exports one-fifth of the corn of Russia, besides flax, linseed, leather, petroleum, &c.; imports coal, machinery, &c.; principal manufactures are cotton goods and other textiles, leather, sugar, porcelain goods, &c.
[St. Pierre, Henri Bernardin de], French novelist, born at Havre; an engineer by profession, was a disciple of Rousseau both sentimentally and speculatively; his chief work, "[Paul and Virginia]" (q. v.), shows here as in his other writings, says Professor Saintsbury, "a remarkable faculty of word-painting, and also of influencing the feelings" (1737-1814).