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Title: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 6 - "Cockaigne" to "Columbus, Christopher"
Author: Various
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 6 - "Cockaigne" to "Columbus, Christopher"" ***
Transcriber's notes:
(1) Numbers following letters (without space) like C2 were originally
printed in subscript.
(2) Side-notes were relocated to function as titles of their respective
paragraphs.
(3) Letters topped by Macron are represented as [=x].
(4) The following typographical errors have been corrected:
Article COCKBURN, ALICIA: "Robert Chambers states that the ballad
was written on the occasion of a great commercial disaster which
ruined the fortunes of some Selkirkshire lairds." 'commercial'
amended from 'commerical'.
Article COLCHESTER, CHARLES ABBOT: "From Westminster school Charles
Abbot passed to Christ Church, Oxford, at which he gained the
chancellor's medal for Latin verse as well as the Vinerian
scholarship." Superfluous round bracket after 'scholarship'.
Article COLOGNE: "The foundation of the present cathedral was then
laid by Conrad of Hochstaden (archbishop from 1238 to 1261)."
'1238' amended from '1288'.
Article COLOMBIA: "Sotara (15,420 ft.), Huila (over 18,000 ft.),
Tolima (18,432 ft.)" Missing round bracket before 'over 18,000'.
Article COLOMBIA: "Although it is found growing wild, cacáo is
cultivated to a limited extent, and the product is insufficient for
home consumption." 'Although' amended from 'Athough'.
Article COLORADO: "Melons are to some extent exported, and peaches
also; the musk-melons of the Arkansas valley (Rocky Ford
Canteloupes) being in demand all over the United States."
'Canteloupes' amended from 'Canteloups'.
ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA
A DICTIONARY OF ARTS, SCIENCES, LITERATURE
AND GENERAL INFORMATION
ELEVENTH EDITION
VOLUME VI, SLICE VI
Cockaigne to Columbus, Christopher
Articles in This Slice:
COCKAIGNE, LAND OF COLEPEPER, JOHN COLEPEPER
COCKATOO COLERAINE
COCKATRICE COLERIDGE, HARTLEY
COCKBURN, ALEXANDER JAMES EDMUND COLERIDGE, JOHN DUKE COLERIDGE
COCKBURN, ALICIA COLERIDGE, SIR JOHN TAYLOR
COCKBURN, SIR GEORGE COLERIDGE, SAMUEL TAYLOR
COCKBURN, HENRY THOMAS COLERIDGE, SARA
COCKER, EDWARD COLET, JOHN
COCKERELL, CHARLES ROBERT COLET, LOUISE
COCKERILL, WILLIAM COLEUS
COCKERMOUTH COLFAX, SCHUYLER
COCK-FIGHTING COLIC
COCK LANE GHOST COLIGNY, GASPARD DE
COCKLE, SIR JAMES COLIMA (coast state of Mexico)
COCKLE COLIMA (city of Mexico)
COCKNEY COLIN, ALEXANDRE
COCK-OF-THE-ROCK (bird) COLL
COCK-OF-THE-ROCK (enclosed place) COLLAERT, HANS
COCKROACH COLLAR
COCK'S-COMB COLLATERAL
COCKTON, HENRY COLLATIA
COCKX COLLATION
COCOA COLLÉ, CHARLES
COCO DE MER COLLECTIVISM
COCOMA COLLECTOR
COCO-NUT PALM COLLE DI VAL D' ELSA
COCYTUS COLLEGE
COD COLLEONI, BARTOLOMMEO
CODA COLLETER
CODE COLLETTA, PIETRO
CODE NAPOLÉON COLLEY, SIR GEORGE POMEROY
CODIAEUM COLLIER, ARTHUR
CODICIL COLLIER, JEREMY
CODILLA COLLIER, JOHN PAYNE
CODINUS, GEORGE COLLIN, HEINRICH JOSEPH VON
COD-LIVER OIL COLLIN D'HARLEVILLE, JEAN FRANÇOIS
CODRINGTON, CHRISTOPHER COLLING, ROBERT
CODRINGTON, SIR EDWARD COLLINGWOOD, CUTHBERT COLLINGWOOD
CODRUS COLLINGWOOD (city of Australia)
CODY, WILLIAM FREDERICK COLLINGWOOD (town of Canada)
CO-EDUCATION COLLINS, ANTHONY
COEFFETEAU, NICOLAS COLLINS, JOHN CHURTON
COEHOORN, MENNO COLLINS, MORTIMER
COELENTERA COLLINS, WILLIAM (English poet)
COELLO, ALONSO SANCHEZ COLLINS, WILLIAM (English painter)
COELLO, ANTONIO COLLINS, WILLIAM WILKIE
COELOM AND SEROUS MEMBRANES COLLODION
COEN, JAN PIETERSZOON COLLOT D'HERBOIS, JEAN MARIE
COENACULUM COLLUSION
COENWULF COLLYER, ROBERT
COERCION COLMAN, SAINT
COEUR, JACQUES COLMAN, GEORGE
COEUR D'ALÊNE COLMAN, SAMUEL
COFFEE COLMAR
COFFER COLNE
COFFERDAM COLOCYNTH
COFFEYVILLE COLOGNE
COFFIN COLOMAN
COG COLOMB, PHILIP HOWARD
COGERS HALL COLOMBES
COGHLAN, CHARLES FRANCIS COLOMBEY
COGNAC COLOMBIA
COGNITION COLOMBIER, PIERRE BERTRAND DE
COGNIZANCE COLOMBO
COHEN COLON (city of Panama)
COHN, FERDINAND JULIUS COLON (town of Cuba)
COHN, GUSTAV COLON (intestine)
COHOES COLONEL
COHORT COLONIAL OFFICE
COIF COLONNA (Roman family)
COIMBATORE COLONNA, GIOVANNI PAOLO
COIMBRA COLONNA, VITTORIA
COÍN COLONNADE
COIN COLONSAY
COINAGE OFFENCES COLONY
COIR COLOPHON (ancient city of Ionia)
COIRE COLOPHON (paragraph in manuscripts)
COKE, SIR EDWARD COLORADO
COKE, SIR JOHN COLORADO RIVER (stream of Argentine)
COKE, THOMAS COLORADO RIVER (stream of U.S.A.)
COKE COLORADO SPRINGS
COL COLOSSAE
COLBERT, JEAN BAPTISTE COLOSSAL CAVERN
COLBERT DE CROISSY, CHARLES COLOSSIANS, EPISTLE TO THE
COLBURN, HENRY COLOSSUS
COLBURN, ZERAH COLOUR
COLBY, THOMAS FREDERICK COLOURS, MILITARY
COLCHAGUA COLOUR-SERGEANT
COLCHESTER, CHARLES ABBOT COLOURS OF ANIMALS
COLCHESTER (town of England) COLSTON, EDWARD
COLCHESTER (township of Vermont) COLT, SAMUEL
COLCHICUM COLT'S-FOOT
COLCHIS COLUGO
COLCOTHAR COLUMBA, SAINT
COLD COLUMBAN
COLDEN, CADWALLADER COLUMBANI, PLACIDO
COLD HARBOR COLUMBARIUM
COLDSTREAM COLUMBIA (city of Missouri)
COLDWATER COLUMBIA (borough of Pennsylvania)
COLE, SIR HENRY COLUMBIA (city of South Carolina)
COLE, THOMAS COLUMBIA (city of Tennessee)
COLE, TIMOTHY COLUMBIA RIVER
COLE, VICAT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
COLEBROOKE, HENRY THOMAS COLUMBINE (dancer)
COLEMANITE COLUMBINE (plant)
COLENSO, JOHN WILLIAM COLUMBITE
COLENSO (village of Natal) COLUMBIUM
COLEOPTERA COLUMBUS, CHRISTOPHER
COCKAIGNE (COCKAYNE), LAND OF (O. Fr. _Coquaigne_, mod. Fr. _cocagne_,
"abundance," from Ital. _Cocagna_; "as we say 'Lubberland,' the
epicure's or glutton's home, the land of all delights, so taken in
mockerie": Florio), an imaginary country, a medieval Utopia where life
was a continual round of luxurious idleness. The origin of the Italian
word has been much disputed. It seems safest to connect it, as do Grimm
and Littré, ultimately with Lat. _coquere_, through a word meaning
"cake," the literal sense thus being "The Land of Cakes." In Cockaigne
the rivers were of wine, the houses were built of cake and barley-sugar,
the streets were paved with pastry, and the shops supplied goods for
nothing. Roast geese and fowls wandered about inviting folks to eat
them, and buttered larks fell from the skies like manna. There is a
13th-century French _fabliau_, _Cocaigne_, which was possibly intended
to ridicule the fable of the mythical Avalon, "the island of the Blest."
The 13th-century English poem, _The Land of Cockaygne_, is a satire on
monastic life. The term has been humorously applied to London, and by
Boileau to the Paris of the rich. The word has been frequently confused
with Cockney (q.v.).
See D. M. Méon, _Fabliaux et contes_ (4 vols., 1808), and F. J.
Furnivall, _Early English Poems_ (Berlin, 1862).
COCKATOO (_Cacatuidae_), a family of parrots characterized among Old
World forms by their usually greater size, by the crest of feathers on
the head, which can be raised or depressed at will, and by the absence
of green in their coloration. They inhabit the Indian Archipelago, New
Guinea and Australia, and are gregarious, frequenting woods and feeding
on seeds, fruits and the larvae of insects. Their note is generally
harsh and unmusical, and although they are readily tamed when taken
young, becoming familiar, and in some species showing remarkable
intelligence, their powers of vocal imitation are usually limited. Of
the true cockatoos (_Cacatua_) the best known is the sulphur-crested
cockatoo (_Cacatua galerita_), of a pure white plumage with the
exception of the crest, which is deep sulphur yellow, and of the ear and
tail coverts, which are slightly tinged with yellow. The crest when
erect stands 5 in. high. These birds are found in Australia in flocks
varying from 100 to 1000 in number, and do great damage to newly-sown
grain, for which reason they are mercilessly destroyed by farmers. They
deposit their eggs--two in number, and of a pure white colour--in the
hollows of decayed trees or in the fissures of rocks, according to the
nature of the locality in which they reside. This is one of the species
most usually kept in Europe as a cage bird. Leadbeater's Cockatoo
(_Cacatua Leadbeateri_), an inhabitant of South Australia, excels all
others in the beauty of its plumage, which consists in great part of
white, tinged with rose colour, becoming a deep salmon colour under the
wings, while the crest is bright crimson at the base, with a yellow spot
in the centre and white at the tip. It is exceedingly shy and difficult
of approach, and its note is more plaintive while less harsh than that
of the preceding species. In the cockatoos belonging to the genus
_Calyptorhynchus_ the general plumage is black or dark brown, usually
with a large spot or band of red or yellow on the tail. The largest of
these is known as the funereal cockatoo (_Calyptorhynchus funereus_),
from the lugubrious note or call which it utters, resembling the two
syllables Wy--la--, the native name of the species. It deposits its eggs
in the hollows of the large gum-trees of Australia, and feeds largely on
the larvae of insects, in search of which it peels off the bark of
trees, and when thus employed it may be approached closely. The
cockateel (_Calopsittacus novaehollandiae_), the only species in the
family smaller than a pigeon, and with a long pointed tail, is a common
aviary bird, and breeds freely in captivity.
COCKATRICE, a fabulous monster, the existence of which was firmly
believed in throughout ancient and medieval times,--descriptions and
figures of it appearing in the natural history works of such writers as
Pliny and Aldrovandus, those of the latter published so late as the
beginning of the 17th century. Produced from a cock's egg hatched by a
serpent, it was believed to possess the most deadly powers, plants
withering at its touch, and men and animals dying poisoned by its look.
It stood in awe, however, of the cock, the sound of whose crowing
killed it, and consequently travelers were wont to take this bird with
them in travelling over regions supposed to abound in cockatrices. The
weasel alone among mammals was unaffected by the glance of its evil eye,
and attacked it at all times successfully; for when wounded by the
monster's teeth it found a ready remedy in rue--the only plant which the
cockatrice could not wither. This myth reminds one of the real contests
between the weasel-like mungoos of India and the deadly cobra, in which
the latter is generally killed. The term "cockatrice" is employed on
four occasions in the English translation of the Bible, in all of which
it denotes nothing more than an exceedingly venomous reptile; it seems
also to be synonymous with "basilisk," the mythical king of serpents.
COCKBURN, SIR ALEXANDER JAMES EDMUND, 10th Bart. (1802-1880), lord chief
justice of England, was born on the 24th of December 1802, of ancient
Scottish stock. He was the son of Alexander, fourth son of Sir James
Cockburn, 6th baronet, his three uncles, who had successively held the
title, dying without heirs. His father was British envoy extraordinary
and minister plenipotentiary to the state of Columbia, and married
Yolande, daughter of the vicomte de Vignier. Young Alexander was at one
time intended for the diplomatic service, and frequently during the
legal career which he ultimately adopted he was able to make
considerable use of the knowledge of foreign languages, especially
French, with which birth and early education had equipped him. He was
educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, of which he was elected a fellow,
and afterwards an honorary fellow. He entered at the Middle Temple in
1825, and was called to the bar in 1829. He joined the western circuit,
and for some time such practice as he was able to obtain lay at the
Devon sessions, quarter sessions at that time affording an opening and a
school of advocacy to young counsel not to be found anywhere fifty years
later. In London he had so little to do that only the persuasion of
friends induced him to keep his London chambers open. Three years after
his call to the bar, however, the Reform Bill was passed, and the
petitions which followed the ensuing general election gave rise to a
large number of new questions for the decision of election committees,
and afforded an opening of which he promptly availed himself. The
decisions of the committees had not been reported since 1821, and with
M. C. Rowe, another member of the western circuit, Cockburn undertook a
new series of reports. They only published one volume, but the work was
well done, and in 1833 Cockburn had his first parliamentary brief.
In 1834 Cockburn was well enough thought of to be made a member of the
commission to inquire into the state of the corporations of England and
Wales. Other parliamentary work followed; but he had ambition to be more
than a parliamentary counsel, and attended diligently on his circuit,
besides appearing before committees. In 1841 he was made a Q.C., and in
that year a charge of simony, brought against his uncle, William, dean
of York, enabled him to appear conspicuously in a case which attracted
considerable public attention, the proceedings taking the form of a
motion for prohibition duly obtained against the ecclesiastical court,
which had deprived Dr Cockburn of his office. Not long after this, Sir
Robert Peel's secretary, Edward Drummond, was shot by the crazy
Scotsman, Daniel M'Naughten, and Cockburn, briefed on behalf of the
assassin, not only made a very brilliant speech, which established the
defence of insanity, but also secured the full publicity of a long
report in the _Morning Chronicle_ of the 6th of March 1843. Another
well-known trial in which he appeared a year later was that of _Wood_ v.
_Peel_ (_The Times_, 2nd and 3rd of July 1844), the issue being in form
to determine the winner of a bet (the Gaming Act was passed in the
following year) as to the age of the Derby winner Running Rein--in
substance to determine, if possible, the vexed question whether Running
Rein was a four-year-old or a three-year-old when he was racing as the
latter. Running Rein could not be produced by Mr Wood, and Baron
Alderson took a strong view of this circumstance, so that Cockburn found
himself on the losing side, while his strenuous advocacy of his client's
cause had led him into making, in his opening speech, strictures on
Lord George Bentinck's conduct in the case which had better have been
reserved to a later stage. He was, however, a hard fighter, but not an
unfair one--a little irritable at times, but on the whole a courteous
gentleman, and his practice went on increasing.
In 1847 he decided to stand for parliament, and was elected without a
contest Liberal M.P. for Southampton. His speech in the House of Commons
on behalf of the government in the Don Pacifico dispute with Greece
commended him to Lord John Russell, who appointed him solicitor-general
in 1850 and attorney-general in 1851, a post which he held till the
resignation of the ministry in February 1852. During the short
administration of Lord Derby which followed, Sir Frederic Thesiger was
attorney-general, and Cockburn was engaged against him in the case of
_R._ v. _Newman_, on the prosecution of Achilli. This was the trial of a
criminal information for libel filed against John Henry Newman, who had
denounced a scandalous and profligate friar named Achilli, then
lecturing on Roman Catholicism in England. Newman pleaded justification;
but the jury who heard the case in the Queen's Bench, with Lord Campbell
presiding, found that the justification was not proved except in one
particular: a verdict which, together with the methods of the judge and
the conduct of the audience, attracted considerable comment. The verdict
was set aside, and a new trial ordered, but none ever took place. In
December 1852, under Lord Aberdeen's ministry, Cockburn became again
attorney-general, and so remained until 1856, taking part in many
celebrated trials, such as the Hopwood Will Case in 1855, and the
Swynfen Will Case, but notably leading for the crown in the trial of
William Palmer of Rugeley in Staffordshire--an ex-medical man who had
taken to the turf, and who had poisoned a friend of similar pursuits
named Cook with strychnine, in order to obtain money from his estate by
forgery and otherwise. Cockburn made an exhaustive study of the medical
aspects of the case, and the prisoner's comment when convicted after a
twelve days' trial was, alluding to the attorney-general's advocacy, "It
was the riding that did it." In 1854 Cockburn was made recorder of
Bristol. In 1856 he became chief justice of the common pleas. He
inherited the baronetcy in 1858. In 1859 Lord Campbell became
chancellor, and Cockburn became chief justice of the Queen's Bench,
continuing as a judge for twenty-four years and dying in harness. On
Friday, the 19th of November 1880, he tried causes with special juries
at Westminster; on Saturday, the 20th, he presided over a court for the
consideration of crown cases reserved; he walked home, and on that night
he died of _angina pectoris_ at his house in Hertford Street.
Sir Alexander Cockburn earned and deserved a high reputation as a judge.
He was a man of brilliant cleverness and rapid intuition rather than of
profound and laboriously cultivated intellect. He had been a great
advocate at the bar, with a charm of voice and manner, fluent and
persuasive rather than learned; but before he died he was considered a
good lawyer, some assigning his unquestioned improvement in this respect
to his frequent association on the bench with Blackburn. He had
notoriously little sympathy with the Judicature Acts. Many were of
opinion that he was inclined to take an advocate's view of the cases
before him, making up his mind as to their merits prematurely and, in
consequence, wrongly, as well as giving undue prominence to the views
which he so formed; but he was beyond doubt always in intention, and
generally in fact, scrupulously fair. It is not necessary to enumerate
the many _causes célèbres_ at which Sir Alexander Cockburn presided as a
judge. It was thought that he went out of his way to arrange that they
should come before him, and his successor, Lord Coleridge, writing in
1881 to Lord Bramwell, to make the offer that he should try the murderer
Lefroy as a last judicial act before retiring, added, "Poor dear
Cockburn would hardly have given you such a chance." Be this as it may,
Cockburn tried all cases which came before him, whether great or small,
with the same thoroughness, courtesy and dignity, so that no counsel or
suitor could complain that he had not been fully heard in a matter in
which the issues were seemingly trivial; while he certainly gave great
attention to the elaboration of his judgments and charges to juries. He
presided at the Tichborne trial at Bar, lasting 188 days, of which his
summing-up occupied eighteen.
The greatest public occasion on which Sir Alexander Cockburn acted,
outside his usual judicial functions, was that of the "Alabama"
arbitration, held at Geneva in 1872, in which he represented the British
government, and dissented from the view taken by the majority of the
arbitrators, without being able to convince them. He prepared, with Mr
C. F. Adams, the representative of the United States, the English
translation of the award of the arbitrators, and published his reasons
for dissenting in a vigorously worded document which did not meet with
universal commendation. He admitted in substance the liability of
England for the acts of the "Alabama," but not on the grounds on which
the decision of the majority was based, and he held England not liable
in respect of the "Florida" and the "Shenandoah."
In personal appearance Sir Alexander Cockburn was of small stature, but
great dignity of deportment. He was fond of yachting and of sport, and
was engaged in writing a series of articles on the "History of the Chase
in the Nineteenth Century" at the time of his death. He was fond, too,
of society, and was also throughout his life addicted to frivolities not
altogether consistent with advancement in a learned profession, or with
the positions of dignity which he successively occupied. At the same
time he had a high sense of what was due to and expected from his
profession; and his utterance upon the limitations of advocacy, in his
speech at the banquet given in the Middle Temple Hall to M. Berryer, the
celebrated French advocate, may be called the classical authority on the
subject. Lord Brougham, replying for the guests other than Berryer, had
spoken of "the first great duty of an advocate to reckon everything
subordinate to the interests of his client." The lord chief justice,
replying to the toast of "the judges of England," dissented from this
sweeping statement, saying, amid loud cheers from a distinguished
assembly of lawyers, "The arms which an advocate wields he ought to use
as a warrior, not as an assassin. He ought to uphold the interests of
his clients _per fas_, not _per nefas_. He ought to know how to
reconcile the interests of his clients with the eternal interests of
truth and justice" (_The Times_, 9th of November 1864). Sir Alexander
Cockburn was never married, and the baronetcy became extinct at his
death.
AUTHORITIES.--_The Times_, 22nd of November 1880; _Law Journal_; _Law
Times_; _Solicitors' Journal_, 27th of November 1880; _Law Magazine_,
new series, vol. xv. p. 193, 1851; Ashley's _Life of Lord Palmerston_;
Nash's _Life of Lord Westbury_; "Reminiscences of Lord Chief Justice
Coleridge," by Lord Russell of Killowen, in the _North American
Review_, September 1894; _The Greville Memoirs_; Croker's
_Correspondence and Diaries_; Justin M'Carthy's _History of Our Own
Times_; Serjeant Ballantine's _Experiences; Bench and Bar_, by
Serjeant Robinson; Fairchild's _Life of Lord Bramwell_; Manson's
_Builders of Our Law_; Burke's _Peerage_, ed. 1879; Foster's
_Peerage_, 1880.
COCKBURN, ALICIA, or ALISON (1713-1794), Scottish poet, authoress of one
of the most exquisite of Scottish ballads, the "Flowers of the Forest,"
was the daughter of Robert Rutherfurd of Fairnalee, Selkirkshire, and
was born on the 8th of October 1713. There are two versions of this
song,--the one by Mrs Cockburn, the other by Jean Elliot (1727-1805) of
Minto. Both were founded on the remains of an ancient Border ballad. Mrs
Cockburn's--that beginning "I've seen the smiling of Fortune
beguiling"--is said to have been written before her marriage in 1731,
though not published till 1765. Anyhow, it was composed many years
before Jean Elliot's sister verses, written in 1756, beginning, "I've
heard them liltin' at our ewe-milkin'." Robert Chambers states that the
ballad was written on the occasion of a great commercial disaster which
ruined the fortunes of some Selkirkshire lairds. Later biographers,
however, think it probable that it was written on the departure to
London of a certain John Aikman, between whom and Alison there appears
to have been an early attachment. In 1731 Alison Rutherfurd was married
to Patrick Cockburn of Ormiston. After her marriage she knew all the
intellectual and aristocratic celebrities of her day. In the memorable
year 1745 she vented her Whiggism in a squib upon Prince Charlie, and
narrowly escaped being taken by the Highland guard as she was driving
through Edinburgh in the family coach of the Keiths of Ravelston, with
the parody in her pocket. Mrs Cockburn was an indefatigable
letter-writer and a composer of parodies, squibs, toasts and
"character-sketches"--then a favourite form of composition--like other
wits of her day; but the "Flowers of the Forest" is the only thing she
wrote that possesses great literary merit. At her house on Castle-hill,
and afterwards in Crichton Street, she received many illustrious
friends, among whom were Mackenzie, Robertson, Hume, Home, Monboddo, the
Keiths of Ravelston, the Balcarres family and Lady Anne Barnard, the
authoress of "Auld Robin Gray." As a Rutherfurd she was a connexion of
Sir Walter Scott's mother, and was her intimate friend. Lockhart quotes
a letter written by Mrs Cockburn in 1777, describing the conduct of
little Walter Scott, then scarcely six years old, during a visit which
she paid to his mother, when the child gave as a reason for his liking
for Mrs Cockburn that she was a "virtuoso like himself." Mrs Cockburn
died on the 22nd of November 1794.
See her _Letters and Memorials_..., with notes by T. Craig Brown
(1900).
COCKBURN, SIR GEORGE, Bart. (1772-1853), British admiral, second son of
Sir James Cockburn, Bart., and uncle of Lord Chief Justice Cockburn, was
born in London. He entered the navy in his ninth year. After serving on
the home station, and in the East Indies and the Mediterranean, he
assisted, as captain of the "Minerve" (38) at the blockade of Leghorn in
1796, and fought a gallant action with the Spanish frigate "Sabina" (40)
which he took. He was present at the battle of Cape St Vincent. In 1809,
in command of the naval force on shore, he contributed greatly to the
reduction of Martinique, and signed the capitulation by which that
island was handed over to the English; for his services on this occasion
he received the thanks of the House of Commons. After service in the
Scheldt and at the defence of Cadiz he was sent in 1811 on an
unsuccessful mission for the reconciliation of Spain and her American
colonies. He was made rear-admiral in 1812, and in 1813-14, as second in
command to Warren, he took a prominent part in the American War,
especially in the capture of Washington. Early in 1815 he received the
order of the Bath, and in the autumn of the same year he carried out, in
the "Northumberland" (74), the sentence of deportation to St Helena
which had been passed upon Bonaparte. In 1818 he received the Grand
Cross of his order, and was made a lord of the admiralty; and the same
year he was returned to parliament for Portsmouth. He was promoted to
the rank of vice-admiral in 1819, and to that of admiral in 1837; he
became senior naval lord in 1841, and held office in that capacity till
1846. From 1827 he was a privy councillor. In 1851 he was made admiral
of the fleet, and in 1852, a year before his death, inherited the family
baronetcy from his elder brother, being himself succeeded by his brother
William, dean of York, who died in 1858.
See O'Byrne, _Naval Biography_; W. James, _Naval History_;
_Gentleman's Magazine_ for 1853.
COCKBURN, HENRY THOMAS (1779-1854), Scottish judge, with the style of
Lord Cockburn, was born in Edinburgh on the 26th of October 1779. His
father, a keen Tory, was a baron of the Scottish court of exchequer, and
his mother was connected by marriage with Lord Melville. He was educated
at the high school and the university of Edinburgh; and he was a member
of the famous Speculative Society, to which Sir Walter Scott, Brougham
and Jeffrey belonged. He entered the faculty of advocates in 1800, and
attached himself, not to the party of his relatives, who could have
afforded him most valuable patronage, but to the Whig or Liberal party,
and that at a time when it held out few inducements to men ambitious of
success in life. On the accession of Earl Grey's ministry in 1830 he
became solicitor-general for Scotland. In 1834 he was raised to the
bench, and on taking his seat as a judge in the court of session he
adopted the title of Lord Cockburn. Cockburn's forensic style was
remarkable for its clearness, pathos and simplicity; and his
conversational powers were unrivalled among his contemporaries. The
extent of his literary ability only became known after he had passed his
seventieth year, on the publication of his biography of Lord Jeffrey in
1852, and from the _Memorials of his Time_, which appeared posthumously
in 1856. He died on the 26th of April 1854, at his mansion of Bonaly,
near Edinburgh.
COCKER, EDWARD (1631-1675), the reputed author of the famous
_Arithmetick_, the popularity of which has added a phrase ("according to
Cocker") to the list of English proverbialisms, was an English engraver,
who also taught writing and arithmetic. He is credited with the
authorship and execution of some fourteen sets of copy slips, one of
which, _Daniel's Copy-Book, ingraven by Edward Cocker, Philomath_
(1664), is preserved in the British Museum. Pepys, in his _Diary_, makes
very favourable mention of Cocker, who appears to have displayed great
skill in his art. _Cocker's Arithmetick_, the fifty-second edition of
which appeared in 1748, and which has passed through about 112 editions
in all, was not published during the lifetime of its reputed author, the
first impression bearing date of 1678. Augustus de Morgan in his
_Arithmetical Books_ (1847) adduces proofs, which may be held to be
conclusive, that the work was a forgery of the editor and publisher,
John Hawkins; and there appears to be no doubt that the _Decimal
Arithmetic_ (1684), and the _English Dictionary_ (second edition, 1715),
issued by Hawkins under Cocker's name, are forgeries also. De Morgan
condemns the _Arithmetick_ as a diffuse compilation from older and
better works, and dates "a very great deterioration in elementary works
on arithmetic" from the appearance of the book, which owed its celebrity
far more to persistent puffing than to its merits. He pertinently
adds,--"This same Edward Cocker must have had great reputation, since a
bad book under his name pushed out the good ones."
COCKERELL, CHARLES ROBERT (1788-1863), British architect, was born in
London on the 28th of April 1788. After a preliminary training in his
profession, he went abroad in 1810 and studied the great architectural
remains of Greece, Italy and Asia Minor. At Aegina, Phigalia and other
places of interest, he conducted excavations on a large scale, enriching
the British Museum with many fine fragments, and adding several valuable
monographs to the literature of archaeology. Elected in 1829 an
associate of the Royal Academy, he became a full member in 1836, and in
1839 he was appointed professor of architecture. On Sir John Soane's
death in 1837 Cockerell was appointed architect of the Bank of England,
and carried out the alterations that were judged to be necessary in that
building. In addition to branch banks at Liverpool and Manchester he
erected in 1840 the new library at Cambridge, and in 1845 the university
galleries at Oxford, as well as the Sun and the Westminster Fire Offices
in Bartholomew Lane and in the Strand; and he was joint architect of the
London & Westminster Bank, Lothbury, with Sir W. Tite. On the death of
Henry Lonsdale Elmes in 1847, Cockerell was selected to finish the St
George's Hall, Liverpool. Cockerell's best conceptions were those
inspired by classic models; his essays in the Gothic--the college at
Lampeter, for instance, and the chapel at Harrow--are by no means so
successful. His thorough knowledge of Gothic art, however, can be seen
from his writings, _On the Iconography of Wells Cathedral_, and _On the
Sculptures of Lincoln and Exeter Cathedrals_. In his _Tribute to the
Memory of Sir Christopher Wren_ (1838) he published an interesting
collection of the whole of Wren's works drawn to one scale.
COCKERILL, WILLIAM (1759-1832), Anglo-French inventor and machinist, was
born in England in 1759. He went to Belgium as a simple mechanic, and in
1799 constructed at Verviers the first wool-carding and wool-spinning
machines on the continent. In 1807 he established a large machine
workshop at Liége. Orders soon poured in on him from all over Europe,
and he amassed a large fortune. In 1810 he was granted the rights of
naturalization by Napoleon I., and in 1812 handed over the management of
his business to his youngest son, JOHN COCKERILL (1790-1840).
Thanks to his own energy and ability, aided by the influence of King
William I. of the Netherlands, John Cockerill largely extended his
father's business. King William secured him a site at Seraing, where he
built large works, including an iron-foundry and blast furnace. The
construction of the Belgian railways in 1834 gave a great impetus to
these works, branches of which had already been opened in France,
Germany and Poland. In 1838 Cockerill met with a carriage accident which
nearly proved fatal, and the prospect of his loss resulted in the credit
of the firm being so badly shaken that in 1839 it was compelled to go
into liquidation, the liabilities being estimated at 26 millions of
francs, the assets at 18 millions. This reverse, however, was only
temporary. John Cockerill had practically concluded negotiations to
construct the Russian government railways, when his constitution,
undermined by overwork, broke down. He died at Warsaw on the 19th of
June 1840. The iron works, among the largest in Europe, are still
carried on under the name of La Société Cockerill at seraing (q.v.).
COCKERMOUTH, a market town in the Cockermouth parliamentary division of
Cumberland, England, 27 m. S.W. of Carlisle, on the Cockermouth, Keswick
& Penrith, the London & North Western, and the Maryport & Carlisle
railways. Pop. of urban district (1901) 5355. It is pleasantly situated
on the river Derwent, at the junction of the Cocker, outlying hills of
the Lake District sheltering it on the north, east and south. The castle
has remains of Norman work in the keep, and other ancient portions
(including the gateway) of later date, but is in part modernized as a
residence. The grammar school was founded in 1676. The county industrial
school is established in the town. The industries include the
manufacture of woollens and confectionery, tanning and engineering, and
there is a considerable agricultural trade. There are coal mines in the
neighbourhood. A statue was erected in 1875 to the sixth earl of Mayo,
who represented the borough (abolished in 1885) from 1857 to 1868. There
is a Roman fort a mile west of the town, at Papcastle.
Cockermouth (_Cokermuth_, _Cokermue_) was made the head of the honour or
barony of Allerdale when that barony was created and granted to Waltheof
in the early part of the 12th century. At a later date the honour of
Allerdale was frequently called the honour of Cockermouth. Waltheof
probably built the castle, under the shelter of which the town grew up.
Although it never received any royal charter, the earliest records
relating to Cockermouth mention it as a borough. In 1295 it returned two
members to parliament and then not again until 1640. By the
Representation of the People Act of 1867 the representation was reduced
to one member, and by the Redistribution Act of 1885 it was
disfranchised. In 1221 William de Fortibus, earl of Albemarle, was
granted a Saturday market, which later in the year was transferred to
Monday, the day on which it has continued to be held ever since. The
Michaelmas Fair existed in 1343, and an inquisition dated 1374 mentions
two horse-fairs on Whit-Monday and at Michaelmas. In 1638 Algernon
Percy, earl of Northumberland, obtained a grant of a fair every
Wednesday from the first week in May till Michaelmas. The chief sources
of revenue in Norman times were the valuable fisheries and numerous
mills.
COCK-FIGHTING, or COCKING, the sport of pitting game-cocks to fight, and
breeding and training them for the purpose. The game-fowl is now
probably the nearest to the Indian jungle-fowl (_Gallus ferrugineus_),
from which all domestic fowls are believed to be descended. The sport
was popular in ancient times in India, China, Persia and other eastern
countries, and was introduced into Greece in the time of Themistocles.
The latter, while moving with his army against the Persians, observed
two cocks fighting desperately, and, stopping his troops, inspired them
by calling their attention to the valour and obstinacy of the feathered
warriors. In honour of the ensuing victory of the Greeks cock-fights
were thenceforth held annually at Athens, at first in a patriotic and
religious spirit, but afterwards purely for the love of the sport.
Lucian makes Solon speak of quail-fighting and cocking, but he is
evidently referring to a time later than that of Themistocles. From
Athens the sport spread throughout Greece, Asia Minor and Sicily, the
best cocks being bred in Alexandria, Delos, Rhodes and Tanagra. For a
long time the Romans affected to despise this "Greek diversion," but
ended by adopting it so enthusiastically that Columella (1st century
A.D.) complained that its devotees often spent their whole patrimony in
betting at the pit-side. The cocks were provided with iron spurs
(_tela_), as in the East, and were often dosed with stimulants to make
them fight more savagely.
From Rome cocking spread northwards, and, although opposed by the
Christian church, nevertheless became popular in Great Britain, the Low
Countries, Italy, Germany, Spain and her colonies. On account of adverse
legislation cocking has practically died out everywhere excepting in
Spain, countries of Spanish origin and the Orient, where it is still
legal and extremely popular. It was probably introduced into England by
the Romans before Caesar's time. William Fitz-Stephen first speaks of it
in the time of Henry II. as a sport for school-boys on holidays, and
particularly on Shrove Tuesday, the masters themselves directing the
fights, or mains, from which they derived a material advantage, as the
dead birds fell to them. It became very popular throughout England and
Wales, as well as in Scotland, where it was introduced in 1681.
Occasionally the authorities tried to repress it, especially Cromwell,
who put an almost complete stop to it for a brief period, but the
Restoration re-established it among the national-pastimes. Contemporary
apologists do not, in the 17th century, consider its cruelty at all, but
concern themselves solely with its justification as a source of
pleasure. "If Leviathan took his sport in the waters, how much more may
Man take his sport upon the land?" From the time of Henry VIII., who
added the famous Royal Cock-pit to his palace of Whitehall, cocking was
called the "royal diversion," and the Stuarts, particularly James I. and
Charles II., were among its most enthusiastic devotees, their example
being followed by the gentry down to the 19th century. Gervase Markham
in his _Pleasures of Princes_ (1614) wrote "Of the Choyce, Ordring,
Breeding and Dyeting of the fighting-Cocke for Battell," his quaint
directions being of the most explicit nature. When a cock is to be
trained for the pit he must be fed "three or foure daies only with old
Maunchet (fine white bread) and spring water." He is then set to spar
with another cock, "putting a payre of hots upon each of their heeles,
which Hots are soft, bumbasted roules of Leather, covering their spurs,
so that they cannot hurt each other.... Let them fight and buffet one
another a good space." After exercise the bird must be put into a
basket, covered with hay and set near the fire. "Then let him sweate,
for the nature of this scowring is to bring away his grease, and to
breed breath, and strength." If not killed in the fight, "the first
thing you doe, you shall search his wounds, and as many as you can find
you shall with your mouth sucke the blood out of them, then wash them
with warm salt water,... give him a roule or two, and so stove him up as
hot as you can."
Cocking-mains usually consisted of fights between an agreed number of
pairs of birds, the majority of victories deciding the main; but there
were two other varieties that aroused the particular ire of moralists.
These were the "battle royal," in which a number of birds were "set,"
i.e. placed in the pit, at the same time, and allowed to remain until
all but one, the victor, were killed or disabled; and the "Welsh main,"
in which eight pairs were matched, the eight victors being again paired,
then four, and finally the last surviving pair. Among London cock-pits
were those at Westminster, in Drury Lane, Jewin Street and Birdcage Walk
(depicted by Hogarth). Over the royal pit at Whitehall presided the
king's cockmaster. The pits were circular in shape with a matted stage
about 20 ft. in diameter and surrounded by a barrier to keep the birds
from falling off. Upon this barrier the first row of the audience
leaned. Hardly a town in the kingdom was without its cockpit, which
offered the sporting classes opportunities for betting not as yet
sufficiently supplied by horse-racing. With the growth of the latter
sport and the increased facilities for reaching the racing centres,
cocking gradually declined, especially after parliament passed laws
against it, so that gentlemen risked arrest by attending a main.
Among the best-known devotees of the sport was a Colonel Mordaunt, who,
about 1780, took a number of the best English game-cocks to India. There
he found the sport in high favour with the native rulers and his birds
were beaten. Perhaps the most famous main in England took place at
Lincoln in 1830 between the birds of Joseph Gilliver, the most
celebrated breeder, or "feeder," of his day, and those of the earl of
Derby. The conditions called for seven birds a side, and the stakes were
5000 guineas the main and 1000 guineas each match. The main was won by
Gilliver by five matches to two. His grandson was also a breeder, and
the blood of his cocks still runs in the best breeds of Great Britain
and America. Another famous breeder was Dr Bellyse of Audlem, the
principal figure in the great mains fought at Chester during race-week
at the beginning of the 19th century. His favourite breed was the white
pile, and "Cheshire piles" are still much-fancied birds. Others were
Irish brown-reds, Lancashire black-reds and Staffordshire duns.
In Wales, as well as some parts of England, cocking-mains took place
regularly in churchyards, and in many instances even inside the churches
themselves. Sundays, wakes and church festivals were favourite occasions
for them. The habit of holding mains in schools was common from the 12th
to about the middle of the 19th century. When cocking was at its height,
the pupils of many schools were made a special allowance for purchasing
fighting-cocks, and parents were expected to contribute to the expenses
of the annual main on Shrove Tuesday, this money being called
"cockpence." Cock-fighting was prohibited by law in Great Britain in
1849.
Cocking was early introduced into America, though it was always frowned
upon in New England. Some of the older states, as Massachusetts, forbade
it by passing laws against cruelty as early as 1836, and it is now
expressly prohibited in Canada and in most states of the Union, or is
repressed by general laws for the prevention of cruelty to animals.
Cocks are fought at an age of from one to two years. "Heeling," or the
proper fastening of the spurs, and "cutting out," trimming the wings at
a slope, and cutting the tail down by one-third of its length and
shortening the hackle and rump feathers, are arts acquired by
experience. The comb is cut down close, so as to offer the least
possible mark for the hostile bird's bill. The cock is then provided
with either "short heels," spurs 1½ in. or less in length, or with "long
heels," from 2 to 2½ in. in length. The training of a cock for the pit
lasts from ten days to a month or more, during which time the bird is
subjected to a rigid diet and exercise in running and sparring. The
birds may not be touched after being set down in the pit, unless to
extricate them from the matting. Whenever a bird refuses to fight longer
he is set breast to breast with his adversary in the middle of the pit,
and if he then still refuses to fight he is regarded as defeated. Among
the favourite breeds may be mentioned the "Irish gilders," "Irish
Grays," "Shawlnecks," "Gordons," "Eslin Red-Quills," "Baltimore
Topknots," "Dominiques," "War-horses" and "Claibornes."
Cock-fighting possesses an extensive literature of its own. See
Gervase Markham, _Pleasures of Princes_ (London, 1614); Blain, _Rural
Sports_ (London, 1853); "Game Cocks and Cock-Fighting," _Outing_, vol.
39; "A Modest Commendation of Cock-Fighting," _Blackwood's Magazine_,
vol. 22; "Cock-Fighting in Schools," _Chambers' Magazine_, vol. 65.
COCK LANE GHOST, a supposed apparition, the vagaries of which attracted
extraordinary public attention in London during 1762. At a house in Cock
Lane, Smithfield, tenanted by one Parsons, knockings and other noises
were said to occur at night varied by the appearance of a luminous
figure, alleged to be the ghost of a Mrs Kent who had died in the house
some two years before. A thorough investigation revealed that Parsons'
daughter, a child of eleven, was the source of the disturbance. The
object of the Parsons family seems to have been to accuse the husband of
the deceased woman of murdering her, with a view to blackmail. Parsons
was prosecuted and condemned to the pillory. Among the crowds who
visited the house was Dr Johnson, who was in consequence made the
object of a scurrilous attack by the poet Charles Churchill in "The
Ghost."
See A. Lang, _Cock Lane and Common Sense_ (1894).
COCKLE, SIR JAMES (1819-1895), English lawyer and mathematician, was
born on the 14th of January 1819. He was the second son of James Cockle,
a surgeon, of Great Oakley, Essex. Educated at Charterhouse and Trinity
College, Cambridge, he entered the Middle Temple in 1838, practising as
a special pleader in 1845 and being called in 1846. Joining the midland
circuit, he acquired a good practice, and on the recommendation of Chief
Justice Sir William Erle he was appointed chief justice of Queensland in
1863. He received the honour of knighthood in 1869, retired from the
bench, and returned to England in 1879.
Cockle is more remembered for his mathematical and scientific
investigations than as a lawyer. Like many young mathematicians he
attacked the problem of resolving the higher algebraic equations,
notwithstanding Abel's proof that a solution by radicles was impossible.
In this field Cockle achieved some notable results, amongst which is his
reproduction of Sir William R. Hamilton's modification of Abel's
theorem. Algebraic forms were a favourite object of his studies, and he
discovered and developed the theory of criticoids, or differential
invariants; he also made contributions to the theory of differential
equations. He displayed a keen interest in scientific societies. From
1863 to 1879 he was president of the Queensland Philosophical Society
(now incorporated in the Royal Society of Queensland); on his return to
England he became associated with the London Mathematical Society, of
which he was president from 1886 to 1888, and the Royal Astronomical
Society, serving as a member of the council from 1888 to 1892. He died
in London on the 27th of January 1895.
A volume containing his scientific and mathematical researches made
during the years 1864-1877 was presented to the British Museum in 1897
by his widow. See the obituary notice by the Rev. R. Harley in _Proc.
Roy. Soc._ vol. 59.
COCKLE, in zoology, a mollusc (_Cardium_) of the class Lamellibranchia
(q.v.). A very large number of species of _Cardium_ have been
distinguished by conchologists. Besides the common species _Cardium
edule_, two others occur in Britain, but are not sufficiently common to
be of commercial importance. One of these is _C. echinatum_, which is
larger than the common species, reaching 3 in. in diameter, and
distinguished by the presence of spines along the ribs of the shell. The
other is _C. norvegicum_, which is also somewhat larger than _C. edule_,
is longer dorso-ventrally than broad, and is only faintly ribbed.
The two valves of the shell of the common cockle are similar to each
other, and somewhat circular in outline. The beak or umbo of each valve
is prominent and rounded, and a number of sharp ridges and furrows
radiate from the apex to the free edge of the shell, which is crenated.
The ligament is external, and the hinge carries cardinal teeth in each
valve. The interior of the shell is remarkable for the absence of pearly
lustre on its interior surface. The colour externally is reddish or
yellowish. The pallial line, which is the line of attachment of the
mantle parallel to the edge of the shell, is not indented by a sinus at
the posterior end. In the entire animal the posterior end projects
slightly more than the anterior from the region of the umbones.
The animal possesses two nearly equal adductor muscles. The edges of the
mantle are united posteriorly except at the anal and branchial
apertures, which are placed at the ends of two very short siphons or
tubular prolongations of the mantle; the siphons bear a number of short
tentacles, and many of these are furnished with eye-spots. The foot is
very large and powerful; it can be protruded from the anterior aperture
between the mantle edges, and its outer part is bent sharply forwards
and terminates in a point. By means of this muscular foot the cockle
burrows rapidly in the muddy sand of the sea-shore, and it can also when
it is not buried perform considerable leaps by suddenly bending the
foot. The foot has a byssus gland on its posterior surface.
On either side of the body between the mantle and the foot are two flat
gills each composed of two lamellae. _Cardium_ belongs to the order of
Lamellibranchia in which the gills present the maximum of complexity,
the original vertical filaments of which they are composed being united
by interfilamentar and interlamellar junctions. In other respects the
anatomy of the cockle presents no important differences from that of a
typical Lamellibranch. The sexes are distinct, and the generative
opening is on the side of the body above the edge of the inner lamella
of the inner gill. The eggs are minute, and pass out into the sea-water
through the dorsal or exhalent siphon. The breeding season is April, May
and June. The larva for a time swims freely in the sea-water, having a
circlet of cilia round the body in front of the mouth, forming the
velum. The shell is developed on the dorsal surface behind the velum,
the foot on the opposite or ventral surface behind the mouth. After a
few days, when the mantle bearing the shell valves has developed so much
as to enclose the whole body, the young cockle sinks to the bottom and
commences to follow the habits of the adult. The usual size of the
cockle in its shell is from 1 to 2 in. in breadth.
The common cockle is regularly used as food by the poorer classes. It
occurs in abundance on sandy shores in all estuaries. At the mouth of
the Thames the gathering of cockles forms a considerable industry,
especially at Leigh. On the coast of Lancashire also the fishery, if it
may be so called, is of considerable importance. The cockles are
gathered by the simple process of raking them from the sand, and they
are usually boiled and extracted from their shells before being sent to
market. The cockle is liable to the same suspicion as the oyster of
conveying the contamination of typhoid fever where the shores are
polluted, but as it is boiled before being eaten it is probably less
dangerous. (J. T. C.)
COCKNEY, a colloquial name applied to Londoners generally, but more
properly confined to those born in London, or more strictly still to
those born within the sound of the bells of St Mary-le-Bow church. The
origin of the word has been the subject of many guesses, from that in
John Minsheu's lexicon, _Ductor in linguas_ (1617), which gives the tale
of the town-bred child who, on hearing a horse neigh, asked whether a
"cock neighed" too, to the confusion of the word with the name of the
Utopia, the land of Cockaigne (q.v.). The historical examination of the
various uses of "Cockney," by Sir James Murray (see _Academy_, 10th of
May 1890, and the _New English Dictionary_, s.v.) clearly shows the true
derivation. The earliest form of the word is _cokenay_ or _cokeney_,
i.e. the _ey_ or egg, and _coken_, genitive plural of "cock," "cocks'
eggs" being the name given to the small and malformed eggs sometimes
laid by young hens, known in German as _Hahneneier_. An early quotation,
in Langland's _Piers Plowman_, A. vii. 272, gives the combination of
"cokeneyes" and bacon to make a "collop," or dish of eggs and bacon. The
word then applied to a child overlong nursed by its mother, hence to a
simpleton or milksop. Thus in Chaucer, _Reeve's Tale_, the word is used
with _daf_, i.e. a fool. The particular application of the name as a
term of contempt given by country folk to town-bred people, with their
dandified airs and ignorance of country ways and country objects, is
easy. Thus Robert Whittington or Whitinton (_fl._ 1520), speaks of the
"cokneys" in such "great cytees as London, York, Perusy" (Perugia),
showing the general use of the word. It was not till the beginning of
the 17th century that "cockney" appears to be confined to the
inhabitants of London.
The so-called "Cockney" accent or pronunciation has varied in type. In
the first part of the 19th century, it was chiefly characterized by the
substitution of a _v_ for a _w_, or vice versa. This has almost entirely
disappeared, and the chief consonantal variation which exists is perhaps
the change of _th_ to _f_ or _v_, as in "fing" for thing, or "favver"
for father. This and the vowel-sound change from _ou_ to _ah_, as in
"abaht" for "about," are only heard among the uneducated classes, and,
together with other characteristic pronunciations, phrases and words,
have been well illustrated in the so-called "coster" songs of Albert
Chevalier. The most marked and widely-prevalent change of vowel sound is
that of _ei_ for _ai_, so that "daily" becomes "dyly" and "may" becomes
"my." This is sometimes so marked that it almost amounts to incapacity
to distinguish the vowels _a_ and _i_, and is almost universal in large
classes of the population of London. The name of the "Cockney School of
Poetry" was applied in 1817 to the literary circle of which Leigh Hunt
was the principal representative, though Keats also was aimed at. The
articles in _Blackwood's Magazine_, in which the name appeared, have
generally, but probably wrongly, been attributed to John Gibson
Lockhart.
COCK-OF-THE-ROCK, the familiar name of the birds of the genus Rupicola
(subfamily Rupicolinae) of the Cotingas (allied to the Manakins, q.v.),
found in the Amazon valley. They are about the size of a pigeon, with
orange-coloured plumage, a pronounced crest, and orange-red flesh, and
build their nests on rock. The skins and feathers are highly valued for
decoration.
COCKPIT, the term originally for an enclosed place in which the sport of
cock-fighting (q.v.) was carried on. On the site of an old cockpit
opposite Whitehall in London was a block of buildings used from the 17th
century as offices by the treasury and the privy council, for which the
old name survived till the early 19th century. The name was given also
to a theatre in London, built in the early part of the 17th century on
the site of Drury Lane theatre. As the place where the wounded in battle
were tended, or where the junior officers consorted, the term was also
formerly applied to a cabin used for these purposes on the lower deck of
a man-of-war.
COCKROACH[1] (_Blattidae_), a family of orthopterous insects,
distinguished by their flattened bodies, long thread-like antennae, and
shining leathery integuments. Cockroaches are nocturnal creatures,
secreting themselves in chinks and crevices about houses, issuing from
their retreats when the lights are extinguished, and moving about with
extraordinary rapidity in search of food. They are voracious and
omnivorous, devouring, or at least damaging, whatever comes in their
way, for all the species emit a disagreeable odour, which they
communicate to whatever article of food or clothing they may touch.
The common cockroach (_Stilopyga orientalis_) is not indigenous to
Europe, but is believed to have been introduced from the Levant in the
cargoes of trading vessels. The wings in the male are shorter than the
body; in the female they are rudimentary. The eggs, which are 16 in
number, are deposited in a leathery capsule fixed by a gum-like
substance to the abdomen of the female, and thus carried about till the
young are ready to escape, when the capsule becomes softened by the
emission of a fluid substance. The larvae are perfectly white at first
and wingless, although in other respects not unlike their parents, but
they are not mature insects until after the sixth casting of the skin.
The American cockroach (_Periplaneta americana_) is larger than the
former, and is not uncommon in European seaports trading with America,
being conveyed in cargoes of grain and other food produce. It is very
abundant in the Zoological Gardens in London, where it occurs in
conjunction with a much smaller imported species _Phyllodromia
germanica_, which may also be seen in some of the cheaper restaurants.
In both of these species the females, as well as the males, are winged.
In addition to these noxious and obtrusive forms, England has a few
indigenous species belonging to the genus _Ectobia_, which live under
stones or fallen trees in fields and woods. The largest known species is
the drummer of the West Indies (_Blabera gigantea_), so called from the
tapping noise it makes on wood, sufficient, when joined in by several
individuals, as usually happens, to break the slumbers of a household.
It is about 2 in. long, with wings 3 in. in expanse, and forms one of
the most noisome and injurious of insect pests. Wingless females of many
tropical species present a close superficial resemblance to woodlice;
and one interesting apterous form known as _Pseudoglomeris_, from the
East Indies, is able to roll up like a millipede.
The best mode of destroying cockroaches is, when the fire and lights
are extinguished at night, to lay some treacle on a piece of wood afloat
on a broad basin of water. This proves a temptation to the vermin too
great to be resisted. The chinks and holes from which they issue should
also be filled up with unslaked lime, or painted with a mixture of borax
and heated turpentine.
See generally Miall and Denny, _The Structure and Life History of the
Cockroach_ (1887); G. H. Carpenter, _Insects: their Structure and
Life_ (1899); Charles Lester Marlatt, _Household Insects_ (U.S.
Department of Agriculture, revised edition, 1902); Leland Ossian
Howard, _The Insect Book_ (1902).
FOOTNOTE:
[1] The word is a corruption of Sp. _cucaracha_. In America it is
commonly abbreviated to "roach."
COCK'S-COMB, in botany, a cultivated form of _Celosia cristata_ (natural
order Amarantaceae), in which the inflorescence is monstrous, forming a
flat "fasciated" axis bearing numerous small flowers. The plant is a
low-growing herbaceous annual, bearing a large, comb-like, dark red,
scarlet or purplish mass of flowers. Seeds are sown in March or April in
pans of rich, well-drained sandy soil, which are placed in a hot-bed at
65° to 70° in a moist atmosphere. The seedlings require plenty of light,
and when large enough to handle are potted off and placed close to the
glass in a frame under similar conditions. When the heads show they are
shifted into 5-in. pots, which are plunged to their rims in ashes or
coco-nut fibre refuse, in a hot-bed, as before, close to the glass; they
are sparingly watered and more air admitted. The soil recommended is a
half-rich sandy loam and half-rotten cow and stable manure mixed with a
dash of silver sand. The other species of _Celosia_ cultivated are _C.
pyramidalis_, with a pyramidal inflorescence, varying in colour in the
great number of varieties, and _C. argentea_, with a dense white
inflorescence. They require a similar cultural treatment to that given
for _C. cristata_.
COCKTON, HENRY (1807-1853), English humorous novelist, was born in
London on the 7th of December 1807. He published a number of volumes,
but is best known as the author of _Valentine Vox, the Ventriloquist_
(1840) and _Sylvester Sound, the Somnambulist_ (1844). He died at Bury
St Edmunds on the 26th of June 1853.
COCKX (or COCK), HIERONYMUS [JEROME] (1510-1570), Flemish painter and
engraver, was born at Antwerp, and in 1545 was admitted to the Gild of
St Luke as a painter. It is as an engraver, however, that he is famous,
a number of portraits and subject-pictures by him, and reproductions of
Flemish masters, being well known. His brother Matthys (1505-1552) was
also a painter.
COCOA,[1] more properly CACAO, a valuable dietary substance yielded by
the seeds of several small trees belonging to the genus _Theobroma_, of
the natural order Sterculiaceae. The whole genus, which comprises twelve
species, belongs to the tropical parts of the American continent; and
although the cocoa of commerce is probably the produce of more than one
species, by far the greatest and most valuable portion is obtained from
_Theobroma Cacao_. The generic name is derived from [Greek: theos] (god)
and [Greek: broma] (food), and was bestowed by Linnaeus as an indication
of the high appreciation in which he held the beverage prepared from the
seeds, which he considered to be a food fit for the gods.
The common cacao tree is of low stature, seldom exceeding 25 ft. in
height, but it is taller in its native forests than it is in cultivated
plantations. The leaves are large, smooth, and glossy, elliptic-oblong
and tapering in form, growing principally at the ends of branches, but
sometimes springing directly from the main trunk. The flowers are small,
and occur in numerous clusters on the main branches and the trunk, a
very marked peculiarity which gives the matured fruit the appearance of
being artificially attached to the tree. Generally only a single fruit
is matured from each cluster of flowers. When ripe the fruit or "pod" is
elliptical-ovoid in form, from 7 to 10 in. in length and from 3 to 4½
in. in diameter. It has a hard, thick, leathery rind of a rich
purplish-yellow colour, externally rough and marked with ten very
distinct longitudinal ribs or elevations. The interior of the fruit has
five cells, in each of which is a row of from 5 to 12 seeds embedded in
a soft delicately pink acid pulp. Each fruit thus contains from 20 to 50
or more seeds, which constitute the raw cacao or "cacao beans" of
commerce.
[Illustration: Branch of Cocoa Tree, with Fruit in section, much
reduced.]
The tree appears to have been originally a native of the coast lands of
the Gulf of Mexico and tropical South America as far south as the basin
of the Amazon; but it can be cultivated in suitable situations within
the 25th parallels of latitude. It flourishes best within the 15th
parallels, at elevations ranging from near the sea-level up to about
2000 ft. in height. It is now cultivated in Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala,
Nicaragua, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, New Granada, Venezuela, Surinam,
Guiana, and in many of the West Indian islands, particularly in
Trinidad, San Domingo, Grenada, Cuba, Porto Rico and Jamaica. Away from
America it has been introduced, and is cultivated on a large scale in
West Africa, Ceylon and the Dutch East Indies.
_History._--The value of cacao was appreciated in its native country
before the discovery of America by Europeans. The Spaniards found in use
in Mexico a beverage known by the Aztec name of _chocolath_, from
_choco_ (cacao) and _lath_ (water). W. H. Prescott records that the
emperor Montezuma of Mexico was "exceedingly fond of it ... no less than
50 jars or pitchers being prepared for his own daily consumption; 2000
more were allowed for that of his household." Bags of cacao containing a
specified number of beans were also a recognized form of currency in the
country. The product was early introduced into Spain, and thence to
other parts of Europe. The _Public Advertiser_ (London) of June 16,
1657, contains an announcement that "In Bishopgate St., in Queen's Head
Alley, at a Frenchman's house, is an excellent West India drink, called
chocolate, to be sold, where you may have it ready at any time, and also
unmade at reasonable rates." Chocolate was a very fashionable beverage
in the early part of the 18th century.
_Cultivated Varieties._--Numerous varieties of the cacao, i.e. of
_Theobroma Cacao_, are recognized in cultivation. According to Dr P.
Preuss, who has travelled extensively in the cacao producing countries
of the world studying this crop, it is impossible to embody in a single
table the characteristics of the world's varieties. A separate
classification is needed for almost each country. In 1882 the Trinidad
forms were classified by Sir D. Morris. This table was later revised by
Mr J. H. Hart, and more recently Mr R. H. Lock studied the Ceylon
varieties. As the Ceylon cacaos were obtained mainly from Trinidad, and
as Mr Lock's results agree substantially with those of Sir D. Morris,
they serve to illustrate the distinguishing characteristics of the West
Indian and Ceylon forms. The main divisions are as follows:--
1. _Criollo._--Pods relatively thin-walled and soft, rough, pointed at
apex. The seeds or beans are plump and of pale colour. The ripe pods
may be either red (colorado) or yellow (amarillo).
2. _Forastero._--Pods relatively thick-walled and hard. The seeds vary
in colour from pale to deep purple. Various varieties are recognized,
such as cundeamor, amelonado, liso, calabacillo, differing in shape,
colour and character of beans, &c., and of each of these again there
may be a colorado and amarillo sub-variety. Of special interest is
calabacillo, a variety with a smooth, small pod, and deep purple
beans. It is considered by some to be sufficiently distinct to form a
third type equivalent to criollo or forastero. Others again would
raise amelonado to the rank of a distinct type. Of the above
calabacillo is the hardiest and yields the least valuable beans;
criollo is the most delicate and yields beans of the highest value,
whilst forastero is intermediate in both respects. In general pale
coloured beans are less bitter and more valuable than purple beans.
Both, however, may occur in the same pod.
_Alligator_, or _lagarto cacao_, is the common name of a variety
cultivated in Nicaragua, Guatemala, &c. Its pods are distinctly
five-angled and beset with irregular, warty protuberances. Some regard
it as a distinct species, _T. pentagona_, but others only as a variety
of _T. Cacao_. Its produce is of high value.
_T. bicolor_, indigenous to Central America, is another species of some
interest. It bears small, hard woody pods about 6 in. long and 3 in. in
diameter, with curious surface markings. The beans possess a fetid odour
and a bitter flavour and are known as "tiger cacao." It is not likely to
become of great commercial importance, although consumed locally where
found. "_Cacao bianco_" and "_pataste_" are other names for this
species.
_Cultivation and Preparation._--Cacao requires for its successful
cultivation a deep, well-watered and yet well-drained soil, shelter from
strong winds, and a thoroughly tropical climate, with a mean annual
temperature of about 80° F., a rainfall of from 50 to 100 or more in.,
and freedom from long droughts. Young plants are grown from seed, which
may either be sown directly in the positions the future trees are to
occupy, varying according to local circumstances from 6 to 25 ft. apart
in all directions, or raised in nurseries and transplanted later. The
latter course is desirable when it is necessary to water and otherwise
tend the seedlings. However raised, the young plants require to be
shaded, and this is usually done by planting bananas, cassava or other
useful crops between the rows of cacao. In some countries, but not in
all, permanent shade trees are planted amongst the cacao. Various
leguminous trees are commonly used, e.g. the coral tree (_Erythrina_
spp.) sometimes known as _bois immortel_ and _madre del cacao_ or mother
of cocoa, _Albizzia Lebbek_, _Pithecolobium Saman_, &c. The various
rubber trees have been employed with success. Wind belts are also
necessary in exposed situations.
Cacao comes into bearing when about five years old, the small pink
flowers and the succeeding large pods being borne directly on the trunk
and main branches. The pods are carefully picked when ripe, broken open,
and the slimy mass of contained seeds and their enveloping mucilaginous
pulp extracted. The "beans" are next fermented or "sweated," often in
special houses constructed for the purpose, or by placing them in heaps
and covering with leaves or earth, or in baskets, barrels, &c., lined
with banana leaves. During fermentation the beans should be stirred once
daily or oftener. The time of fermentation varies from one to twelve or
even more days. Pale-coloured beans usually require less time than the
deep purple and bitter kinds. The method adopted also considerably
modifies the time required. The process of fermenting destroys the
mucilage; the seeds lose to some degree their bitter flavour and their
colour also changes: the pale criollo seeds, for example, developing a
cinnamon-brown colour. The "fracture" of the beans also
characteristically alters. Fermentation is not universally practised;
the purple colour and bitter taste of unfermented cacao being wanted in
some markets.
After the fermentation is completed the beans may or may not be washed,
opinion as to the desirability of this process varying in different
countries. In any case, however, they have to be dried and cured. When
climatic conditions are favourable this is commonly done by spreading
the beans in thin layers on barbecues, or stone drying floors, or
otherwise exposing them to the sun. Sliding roofs or other means of
rapidly affording shelter are desirable in case of showers, excessive
heat, and also for protection at night. Artificial drying is now often
resorted to and various patterns of drying houses are in use.
The appearance of the beans may often be improved by "claying," a very
slight coating of red earth or clay being added. Polishing the beans
also gives them a brighter appearance, removes mildew, and remnants of
dried mucilage, &c. This may be done by "dancing the cacao," i.e.
treading a heap with the bare feet, or by the use of special polishing
machines. The cacao is now ready for shipment, and is usually packed in
bags. Hamburg is the chief port in the world for cacao. Until quite
recently, however, this position was held by Havre, which is now second
in Europe. New York imports about the same amount as Havre. London
follows next in importance.
_Cacao-producing Countries._--In the following table the production in
tons (of 1000 kilos = 2205 lb) of the principal producing countries,
arranged under continents, is given for 1905 and 1901. During this
period the total world's production has increased by about 40%, as
indicated in the summary below. Study of the table will show where the
increase has taken place, but attention is directed especially to the
rapid development in West Africa.
_America._
1905 (tons). 1901 (tons).
Ecuador 21,128 22,896
Brazil 21,091 18,324
Trinidad 20,018 11,943
San Domingo 12,785 6,850
Venezuela 11,700 7,860
Grenada 5,456 4,865
Cuba and Porto Rico 3,000 1,750
Haiti 2,343 1,950
Surinam 1,612 3,163
Jamaica 1,484 1,350
French West Indies 1,200 825
St. Lucia 700 765
Dominica 597 ..
------- -------
Total, America 103,114 82,541
_Africa._
1905 (tons). 1901 (tons).
San Thomé 25,379 16,983
Gold Coast and Lagos 5,666 997
Cameroons 1,185 528
Congo Free State 195 ..
------- -------
Total, Africa 32,425 18,508
_Asia._
1905 (tons). 1901 (tons).
Ceylon 3543 2697
Dutch East Indies 1492 1277
----- -----
Total, Asia 5035 3974
Other countries 800 700
_World's Production._
1905 (tons). 1901 (tons).
Tropical America and West Indies 103,114 82,541
West Africa 32,425 18,508
Asia 5,035 3,974
Other countries 800 700
------- -------
Total 141,374 105,723
_Composition._--The relative weights of the various parts of a whole
cacao pod are given thus by Prof. J. B. Harrison for British Guiana
specimens:--
Calabacillo. Forastero.
Husk 80.59 89.87
Pulp 7.61 4.23
Cuticles of the beans 1.77 0.50
Kernels of the beans 10.03 5.40
------- -------
100.00 100.00
The husk is composed mainly of water and cellulose woody tissue, with
their usual mineral constituents, and has a low manurial value. The pulp
contains sugars which become converted into alcohol during fermentation.
Fibrous elements and water compose about six-tenths of the cuticles,
which also contain approximately: albuminoids (6%), alkaloids (2%), fat
(2%), sugars (6%), starch (7%), colouring matter (4%), tartaric acid
(3%) and small quantities of various mineral constituents. The average
composition of the kernels, according to Payen, is:--
Per cent.
Fat (cacao butter) 50
Starch 10
Albuminoids 20
Water 12
Cellulose 2
Mineral matter 4
Theobromine 2
Colouring matter (cacao-red) trace
-------
100.00
_Manufacture of Cocoa and Chocolate._--The beans are cleaned and sorted
to remove foreign bodies of all kinds and also graded into sizes to
secure uniformity in roasting. The latter process is carried out in
rotating iron drums in which the beans are heated to a temperature of
about 260° to 280° F., and results in developing the aroma, partially
converting the starch into dextrin, and eliminating bitter constituents.
The beans also dry and their shells become crisp. In the next process
the beans are gently crushed and winnowed, whereby the light shells are
removed, and after removal by sifting of the "germs" the beans are left
in the form of the irregular cocoa-nibs occasionally seen in shops.
Cocoa-nibs may be infused with water and drunk, but for most people the
beverage is too rich, containing the whole of the cacao-fat or
cacao-butter. This fat is extracted from the carefully ground nibs by
employing great hydraulic pressure in heated presses. The fat exudes and
solidifies. When fresh it is yellowish-white, but becomes quite white on
keeping. It is very valuable for pharmaceutical purposes and is a
constituent of many pomades. With care it can be kept for a long time
without going rancid.
After the extraction of the fat the resulting mass is ground to a fine
powder when it is ready for use in the ordinary way. Many preparations
on the market are of course not pure cocoa but contain admixtures of
various starchy and other bodies.
The shells of the beans separated by the winnowing process contain
theobromine, and their infusion with water is sometimes used as a
substitute for coffee, under the name "miserabile." More recently they
have been put to good account as a cattle food.
In the preparation of chocolate the preliminary processes of cleaning,
sorting, roasting and removing the shells, and grinding the nibs, are
followed as for cocoa. The fat, however, is not extracted, but sugar,
and sometimes other materials also, are added to the ground pasty mass,
together with suitable flavouring materials, as for example vanilla. The
greatest care is taken in the process and elaborate grinding and mixing
machinery employed. The final result is a semi-liquid mass which is
moulded into the familiar tablets or other forms in which chocolate
comes on the market.
Cocoa as a beverage has a similar action to tea and coffee, inasmuch as
the physiological properties of all three are due to the alkaloids and
volatile oils they contain. Tea and coffee both contain the alkaloid
caffeine, whilst cocoa contains theobromine. In tea and coffee, however,
we only drink an infusion of the leaves or seeds, whilst in cocoa the
whole material is taken in a state of very fine suspension, and as the
preceding analysis indicates, the cocoa bean, even with the fat
extracted, is of high nutritive value.
_Cacao-consuming Countries._--The principal cacao-consuming countries
are indicated below, which gives the imports into the countries named
for 1905. These figures, as also those on production, are taken from
_Der Gordian_.
Tons (1000 kilos).
United States of America 34,958
Germany 29,663
France 21,748
United Kingdom 21,106
Holland 19,295
Spain 6,102
Switzerland 5,218
Belgium 3,019
Austria Hungary 2,668
Russia 2,230
Denmark 1,125
Italy 971
Sweden 900
Canada 700
Australia 600
Norway, Portugal and Finland 692
-------
Total 150,995
During recent years the use of cocoa has increased rapidly in some
countries. The following table gives the increase per cent in
consumption in 1905 over that in 1901 for the five chief consumers:--
Per cent.
United States 70
Germany 61
France 21
United Kingdom 11
Holland 34
(A. B. R.; W. G. F.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] As a matter of nomenclature it is unfortunate that the corrupt
form "cocoa," from a confusion with the coco-nut (q.v.), has become
stereotyped. When introduced early in the 18th century it was as a
trisyllable _co-co-a_, a mispronunciation of _cacao_ or _cocoa_, the
Spanish adaptation from the Mexican _cacauatl_.
COCO DE MER, or DOUBLE COCO-NUT, a palm, _Lodoicea Sechellarum_, which
is a native of the Seychelles Islands. The flowers are borne in enormous
fleshy spadices, the male and female on distinct plants. The fruits,
which are among the largest known, take ten years to ripen; they have a
fleshy and fibrous envelope surrounding a hard nut-like portion which is
generally two-lobed, suggesting a large double coco-nut. The contents of
the nut are edible as in the coco-nut. The empty fruits (after
germination of the seed) are found floating in the Indian Ocean, and
were known long before the palm was discovered, giving rise to various
stories as to their origin.
COCOMA, or CUCAMAS, a tribe of South American Indians living on the
Marañon and lower Huallaga rivers, Peru. In 1681, at the time of the
Jesuit missionaries' first visit, they had the custom of eating their
dead and grinding the bones to a powder, which was mixed with a
fermented liquor and drunk. When expostulated with by the Jesuits they
said "it was better to be inside a friend than to be swallowed up by the
cold earth." They are a provident, hard-working people, partly
Christianized, and bolder than most of the civilized Indians. Their
languages show affinity to the Tupi-Guarani stock.
COCO-NUT[1] PALM (_Cocos nucifera_), a very beautiful and lofty
palm-tree, growing to a height of from 60 to 100 ft., with a cylindrical
stem which attains a thickness of 2 ft. The tree terminates in a crown
of graceful waving pinnate leaves. The leaf, which may attain to 20 ft.
in length, consists of a strong mid-rib, whence numerous long acute
leaflets spring, giving the whole the appearance of a gigantic feather.
The flowers are arranged in branching spikes 5 or 6 ft. long, enclosed
in a tough spathe, and the fruits mature in bunches of from 10 to 20.
The fruits when mature are oblong, and triangular in cross section,
measuring from 12 to 18 in. in length and 6 to 8 in. in diameter. The
fruit consists of a thick external husk or rind of a fibrous structure,
within which is the ordinary coco-nut of commerce. The nut has a very
hard, woody shell, enclosing the nucleus or kernel, the true seed,
within which again is a milky liquid called coco-nut milk. The palm is
so widely disseminated throughout tropical countries that it is
impossible to distinguish its original habitat. It flourishes with equal
vigour on the coast of the East Indies, throughout the tropical islands
of the Pacific, and in the West Indies and tropical America. It,
however, attains its greatest luxuriance and vigour on the sea shore,
and it is most at home in the innumerable small islands of the Pacific
seas, of the vegetation of which it is eminently characteristic. Its
wide distribution, and its existence in even the smallest coral islets
of the Pacific, are due to the character of the fruit, which is
eminently adapted for distribution by sea. The fibrous husk renders the
fruit light and the leathery skin prevents water-logging. The seed will
germinate readily on the sea-shore, the seedling growing out through the
soft germ-pore on the upper end of the hard nut. The fruits dropping
into the sea from trees growing on any shores would be carried by tides
and currents to be cast up and to vegetate on distant coasts.
The coco-nut palm, being the most useful of its entire tribe to the
natives of the regions in which it grows, and furnishing many valuable
and important commercial products, is the subject of careful cultivation
in many countries. On the Malabar and Coromandel coasts of India the
trees grow in vast numbers; and in Ceylon, which is peculiarly well
suited for their cultivation, it is estimated that twenty millions of
the trees flourish. The wealth of a native in Ceylon is estimated by his
property in coco-nut trees, and Sir J. Emerson Tennent noted a law case
in a district court in which the subject in dispute was a claim to the
2520th part of ten of the precious palms. The cultivation of coco-nut
plantations in Ceylon was thus described by Sir J. E. Tennent. "The
first operation in coco-nut planting is the formation of a nursery, for
which purpose the ripe nuts are placed in squares containing about 400
each; these are covered an inch deep with sand and seaweed or soft mud
from the beach, and watered daily till they germinate. The nuts put down
in April are sufficiently grown to be planted out before the rains of
September, and they are then set out in holes 3 ft. deep and 20 to 30
ft. apart.... Before putting in the young plant it is customary to bed
the roots with soft mud and seaweed, and for the first two years they
must be watered and protected from the glare of the sun under shades
made of the plaited fronds of the coco-nut palm, or the fan-like leaves
of the palmyra." The palm begins to bear fruit from the fifth to the
seventh year of its age, each stock carrying from 5 to 30 nuts, the tree
maturing on an average 60 nuts yearly.
The uses to which the various parts of the coco-nut palm are applied in
the regions of their growth are almost endless. The nuts supply no
inconsiderable proportion of the food of the natives, and the milky
juice enclosed within them forms a pleasant and refreshing drink. The
juice drawn from the unexpanded flower spathes forms "toddy," which may
be boiled down to sugar, or it is allowed to ferment and is distilled,
when it yields a spirit which, in common with a like product from other
sources, is known as "arrack." As in other palms, the young bud cut out
of the top of the tree forms an esculent vegetable, "palm cabbage." The
trunk yields a timber (known in European commerce as porcupine wood)
which is used for building, furniture, firewood, &c.; the leaves are
plaited into cajan fans and baskets, and used for thatching the roofs of
houses; the shell of the nut is employed as a water-vessel; and the
external husk or rind yields the coir fibre, with which are fabricated
ropes, cordage, brushes, &c. The coco-nut palm also furnishes very
important articles of external commerce, of which the principal is
coco-nut oil. It is obtained by pressure or boiling from the kernels,
which are first broken up into small pieces and dried in the sun, when
they are known as copperah or _copra_. It is estimated that 1000
full-sized nuts will yield upwards of 500 lb. of copra, from which 25
gallons of oil should be obtained. The oil is a white solid substance at
ordinary temperatures, with a peculiar, rather disagreeable odour, from
the volatile fatty acids it contains, and a mild taste. Under pressure
it separates into a liquid and a solid portion, the latter,
coco-stearin, being extensively used in the manufacture of candles.
Coco-nut oil is also used in the manufacture of marine soap, which forms
a lather with sea-water. Coir is also an important article of commerce,
being in large demand for the manufacture of coarse brushes, door mats
and woven coir-matting for lobbies and passages. A considerable quantity
of fresh nuts is imported, chiefly from the West Indies, into Britain
and other countries; they are familiar as the reward of the popular
English amusement of "throwing at the coco-nuts"; and the contents are
either eaten raw or used as material for cakes, &c., or sweetmeats
("coker-nut").
FOOTNOTE:
[1] The spelling "cocoa-nut," which introduces a confusion with cocoa
(q.v.) or cacao, is a corruption of the original Portuguese form,
dating from (and largely due to) Johnson's _Dictionary_. The spelling
"coker-nut," introduced to avoid the same ambiguity, is common in
England.
COCYTUS (mod. _Vuvo_), a tributary of the Acheron, a river of Thesprotia
(mod. _pashalik_ of Iannina), which flows into the Ionian Sea about 20
m. N. of the Gulf of Arta. The name is also applied in Greek mythology
to a tributary of the Acheron or of the Styx, a river in Hades. The
etymology suggested is from [Greek: kôkuein], to wail, in allusion to
the cries of the dead. Virgil describes it as the river which surrounds
the underworld (_Aen._ vi. 132).
COD, the name given to the typical fish of the family _Gadidae_, of the
Teleostean suborder Anacanthini, the position of which has much varied
in our classifications. Having no spines to their fins, the Gadids used,
in Cuvierian days, to be associated with the herrings, Salmonids, pike,
&c., in the artificially-conceived order of Malacopterygians, or
soft-finned bony fishes. But, on the ground of their air-bladder being
closed, or deprived of a pneumatic duct communicating with the digestive
canal, such as is characteristic of the Malacopterygians, they were
removed from them and placed with the flat-fishes, or _Pleuronectidae_,
in a suborder Anacanthini, regarded as intermediate in position between
the Acanthopterygians, or spiny-finned fishes, and the Malacopterygians.
It has, however, been shown that the flat-fishes bear no relationship to
the Gadids, but are most nearly akin to the John Dories (see DORY).
The suborder Anacanthini is, nevertheless, maintained for the
_Muraenolepididae_ Gadids and two related families, _Macruridae_ and
_Muraenolepididae_, and may be thus defined:--Air-bladder without open
duct. Parietal bones separated by the supra-occipital; prootic and
exoccipital separated by the enlarged opisthotic. Pectoral arch
suspended from the skull: no mesocoracoid arch. Ventral fins below or in
front of the pectorals, the pelvic bones posterior to the clavicular
symphysis and only loosely attached to it by ligament. Fins without
spines; caudal fin, if present, without expanded hypural, perfectly
symmetrical, and supported by the neural and haemal spines of the
posterior vertebrae, and by basal bones similar to those supporting the
dorsal and anal rays. This type of caudal fin must be regarded as
secondary, the _Gadidae_ being, no doubt, derived from fishes in which
the homocercal fin of the typical Teleostean had been lost.
About 120 species of Gadids are distinguished, mostly marine, many being
adapted to life at great depths; all are carnivorous. They inhabit
chiefly the northern seas, but many abyssal forms occur between the
tropics and in the southern parts of the Atlantic and Pacific. They are
represented in British waters by eight genera, and about twenty species,
only one of which, the burbot (_Lota vulgaris_), is an inhabitant of
fresh waters. Several of the marine species are of first-rate economic
importance. The genus _Gadus_ is characterized by having three dorsal
and two anal fins, and a truncated or notched caudal fin. In the cod and
haddock the base of the first anal fin is not, or but slightly, longer
than that of the second dorsal fin; in the whiting, pout, coal-fish,
pollack, hake, ling and burbot, the former is considerably longer than
the latter.
The cod, _Gadus morrhua_, possesses, in common with the other members of
the genus, three dorsal and two anal fins, and a single barbel, at least
half as long as the eye, at the chin. It is a widely-distributed
species, being found throughout the northern and temperate seas of
Europe, Asia and America, extending as far south as Gibraltar, but not
entering the Mediterranean, and inhabits water from 25 to 50 fathoms
deep, where it always feeds close to the bottom. It is exceedingly
voracious, feeding on the smaller denizens of the ocean--fish,
crustaceans, worms and molluscs, and greedily taking almost any bait the
fisherman chooses to employ. The cod spawns in February, and is
exceedingly prolific, the roe of a single female having been known to
contain upwards of eight millions of ova, and to form more than half the
weight of the entire fish. Only a small proportion of these get
fertilized, and still fewer ever emerge from the egg. The number of cod
is still further reduced by the trade carried on in roe, large
quantities of which are used in France as ground-bait in the sardine
fishery, while it also forms an article of human food. The young are
about an inch in length by the end of spring, but are not fit for the
market till the second year, and it has been stated that they do not
reach maturity, as shown by the power of reproduction, till the end of
their third year. They usually measure about 3 ft. in length, and weigh
from 12 to 20 lb, but specimens have been taken from 50 to 70 lb in
weight.
As an article of food the cod-fish is in greatest perfection during the
three months preceding Christmas. It is caught on all parts of the
British and Irish coasts, but the Dogger Bank, and Rockall, off the
Outer Hebrides, have been specially noted for their cod-fisheries. The
fishery is also carried on along the coast of Norfolk and Suffolk, where
great quantities of the fish are caught with hook and line, and conveyed
to market alive in "well-boats" specially built for this traffic. Such
boats have been in use since the beginning of the 18th century. The most
important cod-fishery in the world is that which has been prosecuted for
centuries on the Newfoundland banks, where it is not uncommon for a
single fisherman to take over 500 of these fish in ten or eleven hours.
These, salted and dried, are exported to all parts of the world, and
form, when taken in connexion with the enormous quantity of fresh cod
consumed, a valuable addition to the food resources of the human race.
The air-bladder of this fish furnishes isinglass, little, if at all,
inferior to that obtained from the sturgeon, while from the liver is
obtained cod-liver oil, largely used in medicine as a remedy in
scrofulous complaints and pulmonary consumption (see Cod-liver Oil).
"The Norwegians," says Cuvier, "give cod-heads with marine plants to
their cows for the purpose of producing a greater proportion of milk.
The vertebrae, the ribs, and the bones in general, are given to their
cattle by the Icelanders, and by the Kamtchatdales to their dogs. These
same parts, properly dried, are also employed as fuel in the desolate
steppes of the Icy Sea."
At Port Logan in Wigtonshire cod-fish are kept in a large reservoir,
scooped out of the solid rock by the action of the sea, egress from
which is prevented by a barrier of stones, which does not prevent the
free access of the water. These cod are fed chiefly on mussels, and when
the keeper approaches to feed them they may be seen rising to the
surface in hundreds and eagerly seeking the edge. They have become
comparatively tame and familiar. Frank Buckland, who visited the place,
states that after a little while they allowed him to take hold of them,
scratch them on the back, and play with them in various ways. Their
flavour is considered superior to that of the cod taken in the open sea.
(G. A. B.)
CODA (Ital. for "tail"; from the Lat. _cauda_), in music, a term for a
passage which brings a movement or a separate piece to a conclusion.
This developed from the simple chords of a cadence into an elaborate and
independent form. In a series of variations on a theme or in a
composition with a fixed order of subjects, the "coda" is a passage
sufficiently contrasted with the conclusions of the separate variations
or subjects, added to form a complete conclusion to the whole. Beethoven
raised the "coda" to a feature of the highest importance.
CODE (Lat. _codex_), the term for a complete and systematic body of law,
or a complete and exclusive statement of some portion of the law; and so
by analogy for any system of rules or doctrine; also for an arrangement
in telegraphy, signalling, &c., by which communications may be made
according to rules adopted for brevity or secrecy.
In jurisprudence the question of the reduction of laws to written codes,
representing a complete and readily accessible system, is a matter of
great historical and practical interest. Many collections of laws,
however, which are commonly known as codes,[1] would not correspond to
the definition given above. The Code of Justinian (see JUSTINIAN I.;
ROMAN LAW), the most celebrated of all, is not in itself a complete and
exclusive system of law. It is a collection of imperial constitutions,
just as the Pandects are a collection of the opinions of jurisconsults.
The Code and the Pandects together being, as Austin says, "digests of
Roman law in force at the time of their conception," would, if properly
arranged, constitute a code. Codification in this sense is merely a
question of the _form_ of the laws, and has nothing to do with their
goodness or badness from an ethical or political point of view.
Sometimes codification only means the changing of unwritten into written
law; in the stricter sense it means the changing of unwritten or
badly-written law into law well written.
The same causes which made collections of laws necessary in the time of
Justinian have led to similar undertakings among modern peoples. The
actual condition of laws until the period when they are consciously
remodelled is one of confusion, contradiction, repetition and disorder;
and to these evils the progress of society adds the burden of
perpetually increasing legislation. Some attempt must be made to
simplify the task of learning the laws by improving their expression and
arrangement. This is by no means an easy task in any country, but in
England it is surrounded with peculiar difficulties. The independent
character of English law has prevented an attempt to do what has already
been done for other systems which have the basis of the Roman law to
fall back upon.
The most celebrated modern code is the French. The necessity of a code
in France was mainly caused by the immense number of separate systems of
jurisprudence existing in that country before 1789, justifying
Voltaire's sarcasm that a traveller in France had to change laws about
as often as he changed horses. At first published under the title of
_Code Civil des Français_, it was afterwards entitled the _Code
Napoléon_ (q.v.)--the emperor Napoleon wishing to attach his name to a
work which he regarded as the greatest glory of his reign. The code, it
has been said, is the product of Roman and customary law, together with
the ordinances of the kings and the laws of the Revolution. In form it
has passed through several changes caused by the political vicissitudes
of the country, and it has of course suffered from time to time
important alterations in substance, but it still remains virtually the
same in principle as it left the hands of its framers. The code has
produced a vast number of commentaries, among which may be named those
of A. Duranton, R. T. Troplong and J. C. F. Demolombe. The remaining
French codes are the _Code de procédure civile_, the _Code de commerce_,
the _Code d'instruction criminelle_ and the _Code pénal_. The merits of
the French code have entered into the discussion on the general question
of codification. Austin agrees with Savigny in condemning the ignorance
and haste with which it was compiled. "It contains," says Austin, "no
definitions of technical terms (even the most leading), no exposition of
the _rationale_ of distinctions (even the most leading), no exposition
of the broad principles and rules to which the narrower provisions
expressed in the code are subordinate; hence its fallacious brevity."
Codes modelled on the French code have, however, taken firm root in most
of the countries of continental Europe and in other parts of the world
as well, such as Latin America and several of the British colonies.
The Prussian code (_Code Frédéric_) was published by Frederick the Great
in 1751. It was intended to take the place of "Roman, common Saxon and
other foreign subsidiary laws and statutes," the provincial laws
remaining in force as before. One of the objects of the king was to
destroy the power of the advocates, whom he hoped to render useless.
This, with other systems of law existing in Germany, has been replaced
by the Civil Code of 1900 (see GERMANY).
The object of all these codes has been to frame a common system to take
the place of several systems of law, rather than to restate in an exact
and exhaustive form the whole laws of a nation, which is the problem of
English codification. The French and Prussian codes, although they have
been of great service in simplifying the law, have failed to prevent
outside themselves that accumulation of judiciary and statute law which
in England has been the chief motive for codification. A more exact
parallel to the English problem may be found in the _Code of the State
of New York_. The revised constitution of the state, as adopted in 1846,
"ordered the appointment of two commissions, one to reduce into a
written and a systematic code the whole body of the law of the state,
and the other to revise, reform, simplify and abridge the rules and
practice, pleadings, &c., of the courts of record." By an act of 1847,
the state legislature declared that the body of substantive law should
be contained in three codes--the Political, the Civil and the Penal. The
works of both commissions, completed in 1865, filled six volumes,
containing the Code of Civil Procedure (including the law of evidence),
the Book of Forms, the Code of Criminal Procedure, the Political Code,
the Penal Code and the Civil Code. In the introduction to the Civil Code
it was claimed that in many departments of the law the codes "provided
for every possible case, so that when a new case arises it is better
that it should be provided for by new legislation." The New York code
was defective in the important points of definition and arrangement. It
formed the basis, however, of the present codes of civil and criminal
procedure in the state of New York. Much interest has attached to the
Penal Code drawn up by Edward Livingston (q.v.) for the state of
Louisiana. The system consists of a Code of Crime and Punishments, a
Code of Procedure, a Code of Evidence, a Code of Reform and Prison
Discipline, and a Book of Definitions. "Though the state for which the
codes were prepared," said Chief Justice Chase, "neglected to avail
itself of the labours assigned and solicited by itself, they have
proved, together with their introductions, a treasure of suggestions to
which many states are indebted for useful legislation." Most of the
other states in the United States have codes stating the law of pleading
in civil actions, and such states are often described as code states to
distinguish them from those adhering to the older forms of action,
divided between those at law and those at equity. A few states have
general codes of political and civil rights. The general drift of
legislation and of public sentiment in the United States is towards the
extension of the principle of codification, but the contrary view has
been ably maintained (see J. C. Carter, _Provinces of the Written and
the Unwritten Law_, New York, 1889).
Since the time of Bentham, the codification of the law of England has
been the dream of the most enlightened jurists and statesmen. In the
interval between Bentham and our own time there has been an immense
advance in the scientific study of law, but it may be doubted whether
the problem of codification is at all nearer solution. Interest has
mainly been directed to the historical side of legal science, to the
phenomena of the evolution of laws as part of the development of
society, and from this point of view the question of remodelling the law
is one of minor interest. To Bentham the problem presented itself in the
simplest and most direct form possible. What he proposed to do was to
set forth a body of laws, clearly expressed, arranged in the order of
their logical connexion, exhibiting their own _rationale_ and excluding
all other law. On the other hand the problem has in some respects become
easier since the time of Bentham. With the Benthamite codification the
conception of reform in the substantive law is more or less mixed up. If
codification had been possible in his day, it would, unless it had been
accompanied by the searching reforms which have been effected since, and
mainly through his influence, perhaps have been more of an evil than a
good. The mere dread that, under the guise of codification or
improvement in form, some change in substance may secretly be effected
has long been a practical obstacle in the way of legal reform. But the
law has now been brought into a state of which it may be said that, if
it is not the best in all respects that might be desired, it is at least
in most respects as good as the conditions of legislation will permit it
to be. Codification, in fact, may now be treated purely as a question of
form. What is proposed is that the law, being, as we assume, in
substance what the nation wishes it to be, should be made as accessible
as possible, and as intelligible as possible. These two essential
conditions of a sound system of law are, we need hardly say, far from
being fulfilled in England. The law of the land is embodied in thousands
of statutes and tens of thousands of reports. It is expressed in
language which has never been fixed by a controlling authority, and
which has swayed about with every change of time, place and
circumstance. It has no definitions, no rational distinctions, no
connexion of parts. Until the passing of the Judicature Act of 1873 it
was pervaded throughout its entire sphere by the flagrant antinomy of
law and equity, and that act has only ordered, not executed, its
consolidation. No lawyer pretends to know more than a fragment of it.
Few practical questions can be answered by a lawyer without a search
into numberless acts of parliament and reported cases. To laymen, of
course, the whole law is a sealed book. As there are no authoritative
general principles, it happens that the few legal maxims known to the
public, being apprehended out of relation to their authorities, are as
often likely to be wrong as to be right. It is hopeless to think of
making it possible for every man to be his own lawyer, but we can at
least try to make it possible for a lawyer to know the whole law. The
earlier advocates of codification founded their case mainly on the evils
of judiciary law, _i.e._ the law contained in the reported decisions of
the judges. Bentham's bitter antipathy to judicial legislation is well
known. Austin's thirty-ninth lecture (_Lectures_, ed. 1869) contains an
exhaustive criticism of the tenable objections to judiciary law. All
such law is embedded in decisions on particular cases, from which it
must be extracted by a tedious and difficult process of induction. Being
created for particular cases it is necessarily uncomprehensive,
imperfect, uncertain and bulky. These are evils which are incident to
the nature of judiciary laws. The defective form of the existing statute
law, moreover, has also given rise to loud complaints. Year by year the
mass of legislation grows larger, and as long as the basis of a system
is judiciary law, it is impossible that the new statutes can be
completely integrated therewith. The mode of framing acts of parliament,
and especially the practice of legislating by reference to previous
acts, likewise produce much uncertainty and disorder. Some progress has,
however, been made by the passing from time to time of various acts
codifying branches of law, such as the Bills of Exchange Act 1882, the
Partnership Act 1890, the Trusts Act 1893, and the Interpretation Act
1889.
The Statute Law Revision Committee also perform a useful work in
excising dead law from the statute-book, partly by repeal of obsolete
and spent acts and parts of acts, and partly by pruning redundant
preambles and words. The construction of a section of an act may depend
on the preamble and the context, and the repeal of the preamble and
certain parts of the act may therefore affect the construction of what
is left. This is provided for by a clause which is said to have been
settled by Lord Westbury. It provides (in effect) that the repeal of any
words or expressions of enactment shall not affect the construction of
any statute or part of a statute. The lawyer, therefore, cannot rely on
the revised edition of the statutes alone, and it is still necessary for
him to consult the complete act as it was originally enacted.
The process of gradual codification adopted in India has been
recommended for imitation in England by those who have had some
experience of its working. The first of the Indian codes was the Penal
Code (see CRIMINAL LAW), and there are also codes of civil and criminal
procedure.
Whether any attempt will ever be made to supersede this vast and
unarranged mass by a complete code seems very doubtful. Writers on
codification have for the most part insisted that the work should be
undertaken as a whole, and that the parts should have relation to some
general scheme of the law which should be settled first. The practical
difficulties in the way of an undertaking so stupendous as the
codification _uno coëtu_ of the whole mass of the law hardly require to
be stated.
In discussions on codification two difficulties are insisted on by its
opponents, which have some practical interest--(1) What is to be done in
those cases for which the code has not provided? and (2) How is new law
to be incorporated with the code? The objection that a code will hamper
the opinions of the court, destroy the flexibility and elasticity of the
common law, &c., disappears when it is stated in the form of a
proposition, that law codified will cover a smaller number of cases, or
will be less easily adapted to new cases, than law uncodified. The
French system ordered the judges, under a penalty, to give a decision on
all cases, whether contemplated or not by the code, and referred them
generally to the following sources:--(1) Équité naturelle, loi
naturelle; (2) loi romain; (3) loi coutumier; (4) usages, exemples,
jugements, jurisprudence; (5) droit commun; (6) principes généraux,
maximes, doctrine, science. The Prussian code, on the other hand,
required the judges to report new cases to the head of the judicial
department, and they were decided by the legislative commission. No
provision was made in either case for incorporating the new law with the
code, an omission which Austin justly considers fatal to the usefulness
of codification. It is absurd to suppose that any code can remain long
without requiring substantial alteration. Cases will arise when its
meaning must be extended and modified by judges, and every year will
produce its quota of new legislation by the state. The courts should be
left to interpret a code as they now interpret statutes, and provision
should be made for the continual revision of the code, so that the new
law created by judges or directly by the state may from time to time be
worked into the code.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] The most ancient code known, that of Khammurabi, is dealt with in
the article BABYLONIAN LAW.
CODE NAPOLÉON, the first code of the French civil law, known at first as
the _Code civil des Français_, was promulgated in its entirety by a law
of the 30th Ventose in the year XII. (31st of March 1804). On the 3rd of
September 1807 it received the official name of Code Napoléon, although
the part that Napoleon took in framing it was not very important. A law
of 1818 restored to it its former name, but a decree of the 27th of
March 1852 re-established the title of Code Napoléon. Since the 4th of
September 1870 the laws have quoted it only under the name of the Code
Civil.
Never has a work of legislation been more national in the exact sense of
the word. Desired for centuries by the France of the _ancien régime_,
and demanded by the _cahiers_ of 1789, this "code of civil laws common
to the whole realm" was promised by the constitution of 1791. However,
the two first assemblies of the Revolution were able to prepare only a
few fragments of it. The preparation of a coherent plan began with the
Convention. The _ancien régime_ had collected and adjusted some of the
material. There was, on the one hand, a vast juridical literature which
by eliminating differences of detail, had disengaged from the various
French "customs" the essential part which they had in common, under the
name of "common customary law"; on the other hand, the Roman law current
in France had in like manner undergone a process of simplification in
numerous works, the chief of which was that of Domat; while certain
parts had already been codified in the _Grandes Ordonnances_, which were
the work of d'Aguesseau. This legacy from the past, which it was desired
to preserve within reason, had to be combined and blended with the laws
of the Revolution, which had wrought radical reforms in the conditions
affecting the individual, the tenure of real property, the order of
inheritance and the system of mortgages. Cambacérès, as the
representative of a commission of the Convention, brought forward two
successive schemes for the Code Civil. As a member of one of the
councils, he drew up a third under the Directory, and these projected
forms came in turn nearer and nearer to what was to be the ultimate form
of the code. So great was the interest centred in this work, that the
law of the 19th Brumaire, year VIII., which, in ratification of the
previous day's _coup d'état_ nominated provisional consuls and two
legislative commissions, gave injunctions to the latter to draw up a
scheme for the Code Civil. This was done in part by one of the members,
Jacqueminot, and finally under the constitution of the year VIII., the
completion of the work was taken in hand. The legislative machinery
established by this constitution, defective as it was in other respects,
was eminently suited for this task. Indeed, all projected laws emanated
from the government and were prepared by the newly established council
of state, which was so well recruited that it easily furnished qualified
men, mostly veterans of the revolution, to prepare the final scheme. The
council of state naturally possessed in its legislative section and its
general assembly bodies both competent and sufficiently limited to
discuss the texts efficiently. The _corps législatif_ had not the right
of amendment, so could not disturb the harmony of the scheme. It was in
the discussions of the general assembly of the council of state that
Napoleon took part, in 97 cases out of 102 in the capacity of chairman,
but, interesting as his observations occasionally are, he cannot be
considered as a serious collaborator in this great work.
Those responsible for the scheme have in the main been very successful
in their work; they have generally succeeded in fusing the two elements
which they had to deal with, namely ancient French law, and that of the
Revolution. The point in which their work is comparatively weak is the
system of hypothec (q.v.), because they did not succeed in steering a
middle course between two opposite systems, and the law of the 23rd of
March 1855 (_sur la transcription en matière hypothécaire_) was
necessary to make good the deficiency. A fault frequently found with the
Code Civil is that its general divisions show a lack of logic and
method, but the division is practically that of the Institutes of
Justinian, and is about as good as any other: persons, things,
inheritance, contracts and obligations, and finally, in place of
actions, which have no importance for French law except from the point
of view of procedure, privileges and hypothecs, as in the ancient
_coutumes_ of France, and prescription. It is, _mutatis mutandis_,
practically the same division as that of Blackstone's Commentaries.
Of late years other objections have been expressed; serious omissions
have been pointed out in the Code; it has not given to personal property
the importance which it has acquired in the course of the 19th century;
it makes no provision for dealing with the legal relations between
employers and employed which modern complex undertakings involve; it
does not treat of life insurance, &c. But this only proves that it could
not foretell the future, for most of these questions are concerned with
economic phenomena and social relations which did not exist at the time
when it was framed. The Code needed revising and completing, and this
was carried out by degrees by means of numerous important laws. In 1904,
after the celebration of the centenary of the Code Civil, an
extra-parliamentary commission was nominated to prepare a revision of
it, and at once began the work.
The influence of the Code Civil has been very great, not only in France
but also abroad. Belgium has preserved it, and the Rhine provinces only
ceased to be subject to it on the promulgation of the civil code of the
German empire. Its ascendancy has been due chiefly to the clearness of
its provisions, and to the spirit of equity and equality which inspires
them. Numerous more recent codes have also taken it as a model: the
Dutch code, the Italian, and the code of Portugal; and, more remotely,
the Spanish code, and those of the Central and South American republics.
In the present day it is rivalled by the German civil code, which,
having been drawn up at the end of the 19th century, naturally does not
show the same lacunae or omissions. It is inspired, however, by a very
different spirit, and the French code does not suffer altogether by
comparison with it either in substance or in form.
See _Le Code Civil, livre du centenaire_ (Paris, 1904), a collection
of essays by French and foreign lawyers. (J. P. E.)
CODIAEUM, a small genus of plants belonging to the natural order
Euphorbiaceae. One species, _C. variegatum_, a native of Polynesia, is
cultivated in greenhouses, under the name of croton, for the sake of its
leaves, which are generally variegated with yellow, and are often
twisted or have the blades separated into distinct portions.
CODICIL (Lat. _codicillus_, a little book or tablet, diminutive of
_codex_), a supplement to a will (q.v.), containing anything which a
testator desires to add, or which he wishes to retract, to explain or to
alter. In English law a codicil requires to be executed with the same
formalities as a will under the Wills Act 1837.
CODILLA, the name given to the broken fibres which are separated from
the flax during the scutching process. On this account it is sometimes
termed scutching tow. Quantities of this material are used along with
heckled tow in the production of tow yarns.
CODINUS, GEORGE [GEORGIOS KODINOS], the reputed author of three extant
works in Byzantine literature. Their attribution to him is merely a
matter of convenience, two of them being anonymous in the MSS. Of
Codinus himself nothing is known; it is supposed that he lived towards
the end of the 15th century. The works referred to are the following:--
1. _Patria_ ([Greek: Ta Patria tês Kônstantinoupoleôs]), treating of the
history, topography, and monuments of Constantinople. It is divided
into five sections: (_a_) the foundation of the city; (_b_) its
situation, limits and topography; (_c_) its statues, works of art, and
other notable sights; (_d_) its buildings; (_e_) the construction of the
church of St Sophia. It was written in the reign of Basil II.
(976-1025), revised and rearranged under Alexius I. Comnenus
(1081-1118), and perhaps copied by Codinus, whose name it bears in some
(later) MSS. The chief sources are: the _Patria_ of Hesychius Illustrius
of Miletus, an anonymous (_c._ 750) brief chronological record ([Greek:
Parastaseis syntomoi chronikai]), and an anonymous account ([Greek:
diêgêsis]) of St Sophia (ed. T. Preger in _Scriptores originum
Constantinopolitanarum_, fasc. i., 1901, to be followed by the _Patria_
of Codinus). Procopius, _De Aedificiis_ and the poem of Paulus
Silentiarius on the dedication of St Sophia should be read in connexion
with this subject.
2. _De Officiis_ ([Greek: Peri tôn Ophphikiôn]), a sketch, written in an
unattractive style, of court and higher ecclesiastical dignities and of
the ceremonies proper to different occasions. It should be compared with
the _De Cerimoniis_ of Constantine Porphyrogenitus.
3. A chronological outline of events from the beginning of the world to
the taking of Constantinople by the Turks (called Agarenes in the MS.
title). It is of little value.
Complete editions are (by I. Bekker) in the Bonn _Corpus scriptorum
Hist. Byz._ (1839-1843, where, however, some sections of the _Patria_
are omitted), and in J. P. Migne, _Patrologia graeca_, clvii.; see
also C. Krumbacher, _Geschichte der byzantinischen Litteratur_ (1897).
COD-LIVER OIL (_Oleum Morrhuae_, or _Oleum Jecoris Aselli_), the oil
obtained from the liver of the common cod (_Gadus morrhua_). In the
early process for extracting the oil the livers were allowed to putrefy
in wooden tubs, when oils of two qualities, one called "pale oil," and
the other "light brown oil," successively rose to the surface and were
drawn off. A third oil was obtained by heating the liver-residues to
above the boiling-point of water, whereupon a black product, technically
called "brown oil," separated. The modern practice consists in heating
the perfectly fresh, cleaned livers by steam to a temperature above that
of boiling water, or, in more recent practice, to a lower temperature,
the livers being kept as far as possible from contact with air. The oils
so obtained are termed "steamed-liver oils." The "pale" and "light
brown" oils are used in pharmacy; the "brown" oil, the cod oil of
commerce, being obtained from putrid and decomposing livers, has an
objectionable taste and odour and is largely employed by tanners. By
boiling the livers at a somewhat high temperature, "unracked" cod oil is
obtained, containing a considerable quantity of "stearine"; this fat,
which separates on cooling, is sold as "fish stearine" for soap-making,
or as "fish-tallow" for currying. The oil when freed from the stearine
is known as "racked oil." "Coast cod oil" is the commercial name for the
oil obtained from the livers of various kinds of fish, _e.g._ hake,
ling, haddock, &c. The most important centres of the cod-liver oil
industry are Lofoten and Romsdal in Norway; the oil is also prepared in
the United States, Canada, Newfoundland, Iceland and Russia; and at one
time a considerable quantity was prepared in the Shetland Islands and
along the east coast of Scotland.
Cod-liver oil contains palmitin, stearin and other more complex
glycerides; the "stearine" mentioned above, however, contains very
little palmitin and stearin. Several other acids have been identified:
P. M. Meyerdahl obtained 4% of palmitic acid, 20% of jecoleic acid,
C19H36O2, and 20% of therapic acid, C17H26O2; other investigators have
recognized jecoric acid, C18H30O2, asellic acid, C17H32O2, and
physetoleic acid, C16H30O2, but some uncertainty attends these last
three acids. Therapic and jecoleic acids apparently do not occur
elsewhere in the animal kingdom, and it is probable that the therapeutic
properties of the oil are associated with the presence of these acids,
and not with the small amount of iodine present as was at one time
supposed. Other constituents are cholesterol (0.46-1.32%), traces of
calcium, magnesium, sodium, chlorine and bromine, and various aliphatic
amines which are really secondary products, being formed by the
decomposition of the cellular tissue.
Cod-liver oil is used externally in medicine when its internal
administration is rendered impossible by idiosyncrasy or the state of
the patient's digestion. The oil is very readily absorbed from the skin
and exerts all its therapeutic actions when thus exhibited. This method
is often resorted to in the case of infants or young children suffering
from abdominal or other forms of tuberculosis. Its only objection is the
odour which the patient exhales. When taken by the mouth, cod-liver oil
shares with other liver-oils the property of ready absorption. It often
causes unpleasant symptoms, which must always be dealt with and not
disregarded, more harm than good being done if this course is not
followed. Fortunately a tolerance is soon established in the majority of
cases. It has been experimentally proved that this is more readily
absorbed than any other oil--including other liver-oils. Much attention
has been paid to the explanation of this fact, since knowledge on this
point might enable an artificial product, without the disadvantages of
this oil, to be substituted for it. Very good results have been obtained
from a preparation named "lipanin," which consists of six parts of oleic
acid and ninety-four of pure olein. Cod-liver oil has the further
peculiarity of being more readily oxidizable than any other oil; an
obviously valuable property when it is remembered that the entire
food-value of oils depends on their oxidation.
Cod-liver oil may be given in all wasting diseases, and is occasionally
valuable in cases of chronic rheumatoid arthritis; but its great
therapeutic value is in cases of tuberculosis of whatever kind, and
notably in pulmonary tuberculosis or consumption. Its reputation in this
is quite inexpugnable. It is essential to remember that "in phthisis the
key of the situation is the state of the alimentary tract," and the
utmost care must be taken to obviate the nausea, loss of appetite and
diarrhoea, only too easily induced by this oil. It is best to begin with
only one dose in the twenty-four hours, to be taken just before going to
sleep, so that the patient is saved its unpleasant "repetition" from an
unaccustomed stomach. In general, it is therefore wise to order a double
dose at bedtime. The oil may be given in capsules, or in the form of an
emulsion, with or without malt-extract, or success may be obtained by
adding, to every two drachms of the oil, ten minims of pure ether and a
drop of peppermint oil. The usual dose, at starting, is one or two
drachms, but the oil should be given eventually in the largest
quantities that the patient can tolerate.
CODRINGTON, CHRISTOPHER (1668-1710), British soldier and colonial
governor, whose father was captain-general of the Leeward Isles, was
born in the island of Barbados, West Indies, in 1668. Educated at Christ
Church, Oxford, he was elected a fellow of All Souls, and subsequently
served with the British forces in Flanders, being rewarded in 1695 with
a captaincy in the Guards. In the same year he attended King William
III. on his visit to Oxford, and, in the absence of the public orator,
was chosen to deliver the University oration. In 1697, on the death of
his father, he was appointed captain-general and commander-in-chief of
the Leeward Isles. In 1703 he commanded the unsuccessful British
expedition against Guadeloupe. After this he resigned his governorship,
and spent the rest of his life in retirement and study on his Barbados
estates. He died on the 7th of April 1710, bequeathing these estates to
the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts for the
foundation of a college in Barbados. This college, known as the
Codrington college, was built in 1714-1742. To All Souls College,
Oxford, he bequeathed books worth £6000 and £10,000 in money, out of
which was built and endowed the Codrington library there.
CODRINGTON, SIR EDWARD (1770-1851), British admiral, belonged to a
family long settled at Dodington in Gloucestershire. He was the youngest
of three brothers, who were left orphans at an early age, and were
educated by an uncle, Mr Bethell. Edward Codrington was sent for a short
time to Harrow, and entered the navy in July 1783. He served on the
American station, in the Mediterranean and at home, till he was promoted
lieutenant on the 28th of May 1783. Lord Howe selected him to be signal
lieutenant on the flagship of the Channel fleet at the beginning of the
revolutionary war with France. In that capacity he served in the "Queen
Charlotte" (100) during the operations which culminated in the battle
of the 1st of June 1794. The notes he wrote on Barrow's account of the
battle in his _Life of Howe_, and the reminiscences he dictated to his
daughter, which are to be found in her memoir of him, are of great value
for the history of the action. On the 7th of October 1794 he was
promoted commander, and on the 6th of April 1795 attained the rank of
post-captain and the command of the "Babet" (22). He continued to serve
in the Channel, and was present at the action off L'Orient on the 23rd
of June 1795. Codrington wrote notes on this encounter also, which are
to be found in the memoir. They are able and valuable, but, like all his
correspondence throughout his life, show that he was of a somewhat
censorious disposition, was apt to take the worst view of the conduct of
others, and was liable to be querulous. He next commanded the "Druid"
(32) in the Channel and on the coast of Portugal, till she was paid off
in 1797. Codrington now remained on shore and on half-pay for some
years. In December 1802 he married Jane, daughter of Jasper Hall of
Kingston, Jamaica.
On the renewal of the war after the breach of the peace of Amiens he was
appointed (May 1805) to the command of the "Orion" (74) and was attached
to the fleet on the coast of Spain, then blockading Villeneuve in Cadiz.
The "Orion" took a conspicuous part in the battle of Trafalgar.
Codrington's correspondence contains much illuminative evidence as to
the preliminaries and the events of the victory. From 1805 till 1813 he
continued to serve first in the "Orion" and then (1808) in the "Blake"
(74) in European waters. He was present on the Walcheren expedition, and
was very actively employed on the Mediterranean coast of Spain in
co-operating with the Spaniards against the French. In 1814 he was
promoted rear-admiral, at which time he was serving on the coast of
North America as captain of the fleet to Sir Alexander Cochrane during
the operations against Washington, Baltimore and New Orleans. In 1815 he
was made K.C.B., and was promoted vice-admiral on the 10th of July 1821.
In December 1826 he was appointed to the Mediterranean command, and
sailed on the 1st of February 1827. From that date until his recall on
the 21st of June 1828 he was engaged in the arduous duties imposed on
him by the Greek War of Independence, which had led to anarchy and much
piracy in the Levant. On the 20th of October 1827 he destroyed the
Turkish and Egyptian naval forces at Navarino (q.v.), while in command
of a combined British, French and Russian fleet. As the battle had been
unforeseen in England, and its result was unwelcome to the ministry of
the day, Codrington was entangled in a correspondence to prove that he
had not gone beyond his instructions, and he was recalled by a despatch,
dated the 4th of June.
After the battle Codrington went to Malta to refit his ships. He
remained there till May 1828, when he sailed to join his French and
Russian colleagues on the coast of the Morea. They endeavoured to
enforce the evacuation of the peninsula by Ibrahim peacefully. The Pasha
made diplomatic difficulties, and on the 25th of July the three admirals
agreed that Codrington should go to Alexandria to obtain Ibrahim's
recall by his father Mehemet Ali. Codrington had heard on the 22nd of
June of his own supersession, but, as his successor had not arrived, he
carried out the arrangement made on the 25th of July, and his presence
at Alexandria led to the treaty of the 6th of August 1828, by which the
evacuation of the Morea was settled. His services were recognized by the
grant of the grand cross of the Bath, but there is no doubt that he was
treated as a scape-goat at least to some extent. After his return home
he was occupied for a time in defending himself, and then in leisure
abroad. He commanded a training squadron in the Channel in 1831 and
became admiral on the 10th of January 1837. From November 1839 to
December 1842 he was commander-in-chief at Portsmouth. He died on the
28th of April 1851.
Sir Edward Codrington left two sons, Sir William (1804-1884), a soldier
who commanded in the Crimea, and Sir John Henry (1808-1877), a naval
officer, who died an admiral of the fleet.
See _Memoir of the Life of Admiral Sir Edward Codrington_, by his
daughter Jane, Lady Bourchier, wife of Sir T. Bourchier, R.N. (London,
1873). (D. H.)
CODRUS, in Greek legend, the last king of Athens. According to the
story, it was prophesied at the time of the Dorian invasion of
Peloponnesus (_c._ 1068 B.C.) that only the death of their king at the
enemy's hands could ensure victory to the Athenians. Devoting himself to
his country, Codrus, in the disguise of a peasant, made his way into the
enemy's camp, and provoked a quarrel with some Dorian soldiers. He fell,
and the Dorians, on discovering that Codrus had been slain, retreated
homeward, despairing of success. No one being thought worthy to succeed
Codrus, the title of king was abolished, and that of archon (q.v.)
substituted for it.
See Lycurgus, _Leocr._ xx. [=84-87]; Justin ii. 6; Vell. Pat. i. 2;
Grote, _Hist. of Greece_, pt. i. ch. 18; Busolt, _Griechische
Geschichte_, i.
CODY, WILLIAM FREDERICK (1846- ), American scout and showman, known
under the name of "Buffalo Bill," was born in 1846 in Scott county,
Iowa. He first became known as one of the riders of the "Pony Express,"
a mail service established in the spring of 1860 by the Central Overland
California and Pike's Peak Express Company to carry the mails overland
from Saint Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California, a distance of
1950 m., by means of relays of ponies, each rider being expected to
cover about 75 m. daily. Owing to the wildness of the country and the
hostility of the Indians, both the riders and the station-keepers led
lives of great hardship and danger. The "Pony Express" was discontinued
in 1861 upon the completion of the Pacific Telegraph company's line, and
young Cody became a scout and guide for the United States army. In 1863
he formally enlisted in the 7th regiment of Kansas cavalry, in which he
served until the close of the Civil War. In 1867 he made a contract with
the Kansas Pacific railway to furnish its employees with buffalo meat
while the line was being extended through the wilderness, and his name
of "Buffalo Bill" was given him from this circumstance. In 1868-1872 he
was again an army scout and guide, serving against the Sioux and
Cheyennes; and in 1872 was a member of the Nebraska house of
representatives. During the Sioux-Cheyenne War of 1876 he served in the
5th United States Cavalry, and at the battle of Indian Creek killed the
Cheyenne chief Yellow Hand in single combat. In 1883 he organized his
"Wild West Show," a spectacular performance on a large scale, his first
European tour taking place in 1887. In the Nebraska national guard he
again served against the Sioux in 1890-1891.
CO-EDUCATION, the term applied to the instruction and training of boys
and girls, or of young people of both sexes, in the same school or
institution, in the same classes and through the same courses of study.
Examples of the thoroughgoing application of this principle can be found
in every grade of education from the elementary school to the
university. But the term "Co-education" is sometimes used in a wider
sense, in order to include cases in which boys and girls, or young men
and young women of university age, are admitted to membership of the
same school or college but receive instruction wholly or in part in
separate classes and in different subjects. Other variable factors in
co-educational systems are the extent to which men and women are mixed
on the teaching staff, and the freedom of intercourse permitted between
pupils of the two sexes in class, in games and in other activities of
school life. In another form of combined education (preferred by Comte,
_Système de politique positive_, iv. 266), pupils of the two sexes are
taught successively by the same teacher. By the English Board of
Education, a distinction is drawn between mixed schools and dual
schools. "Mixed schools" are those in which, for most subjects of the
curriculum, boys and girls are taught together by the same teachers: in
"dual schools" there are separate boys' and girls' departments under a
single principal, but with separate entrances, classrooms and
playgrounds for the two sexes.
_History._--Co-education in early times was occasional and sporadic. For
example, women were admitted by Plato to the inner circle of the Academy
on terms of equality with men. The educational endowments of Teos
provided that the professors of literature should teach both boys and
girls. It is uncertain whether the Roman schools in classical times were
attended by both sexes. A tombstone found at Capua represents a
schoolmaster with a boy on one side and a girl on the other. Probably
co-education was practised in country districts for economical reasons;
and also in the home schools organized by wealthier families (Wilkins,
_Roman Education_, pp. 42-43). At Charles the Great's Palace School at
Aachen (A.D. 782 onwards), Alcuin taught together the young princes and
their sisters, as well as grown men and women. The Humanists of the
Renaissance made the full development of personality a chief aim of
education, and held up literary accomplishment as a desirable mark of
personal distinction both for men and women. This led to the scholarly
education of girls along with boys in the home schools of some great
families. Thus, at Mantua (1423 onwards), Vittorino da Feltre taught
Cecilia Gonzaga with her brothers and the other boy pupils at his
boarding-school; but there is no evidence that the latter was otherwise
co-educational. Luther and other Reformers urged that girls as well as
boys should be taught to read the Bible. Hence came the tendency to
co-education of boys and girls in some elementary schools in Protestant
lands. This tendency can be traced both in Scotland and in the northern
parts of England. It is believed that, in the early days of New England,
district schools in smaller American towns were open to boys and girls
alike, but that few girls advanced beyond reading and writing (Martin,
_Massachusetts Public School System_, p. 130). At Dorchester, Mass., it
was left to the discretion of the elders and schoolmen whether maids
should be taught with the boys or not; but in practice the girls seem to
have been educated apart. In 1602 the council of Ayr, Scotland, ordained
that the girls who were learning to read and write at the Grammar School
should be sent to the master of the Song School, "because it is not
seemly that sic lasses should be among the lads" (Grant, _History of the
Burgh and Parish Schools of Scotland_, p. 526 ff.). Meriden,
Connecticut, seems to have made common provision for the elementary
education of boys and girls in 1678. Northampton, Mass., did the same in
1680. Deerfield, Mass., in 1698 voted that "all families having children
either male or female between the ages of six and ten years shall pay by
the poll for their schooling"--presumably in the common school.
Thus the beginnings of co-education in its modern organized form may be
traced back partly to Scotland and partly to the United States. The
co-education of boys and girls, carried through in varying degrees of
completeness, was not uncommon in the old Endowed Schools of Scotland,
and became more frequent as increasing attention was given to the
education of girls. At the Dollar Institution, founded by John McNabb
for the benefit of the poor of the parish of Dollar and shire of
Clackmannan (date of will, 1800), boys and girls have been educated
together in certain classes since the beginning of the school in 1818.
In the eastern parts of the United States, where the Puritan tradition
also prevailed, co-education struck firm root, and spread chiefly for
reasons of convenience and economy (Dexter, _History of Education in
United States_, p. 430). But throughout the west, co-education was
strongly preferred in elementary and secondary schools and in
universities on the further ground that it was believed to be more in
accordance with the democratic principle of equal educational
opportunity for the two sexes.
It should be added, however, that the leaven of Pestalozzi's thought has
worked powerfully both in Europe and America in favour of the idea of
co-education. His view was that all educational institutions should, as
far as possible, be modelled upon the analogy of the family and of the
home. At Stanz (1798-1799) he educated together in one household boys
and girls ranging in age from five to fifteen. At Burgdorf (1799-1804)
his work was in part co-educational. At Yverdun (1804-1825) Pestalozzi
established a school for girls close to his school for boys. The girls
received instruction from some of the masters of the boys' school, and
girls and boys met at evening worship, in short excursions and at other
times.
In England, the Society of Friends have been the pioneers of
co-education in boarding schools, both for younger children and for
pupils up to fifteen or sixteen years of age. The practice of the
society, though not exclusively co-educational, has long been favourable
to co-education, either in its complete or restricted form, as being
more in harmony with the conditions of family life. Ackworth school was
established by the London Yearly Meeting in 1779 for the education of
boys and girls; but the school has never been fully co-educational, the
boys and girls being taught separately except in a few classes. At
Sidcot school, which was founded in 1808 by the Associated Quarterly
Meetings in the west of England for the education of children of
Friends, boys and girls are taught together, except in certain
handicraft subjects. Several other co-educational schools were founded
by the Society of Friends during the first half of the 19th century.
Since that time the movement towards co-education in secondary schools
and universities has steadily gained strength in England. It has been
furthered by the diffusion of Pestalozzian ideas and also by the
influence of American example. In England, private schools have made
some of the most valuable co-educational experiments. A private boarding
and day secondary school on co-educational lines was instituted by Mr W.
A. Case in Hampstead in 1865. A co-educational boarding-school was
founded in 1869 by Miss Lushington at Kingsley near Alton, Hants. In
1873 Mr W. H. Herford began the Ladybarn school for boys and girls at
Withington in the suburbs of Manchester. The passing of the Welsh
Intermediate Education Act 1889 led to the establishment of a
considerable number of new mixed or dual secondary day-schools in Wales.
Many English teachers gained experience in these schools and
subsequently influenced English education. The work and writings of Mr
J. H. Badley at Bedales, Petersfield, a co-educational boarding-school
of the first grade, gave greatly increased weight to the principle of
co-education. Important additions have also been made to the fund of
co-educational experience by the King Alfred's school (Hampstead),
Keswick school, and West Heath school (Hampstead). In 1907 a Public
Co-educational Boarding School was opened at Harpenden.
Since the Education Act 1902 became law, there has been a rapid increase
of co-educational secondary day-schools of the lower grade, under county
or borough education authorities, in all parts of England. This increase
is due to two chief causes, viz. (1) The co-educational tradition of
some of the higher grade board schools, many of which have become
secondary schools; and (2) the economy effected by establishing one
co-educational secondary school, in place of two smaller schools for
boys and girls separately.
The idea of co-education in secondary schools has spread in several
other European countries, especially in Holland, Norway, Sweden and
Denmark. In Scandinavia, the new practice appears to have begun with the
establishment of a private higher secondary school, the Palmgremska
Samskolan, in Stockholm, in 1876. A similar school, Nya Svenska
Läroverket, was founded upon the same model in Helsingfors, Finland, in
1880. In Norway, the law of 1896 introduced co-education in all state
schools. In Denmark, as in Norway, co-education was begun in private
schools; on its proving a success there, it was introduced into the
state schools, with two exceptions; and it is now obligatory in most
state schools but optional in private schools (J. S. Thornton, _Schools
Public and Private in the North of Europe_, 1907, p. 97). In Holland,
there is now a good deal of co-education in lower secondary schools of
the modern type. For example, at Utrecht, the state higher burgher
school provides the same course of instruction, except in gymnastics,
for boys and girls. At Almeloo, the municipal higher burgher school,
though co-educational, differentiates the classes in several subjects.
In Belgium, France, Germany and Austria, co-education, though frequent
in elementary schools, is regarded as undesirable in secondary; but the
movement in its favour in many parts of Germany seems to be gathering
strength. All over Europe the Roman Catholic populations prefer the
older ideal of separate schools for boys and girls.
Co-education in colleges and universities, which began at Oberlin, Ohio,
in 1833, was adopted almost without exception by the state universities
throughout the west of America from 1862 onwards. Since that time the
idea has spread rapidly throughout Europe, and the presence of women
students at universities originally confined to men is one of the most
striking educational facts of the age.
_Co-education in the United Kingdom, (a) England and Wales._--The Board
of Education does not possess any summary showing the number of pupils
in mixed public elementary schools or in mixed departments of such
schools. In 1901, out of 31,502 departments of public elementary schools
in England and Wales, nearly half (15,504) were mixed departments, in
which boys and girls were educated together. But as the departments were
of unequal size, it must not be inferred from this that half the
children in public elementary schools in that year (5,883,762) were
receiving co-education. Of the total number of departments in public
elementary schools in England and Wales, the percentage of mixed schools
fell from 51.6 in 1881 to 49.4 in 1891 and 49.2 in 1901. But these
percentages must not be taken to prove an absolute decline in the number
of children in mixed departments.
In England, out of 492 public secondary schools which were recognized by
the Board of Education for the receipt of government grant for the
school year ending July 31, 1905, and which contained 85,358 pupils, 108
schools, with 21,720 pupils, were mixed; and 20 schools, with 8980
pupils, were dual schools.
Thus, of the total number of pupils in the secondary schools referred to
above, a little over 25% were in mixed schools, and about 10% were in
dual schools. It is not safe to assume, however, that all the mixed
schools were completely co-educational in their work, or that the dual
schools were not co-educational in respect of certain subjects or parts
of the course. It should also be remembered that, besides the secondary
schools recognized by the Board of Education for the receipt of
government grant, there is a considerable number of great endowed
secondary boarding-schools ("public schools" in the English use of that
expression) which are for boys only. There are also at least 5000
private secondary schools, of which, in 1897 (since when no
comprehensive statistical inquiry has been made), 970, with 26,027
pupils, were mixed schools. But the great majority of the children in
these mixed schools were under twelve years of age. The number of boys
and girls over twelve years of age, in the mixed private secondary
schools which were included in the 1897 return, was only 5488.
In Wales, for the school year ending July 31, 1905, out of 84
state-aided public secondary schools, 11 were mixed and 44 were dual
schools. The number of scholars in the Welsh schools referred to above
was 9340. Of these, 1457, or 15%, were in mixed schools, and 5085, or
54%, were in dual schools. The managers of dual schools in Wales have
the power to arrange that boys and girls shall be taught together in any
or all the classes; and, as a matter of fact, nearly all the dual
schools are worked as mixed schools, though they appear in these figures
under dual.
_(b) Scotland._--In the public elementary schools, including the higher
grade schools of Scotland, co-education is the almost universal rule.
The exceptions, which for the most part are Roman Catholic or Episcopal
Church schools, tend to diminish year by year. In 1905, out of 3843
departments in the Scotch public elementary and higher grade schools,
3783 were mixed. These include the infant departments. Out of the total
number of children in the public elementary and higher grade schools,
including infants' departments, 98.43% were receiving co-education.
In the secondary schools of Scotland there has been in recent years
little perceptible movement either towards co-education or away from it.
What movement there is, favours the establishment of separate secondary
schools for girls in the large centres of population. Out of 109 public
secondary schools in Scotland in 1905-1906, 29 schools were for boys
only and 40 schools for girls only. One school had boys and girls in
separate departments. In the remaining 39 schools, boys and girls were
taken together to an extent which varied with the subjects taken; but
there was nothing of the nature of a strict separation of the sexes as
regards the ordinary work of the school.
_(c) Ireland._--In Ireland, the percentage of pupils on the rolls of
mixed national schools (_i.e._ schools attended by boys and girls), to
the total number of pupils on the rolls of all national schools, has
slowly increased. In 1880 the percentage was 57.5; in 1898, 59.4; in
1905, 60.9.
The Commissioners of Intermediate Education in Ireland had on their list
in 1906, 38 secondary schools which were classified by them as mixed
schools. These schools were attended by 640 boys and 413 girls between
13 and 19 years of age. The commissioners do not know to what extent the
boys and girls in these schools received instruction in the same
classes. As, however, the schools are small, they believe that in the
great majority of cases the boys and girls were taught together. In one
large school not classified as mixed, the boys (117) and girls (60) were
taught in the same classes.
_Universities and University Colleges in the United Kingdom._--Women are
admitted as members of the universities of London, Durham, Manchester,
Liverpool, Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffield, Wales, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, St
Andrews, Glasgow, Dublin and the Royal University of Ireland. At Oxford
and Cambridge women are not admitted as members of the university, but
by courtesy enjoy entrance to practically all university lectures and
examinations. The social life of the men and women students is more
separate in the old than in the new universities. In no grade of
education in the United Kingdom has the principle of co-education made
more rapid advance than in the universities. The university education of
women began in London (Queen's College 1848, Bedford College 1849, both
being preceded by classes in earlier years). The University of London in
1878 decided to accept from the crown a supplemental charter making
every degree, honour and prize awarded by the university accessible to
students of both sexes on perfectly equal terms. By charter in 1880, the
Victoria University (now broken up into the universities of Manchester,
Liverpool and Leeds) received power to grant degrees to women as well as
to men. The charter of the university of Wales (1893) provides that
"Women shall be eligible equally with men for admittance to any degree
which our university is authorized to confer; every office created in
the university, and the membership of every authority constituted by the
charter shall be open to women equally with men." In 1889 the
Universities (Scotland) Act empowered the commissioners to make
ordinances, enabling each university to admit women in graduation in one
or more faculties and to provide for their instruction. At all the
university colleges in the United Kingdom women are educated as well as
men.
_United States._--Co-education is a characteristic feature of the
educational system of the different states of the American Union. Of
elementary school pupils at least 96%, and of secondary school pupils
95%, are in mixed schools. In 1903, out of a total enrolment of
15,990,803 pupils in public elementary and secondary schools and
training colleges, 15,387,734 were in schools attended by pupils of both
sexes. Out of 550,600 pupils on the rolls of public secondary schools
(high schools) in 1902, 523,300 were in co-educational schools. The same
was true of 43% of the pupils (numbering over 100,000) in private
secondary schools. In colleges and universities 62% of all
undergraduates were in co-educational institutions, to which category
thirty-four American universities belong (U.S. Commissioner of
Education, _Report for 1903_, p. 2454). In America opinion is thus
predominantly in favour of co-education, but there is a current of
adverse criticism, especially among some who have had experience of
school conditions in large cities.
_General Review of the Question._--In schools for infants and younger
children co-education is approved by all authorities. It is increasingly
favoured on educational grounds in smaller schools for children up to 12
or 13 years of age or thereabouts. But where elementary schools have to
be large, separate departments for boys and girls are generally
preferable, though mixed schools are often established for reasons of
economy. At the other end of the educational scale, viz. in the
universities, the co-education of men and women in the same institution
is fast becoming the rule. This is due partly to the prohibitive cost of
duplicating teaching staff, laboratories, libraries and other equipment,
partly to the desire of women to qualify themselves for professional
life by passing through the same courses of training as are prescribed
for men. The degree, however, to which social intercourse is carried on
between men and women students differs widely in the different
co-educational universities. There are occasional signs, _e.g._ at
Chicago, of a reaction against the fullest form of academic
co-education. And it is probable that the universities will provide,
among many courses common to men and women, some (like engineering)
suitable for men only, and others (like advanced instruction in
home-science, or certain courses of professional preparation for
teachers of young children) which will rarely be attended by any but
women. Common use of the same university institutions is compatible with
much differentiation in courses of study and with separately organized
forms of collegiate life. It is with regard to the part of education
which lies between the elementary schools and the universities that the
sharpest division of opinion upon the principle of co-education now
exists. In Europe, with the exception of Scandinavia, those who advocate
co-education of the sexes in secondary schools up to 18 or 19 years of
age are at present in a distinct minority, even as regards day schools,
and still more when they propose to apply the same principle to boarding
schools. But the application of the co-educational principle to all
schools alike is favoured by an apparently increasing number of men and
women. This movement in opinion is connected with the increase in the
number of girls desiring access to secondary schools, a demand which can
most easily and economically be met by granting to girls access to some
of the existing schools for boys. The co-educational movement is also
connected with a strong view of sex equality. It is furthered by the
rapidly increasing number of women teachers who are available for higher
educational work. Mixed secondary schools with mixed staffs are
spreading for reasons of economy in smaller towns and rural districts.
In large towns separate schools are usually recommended in preference,
but much depends upon the social tradition of the neighbourhood. Those
who advocate co-education for boys and girls in secondary schools urge
it mainly on the ground of its naturalness and closer conformity to the
conditions of healthy, unselfconscious home life. They believe it to be
a protective against uncleanness of talk and school immorality. They
point to its convenience and economy. They welcome co-education as
likely to bring with it a healthy radicalism in regard to the older
tradition of studies in boys' secondary schools. They approve it as
leading to mixed staffs of men and women teachers, and as the most
effectual way of putting girls in a position of reasonable equality with
boys in respect of intellectual and civic opportunity. On the other
hand, those who oppose co-education in secondary schools rest their case
upon the danger of the intellectual or physical overstrain of girls
during adolescence; and upon the unequal rate of development of boys and
girls during the secondary school period, the girls being more forward
than the boys at first, but as a rule less able to work as hard at a
somewhat later stage. The critics further complain that co-education is
generally so organized that the girls' course of study is more or less
assimilated to that of the boys, with the result that it cannot have the
artistic and domestic character which is suitable for the majority of
girls. Complaint is also made that the head of a co-educational school
for pupils over the age of 10 is usually a man, though the health and
character of girls need the care and control of a woman vested with
complete authority and responsibility. While demurring to the view that
co-education of the sexes would be a moral panacea, the critics of the
system admit that the presence of the girls would exert a refining
influence, but they believe that on the whole the boys are likely to
gain less from co-education than the girls are likely to lose by it. In
all these matters carefully recorded observation and experiment are
needed, and it may well be found that co-education is best for some boys
and for some girls, though not for all. Temperaments and dispositions
differ. Some boys seem by nature more fitted for the kind of training
generally given to girls; some girls are by nature fitted for the kind
of training generally given to boys. The sex division does not mark off
temperaments into two sharply contrasted groups. The introduction of
girls into boys' secondary schools may remove or mitigate coarse
traditions of speech and conduct where such persist. But it would be
unfortunate if stiff and pedantic traditions of secondary education were
now fixed upon girls instead of being reconsidered and modified in the
interests of boys also. In any case, if co-education in secondary
schools is to yield the benefits which some anticipate from it, great
vigilance, careful selection of pupils and very liberal staffing will be
necessary. Without these securities the results of co-education in
secondary schools might be disappointing, disquieting or even
disastrous.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Plato in the _Republic_ (v. 452-456) and _Laws_ (vii.
804-805) argues that women should share as far as possible in
education with men. Mary Wollstonecraft, _A Vindication of the Rights
of Women_ (1792), contends that "both sexes ought, not only in private
families but in public schools, to be educated together." J. G.
Spurzheim, _Principles of Education_, pp. 272-288 (Edinburgh, 1821),
replies to this argument. In the Board of Education _Special Reports
on Educational Subjects_, vol. vi. (Wyman & Sons, 1900), J. H. Badley,
writing on _The Possibility of Co-education in English Preparatory and
other Secondary Schools_, is strongly in favour. "In co-education ...
half-heartedness means failure. The more completely both sexes can be
brought together upon an equal and natural footing the less the
difficulties grow." In the Board of Education _Special Reports_, vol.
xi. (Wyman & Sons, 1902), Rev. Cecil Grant, writing on _Can American
Education be grafted upon the English Public School System?_ answers
strongly in the affirmative; co-education is recommended on eight
grounds:--(1) Vast economy of expenditure; (2) return to the natural
system; (3) discipline made easier; (4) intellectual stimulus; (5) a
better balance in instruction; (6) improved manners; (7) prevention of
extremes of masculinity or femininity; (8) a safeguard against the
moral danger.
_Co-education: a series of Essays_ (London, 1903), edited by Alice
Woods, is in favour of co-education, nine practical workers recording
their experience; this is one of the best books on the subject. J. H.
Badley's _Co-education after Fifteen: its Value and Difficulties_.
_Child Life_ (London, January, 1906), is candid, judicious and
practical. M. E. Sadler in _Reports on Secondary Education in
Hampshire, Derbyshire and Essex_ (1904, 1905 and 1906 respectively)
gives details of the curriculum of many co-educational secondary
schools. In the U.S. Commissioner of Education _Report for 1903_, vol.
i. pp. 1047-1078, Anna Tolman Smith, writing on _Co-education in the
Schools and Colleges of the United States_, gives an historical review
of the subject with bibliography (compare bibliography in _Report of
U.S. Commissioner of Education for 1900-1901_, pp. 1310-1325). G.
Stanley Hall on _Adolescence, its Psychology and its Relations to
Physiology, Anthropology, Sociology, Sex, Crime, Religion and
Education_, vol. ii. chap. xvii., on Adolescent Girls and their
education (New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1904), is strongly against
co-education during adolescence. In W. Rein's _Encyklopädisches
Handbuch der Pädagogik_ (Langensalza, Beyer), art. "Gemeinsame
Erziehung für Knaben und Mädchen," K. E. Palmgren is in favour of
co-education (vol. iii. of 2nd ed. 1905). See also W. Rein, _Über
gemeinsame Erziehung von Knaben und Mädchen_ (Freiburg, 1903), and
_Bericht über den I. Internationalen Kongress für Schulhygiene_
(Nürnberg, 1904), vol. ii. pp. 140 ff., "Co-education in der höheren
Schulen." (M. E. S.)
COEFFETEAU, NICOLAS (1574-1623), French theologian, poet and historian,
was born at Saint-Calais. He entered the Dominican order and lectured on
philosophy at Paris, being also "ordinary preacher" to Henry IV., and
afterwards ambassador at Rome. In 1606 he was vicar-general of the
congregation of France, and received from Marie de' Medici the revenues
of the sees of Lombez and Saintes. He also administered the diocese of
Metz, and was nominated to that of Marseilles in 1621, but ill-health
obliged him here to take a coadjutor. Coeffeteau won considerable
distinction in the controversy against the Protestant reformers and also
wrote a _History of Rome from Augustus to Constantine_. Many of his
theological writings were collected in one volume (Paris, 1622), and at
the time of his death in 1623 he was engaged on a translation of the New
Testament which is still in manuscript.
COEHOORN, MENNO, BARON VAN (1641-1704), Dutch soldier and military
engineer, of Swedish extraction, was born at Leeuwarden in Friesland. He
received an excellent military and general education, and at the age of
sixteen became a captain in the Dutch army. He took part in the defence
of Maastricht in 1673 and in the siege of Grave in the same year, where
the small mortars (called coehorns) invented by him caused the French
garrison considerable trouble (Seydel, _Nachrichten über
Festungskriege_, Leipzig, 1818). He was made a colonel for his gallant
conduct at the battle of Seneff (1674), and was present also at the
battles of Cassel (1677) and Saint Denis (1678).
The circumstances of the time and the country turned Coehoorn's
attention to the art of fortification, and the events of the late war
showed him that existing methods could no longer be relied upon. His
first published work, _Versterckinge de Vijfhoeks met alle syne
Buytenwerken_ (Leeuwarden, 1682), at once aroused attention, and
involved the author in a lively controversy with a rival engineer, Louys
Paan (Leeuwarden, 1682, 1683; copies are in the library of the Dutch
ministry of war). The military authorities were much interested in this,
and entrusted Coehoorn with the reconstruction of several fortresses in
the Netherlands. This task he continued throughout his career; and his
experience in the work made him the worthy rival of his great
contemporary Vauban. He formulated his ideas a little later in his chief
work, _Nieuwe Vestingbouw op en natte of lage horizont_, &c.
(Leeuwarden, 1685), in which he laid down three "systems," the
characteristic feature of which was the multiplicity and great saliency
of the works, which were calculated and in principle are still eminently
suited for flat and almost marshy sites such as those of the Low
Countries. He borrowed many of the details from the works of his Dutch
predecessor Freytag, of Albrecht Dürer, and of the German engineer
Speckle, and in general he aimed rather at the adaptation of his
principles to the requirements of individual sites than at producing a
geometrically and theoretically perfect fortress; and throughout his
career he never hesitated to depart from his own rules in dealing with
exceptional cases, such as that of Groningen. Subsequent editions of
_Nieuwe Vestingbouw_ appeared in Dutch (1702, and frequently
afterwards), English (London, 1705), French (Wesel, 1705), and German
(Düsseldorf, 1709).
From 1688 to the treaty of Ryswick Coehoorn served as a brigadier. At
the battle of Fleurus he greatly distinguished himself, and in 1692 he
defended Namur, a fortress of his own creation. Namur was taken by
Vauban; but the Dutch engineer had his revenge three years later, when
the place, on which in the meantime Vauban had lavished his skill, fell
to his attack. Coehoorn became lieutenant-general and inspector-general
of the Netherlands fortresses, and the high-German peoples as well as
his own countrymen honoured him. He commanded a corps in the army of the
duke of Marlborough from 1701 to 1703, and in the constant siege warfare
of these campaigns in the Low Countries his technical skill was of the
highest value. The swift reduction of the fortress of Bonn and the siege
of Huy in 1703 were his crowning successes. At the opening of his
following campaign he was on his way to confer with Marlborough when he
died of apoplexy at Wijkel on the 17th of March 1704.
His "first system" was applied to numerous places in Holland, notably
Nijmwegen, Breda and Bergen-op-Zoom. Mannheim in Germany was also
fortified in this way, while the "secondsystem" was applied to Belgrade
and Temesvár in eastern Europe.
His son, Gosewijn Theodor van Coehoorn, wrote his life (re-edited
Syperstein, Leeuwarden, 1860). See also v. Zastrow, _Geschichte der
beständigen Befestigung_ (Leipzig, 1828); von Brese-Winiari, _Über
Entstehen und Wesen der neueren Befestigungsmethode_ (1844); Cosseran
de Villenoisy, _Essai historique sur la fortification_ (1869); Mandar,
_Architecture des forteresses_ (1801); Krayenhoff, _Verhandeling over
de erste versterkingsmanier van Coehoorn_ (Hague, 1823); Bosscha,
_Nederlandsche heldend te Land_ (Amsterdam, 1838); Dewez, _Histoire de
Belgique_ (Brussels, 1823); Ypey, _Narratio de rebus gestis Mennonis
Cohorni_ (1771); Hennert, _Dissertation sur la fortification
permanente_ (1795); Böhms, _Gründliche Anleitung zur Kriegsbaukunst_
(1776); _Axiomatas of allgemeene bekentnisse over de Vestinghbouw door
Menno Baron van Coehoorn, Uytgewerkt door E. W. Berg_ (MS. in Dutch
Ministry of War); Bousmard, _Essai général de fortification_ (1797);
also the article FORTIFICATION AND SIEGECRAFT.
COELENTERA, a group or grade of the animal kingdom, the zoological
importance of which has risen considerably since the time (1887) of the
publication of the first article under that heading in the _Ency. Brit._
(9th edit.), even though their numbers have been reduced by the
elevation of the Sponges or Porifera to the rank of an independent
Phylum under the title Parazoa (W. J. Sollas, 1884). For the Coelentera
thus restricted, the term Enterocoela, in contrast to Coelomocoela (the
old Coelomata), was suggested by E. R. Lankester (1900).
From the more complex colonial Protozoa the Coelentera are readily
separated by their possession of two distinct sets of cells, with
diverse functions, arranged in two definite layers,--a condition found
in no Protozoan. The old criterion by which they and other Metazoa were
once distinguished from Protozoa, namely, the differentiation of large
and small sexual cells from each other and from the remaining cells of
the body, has been broken down by the discovery of numerous cases of
such differentiation among Protozoa. The Coelentera, as contrasted with
other Metazoa (but not Parazoa), consist of two layers of cells only, an
outer layer or ectoderm, an inner layer or endoderm. They have hence
been described as Diploblastica. In the remaining Metazoa certain cells
are budded off at an early stage of development from one or both of the
two original layers, to form later a third layer, the mesoderm, which
lies between the ectoderm and endoderm; such forms have therefore
received the name Triploblastica. At the same time it is necessary to
observe that it is by no means certain that the mesoderm found in
various groups of Metazoa is a similar or homologous formation in all
cases. A second essential difference between Coelentera and other
Metazoa (except Parazoa) is that in the former all spaces in the
interior of the body are referable to a single cavity of endodermal
origin, the "gastro-vascular cavity," often termed the coelenteron: the
spaces are always originally continuous with one another, and are in
almost every case permanently so. This single cavity and its lining
serve apparently for all those functions (digestion, excretion,
circulation and often reproduction) which in more complex organisms are
distributed among various cavities of independent and often very diverse
origin.
In the Coelentera the ectoderm and endoderm are set apart from one
another at a very early period in the life-history; generally either by
delamination or invagination, processes described in the article
EMBRYOLOGY. Between these two cell-layers a mesogloea (G. C. Bourne,
1887) is always intercalated as a secretion by one or both of them; this
is a gelatinoid, primitively structureless lamella, which in the first
instance serves merely as a basal support for the cells. In many cases,
as, for example, in the Medusae or jelly-fish, the mesogloea may be so
thick as to constitute the chief part of the body in bulk and weight.
The ectoderm rarely consists of more than one layer of cells: these are
divisible by structure and function into nervous, muscular and secretory
cells, supported by interstitial cells. The endoderm is generally also
an epithelium one cell in thickness, the cells being digestive,
secretory and sometimes muscular. Reproductive sexual cells may be found
in either of these two layers, according to the class and sub-class in
question. The mesogloea is in itself an inert non-cellular secretion,
but the immigration of muscular and other cells into its substance, from
both ectoderm and endoderm, gives it in many cases a strong resemblance
to the mesoderm of Triploblastica,--a resemblance which, while probably
superficial, may yet serve to indicate the path of evolution of the
mesoderm.
The Coelentera may thus be briefly defined as Metazoa which exhibit two
embryonic cell-layers only,--the ectoderm and endoderm,--their
body-cavities being referable to a single cavity or coelenteron in the
endoderm. Their position in the animal kingdom and their main
subdivisions may be expressed in the following table:--
I. PROTOZOA.
II. PARAZOA or PORIFERA.
III. METAZOA.
|
+----------+--------------+
| |
Coelentera Triploblastica
= Diploblastica. (including Coelomata).
|
+------+-----------+-----------------+
| | |
Hydromedusae. Scyphozoa. Ctenophora.
|
+--------+----------+
| |
Scyphomedusae. Anthozoa.
In the above-given classification, the Scyphomedusae, formerly included
with the Hydromedusae as Hydrozoa, are placed nearer the Anthozoa. The
reasons for this may be stated briefly.
The HYDROMEDUSAE are distinguished from the Scyphozoa chiefly by
negative characters; they have no stomodaeum, that is, no ingrowth of
ectoderm at the mouth to form an oesophagus; they have no mesenteries
(radiating partitions) which incompletely subdivide the coelenteron; and
they have no concentration of digestive cells into special organs. Their
ectodermal muscles are mainly longitudinal, their endodermal muscles are
circularly arranged on the body-wall. Their sexual cells are (probably
in all cases) produced from the ectoderm, and lie in those radii which
are first accentuated in development. They typically present two
structural forms, the non-sexual hydroid and the sexual medusoid; in
such a case there is an alternation of generations (metagenesis), the
hydroid giving rise to the medusoid by a sexual gemmation, the medusoid
bearing sexual cells which develop into a hydroid. In some other cases
medusoid develops directly from medusoid (hypogenesis), whether by
sexual cells or by gemmation. The medusoids have a muscular velum of
ectoderm and mesogloea only.
The SCYPHOZOA have the following features in common:--They typically
exhibit an ectodermal stomodaeum; partitions or mesenteries project into
their coelenteron from the body-wall, and on these are generally
concentrated digestive cells (to form mesenterial filaments, phacellae
or gastric filaments, &c.); the external musculature of the body-wall is
circular (except in _Cerianthus_); the internal, longitudinal; and the
sexual cells probably always arise in the endoderm.
The SCYPHOMEDUSAE, like the Hydromedusae, typically present a
metagenesis, the non-sexual scyphistomoid (corresponding to the hydroid)
alternating with the sexual medusoid. In other cases the medusoid is
hypogenetic, medusoid producing medusoid. The sexual cells of the
medusoid lie in the endoderm on interradii, that is, on the second set
of radii accentuated in the course of development. The medusoids have no
true velum; in some cases a structure more or less resembling this
organ, termed a velarium, is present, permeated by endodermal canals.
The ANTHOZOA differ from the Scyphomedusae in having no medusoid form;
they all more or less resemble a sea-anemone, and may be termed
actinioid. They are (with rare exceptions, probably secondarily
acquired) hypogenetic, the offspring resembling the parent, and both
being sexual. The sexual cells are borne on the mesenteries in positions
irrespective of obvious developmental radii.
The CTENOPHORA are so aberrant in structure that it has been proposed to
separate them from the Coelentera altogether: they are, however,
theoretically deducible from an ancestor common to other Coelentera, but
their extreme specialization precludes the idea of any close
relationship with the rest.
As regards the other three groups, however, it is easy to conceive of
them as derived from an ancestor, represented to-day to some extent by
the planula-larva, which was Coelenterate in so far as it was composed
of an ectoderm and endoderm, and had an internal digestive cavity (I. of
the table).
At the point of divergence between Scyphozoa and Hydromedusae (II. of
the table of hypothetical descent), we may conceive of its descendant as
tentaculate, capable of either floating (swimming) or fixation at will
like Lucernaria to-day; and exhibiting incipient differentiation of
myoepithelial cells (formerly termed neuro-muscular cells). At the
parting of the ways which led, on the one hand, to modern Scyphomedusae,
on the other to Anthozoa (III.), it is probable that the common ancestor
was marked by incipient mesenteries and by the limitation of the sexual
cells to endoderm. The lines of descent--II. to Hydromedusae, and III.
to Scyphomedusae--represent periods during which the hypothetical
ancestors II. and III., capable of either locomotion or fixation at
will, were either differentiated into alternating generations of fixed
sterile nutritive hydroids (scyphistomoids) and locomotor sexual
medusoids, or abandoned the power of fixation in hypogenetic cases.
During the period represented by the line of descent--III. to
Anthozoa--this group abandoned its power of adult locomotion by
swimming. During these periods were also attained those less important
structural characters which these three groups present to-day.
(G. H. Fo.)
Hydromedusae. Scyphomedusae. Anthozoa.
\ | /
\ | /
\ | /
\ | /
\ | /
\ | /
\ | /
\ | /
\ | /
\ |/
\ III.
\ /
Ctenophora? \ /
\ II.
\ |
\ |
\ |
\ |
\ |
\ |
\ |
\ |
\ |
\|
I.
COELLO, ALONSO SANCHEZ (1515-1590), Spanish painter, according to some
authorities a native of Portugal, was born, according to others, at
Benifacio, near the city of Valencia. He studied many years in Italy;
and returning to Spain in 1541 he settled at Madrid, and worked on
religious themes for most of the palaces and larger churches. He was a
follower of Titian, and, like him, excelled in portraits and single
figures, elaborating the textures of his armours, draperies, and such
accessories in a manner so masterly as strongly to influence Velazquez
in his treatment of like objects. Many of his pictures were destroyed in
the fires that consumed the Madrid and Prado palaces, but many good
examples are yet extant, among which may be noted the portraits of the
infantes Carlos and Isabella, now in the Madrid gallery, and the St
Sebastian painted in the church of San Gerónimo, also in Madrid. Coello
left a daughter, Isabella Sanchez, who studied under him, and painted
excellent portraits.
COELLO, ANTONIO (1610?-1652), Spanish dramatist and poet, was born at
Madrid about the beginning of the 17th century. He entered the household
of the duke de Albuquerque, and after some years of service in the army
received the order of Santiago in 1648. He was a favourite of Philip
IV., who is reported to have collaborated with him; this rumour is not
confirmed, but there is ample proof of Coello's collaboration with
Calderón, Rojas Zorrilla, Solís and Velez de Guevara, the most
distinguished dramatists of the age. The best of his original plays,
_Los Empeños de seis horas_, has been wrongly ascribed to Calderón; it
was adapted by Samuel Tuke, under the title of _The Adventures of five
Hours_, and was described by Pepys as superior to _Othello_. It is an
excellent example of stagecraft and animated dialogue. Coello died on
the 20th of October 1652, shortly after his nomination to a post in the
household of Philip IV.
COELOM AND SEROUS MEMBRANES. In human anatomy the body-cavity or coelom
(Gr. [Greek: koilos], hollow) is divided into the _pericardium_, the two
_pleurae_, the _peritoneum_ and the two _tunicae vaginales_.
The _pericardium_ is a closed sac which occupies the central part of the
thorax and contains the heart. Like all the serous membranes it has a
visceral and a parietal layer, the former of which is closely applied to
the heart and consists of endothelial cells with a slight fibrous
backing: to it is due the glossy appearance of a freshly removed heart.
The parietal layer is double; externally there is a strong fibrous
protective coat which is continuous with the other fibrous structures in
the neighbourhood, especially with the sheaths of the great vessels at
the root of the heart, with prolongations of the fascia of the neck, and
with the central tendon of the diaphragm, while internally is the serous
layer which is reflected from the surface of the heart, where the great
vessels enter, so that everywhere the two layers of the serous membrane
are in contact, and the only thing within the cavity is a drop or two of
the fluid secreted by the serous walls. When the parietal layer is laid
open and the heart removed by cutting through the great vessels, it will
be seen that there are two lines of reflection of the serous layer, one
common to the aorta and pulmonary artery, the other to all the pulmonary
veins and the two venae cavae.
The _pleurae_ very closely resemble the pericardium except that the
fibrous outer coat of the parietal layer is not nearly as strong; it is
closely attached to the inner surface of the chest walls and mesially to
the outer layer of the pericardium; above it is thickened by a fibrous
contribution from the scalene muscles, and this forms the _dome of the
pleura_ which fits into the concavity of the first rib and contains the
apex of the lung. The reflection of the serous layer of the pleura, from
the parietal to the visceral part, takes place at the root of the lung,
where the great vessels enter, and continues for some distance below
this as the _ligamentum latum pulmonis_. The upper limit of the pleural
cavity reaches about half an inch above the inner third of the clavicle,
while, below, it may be marked out by a line drawn from the twelfth
thoracic spine to the tenth rib in the mid axillary line, the eighth rib
in the nipple line, and the sixth rib at its junction with the sternum.
There is probably very little difference in the lower level of the
pleurae on the two sides.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--Diagram of vertical median section of Abdomen.
A, Aorta. D, Duodenum.
P, Pancreas. B, Bladder.
I, Intestine. St, Stomach.
R, Rectum. C, Colon.
L, Liver. V, Vagina.
(The fine dots represent the great sac of the peritoneum, the coarse
dots the lesser sac.)]
The _peritoneum_ is a more extensive and complicated membrane than
either the pericardium or pleura; it surrounds the abdominal and pelvic
viscera, and, like the other sacs, has a parietal and visceral layer.
The line of reflection of these, though a continuous one, is very
tortuous. The peritoneum consists of a _greater_ and _lesser sac_ which
communicate through an opening known as the _foramen of Winslow_, and
the most satisfactory way of understanding these is to follow the
reflections first in a vertical median (sagittal) section and then in a
horizontal one, the body being supposed to be in the upright position.
If a median sagittal section be studied first, and a start be made at
the umbilicus (see fig. 1), the parietal peritoneum is seen to run
upward, lining the anterior abdominal wall, and then to pass along the
under surface of the diaphragm till its posterior third is reached; here
there is a reflection on to the liver (L), forming the anterior layer of
the _coronary ligament_ of that viscus, while the membrane now becomes
visceral and envelops the front of the liver as far back as the
transverse fissure on its lower surface; here it is reflected on to the
stomach (St) forming the anterior layer of the _gastro-hepatic_ or
_lesser omentum_. It now covers the front of the stomach, and at the
lower border runs down as the anterior layer of an apron-like fold, the
_great omentum_, which in some cases reaches as low as the pubes; then
it turns up again as the posterior or fourth layer of the great omentum
until the transverse colon (C) is reached, the posterior surface of
which it covers and is reflected, as the posterior layer of the
_transverse meso-colon_, to the lower part of the pancreas (P); after
this it turns down and covers the anterior surface of the third part of
the duodenum (D) till the posterior wall of the abdomen is reached, from
which it is reflected on to the small intestine (I) as the anterior
layer of the _mesentery_, a fold varying from 5 to 8 in. between its
attachments. After surrounding the small intestine it becomes the
posterior layer of the mesentery and so again reaches the posterior
abdominal wall, down which it runs until the rectum (R) is reached. The
anterior surface of this tube is covered by peritoneum to a point about
3 in. from the anus, where it is reflected on to the uterus and vagina
(V) in the female and then on to the bladder (B); in the male, on the
other hand, the reflection is directly from the rectum to the bladder.
At the apex of the bladder, after covering the upper surface of that
organ, it is lifted off by the urachus and runs up the anterior
abdominal wall to the umbilicus, from which the start was made. All this
is the greater sac. The tracing of the lesser sac may be conveniently
started at the transverse fissure of the liver, whence the membrane runs
down to the stomach (St) as the posterior layer of the lesser omentum,
lines the posterior surface of the stomach, passes down as the second
layer of the great omentum and up again as the third layer, covers the
anterior surface of the transverse colon (C) and then reaches the
pancreas (P) as the anterior layer of the transverse mesocolon. After
this it covers the front of the pancreas and in the middle line of the
body runs up below the diaphragm to within an inch of the anterior layer
of the coronary ligament of the liver; here it is reflected on to the
top of the Spigelian lobe of the liver to form the posterior layer of
the coronary ligament, covers the whole Spigelian lobe, and so reaches
the transverse fissure, the starting-point.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--Diagram of Horizontal Section through upper part
of 1st Lumbar Vertebra.
A, Aorta. H.A, Hepatic Artery.
Sp, Spleen. K, Kidney.
B.D, Bile duct. L, Liver.
V.C, Vena Cava. St, Stomach.
P, Pancreas. P.V, Portal Vein.
The dotting of the peritoneum is as in fig. 1.]
This section, therefore, shows two completely closed sacs without any
visible communication. In the female, however, the great sac is not
absolutely closed, for the Fallopian tubes open into it by their minute
_ostia abdominalia_, while at the other ends they communicate with the
cavity of the uterus and so with the vagina and exterior.
A horizontal section through the upper part of the first lumbar vertebra
will, if a fortunate one (see fig. 2), pass through the foramen of
Winslow and show the communication of the two sacs. A starting-point may
be made from the mid-ventral line and the parietal peritoneum traced
round the left side of the body wall until the outer edge of the left
kidney (K) is reached; here it passes in front of the kidney and is soon
reflected off on to the spleen, which it nearly surrounds; just before
it reaches the hilum of that organ, where the vessels enter, it is
reflected on to the front of the stomach (St), forming the anterior
layer of the _gastro-splenic omentum_; it soon reaches the lesser
curvature of the stomach and then becomes the anterior layer of the
lesser omentum, which continues until the bile duct (B.D) and portal
vein (P.V) are reached at its right free extremity; here it turns
completely round these structures and runs to the left again, as the
posterior layer of the lesser omentum, behind the stomach (St) and then
to the spleen (Sp) as the posterior layer of the gastro-splenic omentum.
From the spleen it runs to the right once more, in front of the pancreas
(P), until the inferior vena cava (V.C) is reached, and this point is
just behind the portal vein and is the place where the lesser and
greater sacs communicate, known as the foramen of Winslow. From this
opening the lesser sac runs to the left, while all the rest of the
peritoneal cavity in the section is greater sac. From the front of the
vena cava the parietal peritoneum passes in front of the right kidney
(K) and round the right abdominal wall to the mid-ventral line. The
right part of this section is filled by the liver (L), which is
completely surrounded by a visceral layer of peritoneum, and no
reflection is usually seen at this level between it and the parietal
layer. Some of the viscera, such as the kidneys and pancreas, are
retro-peritoneal; others, such as the small intestines and transverse
colon, are surrounded, except at one point where they are attached to
the dorsal wall by a _mesentery_ or _mesocolon_ as the reflections are
called; others again are completely surrounded, and of these the caecum
is an example; while some, like the liver and bladder, have large
uncovered areas, and the reflections of the membrane form ligaments
which allow considerable freedom of movement.
The _tunica vaginalis_ is the remains of a process of the peritoneum
(_processus vaginalis_) which descends into the scrotum during foetal
life some little time before the testis itself descends. After the
descent of the testis the upper part usually becomes obliterated, while
the lower part forms a serous sac which nearly surrounds the testis, but
does not quite do so. Posteriorly the epididymis is in close contact
with the testis, and here the visceral layer is not in contact; there
is, however, a pocket called the _digital fossa_ which squeezes in from
the outer side between the testis and epididymis. The parietal layer
lines the inner wall of its own side of the scrotum.
For a full description of the topography of the serous membranes see
any of the standard text-books of anatomy, by Gray, Quain, Cunningham
or Macalister. Special details will be found in Sir F. Treves'
_Anatomy of the Intestinal Canal and Peritoneum_ (London, 1885); C. B.
Lockwood, _Hunterian Lectures on Hernia_ (London, 1889); C. Addison,
"Topographical Anatomy of the Abdominal Viscera in Man," _Jour.
Anat._, vols. 34, 35; F. Dixon and A. Birmingham, "Peritoneum of the
Pelvic Cavity," _Jour. Anat._ vol. 34, p. 127; W. Waldeyer, "Das
Becken" (1899), and "Topographical Sketch of the Lateral Wall of the
Pelvic Cavity," _Jour. Anat._ vol. 32; B. Moynihan, _Retroperitoneal
Hernia_ (London, 1899). A complete bibliography of the subject up to
1895 will be found in _Quain's Anatomy_, vol. 3, part 4, p. 69.
[Illustration: After Young and Robinson, Cunningham's _Text-Book of
Anatomy_.
FIG. 3.--Diagram of Longitudinal Section, showing the different areas of
the Blastodermic Vesicle.
_a_, Pericardium. _e_, Placental area.
_b_, Bucco-pharyngeal area. _d_, Entoderm.
_c_, Ectoderm.]
_Embryology._--As the mesoderm is gradually spreading over the embryo it
splits into two layers, the outer of which is known as the
_somatopleure_ and lines the parietal or ectodermal wall, while the
inner lines the entoderm and is called the _splanchnopleure_; between
the two is the coelom. The pericardial area is early differentiated from
the rest of the coelom and at first lies in front of the neural and
bucco-pharyngeal area; here the mesoderm stretches right across the
mid-line, which it does not in front and behind. As the head fold of the
embryo is formed the pericardium is gradually turned right over, so that
the dorsal side becomes the ventral and the anterior limit the
posterior; this will be evident on referring to the two accompanying
diagrams.
[Illustration: After Young and Robinson, Cunningham's _Text-Book of
Anatomy_.
FIG. 4.--Diagram of a Developing Ovum, seen in Longitudinal Section.
_f_, Spinal cord. _i_, Brain.
_g_, Notochord. _k_, Extra embryonic coelom.
_h_, Dorsal wall of alimentary canal. Other numbers as in fig. 3.]
The two primitive aortae lie at first in the ventral wall of the
pericardium, but with the folding over they come to lie in the dorsal
wall and gradually bulge into the cavity as they coalesce to form the
heart, so that the heart drops into the dorsal side of the pericardium
and draws down a fold of the membrane called the _dorsal mesocardium_.
In mammals A. Robinson (_Jour. Anat. and Phys._, xxxvii. 1) has shown
that no ventral mesocardium exists, though in more lowly vertebrates it
is present. Laterally the pericardial cavity communicates with the
general cavity of the coelom, but with the growth of the Cuvierian ducts
(see development of veins) these communications disappear. Originally
the mesocardium runs the whole length of the pericardium from before
backward, but later on the middle part becomes obliterated, and so the
two separate reflections from the parietal to the visceral layer,
already noticed, are accounted for.
Just behind the pericardium and in front of the umbilicus, which at
first are close together, the mesoderm forms a mass which is called the
_septum transversum_, and into this the developing lungs push bag-like
protrusions of the coelom, consisting of visceral and parietal layers,
and these eventually lose their connexion with the rest of the coelom,
as the diaphragm develops, and become the pleural cavities. After the
pericardium and pleurae have been separated off the remainder of the
coelom becomes the peritoneum. At first the stomach and intestine form a
straight tube, which is connected to the dorsum of the embryo by a
_dorsal mesentery_ and to the mid-ventral wall in front of the umbilicus
by a _ventral mesentery_. Into the ventral mesentery the liver grows as
diverticula from the duodenum, so that some of the mesentery remains as
the _falciform ligament_ of the liver and some as the lesser omentum.
Into the dorsal mesentery the pancreas grows, also as diverticula, from
the duodenum, while the spleen is developed from the mesoderm contained
in the same fold. As the stomach turns over so that its left side
becomes ventral, the dorsal mesentery attached to it becomes pulled out,
in such a way that part of it forms the great omentum and part the
gastro-splenic omentum. After the caecum is formed as a diverticulum
from the intestine it is situated close to the liver and gradually
travels down into the right iliac fossa. This passage to the right is
accompanied by a throwing over of the duodenal loop to the right, so
that the right side of its mesentery becomes pressed against the dorsal
wall of the abdomen and obliterated. This accounts for the fact that the
pancreas and duodenum are only covered by peritoneum on their anterior
surfaces in man. The formation of the lesser sac is due to the turning
over of the stomach to the right, with the result that a cave, known
sometimes as the _bursa omentalis_, is formed behind it. Originally, of
course, the whole colon had a _dorsal mesocolon_ continuous with the
mesentery, but in the region of the ascending and descending colon this
usually disappears and these parts of the gut are uncovered by
peritoneum posteriorly. The transverse mesocolon persists and at first
is quite free from the great omentum, but later, in man, the two
structures fuse[1] and the fourth layer of the great omentum becomes
continuous with the posterior layer of the transverse mesocolon.
For further details see Quain's _Anatomy_ (London, 1908).
_Comparative Anatomy._--In the Amphioxus the coelom is developed in the
embryo as a series of bilateral pouches, called _enterocoeles_, from the
sides of the alimentary canal; these are therefore entodermal in their
origin, as in Sagitta and the Echinodermata among the invertebrates. In
the adult the development of the atrium causes a considerable reduction
of the coelom, represented by two dorsal coelomic canals communicating
with a ventral canal by means of branchial canals which run down the
outer side of the primary gill bars. Into the dorsal canals the
nephridia open. In the intestinal region the coelom is only present on
the left side.
In the higher vertebrates (_Craniata_) the coelom is developed by a
splitting of the mesoderm into two layers, and a pericardium is
constricted off from the general cavity. In all cases the ova burst into
the coelom before making their way to the exterior, and in some cases,
_e.g._ amphioxus, lamprey (Cyclostomata), eels and mud-fish (Dipnoi),
the sperm cells do so too. The Cyclostomata have a pair of _genital
pores_ which lead from the coelom into the urino-genital sinus, and so
to the exterior.
In the Elasmobranch fish there is a _pericardio-peritoneal canal_
forming a communication between these two parts of the coelom; also a
large common opening for the two oviducts in the region of the liver,
and two openings, called _abdominal pores_, on to the surface close to
the cloacal aperture. In the Teleostomi (Teleostean and Ganoid fish)
abdominal pores are rare, but in most Teleostei (bony fish) the ova pass
directly down oviducts, as they do in Arthropods, without entering the
peritoneal cavity; there is little doubt, however, that these oviducts
are originally coelomic in origin. In the Dipnoi (mud-fish) abdominal
pores are found, and probably serve as a passage for the sperm cells,
since there are no vasa deferentia. In fishes a complete dorsal
mesentery is seldom found in the adult; in many cases it only remains as
a tube surrounding the vessels passing to the alimentary canal.
In the Amphibia, Reptilia and Aves, one cavity acts as pleura and
peritoneum, though in the latter the lungs are not completely surrounded
by a serous membrane. In many lizards the comparatively straight
intestine, with its continuous dorsal mesentery and ventral mesentery in
the anterior part of the abdomen, is very like a stage in the
development of the human and other mammalian embryos. In the mammalia
the diaphragm is complete (see DIAPHRAGM) and divides the
pleuro-peritoneal cavity into its two constituent parts. In the lower
mammals the derivatives of the original dorsal mesentery do not undergo
as much fusion and obliteration as they do in adult man; the ascending
and descending mesocolon is retained, and the transverse mesocolon
contracts no adhesion to the great omentum. It is a common thing,
however, to find a fenestrated arrangement of the great omentum which
shows that its layers have been completely obliterated in many places.
In those animals, such as the rabbit, in which the tests are sometimes
in the scrotum and sometimes in the abdomen, the communication between
the peritoneum and the tunica vaginalis remains throughout life.
For further details and literature up to 1902, see R. Wiedersheim's
_Vergleichende Anatomie der Wirbeltiere_ (Jena, 1902). (F. G. P.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Some authorities hold that this alteration is not brought about
by fusion, but by a dragging away of the posterior layer of the great
omentum from the dorsal wall of the abdomen.
COEN, JAN PIETERSZOON (1587-1630), fourth governor-general of the Dutch
East Indies, was born at Hoorn, and spent his youth at Rome in the house
of the famous merchants the Piscatori. In 1607 he sailed from Amsterdam
to the Indies as second commercial agent, and remained away four years.
He had proved so capable that in 1612 he was sent out a second time at
the head of a trading expedition. In the following year he was made a
councillor and director-general of the East Indian trade. Afterwards he
became president at Bantam, and on the 31st of October 1617 he was
promoted in succession to Laurens Reaal to the post of governor-general.
To his vigour and intrepidity the Dutch in no small measure owed the
preservation and establishment of their empire in the East. He took and
destroyed Jacatra, and founded on its ruins the capital of the Dutch
East Indies, to which he gave the name of Batavia. In 1622 Coen obtained
leave to resign his post and return to Holland, but in his absence great
difficulties had arisen with the English at Amboina (the so-called
massacre of Amboina), and in 1627 under pressure from the directors of
the East India Company he again returned as governor-general to Batavia.
In 1629 he was able to beat off a formidable attack of the sultan of
Mataram, sometimes styled emperor of Java, upon Batavia. He died the
following year.
COENACULUM, the term applied to the eating-room of a Roman house in
which the supper (_coena_) or latest meal was taken. It was sometimes
placed in an upper storey and reached by an external staircase. The Last
Supper in the New Testament was taken in the Coenaculum, the "large
upper room" cited in St Mark (xiv. 15) and St Luke (xxii. 12).
COENWULF (d. 821), king of Mercia, succeeded to the throne in 796, on
the death of Ecgfrith, son of Offa. His succession is somewhat
remarkable, as his direct ancestors do not seem to have held the throne
for six generations. In 798 he invaded Kent, deposed and imprisoned
Eadberht Præn, and made his own brother Cuthred king. Cuthred reigned in
Kent from 798 to 807, when he died, and Coenwulf seems to have taken
Kent into his own hands. It was during this reign that the archbishopric
of Lichfield was abolished, probably before 803, as the Hygeberht who
signed as an abbot at the council of Cloveshoe in that year was
presumably the former archbishop. Coenwulf appears from the charters
to have quarrelled with Wulfred of Canterbury, who was consecrated in
806, and the dispute continued for several years. It was probably only
settled at Cloveshoe in 825, when the lawsuit of Cwoenthryth, daughter
and heiress of Coenwulf, with Wulfred was terminated. Coenwulf may
have instigated the raid of Æthelmund, earl of the Hwicce, upon the
accession of Ecgberht. He died in 821, and was succeeded by his brother
Ceolwulf I.
See Earle and Plummer's edition of the _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, 796,
819 (Oxford, 1892); W. de G. Birch, _Cartularium Saxonicum_, 378
(London, 1885-1893). (F. G. M. B.)
COERCION (from Lat. _coercere_, to restrain), an application of moral or
physical compulsion by which a person is forced to do or refrain from
doing some act or set of acts apart from his own voluntary motion. Where
the coercion is direct or positive, _i.e._ where the person is compelled
by physical force to do an act contrary to his will,--for example, when
a man is compelled to join a rebel army, and to serve as a soldier under
threats of death,--his act is not legally a crime. Where the coercion is
implied, as when a person is legally under subjection to another, the
person coerced, having no will on the subject, is not responsible. But
this principle is applied only within narrow limits, and does not extend
to the command of a superior to an inferior; of a parent to a child; of
a master to his servant or a principal to his agent. Where, however, a
married woman commits a crime in the presence of her husband, she is
generally presumed to have acted by his coercion, and to be entitled to
acquittal, but this presumption does not extend to grave crimes, nor to
those in which the principal part may be supposed to be taken by the
woman, such as keeping a brothel. In civil matters, such as the making
of a contract, where the law requires the free assent of the person who
undertakes the obligation, coercion is a ground for invalidating the
instrument.
The term "coercion" is inevitably somewhat ambiguous, and depends on the
circumstances of the case. In a political sense, the application of the
Crimes Act of 1887 to Ireland was called "coercion" by those opposed to
the English Unionist party and government, as being special legislation
differing from the ordinary law applicable in the United Kingdom.
COEUR, JACQUES (_c._ 1395-1456), founder of the trade between France
and the Levant, was born at Bourges, in which city his father, Pierre
Coeur, was a rich merchant. Jacques is first heard of about 1418, when
he married Macée de Léodepart, daughter of Lambert de Léodepart, an
influential citizen, provost of Bourges, and a former valet of John,
duke of Berry. About 1429 he formed a commercial partnership with two
brothers named Godard; and in 1432 he was at Damascus, buying and
bartering, and transporting the wares of the Levant--gall-nuts, wools
and silks, goats' hair, brocades and carpets--to the interior of France
by way of Narbonne. In the same year he established himself at
Montpellier, and there began those gigantic operations which have made
him illustrious among financiers. Details are wanting; but it is certain
that in a few years he placed his country in a position to contend not
unsuccessfully with the great trading republics of Italy, and acquired
such reputation as to be able, mere trader as he was, to render material
assistance to the knights of Rhodes and to Venice herself.
In 1436 Coeur was summoned to Paris by Charles VII., and made master
of the mint that had been established in that city. The post was of vast
importance, and the duties onerous. The country was deluged with the
base moneys of three reigns, charged with superscriptions both French
and English, and Charles had determined on a sweeping reform. In this
design he was ably seconded by the merchant, who, in fact, inspired or
prepared all the ordinances concerning the coinage of France issued
between 1435 and 1451. In 1438 he was made steward of the royal
expenditure; in 1441 he and his family were ennobled by letters patent.
In 1444 he was sent as one of the royal commissioners to preside over
the new parlement of Languedoc, a dignity he bore till the day of his
disgrace. In 1445 his agents in the East negotiated a treaty between the
sultan of Egypt and the knights of Rhodes; and in 1447, at his instance,
Jean de Village, his nephew by marriage, was charged with a mission to
Egypt. The results were most important; concessions were obtained which
greatly improved the position of the French consuls in the Levant, and
that influence in the East was thereby founded which, though often
interrupted, was for several centuries a chief commercial glory of
France. In the same year Coeur assisted in an embassy to Amadeus
VIII., former duke of Savoy, who had been chosen pope as Felix V. by the
council of Basel; and in 1448 he represented the French king at the
court of Pope Nicholas V., and was able to arrange an agreement between
Nicholas and Amadeus, and so to end the papal schism. Nicholas treated
him with the utmost distinction, lodged him in the papal palace, and
gave him a special licence to traffic with the infidels. From about this
time he made large advances to Charles for carrying on his wars; and in
1449, after fighting at the king's side through the campaign, he entered
Rouen in his train.
At this moment the great trader's glory was at its height. He had
represented France in three embassies, and had supplied the sinews of
that war which had ousted the English from Normandy. He was invested
with various offices of dignity, and possessed the most colossal fortune
that had ever been amassed by a private Frenchman. The sea was covered
with his ships; he had 300 factors in his employ, and houses of business
in all the chief cities of France. He had built houses and chapels, and
had founded colleges in Paris, at Montpellier and at Bourges. The house
at Bourges (see HOUSE, Plate II. figs. 7 and 8) was of exceptional
magnificence, and remains to-day one of the finest monuments of the
middle ages in France. He also built there the sacristy of the cathedral
and a sepulchral chapel for his family. His brother Nicholas was made
bishop of Luçon, his sister married Jean Bochetel, the king's secretary,
his daughter married the son of the viscount of Bourges, and his son
Jean became archbishop of Bourges. But Coeur's gigantic monopoly
caused his ruin. Dealing in everything, money and arms, peltry and
jewels, brocades and woollens--a broker, a banker, a farmer--he had
absorbed the trade of the country, and merchants complained they could
make no gains on account of "that Jacquet." He had lent money to needy
courtiers, to members of the royal family, and to the king himself, and
his debtors, jealous of his wealth, were eager for a chance to cause his
overthrow.
In February 1450 Agnes Sorel, the king's mistress, suddenly died.
Eighteen months later it was rumoured that she had been poisoned, and a
lady of the court who owed money to Jacques Coeur, Jeanne de Vendôme,
wife of François de Montberon, and an Italian, Jacques Colonna, formally
accused him of having poisoned her. There was not even a pretext for
such a charge, but for this and other alleged crimes the king, on the
31st of July 1451, gave orders for his arrest and for the seizure of his
goods, reserving to himself a large sum of money for the war in Guienne.
Commissioners extraordinary, the merchant's declared enemies, were
chosen to conduct the trial, and an inquiry began, the judges in which
were either the prisoner's debtors or the holders of his forfeited
estates. He was accused of having paid French gold and ingots to the
infidels, of coining light money, of kidnapping oarsmen for his galleys,
of sending back a Christian slave who had taken sanctuary on board one
of his ships, and of committing frauds and exactions in Languedoc to the
king's prejudice. He defended himself with all the energy of his nature.
His innocence was manifest; but a conviction was necessary, and in spite
of strenuous efforts on the part of his friends, after twenty-two
months of confinement in five prisons, he was condemned to do public
penance for his fault, to pay the king a sum equal to about £1,000,000
of modern money, and to remain a prisoner till full satisfaction had
been obtained; his sentence also embraced confiscation of all his
property, and exile during royal pleasure. On the 5th of June 1453 the
sentence took effect; at Poitiers the shameful form of making honourable
amends was gone through; and for nearly three years nothing is known of
him. It is probable that he remained in prison; it is certain that his
vast possessions were distributed among the intimates of Charles.
In 1455 Jacques Coeur, wherever confined, contrived to escape into
Provence. He was pursued; but a party, headed by Jean de Village and two
of his old factors, carried him off to Tarascon, whence, by way of
Marseilles, Nice and Pisa, he managed to reach Rome. He was honourably
and joyfully received by Nicholas V., who was fitting out an expedition
against the Turks. On the death of Nicholas, Calixtus III. continued his
work, and named his guest captain of a fleet of sixteen galleys sent to
the relief of Rhodes. Coeur set out on this expedition, but was taken
ill at Chios, and died there on the 25th of November 1456. After his
death Charles VII. showed himself well disposed to the family, and
allowed Jacques Coeur's sons to come into possession of whatever was
left of their father's wealth.
See the admirable monograph of Pierre Clément, _Jacques Coeur et
Charles VII_ (1858, 2nd ed. 1874); A. Valet de Viriville, _Charles
Sept et son époque_ (3 vols., 1862-1865); and Louisa Costello,
_Jacques Coeur, the French Argonaut_ (London, 1847).
COEUR D'ALÊNE ("awl-heart," the French translation of the native name
_skitswish_), a tribe of North American Indians of Salishan stock. The
name is said to have been originally that of a chief noted for his
cruelty. The tribe has given its name to a lake, river and range of
mountains in Idaho, where on a reservation the survivors, some 400, are
settled.
COFFEE (Fr: _café_, Ger. _Kaffee_). This important and valuable article
of food is the produce chiefly of _Coffea arabica_, a Rubiaceous plant
indigenous to Abyssinia, which, however, as cultivated originally,
spread outwards from the southern parts of Arabia. The name is probably
derived from the Arabic K'h[=a]wah, although by some it has been traced
to Kaffa, a province in Abyssinia, in which the tree grows wild.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--Branch of _Coffea arabica_.]
The genus _Coffea_, to which the common coffee tree belongs, contains
about 25 species in the tropics of the Old World, mainly African.
Besides being found wild in Abyssinia, the common coffee plant appears
to be widely disseminated in Africa, occurring wild in the Mozambique
district, on the shores of the Victoria Nyanza, and in Angola on the
west coast. The coffee leaf disease in Ceylon brought into prominence
Liberian coffee (_C. liberica_), a native of the west coast of Africa,
now extensively grown in several parts of the world. Other species of
economic importance are Sierra Leone coffee (_C. stenophylla_) and Congo
coffee (_C. robusta_), both of which have been introduced into and are
cultivated on a small scale in various parts of the tropics. _C.
excelsa_ is another species of considerable promise.
The common Arabian coffee shrub is an evergreen plant, which under
natural conditions grows to a height of from 18 to 20 ft., with
oblong-ovate, acuminate, smooth and shining leaves, measuring about 6
in. in length by 2½ wide. Its flowers, which are produced in dense
clusters in the axils of the leaves, have a five-toothed calyx, a
tubular five-parted corolla, five stamens and a single bifid style. The
flowers are pure white in colour, with a rich fragrant odour, and the
plants in blossom have a lovely and attractive appearance, but the bloom
is very evanescent. The fruit is a fleshy berry, having the appearance
and size of a small cherry, and as it ripens it assumes a dark red
colour. Each fruit contains two seeds embedded in a yellowish pulp, and
the seeds are enclosed in a thin membranous endocarp (the "parchment").
Between each seed and the parchment is a delicate covering called the
"silver skin." The seeds which constitute the raw coffee "beans" of
commerce are plano-convex in form, the flat surfaces which are laid
against each other within the berry having a longitudinal furrow or
groove. When only one seed is developed in a fruit it is not flattened
on one side, but circular in cross section. Such seeds form "pea-berry"
coffee.
The seeds are of a soft, semi-translucent, bluish or greenish colour,
hard and tough in texture. The regions best adapted for the cultivation
of coffee are well-watered mountain slopes at an elevation ranging from
1000 to 4000 ft. above sea-level, within the tropics, and possessing a
mean annual temperature of about 65° to 70° F.
The Liberian coffee plant (_C. liberica_) has larger leaves, flowers and
fruits, and is of a more robust and hardy constitution, than Arabian
coffee. The seeds yield a highly aromatic and well-flavoured coffee (but
by no means equal to Arabian), and the plant is very prolific and yields
heavy crops. Liberian coffee grows, moreover, at low altitudes, and
flourishes in many situations unsuitable to the Arabian coffee. It grows
wild in great abundance along the whole of the Guinea coast.
_History._--The early history of coffee as an economic product is
involved in considerable obscurity, the absence of fact being
compensated for by a profusion of conjectural statements and mythical
stories. The use of coffee (_C. arabica_) in Abyssinia was recorded in
the 15th century, and was then stated to have been practised from time
immemorial. Neighbouring countries, however, appear to have been quite
ignorant of its value. Various legendary accounts are given of the
discovery of the beneficial properties of the plant, one ascribing it to
a flock of sheep accidentally browsing on the wild shrubs, with the
result that they became elated and sleepless at night! Its physiological
action in dissipating drowsiness and preventing sleep was taken
advantage of in connexion with the prolonged religious service of the
Mahommedans, and its use as a devotional antisoporific stirred up fierce
opposition on the part of the strictly orthodox and conservative section
of the priests. Coffee by them was held to be an intoxicating beverage,
and therefore prohibited by the Koran, and severe penalties were
threatened to those addicted to its use. Notwithstanding threats of
divine retribution and other devices, the coffee-drinking habit spread
rapidly among the Arabian Mahommedans, and the growth of coffee and its
use as a national beverage became as inseparably connected with Arabia
as tea is with China.
Towards the close of the 16th century the use of coffee was recorded by
a European resident in Egypt, and about this epoch it came into general
use in the near East. The appreciation of coffee as a beverage in Europe
dates from the 17th century. "Coffee-houses" were soon instituted, the
first being opened in Constantinople and Venice. In London coffee-houses
date from 1652, when one was opened in St Michael's Alley, Cornhill.
They soon became popular, and the role played by them in the social life
of the 17th and 18th centuries is well known. Germany, France, Sweden
and other countries adopted them at about the same time as Great
Britain. In Europe, as in Arabia, coffee at first made its way into
favour in the face of various adverse and even prohibitive restrictions.
Thus at one time in Germany it was necessary to obtain a licence to
roast coffee. In England Charles II. endeavoured to suppress
coffee-houses on the ground that they were centres of political
agitation, his royal proclamation stating that they were the resort of
disaffected persons "who devised and spread abroad divers false,
malicious and scandalous reports, to the defamation of His Majesty's
government, and to the disturbance of the peace and quiet of the
nation."
Up to the close of the 17th century the world's entire, although
limited, supply of coffee was obtained from the province of Yemen in
south Arabia, where the true celebrated Mocha or Mokka coffee is still
produced. At this time, however, plants were successfully introduced
from Arabia to Java, where the cultivation was immediately taken up. The
government of Java distributed plants to various places, including the
botanic garden of Amsterdam. The Portuguese introduced coffee into
Ceylon. From Amsterdam the Dutch sent the plant to Surinam in 1718, and
in the same year Jamaica received it through the governor Sir Nicholas
Lawes. Within a few years coffee reached the other West Indian islands,
and spread generally through the tropics of the New World, which now
produce by far the greater portion of the world's supply.
_Cultivation and Preparation for Market._--Coffee plants are grown from
seeds, which, as in the case of other crops, should be obtained from
selected trees of desirable characteristics. The seeds may be sown "at
stake," _i.e._ in the actual positions the mature plants are to occupy,
or raised in a nursery and afterwards transplanted. The choice of
methods is usually determined by various local considerations. Nurseries
are desirable where there is risk of drought killing seedlings in the
open. Whilst young the plants usually require to be shaded, and this may
be done by growing castor oil plants, cassava (_Manihot_), maize or
Indian corn, bananas, or various other useful crops between the coffee,
until the latter develop and occupy the ground. Sometimes, but by no
means always, permanent shading is afforded by special shade trees, such
as species of the coral tree (_Erythrina_) and other leguminous trees.
Opinions as to the necessity of shade trees varies in different
countries; _e.g._ in Brazil and at high elevations in Jamaica they are
not employed, whereas in Porto Rico many look on them as absolutely
essential. It is probable that in many cases where shade trees are of
advantage their beneficial action may be indirect, in affording
protection from wind, drought or soil erosion, and, when leguminous
plants are employed, in enriching the soil in nitrogen. The plants begin
to come into bearing in their second or third year, but on the average
the fifth is the first year of considerable yield. There may be two,
three, or even more "flushes" of blossom in one year, and flowers and
fruits in all stages may thus be seen on one plant. The fruits are fully
ripe about seven months after the flowers open; the ripe fruits are
fleshy, and of a deep red colour, whence the name of "cherry." When
mature the fruits are picked by hand, or allowed to fall of their own
accord or by shaking the plant. The subsequent preparation may be
according to (1) the dry or (2) the wet method.
In the dry method the cherries are spread in a thin layer, often on a
stone drying floor, or barbecue, and exposed to the sun. Protection is
necessary against heavy dew or rain. The dried cherries can be stored
for any length of time, and later the dried pulp and the parchment are
removed, setting free the two beans contained in each cherry. This
primitive and simple method is employed in Arabia, in Brazil and other
countries. In Brazil it is giving place to the more modern method
described below.
In the wet, or as it is sometimes called, West Indian method, the
cherries are put in a tank of water. On large estates galvanized
spouting is often employed to convey the beans by the help of running
water from the fields to the tank. The mature cherries sink, and are
drawn off from the tank through pipes to the pulping machines. Here they
are subjected to the action of a roughened cylinder revolving closely
against a curved iron plate. The fleshy portion is reduced to a pulp,
and the mixture of pulp and liberated seeds (each still enclosed in its
parchment) is carried away to a second tank of water and stirred. The
light pulp is removed by a stream of water and the seeds allowed to
settle. Slight fermentation and subsequent washings, accompanied by
trampling with bare feet and stirring by rakes or special machinery,
result in the parchment coverings being left quite clean. The beans are
now dried on barbecues, in trays, &c., or by artificial heat if
climatic conditions render this necessary. Recent experiments in Porto
Rico tend to show that if the weather is unfavourable during the crop
period the pulped coffee can be allowed to remain moist and even to malt
or sprout without injury to the final value of the product when dried
later. The product is now in the state known as parchment coffee, and
may be exported. Before use, however, the parchment must be removed.
This may be done on the estate, at the port of shipment, or in the
country where imported. The coffee is thoroughly dried, the parchment
broken by a roller, and removed by winnowing. Further rubbing and
winnowing removes the silver skin, and the beans are left in the
condition of ordinary unroasted coffee. Grading into large, medium and
small beans, to secure the uniformity desirable in roasting, is effected
by the use of a cylindrical or other pattern sieve, along which the
beans are made to travel, encountering first small, then medium, and
finally large apertures or meshes. Damaged beans and foreign matter are
removed by hand picking. An average yield of cleaned coffee is from 1½
to 2 lb per tree, but much greater crops are obtained on new rich lands,
and under special conditions.
_Production._--The centre of production has shifted greatly since
coffee first came into use in Europe. Arabia formerly supplied the
world; later the West Indies and then Java took the lead, to be
supplanted in turn by Brazil, which now produces about three-quarters
of the world's supply and controls the market.
_Brazil._--Coffee planting is the chief industry of Brazil, and coffee
the principal export. The states of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Minas
Geraes and Santos, contain the chief coffee-producing lands. The
annual output ranges from about 10,000,000 to 16,000,000 bags (of 120
lb each), whilst the world's annual consumption is more or less
stationary at about 16,000,000 bags. The overwhelming importance of
the Brazilian output is thus evident. Recently efforts have been made
to restrict production to maintain prices, and the Coffee Convention
scheme came into force in São Paulo on December 1, 1906, and in Rio de
Janeiro and Minas Geraes on January 1, 1907. The cultivation in
general is very primitive in character, periodical weeding being
almost all the attention the plants receive. Manuring is commonly
confined to mulches of the cut weeds and addition of the coffee husks.
New lands in São Paulo yield from 80 cwt. to 100 cwt. of cleaned
coffee per 1000 trees (700 go to the acre); the average yield,
however, is not more than 15 cwt. The plants are at their best when
from 10 to 15 years old, but continue yielding for 30 years or even
more.
_Other South American Countries._--Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru,
and to a much less degree Bolivia and Paraguay, produce coffee, the
annual crops of the two former countries being each of about
£1,500,000 in value.
_Central America._--Guatemala produces the most in this region; the
coffee estates are mainly controlled by Germans, who have brought them
to a high pitch of perfection. The crop ranges in value from about
£1,000,000 to £1,500,000 per annum. Costa Rica and San Salvador
produce about half this amount. In Nicaragua, Honduras and Panama,
coffee is extensively cultivated, and all export the product.
_West Indies._--Coffee is grown in most of the islands, often only for
local use. Haiti produces the largest amount, the annual value of the
crop being about £500,000. Porto Rico formerly had a flourishing
industry, but it has declined owing to various causes. The interior is
still expected to be devoted largely to coffee, and the U.S.
Department of Agriculture has carried out experiments to improve
methods and ensure the cultivation of better varieties. Jamaica
produces the famous Blue Mountain Coffee, which compares favourably
with the best coffees of the world, and also ordinary or "plain
grown"; the Blue Mountain is cultivated at elevations of from 3000 to
4500 ft. Coffee usually ranks third or fourth in value amongst the
exports of the island.
_Africa_, the native country of the coffees, does not now contribute
any important amount to the world's output. In Liberia, the Gold Coast
and elsewhere on the West Coast are many plantations, but the low
prices ruling of recent years have caused coffee to be neglected for
more remunerative crops. Coffee is, however, still the principal
export of Nyasaland (British Central Africa), where it was introduced
as recently as 1894. The area under coffee has been greatly reduced,
owing partly to more attention being paid to cotton, partly to
droughts and other causes. In Somaliland and Abyssinia coffee
cultivation is of very ancient date. Two kinds are exported, Harrari
and Habashi. The former compares favourably with Mocha coffee. The
industry could be very considerably extended. In Natal, Rhodesia, &c.,
coffee is grown, but not in sufficient quantity to supply the local
demand.
_Arabia._--The name "Mocha" is applied generally to coffee produced in
Arabia. Turkey and Egypt obtain the best grades. Traders from these
countries go to Arabia, buy the crops on the trees, and supervise its
picking and preparation themselves. The coffee is prepared by the "dry
method."
_India_ is the principal coffee-growing region in the British empire,
and produces about one-fifth of the total supply of the United
Kingdom. There are some 213,000 acres under coffee, mostly in southern
India. The official report states that the production of coffee is
restricted for the most part to a limited area in the elevated region
above the south-western coast, the coffee lands of Mysore, Coorg, and
the Madras districts of Malabar and the Nilgiris, comprising 86% of
the whole area under the plant in India. About one-half of the whole
coffee-producing area is in Mysore. In Burma, Assam and Bombay, coffee
is of minor importance. During 1904-1906 there was a reduction of the
area under coffee in India by 21,554 acres.
_Ceylon._--The history of coffee in Ceylon is practically that of the
coffee-leaf disease (see below). The Dutch introduced Arabian coffee
in 1720, but abandoned its cultivation later. It was revived by the
British, and developed very rapidly between 1836 and 1845, when there
was a temporary collapse owing to financial crisis in the United
Kingdom. In 1880 the exports of coffee were of the value of about
£2,784,163. Ten years later they had fallen to £430,633, owing to the
ravages of the coffee-leaf disease. The output continued to decrease,
and the value of the crop in 1906 was only £17,258. Liberian coffee,
which is hardier and more resistant to disease, was introduced, but
met with only partial success.
_Dutch East Indies._--Coffee from this source passes under the general
name of "Java," that island producing the greatest amount; Sumatra,
Borneo and the Celebes, &c., however, also contribute. The Java
plantations are largely owned by the government. Much of the coffee
from these islands is of a high quality.
_Australasia._--Coffee can be cultivated in the northern territories
of Australia, but comparatively little is done with this crop;
Queensland produces the largest amount.
_Hawaii_, &c.--In all the islands of the Hawaiian group coffee is
grown, but nine-tenths or more is raised in Hawaii itself, the Kona
district being the chief seat of production. The exports go mostly to
the United States, and there is also a large local consumption.
Coffee thrives well also in the Philippines and Guam.
_The World's Trade._--The following figures, from the _Year-book_ of
the U.S. Department of Agriculture, indicate the relative importance
of the coffee-exporting countries.
1904. 1905.
Country. Exports coffee Exports coffee
in lb. in lb.
_America_--
Brazil 1,326,027,795 1,431,328,038
Colombia 130,000,000 (est.) 70,000,000
Venezuela 128,000,000 " 94,370,090
Haiti 81,407,346 45,244,232
Salvador 75,314,003 61,822,223
Guatemala 71,653,700 81,081,600
Mexico 41,855,368 42,456,491
Costa Rica 27,730,672 39,788,002
Nicaragua 21,661,621 18,171,515
Porto Rico 15,330,590
Jamaica 5,781,440 9,046,464
_Asia_--
Dutch East Indies 77,168,254 72,864,649
British India 36,920,464 40,340,384
Singapore (port of export) 12,367,156 11,935,034
_Other countries_ 216,891,567 220,132,690
------------- -------------
Total 2,268,109,976 2,238,581,412
In 1906 there was an increased total of 2,680,855,878 lb, due to the
Brazil export rising to 1,847,367,771 lb. The aggregate value of the
coffee annually entering the world's markets is about £40,000,000.
_Coffee Consumption._--The United States of America consume nearly one
half of all the coffee exported from the producing countries of the
world. This might of course be due merely to the States containing more
coffee-drinkers than other countries, but the average consumption per
head in the country is about 11 to 12 lb per annum, an amount equalled
or excelled only in Norway, Sweden and Holland. Whilst one great branch
of the Anglo-Saxon stock is near the head of the list, it is interesting
to note that the United Kingdom and also Canada and Australia are almost
at the foot, using only about 1 lb of coffee per head each year.
Germany, with a consumption of about 6 to 7 lb per person per annum uses
considerably less than a quarter of the world's commercial crop. France,
about 5 lb per head, takes about one eighth; and Austria-Hungary, about
2 lb, uses some one-sixteenth. Holland consumes approximately as much,
but with a much smaller population, the Dutch using more per head than
any other people--14 lb to 15 lb per annum. Their taste is seen also in
the relatively high consumption in South Africa. Sweden, Belgium and the
United Kingdom, follow next in order of total amount used.
In many tropical countries much coffee is drunk, but as it is often
produced locally exact figures are not available. The average
consumption in the United Kingdom is about 50,000,000 lb per annum;
about one-fifth only is produced in the British empire, and of this
about nineteen-twentieths come from India and one-twentieth from the
British West Indies.
_Coffee-leaf Disease._--The coffee industry in Ceylon was ruined by the
attack of a fungoid disease (_Hemileia vastatrix_) known as the Ceylon
coffee-leaf disease. This has since extended its ravages into every
coffee-producing country in the Old World, and added greatly to the
difficulties of successful cultivation. The fungus is a microscopic one,
the minute spores of which, carried by the wind, settle and germinate
upon the leaves of the plant. The fungal growth spreads through the
substance to the leaf, robbing the leaf of its nourishment and causing
it to wither and fall. An infected plantation may be cleansed, and the
fungus in its nascent state destroyed, by powdering the trees with a
mixture of lime and sulphur, but, unless the access of fresh spores
brought by the wind can be arrested, the plantations may be readily
reinfected when the lime and sulphur are washed off by rain. The
separation of plantations by belts of trees to windward is suggested as
a check to the spread of the disease.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--Coffee-leaf Disease, _Hemileia vastatrix_.
1, Part of leaf showing diseased patches.
2, Cluster of uredospores.
3, Transverse section of a diseased patch in the leaf showing the
hyphae of the fungus pushing between the leaf-cells and tapping
them for nourishment. The hyphae have broken through in the upper
face and are forming a cluster of spores.
4, Ripe uredospores.
5, A teleutospore.
6, A uredospore germinating, the germ-tube is penetrating the leaf.
7, Uredospore germinating.
u, Uredospore.
t, Teleutospore.
2-7, Highly magnified.]
_Microscopic Structure._--Raw coffee seeds are tough and horny in
structure, and are devoid of the peculiar aroma and taste which are so
characteristic of the roasted seeds. The minute structure of coffee
allows it to be readily recognized by means of the microscope, and as
roasting does not destroy its distinguishing peculiarities, microscopic
examination forms the readiest means of determining the genuineness of
any sample. The substance of the seed, according to Dr Hassall, consists
"of an assemblage of vesicles or cells of an angular form, which adhere
so firmly together that they break up into pieces rather than separate
into distinct and perfect cells. The cavities of the cells include, in
the form of little drops, a considerable quantity of aromatic volatile
oil, on the presence of which the fragrance and many of the active
principles of the berry depend" (see fig. 3).
[Illustration: FIG. 3.--Microscopic structure of Coffee.]
_Physiological Action._--Coffee belongs to the medicinal or auxiliary
class of food substances, being solely valuable for its stimulant effect
upon the nervous and vascular system. It produces a feeling of buoyancy
and exhilaration comparable to a certain stage of alcoholic
intoxication, but which does not end in depression or collapse. It
increases the frequency of the pulse, lightens the sensation of fatigue,
and it sustains the strength under prolonged and severe muscular
exertion. The value of its hot infusion under the rigours of Arctic cold
has been demonstrated in the experience of all Arctic explorers, and it
is scarcely less useful in tropical regions, where it beneficially
stimulates the action of the skin.
The physiological action of coffee mainly depends on the presence of the
alkaloid caffeine, which occurs also in tea, Paraguay tea, and cola
nuts, and is very similar to theobromine, the active principle in cocoa.
The percentage of caffeine present varies in the different species of
_Coffea_. In Arabian coffee it ranges from about 0.7 to 1.6%; in
Liberian coffee from 1.0 to 1.5%. Sierra Leone coffee (_C. stenophylla_)
contains from 1.52 to 1.70%; in _C. excelsa_ 1.89% is recorded, and as
much as 1.97% in _C. canephora_. Four species have been shown by M. G.
Bertrand to contain no caffeine at all, but instead a considerable
quantity of a bitter principle. All these four species are found only in
Madagascar or the neighbouring islands. Other coffees grown there
contain caffeine as usual. Coffee, with the caffeine extracted, has also
been recently prepared for the market. The commercial value of coffee is
determined by the amount of the aromatic oil, caffeone, which develops
in it by the process of roasting. By prolonged keeping it is found that
the richness of any seeds in this peculiar oil is increased, and with
increased aroma the coffee also yields a blander and more mellow
beverage. Stored coffee loses weight at first with great rapidity, as
much as 8% having been found to dissipate in the first year of keeping,
5% in the second, and 2% in the third; but such loss of weight is more
than compensated by improvement in quality and consequent enhancement of
value.
_Roasting._--In the process of roasting, coffee seeds swell up by the
liberation of gases within their substance,--their weight decreasing in
proportion to the extent to which the operation is carried. Roasting
also develops with the aromatic caffeone above alluded to a bitter
soluble principle, and it liberates a portion of the caffeine from its
combination with the caffetannic acid. Roasting is an operation of the
greatest nicety, and one, moreover, of a crucial nature, for equally by
insufficient and by excessive roasting much of the aroma of the coffee
is lost; and its infusion is neither agreeable to the palate nor
exhilarating in its influence. The roaster must judge of the amount of
heat required for the adequate roasting of different qualities, and
while that is variable, the range of roasting temperature proper for
individual kinds is only narrow. In continental countries it is the
practice to roast in small quantities, and thus the whole charge is well
under the control of the roaster; but in Britain large roasts are the
rule, in dealing with which much difficulty is experienced in producing
uniform torrefaction, and in stopping the process at the proper moment.
The coffee-roasting apparatus is usually a malleable iron cylinder
mounted to revolve over the fire on a hollow axle which allows the
escape of gases generated during torrefaction. The roasting of coffee
should be done as short a time as practicable before the grinding for
use, and as ground coffee especially parts rapidly with its aroma, the
grinding should only be done when coffee is about to be prepared.
_Adulteration._--Although by microscopic, physical and chemical tests
the purity of coffee can be determined with perfect certainty, yet
ground coffee is subjected to many and extensive adulterations (see also
ADULTERATION). Chief among the adulterant substances, if it can be so
called, is chicory; but it occupies a peculiar position, since very many
people on the European continent as well as in Great Britain
deliberately prefer a mixture of chicory with coffee to pure coffee.
Chicory is indeed destitute of the stimulant alkaloid and essential oil
for which coffee is valued; but the facts that it has stood the test of
prolonged and extended use, and that its infusion is, in some
localities, used alone, indicate that it performs some useful function
in connexion with coffee, as used at least by Western communities. For
one thing, it yields a copious amount of soluble matter in infusion with
hot water, and thus gives a specious appearance of strength and
substance to what may be really only a very weak preparation of coffee.
The mixture of chicory with coffee is easily detected by the microscope,
the structure of both, which they retain after torrefaction, being very
characteristic and distinct. The granules of coffee, moreover, remain
hard and angular when mixed with water, to which they communicate but
little colour; chicory, on the other hand, swelling up and softening,
yields a deep brown colour to water in which it is thrown. The specific
gravity of an infusion of chicory is also much higher than that of
coffee. Among the numerous other substances used to adulterate coffee
are roasted and ground roots of the dandelion, carrot, parsnip and beet;
beans, lupins and other leguminous seeds; wheat, rice and various cereal
grains; the seeds of the broom, fenugreek and iris; acorns; "negro
coffee," the seeds of _Cassia occidentalis_, the seeds of the ochro
(_Hibiscus esculentus_), and also the soja or soy bean (_Glycine Soya_).
Not only have these with many more similar substances been used as
adulterants, but under various high-sounding names several of them have
been introduced as substitutes for coffee; but they have neither merited
nor obtained any success, and their sole effect has been to bring coffee
into undeserved disrepute with the public.
Not only is ground coffee adulterated, but such mixtures as flour,
chicory and coffee, or even bran and molasses, have been made up to
simulate coffee beans and sold as such.
The leaves of the coffee tree contain caffeine in larger proportion than
the seeds themselves, and their use as a substitute for tea has
frequently been suggested. The leaves are actually so used in Sumatra,
but being destitute of any attractive aroma such as is possessed by both
tea and coffee, the infusion is not palatable. It is, moreover, not
practicable to obtain both seeds and leaves from the same plant, and as
the commercial demand is for the seed alone, no consideration either of
profit or of any dietetic or economic advantage is likely to lead to the
growth of coffee trees on account of their leaves.
(A. B. R.; W. G. F.)
COFFER (Fr. _coffre_, O. Fr. _cofre_ or _cofne_, Lat. _cophinus_, cf.
"coffin"), in architecture, a sunk panel in a ceiling or vault; also a
casket or chest in which jewels or precious goods were kept, and, if of
large dimensions, clothes. The marriage coffers in Italy were of
exceptional richness in their carving and gilding and were sometimes
painted by great artists.
COFFERDAM, in engineering. To enable foundations (q.v.) to be laid in a
site which is under water, the engineer sometimes surrounds it with an
embankment or dam, known as a cofferdam, to form an enclosure from which
the water is excluded. Where the depth of water is small and the current
slight, simple clay dams may be used, but in general cofferdams consist
of two rows of piles, the space between which is packed with clay
puddle. The dam must be sufficiently strong to withstand the exterior
pressure to which it is exposed when the enclosed space is pumped dry.
COFFEYVILLE, a city of Montgomery county, Kansas, U.S.A., on the
Verdigris river, about 150 m. S. of Topeka and near the southern
boundary of the state. Pop. (1890) 2282; (1900) 4953, of whom 803 were
negroes; (1905) 13,196; (1910) 12,687. Coffeyville is served by the
Missouri Pacific, the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé, the Missouri, Kansas
& Texas, and the Saint Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern railways, and by
inter-urban electric railway to Independence. It is in the Kansas
natural-gas field, ships large quantities of grain, and has a large zinc
oxide smelter and a large oil refinery, and various manufactures,
including vitrified brick and tile, flour, lumber, chemicals, window
glass, bottles, pottery and straw boards. The municipality owns and
operates its water-works and electric lighting plant. Coffeyville, named
in honour of A. M. Coffey, who was a member of the first legislature of
the territory of Kansas, was founded in 1869, but in 1871 it was removed
about 1 m. from its original site, now known as "old town." It was
incorporated as a city of the third class in 1872 and received a new
charter in 1887. Coffeyville became a station on the Leavenworth,
Lawrence & Galveston railway (now part of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa
Fé), and for several years large numbers of cattle were driven here from
Indian Territory and Texas for shipment; in fact, the city's chief
importance was as a trade centre for the north part of Indian Territory
until natural gas was found here in large quantities in 1892.
COFFIN (from Lat. _cophinus_, Gr. [Greek: kophinos], a coffer, chest or
basket, but never meaning "coffin" in its present sense), the receptacle
in which a corpse is confined. The Greeks and Romans disposed of their
dead both by burial and by cremation. Greek coffins varied in shape,
being in the form of an urn, or like the modern coffins, or triangular,
the body being in a sitting posture. The material used was generally
burnt clay, and in some cases this had obviously been first moulded
round the body, and so baked. Cremation was the commonest method of
disposing of the dead among the Romans, until the Christian era, when
stone coffins came into use. Examples of these have been frequently dug
up in England. In 1853, during excavations for the foundations of some
warehouses in Hayden Square, Minories, London, a Roman stone coffin was
found within which was a leaden shell. Others have been found at
Whitechapel, Stratford-le-Bow, Old Kent Road and Battersea Fields, and
in great numbers at Colchester, York, Southfleet and Kingsholme near
Gloucester. In early England stone coffins were only used by the nobles
and the wealthy. Those of the Romans who were rich enough had their
coffins made of a limestone brought from Assos in Troas, which it was
commonly believed "ate the body"; hence arose the name sarcophagus
(q.v.).
The coffins of the Chaldaeans were generally clay urns with the top left
open, resembling immense jars. These, too, must have been moulded round
the body, as the size of the mouth would not admit of its introduction
after the clay was baked. The Egyptian coffins, or sarcophagi, as they
have been improperly called, are the largest stone coffins known and are
generally highly polished and covered with hieroglyphics, usually a
history of the deceased. Mummy chests shaped to the form of the body
were also used. These were made of hard wood or _papier mâché_ painted,
and like the stone coffins bore hieroglyphics. The Persians, Parthians,
Medes and peoples of the Caspian are not known to have had any coffins,
their usual custom being to expose the body to be devoured by beasts and
birds of prey. Unhewn flat stones were sometimes used by the ancient
European peoples to line the grave. One was placed at the bottom, others
stood on their edges to form the sides, and a large slab was put on top,
thus forming a rude cist. In England after the Roman invasion these rude
cists gave place to the stone coffin, and this, though varying much in
shape, continued in use until the 16th century.
The most primitive wooden coffin was formed of a tree-trunk split down
the centre, and hollowed out. The earliest specimen of this type is in
the Copenhagen museum, the implements found in it proving that it
belonged to the Bronze Age. This type of coffin, more or less modified
by planing, was used in medieval Britain by those of the better classes
who could not afford stone, but the poor were buried without coffins,
wrapped simply in cloth or even covered only with hay and flowers.
Towards the end of the 17th century, coffins became usual for all
classes. It is worth noting that in the Burial Service in the Book of
Common Prayer the word "coffin" is not used.
Among the American Indians some tribes, e.g. the Sacs, Foxes and Sioux,
used rough hewn wooden coffins; others, such as the Seris, sometimes
enclosed the corpse between the carapace and plastron of a turtle. The
Seminoles of Florida used no coffins, while at Santa Barbara,
California, canoes containing corpses have been found buried though they
may have been intended for the dead warrior's use in the next world.
Rough stone cists, too, have been found, especially in Illinois and
Kentucky. In their tree and scaffold burial the Indians sometimes used
wooden coffins, but oftener the bodies were simply wrapped in blankets.
Canoes mounted on a scaffold near a river were used as coffins by some
tribes, while others placed the corpse in a canoe or wicker basket and
floated them out into the stream or lake (see FUNERAL RITES). The
aborigines of Australia generally used coffins of bark, but some tribes
employed baskets of wicker-work.
Lead coffins were used in Europe in the middle ages, shaped like the
mummy chests of ancient Egypt. Iron coffins were more rare, but they
were certainly used in England and Scotland as late as the 17th century,
when an order was made that upon bodies so buried a heavier burial fee
should be levied. The coffins used in England to-day are generally of
elm or oak lined with lead, or with a leaden shell so as to delay as far
as possible the process of disintegration and decomposition. In America
glass is sometimes used for the lids, and the inside is lined with
copper or zinc. The coffins of France and Germany and the continent
generally, usually differ from those of England in not being of the
ordinary hexagonal shape but having sides and ends parallel. Coffins
used in cremation throughout the civilized world are of some light
material easily consumed and yielding little ash. Ordinary thin deal and
_papier mâché_ are the favourite materials. Coffins for what is known as
Earth to Earth Burial are made of wicker-work covered with a thin layer
of _papier mâché_ over cloth.
See also FUNERAL RITES; CREMATION; Burial and Burial Acts; EMBALMING;
MUMMY, &c.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Dr H. C. Yarrow, "Study of the Mortuary Customs of the
North American Indians," _Report of Bureau of Amer. Ethnol._ vol. i.
(Washington, U.S.A., 1881); Rev. Thomas Hugo, "On the Hayden Square
Sarcophagus," _Journ. of Archaeol. Soc._ vol. ix. (London, 1854); C.
V. Creagh, "On Unusual Forms of Burial by People of the East Coast of
Borneo," _J.A.I._, vol. xxvi. (London, 1896-1897); Rev. J. Edward
Vaux, _Church Folk-lore_ (1894).
COG. (1) (From an older _cogge_, a word which appears in various forms
in Teutonic languages, as in O. Ger. _kogge_ or _kocke_, and also in
Romanic, as in O. Fr. _cogue_, or _coque_, from which the Eng.
"cock-boat" is derived; the connexion between the Teutonic and the
Romanic forms is obscure), a broadly built, round-shaped ship, used as a
trader and also as a ship of war till the 15th century. (2) (A word of
obscure origin, possibly connected with Fr. _coche_, and Ital. _cocca_,
a notch; the Celtic forms _cog_ and _cocas_ come from the English), a
tooth in a series of teeth, morticed on to, or cut out of the
circumference of a wheel, which works with the tooth in a corresponding
series on another wheel (see MECHANICS). (3) (Also of quite obscure
origin), a slang term for a form of cheating at dice. The early uses of
the word show that this was done not by "loading" the dice, as the
modern use of the expression of "cogged dice" seems to imply, but by
sleight of hand in directing the fall or in changing the dice.
COGERS HALL, a London tavern debating society. It was instituted in 1755
at the White Bear Inn (now St Bride's Tavern), Fleet Street, moved about
1850 to Discussion Hall, Shoe Lane, and in 1871 finally migrated to the
Barley Mow Inn, Salisbury Square, E.C., its present quarters. The name
is often wrongly spelt Codgers and Coggers; the "o" is really long, the
accepted derivation being from Descartes' _Cogito, ergo sum_, and thus
meaning "The society of thinkers." The aims of the Cogers were "the
promotion of the liberty of the subject and the freedom of the Press,
the maintenance of loyalty to the laws, the rights and claims of
humanity and the practice of public and private virtue." Among its early
members Cogers Hall reckoned John Wilkes, one of its first presidents,
and Curran, who in 1773 writes to a friend that he spent a couple of
hours every night at the Hall. Later Dickens was a prominent member.
See Peter Rayleigh, _History of Ye Antient Society of Cogers_ (London,
1904).
COGHLAN, CHARLES FRANCIS (1841-1899), Irish actor, was born in Paris,
and was educated for the law. He made his first London appearance in
1860, and became the leading actor at the Prince of Wales's. He went to
America in 1876, where he remained for the rest of his life, playing
first in Augustin Daly's company and then in the Union Square stock
company, during the long run of _The Celebrated Case_. He also played
with his sister, and in support of Mrs Langtry and Mrs Fiske, and in
1898 produced a version of Dumas' _Kean_, called _The Royal Box_, in
which he successfully starred during the last years of his life. He died
in Galveston, Texas, on the 27th of November 1899.
His sister, the actress ROSE COGHLAN (1853- ), went to America in 1871,
was again in England from 1873 to 1877, playing with Barry Sullivan, and
then returned to America, where she became prominent as Countess Zicka
in _Diplomacy_, and Stephanie in _Forget-me-not_. She was at Wallack's
almost continuously until 1888, and subsequently appeared in melodrama
in parts like the title-rôle of _The Sporting Duchess_.
COGNAC, a town of south-western France, capital of an arrondissement in
the department of Charente, on the left bank of the river Charente, 32
m. W. of Angoulême on the Ouest-État railway, between Angoulême and
Saintes. Pop. (1906) 18,389. The streets of the old town--which borders
the river--are narrow and tortuous, but the newer parts are well
provided with open spaces. The chief of these is the beautiful Parc
François 1er overlooking the Charente. In one of the squares there is a
statue of Francis I., who was born here. The chief building is a church
of the 12th century dedicated to St Leger, which preserves a fine
Romanesque façade and a tower of the 15th century. A castle of the 15th
and 16th centuries, once the residence of the counts of Angoulême, now a
storehouse for brandy, and a medieval gate stand in the older part of
the town. Cognac is the seat of a subprefect and has tribunals of first
instance and of commerce, a council of trade arbitrators, a chamber of
commerce, and consulates of the United States, Spain and Portugal. Its
most important industry is the distillation of the brandy (q.v.) to
which the town gives its name. Large quantities are carried, by way of
the river, to the neighbouring port of Tonnay-Charente. The industries
subsidiary to the brandy trade, such as the making of cases and bottles,
occupy many hands. Ironware is also manufactured, and a considerable
trade is maintained in grain and cattle. In 1526 Cognac gave its name to
a treaty concluded against Charles V. by Francis I., the pope, Venice
and Milan. Its possession was contested during the wars of religion, and
in 1570 it became one of the Huguenot strongholds. In 1651 it
successfully sustained a siege against Louis II., prince of Condé,
leader of the Fronde.
See _Le Pays du Cognac_, by L. Ravaz, for a description of the
district and its viticulture.
COGNITION (Latin _cognitio_, from _cognoscere_, to become acquainted
with), in psychology, a term used in its most general sense for all
modes of being conscious or aware of an object, whether material or
intellectual. It is an ultimate mode of consciousness, strictly the
presentation (through sensation or otherwise) of an object to
consciousness; in its complete form, however, it seems to involve a
judgment, i.e. the separation from other objects of the object
presented. The psychological theory of cognition takes for granted the
dualism of the mind that knows and the object known; it takes no account
of the metaphysical problem as to the possibility of a relation between
the ego and the non-ego, but assumes that such a relation does exist.
Cognition is therefore distinct from emotion and conation; it has no
psychological connexion with feelings of pleasure and pain, nor does it
tend as such to issue in action.
For the analysis of cognition-reactions see O. Külpe, _Outlines of
Psychology_ (Eng. trans., 1895), pp. 411 foll.; E. B. Titchener,
_Experimental Psychology_ (1905), ii. 187 foll. On cognition
generally, G. F. Stout's _Analytic Psychology and Manual of
Psychology_; W. James's _Principles of Psychology_ (1890), i. 216
foll.; also article PSYCHOLOGY.
COGNIZANCE (Lat. _cognoscere_, to know), knowledge, notice, especially
judicial notice, the right of trying or considering a case judicially,
the exercise of jurisdiction by a court of law. In heraldry a
"cognizance" is an emblem, badge or device, used as a distinguishing
mark by the body of retainers of a royal or noble house.
COHEN (Hebrew for "priest"), a Jewish family name, implying descent from
the ancient Hebrew priests. Many families claiming such descent are,
however, not named Cohen. Other forms of the name are Cohn, Cowen, Kahn.
See J. Jacobs, _Jewish Encyclopedia_, iv. 144.
COHN, FERDINAND JULIUS (1828-1898), German botanist, was born on the
24th of January 1828 at Breslau. He was educated at Breslau and Berlin,
and in 1859 became extraordinary, and in 1871 ordinary, professor of
botany at Breslau University. He had a remarkable career, owing to his
Jewish origin. He was contemporary with N. Pringsheim, and worked with
H. R. Goeppert, C. G. Nees von Esenbeck, C. G. Ehrenberg and Johannes
Müller. At an early date he exhibited astonishing ability with the
microscope, which he did much to improve, and his researches on
cell-walls and the growth and contents of plant-cells soon attracted
attention, especially as he made remarkable advances in the
establishment of an improved cell-theory, discovered the cilia in, and
analysed the movements of, zoospores, and pointed out that the
protoplasm of the plant-cell and the sarcode of the zoologists were one
and the same physical vehicle of life. Although these early researches
were especially on the Algae, in which group he instituted marked
reforms of the rigid system due to F. T. Kützing, Cohn had already
displayed that activity in various departments which made him so famous
as an all-round naturalist, his attention at various times being turned
to such varied subjects as _Aldorovanda_, torsion in trees, the nature
of waterspouts, the effects of lightning, physiology of seeds, the
proteid crystals in the potato, which he discovered, the formation of
travertin, the rotatoria, luminous worms, &c.
It is, however, in the introduction of the strict biological and
philosophical analysis of the life-histories of the lower and most
minute forms of life that Cohn's greatest achievements consist, for he
applied to these organisms the principle that we can only know the
phases of growth of microscopic plants by watching every stage of
development under the microscope, just as we learn how different are the
youthful and adult appearances of an oak or a fern by direct
observation. The success with which he attempted and carried out the
application of cultural and developmental methods on the Algae, Fungi
and Bacteria can only be fully appreciated by those familiar with the
minute size and elusive evolutions of these organisms, and with the
limited appliances at Cohn's command. Nevertheless his account of the
life-histories of _Protococcus_ (1850), _Stephanosphaera_ (1852),
_Volvox_ (1856 and 1875), _Hydrodictyon_ (1861), and _Sphaeroplea_
(1855-1857) among the Algae have never been put aside. The first is a
model of what a study in development should be; the last shares with G.
Thuret's studies on _Fucus_ and Pringsheim's on _Vaucheria_ the merit of
establishing the existence of a sexual process in Algae. Among the Fungi
Cohn contributed important researches on _Pilobolus_ (1851), _Empusa_
(1855), _Tarichium_ (1869), as well as valuable work on the nature of
parasitism of Algae and Fungi.
It is as the founder of bacteriology that Cohn's most striking claims to
recognition will be established. He seems to have been always attracted
particularly by curious problems of fermentation and coloration due to
the most minute forms of life, as evinced by his papers on _Monas
prodigiosa_ (1850) and "Über blutähnliche Färbungen" (1850), on
infusoria (1851 and 1852), on organisms in drinking-water (1853), "Die
Wunder des Blutes" (1854), and had already published several works on
insect epidemics (1869-1870) and on plant diseases, when his first
specially bacteriological memoir (_Crenothrix_) appeared in the
journal, _Beiträge zur Biologie_, which he then started (1870-1871), and
which has since become so renowned. Investigations on other branches of
bacteriology soon followed, among which "Organismen der Pockenlymphe"
(1872) and "Untersuchungen über Bacterien" (1872-1875) are most
important, and laid the foundations of the new department of science
which has now its own laboratories, literature and workers specially
devoted to its extension in all directions. When it is remembered that
Cohn brought out and helped R. Koch in publishing his celebrated paper
on _Anthrax_ (1876), the first clearly worked out case of a bacterial
disease, the significance of his influence on bacteriology becomes
apparent.
Among his most striking discoveries during his studies of the forms and
movements of the Bacteria may be mentioned the nature of Zoogloea, the
formation and germination of true spores--which he observed for the
first time, and which he himself discovered in _Bacillus subtilis_--and
their resistance to high temperatures, and the bearing of this on the
fallacious experiments supposed to support abiogenesis; as well as works
on the bacteria of air and water, the significance of the bright sulphur
granules in sulphur bacteria, and of the iron oxide deposited in the
walls of _Crenothrix_. His discoveries in these and in other departments
all stand forth as mementoes of his acute observation and reasoning
powers, and the thoughtful (in every sense of the word) consideration of
the work of others, and suggestive ideas attached to his principal
papers, bear the same characteristics. If we overcome the always
difficult task of bridging in imagination the interval between our
present platform of knowledge and that on which bacteriologists stood
in, say, 1870, we shall not undervalue the important contributions of
Cohn to the overthrow of the then formidable bugbear known as the
doctrine of "spontaneous generation," a dogma of despair calculated to
impede progress as much in its day as that of "vitalism" did in other
periods. Cohn had also clear perceptions of the important bearings of
Mycology and Bacteriology in infective diseases, as shown by his studies
in insect-killing fungi, microscopic analysis of water, &c. He was a
foreign member of the Royal Society and of the Linnean Society, and
received the gold medal of the latter in 1895. He died at Breslau on the
25th of June 1898.
Lists of his papers will be found in the _Catalogue of Scientific
Papers of the Royal Society_, and in _Ber. d. d. bot. Gesellsch._,
1899, vol. xvii. p. (196). The latter also contains (p. (172)) a full
memoir by F. Rosen. (H. M. W.)
COHN, GUSTAV (1840- ), German economist, was born on the 12th of
December 1840 at Marienwerder, in West Prussia. He was educated at
Berlin and Jena universities. In 1869 he obtained a post at the
polytechnic in Riga, and in 1875 was elected a professor at the
polytechnic at Zürich. In 1873 he went to England for a period of study,
and as a result published his _Untersuchungen über die englische
Eisenbahnpolitik_ (Leipzig, 1874-1875). In 1884 he was appointed
professor of political science at Göttingen. Cohn's best-known works are
_System der Nationalökonomie_ (Stuttgart, 1885); _Finanzwissenschaft_
(1889); _Nationalökonomische Studien_ (1886), and _Zur Geschichte und
Politik des Verkehrswesens_ (1900).
COHOES, a city of Albany county, New York, U.S.A., about 9 m. N. of
Albany, at the confluence of the Mohawk and Hudson rivers. Pop. (1890)
22,509; (1900) 23,910, of whom 7303 were foreign-born; (1910) 24,709. It
is served by the New York Central & Hudson River and the Delaware &
Hudson railways, by electric lines to Troy and Albany, and by the Erie
and Champlain canals. It is primarily a manufacturing city. Hosiery and
knit goods, cotton cloth, cotton batting, shoddy, underwear and shirts
and collars are the principal products, but there are also extensive
valve works and manufactories of pulp, paper and paper boxes, beer, pins
and needles, tools and machinery, and sash, doors and blinds. The value
of the factory products in 1905 was $10,289,822, of which $4,126,873, or
40.1%, was the value of hosiery and knit goods, Cohoes ranking fifth
among the cities of the United States (of 20,000 inhabitants or more) in
this industry, and showing a higher degree of specialization in it than
any other city in the United States except Little Falls, N.Y. The Falls
of the Mohawk, which furnish power for the majority of the manufacturing
establishments, are 75 ft. high and 900 ft. broad, a large dam above the
falls storing the water, which is conveyed through canals to the mills.
Below the falls the river is crossed by two fine iron bridges. The city
has a public library, a normal training school and the St Bernard's
(Roman Catholic) Academy. Cohoes was a part of the extensive manorial
grant made to Killian Van Rensselaer in 1629 and it was probably settled
very soon afterwards. It was incorporated as a village in 1848 and was
chartered as a city in 1870.
COHORT (Lat. _cohors_), originally a place enclosed: in the Roman army,
the name of a unit of infantry. The troops of the first grade, the
legions, were divided into cohorts, of which there were ten in each
legion: the cohort thus contained 600 men. Among the troops of the
second grade (the _auxilia_) the cohorts were independent foot regiments
500 or 1000 strong, corresponding to the _alae_, which were similar
regiments of cavalry; they were generally posted on the frontiers of the
Empire in small forts of four to eight acres, each holding one cohort or
_ala_. The special troops of Rome itself, the Praetorian Guard, the
Urbanae Cohortes, and the Vigiles (fire brigade), were divided into
cohorts (see further ROMAN ARMY). The phrase _cohors praetoria_ or
_cohors amicorum_ was sometimes used, especially during the Roman
republic, to denote the suite of the governor of a province; hence
developed the Praetorian cohorts which formed the emperor's bodyguard.
In biology, "cohort" is a term for a group of allied orders or families
of plants or animals.
COIF (from Fr. _coiffe_, Ital. _cuffia_, a cap), a close-fitting
covering for the head. Originally it was the name given to a
head-covering worn in the middle ages, tied like a night-cap under the
chin, and worn out of doors by both sexes; this was later worn by men as
a kind of night-cap or skull-cap. The coif was also a close-fitting cap
of white lawn or silk, worn by English serjeants-at-law as a
distinguishing mark of their profession. It became the fashion to wear
on the top of the white coif a small skull-cap of black silk or velvet;
and on the introduction of wigs at the end of the 17th century a round
space was left on the top of the wig for the display of the coif, which
was afterwards covered by a small patch of black silk edged with white
(see A. Pulling, _Order of the Coif_, 1897). The random conjecture of
Sir H. Spelman (_Glossarium archaiologicum_) that the coif was
originally designed to conceal the ecclesiastical tonsure has
unfortunately been quoted by annotators of Blackstone's _Commentaries_
as well as by Lord Campbell in his _Lives of the Chief Justices_. It may
be classed with the curious conceit, recorded in Brand's _Popular
Antiquities_, that the coif was derived from the child's caul, and was
worn on the advocate's head for luck.
COIMBATORE, a city and district of British India, in the Madras
presidency. The city is situated on the left bank of the Noyil river,
305 m. from Madras by the Madras railway. In 1901 it had a population of
53,080, showing an increase of 14% in the decade. The city stands 1437
ft. above sea-level, is well laid out and healthy, and is rendered
additionally attractive to European residents by its picturesque
position on the slopes of the Nilgiri hills. It is an important
industrial centre, carrying on cotton weaving and spinning, tanning,
distilling, and the manufacture of coffee, sugar, manure and saltpetre.
It has two second-grade colleges, a college of agriculture, and a school
of forestry.
The DISTRICT OF COIMBATORE has an area of 7860 sq. m. It may be
described as a flat, open country, hemmed in by mountains on the north,
west and south, but opening eastwards on to the great plain of the
Carnatic; the average height of the plain above sea-level is about 900
ft. The principal mountains are the Anamalai Hills, in the south of the
district, rising at places to a height of between 8000 and 9000 ft. In
the west the Palghat and Vallagiri Hills form a connecting link between
the Anamalai range and the Nilgiris, with the exception of a remarkable
gap known as the Palghat Pass. This gap, which completely intersects the
Ghats, is about 20 m. wide. In the north is a range of primitive
trap-hills known as the Cauvery chain, extending eastwards from the
Nilgiris, and rising in places to a height of 4000 ft. The principal
rivers are the Cauvery, Bhavani, Noyil, and Amravati. Numerous canals
are cut from the rivers for the purpose of affording artificial
irrigation, which has proved of immense benefit to the country. Well and
tank water is also largely used for irrigation purposes. Coimbatore
district was acquired by the British in 1799 at the close of the war
which ended with the death of Tippoo. In 1901 the population was
2,201,782, showing an increase of 10% in the preceding decade. The
principal crops are millet, rice, other food grains, pulse, oilseeds,
cotton and tobacco, with a little coffee. Forests cover nearly 1½
million acres, yielding valuable timber (teak, sandalwood, &c.), and
affording grazing-ground for cattle. There are several factories for
pressing cotton, and for cleaning coffee, oil-cake presses, tanneries
and saltpetre refineries. Cereals, cotton, forest products, cattle and
hides, and brass and copper vessels are the chief exports from the
district. The south-west line of the Madras railway runs through the
district, and the South Indian railway (of metre gauge) joins this at
Erode.
COIMBRA, the capital of an administrative district formerly included in
the province of Beira, Portugal; on the north bank of the river Mondego,
115 m. N.N.E. of Lisbon, on the Lisbon-Oporto railway. Pop. (1900)
18,144. Coimbra is built for the most part on rising ground, and
presents from the other side of the river a picturesque and imposing
appearance; though in reality its houses have individually but little
pretension, and its streets are, almost without exception, narrow and
mean. It derives its present importance from being the seat of the only
university in the kingdom--an institution which was originally
established at Lisbon in 1291, was transferred to Coimbra in 1306, was
again removed to Lisbon, and was finally fixed at Coimbra in 1527. There
are five faculties--theology, law, medicine, mathematics and
philosophy--with more than 1300 students. The library contains about
150,000 volumes, and the museums and laboratories are on an extensive
scale. In connexion with the medical faculty there are regular
hospitals; the mathematical faculty maintains an observatory from which
an excellent view can be obtained of the whole valley of the Mondego;
and outside the town there is a botanic garden (especially rich in the
flora of Brazil), which also serves as a public promenade. Among the
other educational establishments are a military college, a royal college
of arts, a scientific and literary institute, and an episcopal seminary.
The city is the seat of a bishop, suffragan to the archbishop of Braga;
its new cathedral, founded in 1580, is of little interest; but the old
is a fine specimen of 12th-century Romanesque, and retains portions of
the mosque which it replaced. The principal churches are Santa Cruz, of
the 16th century, and San Salvador, founded in 1169. On the north bank
of the Mondego stand the ruins of the once splendid monastery of Santa
Clara, established in 1286; and on the south bank is the celebrated
_Quinta das lagrimas_, or Villa of Tears, where Inez de Castro (q.v.) is
believed to have been murdered in 1355. The town is supplied with water
by means of an aqueduct of 20 arches. The Mondego is only navigable in
flood, and the port of Figueira da Foz is 20 m. W. by S., so that the
trade of Coimbra is mainly local; but there are important lamprey
fisheries and manufactures of pottery, leather and hats.
A Latin inscription of the 4th century identifies Coimbra with the
ancient Aeminium; while Condeixa (3623), 8 m. S.S.W., represents the
ancient Conimbriga or Conembrica,. In the 9th century, however, when the
bishopric of Conimbriga was removed hither, its old title was
transferred to the new see, and hence arose the modern name Coimbra. The
city was for a long time a Moorish stronghold, but in 1064 it was
captured by Ferdinand I. of Castile and the Cid. Until 1260 it was the
capital of the country, and no fewer than six kings--Sancho I. and II.,
Alphonso II. and III., Pedro and Ferdinand--were born within its walls.
It was also the birthplace of the poet Francisco Sá de Miranda
(1495-1558), and, according to one tradition, of the more famous Luiz de
Camoens (1524-1580), who was a student at the university between 1537
and 1542. In 1755 Coimbra suffered considerably from the earthquake. In
1810 it was sacked by the French under Marshal Masséna. In 1834 Dom
Miguel made the city his headquarters; and in 1846 it was the scene of a
Miguelist insurrection.
The administrative district of Coimbra coincides with the south-western
part of Beira; pop. (1900) 332,168; area 1508 sq. m.
COÍN, a town of southern Spain in the province of Málaga; 18 m. W.S.W.
of the city of Málaga. Pop. (1900) 12,326. Coín is finely situated on
the northern slope of the Sierra de Mijas, overlooking the small river
Séco and surrounded by vineyards and plantations of oranges and lemons.
There are marble quarries in the neighbourhood, and, despite the lack of
a railway, Coín has a thriving agricultural trade. The population
increased by more than half between 1880 and 1900.
COIN (older forms of the word are _coyne_, _quoin_ and _coign_, all
derived through the O. Fr. _coing_, and _cuigne_ from Lat. _cuneus_, a
wedge), properly the term for a wedge-shaped die used for stamping
money, and so transferred to the money so stamped; hence a piece of
money. The form "quoin" is used for the external angle of a building
(see QUOINS), and "coign," also a projecting angle, survives in the
Shakespearean phrase "a coign of vantage."
COINAGE OFFENCES. The coinage of money is in all states a prerogative of
the sovereign power; consequently any infringement of that prerogative
is always severely punished, as being an offence likely to interfere
with the well-being of the state.
In the United Kingdom the statute law against offences relating to the
coin was codified by an act of 1861. The statute provides that whoever
falsely makes or counterfeits any coin resembling or apparently intended
to resemble or pass for any current gold or silver coin of the realm (s.
2), or gilds, silvers, washes, cases over or colours with materials
capable of producing the appearance of gold or silver a coin or a piece
of any metal or mixture of metals, or files or alters it, with intent to
make it resemble or pass for any current gold or silver coin (s. 3), or
who buys, sells, receives or pays a false gold or silver coin at a lower
rate than its denomination imports, or who receives into the United
Kingdom any false coin knowing it to be counterfeit (ss. 6, 7), or who,
without lawful authority or excuse, knowingly makes or mends, buys or
sells, or has in his custody or possession, or conveys out of the Royal
Mint any coining moulds, machines or tools, is guilty of felony (ss. 24,
25). The punishment for such offences is either penal servitude for life
or for not less than three years, or imprisonment for not more than two
years, with or without hard labour. Whoever impairs, diminishes or
lightens current gold or silver coin, with intent to pass same, is
liable to penal servitude for from three to fourteen years (s. 4), and
whoever has in his possession filings or clippings obtained by impairing
or lightening current coin is liable to the same punishment, or to penal
servitude for from three to seven years. The statute also makes
provision against tendering or uttering false gold or silver coin, which
is a misdemeanour, punishable by imprisonment with or without hard
labour. Provision is also made with respect to falsely making,
counterfeiting, tendering or uttering copper coin, exporting false coin,
or defacing current coin by stamping names or words on it, and
counterfeiting, tendering or uttering coin resembling or meant to pass
as that of some foreign state. The act of 1861 applies to offences with
respect to colonial coins as well as to those of the United Kingdom.
By the constitution of the United States, Congress has the power of
coining money, regulating the value thereof and of foreign coin (Art. i.
s. viii.), and the states are prohibited from coining money, or making
anything but gold and silver money a tender in payment of debts (Art. i.
s. x.). The counterfeiting coin or money, uttering the same, or
mutilating or defacing it, is an offence against the United States, and
is punishable by fine and imprisonment with hard labour for from two to
ten years. It has also been made punishable by state legislation.
COIR (from Malay _K[=a]yar_, cord, _K[=a]yaru_, to be twisted), a rough,
strong, fibrous substance obtained from the outer husk of the coco-nut.
(See COCO-NUT PALM.)
COIRE (Ger. _Chur_ or _Cur_, Ital. _Coira_, Lat. _Curia Raetorum_,
Romonsch _Cuera_), the capital of the Swiss canton of the Grisons. It is
built, at a height of 1949 ft. above the sea-level, on the right bank of
the Plessur torrent, just as it issues from the Schanfigg valley, and
about a mile above its junction with the Rhine. It is overshadowed by
the Mittenberg (east) and Pizokel (south), hills that guard the entrance
to the deep-cut Schanfigg valley. In 1900 it contained 11,532
inhabitants, of whom 9288 were German-speaking, 1466 Romonsch-speaking,
and 677 Italian-speaking; while 7561 were Protestants, 3962 Romanists
and one a Jew. The modern part of the city is to the west, but the old
portion, with all the historical buildings, is to the east. Here is the
cathedral church of St Lucius (who is the patron of Coire, and is
supposed to be a 2nd-century British king, though really the name has
probably arisen from a confusion between Lucius of Cyrene--miswritten
"_curiensis_"--with the Roman general Lucius Munatius Plancus, who
conquered Raetia). Built between 1178 and 1282, on the site of an older
church, it contains many curious medieval antiquities (especially in the
sacristy), as well as a picture by Angelica Kaufmann, and the tomb of
the great Grisons political leader (d. 1637) Jenatsch (q.v.). Opposite
is the Bishop's Palace, and not far off is the Episcopal Seminary (built
on the ruins of a 6th-century monastic foundation). Not far from these
ancient monuments is the new Raetian Museum, which contains a great
collection of objects relating to Raetia (including the geological
collections of the Benedictine monk of Disentis, Placidus a Spescha
(1752-1833), who explored the high snowy regions around the sources of
the Rhine). One of the hospitals was founded by the famous Capuchin
philanthropist, Father Theodosius Florentini (1808-1865), who was long
the Romanist curé of Coire, and whose remains were in 1906 transferred
from the cathedral here to Ingenbohl (near Schwyz), his chief
foundation. Coire is 74 m. by rail from Zürich, and is the meeting-point
of the routes from Italy over many Alpine passes (the Lukmanier, the
Splügen, the San Bernardino) as well as from the Engadine (Albula,
Julier), so that it is the centre of an active trade (particularly in
wine from the Valtelline), though it possesses also a few local
factories.
The episcopal see is first mentioned in 452, but probably existed a
century earlier. The bishop soon acquired great temporal powers,
especially after his dominions were made, in 831, dependent on the
Empire alone, of which he became a prince in 1170. In 1392 he became
head of the league of God's House (originally formed against him in
1367), one of the three Raetian leagues, but, in 1526, after the
Reformation, lost his temporal powers, having fulfilled his historical
mission (see GRISONS). The bishopric still exists, with jurisdiction
over the Cantons of the Grisons, Glarus, Zürich, and the three Forest
Cantons, as well as the Austrian principality of Liechtenstein. The gild
constitution of the city of Chur lasted from 1465 to 1839, while in 1874
the _Burgergemeinde_ was replaced by an _Einwohnergemeinde_.
AUTHORITIES.--A. Eichhorn, _Episcopatus Curiensis_ (St Blasien, 1797);
W. von Juvalt, _Forschungen über die Feudalzeit im Curischen Raetien_,
2 parts (Zürich, 1871); C. Kind, _Die Reformation in den Bisthümern
Chur und Como_ (Coire, 1858); Conradin von Moor, Geschichte von
Curraetien (2 vols., Coire, 1870-1874); P. C. von Planta, _Das alte
Raetien_ (Berlin, 1872); _Idem, Die Curraetischen Herrschaften in der
Feudalzeit_ (Bern, 1881); _Idem, Verfassungsgeschichte der Stadt Cur
im Mittelalter_ (Coire, 1879); _Idem, Geschichte von Graubünden_
(Bern, 1892). (W. A. B. C.)
COKE, SIR EDWARD (1552-1634), English lawyer, was born at Mileham, in
Norfolk, on the 1st of February 1552. From the grammar school of Norwich
he passed to Trinity College, Cambridge; and in 1572 he entered
Lincoln's Inn. In 1578 he was called to the bar, and in the next year he
was chosen reader at Lyon's Inn. His extensive and exact legal
erudition, and the skill with which he argued the intricate libel case
of Lord Cromwell (4 Rep. 13), and the celebrated real property case of
Shelley (1 Rep. 94, 104), soon brought him a practice never before
equalled, and caused him to be universally recognized as the greatest
lawyer of his day. In 1586 he was made recorder of Norwich, and in 1592
recorder of London, solicitor-general, and reader in the Inner Temple.
In 1593 he was returned as member of parliament for his native county,
and also chosen speaker of the House of Commons. In 1594 he was promoted
to the office of attorney-general, despite the claims of Bacon, who was
warmly supported by the earl of Essex. As crown lawyer his treatment of
the accused was marked by more than the harshness and violence common in
his time; and the fame of the victim has caused his behaviour in the
trial of Raleigh to be lastingly remembered against him. While the
prisoner defended himself with the calmest dignity and self-possession,
Coke burst into the bitterest invective, brutally addressing the great
courtier as if he had been a servant, in the phrase, long remembered for
its insolence and its utter injustice--"Thou hast an English face, but a
Spanish heart!"
In 1582 Coke married the daughter of John Paston, a gentleman of
Suffolk, receiving with her a fortune of £30,000; but in six months he
was left a widower. Shortly after he sought the hand of Lady Elizabeth
Hatton, daughter of Thomas, second Lord Burghley, and granddaughter of
the great Cecil. Bacon was again his rival, and again unsuccessfully;
the wealthy young widow became--not, it is said, to his future
comfort--Coke's second wife.
In 1606 Coke was made chief justice of the common pleas, but in 1613 he
was removed to the office of chief justice of the king's bench, which
gave him less opportunity of interfering with the court. The change,
though it brought promotion in dignity, caused a diminution of income as
well as of power; but Coke received some compensation in being appointed
a member of the privy council. The independence of his conduct as a
judge, though not unmixed with the baser elements of prejudice and
vulgar love of authority, has partly earned forgiveness for the
harshness which was so prominent in his sturdy character. Full of an
extreme reverence for the common law which he knew so well, he defended
it alike against the court of chancery, the ecclesiastical courts, and
the royal prerogative. In a narrow spirit, and strongly influenced, no
doubt, by his enmity to the chancellor, Thomas Egerton (Lord Brackley),
he sought to prevent the interference of the court of chancery with even
the unjust decisions of the other courts. In the case of an appeal from
a sentence given in the king's bench, he advised the victorious, but
guilty, party to bring an action of praemunire against all those who had
been concerned in the appeal, and his authority was stretched to the
utmost to obtain the verdict he desired. On the other hand, Coke has the
credit of having repeatedly braved the anger of the king. He freely gave
his opinion that the royal proclamation cannot make that an offence
which was not an offence before. An equally famous but less satisfactory
instance occurred during the trial of Edmund Peacham, a divine in whose
study a sermon had been found containing libellous accusations against
the king and the government. There was nothing to give colour to the
charge of high treason with which he was charged, and the sermon had
never been preached or published; yet Peacham was put to the torture,
and Bacon was ordered to confer with the judges individually concerning
the matter. Coke declared such conference to be illegal, and refused to
give an opinion, except in writing, and even then he seems to have said
nothing decided. But the most remarkable case of all occurred in the
next year (1616). A trial was held before Coke in which one of the
counsel denied the validity of a grant made by the king to the bishop of
Lichfield of a benefice to be held _in commendam_. James, through Bacon,
who was then attorney-general, commanded the chief justice to delay
judgment till he himself should discuss the question with the judges. At
Coke's request Bacon sent a letter containing the same command to each
of the judges, and Coke then obtained their signatures to a paper
declaring that the attorney-general's instructions were illegal, and
that they were bound to proceed with the case. His Majesty expressed his
displeasure, and summoned them before him in the council-chamber, where
he insisted on his supreme prerogative, which, he said, ought not to be
discussed in ordinary argument. Upon this all the judges fell on their
knees, seeking pardon for the form of their letter; but Coke ventured to
declare his continued belief in the loyalty of its substance, and when
asked if he would in the future delay a case at the king's order, the
only reply he would vouchsafe was that he would do what became him as a
judge. Soon after he was dismissed from all his offices on the following
charges,--the concealment, as attorney-general, of a bond belonging to
the king, a charge which could not be proved, illegal interference with
the court of chancery and disrespect to the king in the case of
commendams. He was also ordered by the council to revise his book of
reports, which was said to contain many extravagant opinions (June
1616).
Coke did not suffer these losses with patience. He offered his daughter
Frances, then little more than a child, in marriage to Sir John
Villiers, brother of the favourite Buckingham. Her mother, supported at
first by her husband's great rival and her own former suitor, Bacon,
objected to the match, and placed her in concealment. But Coke
discovered her hiding-place; and she was forced to wed the man whom she
declared that of all others she abhorred. The result was the desertion
of the husband and the fall of the wife. It is said, however, that after
his daughter's public penance in the Savoy church, Coke had heart enough
to receive her back to the home which he had forced her to leave. Almost
all that he gained by his heartless diplomacy was a seat in the council
and in the star-chamber.
In 1620 a new and more honourable career opened for him. He was elected
member of parliament for Liskeard; and henceforth he was one of the most
prominent of the constitutional party. It was he who proposed a
remonstrance against the growth of popery and the marriage of Prince
Charles to the infanta of Spain, and who led the Commons in the decisive
step of entering on the journal of the House the famous petition of the
18th of December 1621, insisting on the freedom of parliamentary
discussion, and the liberty of speech of every individual member. In
consequence, together with Pym and Sir Robert Philips, he was thrown
into confinement; and, when in the August of the next year he was
released, he was commanded to remain in his house at Stoke Poges during
his Majesty's pleasure. Of the first and second parliaments of Charles
I. Coke was again a member. From the second he was excluded by being
appointed sheriff of Buckinghamshire. In 1628 he was at once returned
for both Buckinghamshire and Suffolk, and he took his seat for the
former county. After rendering other valuable support to the popular
cause, he took a most important part in drawing up the great Petition of
Right. The last act of his public career was to bewail with tears the
ruin which he declared the duke of Buckingham was bringing upon the
country. At the close of the session he retired into private life; and
the six years that remained to him were spent in revising and improving
the works upon which, at least as much as upon his public career, his
fame now rests. He died at Stoke Poges on the 3rd of September 1634.
Coke published _Institutes_ (1628), of which the first is also known as
_Coke upon Littleton_; _Reports_ (1600-1615), in thirteen parts; _A
Treatise of Bail and Mainprize_ (1635); _The Complete Copyholder_
(1630); _A Reading on Fines and Recoveries_ (1684).
See Johnson, _Life of Sir Edward Coke_ (1837); H. W. Woolrych, _The
Life of Sir Edward Coke_ (1826); Foss, _Lives of the Judges_;
Campbell, _Lives of the Chief Justices_; also ENGLISH LAW.
COKE, SIR JOHN (1563-1644), English politician, was born on the 5th of
March 1563, and was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. After
leaving the university he entered public life as a servant of William
Cecil, Lord Burghley, afterwards becoming deputy-treasurer of the navy
and then a commissioner of the navy, and being specially commended for
his labours on behalf of naval administration. He became member of
parliament for Warwick in 1621 and was knighted in 1624, afterwards
representing the university of Cambridge. In the parliament of 1625 Coke
acted as a secretary of state; in this and later parliaments he
introduced the royal requests for money, and defended the foreign policy
of Charles I. and Buckingham, and afterwards the actions of the king.
His actual appointment as secretary dates from September 1625. Disliked
by the leaders of the popular party, his speeches in the House of
Commons did not improve the king's position, but when Charles ruled
without a parliament he found Coke's industry very useful to him. The
secretary retained his post until 1639, when a scapegoat was required to
expiate the humiliating treaty of Berwick with the Scots, and the
scapegoat was Coke. Dismissed from office, he retired to his estate at
Melbourne in Derbyshire, and then resided in London, dying at Tottenham
on the 8th of September 1644. Coke's son, Sir John Coke, sided with the
parliament in its struggle with the king, and it is possible that in
later life Coke's own sympathies were with this party, although in his
earlier years he had been a defender of absolute monarchy. Coke, who
greatly disliked the papacy, is described by Clarendon as "a man of very
narrow education and a narrower mind"; and again he says, "his cardinal
perfection was industry and his most eminent infirmity covetousness."
COKE, THOMAS (1747-1814), English divine, the first Methodist bishop,
was born at Brecon, where his father was a well-to-do apothecary. He was
educated at Jesus College, Oxford, taking the degree of M.A. in 1770 and
that of D.C.L. in 1775. From 1772 to 1776 he was curate at South
Petherton in Somerset, whence his rector dismissed him for adopting the
open-air and cottage services introduced by John Wesley, with whom he
had become acquainted. After serving on the London Wesleyan circuit he
was in 1782 appointed president of the conference in Ireland, a position
which he frequently held, in the intervals of his many voyages to
America. He first visited that country in 1784, going to Baltimore as
"superintendent" of the Methodist societies in the new world and, in
1787 the American conference changed his title to "bishop," a
nomenclature which he tried in vain to introduce into the English
conference, of which he was president in 1797 and 1805. Failing this, he
asked Lord Liverpool to make him a bishop in India, and he was voyaging
to Ceylon when he died on the 3rd of May 1814. Coke had always been a
missionary enthusiast, and was the pioneer of such enterprise in his
connexion. He was an ardent opponent of slavery, and endeavoured also to
heal the breach between the Methodist and Anglican communions. He
published a _History of the West Indies_ (3 vols., 1808-1811), several
volumes of sermons, and, with Henry Moore, a _Life of Wesley_ (1792).
COKE (a northern English word, possibly connected with "colk," core),
the product obtained by strongly heating coal out of contact with the
air until the volatile constituents are driven off; it consists
essentially of carbon, the so-called "fixed carbon," together with the
incombustible matters or ash contained in the coal from which it is
derived. In addition to these it almost invariably contains small
quantities of hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen, the whole, however, not
exceeding 2 or 3%. It also contains water, the amount of which may vary
considerably according to the method of manufacture. When produced
rapidly and at a low heat, as in gas-making, it is of a dull black
colour, and a loose spongy or pumice-like texture, and ignites with
comparative ease, though less readily than bituminous coal, so that it
may be burnt in open fire-places; but when a long-continued heat is
used, as in the preparation of coke for iron and steel melting, the
product is hard and dense, is often prismatic in structure, has a
brilliant semi-metallic lustre and silvery-grey colour, is a conductor
of heat and electricity, and can only be burnt in furnaces provided with
a strong chimney draught or an artificial blast. The strength and
cohesive properties are also intimately related to the nature and
composition of the coals employed, which are said to be caking or
non-caking according to the compact or fragmentary character of the coke
produced.
Formerly coke was made from large coal piled in heaps with central
chimneys like those of the charcoal burner, or in open rectangular
clamps or kilns with air flues in the enclosing walls; but these methods
are now practically obsolete, closed chambers or ovens being generally
used. These vary considerably in construction, but may be classified
into three principal types:--(1) direct heated ovens, (2) flue-heated
ovens, (3) condensing ovens. In the first class the heating is done by
direct contact or by burning the gases given off in coking within the
oven, while in the other two the heating is indirect, the gas being
burned in cellular passages or flues provided in the walls dividing the
coking chambers, and the heat transmitted through the sides of the
latter which are comparatively thin. The arrangement is somewhat similar
to that of a gas-works retort, whence the name of "retort ovens" is
sometimes applied to them. The difference between the second and third
classes is founded on the treatment of the gases. In the former the gas
is fired in the side flues immediately upon issuing from the oven, while
in the latter the gases are first subjected to a systematic treatment in
condensers, similar to those used in gas-works, to remove tar, ammonia
and condensable hydrocarbons, the incondensable gases being returned to
the oven and burned in the heating flues. These are generally known as
"by-product ovens."
Beehive oven.
The simplest form of coke oven, and probably that still most largely
used, is the so-called "beehive oven." This is circular in plan, from
7 to 12 ft. in diameter, with a cylindrical wall about 2½ ft. high and
a nearly hemispherical roof with a circular hole at the top. The
floor, made of refractory bricks or slabs, is laid with a slight slope
towards an arched opening in the ring wall, which is stopped with
brickwork during the coking but opened for drawing the finished
charge. The ovens are usually arranged in rows or banks of 20 to 30 or
more, with their doors outwards, two rows being often placed with a
longitudinal flue between them connected by uptakes with the
individual ovens on either side. A railway along the top of the bank
brings the coal from the screens or washery. The largest ovens take a
charge of about 5 tons, which is introduced through the hole in the
roof, the brickwork of the empty oven being still red hot from the
preceding charge, and when levelled fills the cylindrical part nearly
to the springing of the roof. The gas fires as it is given off and
fills the dome with flame, and the burning is regulated by air
admitted through holes in the upper part of the door stopping. The
temperature being very high, a proportion of the volatile hydrocarbons
is decomposed, and a film of graphitic carbon is deposited on the
coke, giving it a semi-metallic lustre and silvery grey colour. When
the gas is burned off, the upper part of the door is opened and the
glowing charge cooled by jets of water thrown directly upon it from a
hose, and it is subsequently drawn out through the open door. The
charge breaks up into prisms or columns whose length corresponds to
the depth of the charge, and as a rule is uniform in character and
free from dull black patches or "black ends." The time of burning is
either 48 or 72 hours, the turns being so arranged as to avoid the
necessity of drawing the ovens on Sunday. The longer the heat is
continued the denser the product becomes, but the yield also
diminishes, as a portion of the finished coke necessarily burns to
waste when the gas is exhausted. For this reason the yield on the coal
charged is usually less than that obtained in retort ovens, although
the quality may be better. Coals containing at most about 35% of
volatile matter are best suited for the beehive oven. With less than
25% the gas is not sufficient to effect the coking completely, and
when there is a higher percentage the coke is brittle and spongy and
unsuited for blast furnace or foundry use. The spent flame from the
ovens passes to a range of steam boilers before escaping by the
chimney.
Retort oven.
The retort oven, which is now generally displacing the beehive form in
new installations, is made in a great variety of forms, the
differences being mainly in the arrangement of the heating flues, but
all have the central feature, the coking chamber, in common. This is a
tubular chamber with vertical sides and cylindrical roof, about 30 ft.
long, from 17 to 20 in. wide, and 6 or 7 ft. high, and closed at both
ends by sliding doors which are raised by crab winches when the charge
is to be drawn. The general arrangements of such an oven are shown in
fig. 1, which represents one of the earliest and most popular forms,
that of Evence Coppée of Brussels. The coking chambers A B connect by
rectangular posts at the springing of the roof, where the gas given
off from the top of the charge is fired by air introduced through _c
c_. The flames pass downwards through the parallel flues _f f_ along
the bottom flue of one oven, and return in the opposite direction
under the next to the chimney flue, a further part of the heat being
intercepted by placing a range of steam boilers between the ovens and
the chimney stack. The charging of the oven is done through the
passages D D in the roof from small wagons on transverse lines of
rails, the surface being raked level before the doors are closed and
luted up. The time of coking is much less than in the beehive ovens
and may be from 24 to 36 hours, according to the proportion of
volatile matter present. When the gas is completely given off the
doors are lifted and the charge is pushed out by the ram--a cast-iron
plate of the shape of the cross section of the oven, at the end of a
long horizontal bar, which is driven by a rack and pinion movement and
pushes the block of coke out of the oven on to the wharf or bank in
front where it falls to pieces and is immediately quenched by jets of
water from a hose pipe. When sufficiently cooled it is loaded into
railway wagons or other conveyances for removal. The ram, together
with its motor, and boiler when steam is used, is mounted upon a
carriage running upon a line of rails of about 2 ft. gauge along the
back of the range of ovens, so that it can be brought up to any one of
them in succession.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--Coppée's Coke Oven.]
In some cases, instead of the small coal being charged through the
roof of the oven and levelled by hand, it is formed into blocks by
being stamped in a slightly moistened condition in a mould consisting
of a bottom plate or peel on a racked rod like that of the ram, with
movable sides and ends. This, when the ends are removed, is pushed
forward into the oven, and the bottom plate is withdrawn by reversing
the rack motion. The moulding box is mounted on a carriage like that
of the ram, the two being sometimes carried on the same framing. The
moulding is done at a fixed station in the centre of the range of
ovens by a series of cast-iron stampers driven by an electric motor.
This system is useful for coals low in volatile matter, which do not
give a coherent coke under ordinary conditions.
Condensing ovens.
In the distilling or by-product ovens the gases, instead of being
burned at the point of origin, pass by an uptake pipe in the roof
about the centre of the oven into a water-sealed collecting trough or
hydraulic main, whence they are drawn by exhausters through a series
of air and water cooled condensers and scrubbers. In the first or
atmospheric condensers the tar is removed, and in the second
ammoniacal water, which is further enriched by a graduated system of
scrubbing with weak ammoniacal liquor until it is sufficiently
concentrated to be sent to the ammonia stills. The first treatment by
scrubbing with creosote or heavy tar oil removes benzene, after which
the permanent gaseous residue consisting chiefly of hydrogen and marsh
gas is returned to the ovens as fuel.
In the Otto-Hoffmann oven, one of the most generally used forms,
vertical side flues like those of Coppée are adopted. The returned gas
enters by a horizontal flue along the bottom of the coking chamber,
divided into two parts by a mid-feather wall, and is fired by heated
air from a Siemens regenerator on the substructure at one end, and the
flame rising through one half of the side flues to a parallel
collector at the top returns downwards through the flues of the other
half and passes out to the chimney through a similar regenerator at
the other end. The course of the gases is reversed at intervals of
about an hour, as in the ordinary Siemens furnace, each end of the
oven having its own gas supply. In the later modification known as the
Otto-Hilgenstock, the regenerators are abandoned, but provision is
made for more perfect distribution of the heat by a line of sixteen
Bunsen burners in each wall; each of these serves two flues, the
course of the flame being continuously upwards without reversal. In
the newest Otto ovens the same system of burners is combined with
regenerators. In the Bauer system, another vertical flue oven, each
flue has its own burner, which is of a simplified construction.
In the Carvés oven, the earliest of the by-product ovens, the heating
flues are arranged horizontally in parallel series along the entire
length of the side walls, the gas being introduced from both ends but
at different levels. This system was further developed by H. Simon of
Manchester, who added a continuous air "recuperator" heated by the
spent flame; this Simon-Carvés system has been extensively adopted in
Great Britain. Another horizontal flue oven, the Semet-Solvay, is
distinguished by the structure of the flues, which are independent of
the dividing walls of the ovens, so that the latter can be made with
thinner sides than those of the earlier systems, and are more readily
repaired. In the horizontal ovens it is sometimes difficult to
maintain the heat when the flues are continuous along the whole length
of the wall, especially when the heating value of the gas is reduced
by the removal of the heavy hydrocarbons. This difficulty is met by
dividing the flues in the middle so as to shorten the length of travel
of the flame, and working each end independently. The Hüssener and
Koppers systems are two of the best-known examples of this
modification.
Coke from retort ovens is not so dense or brilliant as that made in
beehive ovens, but the waste being less there is a decided saving,
apart from the value of the condensed products. In one instance the
coke was found to be about 5% less efficient in the blast furnace,
while the yield on the coal charged was increased 10%. In the further
treatment of the condensed products by distillation the tar gives
burning oil and pitch, the benzene is separated from the creosote oil
by steam-heated stills, and the ammoniacal liquor, after some lime has
been added to decompose fixed ammonium compounds, is heated to
vaporize the ammonia, which is condensed in lead or copper-lined tanks
containing strong sulphuric acid to produce a crystalline powder of
ammonium sulphate, which accumulates in the receiver and is fished out
from time to time. The yield of by-products averages about 1% of
ammonium sulphate, about 3½% of tar, and 0.6 to 0.9% of benzene, of
the weight of the coal carbonized. After the ovens have been heated
and steam supplied for the machinery of the condensing plant and the
coke ovens, there is usually a surplus of gas, which may be used for
lighting or driving gas-engines. For the latter purpose, however, it
is necessary to remove the last traces of tar, which acts very
prejudicially in fouling the valves when the gas is not completely
purified. The gas given off during the earlier part of the coking
process is richer in heavy hydrocarbons and of a higher illuminating
value than that of the later period when the temperature is higher.
This property is utilized in several large coking plants in America,
where the gas from the first ten hours' working is drawn off by a
second hydraulic main and sent directly to town gas-works, where it
passes through the ordinary purifying treatment, the gas from the
second period being alone used for heating the ovens.
Coke is essentially a partially graphitized carbon, its density being
about midway between that of coal and graphite, and it should therefore
occupy less space than the original coal; but owing to the softening of
the charge a spongy structure is set up by the escaping gases, which
acts in the other direction, so that for equal bulk coke is somewhat
lighter than coal. It is this combination of properties that gives it
its chief value in iron smelting, the substance being sufficiently dense
to resist oxidation by carbon dioxide in the higher regions of the
furnace, while the vesicular structure gives an extended surface for the
action of heated air and facilitates rapid consumption at the tuyeres.
Compact coke, such as that formed on the inner sides of gas retorts
(retort carbon), can only be burned with great difficulty in small
furnaces of special construction, but it gives out a great amount of
heat.
The most deleterious constituents of coke are ash, sulphur and volatile
constituents including water. As the coke yield is only from two-thirds
to three-quarters of that of the coal, the original proportion of ash is
augmented by one-third or one-half in the product. For this reason it is
now customary to crush and wash the coal carefully to remove
intermingled patches of shale and dirt before coking, so that the ash
may not if possible exceed 10% in the coke. About one-half of the
sulphur in the coal is eliminated in coking, so that the percentage in
the coke is about the same. It should not be much above 1%. According to
the researches of F. Wuest (_Journ. Iron and Steel Inst._, 1906) the
sulphur is retained in a complex carbon compound which is not destroyed
until the coke is actually consumed.
The older methods of coking and the earlier forms of retort ovens are
described in J. Percy, _Metallurgy_, Jordan, _Album du cours de
metallurgie_; Phillips and Bauerman, _Handbook of Metallurgy_, and
other text-books. A systematic series of articles on the newer forms
will be found in _The Engineer_, vol. 82, pp. 205-303 and vol. 83, pp.
207-231; see also Dürre, _Die neuern Koksöfen_ (Leipzig, 1892); D. A.
Louis, "Von Bauer and Brünck Ovens," _Journ. Iron and Steel Inst._,
1904, ii. p. 293; C. L. Bell, "Hüssener Oven," _id._, 1904, i. p. 188;
Hurez, "A Comparison of Different Systems of Vertical and Horizontal
Flue Ovens," _Bull. soc. industrie minérale_, 1903, p. 777. A
well-illustrated description of the Otto system in its American
modification was issued by the United Gas & Coke Company of New York,
in 1906. (H. B.)
COL (Fr. for "neck," Lat. _collum_), in physical geography, generally
any marked depression upon a high and rugged water-parting over which
passage is easy from one valley to another. Such is the Col de Balme
between the Trient and Chamounix valleys, where the great inaccessible
wall crowned with aiguilles running to the massif of Mt. Blanc is broken
by a gentle downward curve with smooth upland slopes, over which a
footpath gives easy passage. The col is usually formed by the
head-waters of a stream eating backward and lowering the water-parting
at the head of its valley. In early military operations, the march of an
army was always over a col, which has at all times considerable
commercial importance in relation to roads in high mountain regions.
COLBERT, JEAN BAPTISTE (1619-1683), French statesman, was born at Reims,
where his father and grandfather were merchants. He claimed to be the
descendant of a noble Scottish family, but the evidence for this is
lacking. His youth is said to have been spent in a Jesuit college, in
the office of a Parisian banker, and in that of a Parisian notary,
Chapelain, the father of the poet. But the first fact on which we can
rely with confidence is that, when not yet twenty, he obtained a post in
the war-office, by means of the influence that he possessed through the
marriage of one of his uncles to the sister of Michel Le Tellier, the
secretary of state for war. During some years he was employed in the
inspection of troops and other work of the kind, but at length his
ability, his extraordinary energy and his untiring laboriousness induced
Le Tellier to make him his private secretary. These qualities, combined,
it must be confessed, with a readiness to seize every opportunity of
advancement, soon brought Colbert both wealth and influence. In 1647 we
find him receiving the confiscated goods of his uncle Pussort, in 1648
obtaining 40,000 crowns with his wife Marie Charron, in 1649 appointed
councillor of state.
It was the period of the wars of the Fronde; and in 1651 the triumph of
the Condé family drove Cardinal Mazarin from Paris. Colbert, now aged
thirty-two, was engaged to keep him acquainted with what should happen
in the capital during his absence. At first Colbert's position was far
from satisfactory; for the close wary Italian treated him merely as an
ordinary agent. On one occasion, for example, he offered him 1000
crowns. The gift was refused somewhat indignantly; and by giving proof
of the immense value of his services, Colbert gained all that he
desired. His demands were not small; for, with an ambition mingled, as
his letters show, with strong family affection, he aimed at placing all
his relatives in positions of affluence and dignity; and many a rich
benefice and important public office was appropriated by him to that
purpose. For these favours, conferred upon him by his patron with no
stinted hand, his thanks were expressed in a most remarkable manner; he
published a letter defending the cardinal from the charge of ingratitude
which was often brought against him, by enumerating the benefits that he
and his family had received from him (April 1655). Colbert obtained,
besides, the higher object of his ambition; the confidence of Mazarin,
so far as it was granted to any one, became his, and he was entrusted
with matters of the gravest importance. In 1659 he was giving directions
as to the suppression of the revolt of the gentry which threatened in
Normandy, Anjou and Poitou, with characteristic decision arresting those
whom he suspected, and arranging every detail of their trial, the
immediate and arbitrary destruction of their castles and woods, and the
execution of their chief, Bonnesson. In the same year we have evidence
that he was already planning his great attempt at financial reform. His
earliest tentative was the drawing up of a _mémoire_ to Mazarin, showing
that of the taxes paid by the people not one-half reached the king. The
paper also contained an attack upon the superintendent Nicholas Fouquet
(q.v.), and being opened by the postmaster of Paris, who happened to be
a spy of Fouquet's, it gave rise to a bitter quarrel, which, however,
Mazarin repressed during his lifetime.
In 1661 the death of Mazarin allowed Colbert to take the first place in
the administration, and he made sure of the king's favour by revealing
to him some of Mazarin's hidden wealth. It was some time before he
assumed official dignities; but in January 1664 he obtained the post of
superintendent of buildings; in 1665 he was made controller-general; in
1669 he became minister of the marine; and he was also appointed
minister of commerce, the colonies and the king's palace. In short, he
soon acquired power in every department except that of war.
A great financial and fiscal reform at once claimed all his energies.
Not only the nobility, but many others who had no legal claim to
exemption, paid no taxes; the weight of the burden fell on the wretched
country-folk. Colbert sternly and fearlessly set about his task.
Supported by the young king, Louis XIV., he aimed the first blow at the
greatest of the extortioners--the bold and powerful superintendent,
Fouquet; whose fall, in addition, secured his own advancement.
The office of superintendent and many others dependent upon it being
abolished the supreme control of the finances was vested in a royal
council. The sovereign was its president; but Colbert, though for four
years he only possessed the title of intendant, was its ruling spirit,
great personal authority being conferred upon him by the king. The
career on which Colbert now entered must not be judged without constant
remembrance of the utter rottenness of the previous financial
administration. His ruthlessness in this case, dangerous precedent as it
was, was perhaps necessary; individual interests could not be respected.
Guilty officials having been severely punished, the fraudulent creditors
of the government remained to be dealt with. Colbert's method was
simple. Some of the public loans were totally repudiated, and from
others a percentage was cut off, which varied, at first according to his
own decision, and afterwards according to that of the council which he
established to examine all claims against the state.
Much more serious difficulties met his attempts to introduce equality in
the pressure of the taxes on the various classes. To diminish the number
of the privileged was impossible, but false claims to exemption were
firmly resisted, and the unjust direct taxation was lightened by an
increase of the indirect taxes, from which the privileged could not
escape. The mode of collection was at the same time immensely improved.
Order and economy being thus introduced into the working of the
government, the country, according to Colbert's vast yet detailed plan,
was to be enriched by commerce. Manufactures were fostered in every way
he could devise. New industries were established, inventors protected,
workmen invited from foreign countries, French workmen absolutely
prohibited to emigrate. To maintain the character of French goods in
foreign markets, as well as to afford a guarantee to the home consumer,
the quality and measure of each article were fixed by law, breach of the
regulations being punished by public exposure of the delinquent and
destruction of the goods, and, on the third offence, by the pillory. But
whatever advantage resulted from this rule was more than compensated by
the disadvantages it entailed. The production of qualities which would
have suited many purposes of consumption was prohibited, and the odious
supervision which became necessary involved great waste of time and a
stereotyped regularity which resisted all improvements. And other parts
of Colbert's schemes deserve still less equivocal condemnation. By his
firm maintenance of the corporation system, each industry remained in
the hands of certain privileged bourgeois; in this way, too, improvement
was greatly discouraged; while to the lower classes opportunities of
advancement were closed. With regard to international commerce Colbert
was equally unfortunate in not being in advance of his age; the tariffs
he published were protective to an extreme. The interests of internal
commerce were, however, wisely consulted. Unable to abolish the duties
on the passage of goods from province to province, he did what he could
to induce the provinces to equalize them. The roads and canals were
improved. The great canal of Languedoc was planned and constructed by
Pierre Paul Riquet (1604-1680) under his patronage. To encourage trade
with the Levant, Senegal, Guinea and other places, privileges were
granted to companies; but, like the more important East India Company,
all were unsuccessful. The chief cause of this failure, as well as of
the failure of the colonies, on which he bestowed so much watchful care,
was the narrowness and rigidity of the government regulations.
The greatest and most lasting of Colbert's achievements was the
establishment of the French marine. The royal navy owed all to him, for
the king thought only of military exploits. For its use, Colbert
reconstructed the works and arsenal of Toulon, founded the port and
arsenal of Rochefort, and the naval schools of Rochefort, Dieppe and
Saint-Malo, and fortified, with some assistance from Vauban (who,
however, belonged to the party of his rival Louvois), among other ports
those of Calais, Dunkirk, Brest and Havre. To supply it with recruits
he invented his famous system of classes, by which each seaman,
according to the class in which he was placed, gave six months' service
every three or four or five years. For three months after his term of
service he was to receive half-pay; pensions were promised; and, in
short, everything was done to make the navy popular. There was one
department, however, that was supplied with men on a very different
principle. Letters exist written by Colbert to the judges requiring them
to sentence to the oar as many criminals as possible, including all
those who had been condemned to death; and the convict once chained to
the bench, the expiration of his sentence was seldom allowed to bring
him release. Mendicants also, against whom no crime had been proved,
contraband dealers, those who had been engaged in insurrections, and
others immeasurably superior to the criminal class, nay, innocent
men--Turkish, Russian and negro slaves, and poor Iroquois Indians, whom
the Canadians were ordered to entrap--were pressed into that terrible
service. By these means the benches of the galleys were filled, and
Colbert took no thought of the long unrelieved agony borne by those who
filled them.
Nor was the mercantile marine forgotten. Encouragement was given to the
building of ships in France by allowing a premium on those built at
home, and imposing a duty on those brought from abroad; and as French
workmen were forbidden to emigrate, so French seamen were forbidden to
serve foreigners on pain of death.
Even ecclesiastical affairs, though with these he had no official
concern, did not altogether escape Colbert's attention. He took a
subordinate part in the struggle between the king and Rome as to the
royal rights over vacant bishoprics; and he seems to have sympathized
with the proposal that was made to seize part of the wealth of the
clergy. In his hatred of idleness, he ventured to suppress no less than
seventeen fêtes, and he had a project for lessening the number of those
devoted to clerical and monastic life, by fixing the age for taking the
vows some years later than was then customary. With heresy he was at
first unwilling to interfere, for he was aware of the commercial value
of the Huguenots; but when the king resolved to make all France Roman
Catholic, he followed him and urged his subordinates to do all that they
could to promote conversions.
In art and literature Colbert took much interest. He possessed a
remarkably fine private library, which he delighted to fill with
valuable manuscripts from every part of Europe where France had placed a
consul. He has the honour of having founded the Academy of Sciences (now
called the Institut de France), the Observatory, which he employed
Claude Perrault to build and brought G. D. Cassini (1625-1712) from
Italy to superintend, the Academies of Inscriptions and Medals, of
Architecture and of Music, the French Academy at Rome, and Academies at
Arles, Soissons, Nîmes and many other towns, and he reorganized the
Academy of Painting and Sculpture which Richelieu had established. He
was a member of the French Academy; and one very characteristic rule,
recorded to have been proposed by him with the intention of expediting
the great Dictionary, in which he was much interested, was that no one
should be accounted present at any meeting unless he arrived before the
hour of commencement and remained till the hour for leaving. In 1673 he
presided over the first exhibition of the works of living painters; and
he enriched the Louvre with hundreds of pictures and statues. He gave
many pensions to men of letters, among whom we find Molière, Corneille,
Racine, Boileau, P. D. Huet (1630-1721) and Antoine Varillas
(1626-1696), and even foreigners, as Huyghens, Vossius the geographer,
Carlo Dati the Dellacruscan, and Heinsius the great Dutch scholar. There
is evidence to show that by this munificence he hoped to draw out
praises of his sovereign and himself; but this motive certainly is far
from accounting for all the splendid, if in some cases specious,
services that he rendered to literature, science and art.
Indeed to everything that concerned the interests of France Colbert
devoted unsparing thought and toil. Besides all that has been
mentioned, he found time to do something for the better administration
of justice (the codification of ordinances, the diminishing of the
number of judges, the reduction of the expense and length of trials for
the establishment of a superior system of police) and even for the
improvement of the breed of horses and the increase of cattle. As
superintendent of public buildings he enriched Paris with boulevards,
quays and triumphal arches; he relaid the foundation-stone of the
Louvre, and brought Bernin from Rome to be its architect; and he erected
its splendid colonnade upon the plan of Claude Perrault, by whom Bernin
had been replaced. He was not permitted, however, to complete the work,
being compelled to yield to the king's preference for residences outside
Paris, and to devote himself to Marly and Versailles.
Amid all these public labours his private fortune was never neglected.
While he was reforming the finances of the nation, and organizing its
navy, he always found time to direct the management of his smallest
farm. He died extremely rich, and left fine estates all over France. He
had been created marquis de Seignelay, and for his eldest son he
obtained the reversion of the office of minister of marine; his second
son became archbishop of Rouen; and a third son, the marquis d'Ormoy,
became superintendent of buildings.
To carry out his reforms, Colbert needed peace; but the war department
was in the hands of his great rival Louvois, whose influence gradually
supplanted that of Colbert with the king. Louis decided on a policy of
conquest. He was deaf also to all the appeals against the other forms of
his boundless extravagance which Colbert, with all his deference towards
his sovereign, bravely ventured to make.[1] Thus it came about that,
only a few years after he had commenced to free the country from the
weight of the loans and taxes which crushed her to the dust, Colbert was
forced to heap upon her a new load of loans and taxes more heavy than
the last. Henceforth his life was a hopeless struggle, and the financial
and fiscal reform which, with the great exception of the establishment
of the navy, was the most valuable service to France contemplated by
him, came to nought.
Depressed by his failure, deeply wounded by the king's favour for
Louvois, and worn out by overwork, Colbert's strength gave way at a
comparatively early age. In 1680 he was the constant victim of severe
fevers, from which he recovered for a time through the use of quinine
prescribed by an English physician. But in 1683, at the age of
sixty-four, he was seized with a fatal illness, and on the 6th of
September he expired. It was said that he died of a broken heart, and a
conversation with the king is reported in which Louis disparagingly
compared the buildings of Versailles, which Colbert was superintending,
with the works constructed by Louvois in Flanders. He took to bed, it is
true, immediately afterwards, refusing to receive all messages from the
king; but his constitution was utterly broken before, and a post-mortem
examination proved that he had been suffering from stone. His body was
interred in the secrecy of night, for fear of outrage from the
Parisians, by whom his name was cordially detested.
Colbert was a great statesman, who did much for France. Yet his insight
into political science was not deeper than that of his age; nor did he
possess any superiority in moral qualities. His rule was a very bad
example of over-government. He did not believe in popular liberty;, the
parlements and the states-general received no support from him. The
technicalities of justice he never allowed to interfere with his plans;
but he did not hesitate to shield his friends. He trafficked in public
offices for the profit of Mazarin and in his own behalf. He caused the
suffering of thousands in the galleys; he had no ear, it is said, for
the cry of the suppliant. There was indeed a more human side to his
character, as is shown in his letters, full of wise advice and
affectionate care, to his children, his brothers, his cousins even. Yet
to all outside he was "the man of marble." Madame de Sévigné called him
"the North." To diplomacy he never pretended; persuasion and deceit were
not the weapons he employed; all his work was carried out by the iron
hand of authority. He was a great statesman in that he conceived a
magnificent yet practicable scheme for making France first among
nations, and in that he possessed a matchless faculty for work, neither
shrinking from the vastest undertakings nor scorning the most trivial
details.
Numerous _vies_ and _éloges_ of Colbert have been published; but the
most thorough student of his life and administration was Pierre
Clément, member of the Institute, who in 1846 published his _Vie de
Colbert_, and in 1861 the first of the 9 vols. of the _Lettres,
instructions, et mémoires de Colbert_. The historical introductions
prefixed to each of these volumes have been published by Mme. Clément
under the title of the _Histoire de Colbert et de son administration_
(3rd ed., 1892). The best short account of Colbert as a statesman is
that in Lavisse, _Histoire de France_ (1905), which gives a thorough
study of the administration. Among Colbert's papers are _Mémoires sur
les affaires de finance de France_ (written about 1663), a fragment
entitled _Particularités secrètes de la vie du Roy_, and other
accounts of the earlier part of the reign of Louis XIV. (J. T. S.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] See especially a _Mémoire_ presented to the king in 1666,
published in the _Lettres, &c., de Colbert_, vol. ii.
COLBERT DE CROISSY, CHARLES, MARQUIS (1625-1696), French diplomatist,
like his elder brother Jean Baptiste Colbert, began his career in the
office of the minister of war Le Tellier. In 1656 he bought a
counsellorship at the parlement of Metz, and in 1658 was appointed
intendant of Alsace and president of the newly-created sovereign council
of Alsace. In this position he had to re-organize the territory recently
annexed to France. The steady support of his brother at court gained for
him several diplomatic missions--to Germany and Italy (1659-1661). In
1662 he became marquis de Croissy and _président à mortier_ of the
parlement of Metz. After various intendancies, at Soissons (1665), at
Amiens (1666), and at Paris (1667), he turned definitely to diplomacy.
In 1668 he represented France at the conference of Aix-la-Chapelle; and
in August of the same year was sent as ambassador to London, where he
was to negotiate the definite treaty of alliance with Charles II. He
arranged the interview at Dover between Charles and his sister Henrietta
of Orleans, gained the king's personal favour by finding a mistress for
him, Louise de Kéroualle, maid of honour to Madame, and persuaded him to
declare war against Holland. The negotiation of the treaty of Nijmwegen
(1676-1678) still further increased his reputation as a diplomatist and
Louis XIV. made him secretary of state for foreign affairs after the
disgrace of Arnauld de Pomponne, brought about by his brother, 1679. He
at once assumed the entire direction of French diplomacy. Foreign
ambassadors were no longer received and diplomatic instructions were no
longer given by other secretaries of state. It was he, not Louvois, who
formed the idea of annexation during a time of peace, by means of the
chambers of reunion. He had outlined this plan as early as 1658 with
regard to Alsace. His policy at first was to retain the territory
annexed by the chambers of reunion without declaring war, and for this
purpose he signed treaties of alliance with the elector of Brandenburg
(1681), and with Denmark (1683); but the troubles following upon the
revocation of the edict of Nantes (1685) forced him to give up his
scheme and to prepare for war with Germany (1688). The negotiations for
peace had been begun again when he died, on the 28th of July 1696. His
clerk, Bergeret, was his invaluable assistant.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--His papers, preserved in the _Archives des affaires
étrangères_ at Paris, have been partially published in the _Recueil
des instructions données aux ambassadeurs et ministres de France_
(since 1884). See especially the volumes:--_Autriche_ (t. i.), _Suède_
(t. ii.), _Rome_ (t. vi.), _Bavière_ (t. viii.), _Savoie_ (t. xiv.),
_Prusse_ (t. xvi.). Other documents have been published in Mignet's
_Négociations relatives à la succession d'Espagne_, vol. iv., and in
the collection of _Lettres et négociations ... pour la paix de
Nimègue_, 1676-1677 (La Haye, 1710). In addition to the _Mémoires_ of
the time, see Spanheim, _Relation de la cour de France en 1690_, ed.
E. Bourgeois (Paris and Lyons, 1900); Baschet, _Histoire du depôt des
affaires étrangères_; C. Rousset, _Histoire de Louvois_ (4 vols.,
Paris, 1863); E. Bourgeois, "Louvois, et Colbert de Croissy," in the
_Revue historique_, vol. xxxiv. (1887); A. Waddington, _Le Grand
Électeur et Louis XIV_ (Paris, 1905); G. Pagis, _Le Grand Électeur et
Louis XIV_ (Paris, 1905).
COLBURN, HENRY (d. 1855), British publisher, obtained his earliest
experience of bookselling in London at the establishment of W. Earle,
Albemarle Street, and afterwards as an assistant at Morgan's Library,
Conduit Street, of which in 1816 he became proprietor. He afterwards
removed to New Burlington Street, where he established himself as a
publisher, resigning the Conduit Street Library to Messrs Saunders &
Otley. In 1814 he originated the _New Monthly Magazine_, of which at
various times Thomas Campbell, Bulwer Lytton, Theodore Hook and Harrison
Ainsworth were editors. Colburn published in 1818 _Evelyn's Diary_, and
in 1825 the _Diary of Pepys_, edited by Lord Braybrooke, paying £2200
for the copyright. He also issued Disraeli's first novel, _Vivian Grey_,
and a large number of other works by Theodore Hook, G. P. R. James,
Marryat and Bulwer Lytton. In 1829 Richard Bentley (q.v.) was taken into
partnership; and in 1832 Colburn retired, but set up again soon
afterwards independently in Great Marlborough Street; his business was
taken over in 1841 by Messrs Hurst & Blackett. Henry Colburn died on the
16th of August 1855, leaving property to the value of £35,000.
COLBURN, ZERAH (1804-1840), American mathematical prodigy, was born at
Cabot, Vermont, on the 1st of September 1804. At a very early age he
developed remarkable powers of calculating with extreme rapidity, and in
1810 his father began to exhibit him. As a performing prodigy he visited
Great Britain and France. From 1816 to 1819 he studied in Westminster
school, London. After the death of his father in 1824 he returned to
America, and from 1825 to 1834 he was a Methodist preacher. As he grew
older his extraordinary calculating powers diminished. From 1835 until
his death, on the 2nd of March 1840, he was professor of languages at
the Norwich University in Vermont. He published a _Memoir_ of his life
in 1833.
His nephew, also named ZERAH COLBURN (1832-1870), was a well-known
mechanical engineer; the editor successively of the _Railroad Advocate_,
in New York, _The Engineer_, in London, and _Engineering_, in London;
and the author of a work entitled _The Locomotive Engine_ (1851).
COLBY, THOMAS FREDERICK (1784-1852), British major-general and director
of ordnance survey, was born at St Margaret's, Rochester, on the 1st of
September 1784, a member of a South Wales family. Entering the Royal
Engineers he began in 1802 a life-long connexion with the Ordnance
Survey department. His most important work was the survey of Ireland.
This he planned in 1824, and was engaged upon it until 1846. The last
sheets of this survey were almost ready for issue in that year when he
reached the rank of major-general, and according to the rules of the
service had to vacate his survey appointment. He was the inventor of the
compensation bar, an apparatus used in base-measurements. He died at New
Brighton on the 9th of October 1852.
COLCHAGUA, a province of central Chile, bounded N. by Santiago and
O'Higgins, E. by Argentina, S. by Curicó, and W. by the Pacific. Its
area is officially estimated at 3856 sq. m.; pop. (1895) 157,566.
Extending across the great central valley of Chile, the province has a
considerable area devoted to agriculture, but much attention is given to
cattle and mining. Its principal river is the Rapel, sometimes
considered as the southern limit of the Inca empire. Its greatest
tributary is the Cachapoal, in the valley of which, among the Andean
foothills, are the popular thermal mineral baths of Cauquenes, 2306 ft.
above sea-level. The state central railway from Santiago to Puerto Montt
crosses the province and has two branches within its borders, one from
Rengo to Peumo, and one from San Fernando via Palmilla to Pichilemu on
the coast. The principal towns are the capital, San Fernando, Rengo and
Palmilla. San Fernando is one of the several towns founded in 1742 by
the governor-general José de Manso, and had a population of 7447 in
1895. Rengo is an active commercial town and had a population of 6463 in
1895.
COLCHESTER, CHARLES ABBOT, 1ST BARON (1757-1829), born at Abingdon, was
the son of Dr John Abbot, rector of All Saints, Colchester, and, by his
mother's second marriage, half-brother of the famous Jeremy Bentham.
From Westminster school Charles Abbot passed to Christ Church, Oxford,
at which he gained the chancellor's medal for Latin verse as well as the
Vinerian scholarship. In 1795, after having practised twelve years as a
barrister, and published a treatise proposing the incorporation of the
judicial system of Wales with that of England, he was appointed to the
office previously held by his brother of clerk of the rules in the
king's bench; and in June of the same year he was elected member of
parliament for Helston, through the influence of the duke of Leeds. In
1796 Abbot commenced his career as a reformer in parliament by obtaining
the appointment of two committees--the one to report on the arrangements
which then existed as to temporary laws or laws about to expire, the
other to devise methods for the better publication of new statutes. To
the latter committee, and a second committee which he proposed some
years later, it is owing that copies of new statutes were thenceforth
sent to all magistrates and municipal bodies. To Abbot's efforts were
also due the establishment of the Royal Record Commission, the reform of
the system which had allowed the public money to lie for some time at
long interest in the hands of the public accountants, by charging them
with payment of interest, and, most important of all, the act for taking
the first census, that of 1801. On the formation of the Addington
ministry in March 1801 Abbot became chief secretary and privy seal for
Ireland; and in the February of the following year he was chosen speaker
of the House of Commons--a position which he held with universal
satisfaction till 1817, when an attack of erysipelas compelled him to
retire. In response to an address of the Commons, he was raised to the
peerage as Baron Colchester, with a pension of £4000, of which £3000 was
to be continued to his heir. He died on the 8th of May 1829. His
speeches against the Roman Catholic claims were published in 1828.
He was succeeded by his eldest son CHARLES (d. 1867), postmaster-general
in 1858; and the latter by his son REGINALD CHARLES EDWARD (b. 1842), as
3rd baron.
COLCHESTER a market town, river port and municipal and parliamentary
borough of Essex, England; 52 m. N. E. by E. from London by the Great
Eastern railway. Pop. (1901) 38,373. It lies on the river Colne, 12 m.
from the open sea. Among numerous buildings of antiquarian interest the
first is the ruined keep of the castle, a majestic specimen of Norman
architecture, the largest of its kind in England, covering nearly twice
the area of the White Tower in London. It was erected in the reign of
William I. or William II., and is quadrangular, turreted at the angles.
As in other ancient buildings in Colchester there are evidences of the
use of material from the Roman town which occupied the site, but it is
clearly of Norman construction. Here is the museum of the Essex
Archaeological Society, with a remarkable collection of Roman
antiquities, and a library belonging to the Round family, who own the
castle. Among ecclesiastical buildings are remains of two monastic
foundations--the priory of St Botolph, founded early in the 12th century
for Augustinian canons, of which part of the fine Norman west front (in
which Roman bricks occur), and of the nave arcades remain; and the
restored gateway of the Benedictine monastery of St John, founded by
Eudo, steward to William II. This is a beautiful specimen of
Perpendicular work, embattled, flanked by spired turrets, and covered
with panel work. The churches of Holy Trinity, St Martin and St Leonard
at Hythe are of antiquarian interest; the first has an apparently
pre-Norman tower and the last preserves some curious frescoes.
The principal modern buildings are the town hall, corn exchange, free
library, the Eastern Counties' asylum, Essex county hospital and
barracks. The town has long been an important military centre with a
large permanent camp. There are a free grammar school (founded 1539), a
technical and university extension college, a literary institute and
medical and other societies. Castle Park is a public ground surrounding
the castle. Colchester is the centre of an agricultural district, and
has extensive corn and cattle markets. Industries include founding,
engineering, malting, flour-milling, rose-growing and the making of
clothing and boots and shoes. The oyster fisheries at the mouth of the
Colne, for which the town has been famous for centuries, belong to the
corporation, and are held on a ninety-nine years' lease by the Colne
Fishery Company, incorporated under an act of 1870. The harbour, with
quayage at the suburb of Hythe, is controlled by the corporation. The
parliamentary borough, which is co-extensive with the municipal, returns
one member. The municipal corporation consists of a mayor, 8 aldermen
and 24 councillors. Area 11,333 acres.
The Roman town, _Colonia Victricensis Camalodunum_ (or _Camulodunum_),
was of great importance. It was founded by Claudius, early in the period
of the Roman conquest, as a municipality with discharged Roman soldiers
as citizens, to assist the Roman dominion and spread its civilization.
Under Queen Boadicea the natives burned the town and massacred the
colonists; but Camalodunum soon rose to fresh prosperity and flourished
throughout the Roman period. Its walls and some other remains, including
the guardroom at the principal gate, can still be clearly traced, and
many such relics as sculptures, inscriptions, pavements and pottery have
been discovered. When the borough originated is not known, but Domesday
Book mentions two hundred and seventy-six burgesses and land _in commune
burgensium_, a phrase that may point to a nascent municipal corporation.
The first charter given by Richard I. in 1189 granted the burghers leave
to choose their bailiffs and a justice to hold the pleas of the crown
within the borough, freedom from the obligation of duel, freedom of
passage and pontage through England, free warren, fishery and custom as
in the time of Henry I., and other privileges. An _inspeximus_ of this
charter by Henry III. in 1252 granted the burgesses the return of
certain writs. The charters were confirmed by various kings, and new
grants obtained in 1447 and 1535. In 1635 Charles I. granted a fresh
charter, which replaced the bailiffs by a mayor, and in 1653 Cromwell
altered it to secure a permanent majority for his party on the
corporation. But his action was undone in 1659, and in 1663 Charles II.
granted a new charter. In 1684 the charters were surrendered, and a new
one obtained reserving to the crown power to remove the mayor and
alderman, and this one was further modified by James II. But the charter
of 1663 was confirmed in 1693 and remained in force till 1741, when the
liberties were allowed to lapse. In 1763 George III. made the borough a
renewed grant of its liberties. Colchester returned two members to
parliament from 1295 until 1885. Fairs were granted by Richard I. in
1189 to the hospital of St Mary Magdalene, and by Edward II. in 1319 to
the town for the eve of and feast of St Denis and the six following
days--a fair which is still held. In the 13th century Colchester was
sufficiently important as a port to pay a fee-farm of £46, its ships
plying to Winchelsea and France. Elizabeth and James I. encouraged
Flemish settlers in the manufacture of baize ("bays and says"), which
attained great importance, so that a charter of Charles I. speaks of
burgesses industriously exercising the manufacture of cloth. Both Camden
and Fuller mention the trade in barrelled oysters and candied
eringo-root. The most notable event in the history of the town was its
siege by Fairfax in 1648, when the raw levies of the Royalists in the
second civil war held his army at bay for nearly eleven weeks, only
surrendering when starved out, and when Cromwell's victory in the north
made further resistance useless. Colchester was made the see of a
suffragan bishop by King Henry VIII., and two bishops were in succession
appointed by him; no further appointments, however, were made until the
see was re-established under Queen Victoria.
See _Victoria County History, Essex_; _Charters and Letters Patent
granted to the Borough of Colchester_ (Colchester, 1903); Morant,
_History of Colchester_ (1748); Harrod's _Report on the Records of
Colchester_ (1865); Cutts, _Colchester_ (Historic Towns) 1888; J. H.
Round, "Colchester and the Commonwealth" in _Eng. Hist. Rev._ vol.
xv.; Benham, _Red Paper Book of Colchester_ (1902), and _Oath Book of
Colchester_ (1907).
COLCHESTER, a township of Chittenden county, Vermont, U.S.A., on Lake
Champlain, immediately N.E. of Burlington, from which it is separated by
the Winooski river. Pop. (1900) 5352; (1910) 6450. It is served by the
Central Vermont railway. The surface is generally gently rolling, and in
places along the banks of the Winooski or Onion river, the shore of the
lake, and in the valleys, it is very picturesque. At Mallett's Bay, an
arm of Lake Champlain, 2 m. long and 1½ m. wide, several large private
schools hold summer sessions. The soil is varied, much of it being good
meadow land or well adapted to the growing of grain and fruit. The
township has two villages: Colchester Centre, a small, quiet settlement,
and Winooski (pop. in 1900, 3783) on the Winooski river. This stream
furnishes good water power, and the village has manufactories of cotton
and woollen goods, lumber, woodenware, gold and silver plated ware,
carriages, wagons and screens. Within the township there is a United
States military reservation, Fort Ethan Allen. The village was founded
in 1772 by Ira Allen and for many years it was known as "Allen's
Settlement"; but later it was called Winooski Falls, and in 1866 it was
incorporated as the Village of Winooski.
COLCHICUM, the Meadow Saffron, or Autumn Crocus (_Colchicum autumnale_),
a perennial plant of the natural order, Liliaceae, found wild in rich
moist meadow-land in England and Ireland, in middle and southern Europe,
and in the Swiss Alps. It has pale-purple flowers, rarely more than
three in number; the perianth is funnel-shaped, and produced below into
a long slender tube, in the upper part of which the six stamens are
inserted. The ovary is three-celled, and lies at the bottom of this
tube. The leaves are three or four in number, flat, lanceolate, erect
and sheathing; and there is no stem. Propagation is by the formation of
new corms from the parent corm, and by seeds. The latter are numerous,
round, reddish-brown, and of the size of black mustard-seeds. The corm
of the meadow-saffron attains its full size in June or early in July. A
smaller corm is then formed from the old one, close to its root; and
this in September and October produces the crocus-like flowers. In the
succeeding January or February it sends up its leaves, together with the
ovary, which perfects its seeds during the summer. The young corm, at
first about the diameter of the flower-stalk, grows continuously, till
in the following July it attains the size of a small apricot. The parent
corm remains attached to the new one, and keeps its form and size till
April in the third year of its existence, after which it decays. In some
cases a single corm produces several new plants during its second spring
by giving rise to immature corms.
_C. autumnale_ and its numerous varieties as well as other species of
the genus, are well known in cultivation, forming some of the most
beautiful of autumn-flowering plants. They are very easy to cultivate
and do not require lifting. The most suitable soil is a light, sandy
loam enriched with well decomposed manure, in a rather moist situation.
The corms should be planted not less than 3 in. deep. Propagation is
effected by seed or increase of corms; the seed should be sown as soon
as it is ripe in June or July.
Colchicum was known to the Greeks under the name of [Greek: Kolchikon],
from [Greek: Kolchis], or Colchis, a country in which the plant grew;
and it is described by Dioscorides as a poison. In the 17th century the
corms were worn by some of the German peasantry as a charm against the
plague. The drug was little used till 1763, when Baron Störck of Vienna
introduced it for the treatment of dropsy. Its use in febrile diseases,
at one time extensive, is now obsolete. As a specific for gout colchicum
was early employed by the Arabs; and the preparation known as _eau
médicinale_, much resorted to in the 18th century for the cure of gout,
owes its therapeutic virtues to colchicum; but general attention was
first directed by Sir Everard Home to the use of the drug in gout.
For medical purposes the corm should be collected in the early summer
and, after the outer coat has been removed, should be sliced and dried
at a temperature of 130° to 150° F.
The chief constituents of colchicum are two alkaloids, _colchicine_ and
_veratrine_. Colchicine is the active principle and may be given in full
form in doses of 1/32 to 1/16 grain. It is a yellow, micro-crystalline
powder, soluble in water, alcohol and chloroform, and forming readily
decomposed salts with acids. It is the methyl ester of a neutral body
_colchicein_, which may be obtained in white acicular crystals.
The official dose of powdered colchicum is 2 to 5 grains, which may be
given in a cachet. The British Pharmacopoeia contains (1) an extract of
the fresh corm, having doses of ¼ to 1 grain, and (2) the _Vinum
Colchici_, made by treating the dried corm with sherry and given in
doses of 10 to 30 minims. This latter is the preparation still most
generally used, though the presence of veratrine both in the corm and
the seeds renders the use of colchicine itself theoretically preferable.
The dried ripe seeds of this plant are also used in medicine. They are
exceedingly hard and difficult to pulverize, odourless, bitter and
readily confused with black mustard seeds. They contain a volatile oil
which does not occur in the corm, and their proportion of colchicine is
higher, for which reason the _Tinctura Colchici Seminum_--dose 5 to 15
minims--is preferable to the wine prepared from the corm. At present
this otherwise excellent preparation is not standardized, but the
suggestion has been made that it should be standardized to contain 0.1%
of colchicine. The salicylate of colchicine is stable in water and may
be given in doses of about one-thirtieth of a grain. It is often known
as Colchi-Sal.
_Pharmacology._--Colchicum or colchicine, when applied to the skin, acts
as a powerful irritant, causing local pain and congestion. When inhaled,
the powder causes violent sneezing, similar to that produced by
veratrine itself, which is, as already stated, a constituent of the
corm. Taken internally, colchicum or colchicine markedly increases the
amount of bile poured into the alimentary canal, being amongst the most
powerful of known cholagogues. Though this action doubtless contributes
to its remarkable therapeutic power, it is very far from being an
adequate explanation of the virtues of the drug in gout. In larger doses
colchicum or colchicine acts as a most violent gastrointestinal
irritant, causing terrible pain, colic, vomiting, diarrhoea, haemorrhage
from the bowel, thirst and ultimately death from collapse. This is
accelerated by a marked depressant action upon the heart, similar to
that produced by veratrine and aconite. Large doses also depress the
nervous system, weakening the anterior horns of grey matter in the
spinal cord so as ultimately to cause complete paralysis, and also
causing a partial insensibility of the cutaneous nerves of touch and
pain. The action of colchicum or colchicine upon the kidneys has been
minutely studied, and it is asserted on the one hand that the urinary
solids are much diminished and, on the other hand, that they are
markedly increased, the specific gravity of the secretion being much
raised. These assertions, and the total inadequacy of the pharmacology
of colchicum, as above detailed, to explain its specific therapeutic
property, show that the secret of colchicum is as yet undiscovered.
The sole but extremely important use of this drug is as a specific for
gout. It has an extraordinary power over the pain of acute gout; it
lessens the severity and frequency of the attacks when given
continuously between them, and it markedly controls such symptoms of
gout as eczema, bronchitis and neuritis, whilst it is entirely
inoperative against these conditions when they are not of gouty origin.
Despite the general recognition of these facts, the pharmacology of
colchicum has hitherto thrown no light on the pathology of gout, and the
pathology of gout has thrown no light upon the manner in which colchicum
exerts its unique influence upon this disease. Veratrine is useless in
the treatment of gout. A further curious fact, doubtless of very great
significance, but hitherto lacking interpretation, is that the
administration of colchicum during an acute attack of gout may often
hasten the oncoming of the next attack; and this property, familiar to
many gouty patients, may not be affected by the administration of small
doses after the attack. Altogether colchicum is a puzzle, and will
remain so until the efficient poison of gout is isolated and defined.
When that is done, colchicine may be found to exhibit a definite
chemical interaction with this hitherto undiscovered substance.
In _colchicum poisoning_, empty the stomach, give white of egg, olive or
salad oil, and water. Use hot bottles and stimulants, especially trying
to counteract the cardiac depression by atropine, caffeine,
strophanthin, &c.
COLCHIS, in ancient geography, a nearly triangular district of Asia
Minor, at the eastern extremity of the Black Sea, bounded on the N. by
the Caucasus, which separated it from Asiatic Sarmatia, E. by Iberia,
S. by the Montes Moschici, Armenia and part of Pontus, and W. by the
Euxine. The ancient district is represented roughly by the modern
province of Kutais (formerly Mingrelia). The name of Colchis first
appears in Aeschylus and Pindar. It was inhabited by a number of tribes
whose settlements lay chiefly along the shore of the Black Sea. The
chief of those were the Lazi, Moschi, Apsilae, Abasci, Sagadae, Suani
and Coraxi. These tribes differed so completely in language and
appearance from the surrounding nations, that the ancients originated
various theories to account for the phenomenon. Herodotus, who states
that they, with the Egyptians and the Ethiopians, were the first to
practise circumcision, believed them to have sprung from the relics of
the army of Sesostris (q.v.), and thus regarded them as Egyptians.
Apollonius Rhodius (_Argon_, iv. 279) states that the Egyptians of
Colchis preserved as heirlooms a number of wooden [Greek: kurbeis]
(tablets) showing seas and highways with considerable accuracy. Though
this theory was not generally adopted by the ancients, it has been
defended, but not with complete success, by some modern writers. It is
quite possible that there was an ancient trade connexion between the
Colchians and the Mediterranean peoples. We learn that women were
buried, while the corpses of men were suspended on trees. The principal
coast town was the Milesian colony of Dioscurias (Roman Sebastopolis;
mod. Sukhum Kaleh), the ancient name being preserved in the modern C.
Iskuria. The chief river was the Phasis (mod. Rion). From Colchis is
derived the name of the plant Colchicum (q.v.).
Colchis was celebrated in Greek mythology as the destination of the
Argonauts, the home of Medea and the special domain of sorcery. Several
Greek colonies were founded there by Miletus. At a remote period it
seems to have been incorporated with the Persian empire, though the
inhabitants evidently enjoyed a considerable degree of independence; in
this condition it was found by Alexander the Great, when he invaded
Persia. From this time till the era of the Mithradatic wars nothing is
known of its history. At the time of the Roman invasion it seems to have
paid a nominal homage to Mithradates the Great and to have been ruled
over by Machares, his second son. On the defeat of Mithradates by
Pompey, it became a Roman province. After the death of Pompey,
Pharnaces, the son of Mithradates, rose in rebellion against the Roman
yoke, subdued Colchis and Armenia, and made head, though but for a short
time, against the Roman arms. After this Colchis was incorporated with
Pontus, and the Colchians are not again alluded to in ancient history
till the 6th century, when, along with the Abasci or Abasgi, under their
king Gobazes, whose mother was a Roman, they called in the aid of
Chosroes I. of Persia (541). The importance of the district, then
generally called Lazica from the Lazi (cf. mod. Lazistan) who led the
revolt, was due to the fact that it was the only remaining bar which
held the Persians, already masters of Iberia, from the Black Sea. It had
therefore been specially garrisoned by Justinian under first Peter, a
Persian slave, and subsequently Johannes Tzibos, who built Petra on the
coast as the Roman Headquarters. Tzibos took advantage of the extreme
poverty of the Lazi to create a Roman monopoly by which he became a
middleman for all the trade both export and import. Chosroes at once
accepted the invitation of Gobazes and succeeded in capturing Petra
(A.D. 541). The missionary zeal of the Zoroastrian priests soon caused
discontent among the Christian inhabitants of Colchis, and Gobazes,
perceiving that Chosroes intended to Persianize the district, appealed
to Rome, with the result that in 549 one Dagisthaeus was sent out with
7000 Romans and 1000 auxiliaries of the Tzani (Zani, Sanni). The "Lazic
War" lasted till 556 with varying success. Petra was recaptured in 551
and Archaeopolis was held by the Romans against the Persian general
Mermeroes. Gobazes was assassinated in 552, but the Persian general
Nachoragan was heavily defeated at Phasis in 553.
By the peace of 562 the district was left in Roman possession, but
during the next 150 years it is improbable that the Romans exercised
much authority over it. In 697 we hear of a revolt against Rome led by
Sergius the Patrician, who allied himself with the Arabs. Justinian II.
in his second period of rule sent Leo the Isaurian, afterwards emperor,
to induce the Alans to attack the Abasgi. The Alans, having gained
knowledge of the district by a trick, invaded Lazica, and, probably in
712, a Roman and Armenian army laid siege to Archaeopolis. On the
approach of a Saracen force they retired, but a small plundering
detachment was cut off. Ultimately Leo joined this band and aided by the
Apsilian chief Marinus escaped with them to the coast.
From the beginning of the 14th to the end of the 17th century the
district under the name Mingrelia (q.v.) was governed by an independent
dynasty, the Dadians, which was succeeded by a semi-independent dynasty,
the Chikovans, who by 1838 had submitted to Russia, though they retained
a nominal sovereignty. In 1866 the district was finally annexed by
Russia.
For the kings see Stokvis, _Manuel d'histoire_, i. 83. (J. M. M.)
COLCOTHAR (adapted in Romanic languages from Arabic _golgotar_, which
was probably a corruption of the Gr. [Greek: chalkanthos], from [Greek:
chalkos], copper, [Greek: anthos], flower, i.e. copper sulphate), a name
given to the brownish-red ferric oxide formed in the preparation of
fuming sulphuric (Nordhausen) acid by distilling ferrous sulphate. It is
used as a polishing powder, forming the rouge of jewellers, and as the
pigment Indian red. It is also known as _Crocus Martis_.
COLD (in O. Eng. _cald_ and _ceald_, a word coming ultimately from a
root cognate with the Lat. _gelu_, _gelidus_, and common in the Teutonic
languages, which usually have two distinct forms for the substantive and
the adjective, cf. Ger. _Kälte_, _kalt_, Dutch _koude_, _koud_),
subjectively the sensation which is excited by contact with a substance
whose temperature is lower than the normal; objectively a quality or
condition of material bodies which gives rise to that sensation. Whether
cold, in the objective sense, was to be regarded as a positive quality
or merely as absence of heat was long a debated question. Thus Robert
Boyle, who does not commit himself definitely to either view, says, in
his _New Experiments and Observations touching Cold_, that "the dispute
which is the _primum frigidum_ is very well known among naturalists,
some contending for the earth, others for water, others for the air, and
some of the moderns for nitre, but all seeming to agree that there is
some body or other that is of its own nature supremely cold and by
participation of which all other bodies obtain that quality." But with
the general acceptance of the dynamical theory of heat, cold naturally
came to be regarded as a negative condition, depending on decrease in
the amount of the molecular vibration that constitutes heat.
The question whether there is a limit to the degree of cold possible,
and, if so, where the zero must be placed, was first attacked by the
French physicist, G. Amontons, in 1702-1703, in connexion with his
improvements in the air-thermometer. In his instrument temperatures were
indicated by the height at which a column of mercury was sustained by a
certain mass of air, the volume or "spring" of which of course varied
with the heat to which it was exposed. Amontons therefore argued that
the zero of his thermometer would be that temperature at which the
spring of the air in it was reduced to nothing. On the scale he used the
boiling-point of water was marked at 73 and the melting-point of ice at
51½, so that the zero of his scale was equivalent to about -240° on the
centigrade scale. This remarkably close approximation to the modern
value of -273° for the zero of the air-thermometer was further improved
on by J. H. Lambert (_Pyrometrie_, 1779), who gave the value -270° and
observed that this temperature might be regarded as absolute cold.
Values of this order for the absolute zero were not, however,
universally accepted about this period. Laplace and Lavoisier, for
instance, in their treatise on heat (1780), arrived at values ranging
from 1500° to 3000° below the freezing-point of water, and thought that
in any case it must be at least 600° below, while John Dalton in his
_Chemical Philosophy_ gave ten calculations of this value, and finally
adopted -3000° C. as the natural zero of temperature. After J. P. Joule
had determined the mechanical equivalent of heat, Lord Kelvin approached
the question from an entirely different point of view, and in 1848
devised a scale of absolute temperature which was independent of the
properties of any particular substance and was based solely on the
fundamental laws of thermodynamics (see HEAT and THERMODYNAMICS). It
followed from the principles on which this scale was constructed that
its zero was placed at -273°, at almost precisely the same point as the
zero of the air-thermometer.
In nature the realms of space, on the probable assumption that the
interstellar medium is perfectly transparent and diathermanous, must, as
was pointed out by W. J. Macquorn Rankine, be incapable of acquiring any
temperature, and must therefore be at the absolute zero. That, however,
is not to say that if a suitable thermometer could be projected into
space it would give a reading of -273°. On the contrary, not being a
transparent and diathermanous body, it would absorb radiation from the
sun and other stars, and would thus become warmed. Professor J. H.
Poynting ("Radiation in the Solar System," _Phil. Trans._, A, 1903, 202,
p. 525) showed that as regards bodies in the solar system the effects of
radiation from the stars are negligible, and calculated that by solar
radiation alone a small absorbing sphere at the distance of Mercury from
the sun would have its temperature raised to 483° Abs. (210° C), at the
distance of Venus to 358° Abs. (85° C), of the earth to 300° Abs. (27°
C), of Mars to 243° Abs. (-30° C), and of Neptune to only 54° Abs. (-219°
C.). The French physicists of the early part of the 19th century held a
different view, and rejected the hypothesis of the absolute cold of
space. Fourier, for instance, postulated a fundamental temperature of
space as necessary for the explanation of the heat-effects observed on
the surface of the earth, and estimated that in the interplanetary
regions it was little less than that of the terrestrial poles and below
the freezing-point of mercury, though it was different in other parts of
space (_Ann. chim. phys._, 1824, 27, pp. 141, 150). C. S. M. Pouillet,
again, calculated the temperature of interplanetary space as -142° C.
(_Comptes rendus_, 1838, 7, p. 61), and Sir John Herschel as -150°
(_Ency. Brit._, 8th ed., art. "Meteorology," p. 643).
To attain the absolute zero in the laboratory, that is, to deprive a
substance entirely of its heat, is a thermodynamical impossibility, and
the most that the physicist can hope for is an indefinitely close
approach to that point. The lowest steady temperature obtainable by the
exhaustion of liquid hydrogen is about -262° C. (11° Abs.), and the
liquefaction of helium by Professor Kamerlingh Onnes in 1908 yielded a
liquid having a boiling-point of about 4.3° Abs., which on exhaustion
must bring us to within about 2½ degrees of the absolute zero. (See
LIQUID GASES.)
For a "cold," in the medical sense, see CATARRH and Respiratory
System: _Pathology_.
COLDEN, CADWALLADER (1688-1776), American physician and colonial
official, was born at Duns, Scotland, on the 17th of February 1688. He
graduated at the university of Edinburgh in 1705, spent three years in
London in the study of medicine, and emigrated to America in 1708. After
practising medicine for ten years in Philadelphia, he was invited to
settle in New York by Governor Hunter, and in 1718 was appointed the
first surveyor-general of the colony. Becoming a member of the
provincial council in 1720, he served for many years as its president,
and from 1761 until his death was lieutenant-governor; for a
considerable part of the time, during the interim between the
appointment of governors, he was acting-governor. About 1755 he retired
from medical practice. As early as 1729 he had built a country house
called Coldengham on the line between Ulster and Orange counties, where
he spent much of his time until 1761. Aristocratic and extremely
conservative, he had a violent distrust of popular government and a
strong aversion to the popular party in New York. Naturally he came into
frequent conflict with the growing sentiment in the colony in opposition
to royal taxation. He was acting-governor when in 1765 the stamped paper
to be used under the Stamp Act arrived in the port of New York; a mob
burned him in effigy in his own coach in Bowling Green, in sight of the
enraged acting-governor and of General Gage; and Colden was compelled to
surrender the stamps to the city council, by whom they were locked up
in the city hall until all attempts to enforce the new law were
abandoned. Subsequently Colden secured the suspension of the provincial
assembly by an act of parliament. He understood, however, the real
temper of the patriot party, and in 1775, when the outbreak of
hostilities seamed inevitable, he strongly advised the ministry to act
with caution and to concede some of the colonists' demands. When the war
began, he retired to his Long Island country seat, where he died on the
28th of September 1776. Colden was widely known among scientists and men
of letters in England and America. He was a life-long student of botany,
and was the first to introduce in America the classification system of
Linnaeus, who gave the name "Coldenia" to a newly recognized genus. He
was an intimate friend of Benjamin Franklin. He wrote several medical
works of importance in their day, the most noteworthy being _A Treatise
on Wounds and Fevers_ (1765); he also wrote _The History of the Five
Indian Nations depending on the Province of New York_ (1727, reprinted
1866 and 1905), and an elaborate work on _The Principles of Action in
Matter_ (1751) which, with his _Introduction to the Study of Physics_
(c. 1756), his _Enquiry into the Principles of Vital Motion_ (1766), and
his _Reflections_ (c. 1770), mark him as the first of American
materialists and one of the ablest material philosophers of his day. I.
Woodbridge Riley, in _American Philosophy_ (New York, 1907), made the
first critical study of Colden's philosophy, and said of it that it
combined "Newtonian mechanics with the ancient hylozoistic doctrine ..."
and "ultimately reached a kind of dynamic panpsychism, substance being
conceived as a self-acting and universally diffused principle, whose
essence is power and force."
See Alice M. Keys, _Cadwallader Colden, A Representative 18th Century
Official_ (New York, 1906), a Columbia University doctoral
dissertation; J. G. Mumford, _Narrative of Medicine in America_ (New
York, 1903); and Asa Gray, "Selections from the Scientific
Correspondence of Cadwallader Colden" in _American Journal of
Science_, vol. 44, 1843.
His grandson, CADWALLADER DAVID COLDEN (1769-1834), lawyer and
politician, was educated in London, but returned in 1785 to New York,
where he attained great distinction at the bar. He was a colonel of
volunteers during the war of 1812, and from 1818 to 1821 was the
successor of Jacob Radcliff as mayor of New York City. He was a member
of the state assembly (1818) and the state senate (1825-1827), and did
much to secure the construction of the Erie Canal and the organization
of the state public school system; and in 1821-1823 he was a
representative in Congress. He wrote a _Life of Robert Fulton_ (1817)
and a _Memoir of the Celebration of the Completion of the New York
Canals_ (1825).
COLD HARBOR, OLD and NEW, two localities in Hanover county, Virginia,
U.S.A., 10 m. N.E. of Richmond. They were the scenes of a succession of
battles, on May 31-June 12, 1864, between the Union forces under command
of General U. S. Grant and the Confederates under General R. E. Lee, who
held a strongly entrenched line at New Cold Harbor. The main Union
attack on June 3 was delivered by the II. (Hancock), VI. (Wright), and
XVIII. (W. F. Smith) corps, and was brought to a standstill in eight
minutes. An order from army headquarters to renew the attack was ignored
by the officers and men at the front, who realized fully the strength of
the hostile position. These troops lost as many as 5,000 men in an
hour's fighting, the greater part in the few minutes of the actual
assault. In the constant fighting of 31st of May to 12th of June on this
ground Grant lost 14,000 men. (See WILDERNESS and AMERICAN CIVIL WAR.)
COLDSTREAM, a police burgh of Berwickshire, Scotland. Pop. (1901) 1482.
It is situated on the north bank of the Tweed, here spanned by John
Smeaton's fine bridge of five arches, erected in 1763-1766, 13½ m.
south-west of Berwick by the North Eastern railway. The chief public
buildings are the town hall, library, mechanics' institute, and cottage
hospital. Some brewing is carried on. Owing to its position on the
Border and also as the first ford of any consequence above Berwick, the
town played a prominent part in Scottish history during many centuries.
Here Edward I. crossed the stream in 1296 with his invading host, and
Montrose with the Covenanters in 1640. Of the Cistercian priory, founded
about 1165 by Cospatric of Dunbar, and destroyed by the 1st earl of
Hertford in 1545, which stood a little to the east of the present
market-place, no trace remains; but for nearly four hundred years it was
a centre of religious fervour. Here it was that the papal legate, in the
reign of Henry VIII., published a bull against the printing of the
Scriptures; and by the irony of fate its site was occupied in the 19th
century by an establishment, under Dr Adam Thomson, for the production
of cheap Bibles. At Coldstream General Monk raised in 1659 the
celebrated regiment of Foot Guards bearing its name. Like Gretna Green,
Coldstream long enjoyed a notoriety as the resort of runaway couples,
the old toll-house at the bridge being the usual scene of the marriage
ceremony. "Marriage House," as it is called, still exists in good
repair. Henry Brougham, afterwards lord chancellor, was married in this
clandestine way, though in an inn and not at the bridge, in 1821.
Birgham, 3 m. west, was once a place of no small importance, for there
in 1188 William the Lion conferred with the bishop of Durham concerning
the attempt of the English Church to impose its supremacy upon Scotland;
there in 1289 was held the convention to consider the question of the
marriage of the Maid of Norway with Prince Edward of England; and there,
too, in 1290 was signed the treaty of Birgham, which secured the
independence of Scotland. Seven miles below Coldstream on the English
side, though 6 m. north-east of it, are the massive ruins of Norham
Castle, made famous by Scott's _Marmion_, and from the time of its
building by Ranulph Flambard in 1121 a focus of Border history during
four centuries.
COLDWATER, a city and county-seat of Branch county, Michigan, U.S.A., on
Coldwater Stream (which connects two of the group of small lakes in the
vicinity), about 80 m. S.S.E. of Grand Rapids. Pop. (1890) 5247; (1900)
6216, of whom 431 were foreign-born; (1904) 6225; (1910) 5945. It is
served by the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern railway. It is the seat of
a state public school and temporary home (opened in 1874) for dependent,
neglected or ill-treated children, who are received at any age under
twelve. The city is situated in a fine farming region, has an important
flouring and grist mill industry, and also manufactures Portland cement,
liniment, lumber, furniture, sashes, doors and blinds, brass castings,
sleighs, shoes, &c. The municipality owns and operates the water-works
and electric lighting plant. Coldwater was settled in 1829, was laid out
as a town under the name of Lyons in 1832, received its present name in
the following year, was incorporated as a village in 1837, was reached
by railway and became the county-seat in 1851, and was chartered as a
city in 1861.
COLE, SIR HENRY (1808-1882), English civil servant, was born at Bath on
the 15th of July 1808, and was the son of an officer in the army. At the
age of fifteen he became clerk to Sir Francis Palgrave, then a
subordinate officer in the record office, and, helped by Charles Buller,
to whom he had been introduced by Thomas Love Peacock, and who became
chairman of a royal commission for inquiry into the condition of the
public records, worked his way up until he became an assistant keeper.
He largely assisted in influencing public opinion in support of Sir
Rowland Hill's reforms at the post office. A connexion with the Society
of Arts caused him to drift gradually out of the record office: he was a
leading member of the commission that organized the Great Exhibition of
1851, and upon the conclusion of its labours was made secretary to the
School of Design, which by a series of transformations became in 1853
the Department of Science and Art. Under its auspices the South
Kensington (now Victoria and Albert) Museum was founded in 1855 upon
land purchased out of the surplus of the exhibition, and Cole
practically became its director, retiring in 1873. His proceedings were
frequently criticized, but the museum owes much to his energy.
Indefatigable, genial and masterful, he drove everything before him, and
by all sorts of schemes and devices built up a great institution, whose
variety and inequality of composition seemed imaged in the anomalous
structure in which it was temporarily housed. He also, though to the
financial disappointment of many, conferred a great benefit upon the
metropolis by originating the scheme for the erection of the Royal
Albert Hall. He was active in founding the national training schools for
cookery and music, the latter the germ of the Royal College of Music. He
edited the works of his benefactor Peacock; and was in his younger days
largely connected with the press, and the author of many useful
topographical handbooks published under the pseudonym of "Felix
Summerly." He died on the 18th of April 1882.
COLE, THOMAS (1801-1848), American landscape painter, was born at
Bolton-le-Moors, England, on the 1st of February 1801. In 1819 the
family emigrated to America, settling first in Philadelphia and then at
Steubenville, Ohio, where Cole learned the rudiments of his profession
from a wandering portrait painter named Stein. He went about the country
painting portraits, but with little financial success. Removing to New
York (1825), he displayed some landscapes in the window of an
eating-house, where they attracted the attention of the painter Colonel
Trumbull, who sought him out, bought one of his canvases, and found him
patrons. From this time Cole was prosperous. He is best remembered by a
series of pictures consisting of four canvases representing "The Voyage
of Life," and another series of five canvases representing "The Course
of Empire," the latter now in the gallery of the New York Historical
Society. They were allegories, in the taste of the day, and became
exceedingly popular, being reproduced in engravings with great success.
The work, however, was meretricious, the sentiment false, artificial and
conventional, and the artist's genuine fame must rest on his landscapes,
which, though thin in the painting, hard in the handling, and not
infrequently painful in detail, were at least earnest endeavours to
portray the world out of doors as it appeared to the painter; their
failings were the result of Cole's environment and training. He had an
influence on his time and his fellows which was considerable, and with
Durand he may be said to have founded the early school of American
landscape painters. Cole spent the years 1829-1832 and 1841-1842 abroad,
mainly in Italy, and at Florence lived with the sculptor Greenough.
After 1827 he had a studio in the Catskills which furnished the subjects
of some of his canvases, and he died at Catskill, New York, on the 11th
of February 1848. His pictures are in many public and private
collections. His "Expulsion from Eden" is in the Metropolitan Museum in
New York.
COLE, TIMOTHY (1852- ), American wood engraver, was born in London,
England, in 1852, his family emigrating to the United States in 1858. He
established himself in Chicago, where in the great fire of 1871 he lost
everything he possessed. In 1875 he removed to New York, finding work on
the _Century_ (then _Scribner's_) magazine. He immediately attracted
attention by his unusual facility and his sympathetic interpretation of
illustrations and pictures, and his publishers sent him abroad in 1883
to engrave a set of blocks after the old masters in the European
galleries. These achieved for him a brilliant success. His reproductions
of Italian, Dutch, Flemish and English pictures were published in book
form with appreciative notes by the engraver himself. Though the advent
of new mechanical processes had rendered wood engraving almost a lost
art and left practically no demand for the work of such craftsmen, Mr
Cole was thus enabled to continue his work, and became one of the
foremost contemporary masters of wood engraving. He received a medal of
the first class at the Paris Exhibition of 1900, and the only grand
prize given for wood engraving at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition at
St Louis, Missouri, in 1904.
COLE, VICAT (1833-1893), English painter, born at Portsmouth on the 17th
of April 1833, was the son of the landscape painter, George Cole, and in
his practice followed his father's lead with marked success. He
exhibited at the British Institution at the age of nineteen, and was
first represented at the Royal Academy in 1853. His election as an
associate of this institution took place in 1870, and he became an
Academician ten years later. He died in London on the 6th of April 1893.
The wide popularity of his work was due partly to the simple directness
of his technical method, and partly to his habitual choice of attractive
material. Most of his subjects were found in the counties of Surrey and
Sussex, and along the banks of the Thames. One of his largest pictures,
"The Pool of London," was bought by the Chantrey Fund Trustees in 1888,
and is now in the Tate Gallery.
See Robert Chignell, _The Life and Paintings of Vicat Cole, R.A._
(London, 1899).
COLEBROOKE, HENRY THOMAS (1765-1837), English Orientalist, the third son
of Sir George Colebrooke, 2nd baronet, was born in London on the 15th of
June 1765. He was educated at home; and when only fifteen he had made
considerable attainments in classics and mathematics. From the age of
twelve to sixteen he resided in France, and in 1782 was appointed to a
writership in India. About a year after his arrival there he was placed
in the board of accounts in Calcutta; and three years later he was
removed to a situation in the revenue department at Tirhut. In 1789 he
was removed to Purneah, where he investigated the resources of that part
of the country, and published his _Remarks on the Husbandry and Commerce
of Bengal_, privately printed in 1795, in which he advocated free trade
between Great Britain and India. After eleven years' residence in India,
Colebrooke began the study of Sanskrit; and to him was confided the
translation of the great _Digest of Hindu Laws_, which had been left
unfinished by Sir William Jones. He translated the two treatises
_Mitacshara_ and _Dayabhaga_ under the title _Law of Inheritance_. He
was sent to Nagpur in 1799 on a special mission, and on his return was
made a judge of the new court of appeal, over which he afterwards
presided. In 1805 Lord Wellesley appointed him professor of Hindu Law
and Sanskrit at the college of Fort William. During his residence at
Calcutta he wrote his _Sanskrit Grammar_ (1805), some papers on the
religious ceremonies of the Hindus, and his _Essay on the Vedas_ (1805),
for a long time the standard work on the subject. He became member of
council in 1807 and returned to England seven years later. He died on
the 18th of March 1837. He was a director of the Asiatic Society, and
many of the most valuable papers in the society's _Transactions_ were
communicated by him.
His life was written by his son, Sir T. E. Colebrooke, in 1873.
COLEMANITE, a hydrous calcium borate, Ca2B6O11 + 5H2O, found in
California as brilliant monoclinic crystals. It contains 50.9% of boron
trioxide, and is an important source of commercial borates and boracic
acid. Beautifully developed crystals, up to 2 or 3 in. in length,
encrust cavities in compact, white colemanite; they are colourless and
transparent, and the brilliant lustre of their faces is vitreous to
adamantine in character. There is a perfect cleavage parallel to the
plane of symmetry of the crystals. Hardness 4-4½; specific gravity 2.42.
The mineral was first discovered in 1882 in Death Valley, Inyo county,
California, and in the following year it was found in greater abundance
near Daggett in San Bernardino county, forming with other borates and
borosilicates a bed in sedimentary strata of sandstones and clays; in
more recent years very large masses have been found and worked in these
localities, and also in Los Angeles county (see Special Report, 1905, of
U.S. Census Bureau on _Mines and Quarries_; and _Mineral Resources of
the U.S._, 1907).
Priceite and pandermite are hydrous calcium borates with very nearly the
same composition as colemanite, and they may really be only impure forms
of this species. They are massive white minerals, the former friable and
chalk-like, and the latter firm and compact in texture. Priceite occurs
near Chetco in Curry county, Oregon, where it forms layers between a bed
of slate and one of tough blue steatite; embedded in the steatite are
rounded masses of priceite varying in size from that of a pea to masses
weighing 200 lb. Pandermite comes from Asia Minor, and is shipped from
the port of Panderma on the Sea of Marmora: it occurs as large nodules,
up to a ton in weight, beneath a thick bed of gypsum.
Another borate of commercial importance found abundantly in the
Californian deposits is ulexite, also known as boronatrocalcite or
"cotton-ball," a hydrous calcium and sodium borate, CaNaB5O9 + 8H2O,
which forms rounded masses consisting of a loose aggregate of fine
fibres. It is the principal species in the borate deposits in the
Atacama region of South America. (L. J. S.)
COLENSO, JOHN WILLIAM (1814-1883), English bishop of Natal, was born at
St Austell, Cornwall, on the 24th of January 1814. His family were in
embarrassed circumstances, and he was indebted to relatives for the
means of university education. In 1836 he was second wrangler and
Smith's prizeman at Cambridge, and in 1837 he became fellow of St
John's. Two years later he went to Harrow as mathematical tutor, but the
step proved an unfortunate one. The school was just then at the lowest
ebb, and Colenso not only had few pupils, but lost most of his property
by a fire. He went back to Cambridge, and in a short time paid off heavy
debts by diligent tutoring and the proceeds of his series of manuals of
algebra (1841) and arithmetic (1843), which were adopted all over
England. In 1846 he became rector of Forncett St Mary, Norfolk, and in
1853 he was appointed bishop of Natal. He at once devoted himself to
acquiring the Zulu language, of which he compiled a grammar and a
dictionary, and into which he translated the New Testament and other
portions of Scripture. He had already given evidence, in a volume of
sermons dedicated to Maurice, that he was not satisfied with the
traditional views about the Bible. The puzzling questions put to him by
the Zulus strengthened him in this attitude and led him to make a
critical examination of the Pentateuch. His conclusions, positive and
negative, were published in a series of treatises on the Pentateuch,
extending from 1862 to 1879, and, being in advance of his time, were
naturally disputed in England with a fervour of conviction equal to his
own. On the continent they attracted the notice of Abraham Kuenen, and
furthered that scholar's investigations.
While the controversy raged in England, the South African bishops, whose
suspicions Colenso had already incurred by the liberality of his views
respecting polygamy among native converts and by a commentary upon the
Epistle to the Romans (1861), in which he combated the doctrine of
eternal punishment, met in conclave to condemn him, and pronounced his
deposition (December 1863). Colenso, who had refused to appear before
their tribunal otherwise than as sending a protest by proxy, appealed to
the privy council, which pronounced that the metropolitan of Cape Town
(Robert Gray) had no coercive jurisdiction and no authority to interfere
with the bishop of Natal. No decision, therefore, was given upon the
merits of the case. His adversaries, though unable to obtain his
condemnation, succeeded in causing him to be generally inhibited from
preaching in England, and Bishop Gray not only excommunicated him but
consecrated a rival bishop for Natal (W. K. Macrorie), who, however,
took his title from Maritzburg. The contributions of the missionary
societies were withdrawn, but an attempt to deprive him of his episcopal
income was frustrated by a decision of the courts. Colenso, encouraged
by a handsome testimonial raised in England, to which many clergymen
subscribed, returned to his diocese, and devoted the latter years of his
life to further labours as a biblical commentator and translator. He
also championed the cause of the natives against Boer oppression and
official encroachments, a course by which he made more enemies among the
colonists than he had ever made among the clergy. He died at Durban on
the 20th of June 1883. His daughter Frances Ellen Colenso (1840-1887)
published two books on the relations of the Zulus to the British (1880
and 1885), taking a pro-Zulu view; and an elder daughter, Harriette E.
Colenso (b. 1847), became prominent as an advocate of the natives in
opposition to their treatment by Natal, especially in the case of
Dinizulu in 1888-1889 and in 1908-1909.
See his _Life_ by Sir G. W. Cox (2 vols., London, 1888).
COLENSO, a village of Natal on the right or south bank of the Tugela
river, 16 m. by rail south by east of Ladysmith. It was the scene of an
action fought on the 15th of December 1899 between the British forces
under Sir Redvers Buller and the Boers, in which the former were
repulsed. (See LADYSMITH.)
COLEOPTERA, a term used in zoological classification for the true
beetles which form one of the best-marked and most natural of the orders
into which the class Hexapoda (or Insecta) has been divided. For the
relationship of the Coleoptera to other orders of insects see HEXAPODA.
The name (Gr. [Greek: koleos], a sheath, and [Greek: ptera], wings) was
first used by Aristotle, who noticed the firm protective sheaths,
serving as coverings for the hind-wings which alone are used for flight,
without recognizing their correspondence with the fore-wings of other
insects.
These firm fore-wings, or elytra (fig. 1, A), are usually convex above,
with straight hind margins (_dorsa_); when the elytra are closed, the
two hind margins come together along the mid-dorsal line of the body,
forming a _suture_. In many beetles the hind-wings are reduced to mere
vestiges useless for flight, or are altogether absent, and in such cases
the two elytra are often fused together at the suture; thus organs
originally intended for flight have been transformed into an armour-like
covering for the beetle's hind-body. In correlation with their heavy
build and the frequent loss of the power of flight, many beetles are
terrestrial rather than aerial in habit, though a large proportion of
the order can fly well.
Aristotle's term was adopted by Linnaeus (1758), and has been
universally used by zoologists. The identification of the elytra of
beetles with the fore-wings of other insects has indeed been questioned
(1880) by F. Meinert, who endeavoured to compare them with the tegulae
of Hymenoptera, but the older view was securely established by the
demonstration in pupal elytra by J. G. Needham (1898) and W. L. Tower
(1903), of nervures similar to those of the hind-wing, and by the proof
that the small membranous structures present beneath the elytra of
certain beetles, believed by Meinert to represent the whole of the true
fore-wings, are in reality only the alulae.
_Structure._--Besides the conspicuous character of the elytra, beetles
are distinguished by the adaptation of the jaws for biting, the
mandibles (fig. 1, Bb) being powerful, and the first pair of maxillae
(fig. 1, Bc) usually typical in form. The maxillae of the second pair
(fig. 1, Bd) are very intimately fused together to form what is called
the "lower lip" or labium, a firm transverse plate representing the
fused basal portions of the maxillae, which may carry a small median
"ligula," representing apparently the fused inner maxillary lobes, a
pair of paraglossae (outer maxillary lobes), and a pair of palps. The
feelers of beetles differ greatly in the different families (cf. figs.
2b, 9b and 26b, c); the number of segments is usually eleven, but may
vary from two to more than twenty.
The head is extended from behind forwards, so that the crown
(epicranium) is large, while the face (clypeus) is small. The chin
(gula) is a very characteristic sclerite in beetles, absent only in a
few families, such as the weevils. There is usually a distinct labrum
(fig. 1, Ba).
The prothorax is large and "free," i.e. readily movable on the
mesothorax, an arrangement usual among insects with the power of rapid
running. The tergite of the prothorax (pronotum) is prominent in all
beetles, reaching back to the bases of the elytra and forming a
substantial shield for the front part of the body. The tergal regions of
the mesothorax and of the metathorax are hidden under the pronotum and
the elytra when the latter are closed, except that the mesothoracic
scutellum is often visible--a small triangular or semicircular plate
between the bases of the elytra (fig. 1, A). The ventral region of the
thoracic skeleton is complex, each segment usually possessing a median
sternum with paired episterna (in front) and epimera (behind). The
articular surfaces of the haunches (coxae) of the fore-legs are often
conical or globular, so that each limb works in a ball-and-socket joint,
while the hind haunches are large, displacing the ventral sclerites of
the first two abdominal segments (fig. 1, C). The legs themselves (fig.
1, A) are of the usual insectan type, but in many families one, two, or
even three of the five foot-segments may be reduced or absent. In
beetles of aquatic habit the intermediate and hind legs are modified as
swimming-organs (fig. 2, a), while in many beetles that burrow into the
earth or climb about on trees the fore-legs are broadened and
strengthened for digging, or lengthened and modified for clinging to
branches. The hard fore-wings (elytra) are strengthened with marginal
ridges, usually inflected ventrally to form epipleura which fit
accurately along the edges of the abdomen. The upper surface of the
elytron is sharply folded inwards at intervals, so as to give rise to a
regular series of external longitudinal furrows (striae) and to form a
set of supports between the two chitinous layers forming the elytron.
The upper surface often shows a number of impressed dots (punctures).
Along the sutural border of the elytron, the chitinous lamella forms a
tubular space within which are numerous glands. The glands occur in
groups, and lead into common ducts which open in several series along
the suture. Sometimes the glands are found beneath the disk of the
elytron, opening by pores on the surface. The hind-wings, when
developed, are characteristic in form, possessing a sub-costal nervure
with which the reduced radial nervure usually becomes associated. There
are several curved median and cubital nervures and a single anal, but
few cross nervures or areolets. The wing, when not in use, is folded
both lengthwise and transversely, and doubled up beneath the elytron; to
permit the transverse folding, the longitudinal nervures are
interrupted.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--Structure of Male Stag-Beetle (_Lucanus
cervus_). A, Dorsal view; B, mouth organs; C, under side.]
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--Water Beetles (_Dyticidae_). a, Beetle; b, head
of beetle with feelers and palps; c, larva; d, pupa.]
Ten segments can be recognized--according to the studies of K. W.
Verhoeff (1804-1896)--in a beetle's abdomen, but the tenth sternite is
usually absent. On account of the great extension of the metathorax and
the haunches of the large hind-legs, the first abdominal sternite is
wanting, and the second is usually so much reduced that the foremost
apparent ventral sclerite of the abdomen represents the third sternite.
From this point backwards the successive abdominal segments, as far as
the seventh or eighth, can be readily made out. The ninth and tenth
segments are at most times retracted within the eighth. The female can
protrude a long flexible tube in connexion with the eighth segment,
carrying the sclerites of the ninth at its extremity, and these
sclerites may carry short hairy processes--the stylets. This flexible
tube is the functional ovipositor, the typical insectan ovipositor with
its three pairs of processes (see HEXAPODA) being undeveloped among the
Coleoptera. In male beetles, however, the two pairs of genital processes
(paramera) belonging to the ninth abdominal segment are always present,
though sometimes reduced. Between them is situated, sometimes
asymmetrically, the prominent intromittent organ.
In the structure of the digestive system, beetles resemble most other
mandibulate insects, the food-canal consisting of gullet, crop, gizzard,
mid-gut or stomach, intestine and rectum. The stomach is beset
throughout its length with numerous small, finger-like caecal tubes. The
excretory (malpighian) tubes are few in number, either four or six. Many
beetles have, in connexion with the anus, glands which secrete a
repellent acid fluid, serving as a defence for the insect when attacked.
The "bombardier" ground beetles (fig. 5) have this habit. Oil-beetles
(figs. 23 and 24) and ladybirds (fig. 32) defend themselves by ejecting
drops of fluid from the knee-joints. The nervous system is remarkably
concentrated in some beetles, the abdominal ganglia showing a tendency
to become shifted forward and crowded together, and in certain chafers
all the thoracic and abdominal ganglia are fused into a single
nerve-centre situated in the thorax,--a degree of specialization only
matched in the insectan class among the Hemiptera and some muscid flies.
_Development._--The embryonic development (see HEXAPODA) has been
carefully studied in several genera of beetles. As regards growth
after hatching, all beetles undergo a "complete" metamorphosis, the
wing-rudiments developing beneath the cuticle throughout the larval
stages, and a resting pupal stage intervening between the last larval
instar[1] and the imago. The coleopterous pupa (figs. 2d, 3c) is
always "free," the legs, wings and other appendages not being fixed
to the body as in the pupa of a moth, and the likeness of pupa to
perfect insect is very close.
The most striking feature in the development of beetles is the great
diversity noticeable in the outward form of the larva in different
families. The larva of a ground-beetle or a carnivorous water-beetle
(fig. 2 c) is an active elongate grub with well-armoured cuticle. The
head--carrying feelers, mandibles and two pairs of maxillae--is
succeeded by the three thoracic segments, each bearing a pair of
strong five-segmented legs, whose feet, like those of the adult, carry
two claws. Ten segments can be distinguished in the tapering abdomen,
the ninth frequently bearing a pair of tail-feelers (cerci), and the
tenth, attached ventrally to the ninth, having the anal opening at its
extremity and performing the function of a posterior limb, supporting
and temporarily fixing the tail end of the insect on the surface over
which it crawls. Such a typically "campodeiform" grub, moving actively
about in pursuit of prey, is the one extreme of larval structure to be
noticed among the Coleoptera. The other is exemplified by the white,
wrinkled, soft-skinned, legless grub of a weevil, which lives
underground feeding on roots, or burrows in the tissues of plants
(fig. 3 b). Between these two extremes we find various transitional
forms: an active larva, as described above, but with four-segmented,
single-clawed legs, as among the rove-beetles and their allies; the
body well armoured, but slender and worm-like, with very short legs as
in wireworms and mealworms (figs. 18, 21 b); the body shortened, with
the abdomen swollen, but protected with tubercles and spines, and with
longish legs adapted for an active life, as in the predaceous larvae
of ladybirds; the body soft-skinned, swollen and caterpillar-like,
with legs well developed, but leading a sluggish underground life, as
in the grub of a chafer; the body soft-skinned and whitish, and the
legs greatly reduced in size, as in the wood-feeding grub of a
longhorn beetle. In the case of certain beetles whose larvae do not
find themselves amid appropriate food from the moment of hatching, but
have to migrate in search of it, an early larval stage, with legs, is
followed by later sluggish stages in which legs have disappeared,
furnishing examples of what is called hypermetamorphosis. For example,
the grub of a pea or bean beetle (_Bruchus_) is hatched, from the egg
laid by its mother on the carpel of a leguminous flower, with three
pairs of legs and spiny processes on the prothorax. It bores through
and enters the developing seed, where it undergoes a moult and becomes
legless. Similarly the newly-hatched larva of an oil-beetle (_Meloe_)
is an active little campodeiform insect, which, hatched from an egg
laid among plants, waits to attach itself to a passing bee. Carried to
the bee's nest, it undergoes a moult, and becomes a fat-bodied grub,
ready to lead a quiet life feeding on the bee's rich food-stores.
[Illustration: From Chittenden, _Yearbook_, 1894, U.S. Dept. of
Agriculture.
FIG. 3.--Grain Weevils. a, _Calandra granaria_; b, larva; c, pupa; d,
_C. oryzae_.]
_Distribution and Habits._--The Coleoptera are almost world-wide in
their distribution, being represented in the Arctic regions and on
almost all oceanic islands. Most of the dominant families--such as the
_Carabidae_ (ground-beetles), _Scarabaeidae_ (chafers), or
_Curculionidae_ (weevils) have a distribution as wide as the order. But
while some large families, such as the _Staphylinidae_ (rove-beetles)
are especially abundant on the great northern continents, becoming
scarcer in the tropics, others, the _Cicindelidae_ (tiger-beetles), for
example, are most strongly represented in the warmer regions of the
earth, and become scarce as the collector journeys far to south or
north. The distribution of many groups of beetles is restricted in
correspondence with their habits; the _Cerambycidae_ (longhorns), whose
larvae are wood-borers, are absent from timberless regions, and most
abundant in the great tropical forests. Some families are very
restricted in their range. The _Amphizoidae_, for example, a small
family of aquatic beetles, are known only from western North America and
Eastern Tibet, while an allied family, the _Pelobiidae_, inhabit the
British Isles, the Mediterranean region, Tibet and Australia. The
beetles of the British islands afford some very interesting examples of
restricted distribution among species. For example, large and
conspicuous European beetles, such as the stag-beetle (fig. 1, _Lucanus
cervus_) and the great water-beetle (_Hydrophilus piceus_, fig. 20), are
confined to eastern and southern Britain, and are unknown in Ireland. On
the other hand, there are Arctic species like the ground-beetle,
_Pelophila borealis_, and south-western species like the boring weevil,
_Mesites Tardyi_, common in Ireland, and represented in northern or
western Britain, but unknown in eastern Britain or in Central Europe.
Careful study of insular faunas, such as that of Madeira by T. V.
Wollaston, and of the Sandwich Islands by D. Sharp, and the comparison
of the species found with those of the nearest continental land, furnish
the student of geographical distribution with many valuable and
suggestive facts.
Notes on habit are given below in the accounts of the various families.
In general it may be stated that beetles live and feed in almost all the
diverse ways possible for insects. There are carnivores, herbivores and
scavengers among them. Various species among those that are predaceous
attack smaller insects, hunt in packs crustaceans larger than
themselves, insert their narrow heads into snail-shells to pick out and
devour the occupants, or pursue slugs and earthworms underground. The
vegetable-feeders attack leaves, herbaceous or woody stems and roots;
frequently different parts of a plant are attacked in the two active
stages of the life-history; the cockchafers, for example, eating leaves,
and their grubs gnawing roots. Some of the scavengers, like the burying
beetles, inter the bodies of small vertebrates to supply food for
themselves and their larvae, or, like the "sacred" beetle of Egypt,
collect for the same purpose stores of dung. Many beetles of different
families have become the "unbidden guests" of civilized man, and may be
found in dwelling-houses, stores and ships' cargoes, eating food-stuffs,
paper, furniture, tobacco and drugs. Hence we find that beetles of some
kind can hold their own anywhere on the earth's surface. Some climb
trees and feed on leaves, while others tunnel between bark and wood.
Some fly through the air, others burrow in the earth, while several
families have become fully adapted to life in fresh water. A large
number of beetles inhabit the deep limestone caves of Europe and North
America, while many genera and some whole families are at home nowhere
but in ants' nests. Most remarkable is the presence of a number of
beetles along the seashore between tide-marks, where, sheltered in some
secure nook, they undergo immersion twice daily, and have their active
life confined to the few hours of the low ebb.
_Stridulating Organs._--Many beetles make a hissing or chirping sound by
rubbing a "scraper," formed by a sharp edge or prominence on some part
of their exoskeleton, over a "file" formed by a number of fine ridges
situate on an adjacent region. These stridulating organs were mentioned
by C. Darwin as probable examples of the action of sexual selection;
they are, however, frequently present in both sexes, and in some
families also in the larvae. An account of the principal types of
stridulators that have been described has been published by C. J. Gahan
(1900). The file may be on the head--either upper or lower surface--and
the scraper formed by the front edge of the prothorax, as in various
wood-boring beetles (_Anobium_ and _Scolytus_). Or ridged areas on the
sides of the prothorax may be scraped by "files" on the front thighs, as
in some ground-beetles. Among the longhorn beetles, the prothorax
scrapes over a median file on the mid-dorsal aspect of the mesothorax.
In a large number of beetles of different families, stridulating areas
occur on various segments of the abdomen, and are scraped by the elytra.
It is remarkable that these organs are found in similar positions in
genera belonging to widely divergent families, while two genera of the
same family may have them in different positions. It follows, therefore,
that they have been independently acquired in the course of the
evolution of the Coleoptera.
Stridulating organs among beetle-larvae have been noted, especially in
the wood-feeding grub of the stag-beetles (_Lucanidae_) and their allies
the _Passalidae_, and in the dung-eating grubs of the dor-beetles
(_Geotrupes_), which belong to the chafer family (_Scarabaeidae_). These
organs are described by J. C. Schiödte and D. Sharp; in the stag-beetle
larva a series of short tubercles on the hind-leg is drawn across the
serrate edge of a plate on the haunch of the intermediate legs, while in
the Passalid grub the modified tip of the hind-leg acts as a scraper,
being so shortened that it is useless for locomotion, but highly
specialized for producing sound. Whatever may be the true explanation of
stridulating organs in adult beetles, sexual selection can have had
nothing to do with the presence of these highly-developed larval
structures. It has been suggested that the power of stridulation would
be advantageous to wood-boring grubs, the sound warning each of the
position of its neighbour, so that adjacent burrowers may not get in
each other's way. The root-feeding larvae of the cockchafer and allied
members of the _Scarabaeidae_ have a ridged area on the mandible, which
is scraped by teeth on the maxillae, apparently forming a stridulating
organ.
_Luminous Organs._--The function of the stridulating organs just
described is presumably to afford means of recognition by sound. Some
beetles emit a bright light from a portion of their bodies, which leads
to the recognition of mate or comrade by sight. In the wingless female
glow-worm (_Lampyris_, fig. 15 f) the luminous region is at the hinder
end, the organ emitting the light consisting, according to H. von
Wielowiejski (1882), of cells similar to those of the fat-body,
containing a substance that undergoes oxidation. The illumination is
intermittent, and appears to be under the control of the insect's
nervous system. The well-known "fire-flies" of the tropics are large
click-beetles (_Elateridae_), that emit light from paired spots on the
prothorax and from the base of the ventral abdominal region. The
luminous organs of these beetles consist of a specialized part of the
fat-body, with an inner opaque and an outer transparent layer. Its
structure has been described by C. Heinemann, and its physiology by R.
Dubois (1886), who considers that the luminosity is due to the influence
of an enzyme in the cells of the organ upon a special substance in the
blood. The eggs and larvae of the fire-flies are luminous as well as the
perfect beetles.
_Fossil History._--The Coleoptera can be traced back farther in time
than any other order of insects with complete transformations, if the
structures that have been described from the Carboniferous rocks of
Germany are really elytra. In the Triassic rocks of Switzerland remains
of weevils (_Curculionidae_) occur, a family which is considered by many
students the most specialized of the order. And when we know that the
_Chrysomelidae_ and _Buprestidae_ also lived in Triassic, and the
_Carabidae_, _Elateridae_, _Cerambycidae_ and _Scarabaeidae_, in Liassic
times, we cannot doubt that the great majority of our existing families
had already been differentiated at the beginning of the Mesozoic epoch.
Coming to the Tertiary we find the Oligocene beds of Aix, of east
Prussia (amber) and of Colorado, and the Miocene of Bavaria, especially
rich in remains of beetles, most of which can be referred to existing
genera.
_Classification._--The Coleoptera have been probably more assiduously
studied by systematic naturalists than any other order of insects. The
number of described species can now hardly be less than 100,000, but
there is little agreement as to the main principles of a natural
classification. About eighty-five families are generally recognized; the
difficulty that confronts the zoologists is the arrangement of these
families in "superfamilies" or "sub-orders." Such obvious features as
the number of segments in the foot and the shape of the feeler were
used by the early entomologists for distinguishing the great groups of
beetles. The arrangement dependent on the number of tarsal segments--the
order being divided into tribes _Pentamera_, _Tetramera_, _Heteromera_
and _Trimera_--was suggested by E. L. Geoffroy in 1762, adopted by P. A.
Latreille, and used largely through the 19th century. W. S. Macleay's
classification (1825), which rested principally on the characters of the
larvae, is almost forgotten nowadays, but it is certain that in any
systematic arrangement which claims to be natural the early stages in
the life-history must receive due attention. In recent years
classifications in part agreeing with the older schemes but largely
original, in accord with researches on the comparative anatomy of the
insects, have been put forward. Among the more conservative of these may
be mentioned that of D. Sharp (1899), who divides the order into six
great series of families: _Lamellicornia_ (including the chafers and
stag-beetles and their allies with five-segmented feet and plate-like
terminal segments to the feelers); _Adephaga_ (carnivorous, terrestrial
and aquatic beetles, all with five foot-segments); _Polymorpha_
(including a heterogeneous assembly of families that cannot be fitted
into any of the other groups); _Heteromera_ (beetles with the fore and
intermediate feet five-segmented, and the hind-feet four-segmented);
_Phytophaga_ (including the leaf-beetles, and longhorns, distinguished
by the apparently four-segmented feet), and _Rhynchophora_ (the weevils
and their allies, with head prolonged into a snout, and feet with four
segments). L. Ganglbauer (1892) divides the whole order into two
sub-orders only, the _Caraboidea_ (the _Adephaga_ of Sharp and the older
writers) and the _Cantharidoidea_ (including all other beetles), since
the larvae of _Caraboidea_ have five-segmented, two-clawed legs, while
those of all other beetles have legs with four segments and a single
claw. A. Lameere (1900) has suggested three sub-orders, the
_Cantharidiformia_ (including the _Phytophaga_, the _Heteromera_, the
_Rhynchophora_ and most of the _Polymorpha_ of Sharp's classification),
the _Staphyliniformia_ (including the rove-beetles, carrion-beetles and
a few allied families of Sharp's _Polymorpha_), and the _Carabidiformia_
(_Adephaga_). Lameere's classification is founded on the number of
abdominal sterna, the nervuration of the wings, the number of malpighian
tubules (whether four or six) and other structural characters.
Preferable to Lameere's system, because founded on a wider range of
adult characters and taking the larval stages into account, is that of
H. J. Kolbe (1901), who recognizes three sub-orders: (i.) the
_Adephaga_; (ii.) the _Heterophaga_, including the _Staphylinoidea_, the
_Actinorhabda_ (_Lamellicornia_), the _Heterorhabda_ (most of Sharp's
_Polymorpha_), and the _Anchistopoda_ (the _Phytophaga_, with the
ladybirds and some allied families which Sharp places among the
_Polymorpha_); (iii.) the _Rhynchophora_.
Students of the Coleoptera have failed to agree not only on a system of
classification, but on the relative specialization of some of the groups
which they all recognize as natural. Lameere, for example, considers
some of his _Cantharidiformia_ as the most primitive Coleoptera. J. L.
Leconte and G. H. Horn placed the _Rhynchophora_ (weevils) in a group
distinct from all other beetles, on account of their supposed primitive
nature. Kolbe, on the other hand, insists that the weevils are the most
modified of all beetles, being highly specialized as regards their adult
structure, and developing from legless maggots exceedingly different
from the adult; he regards the Adephaga, with their active armoured
larvae with two foot-claws, as the most primitive group of beetles, and
there can be little doubt that the likeness between larvae and adult may
safely be accepted as a primitive character among insects. In the
Coleoptera we have to do with an ancient yet dominant order, in which
there is hardly a family that does not show specialization in some point
of structure or life-history. Hence it is impossible to form a
satisfactory linear series.
In the classification adopted in this article, the attempt has been made
to combine the best points in old and recent schemes, and to avoid the
inconvenience of a large heterogeneous group including the vast majority
of the families.
ADEPHAGA.--This tribe includes beetles of carnivorous habit with five
segments on every foot, simple thread-like feelers with none of the
segments enlarged to form club or pectination, and the outer lobs
(galea) of the first maxilla usually two-segmented and palpiform (fig.
4 b). The transverse fold of the hind-wing is towards the tip, about
two-thirds of the wing-length from the base. At this fold the median
nervure stops and is joined by a cross nervure to the radial, which
can be distinguished throughout its length from the subcostal. There
are four malpighian tubules. In the ovarian tubes of Adephaga small
yolk-chambers alternate with the egg-chambers, while in all other
beetles there is only a single large yolk-chamber at the narrow end of
the tube. The larvae (fig. 2 c) are active, with well-chitinized
cuticle, often with elongate tail-feelers (cerci), and with
five-segmented legs, the foot-segment carrying two claws.
[Illustration: FIG. 4.--_Mormolyce phyllodes_. Java. a, Labium; b,
maxilla; c, labrum; d, mandible.]
The generalized arrangement of the wing-nervure and the nature of the
larva, which is less unlike the adult than in other beetles,
distinguish this tribe as primitive, although the perfect insects are,
in the more dominant families, distinctly specialized. Two very small
families of aquatic beetles seem to stand at the base of the series,
the _Amphizoidae_, whose larvae are broad and well armoured with short
cerci, and the _Pelobiidae_, which have elongate larvae, tapering to
the tail end, where are long paired cerci and a median process,
recalling the grub of a Mayfly.
[Illustration: FIG. 5.--_Pheropsophus Jurinei_. W. Africa.]
[Illustration: FIG. 6.--_Carabus rutilans_. Spain.]
The _Dyticidae_ (fig. 2) are Adephaga highly specialized for life in
the water, the hind-legs having the segments short, broad and fringed,
so as to be well adapted for swimming, and the feet without claws. The
metasternum is without the transverse linear impression that is found
in most families of Adephaga. The beetles are ovoid in shape, with
smooth contours, and the elytra fit over the edges of the abdomen so
as to enclose a supply of air, available for use when the insect
remains under water. The fore-legs of many male dyticids have the
three proximal foot-segments broad and saucer-shaped, and covered
with suckers, by means of which they secure a firm hold of their
mates. Larval dyticids (fig. 2 b) possess slender, curved, hollow
mandibles, which are perforated at the tip and at the base, being thus
adapted for sucking the juices of victims. Large dyticid larvae often
attack small fishes and tadpoles. They breathe by piercing the surface
film with the tail, where a pair of spiracles are situated. The pupal
stage is passed in an earthen cell, just beneath the surface of the
ground. Nearly 2000 species of _Dyticidae_ are known: they are
universally distributed, but are most abundant in cool countries. The
_Haliplidae_ form a small aquatic family allied to the _Dyticidae_.
[Illustration: FIG. 7.--_Cicindela sylvatica_ (Wood Tiger-Beetle).
Europe.]
[Illustration: FIG. 8.--_Manticora tuberculata_. S. Africa.]
The _Carabidae_, or ground-beetles, comprising 13,000 species, form
the largest and most typical family of the Adephaga (figs. 4, 5, 6),
the legs of all three pairs being alike and adapted for rapid running.
In many _Carabidae_ the hind-wings are reduced or absent, and the
elytra fused together along the suture. Many of our native species
spend the day lurking beneath stones, and sally forth at night in
pursuit of their prey, which consists of small insects, earthworms and
snails. But a number of the more brightly coloured ground-beetles run
actively in the sunshine. The carabid larva is an active well-armoured
grub with the legs and cerci variable in length. Great differences in
the general form of the body may be observed in the family. For
example, the stout, heavy body of _Carabus_ (fig. 6) contrasts
markedly with the wonderful flattened abdomen and elytra of
_Mormolyce_ (fig. 4), a Malayan genus found beneath fallen trees, a
situation for which its compressed shape is admirably adapted. Blind
_Carabidae_ form a large proportion of cave-dwelling beetles, and
several species of great interest live between tide-marks along the
seashore.
The _Cicindelidae_, or tiger-beetles (figs. 7, 8) are the most highly
organized of all the Adephaga. The inner lobe (lacinia) of the first
maxilla terminates in an articulated hook, while in the second
maxillae (labium) both inner and outer lobes ("ligula" and
"para-glossae") are much reduced. The face (clypeus) is broad,
extending on either side in front of the insertion of the feelers. The
beetles are elegant insects with long, slender legs, running quickly,
and flying in the sunshine. The pronotum and elytra are often adorned
with bright colours or metallic lustre, and marked with stripes or
spots. The beetles are fierce in nature and predaceous in habit, their
sharp toothed mandibles being well adapted for the capture of small
insect-victims. The larvae are more specialized than those of other
Adephaga, the head and prothorax being very large and broad, the
succeeding segments slender and incompletely chitinized. The fifth
abdominal segment has a pair of strong dorsal hook-like processes, by
means of which the larva supports itself in the burrow which it
excavates in the earth, the great head blocking the entrance with the
mandibles ready to seize on any unwary insect that may venture within
reach.
[Illustration: FIG. 9.
a _Gyrinus sulcatus_ (Grooved Whirligig). Europe.
b Antenna of _Gyrinus_.
c Larva of _Gyrinus_.]
Two or three families may be regarded as aberrant Adephaga. The
_Paussidae_ are a very remarkable family of small beetles, mostly
tropical, found only in ants' nests, or flying by night, and
apparently migrating from one nest to another. The number of antennal
segments varies from eleven to two. It is supposed that these beetles
secrete a sweet substance on which the ants feed, but they have been
seen to devour the ants' eggs and grubs. The _Gyrinidae_, or whirligig
beetles (fig. 9), are a curious aquatic family with the feelers (fig.
9, b) short and reduced as in most _Paussidae_. They are flattened
oval in form, circling with gliding motion over the surface film of
the water, and occasionally diving, when they carry down with them a
bubble of air. The fore-legs are elongate and adapted for clasping,
while the short and flattened intermediate and hind legs form very
perfect oar-like propellers. The larva of _Gyrinus_ (fig. 9, c) is
slender with elongate legs, and the abdominal segments carry paired
tracheal gills.
STAPHYLINOIDEA.--The members of this tribe may be easily recognized by
their wing-nervuration. Close to a transverse fold near the base of
the wing, the median nervure divides into branches which extend to the
wing-margin; there is a second transverse fold near the tip of the
wing, and cross nervures are altogether wanting. There are four
malpighian tubes, and all five tarsal segments are usually
recognizable. With very few exceptions, the larva in this group is
active and campodeiform, with cerci and elongate legs as in the
Adephaga, but the leg has only four segments and one claw.
[Illustration: FIG. 10.--_Silpha quadripunctata_. Europe.]
[Illustration: FIG. 11.--_Necrophorus vespillo_ (Sexton Beetle).
Europe.]
The _Silphidae_, or carrion beetles, form one of the best-known
families of this group. They are rotund or elongate insects with
conical front haunches, the elytra generally covering (fig. 10) the
whole dorsal region of the abdomen, but sometimes leaving as many as
four terga exposed (fig. 11). Some of these beetles are brightly
coloured, while others are dull black. They are usually found in
carrion, and the species of _Necrophorus_ (fig. 11) and _Necrophaga_
are valuable scavengers from their habit of burying small vertebrate
carcases which may serve as food for their larvae. At this work a
number of individuals are associated together. The larvae that live
underground have spiny dorsal plates, while those of the _Silpha_
(fig. 10) and other genera that go openly about in search of food
resemble wood-lice. About 1000 species of _Silphidae_ are known.
Allied to the _Silphidae_ are a number of small and obscure families,
for which reference must be made to monographs of the order. Of
special interest among these are the _Histeridae_, compact beetles
(fig. 12) with very hard cuticle and somewhat abbreviated elytra, with
over 2000 species, most of which live on decaying matter, and the
curious little _Pselaphidae_, with three-segmented tarsi, elongate
palpi, and shortened abdomen; the latter are usually found in ants'
nests, where they are tended by the ants, which take a sweet fluid
secreted among little tufts of hair on the beetles' bodies; these
beetles, which are carried about by the ants, sometimes devour their
larvae. The _Trichopterygidae_, with their delicate narrow fringed
wings, are the smallest of all beetles, while the _Platypsyllidae_
consist of only a single species of curious form found on the beaver.
[Illustration: FIG. 12. _Hister iv-maculatus_ (Mimic Beetle). Europe.]
[Illustration: FIG. 13. _Oxyporus rufus_. Europe.]
[Illustration: FIG. 14. _Stenus biguttatus_. Europe.]
The _Staphylinidae_, or rove-beetles--a large family of nearly 10,000
species--may be known by their very short elytra, which cover only two
of the abdominal segments, leaving the elongate hind-body with seven
or eight exposed, firm terga (figs. 13, 14). These segments are very
mobile, and as the rove-beetles run along they often curl the abdomen
upwards and forwards like the tail of a scorpion. The _Staphylinid_
larvae are typically campodeiform. Beetles and larvae are frequently
carnivorous in habit, hunting for small insects under stones, or
pursuing the soft-skinned grubs of beetles and flies that bore in
woody stems or succulent roots. Many _Staphylinidae_ are constant
inmates of ants' nests.
MALACODERMATA.--In this tribe may be included a number of families
distinguished by the softness of the cuticle, the presence of seven or
eight abdominal sterna and of four malpighian tubes, and the firm,
well-armoured larva (fig. 15, c) which is often predaceous in habit.
The mesothoracic epimera bound the coxal cavities of the intermediate
legs. The _Lymexylonidae_, a small family of this group, characterized
by its slender, undifferentiated feelers and feet, is believed by
Lameere to comprise the most primitive of all living beetles, and
Sharp lays stress on the undeveloped structure of the tribe generally.
[Illustration: FIG. 15.--Glow-worm. _Lampyris noctiluca_. a, Male; b,
female; c, larva (ventral view). Europe.]
The _Lampyridae_ are a large family, of which the glow-worm
(_Lampyris_) and the "soldier beetles" (_Telephorus_) are familiar
examples. The female "glow-worm" (fig. 15, b), emitting the well-known
light (see above), is wingless and like a larva; the luminosity seems
to be an attraction to the male, whose eyes are often exceptionally
well developed. Some male members of the family have remarkably
complex feelers. In many genera of _Lampyridae_ the female can fly as
well as the male; among these are the South European "fireflies."
TRICHODERMATA.--Several families of rather soft-skinned beetles, such
as the _Melyridae_, _Cleridae_ (fig. 16), _Corynetidae_, _Dermestidae_
(fig. 17), and _Dascillidae_, are included in this tribe. They may be
distinguished from the Malacodermata by the presence of only five or
six abdominal sterna, while six malpighian tubes are present in some
of the families. The beetles are hairy and their larvae well-armoured
and often predaceous. Several species of _Dermestidae_ are commonly
found in houses, feeding on cheeses, dried meat, skins and other such
substances. The "bacon beetle" (_Dermestes lardarius_), and its hard
hairy larva, are well known. According to Sharp, all Dermestid larvae
probably feed on dried animal matters; he mentions one species that
can find sufficient food in the horsehair of furniture, and another
that eats the dried insect-skins hanging in old cobwebs.
[Illustration: FIG. 16.--_Clerus apiarus_ (Hive Beetle). Europe.]
[Illustration: FIG. 17.--_Dermestes lardarius_ (Bacon Beetle).]
STERNOXIA.--This is an important tribe of beetles, including families
with four malpighian tubes and only five or six abdominal sterna,
while in the thorax there is a backwardly directed process of the
prosternum that fits into a mesosternal cavity. The larvae are
elongate and worm-like, with short legs but often with hard strong
cuticle.
[Illustration: FIG. 18.--A, Wireworm; B, pupa of Click Beetle; C,
adult Click Beetle (_Agriotes lineatum_).]
The _Elateridae_ or click beetles (fig. 18) have the prosternal
process just mentioned, capable of movement in and out of the
mesosternal cavity, the beetles being thus enabled to leap into the
air, hence their popular name of "click-beetles" or "skip-jacks." The
prothorax is convex in front, and is usually drawn out behind into a
prominent process on either side, while the elytra are elongate and
tapering. Many of the tropical American _Elateridae_ emit light from
the spots on the prothorax and an area beneath the base of the
abdomen; these are "fireflies" (see above). The larvae of _Elateridae_
are elongate, worm-like grubs, with narrow bodies, very firm cuticle,
short legs, and a distinct anal proleg. They are admirably adapted for
moving through the soil, where some of them live on decaying organic
matter, while others are predaceous. Several of the elaterid larvae,
however, gnaw roots and are highly destructive to farm crops. These
are the well-known "wire-worms" (q.v.).
[Illustration: FIG. 19.--_Catoxantha bicolor_. Java.]
The _Buprestidae_ are distinguished from the _Elateridae_ by the
immobility of the prosternal process in the mesosternal cavity and by
the absence of the lateral processes at the hind corners of the
prothorax. Many tropical _Buprestidae_ are of large size (fig. 19),
and exhibit magnificent metallic colours; their elytra are used as
ornaments in human dress. The larvae are remarkable for their small
head, very broad thorax, with reduced legs, and narrow elongate
abdomen. They feed by burrowing in the roots and stems of plants.
BOSTRYCHOIDEA.--This tribe is distinguished from the Malacoderma and
allied groups by the mesothoracic epimera not bounding the coxal
cavities of the intermediate legs. The downwardly directed head is
covered by the pronotum, and the three terminal antennal segments form
a distinct club. To this group belong the _Bostrychidae_ and
_Ptinidae_, well known (especially the latter family) for their
ravages in old timber. The larvae are stout and soft-skinned, with
short legs in correlation with their burrowing habit. The noises made
by some _Ptinidae_ (_Anobium_) tapping on the walls of their burrows
with their mandibles give rise to the "death tick" that has for long
alarmed the superstitious.
[Illustration: FIG. 20.--_Hydrophilus piceus_ (Black Water Beetle).
Europe.]
CLAVICORNIA.--This is a somewhat heterogeneous group, most of whose
members are characterized by clubbed feelers and simple, unbroadened
tarsal segments--usually five on each foot--but in some families and
genera the males have less than the normal number on the feet of one
pair. There are either four or six malpighian tubes. A large number of
families, distinguished from each other by more or less trivial
characters, are included here, and there is considerable diversity in
the form of the larvae. The best-known family is the _Hydrophilidae_,
in which the feelers are short with less than eleven segments and the
maxillary palpi very long. Some members of this family--the large
black _Hydrophilus piceus_ (fig. 20), for example--are specialized for
an aquatic life, the body being convex and smooth as in the
_Dyticidae_, and the intermediate and hind-legs fringed for swimming.
When _Hydrophilus_ dives it carries a supply of air between the elytra
and the dorsal surface of the abdomen, while air is also entangled in
the pubescence which extends beneath the abdomen on either side, being
scooped in bubbles by the terminal segments of the feelers when the
insect rises to the surface. Many of the _Hydrophilidae_ construct,
for the protection of their eggs, a cocoon formed of a silky material
derived from glands opening at the tip of the abdomen. That of
_Hydrophilus_ is attached to a floating leaf, and is provided with a
hollow, tapering process, which projects above the surface and
presumably conveys air to the enclosed eggs. Other _Hydrophilidae_
carry their egg-cocoons about with them beneath the abdomen. Many
_Hydrophilidae_, unmodified for aquatic life, inhabit marshes. The
larvae in this family are well-armoured, active and predaceous. Of the
numerous other families of the Clavicornia may be mentioned the
_Cucujidae_ and _Cryptophagidae_, small beetles, examples of which may
be found feeding on stored seeds or vegetable refuse, and the
_Mycetophagidae_, which devour fungi. The _Nitidulidae_ are a large
family with 1600 species, among which members of the genus
_Meligethes_ are often found in numbers feeding on blossoms, while
others live under the bark of trees and prey on the grubs of boring
beetles.
HETEROMERA.--This tribe is distinguished by the presence of the normal
five segments in the feet of the fore and intermediate legs, while
only four segments are visible in the hind-foot. Considerable
diversity is to be noticed in details of structure within this group,
and for an enumeration of all the various families which have been
proposed and their distinguishing characters the reader is referred to
one of the monographs mentioned below. Some of the best-known members
of the group belong to the _Tenebrionidae_, a large family containing
over 10,000 species and distributed all over the world. The
tenebrionid larva is elongate, with well-chitinized cuticle, short
legs and two stumpy tail processes, the common mealworm (fig. 21)
being a familiar example. Several species of this family are found
habitually in stores of flour or grain. The beetles have feelers with
eleven segments, whereof the terminal few are thickened so as to form
a club. The true "black-beetles" or "churchyard beetles" (_Blaps_)
(fig. 22) belong to this family; like members of several allied genera
they are sooty in colour, and somewhat resemble ground beetles
(_Carabi_) in general appearance.
[Illustration: FIG. 21.--(a) _Tenebrio molitor_ (Flour Beetle).
Europe. (b) Larva, or mealworm.]
[Illustration: FIG. 22.--_Blaps mortisaga_ (Churchyard Beetle).
Europe.]
[Illustration: FIG. 23.--_Meloe proscarabaeus_ (Oil Beetle). Europe.]
[Illustration: FIG. 24.--_Lytta vesicatoria_ (Blister Beetle).
Europe.]
The most interesting of the Heteromera, and perhaps of all the
Coleoptera, are some beetles which pass through two or more larval
forms in the course of the life-history (hypermetamorphosis). These
belong to the families _Rhipidophoridae_ and _Meloidae_. The latter
are the oil beetles (fig. 23) or blister beetles (fig. 24), insects
with rather soft cuticle, the elytra (often abbreviated) not fitting
closely to the sides of the abdomen, the head constricted behind the
eyes to form a neck, and the claws of the feet divided to the base.
Several of the _Meloidae_ (such as the "Spanish fly," fig. 24) are of
economic importance, as they contain a vesicant substance used for
raising medicinal blisters on the human skin. The wonderful
transformations of these insects were first investigated by G. Newport
in 1851, and have recently been more fully studied by C. V. Riley
(1878) and J. H. Fabre. The first larval stage is the "triungulin," a
tiny, active, armoured larva with long legs (each foot with three
claws) and cercopods. In the European species of _Sitaris_ and _Meloe_
these little larvae have the instinct of clinging to any hairy object.
All that do not happen to attach themselves to a bee of the genus
_Anthophora_ perish, but those that succeed in reaching the right host
are carried to the nest, and as the bee lays an egg in the cell the
triungulin slips off her body on to the egg, which floats on the
surface of the honey. After eating the contents of the egg, the larva
moults and becomes a fleshy grub with short legs and with paired
spiracles close to the dorsal region, so that, as it floats in and
devours the honey, it obtains a supply of air. After a resting
(pseudo-pupal) stage and another larval stage, the pupa is developed.
In the American EPICAUTA VITTATA the larva is parasitic on the eggs
and egg-cases of a locust. The triungulin searches for the eggs, and,
after a moult, becomes changed into a soft-skinned tapering larva.
This is followed by a resting (pseudo-pupal) stage, and this by two
successive larval stages like the grub of a chafer. The
RHIPIDOPHORIDAE are beetles with, short elytra, the feelers pectinate
in the males and serrate in the females. The life-history of
_Metoecus_ has been studied by T. A. Chapman, who finds that the eggs
are laid in old wood, and that the triungulin seeks to attach itself
to a social wasp, who carries it to her nest. There it feeds first as
an internal parasite of the wasp-grub, then bores its way out, moults
and devours the wasp larva from outside. The wasps are said to leave
the larval or pupal _Metoecus_ unmolested, but they are hostile to the
developed beetles, which hasten to leave the nest as soon as possible.
STREPSIPTERA.--Much difference of opinion has prevailed with regard to
the curious, tiny, parasitic insects included in this division, some
authorities considering that they should be referred to a distinct
order, while others would group them in the family _Meloidae_ just
described. While from the nature of their life-history there is no
doubt that they have a rather close relationship to the _Meloidae_,
their structure is so remarkable that it seems advisable to regard
them as at least a distinct tribe of Coleoptera.
They may be comprised in a single family, the _Stylopidae_. The males
are very small, free-flying insects with the prothorax, mesothorax and
elytra greatly reduced, the latter appearing as little, twisted
strips, while the metathorax is relatively large, with its wings broad
and capable of longitudinal folding. The feelers are branched and the
jaws vestigial. The female is a segmented, worm-like creature,
spending her whole life within the body of the bee, wasp or bug on
which she is parasitic. One end of her body protrudes from between two
of the abdominal segments of the host; it has been a subject of
dispute whether this protruded end is the head or the tail, but there
can be little doubt that it is the latter. While thus carried about by
the host-insect, the female is fertilized by the free-flying male, and
gives birth to a number of tiny triungulin larvae. The chief points in
the life-history of _Stylops_ and _Xenos_, which are parasitic on
certain bees (_Andrena_) and wasps (_Polistes_), have been
investigated by K. T. E. von Siebold (1843) and N. Nassonov (1892).
The little triungulins escape on to the body of the bee or wasp; then
those that are to survive must leave their host for a non-parasitized
insect. Clinging to her hairs they are carried to the nest, where they
bore into the body of a bee or wasp larva, and after a moult become
soft-skinned legless maggots. The growth of the parasitic larva does
not stop the development of the host-larva, and when the latter
pupates and assumes the winged form, the stylopid, which has completed
its transformation, is carried to the outer world. The presence of a
_Stylops_ causes derangement in the body of its host, and can be
recognized by various external signs. Other genera of the family are
parasitic on Hemiptera--bugs and frog-hoppers--but nothing is known as
to the details of their life-history.
LAMELLICORNIA.--This is a very well-marked tribe of beetles,
characterized by the peculiar elongation and flattening of three or
more of the terminal antennal segments, so that the feeler seems to
end in a number of leaf-like plates, or small comb-teeth (fig. 26, b,
c). The wings are well developed for flight, and there is a tendency
in the group, especially among the males, towards an excessive
development of the mandibles or the presence of enormous, horn-like
processes on the head or pronotum. There are four malpighian tubes.
The larvae are furnished with large heads, powerful mandibles and
well-developed legs, but the body-segments are feebly chitinized, and
the tail-end is swollen. They feed in wood or spend an underground
life devouring roots or animal excrement.
The _Lucanidae_ or stag beetles (figs. 1 and 25) have the terminal
antennal segments pectinate, and so arranged that the comb-like part
of the feeler cannot be curled up, while the elytra completely cover
the abdomen. There are about 600 species in the family, the males
being usually larger than the females, and remarkable for the size of
their mandibles. In the same species, however, great variation occurs
in the development of the mandibles, and the breadth of the head
varies correspondingly, the smallest type of male being but little
different in appearance from the female. The larvae of _Lucanidae_
live within the wood of trees, and may take three or four years to
attain their full growth. The _Passalidae_ are a tropical family of
beetles generally considered to be intermediate between stag-beetles
and chafers, the enlarged segments of the feeler being capable of
close approximation.
The _Scarabaeidae_ or chafers are an enormous family of about 15,000
species. The plate-like segments of the feeler (fig. 26, b, c) can be
brought close together so as to form a club-like termination; usually
the hinder abdominal segments are not covered by the elytra. In this
family there is often a marked divergence between the sexes; the
terminal antennal segments are larger in the male than in the female,
and the males may carry large spinous processes on the head or
prothorax, or both. These structures were believed by C. Darwin to be
explicable by sexual selection. The larvae have the three pairs of
legs well developed, and the hinder abdominal segments swollen. Most
of the _Scarabaeidae_ are vegetable-feeders, but one section of the
family--represented in temperate countries by the dor-beetles
(_Geotrupes_) (fig. 28) and _Aphodius_, and in warmer regions by the
"sacred" beetles of the Egyptians (_Scarabaeus_) (fig. 27), and allied
genera--feed both in the adult and larval stages, on dung or decaying
animal matter. The heavy grubs of _Geotrupes_, their swollen tail-ends
black with the contained food-material, are often dug up in numbers in
well-manured fields. The habits of _Scarabaeus_ have been described in
detail by J. H. Fabre. The female beetle in spring-time collects dung,
which she forms into a ball by continuous rolling, sometimes assisted
by a companion. This ball is buried in a suitable place, and serves
the insect as a store of food. During summer the insects rest in their
underground retreats, then in autumn they reappear to bury another
supply of dung, which serves as food for the larvae. Fabre states that
the mother-insect carefully arranges the food-supply so that the most
nutritious and easily digested portion is nearest the egg, to form the
first meal of the young larva. In some species of _Copris_ it is
stated that the female lays only two or three eggs at a time, watching
the offspring grow to maturity, and then rearing another brood.
[Illustration: FIG. 25.--_Cladognathus cinnamomeus_. Java.]
[Illustration: FIG. 26.--_Melolontha fullo_ (Cockchafer). S. Europe,
b, Antenna of male; c, antenna of female.]
[Illustration: FIG. 27.--_Scarabaeus Aegyptiorum_. Africa.]
[Illustration: FIG. 28.--_Geotrupes Blackburnei_. N. America.]
[Illustration: FIG. 29.--_Phaneus Imperator_. S. America.]
[Illustration: FIG. 30.--_Cetonia Baxii_. W. Africa.]
Among the vegetable-feeding chafers we usually find that while the
perfect insect devours leaves, the larva lives underground and feeds
on roots. Such are the habits of the cockchafer (_Melolontha
vulgaris_) and other species that often cause great injury to farm and
garden crops (see CHAFER). Many of these insects, such as the species
of _Phanaeus_ (fig. 29) and _Cetonia_ (fig. 30), are adorned with
metallic or other brilliant colours. The African "goliath-beetles"
(fig. 31) and the American "elephant-beetles" (_Dynastes_) are the
largest of all insects.
ANCHISTOPODA.--The families of beetles included by Kolbe in this group
are distinguished by the possession of six malpighian tubes, and a
great reduction in one or two of the tarsal segments, so that there
seem to be only four or three segments in each foot; hence the names
_Tetramera_ and _Trimera_ formerly applied to them. The larvae have
soft-skinned bodies sometimes protected by rows of spiny tubercles,
the legs being fairly developed in some families and greatly reduced
or absent in others. As might be expected, degeneration in larval
structure is correlated with a concealed habit of life.
The _Coccinellidae_, or ladybirds (fig. 32), are a large family of
beetles, well known by their rounded convex bodies, usually shining
and hairless. They have eleven segments to the feeler, which is
clubbed at the tip, and apparently three segments only in each foot.
Ladybirds are often brightly marked with spots and dashes, their
coloration being commonly regarded as an advertisement of inedibility.
The larvae have a somewhat swollen abdomen, which is protected by
bristle-bearing tubercles. Like the perfect insects, they are
predaceous, feeding on plant-lice (_Aphidae_) and scale insects
(_Coccidae_). Their role in nature is therefore beneficial to the
cultivator. The _Endomychidae_ (fig. 33), an allied family, are mostly
fungus-eaters. In the _Erotylidae_ and a few other small related
families the feet are evidently four-segmented.
[Illustration: FIG. 31.--_Goliathus giganteus_ (Goliath Beetle).]
[Illustration: FIG. 32.--_Anatio ocellata_ (Eyed Ladybird). Europe.]
[Illustration: FIG. 33.--_Endomychus coccineus_. Europe.]
[Illustration: FIG. 34.--_Sagra cyanea_. W. Africa.]
[Illustration: FIG. 35.--_Eumorphus ivguttatus_. Sumatra.]
[Illustration: FIG. 36.--_Lophonocerus barbicornis_. S. America.]
The _Chrysomelidae_, or leaf-beetles (figs. 34, 35), are a very large
family, with "tetramerous" tarsi; there seem to be only four segments
to the foot, but there are really five, the fourth being greatly
reduced. The mandibles are strong, adapted for biting the vegetable
substances on which these beetles feed, and the palps of the second
maxillae have three segments. Most of the _Chrysomelidae_ are metallic
in colour and convex in form; in some the head is concealed beneath
the prothorax, and the so-called "tortoise" beetles (_Cassidinae_)
have the elytra raised into a prominent median ridge. The most active
form of larva found in this family resembles in shape that of a
ladybird, tapering towards the tail end, and having the trunk segments
protected by small firm sclerites. Such larvae, and also many with
soft cuticle and swollen abdomen--those of the notorious "Colorado
beetle," for example--feed openly on foliage. Others, with soft,
white, cylindrical bodies, which recall the caterpillars of moths,
burrow in the leaves or stems of plants. The larvae of the
tortoise-beetles have the curious habit of forming an umbrella-like
shield out of their own excrement, held in position by the upturned
tail-process. The larvae of the beautiful, elongate, metallic
_Donaciae_ live in the roots and stems of aquatic plants, obtaining
thence both food and air. The larva pierces the vessels of the plant
with sharp processes at the hinder end of its body. In this way it is
believed that the sub-aqueous cocoon in which the pupal stage is
passed becomes filled with air.
The _Cerambycidae_, or longhorn beetles, are recognizable by their
slender, elongate feelers, which are never clubbed and rarely serrate.
The foot has apparently four segments, as in the _Chrysomelidae_. The
beetles are usually elongate and elegant in form, often adorned with
bright bands of colour, and some of the tropical species attain a very
large size (figs. 36, 37). The feelers are usually longer in the male
than in the female, exceeding in some cases by many times the length
of the body. The larvae have soft, fleshy bodies, with the head and
prothorax large and broad, and the legs very much reduced. They live
and feed in the wood of trees. Consequently, beetles of this family
are most abundant in forest regions, and reach their highest
development in the dense virgin forests of tropical countries, South
America being particularly rich in peculiar genera.
[Illustration: FIG. 37.--_Phryneta aurocincta_. West Africa.]
The _Bruchidae_, or seed-beetles, agree with the two preceding
families in tarsal structure; the head is largely hidden by the
pronotum, and the elytra are short enough to leave the end of the
abdomen exposed (fig. 38). The development of the pea and bean-beetles
has been carefully studied by C. V. Riley, who finds that the young
larva, hatched from the egg laid on the pod, has three pairs of legs,
and that these are lost after the moult that occurs when the grub has
bored its way into the seed. In Great Britain the beetle, after
completing its development, winters in the seed, waiting to emerge and
lay its eggs on the blossom in the ensuing spring.
[Illustration: FIG. 38.--_Bruchus piei_ (Pea Beetle.) Europe.]
[Illustration: FIG. 39.--_Platyrrhinus latirostris_. Europe.]
RHYNCHOPHORA.--The _Rhynchophora_ are a group of beetles easily
recognized by the elongation of the head into a beak or snout, which
carries the feelers at its sides and the jaws at its tip. The third
tarsal segment is broad and bi-lobed, and the fourth is so small that
the feet seem to be only four-segmented. There are six malpighian
tubes. The ventral sclerite of the head-skeleton (gula), well
developed in most families of beetles, is absent among the
_Rhynchophora_, while the palps of the maxillae are much reduced. The
larvae have soft, white bodies and, with very few exceptions, no legs.
[Illustration: FIG. 40.--_Brenthus anchorago_. Tropical Countries.]
[Illustration: FIG. 41.--_Otiorrhynchus ligustici_. Europe.]
[Illustration: FIG. 42.--_Lixus paraplecticus_. Europe.]
Of the four families included in this group, the _Anthribidae_ (fig.
39) have jointed, flexible palps, feelers--often of excessive
length--with a short basal segment, and the three terminal segments
forming a club, and, in some genera, larvae with legs. There are
nearly 1000 known species, most of which live in tropical countries.
The _Brenthidae_ are a remarkable family almost confined to the
tropics; they are elongate and narrow in form (fig. 40), with a
straight, cylindrical snout which in some male beetles of the family
is longer than the rest of the body.
[Illustration: FIG. 43.--_Scolytus ulmi_. (Bark Beetle). Europe.]
The _Curculionidae_, or weevils (q.v.), comprising 23,000 species, are
by far the largest family of the group. The maxillary palps are short
and rigid, and there is no distinct labrum, while the feelers are
usually of an "elbowed" form, the basal segment being very elongate
(figs. 41, 42). They are vegetable feeders, both in the perfect and
larval stages, and are often highly injurious. The female uses her
snout as a boring instrument to prepare a suitable place for
egg-laying. The larvae (fig. 3) of some weevils live in seeds; others
devour roots, while the parent-beetles eat leaves; others, again, are
found in wood or under bark. The _Scolytidae_, or bark-beetles, are a
family of some 1500 species, closely allied to the _Curculionidae_,
differing only in the feeble development of the snout. They have
clubbed feelers, and their cylindrical bodies (fig. 43) are well
adapted for their burrowing habits under the bark of trees. Usually
the mother-beetle makes a fairly straight tunnel along which, at short
intervals, she lays her eggs. The grubs, when hatched, start galleries
nearly at right angles to this, and when fully grown form oval cells
in which they pupate; from these the young beetles emerge by making
circular holes directly outward through the bark.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--In addition to what may be found in numerous important
works on the Hexapoda (q.v.) as a whole, such as J. O. Westwood's
_Modern Classification of Insects_, vol. i. (London, 1838); J. H.
Fabre's _Souvenirs Entomologiques_ (Paris, 1879-1891); D. Sharp's
contribution to the Cambridge Natural History (vol. vi., London,
1899); and L. C. Miall's _Aquatic Insects_ (London, 1895), the special
literature of the _Coleoptera_ is enormous. Classical anatomical
memoirs are those of L. Dufour (_Ann. Sci. Nat._ ii., iii., iv., vi.,
viii., xiv., 1824-1828); _Ib._ (ser. 2, Zool.) i., 1834; and H. E.
Strauss-Dürkheim, _Anatomie comparée des animaux articulées_ (Paris,
1828).
The wings of _Coleoptera_ (including the elytra) are described and
discussed by F. Meinert (_Entom. Tijdsk._ v., 1880); C. Hoffbauer
(_Zeit. f. wissen. Zool._ liv., 1892); J. H. Comstock and J. G.
Needham (_Amer. Nat._ xxxii., 1898); and W. L. Tower (_Zool. Jahrb.
Anat._ xvii., 1903). The morphology of the abdomen, ovipositor and
genital armature is dealt with by K. W. Verhoeff (_Ent. Nachtr._ xx.,
1894, and _Arch. f. Naturg._ lxi., lxii., 1895-1896); and B.
Wandolleck (_Zool. Jahrb. Anat._ xxii., 1905).
Luminous organs are described by H. von Wielowiejski (_Zeits. f.
wissen. Zool._ xxxvii., 1882); C. Heinemann (_Arch. f. mikr. Anat._
xxvii., 1886); and R. Dubois (_Bull. soc. zool. France_, 1886); and
stridulating organs by C. J. Gahan (_Trans. Entom. Soc._, 1900). See
also C. Darwin's _Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex_
(London, 1871).
Many larvae of _Coleoptera_ are described and beautifully figured by
J. C. Schiödte (_Naturh. Tidsskr._ i.-xiii., 1861-1872).
Hypermetamorphosis in the _Meloidae_ is described by G. Newport
(_Trans. Linn. Soc._ xx., xxi., 1851-1853); C. V. Riley (_Rep. U.S.
Entom. Comm._ i., 1878); J. H. Fabre (_Ann. Sci. Nat._ (4), ix., xix.,
1848-1853); H. Beauregard (_Les Insectes vésicants_, Paris, 1890); and
A. Chabaud (_Ann. Soc. Ent. France_, lx., 1891); in the _Bruchidae_ by
Riley (_Insect Life_, iv., v., 1892-1893); and in the _Strepsiptera_
(_Stylopidae_) by K. T. E. von Siebold (_Arch. f. Naturg._ ix., 1843);
N. Nassonov (_Bull. Univ. Narsovie_, 1892); and C. T. Brues (_Zool.
Jahrb. Anat._ xiii., 1903).
For various schemes of classification of the _Coleoptera_ see E. L.
Geoffroy (_Insectes qui se trouvent aux environs de Paris_, Paris,
1762); A. G. Olivier (_Coléoptères_, Paris, 1789-1808); W. S. MacLeay
(_Annulosa Javanica_, London, 1825); the general works of Westwood and
Sharp, mentioned above; M. Gemminger and B. de Harold (_Catalogus
Coleopterorum_, 12 vols., Munich, 1868-1872); T. Lacordaire and F.
Chapuis (_Genera des Coléoptères_, 10 vols., Paris, 1854-1874); J. L.
Leconte and G. H. Horn (_Classification of Coleoptera of N. America_,
Washington, Smithsonian Inst., 1883); L. Ganglbauer (_Die Käfer von
Mitteleuropa_, Vienna, 1892, &c.); A. Lameere (_Ann. Soc. Ent. Belg._
xliv., xlvii., 1900-1903); and H. J. Kolbe (_Arch. f. Naturg._ lxvii.,
1901).
For the British species, W. W. Fowler (_Coleoptera of the British
Islands_, 5 vols., London, 1887-1891) is the standard work; and W. F.
Johnson and J. N. Halbert's "Beetles of Ireland" (_Proc. R. Irish
Acad._, 3, vi., 1902) is valuable faunistically. Among the large
number of systematic writers on the order generally, or on special
families, may be mentioned D. Sharp, T. V. Wollaston, H. W. Bates, G.
C. Champion, E. Reitter, G. C. Crotch, H. S. Gorham, M. Jacoby, L.
Fairmaire and C. O. Waterhouse. (G. H. C.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Instar is a convenient term suggested by D. Sharp to indicate a
stage in the life-history of an insect between two successive
castings of the cuticle.
COLEPEPER, JOHN COLEPEPER (or CULPEPPER), 1ST BARON (d. 1660), English
politician, was the only son of Sir John Colepeper of Wigsell, Sussex.
He began his career in military service abroad, and came first into
public notice at home through his knowledge of country affairs, being
summoned often before the council board to give evidence on such
matters. He was knighted, and was elected member for Kent in the Long
Parliament, when he took the popular side, speaking against monopolies
on the 9th of November 1640, being entrusted with the impeachment of Sir
Robert Berkeley on the 12th of February 1641, supporting Stafford's
attainder, and being appointed to the committee of defence on the 12th
of August 1641. He separated, however, from the popular party on the
Church question, owing to political rather than religious objections,
fearing the effect of the revolutionary changes which were now
contemplated. He opposed the London petition for the abolition of
episcopacy, the project of religious union with the Scots, and the Root
and Branch Bill, and on the 1st of September he moved a resolution in
defence of the prayer-book. In the following session he opposed the
militia bill and the Grand Remonstrance, and finally on the 2nd of
January 1642 he joined the king's party, taking office as chancellor of
the exchequer. He highly disapproved of the attempt upon the five
members, which was made without his knowledge, but advised the
enterprise against Hull. On the 25th of August 1642 he appeared at the
bar of the House of Commons to deliver the king's final proposals for
peace, and was afterwards present at Edgehill, where he took part in
Prince Rupert's charge and opposed the retreat of the king's forces from
the battlefield. In December he was made by Charles master of the rolls.
He was a leading member of the Oxford Parliament, and was said, in
opposition to the general opinion, to have counselled considerable
concessions to secure peace. His influence in military affairs caused
him to be much disliked by Prince Rupert and the army, and the general
animosity against him was increased by his advancement to the peerage on
the 21st of October 1644 by the title of Baron Colepeper of Thoresway in
Lincolnshire.
He was despatched with Hyde in charge of the prince of Wales to the West
in March 1645, and on the 2nd of March 1646, after Charles's final
defeat, embarked with the prince for Scilly, and thence to France. He
strongly advocated the gaining over of the Scots by religious
concessions, a policy supported by the queen and Mazarin, but opposed by
Hyde and other leading royalists, and constantly urged this course upon
the king, at the same time deprecating any yielding on the subject of
the militia. He promoted the mission of Sir John Berkeley in 1647 to
secure an understanding between Charles and the army. In 1648 he
accompanied the prince in his unsuccessful naval expedition, and
returned with him to the Hague, where violent altercations broke out
among the royalist leaders, Colepeper going so far, on one occasion in
the council, as to challenge Prince Rupert, and being himself severely
assaulted in the streets by Sir Robert Walsh. He continued after the
execution of the king to press the acceptance on Charles II. of the
Scottish proposals. He was sent to Russia in 1650, where he obtained a
loan of 20,000 roubles from the tsar, and, soon after his return, to
Holland, to procure military assistance. By the treaty, agreed to
between Cromwell and Mazarin, of August 1654, Colepeper was obliged to
leave France, and he appears henceforth to have resided in Flanders. He
accompanied Charles II. to the south of France in September 1659, at the
time of the treaty of the Pyrenees. At the Restoration he returned to
England, but only survived a few weeks, dying on the 11th of June 1660.
Several contemporary writers agree in testifying to Colepeper's great
debating powers and to his resources as an adviser, but complain of his
want of stability and of his uncertain temper. Clarendon, with whom he
was often on ill terms, speaks generally in his praise, and repels the
charge of corruption levelled against him. That he was gifted with
considerable political foresight is shown by a remarkable letter written
on the 20th of September 1658 on the death of Cromwell, in which he
foretells with uncommon sagacity the future developments in the
political situation, advises the royalists to remain inactive till the
right moment and profit by the division of their opponents, and
distinguishes Monck as the one person willing and capable of effecting
the Restoration (_Clarendon State Papers_, iii. 412). Colepeper was
twice married, (1) to Philippa, daughter of Sir John Snelling, by whom
he had one son, who died young, and a daughter, and (2) to Judith,
daughter of Sir J. Colepeper of Hollingbourn, Kent, by whom he had seven
children. Of these Thomas (d. 1719; governor of Virginia 1680-1683) was
the successor in the title, which became extinct on the death of his
younger brother Cheney in 1725. (P. C. Y.)
COLERAINE, a seaport and market town of Co. Londonderry, Ireland, in the
north parliamentary division, on the Bann, 4 m. from its mouth, and 61½
m. N.W. by N. from Dublin by the Northern Counties (Midland) railway.
Pop. of urban district (1901) 6958. The town stands upon both sides of
the river, which is crossed by a handsome stone bridge, connecting the
town and its suburb, Waterside or Killowen. The principal part is on the
east bank, and consists of a central square called the Diamond, and
several diverging streets. Among institutions may be mentioned the
public schools founded in 1613 and maintained by the Honourable Irish
Society, and the Academical Institution, maintained by the Irish Society
and the London Clothworkers' Company. The linen trade has long been
extensively carried on in the town, from which, indeed, a fine
description of cloth is known as "Coleraines." Whisky-distilling,
pork-curing, and the salmon and eel fisheries are prosecuted. The mouth
of the river was formerly obstructed by a bar, but piers were
constructed, and the harbours greatly improved by grants from the Irish
Society of London and from a loan under the River Bann Navigation Act
1879. Coleraine ceased to return one member to the Imperial parliament
in 1885; having previously returned two to the Irish parliament until
the Union. It was incorporated by James I. It owed its importance mainly
to the Irish Society, which was incorporated as the Company for the New
Plantation of Ulster in 1613. Though fortified only by an earthen wall,
it managed to hold out against the rebels in 1641. There are no remains
of a former priory, monastery and castle. A rath or encampment of large
size occupies Mount Sandel, 1 m. south-east.
COLERIDGE, HARTLEY (1796-1849), English man of letters, eldest son of
the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, was born on the 19th of September
1796, near Bristol. His early years were passed under Southey's care at
Greta Hall, Keswick, and he was educated by the Rev. John Dawes at
Ambleside. In 1815 he went to Oxford, as scholar of Merton College. His
university career, however, was very unfortunate. He had inherited the
weakness of purpose, as well as the splendid conversational powers, of
his father, and lapsed into habits of intemperance. He was successful in
gaining an Oriel fellowship, but at the close of the probationary year
(1820) was judged to have forfeited it. The authorities could not be
prevailed upon to reverse their decision; but they awarded to him a free
gift of £300. Hartley Coleridge then spent two years in London, where he
wrote short poems for the _London Magazine_. His next step was to become
a partner in a school at Ambleside, but this scheme failed. In 1830 a
Leeds publisher, Mr. F. E. Bingley, made a contract with him to write
biographies of Yorkshire and Lancashire worthies. These were afterwards
republished under the title of _Biographia Borealis_ (1833) and
_Worthies of Yorkshire and Lancashire_ (1836). Bingley also printed a
volume of his poems in 1833, and Coleridge lived in his house until the
contract came to an end through the bankruptcy of the publisher. From
this time, except for two short periods in 1837 and 1838 when he acted
as master at Sedbergh grammar school, he lived quietly at Grasmere and
(1840-1849) Rydal, spending his time in study and wanderings about the
countryside. His figure was as familiar as Wordsworth's, and his
gentleness and simplicity of manner won for him the friendship of the
country-people. In 1839 appeared his edition of Massinger and Ford, with
biographies of both dramatists. The closing decade of Coleridge's life
was wasted in what he himself calls "the woeful impotence of weak
resolve." He died on the 6th of January 1849. The prose style of Hartley
Coleridge is marked by much finish and vivacity; but his literary
reputation must chiefly rest on the sanity of his criticisms, and above
all on his _Prometheus_, an unfinished lyric drama, and on his sonnets.
As a sonneteer he achieved real excellence, the form being exactly
suited to his sensitive genius. _Essays and Marginalia_, and _Poems_,
with a memoir by his brother Derwent, appeared in 1851.
COLERIDGE, JOHN DUKE COLERIDGE, 1ST BARON (1820-1894), lord chief
justice of England, was the eldest son of Sir John Taylor Coleridge. He
was born at Heath's Court, Ottery St Mary, on the 3rd of December 1820.
He was educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford, of which he was a
scholar. He was called to the bar in 1846, and went the western circuit,
rising steadily, through more than twenty years of hard work, till in
1865 he was returned as member for Exeter in the Liberal interest. The
impression which he made on the heads of his party was so favourable
that they determined, early in the session of 1867, to put him forward
as the protagonist of their attack on the Conservative government. But
that move seemed to many of their staunchest adherents unwise, and it
was frustrated by the active opposition of a section, including Hastings
Russell (later ninth duke of Bedford), his brother Arthur, member for
Tavistock, Alexander Mitchell of Stow, A. W. Kinglake and Henry Seymour.
They met to deliberate in the tea-room of the House, and were afterwards
sometimes confounded with the tea-room party which was of subsequent
formation and under the guidance of a different group. The protest was
sufficient to prevent the contemplated attack being made, but the
Liberals returned to power in good time with a large majority behind
them in 1868. Coleridge was made, first solicitor-, and then
attorney-general.
As early as 1863 a small body of Oxford men in parliament had opened
fire against the legislation which kept their university bound by
ecclesiastical swaddling clothes. They had made a good deal of progress
in converting the House of Commons to their views before the general
election of 1865. That election having brought Coleridge into
parliament, he was hailed as a most valuable ally, whose great
university distinction, brilliant success as an orator at the bar, and
hereditary connexion with the High Church party, entitled him to take
the lead in a movement which, although gathering strength, was yet very
far from having achieved complete success. The clerically-minded section
of the Conservative party could not but listen to the son of Sir John
Coleridge, the godson of Keble, and the grand-nephew of the man who had
been an indirect cause of the Anglican revival of 1833,--for John Stuart
Mill was right when he said that the poet Coleridge and the philosopher
Bentham were, so far as England was concerned, the leaders of the two
chief movements of their times: "it was they who taught the teachers,
and who were the two great seminal minds."
Walking up one evening from the House of Commons to dine at the
Athenaeum with Henry Bruce (afterwards Lord Aberdare) and another
friend, Coleridge said: "There is a trial coming on which will be one of
the most remarkable _causes célèbres_ that has ever been heard of." This
was the Tichborne case, which led to proceedings in the criminal courts
rising almost to the dignity of a political event. The Tichborne trial
was the most conspicuous feature of Coleridge's later years at the bar,
and tasked his powers as an advocate to the uttermost, though he was
assisted by the splendid abilities and industry of Charles (afterwards
Lord) Bowen. In November 1873 Coleridge succeeded Sir W. Bovill as chief
justice of the common pleas, and was immediately afterwards raised to
the peerage as Baron Coleridge of Ottery St Mary. In 1880 he was made
lord chief justice of England on the death of Sir Alexander Cockburn.
In jury cases his quickness in apprehending facts and his lucidity in
arranging them were very remarkable indeed. He was not one of the most
learned of lawyers, but he was a great deal more learned than many
people believed him to be, and as an ecclesiastical lawyer had perhaps
few or no superiors. His fault--a natural fault in one who had been so
successful as an advocate--was that of being too apt to take one side.
He allowed, also, certain political or personal prepossessions to colour
the tone of his remarks from the bench. A game-preserving landlord had
not to thank the gods when his case, however buttressed by generally
accepted claims, came before Coleridge. Towards the end of his life his
health failed, and he became somewhat indolent. On the whole, he was not
so strong a man in his judicial capacity as Campbell or Cockburn; but it
must be admitted that his scholarship, his refinement, his power of
oratory, and his character raised the tone of the bench while he sat
upon it, and that if it has been adorned by greater judicial abilities,
it has hardly ever known a greater combination of varied merits. It is
curious to observe that of all judges the man whom he put highest was
one very unlike himself, the great master of the rolls, Sir William
Grant. Coleridge died in harness on the 14th of June 1894.
Coleridge's work, first as a barrister, and then as a judge, prevented
his publishing as much as he otherwise would have done, but his
addresses and papers would, if collected, fill a substantial volume and
do much honour to his memory. One of the best, and one most eminently
characteristic of the man, was his inaugural address to the
Philosophical Institution at Edinburgh in 1870; another was a paper on
Wordsworth (1873). He was an exceptionally good letter-writer. Of travel
he had very little experience. He had hardly been to Paris; once, quite
near the end of his career, he spent a few days in Holland, and came
back a willing slave to the genius of Rembrandt; but his longest absence
from England was a visit, which had something of a representative legal
character, to the United States. It is strange that a man so steeped in
Greek and Roman poetry, so deeply interested in the past, present and
future of Christianity, never saw Rome, or Athens, or the Holy Land. A
subsidiary cause, no doubt, was the fatal custom of neglecting modern
languages at English schools. He felt himself at a disadvantage when he
passed beyond English-speaking lands, and cordially disliked the
situation. No notice of Coleridge should omit to make mention of his
extraordinary store of anecdotes, which were nearly always connected
with Eton, Oxford, the bar or the bench. His exquisite voice,
considerable power of mimicry, and perfect method of narration added
greatly to the charm. He once told, at the table of Dr Jowett, master of
Balliol, anecdotes through the whole of dinner on Saturday evening,
through the whole of breakfast, lunch and dinner the next day, through
the whole journey on Monday morning from Oxford to Paddington, without
ever once repeating himself. He was frequently to be seen at the
Athenaeum, was a member both of Grillion's and The Club, as well as of
the Literary Society, of which he was president, and whose meetings he
very rarely missed. Bishop Copleston is said to have divided the human
race into three classes,--men, women and Coleridges. If he did so, he
meant, no doubt, to imply that the family of whom the poet of
_Christabel_ was the chief example regarded themselves as a class to
themselves, the objects of a special dispensation. John Duke Coleridge
was sarcastic and critical, and at times over-sensitive. But his
strongest characteristics were love of liberty and justice. By birth and
connexions a Conservative, he was a Liberal by conviction, and loyal to
his party and its great leader, Mr Gladstone.
Coleridge had three sons and a daughter by his first wife, Jane
Fortescue, daughter of the Rev. George Seymour of Freshwater. She was an
artist of real genius, and her portrait of Cardinal Newman was
considered much better than the one by Millais. She died in February
1878; a short notice of her by Dean Church of St Paul's was published in
the _Guardian_, and was reprinted in her husband's privately printed
collection of poems. Coleridge remained for some years a widower, but
married in 1885 Amy Augusta Jackson Lawford, who survived him. He was
succeeded in the peerage by his eldest son, Bernard John Seymour (b.
1851), who went to the bar and became a K.C. in 1892. In 1907 he was
appointed a judge of the Supreme Court. The two other sons were Stephen
(b. 1854), a barrister, secretary to the Anti-Vivisection Society, and
Gilbert James Duke (b. 1859).
His _Life and Correspondence_, edited by E. H. Coleridge, was
published in 1904; see further E. Manson, _Builders of our Law_
(1904); and for the history of the Coleridge family see Lord
Coleridge, _The Story of a Devonshire House_ (1907). (M. G. D.)
COLERIDGE, SIR JOHN TAYLOR (1790-1876), English judge, the second son of
Captain James Coleridge and nephew of the poet S. T. Coleridge, was born
at Tiverton, Devon, and was educated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford,
where he had a brilliant career. He graduated in 1812 and was soon after
made a fellow of Exeter; in 1819 he was called to the bar at the Middle
Temple and practised for some years on the western circuit. In 1824, on
Gifford's retirement, he assumed the editorship of the _Quarterly
Review_, resigning it a year afterwards in favour of Lockhart. In 1825
he published his excellent edition of _Blackstone's Commentaries_, and
in 1832 he was made a serjeant-at-law and recorder of Exeter. In 1835 he
was appointed one of the judges of the king's bench. In 1852 his
university created him a D.C.L., and in 1858 he resigned his judgeship,
and was made a member of the privy council. In 1869, although in extreme
old age, he produced his pleasant _Memoir of the Rev. John Keble_, whose
friend he had been since their college days, a third edition of which
was issued within a year. He died on the 11th of February 1876 at Ottery
St Mary, Devon, leaving two sons and a daughter; the eldest son, John
Duke, 1st Baron Coleridge (q.v.), became lord chief justice of England;
the second son, Henry James (1822-1893), left the Anglican for the Roman
Catholic church in 1852, and became well-known as a Jesuit divine,
editor of _The Month_, and author of numerous theological works. Sir
John Taylor Coleridge's brothers, James Duke and Henry Nelson (husband
of Sara Coleridge), are referred to in other articles; his brother
Francis George was the father of Arthur Duke Coleridge (b. 1830), clerk
of assizes on the midland circuit and author of _Eton in the Forties_,
whose daughter Mary E. Coleridge (1861-1907) became a well-known writer
of fiction.
COLERIDGE, SAMUEL TAYLOR (1772-1834), English poet and philosopher, was
born on the 21st of October 1772, at his father's vicarage of Ottery St
Mary's, Devonshire. His father, the Rev. John Coleridge (1719-1781), was
a man of some mark. He was known for his great scholarship, simplicity
of character, and affectionate interest in the pupils of the grammar
school, of which he was appointed master a few months before becoming
vicar of the parish (1760), reigning in both capacities till his death.
He had married twice. The poet was the youngest child of his second
wife, Anne Bowdon (d. 1809), a woman of great good sense, and anxiously
ambitious for the success of her sons. On the death of his father, a
presentation to Christ's Hospital was procured for Coleridge by the
judge, Sir Francis Buller, an old pupil of his father's. He had already
begun to give evidence of a powerful imagination, and he has described
in a letter to his valued friend, Tom Poole, the pernicious effect which
the admiration of an uncle and his circle of friends had upon him at
this period. For eight years he continued at Christ's Hospital. Of these
school-days Charles Lamb has given delightful glimpses in the _Essays of
Elia_. The headmaster, Bowyer (as he was called, though his name was
Boyer), was a severe disciplinarian, but respected by his pupils.
Middleton, afterwards known as a Greek scholar, and bishop of Calcutta,
reported Coleridge to Bowyer as a boy who read Virgil for amusement, and
from that time Bowyer began to notice him and encouraged his reading.
Some compositions in English poetry, written at sixteen, and not without
a touch of genius, give evidence of the influence which Bowles, whose
poems were then in vogue, had over his mind at this time. Before he left
school his constitutional delicacy of frame, increased by swimming the
New River in his clothes, began to give him serious discomfort.
In February 1791 he was entered at Jesus College, Cambridge. A
school-fellow who followed him to the university has described in
glowing terms evenings in his rooms, "when Aeschylus, and Plato, and
Thucydides were pushed aside, with a pile of lexicons and the like, to
discuss the pamphlets of the day. Ever and anon a pamphlet issued from
the pen of Burke. There was no need of having the book before
us;--Coleridge had read it in the morning, and in the evening he would
repeat whole pages verbatim." William Frend, a fellow of Jesus, accused
of sedition and Unitarianism, was at this time tried and expelled from
Cambridge. Coleridge had imbibed his sentiments, and joined the ranks of
his partisans. He grew discontented with university life, and in 1793,
pressed by debt, went to London. Perhaps he was also influenced by his
passion for Mary Evans, the sister of one of his school-fellows. A poem
in the _Morning Chronicle_ brought him a guinea, and when that was spent
he enlisted in the 15th Dragoons under the name of Silas Tomkyn
Comberbache. One of the officers of the dragoon regiment, finding a
Latin sentence inscribed on a wall, discovered the condition of the very
awkward recruit. Shortly afterwards an old school-fellow (G. L. Tuckett)
heard of his whereabouts, and by the intervention of his brother,
Captain James Coleridge, his discharge was procured. He returned for a
short time to Cambridge, but quitted the university without a degree in
1794. In the same year he visited Oxford, and after a short tour in
Wales went to Bristol, where he met Southey. The French Revolution had
stirred the mind of Southey to its depths. Coleridge received with
rapture his new friend's scheme of Pantisocracy. On the banks of the
Susquehanna was to be founded a brotherly community, where selfishness
was to be extinguished, and the virtues were to reign supreme. No funds
were forthcoming, and in 1795, to the chagrin of Coleridge, the scheme
was dropped. In 1794 _The Fall of Robespierre_, of which Coleridge wrote
the first act and Southey the other two, appeared. At Bristol Coleridge
formed the acquaintance of Joseph Cottle, the bookseller, who offered
him thirty guineas for a volume of poems. In October of 1795 Coleridge
married Sarah Fricker, and took up his residence at Clevedon on the
Bristol Channel. A few weeks afterwards Southey married a sister of Mrs
Coleridge, and on the same day quitted England for Portugal.
Coleridge began to lecture in Bristol on politics and religion. He
embodied the first two lectures in his first prose publication,
_Conciones ad Populum_ (1795). The book contained much invective against
Pitt, and in after life Coleridge declared that, with this exception, and
a few pages involving philosophical tenets which he afterwards rejected,
there was little or nothing he desired to retract. The first volume of
_Poems_ was published by Cottle early in 1796. Coleridge projected a
periodical called _The Watchman_, and in 1796 undertook a journey, well
described in the _Biographic Literaria_, to enlist subscribers. _The
Watchman_ had a brief life of two months, but at this time Coleridge
began to think of becoming a Unitarian preacher, and abandoning
literature for ever. Hazlitt has recorded his very favourable impression
of a remarkable sermon delivered at Shrewsbury; but there are other
accounts of Coleridge's preaching not so enthusiastic. In the summer of
1795 he met for the first time the brother poet with whose name his own
will be for ever associated. Wordsworth and his sister had established
themselves at Racedown in the Dorsetshire hills, and here Coleridge
visited them in 1797. There are few things in literary history more
remarkable than this friendship. The gifted Dorothy Wordsworth described
Coleridge as "thin and pale, the lower part of the face not good, wide
mouth, thick lips, not very good teeth, longish, loose, half-curling,
rough, black hair,"--but all was forgotten in the magic charm of his
utterance. Wordsworth, who declared, "The only wonderful man I ever knew
was Coleridge," seems at once to have desired to see more of his new
friend. He and his sister removed in July 1797 to Alfoxden, near Nether
Stowey, to be in Coleridge's neighbourhood, and in the most delightful
and unrestrained intercourse the friends spent many happy days. It was
the delight of each one to communicate to the other the productions of
his mind, and the creative faculty of both poets was now at its best. One
evening, at Watchett on the British Channel, _The Ancient Mariner_ first
took shape. Coleridge was anxious to embody a dream of a friend, and the
suggestion of the shooting of the albatross came from Wordsworth, who
gained the idea from Shelvocke's _Voyage_ (1726). A joint volume was
planned. Wordsworth was to show the real poetry that lies hidden in
commonplace subjects, while Coleridge was to treat supernatural subjects
to illustrate the common emotions of humanity. From this sprang the
_Lyrical Ballads_, to which Coleridge contributed _The Ancient Mariner_,
the _Nightingale_ and two scenes from _Osorio_, and after much cogitation
the book was published in 1798 at Bristol by Cottle, to whose
reminiscences, often indulging too much in detail, we owe the account of
this remarkable time. A second edition of the _Lyrical Ballads_ in 1800
included another poem by Coleridge--_Love_, to which subsequently the
sub-title was given of _An Introduction to the Tale of the Dark Ladie_.
To the Stowey period belong also the tragedy of _Osorio_ (afterwards
known as _Remorse_), _Kubla Khan_ and the first part of _Christabel_. In
1798 an annuity, granted him by the brothers Wedgwood, led Coleridge to
abandon his reluctantly formed intention of becoming a Unitarian
minister. For many years he had desired to see the continent, and in
September 1798, in company with Wordsworth and his sister, he left
England for Hamburg. _Satyrane's Letters_ (republished in _Biog. Lit._
1817) give an account of the tour.
A new period in Coleridge's life now began. He soon left the Wordsworths
to spend four months at Ratzeburg, whence he removed to Göttingen to
attend lectures. A great intellectual movement had begun in Germany.
Coleridge was soon in the full whirl of excitement. He learnt much from
Blumenbach and Eichhorn, and took interest in all that was going on
around him. During his stay of nine months in Germany, he made himself
master of the language to such purpose that the translation of
_Wallenstein_--his first piece of literary work after his return to
England--was actually accomplished in six weeks. It was published in
1800, and, although it failed to make any impression on the general
public, it became at once prized by Scott and others as it deserved. It
is matter for regret that a request to Coleridge that he should
undertake to translate _Faust_ never received serious attention from
him. During these years Coleridge wrote many newspaper articles and some
poems, among them "Fire, Famine and Slaughter," for the _Morning Post_
(January 8, 1798). He had vehemently opposed Pitt's policy, but a change
came over his way of thought, and he found himself separated from Fox on
the question of a struggle with Napoleon. He had lost his admiration for
the Revolutionists, as his "Ode to France" shows (_Morning Post_, April
16, 1798). Like many other Whigs, he felt that all questions of domestic
policy must at a time of European peril be postponed. From this time,
however, his value for the ordered liberty of constitutional government
increased; and though never exactly to be found among the ranks of
old-fashioned Constitutionalists, during the remainder of his life he
kept steadily in view the principles which received their full
exposition in his well-known work on _Church and State_. In the year
1800 Coleridge left London for the Lakes. Here in that year he wrote the
second part of _Christabel_. In 1803 Southey became a joint lodger with
Coleridge at Greta Hall, Keswick, of which in 1812 Southey became sole
tenant and occupier.
In 1801 begins the period of Coleridge's life during which, in spite of
the evidence of work shown in his compositions, he sank more and more
under the dominion of opium, in which he may have first indulged at
Cambridge. Few things are so sad to read as the letters in which he
details the consequences of his transgression. He was occasionally seen
in London during the first years of the century, and wherever he
appeared he was the delight of admiring circles. He toured in Scotland
with the Wordsworths in 1803, visited Malta in 1804, when for ten months
he acted as secretary to the governor, and stayed nearly eight months at
Naples and Rome in 1805-1806. In Rome he received a hint that his
articles in the _Morning Post_ had been brought to Napoleon's notice,
and he made the voyage from Leghorn in an American ship. On a visit to
Somersetshire in 1807 he met De Quincey for the first time, and the
younger man's admiration was shown by a gift of £300, "from an unknown
friend." In 1809 he started a magazine called _The Friend_, which
continued only for eight months. At the same time Coleridge began to
contribute to the _Courier_. In 1808 he lectured at the Royal
Institution, but with little success, and two years later he gave his
lectures on Shakespeare and other poets. These lectures attracted great
attention and were followed by two other series. In 1812 his income from
the Wedgwoods was reduced, and he settled the remainder on his wife. His
friends were generous in assisting him with money. Eventually Mackintosh
obtained a grant of £100 a year for him in 1824 during the lifetime of
George IV., as one of the royal associates of the Society of Literature,
and at different times he received help principally from Stuart, the
publisher, Poole, Sotheby, Sir George Beaumont, Byron and Wordsworth,
while his children shared Southey's home at Keswick. But between 1812
and 1817 Coleridge made a good deal by his work, and was able to send
money to his wife in addition to the annuity she received. The tragedy
of _Remorse_ was produced at Drury Lane in 1813, and met with
considerable success. Three years after this, having failed to conquer
the opium habit, he determined to enter the family of Mr James Gillman,
who lived at Highgate. The letter in which he discloses his misery to
this kind and thoughtful man gives a real insight into his character.
Under judicious treatment the hour of mastery at last arrived. The shore
was reached, but the vessel had been miserably shattered in its passage
through the rocks. For the rest of his life he hardly ever left his home
at Highgate. During his residence there, _Christabel_, written many
years before, and known to a favoured few, was first published in a
volume with _Kubla Khan_ and the _Pains of Sleep_ in 1816. He read
widely and wisely, in poetry, philosophy and divinity. In 1816 and the
following year, he gave his _Lay Sermons_ to the world. _Sibylline
Leaves_ appeared in 1817; the _Biographia Literaria_ and a revised
edition of _The Friend_ soon followed. Seven years afterwards his most
popular prose work--_The Aids to Reflection_--first appeared. His last
publication, in 1830, was the work on _Church and State_. It was not
till 1840 that his _Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit_, by far his most
seminal work, was posthumously published. In 1833 he appeared at the
meeting of the British Association at Cambridge, but he died in the
following year (25th of July 1834), and was buried in the churchyard
close to the house of Mr Gillman, where he had enjoyed every consolation
which friendship and love could render. Coleridge died in the communion
of the Church of England, of whose polity and teaching he had been for
many years a loving admirer. An interesting letter to his god-child,
written twelve days before his death, sums up his spiritual experience
in a most touching form.
Of the extraordinary influence which he exercised in conversation it is
impossible to speak fully here. Many of the most remarkable among the
younger men of that period resorted to Highgate as to the shrine of an
oracle, and although one or two disparaging judgments, such as that of
Carlyle, have been recorded, there can be no doubt that since Samuel
Johnson there had been no such power in England. His nephew, Henry
Nelson Coleridge, gathered together some specimens of the _Table Talk_
of the few last years. But remarkable as these are for the breadth of
sympathy and extent of reading disclosed, they will hardly convey the
impressions furnished in a dramatic form, as in Boswell's great work.
Four volumes of _Literary Remains_ were published after his death, and
these, along with the chapters on the poetry of Wordsworth in the
_Biographia Literaria_, may be said to exhibit the full range of
Coleridge's power as a critic of poetry. In this region he stands
supreme. With regard to the preface, which contains Wordsworth's theory,
Coleridge has honestly expressed his dissent:--"With many parts of this
preface, in the sense attributed to them, and which the words
undoubtedly seem to authorize, I never concurred; but, on the contrary,
objected to them as erroneous in principle, and contradictory (in
appearance at least) both to other parts of the same preface, and to the
author's own practice in the greater number of the poems themselves."
This disclaimer of perfect agreement renders the remaining portion of
what he says more valuable. Coleridge was in England the creator of that
higher criticism which had already in Germany accomplished so much in
the hands of Lessing and Goethe. It is enough to refer here to the
fragmentary series of his Shakespearian criticisms, containing evidence
of the truest insight, and a marvellous appreciation of the judicial
"sanity" which raises the greatest name in literature far above even the
highest of the poets who approached him.
As a poet Coleridge's own place is safe. His niche in the great gallery
of English poets is secure. Of no one can it be more emphatically said
that at his highest he was "of imagination all compact." He does not
possess the fiery pulse and humaneness of Burns, but the exquisite
perfection of his metre and the subtle alliance of his thought and
expression must always secure for him the warmest admiration of true
lovers of poetic art. In his early poems may be found traces of the
fierce struggle of his youth. The most remarkable is the _Monody on the
Death of Chatterton_ and the _Religious Musings_. In what may be called
his second period, the ode entitled _France_, considered by Shelley the
finest in the language, is most memorable. The whole soul of the poet is
reflected in the _Ode to Dejection_. The well-known lines--
"O Lady! we receive but what we give,
And in our life alone does nature live;
Ours is her wedding garment, ours her shroud,"
with the passage which follows, contain more vividly, perhaps, than
anything which Coleridge has written, the expression of the shaping and
colouring function which he assigns, in the _Biographia Literaria_, to
imagination. _Christabel_ and the _Ancient Mariner_ have so completely
taken possession of the highest place, that it is needless to do more
than allude to them. The supernatural has never received such treatment
as in these two wonderful productions of his genius, and though the
first of them remains a torso, it is the loveliest torso in the gallery
of English literature. Although Coleridge had, for many years before his
death, almost entirely forsaken poetry, the few fragments of work which
remain, written in later years, show little trace of weakness, although
they are wanting in the unearthly melody which imparts such a charm to
_Kubla Khan_, _Love_ and _Youth and Age_. (G. D. B.; H. CH.)
In the latter part of his life, and for the generation which followed,
Coleridge was ranked by many young English churchmen of liberal views as
the greatest religious thinker of their time. As Carlyle has told in his
_Life of Sterling_, the poet's distinction, in the eyes of the younger
churchmen with philosophic interests, lay in his having recovered and
preserved his Christian faith after having passed through periods of
rationalism and Unitarianism, and faced the full results of German
criticism and philosophy. His opinions, however, were at all periods
somewhat mutable, and it would be difficult to state them in any form
that would hold good for the whole even of his later writings. He was,
indeed, too receptive of thought impressions of all kinds to be a
consistent systematizer. As a schoolboy, by his own account, he was for
a time a Voltairean, on the strength of a perusal of the _Philosophical
Dictionary_. At college, as we have seen, he turned Unitarian. From that
position he gradually moved towards pantheism, a way of thought to which
he had shown remarkable leanings when, as a schoolboy, he discoursed of
Neo-Platonism to Charles Lamb, or--if we may trust his
recollection--translated the hymns of Synesius. Early in life, too, he
met with the doctrines of Jacob Behmen, of whom, in the _Biographia
Literaria_, he speaks with affection and gratitude as having given him
vital philosophic guidance. Between pantheism and Unitarianism he seems
to have balanced till his thirty-fifth year, always tending towards the
former in virtue of the recoil from "anthropomorphism" which originally
took him to Unitarianism. In 1796, when he named his first child David
Hartley, but would not have him baptized, he held by the "Christian
materialism" of the writer in question, whom in his _Religious Musings_
he terms "wisest of mortal kind."
When, again, he met Wordsworth in 1797, the two poets freely and
sympathetically discussed Spinoza, for whom Coleridge always retained a
deep admiration; and when in 1798 he gave up his Unitarian preaching, he
named his second child Berkeley, signifying a new allegiance, but still
without accepting Christian rites otherwise than passively. Shortly
afterwards he went to Germany, where he began to study Kant, and was
much captivated by Lessing. In the _Biographia_ he avows that the
writings of Kant "more than any other work, at once invigorated and
disciplined my understanding"; yet the gist of his estimate there is
that Kant left his system undeveloped, as regards his idea of the
Noumenon, for fear of orthodox persecution--a judgment hardly compatible
with any assumption of Kant's Christian orthodoxy, which was notoriously
inadequate. But after his stay at Malta, Coleridge announced to his
friends that he had given up his "Socinianism" (of which ever afterwards
he spoke with asperity), professing a return to Christian faith, though
still putting on it a mystical construction, as when he told Crabb
Robinson that "Jesus Christ was a Platonic philosopher." At this stage
he was much in sympathy with the historico-rationalistic criticism of
the Old Testament, as carried on in Germany; giving his assent, for
instance, to the naturalistic doctrine of Schiller's _Die Sendung
Moses_. From about 1810 onwards, however, he openly professed Christian
orthodoxy, while privately indicating views which cannot be so
described. And even his published speculations were such as to draw from
J. H. Newman a protest that they took "a liberty which no Christian can
tolerate," and carried him to "conclusions which were often heathen
rather than Christian." This would apply to some of his positions
concerning the Logos and the Trinity. After giving up Unitarianism he
claimed that from the first he had been a Trinitarian on Platonic lines;
and some of his latest statements of the doctrine are certainly more
pantheistic than Christian.
The explanation seems to be that while on Christian grounds he
repeatedly denounced pantheism as being in all its forms equivalent to
atheism, he was latterly much swayed by the thought of Schelling in the
pantheistic direction which was natural to him. To these conflicting
tendencies were probably due his self-contradictions on the problem of
original sin and the conflicting claims of feeling and reason. It would
seem that, in the extreme spiritual vicissitudes of his life, conscious
alternately of personal weakness and of the largest speculative grasp,
he at times threw himself entirely on the consolations of evangelical
faith, and at others reconstructed the cosmos for himself in terms of
Neo-Platonism and the philosophy of Schelling. So great were his
variations even in his latter years, that he could speak to his friend
Allsop in a highly latitudinarian sense, declaring that in Christianity
"the miracles are supererogatory," and that "the law of God and the
great principles of the Christian religion would have been the same had
Christ never assumed humanity."
From Schelling, whom he praised as having developed Kant where Fichte
failed to do so, he borrowed much and often, not only in the
metaphysical sections of the _Biographia_ but in his aesthetic lectures,
and further in the cosmic speculations of the posthumous _Theory of
Life_. On the first score he makes but an equivocal acknowledgment,
claiming to have thought on Schelling's lines before reading him; but it
has been shown by Hamilton and Ferrier that besides transcribing much
from Schelling without avowal he silently appropriated the learning of
Maass on philosophical history. In other directions he laid under
tribute Herder and Lessing; yet all the while he cast severe imputations
of plagiarism upon Hume and others. His own plagiarisms were doubtless
facilitated by the physiological effects of opium.
Inasmuch as he finally followed in philosophy the mainly poetical or
theosophic movement of Schelling, which satisfied neither the logical
needs appealed to by Hegel nor the new demand for naturalistic
induction, Coleridge, after arousing a great amount of philosophic
interest in his own country in the second quarter of the century, has
ceased to "make a school." Thus his significance in intellectual history
remains that of a great stimulator. He undoubtedly did much to deepen
and liberalize Christian thought in England, his influence being
specially marked in the school of F. D. Maurice, and in the lives of men
like John Sterling. And even his many borrowings from the German were
assimilated with a rare power of development, which bore fruit not only
in a widening of the field of English philosophy but in the larger
scientific thought of a later generation. (J. M. RO.)
Of Coleridge's four children, two (Hartley and Sara) are separately
noticed. His second child, Berkeley, died when a baby. The third,
Derwent (1800-1883), a distinguished scholar and author, was master of
Helston school, Cornwall (1825-1841), first principal of St Mark's
College, Chelsea (1841-1864), and rector of Hanwell (1864-1880); and
his daughter Christabel (b. 1843) and son Ernest Hartley (b. 1846)
both became well known in the world of letters, the former as a
novelist, the latter as a biographer and critic.
After Coleridge's death several of his works were edited by his
nephew, Henry Nelson Coleridge, the husband of Sara, the poet's only
daughter. In 1847 Sara Coleridge published the _Biographia Literaria_,
enriched with annotations and biographical supplement from her own
pen. Three volumes of political writings, entitled _Essays on his Own
Times_, were also published by Sara Coleridge in 1850. The standard
life of Coleridge is that by J. Dykes Campbell (1894); his letters
were edited by E. H. Coleridge.
COLERIDGE, SARA (1802-1852), English author, the fourth child and only
daughter of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and his wife Sarah Fricker of
Bristol, was born on the 23rd of December 1802, at Greta Hall, Keswick.
Here, after 1803, the Coleridges, Southey and his wife (Mrs Coleridge's
sister), and Mrs Lovell (another sister), widow of Robert Lovell, the
Quaker poet, all lived together; but Coleridge was often away from home;
and "Uncle Southey" was a _pater familias_. The Wordsworths at Grasmere
were their neighbours. Wordsworth, in his poem, the _Triad_, has left us
a description, or "poetical glorification," as Sara Coleridge calls it,
of the three girls--his own daughter Dora, Edith Southey and Sara
Coleridge, the "last of the three, though eldest born." Greta Hall was
Sara Coleridge's home until her marriage; and the little Lake colony
seems to have been her only school. Guided by Southey, and with his
ample library at her command, she read by herself the chief Greek and
Latin classics, and before she was five-and-twenty had learnt French,
German, Italian and Spanish.
In 1822 Sara Coleridge published _Account of the Abipones_, a
translation in three large volumes of Dobrizhoffer, undertaken in
connexion with Southey's _Tale of Paraguay_, which had been suggested to
him by Dobrizhoffer's volumes; and Southey alludes to his niece, the
translator (canto iii. stanza 16), where he speaks of the pleasure the
old missionary would have felt if
".... he could in Merlin's glass have seen
By whom his tomes to speak our tongue were taught."
In less grandiloquent terms, Charles Lamb, writing about the _Tale of
Paraguay_ to Southey in 1825, says, "How she Dobrizhoffered it all out,
puzzles my slender Latinity to conjecture." In 1825 her second work
appeared, a translation from the medieval French of the "Loyal
Serviteur," _The Right Joyous and Pleasant History of the Feats, Jests,
and Prowesses of the Chevalier Bayard, the Good Knight without Fear and
without Reproach: By the Loyal Servant_.
In September 1829 at Crosthwaite church, Keswick, after an engagement of
seven years' duration, Sara Coleridge was married to her cousin, Henry
Nelson Coleridge (1798-1843), younger son of Captain James Coleridge
(1760-1836). He was then a chancery barrister in London. The first eight
years of her married life were spent in a little cottage in Hampstead.
There four of her children were born, of whom two survived. In 1834 Mrs
Coleridge published her _Pretty Lessons in Verse for Good Children; with
some Lessons in Latin in Easy Rhyme_. These were originally written for
the instruction of her own children, and became very popular. In 1837
the Coleridges removed to Chester Place, Regent's Park; and in the same
year appeared _Phantasmion, a Fairy Tale_, Sara Coleridge's longest
original work. The songs in _Phantasmion_ were much admired at the time
by Leigh Hunt and other critics. Some of them, such as "Sylvan Stay" and
"One Face Alone," are extremely graceful and musical, and the whole
fairy tale is noticeable for the beauty of the story and the richness of
its language.
In 1843 Henry Coleridge died, leaving to his widow the unfinished task
of editing her father's works. To these she added some compositions of
her own, among which are the _Essay on Rationalism, with a special
application to the Doctrine of Baptismal_ _Regeneration_, appended to
Coleridge's _Aids to Reflection_, a Preface to the _Essays on his Own
Times, by S. T. Coleridge_, and the Introduction to the _Biographia
Literaria_. During the last few years of her life Sara Coleridge was a
confirmed invalid. Shortly before she died she amused herself by writing
a little autobiography for her daughter. This, which reaches only to her
ninth year, was completed by her daughter, and published in 1873,
together with some of her letters, under the title _Memoirs and Letters
of Sara Coleridge_. The letters show a cultured and highly speculative
mind. They contain many apt criticisms of known people and books, and
are specially interesting for their allusions to Wordsworth and the Lake
Poets. Sara Coleridge died in London on the 3rd of May 1852.
Her son, Herbert Coleridge (1830-1861), won a double first class in
classics and mathematics at Oxford in 1852. He was secretary to a
committee appointed by the Philological Society to consider the project
of a standard English dictionary, a scheme of which the _New English
Dictionary_, published by the Clarendon Press, was the ultimate outcome.
His personal researches into the subject were contained in his
_Glossarial Index to the Printed English Literature of the Thirteenth
Century_ (1859).
COLET, JOHN (1467?-1510), English divine and educationist, the eldest
son of Sir Henry Colet (lord mayor of London 1486 and 1495), was born in
London about 1467. He was educated at St Anthony's school and at
Magdalen College, Oxford, where he took the M.A. degree in 1490. He
already held the non-resident rectory of Dennington, Suffolk, and the
vicarage of St Dunstan's, Stepney, and was now collated rector of
Thurning, Hunts. In 1493 he went to Paris and thence to Italy, studying
canon and civil law, patristics and the rudiments of Greek. During his
residence abroad he became acquainted with Budaeus (Guillaume Budé) and
Erasmus, and with the teaching of Savonarola. On his return to England
in 1496 he took orders and settled at Oxford, where he lectured on the
epistles of St Paul, replacing the old scholastic method of
interpretation by an exegesis more in harmony with the new learning. His
methods did much to influence Erasmus, who visited Oxford in 1498, and
in after years Erasmus received an annuity from him. Since 1494 he had
been prebendary of York, and canon of St Martin le Grand, London. In
1502 he became prebendary of Salisbury, in 1505 prebendary of St Paul's,
and immediately afterwards dean of the same cathedral, having previously
taken the degree of doctor of divinity. Here he continued his practice
of lecturing on the books of the Bible; and he soon afterwards
established a perpetual divinity lecture, on three days in each week, in
St Paul's church. About the year 1508, having inherited his father's
large wealth, Colet formed his plan for the re-foundation of St Paul's
school, which he completed in 1512, and endowed with estates of an
annual value of £122 and upwards. The celebrated grammarian William
Lilly was the first master, and the company of mercers were (in 1510)
appointed trustees, the first example of non-clerical management in
education. The dean's religious opinions were so much more liberal than
those of the contemporary clergy (whose ignorance and corruption he
denounced) that they deemed him little better than a heretic; but
William Warham, the archbishop, refused to prosecute him. Similarly
Henry VIII. held him in high esteem despite his sermons against the
French wars. In 1514 he made the Canterbury pilgrimage, and in 1515
preached at Wolsey's installation as cardinal. Colet died of the
sweating sickness on the 16th of September 1519. He was buried on the
south side of the choir of St Paul's, where a stone was laid over his
grave, with no other inscription than his name. Besides the preferments
above mentioned, he was rector of the gild of Jesus at St Paul's and
chaplain to Henry VIII.
Colet, though never dreaming of a formal breach with the Roman Church,
was a keen reformer, who disapproved of auricular confession, and of the
celibacy of the clergy. Though no great scholar or writer, he was a
powerful force in the England of his day, and helped materially to
disintegrate the medieval conditions still obtaining, and to introduce
the humanist movement. Among his works, which were first collectively
published in 1867-1876, are _Absolutissimus de octo orationis partium
constructione libellus_ (Antwerp, 1530), _Rudimenta Grammatices_
(London, 1539), _Daily Devotions_, _Monition to a Godly Life_,
_Epistolae ad Erasmum_, and commentaries on different parts of the
Bible.
See F. Seebohm, _The Oxford Reformers_; J. H. Lupton, _Life of John
Colet_ (1887); art. in _The Times_, July 7, 1909.
COLET, LOUISE (1810-1876), French poet and novelist, was born at Aix of
a Provençal family named Revoil, on the 15th of September 1810. In 1835
she came to Paris with her husband Hippolyte Colet (1808-1851), a
composer of music and professor of harmony and counterpoint at the
conservatoire. In 1836 appeared her _Fleurs du Midi_, a volume of verse,
of liberal tendency, followed by _Penserosa_ (1839), a second volume of
verse; by _La Jeunesse de Goethe_ (1839), a one-act comedy; by _Les
Coeurs brisés_ (1843), a novel; _Les Funerailles de Napoléon_ (1840),
a poem, and _La Jeunesse de Mirabeau_ (1841), a novel. Her works were
crowned five or six times by the Institute, a distinction which she
owed, however, to the influence of Victor Cousin rather than to the
quality of her work. The criticisms on her books and on the prizes
conferred on her by the Academy exasperated her; and in 1841 Paris was
diverted by her attempted reprisals on Alphonse Karr for certain notices
in _Les Guêpes_. In 1849 she had to defend an action brought against her
by the heirs of Madame Récamier, whose correspondence with Benjamin
Constant she had published in the columns of the _Presse_. She produced
a host of writings in prose and verse, but she is perhaps best known for
her intimate connexion with some of her famous contemporaries, Abel
Villemain, Gustave Flaubert and Victor Cousin. Only one of her books is
now of interest--_Lui: roman contemporain_ (1859), the novel in which
she told the story of her life. She died on the 8th of March 1876.
COLEUS, a genus of herbaceous or shrubby plants belonging to the natural
order Labiatae, chiefly natives of the tropics. They are very ornamental
plants, the colour of their leaves being exceedingly varied, and often
very brilliant. They are of the easiest culture. The cuttings of young
shoots should be propagated every year, about March, being planted in
thumb pots, in sandy loam, and placed in a close temperature of 70°.
After taking root shift into 6-in. pots, using ordinary light loamy
compost, containing abundance of leaf-mould and sand, and keeping them
near the light. They may be passed on into larger pots as often as
required, but 8-in. pots will be large enough for general purposes, as
they can be fed with liquid manure. The young spring-struck plants like
a warm growing atmosphere, but by midsummer they will bear more air and
stand in a greenhouse or conservatory. They should be wintered in a
temperature of 60° to 65°. The stopping of the young shoots must be
regulated by the consideration whether bushy or pyramidal plants are
desired. Some of the varieties are half-hardy and are used for summer
bedding.
COLFAX, SCHUYLER (1823-1885), American political leader, vice-president
of the United States from 1869 to 1873, was born in New York city on the
23rd of March 1823. His father died before the son's birth, and his
mother subsequently married a Mr Matthews. The son attended the public
schools of New York until he was ten, and then became a clerk in his
step-father's store, removing in 1836 with his mother and step-father to
New Carlisle, Indiana. In 1841 he removed to South Bend, where for eight
years he was deputy auditor (his step-father being auditor) of St Joseph
county; in 1842-1844 he was assistant enrolling clerk of the state
senate and senate reporter for the _Indiana State Journal_. In 1845 he
established the _St Joseph Valley Register_, which he published for
eighteen years and made an influential Whig and later Republican
journal. In 1850 he was a member of the state constitutional convention,
and in 1854 took an active part in organizing the "Anti-Nebraska men"
(later called Republicans) of his state, and was by them sent to
Congress. Here he served with distinction from 1855 until 1869, the last
six years as speaker of the House. At the close of the Civil War he was
a leading member of the radical wing of the Republican party, advocating
the disfranchisement of all who had been prominent in the service of
the Confederacy, and declaring that "loyalty must govern what loyalty
has preserved." In 1868 he had presidential aspirations, and was not
without supporters. He accepted, however, the Republican nomination as
vice-president on a ticket headed by General Grant, and was elected; but
he failed in 1872 to secure renomination. During the political campaign
of 1872 he was accused, with other prominent politicians, of being
implicated in corrupt transactions with the Crédit Mobilier, and a
congressional investigation brought out the fact that he had agreed to
take twenty shares from this concern, and had received dividends
amounting to $1200. It also leaked out during the investigation that he
had received in 1868, as a campaign contribution, a gift of $4000 from a
contractor who had supplied the government with envelopes while Colfax
was chairman of the post office committee of the House. At the close of
his term Colfax returned to private life under a cloud, and during the
remainder of his lifetime earned a livelihood by delivering popular
lectures. He died at Mankato, Minnesota, on the 13th of January 1885.
See J. C. Hollister's _Life of Schuyler Colfax_ (New York, 1886).
COLIC (from the Gr. [Greek: kolon] or [Greek: kôlon], the large
intestine), a term in medicine of very indefinite meaning, used by
physicians outside England for any paroxysmal abdominal pain, but
generally limited in England to a sudden sharp pain having its origin in
the pelvis of the kidney, the ureter, gall-bladder, bile-ducts or
intestine. Thus it is customary to speak of renal, biliary or intestinal
colic. There is a growing tendency, however, among professional men of
to-day, to restrict the use of the word to a pain produced by the
contraction of the muscular walls of any of the hollow viscera of which
the aperture has become more or less occluded, temporarily or otherwise.
For renal and biliary colic, see the articles KIDNEY DISEASES and LIVER,
only intestinal colic being treated in this place.
In infants, usually those who are "bottle-fed," colic is exceedingly
common, and is shown by the drawing up of their legs, their restlessness
and their continuous cries.
Among adults one of the most serious causes is that due to
lead-poisoning and known as lead colic (_Syn._ painters' colic, _colica
Pictonum_, Devonshire colic), from its having been clearly ascertained
to be due to the absorption of lead into the system (see
LEAD-POISONING). This disease had been observed and described long
before its cause was discovered. Its occurrence in an epidemic form
among the inhabitants of Poitou was recorded by François Citois
(1572-1652) in 1617, under the title of _Novus et popularis apud
Pictones dolor colicus biliosus_. The disease was thereafter termed
_colica Pictonum_. It was supposed to be due to the acidity of the
native wines, but it was afterwards found to depend on lead contained in
them. A similar epidemic broke out in certain parts of Germany in the
end of the 17th century, and was at the time believed by various
physicians to be caused by the admixture of acid wines with litharge to
sweeten them.
About the middle of the 18th century this disease, which had long been
known to prevail in Devonshire, was carefully investigated by Sir George
Baker (1722-1809), who succeeded in tracing it unmistakably to the
contamination of the native beverage, cider, with lead, either
accidentally from the leadwork of the vats and other apparatus for
preparing the liquor, or from its being sweetened with litharge.
In Germany a similar colic resulting from the absorption of copper
occurs, but it is almost unknown in England.
The simplest form of colic is that arising from habitual constipation,
the muscular wall of the intestines contracting painfully to overcome
the resistance of hardened scybalous masses of faeces, which cause more
or less obstruction to the onward passage of the intestinal contents.
Another equally common cause is that due to irritating or indigestible
food such as apples, pears or nuts, heavy pastry, meat pies and
puddings, &c. It may then be associated with either constipation or
diarrhoea, though the latter is the more common. It may result from any
form of enteritis as simple, mucous and ulcerative colitis, or an
intestinal malignant growth. The presence of _ascaris lumbricoides_
may, by reflex action, set up a very painful nervous spasm; and certain
forms of influenza (q.v.) are ushered in by colic of a very pronounced
type. Many physicians describe a rheumatic colic due to cold and damp,
and among women disease of the pelvic organs may give rise to an exactly
similar pain. There are also those forms of colic which must be classed
as functional or neuralgic, though this view of the case must never be
accepted until every other possible cause is found to be untenable. From
this short account of a few of the commoner causes of the trouble, it
will be clear that colic is merely a symptom of disease, not a disease
in itself, and that no diagnosis has been made until the cause of the
pain has been determined.
Intestinal colic is paroxysmal, usually both beginning and ending
suddenly. The pain is generally referred to the neighbourhood of the
umbilicus, and may radiate all over the abdomen. It varies in intensity
from a slight momentary discomfort to a pain so severe as to cause the
patient to shriek or even to break out into a cold clammy sweat. It is
usually relieved by pressure, and this point is one which aids in the
differential diagnosis between a simple colic and peritonitis, the pain
of the latter being increased by pressure. But should the colic be due
to a malignant growth, or should the intestines be distended with gas,
pressure will probably increase the pain. The temperature is usually
subnormal, but may be slightly raised, and the pulse is in proportion.
In the treatment of simple colic the patient must be confined to bed,
hot fomentations applied to the abdomen and a purge administered, a few
drops of laudanum being added when the pain is exceptionally severe. But
the whole difficulty lies in making the differential diagnosis. Acute
intestinal obstruction (ileus) begins just as an attack of simple colic,
but the rapid increase of illness, frequent vomiting, anxious
countenance, and still more the condition of the pulse, warn a trained
observer of the far more serious state. Appendicitis and peritonitis, as
also the gastric crises of locomotor ataxy, must all be excluded.
COLIGNY, GASPARD DE (1519-1572), admiral of France and Protestant
leader, came of a noble family of Burgundy, who traced their descent
from the 11th century, and in the reign of Louis XI. were in the service
of the king of France. His father, Gaspard de Coligny, known as the
maréchal de Châtillon (d. 1522), served in the Italian wars from 1495 to
1515, and was created marshal of France in 1516. By his wife, Louise de
Montmorency, sister of the future constable, he had three sons: Odet,
cardinal de Châtillon; Gaspard, the admiral; and Francis, seigneur
d'Andelot; all of whom played an important part in the first period of
the wars of religion. At twenty-two young Gaspard came to court, and
there contracted a friendship with Francis of Guise. In the campaign of
1543 Coligny distinguished himself greatly, and was wounded at the
sieges of Montmédy and Bains. In 1544 he served in the Italian campaign
under the duke of Enghien, and was knighted on the field of Ceresole.
Returning to France, he took part in different military operations; and
having been made colonel-general of the infantry (April 1547), exhibited
great capacity and intelligence as a military reformer. He was made
admiral on the death of d'Annebaut (1552). In 1557 he was entrusted with
the defence of Saint Quentin. In the siege he displayed great courage,
resolution, and strength of character; but the place was taken, and he
was imprisoned in the stronghold of L'Ecluse. On payment of a ransom of
50,000 crowns he recovered his liberty. But he had by this time become a
Huguenot, through the influence of his brother, d'Andelot--the first
letter which Calvin addressed to him is dated the 4th of September
1558--and he busied himself secretly with protecting his
co-religionists, a colony of whom he sent to Brazil, whence they were
afterwards expelled by the Portuguese.
On the death of Henry II. he placed himself, with Louis, prince of
Condé, in the front of his sect, and demanded religious toleration and
certain other reforms. In 1560, at the Assembly of Notables at
Fontainebleau, the hostility between Coligny and Francis of Guise broke
forth violently. When the civil wars began in 1562, Coligny decided to
take arms only after long hesitation, and he was always ready to
negotiate. In none of these wars did he show superior genius, but he
acted throughout with great prudence and extraordinary tenacity; he was
"le héros de la mauvaise fortune." In 1569 the defeat and death of the
prince of Condé at Jarnac left him sole leader of the Protestant armies.
Victorious at Arnay-le-Duc, he obtained in 1570 the pacification of St
Germain. Returning to the court in 1571, he grew rapidly in favour with
Charles XI. As a means of emancipating the king from the tutelage of his
mother and the faction of the Guises, the admiral proposed to him a
descent on Spanish Flanders, with an army drawn from both sects and
commanded by Charles in person. The king's regard for the admiral, and
the bold front of the Huguenots, alarmed the queen-mother; and the
massacre of St Bartholomew was the consequence. On the 22nd of August
1572 Coligny was shot in the street by Maurevel, a bravo in the pay of
the queen-mother and Guise; the bullets, however, only tore a finger
from his right hand and shattered his left elbow. The king visited him,
but the queen-mother prevented all private intercourse between them. On
the 24th of August, the night of the massacre, he was attacked in his
house, and a servant of the duke of Guise, generally known as Besme,
slew him and cast him from a window into the courtyard at his master's
feet. His papers were seized and burned by the queen-mother; among them,
according to Brantôme, was a history of the civil war, "très-beau et
tres-bien faict, et digne d'estre imprimé."
By his wife, Charlotte de Laval, Coligny had several children, among
them being Louise, who married first Charles de Téligny and afterwards
William the Silent, prince of Orange, and Francis, admiral of Guienne,
who was one of the devoted servants of Henry IV. Gaspard de Coligny
(1584-1646), son of Francis, was marshal of France during the reign of
Louis XIII.
See Jean du Bouchet, _Preuves de l'histoire généalogique de l'illustre
maison de Coligny_ (Paris, 1661); biography by François Hotman, 1575
(French translation, 1665); L. J. Delaborde, _Gaspard de Coligny_
(1879-1882); Erich Marcks, _Gaspard von Coligny, sein Leben und das
Frankreich seiner Zeit_ (Stuttgart, 1892); H. Patry, "Coligny et la
Papauté," in the _Bulletin du protestantisme français_ (1902); A. W.
Whitehead, _Gaspard de Coligny, Admiral of France_ (1904); and C.
Merki, _L'Amiral de Coligny_ (1909).
COLIMA, a small Pacific coast state of Mexico, lying between Jalisco on
the N.W. and N., and Michoacan on the E. Including the Revilla Gigédo
islands its area is only 2272 sq. m., which thus makes it the second
smallest of the Mexican states. Pop. (1895) 55,264; (1900) 65,115. The
larger part of its territory is within the narrow, flat coastal plain,
beyond which it rises toward the north-east into the foothills of the
Sierra Madre, the higher masses of the range, including the Colima
volcano, lying outside the state. It is drained by the Ameria and
Coahuayana rivers and their affluents, which are largely used for
irrigation. There are tidewater lagoons and morasses on the coast which
accentuate its malarious character. One of the largest of these,
Cuitlán, immediately south of Manzanillo, is the centre of a large
salt-producing industry. The soil is generally fertile and productive,
but lack of transportation facilities has been a serious obstacle to any
production greatly exceeding local demands. The dry and rainy seasons
are sharply defined, the rainfall being abundant in the latter. The
climate is hot, humid and malarious, becoming drier and healthier on the
higher mountain slopes of the interior. Stock-raising is an important
industry in the higher parts of the state, but the horses, mules and
cattle raised have been limited to local demands. Agriculture, however,
is the principal occupation of the state, the more important products
being sugar, rice, Indian corn, palm oil, coffee, indigo, cotton and
cacao. The production of cacao is small, and that of indigo and cotton
is declining, the latter being limited to the requirements of small
local mills. There are two crops of Indian corn a year, but sugar and
rice are the principal crops. The "Caracolillo" coffee, produced on the
slopes of the mountains culminating in the volcano of Colima, is reputed
the best in Mexico, and the entire crop (about 506,000 lb. in 1906) is
consumed in the country at a price much above other grades. There are
important mineral deposits in the state, including iron, copper and
lead, but mining enterprise has made no progress through lack of
transportation facilities. Salt is made on the coast and shipped inland,
and palm-leaf hats are manufactured and exported. Hides and deerskins
are also exported in large quantities. A narrow-gauge railway has been
in operation between the capital and Manzanillo for many years, and in
1907 a branch of the Mexican Central was completed between Guadalajara
and the capital, and the narrow-gauge line to the coast was widened to
the standard gauge. The chief cities of the state are the capital
Colima, Manzanillo, Comala (the second largest town in the state), 5 m.
from the capital, with which it is connected by an electric railway,
Ixtlahuacan Coquimatlan and Almoloyan.
COLIMA, a city of Mexico and capital of a state of the same name, 570 m.
(direct) W. by S. of Mexico City and about 36 m. inland from the Pacific
coast. Pop. (1895) 18,977; (1900) 20,698. Colima is picturesquely
situated on the Colima river, in a large fertile valley about 1650 ft.
above the sea, and lies in the midst of fine mountain-scenery. About 30
m. to the north-east the volcano of Colima, in the state of Jalisco,
rises to an elevation of 12,685 ft.; it is the most westerly of the
active volcanoes of Mexico. Colima enjoys a moderately cool and healthy
climate, especially in the dry season (November to June). The city is
regularly laid out and is in great part well built, with good public
buildings, several churches, a theatre, two hospitals, and a handsome
market completed in 1905. Tramways connect the central plaza with the
railway station, cemetery, and the suburb of Villa de Alvarez, 2½ m.
distant, and an extension of 5 m. was projected in 1906 to Comala. The
local industries include two old-fashioned cotton mills, an ice plant,
corn-grinding mill, and five cigarette factories. Colima is the
commercial centre for a large district, but trade has been greatly
restricted by lack of transportation facilities. A railway connects with
the port of Manzanillo, and the Mexican Central railway serves Colima
itself. Colima was founded in 1522 by Gonzalo de Sandoval. It has not
played a very prominent part in Mexican history because of its
inaccessibility, and for the same reason has suffered less from
revolutionary violence.
COLIN, ALEXANDRE (1526-1612), Flemish sculptor, was born at Malines. In
1563 he went, at the invitation of the emperor Ferdinand I., to
Innsbruck, to work on the magnificent monument which was being erected
to Maximilian I. in the nave of the Franciscan church. Of the
twenty-four marble alti-rilievi, representing the emperor's principal
acts and victories, which adorn the sides of this tomb, twenty were
executed by Colin, apparently in three years. The work displays a
remarkable combination of liveliness and spirit with extreme care and
finish, its delicacy rivalling that of a fine cameo. Thorwaldsen is said
to have pronounced it the finest work of its kind. Colin, who was
sculptor in ordinary both to the emperor and to his son, the archduke
Ferdinand of Tirol, did a great deal of work for his patrons at
Innsbruck and in its neighbourhood; particular mention may be made of
the sepulchres of the archduke and his first wife, Philippine Welser,
both in the same church as the Maximilian monument, and of Bishop Jean
Nas. His tomb in the cemetery at Innsbruck bears a fine bas-relief
executed by one of his sons.
COLL, an island of the Inner Hebrides, Argyllshire, Scotland. Pop.
(1901) 432. It is situated about 7 m. west of Caliach Point in Mull, and
measures 12 m. from N.E. to S.W., with a breadth varying from ¾ m. to 4
m. It is composed of gneiss, is generally rather flat, save in the west
where Ben Hogh reaches a height of 339 ft., and has several lakes. The
pasturage is good and the soil fairly fertile. Much dairy produce is
exported, besides sheep and cattle. The antiquities include stone
circles, duns, the ruins of Breachacha Castle, once a fortress of the
Lords of the Isles. A steamer from Oban calls regularly at Arinagour.
COLLAERT, HANS, Flemish engraver, son of Adrian Collaert, a draughtsman
and engraver of repute, was born at Antwerp about 1545. After working
some years in his father's studio, he went to Rome to perfect himself in
his art. His engravings after Rubens are very highly esteemed. He left
many works; among the best may be mentioned a "Life of Saint Francis,"
16 prints; a "Last Judgment," folio; "Monilium, Bullarum, Inauriumque
Artificiosissimae Icones," 10 prints, 1581; "The Dead Christ in his
Mother's Lap"; "Marcus Curtius"; "Moses Striking the Rock," and "The
Resurrection of Lazarus," after Lambert Lombard; "The Fathers of the
Desert"; and "Biblia Sacra and the History of the Church," after Rubens.
COLLAR, something worn or fastened round the neck (Lat. _collare_, from
_collum_, neck), particularly a band of linen, lace or other material,
which, under various shapes at different periods, has been worn by men
and women to serve as a completion or finish to the neckband of a
garment (see COSTUME); also a chain, worn as a personal ornament, a
badge of livery, a symbol of office, or as part of the insignia of an
order of knighthood, an application of the term with which the present
article deals. The word is also applied to that part of the
draught-harness of a horse which fits over the animal's neck, to which
the traces are attached, and against which the strain of the drawing of
the vehicle is exercised, and to a circular piece of metal passed round
the joints of a rod or pipe, to prevent movement or to make the joint
steam- or water-tight.
Necklaces with beads and jewels threaded thereon or the plain laces with
a hanging ornament are among the common braveries of all times and
countries. From these come the collar and the neck-chain. Torques or
twisted collars of metal are found in burying-places of the barbarous
people of northern Europe. British chiefs wore them, and gold torques
were around the necks of the leaders of the first of the Saxon invaders
of Britain, among whose descendants, however, the fashion seems to have
languished. Edward the Confessor was buried with a neck-chain of gold 2
ft. long, fastened with a jewelled locket and carrying an enamelled
crucifix.
The extravagant age of Richard II. saw a great revival of the
neck-chain, heavy links twisted of gold or silver. From this time onward
neck chains, with or without pendant devices, were commonly worn by men
and women of the richer sort. The men abandoned them in the time of
Charles I.
Closely allied to the chain are the livery collars which appeared in the
14th century, worn by those who thus displayed their alliances or their
fealty. Thus Charles V. of France in 1378 granted to his chamberlain
Geoffrey de Belleville the right of bearing in all feasts and in all
companies the collar of the _Cosse de Geneste_ or Broomcod, a collar
which was accepted and worn even by the English kings, Charles VI.
sending such collars to Richard II. and to his three uncles. This French
collar, a chain of couples of broom-cods linked by jewels, is seen in
the contemporary portrait of Richard II. at Wilton. The like collar was
worn by Henry IV. on the way to his crowning. During the sitting of the
English parliament in 1394 the complaints of the earl of Arundel against
Richard II. are recorded, one of his grievances being that the king was
wont to wear the livery of the collar of the duke of Lancaster, his
uncle, and that people of the king's following wore the same livery. To
which the king answered that soon after the return from Spain (in 1389)
of his uncle, the said duke, he himself took the collar from his uncle's
neck, putting it on his own, which collar the king would wear and use
for a sign of the good and whole-hearted love between them, even as he
wore the liveries of his other uncles. Livery collars of the king of
France, of Queen Anne and of the dukes of York and Lancaster are
numbered with the royal plate and jewels which in the first year of
Henry IV. had come to the king's hands. The inventory shows that Queen
Anne's collar was made up of sprigs of rosemary garnished with pearls.
The York collar had falcons and fetterlocks, and the Lancaster collar
was doubtless that collar of Esses (or S S) used by the duke's son,
Henry of Bolingbroke, as an earl, duke and king. This famous livery
collar, which has never passed out of use, takes many forms, its Esses
being sometimes linked together chainwise, and sometimes, in early
examples, bestowed as the ornamental bosses of a garter-shaped
strap-collar. The oldest effigy bearing it is that in Spratton church of
Sir John Swinford, who died in 1371. Swinford was a follower of John of
Gaunt, and the date of his death easily disposes of the fancy that the
Esses were devised by Henry IV. to stand for his motto or "word" of
_Soverayne_. Many explanations are given of the origin of these letters,
but none has as yet been established with sufficient proof. During the
reigns of Henry IV., his son and grandson, the collar of Esses was a
royal badge of the Lancastrian house and party, the white swan being its
pendant. In one of Henry VI.'s own collars the S was joined to the
Broomcod of the French device, thus symbolizing the king's claim to the
two kingdoms.
The kings of the house of York and their chief followers wore the
Yorkist collar of suns and roses, with the white lion of March, the
Clare bull, or Richard's white boar for a pendant device. Henry VII.
brought back the collar of Esses, a portcullis or a rose hanging from
it, although in a portrait of this king, now possessed by the Society of
Antiquaries, his neck bears the _rose en soleil_ alternating with knots,
and his son, when young, had a collar of roses red and white. Besides
these royal collars, the 14th and 15th centuries show many of private
devices. A brass at Mildenhall shows a knight whose badge of a dog or
wolf circled by a crown hangs from a collar with edges suggesting a
pruned bough or the ragged staff. Thomas of Markenfield (d. c. 1415) on
his brass at Ripon has a strange collar of park palings with a badge of
a hart in a park, and the Lord Berkeley (d. 1392) wears one set with
mermaids.
Collars of various devices are now worn by the grand crosses of the
European orders of knighthood. The custom was begun by Philip of
Burgundy, who gave his knights of the Golden Fleece, an order founded on
the 10th of February 1429-1430, badges of a golden fleece hung from that
collar of flints, steels and sparks which is seen in so many old Flemish
portraits. To this day it remains the most beautiful of all the collars,
keeping in the main the lines of its Flemish designer, although a vulgar
fancy sometimes destroys the symbolism of the golden fleece by changing
it for an unmeaning fleece of diamonds. Following this new fashion,
Louis XI. of France, when instituting his order of St Michael in 1469,
gave the knights collars of scallop shells linked on a chain. The chain
was doubled by Charles VIII., and the pattern suffered other changes
before the order lapsed in 1830. Until the reign of Henry VIII., the
Garter, most ancient of the great knightly orders, had no collar. But
the Tudor king must needs match in all things with continental
sovereigns, and the present collar of the Garter knights, with its
golden knots and its buckled garters enclosing white roses set on red
roses, has its origin in the Tudor age. An illustration in colours of
the Garter collar is given on Plate I. in the article KNIGHTHOOD AND
CHIVALRY, while descriptions of the collars of the other principal
orders are also given. The collar of the Thistle with the thistles and
rue-sprigs is as old as the reign of James II. The Bath collar, in its
first form of white knots linking closed crowns to roses and thistles
issuing from sceptres, dates from 1725, up to which time the knights of
the Bath had hung their medallion from a ribbon.
Founding the order of the Saint Esprit in 1578, Henry III. of France
devised a collar of enflamed fleur-de-lis and cyphers of H and L, a
fashion which was soon afterwards varied by Henry his successor.
Elephants have been always borne on the collar of the Elephant founded
in Denmark in 1478, the other links of which have taken many shapes.
Another Danish order, the Dannebrog, said to be "re-instituted" by
Christian V. in 1671, has a collar of crosses formy alternating with the
crowned letters C and W, the latter standing for Waldemar the
Victorious, whom a legend of no value described as founding the order in
1219. Of other European orders, that of St Andrew, founded by Peter of
Russia in 1698, has eagles and Andrew crosses and cyphers, while the
Black Eagle of Prussia has the Prussian eagle with thunderbolts in its
claws beside roundels charged with cyphers of the letters F.R.
Plain collars of Esses are now worn in the United Kingdom by
kings-of-arms, heralds and serjeants-at-arms. Certain legal dignitaries
have worn them since the 16th century, the collar of the lord
chief-justice having knots and roses between the letters. Henry IV.'s
parliament in his second year restricted the free use of the king's
livery collar to his sons and to all dukes, earls, barons and bannerets,
while simple knights and squires might use it when in the royal presence
or in going to and from the hostel of the king. The giving of a livery
collar by the king made a squire of a man even as the stroke of the
royal sword made him a knight. Collars of Esses are sometimes seen on
the necks of ladies. The queen of Henry IV. wears one. So do the wife of
a 16th century Knightley on her tomb at Upton, and Penelope, Lady
Spencer (d. 1667), on her Brington monument.
Since 1545 the lord mayor of London has worn a royal livery collar of
Esses. This collar, however, has its origin in no royal favour, Sir John
Alen, thrice a lord mayor, having bequeathed it to the then lord mayor
and his successors "to use and occupie yerely at and uppon principall
and festivall dayes." It was enlarged in 1567, and in its present shape
has 28 Esses alternating with knots and roses and joined with a
portcullis. Lord mayors of York use a plain gold chain of a triple row
of links given in 1670; this chain, since the day when certain links
were found wanting, is weighed on its return by the outgoing mayor. In
Ireland the lord mayor of Dublin wears a collar given by Charles II.,
while Cork's mayor has another which the Cork council bought of a
silversmith in 1755, stipulating that it should be like the Dublin one.
The lady mayoress of York wears a plain chain given with that of the
lord mayor in 1670, and, like his, weighed on its return to official
keeping. For some two hundred and thirty years the mayoress of
Kingston-on-Hull enjoyed a like ornament until a thrifty council in 1835
sold her chain as a useless thing.
Of late years municipal patriotism and the persuasions of enterprising
tradesmen have notably increased the number of English provincial mayors
wearing collars or chains of office. Unlike civic maces, swords and caps
of maintenance, these gauds are without significance. The mayor of Derby
is decorated with the collar once borne by a lord chief-justice of the
king's bench, and his brother of Kingston-on-Thames uses without
authority an old collar of Esses which once hung over a herald's tabard.
By a modern custom the friends of the London sheriffs now give them
collars of gold and enamel, which they retain as mementoes of their year
of office. (O. BA.)
COLLATERAL (from Med. Lat. _collateralis_,--_cum_, with, and _latus_,
_lateris_, side,--side by side, hence parallel or additional), a term
used in law in several senses. _Collateral relationship_ means the
relationship between persons who are descended from the same stock or
ancestor, but in a different line; as opposed to _lineal_, which is the
relationship between ascendants and descendants in a direct line, as
between father and son, grandfather and grandson. A _collateral
agreement_ is an agreement made contemporaneously with a written
contract as part of the transaction, but without being incorporated with
it. _Collateral facts_, in evidence, are those facts which do not bear
directly on the matters in dispute. _Collateral security_ is an
additional security for the better safety of the mortgagee, i.e.
property or right of action deposited to secure the fulfilment of an
obligation.
COLLATIA, an ancient town of Latium, 10 m. E. by N. of Rome by the Via
Collatina. It appears in the legendary history of Rome as captured by
Tarquinius Priscus. Livy tells us it was taken from the Sabines, while
Virgil speaks of it as a Latin colony. In the time of Cicero it had lost
all importance; Strabo names it as a mere village, in private hands,
while for Pliny it was one of the lost cities of Latium. The site is
undoubtedly to be sought on the hill now occupied by the large medieval
fortified farmhouse of Lunghezza, immediately to the south of the Anio,
which occupies the site of the citadel joined by a narrow neck to the
tableland to the south-east on which the city stood: this is protected
by wide valleys on each side, and is isolated at the south-east end by a
deep narrow valley enlarged by cutting. No remains are to be seen, but
the site is admirably adapted for an ancient settlement. The road may be
traced leading to the south end of this tableland, being identical with
the modern road to Lunghezza for the middle part of its course only.
The current indentification with Castellaccio, 2 m. to the south-east,
is untenable.
See T. Ashby in _Papers of the British School at Rome_, i. 138 seq.,
iii. 201. (T. AS.)
COLLATION (Lat. _collatio_, from _conferre_, to bring together or
compare), the bringing together of things for the special purpose of
comparison, and thus, particularly, the critical examination of the
texts of documents or MSS. and the result of such comparison. The word
is also a term in printing and bookbinding for the register of the
"signatures," the number of quires and leaves in each quire of a book or
MS. In Roman and Scots law "collation" answers to the English law term
"hotch-pot" (q.v.). From another meaning of the Latin word, a
consultation or conference, and so a treatise or homily, comes the title
of a work of Johannes Cassianus (q.v.), the _Conferences of the Fathers_
(_Collationes Patrum_). Readings from this and similar works were
customary in monasteries; by the _regula_ of St Benedict it is ordered
that on rising from supper there should be read _collationes_, passages
from the lives of the Fathers and other edifying works; the word is then
applied to the discussions arising from such readings. On fast days it
was usual in monasteries to have a very light meal after the _Collatio_,
and hence the meal itself came to be called "collation," a meaning which
survives in the modern use of the word for any light or quickly prepared
repast.
COLLÉ, CHARLES (1709-1783), French dramatist and song-writer, the son of
a notary, was born at Paris in 1709. He was early interested in the
rhymes of Jean Heguanier, then the most famous maker of couplets in
Paris. From a notary's office Collé was transferred to that of M. de
Neulan, the receiver-general of finance, and remained there for nearly
twenty years. When about seventeen, however, he made the acquaintance of
Alexis Piron, and afterwards, through Gallet (d. 1757), of Panard. The
example of these three masters of the vaudeville, while determining his
vocation, made him diffident; and for some time he composed nothing but
_amphigouris_--verses whose merit was measured by their
unintelligibility. The friendship of the younger Crébillon, however,
diverted him from this by-way of art, and the establishment in 1729 of
the famous "Caveau" gave him a field for the display of his fine talent
for popular song. In 1739 the Society of the Caveau, which numbered
among its members Helvétius, Charles Duclos, Pierre Joseph Bernard,
called Gentil-Bernard, Jean Philippe Rameau, Alexis Piron, and the two
Crébillons, was dissolved, and was not reconstituted till twenty years
afterwards. His first and his best comedy, _La Vérité dans le vin_,
appeared in 1747. Meanwhile, the Regent Orleans, who was an excellent
comic actor, particularly in representations of low life, and had been
looking out for an author to write suitable parts for him, made Collé
his reader. It was for the duke and his associates that Collé composed
the greater part of his _Théâtre de société_. In 1763 Collé produced at
the Théâtre Français _Dupuis et Desronais_, a successful sentimental
comedy, which was followed in 1771 by _La Veuve_, which was a complete
failure. In 1774 appeared _La Partie de chasse de Henri Quatre_ (partly
taken from Dodsley's _King and the Miller of Mansfield_), Collé's last
and best play. From 1748 to 1772, besides these and a multitude of
songs, Collé was writing his _Journal_, a curious collection of literary
and personal strictures on his boon companions as well as on their
enemies, on Piron as on Voltaire, on La Harpe as on Corneille. Collé
died on the 3rd of November 1783. His lyrics are frank and jovial,
though often licentious. The subjects are love and wine; occasionally,
however, as in the famous lyric (1756) on the capture of Port Mahon, for
which the author received a pension of 600 livres, the note of
patriotism is struck with no unskilful hand, while in many others Collé
shows himself possessed of considerable epigrammatic force.
See also H. Bonhomme's edition (1868) of his _Journal et Mémoires_
(1748-1772); Grimm's _Correspondance_; and C. A. Sainte-Beuve,
_Nouveaux lundis_, vol. vii.
COLLECTIVISM, a term used to denote the economic principle of the
ownership by a community of all the means of production in order to
secure to the people collectively an equitable distribution of the
produce of their associated labour. Though often used in a narrow sense
to express the economic basis of Socialism, the latter term is so
generally employed in the same sense that collectivism is best discussed
in connexion with it (see SOCIALISM).
COLLECTOR, a term technically used for various officials, and
particularly in India for the chief administrative official of a
district. The word was in this case originally a translation of
_tahsildar_, and indicates that the special duty of the office is the
collection of revenue; but the collector has also magisterial powers and
is a species of autocrat within the bounds of his district. The title is
confined to the regulation provinces, especially Madras; in the
non-regulation provinces the same duties are discharged by the
deputy-commissioner (see COMMISSIONER).
COLLE DI VAL D' ELSA, a town and episcopal see of Italy, in the province
of Siena, 5 m. by rail S. of Poggibonsi, which is 16 m. N.W. of Siena.
Pop. (1901) town 1987; commune 9879. The old (upper) town (732 ft. above
sea-level), contains the cathedral, dating from the 13th century, with a
pulpit partly of this period; the façade has been modernized. There are
also some old palaces of good architecture, and the old house where
Arnolfo di Cambio, the first architect of the cathedral at Florence
(1232-1301) was born. The lower town (460 ft.) contains glass-works; the
paper and iron industries (the former as old as 1377) are less
important.
COLLEGE (_Collegium_), in Roman law, a number of persons associated
together by the possession of common functions,--a body of colleagues.
Its later meaning applied to any union of persons, and _collegium_ was
the equivalent of [Greek: hetaireia]. In many respects, e.g. in the
distinction between the responsibilities and rights of the society and
those of individual members thereof, the collegium was what we should
now call a corporation (q.v.). Collegia might exist for purposes of
trade like the English gilds, or for religious purposes (e.g. the
college of augurs, of pontifices, &c.), or for political purposes, e.g.
_tribunorum plebis collegia_. By the Roman law a collegium must have at
least three members. The name is now usually applied to educational
corporations, such as the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge, with which,
in the numerous English statutes relating to colleges, the colleges of
Winchester and Eton are usually associated. These colleges are in the
eye of the law eleemosynary corporations. In some of the earlier
statutes of Queen Elizabeth they are spoken of as having an
ecclesiastical character, but the doctrine of the common law since the
Reformation has been that they are purely lay corporations,
notwithstanding that most or all of their members may be persons in
priest's orders. This is said to have been settled by Dr Patrick's case
(_Raymond's Reports_, p. 101).
Colleges appear to have grown out of the voluntary association of
students and teachers at the university. According to some accounts
these must at one time have been numerous and flourishing beyond
anything we are now acquainted with. We are told, for example, of 300
halls or societies at Oxford, and 30,000 students. In early times there
seems to have been a strong desire to confine the scholars to certain
licensed houses beyond the influence of the townspeople. Men of wealth
and culture, and notably the political bishops and chancellors of
England, obtained charters from the crown for the incorporation of
societies of scholars, and these in time became exclusively the places
of abode for students attending the university. At the same time the
corporations thus founded were not necessarily attached to the locality
of the university. The early statutes of Merton College, for example,
allow the residence of the college to be shifted as occasion required;
and the foundations of Wolsey at Oxford and Ipswich seem to have been
the same in intention. In later times (until the introduction of
non-collegiate students) the university and the colleges became
coextensive; every member of the university had to attach himself to
some college or hall, and every person admitted to a college or hall was
obliged to matriculate himself in the university.
In Ayliffe's _Ancient and Present State of the University of Oxford_ it
is stated that a college must be "made up of three persons (at least)
joined in community. And the reason of this almost seems to speak its
own necessity, without the help of any express law to countenance it:
because among two persons only there cannot be, in fact, a major part;
and then if any disagreement should happen to arise between them it
cannot be, in fact, brought to a conclusion by such a number alone in
case both the parties should firmly adhere to their dissenting opinions;
and thus it is declared by the civil law. But by the canon law it is
known to be otherwise; for by that law two persons in number may make
and constitute a college, forasmuch as according to this law two persons
make and constitute an assembly or congregation. The common law of
England, or rather the constant usage of our princes in erecting
aggregate bodies, which has established this rule among us as a law, has
been herein agreeable to the method and doctrine of the civil law, for
that in all their grants and charters of incorporation of colleges they
have not framed any aggregate body consisting of less than three in
number." Another principle, apparently derived from the civil law, is
that a man cannot be a fellow in two colleges at the same time. The law
of England steadily resisted any attempt to introduce the principle of
inequality into colleges. An act of 1542, reciting that divers founders
of colleges have given in their statutes a power of veto to individual
members, enacts that every statute made by any such founder, whereby the
grant or election of the governor or ruler with the assent of the most
part of such corporation should be in any wise hindered by any one or
more being the lesser number (contrary to the common law), shall be
void.
The corporation consists of a head or master, fellows and scholars.
Students, not being on the foundation, residing in the college, are not
considered to be members of the corporation. The governing body in all
cases is the head and fellows.
It is considered essential to corporations of an ecclesiastical or
educational character that they should have a Visitor whose duty it is
to see that the statutes of the founder are obeyed. The duties of this
officer have been ascertained by the courts of law in a great variety of
decided cases. Subject to such restrictions as may be imposed on him by
the statutes of the college, his duties are generally to interpret the
statutes of the college in disputed cases, and to enforce them where
they have been violated. For this purpose he is empowered to "visit" the
society--usually at certain stated intervals. In questions within his
jurisdiction his judgment is conclusive, but his jurisdiction does not
extend to any cases under the common laws of the country, or to trusts
attached to the college. Generally the visitorship resides in the
founder and his heirs unless he has otherwise appointed, and in default
of him in the crown.
The fellowships, scholarships, &c., of colleges were until a
comparatively recent date subject to various restrictions. Birth in a
particular county, education at a particular school, relationship to the
founder and holy orders, are amongst the most usual of the conditions
giving a preferential or conclusive claim to the emoluments. Most of
these restrictions have been or are being swept away. (See UNIVERSITIES;
OXFORD; CAMBRIDGE; &C.)
The term "college" (like "academy") is also applied to various
institutions, e.g. to colleges of physicians and surgeons, and to the
electoral college in the United States presidential elections, &c. For
the Sacred College see CARDINAL.
COLLEONI, BARTOLOMMEO (1400-1475), Italian soldier of fortune, was born
at Bergamo. While he was still a child his father was attacked and
murdered in his castle of Trezzo by Filippo Maria Visconti, duke of
Milan. After wandering about Italy he entered the service of various
_condottieri_, such as Braccio da Montone and Carmagnola. At the age of
thirty-two he was serving the Venetian republic, and although Francesco
Maria Gonzaga was commander-in-chief, Colleoni was the life and soul of
the army. He recaptured many towns and districts for Venice from the
Milanese, and when Gonzaga went over to the enemy he continued to serve
the Venetians under Erasmo da Narni (known as Gattamelata) and Francesco
A. Sforza, winning battles at Brescia, Verona and on the lake of Garda.
When peace was made between Milan and Venice in 1441 Colleoni went over
to the Milanese, together with Sforza in 1443. But although well
treated at first, he soon fell under the suspicion of the treacherous
Visconti and was imprisoned at Monza, where he remained until the duke's
death in 1447. Milan then fell under the lordship of Sforza, whom
Colleoni served for a time, but in 1448 he took leave of Sforza and
returned to the Venetians. Disgusted at not having been elected
captain-general, he went over to Sforza once more, but Venice could not
do without him and by offering him increased emoluments induced him to
return, and in 1455 he was appointed captain-general of the republic for
life. Although he occasionally fought on his own account, when Venice
was at peace, he remained at the disposal of the republic in time of war
until his death.
Colleoni was perhaps the most respectable of all the Italian
_condottieri_, and although he often changed sides, no act of treachery
is imputed to him, nor did he subject the territories he passed through
to the rapine and exactions practised by other soldiers of fortune. When
not fighting he devoted his time to introducing agricultural
improvements on the vast estates with which the Venetians had endowed
him, and to charitable works. At his death in 1475 he left a large sum
to the republic for the Turkish war, with a request that an equestrian
statue of himself should be erected in the Piazza San Marco. The statue
was made by Verrocchio, but as no monument was permitted in the famous
Piazza it was placed opposite the hospital of St Mark by way of
compromise.
See G. M. Bonomi, _Il Castello di Cavernago e i conti Martinengo
Colleoni_ (Bergamo, 1884); for an account of his wars see S. Romanin,
_Storia documentata di Venezia_, vol. iv. (Venice, 1855), and other
histories of Venice. (L. V.*)
COLLETER (Gr. [Greek: kollos], glue), a botanical term for the
gum-secreting hairs on the buds of certain plants.
COLLETTA, PIETRO (1775-1831), Neapolitan general and historian, entered
the Neapolitan artillery in 1796 and took part in the campaign against
the French in 1798. On the entry of the French into Naples and the
establishment of the Parthenopean republic (1799) he adhered to the new
government, and when the Bourbon king Ferdinand IV. (q.v.) reconquered
the city Colletta was thrown into prison and only escaped the death
penalty by means of judiciously administered bribes. Turned out of the
army he became a civil engineer, but when the Bourbons were expelled a
second time in 1806 and Joseph Bonaparte seized the throne of Naples, he
was reinstated in his rank and served in the expedition against the
brigands and rebels of Calabria. In 1812 he was promoted general, and
made director of roads and bridges. He served under Joachim Murat and
fought the Austrians on the Panaro in 1815. On the restoration of
Ferdinand Colletta was permitted to retain his rank in the army, and
given command of the Salerno division. At the outbreak of the revolution
of 1820 the king called him to his councils, and when the constitution
had been granted Colletta was sent to put down the separatist rising in
Sicily, which he did with great severity. He fought in the
constitutionalist army against the Austrians at Rieti (7th of March
1821), and on the re-establishment of autocracy he was arrested and
imprisoned for three months by order of the prince of Canosa, the chief
of police, his particular enemy. He would have been executed had not the
Austrians intervened in his favour, and he was exiled instead to Brünn
in Moravia; in 1823 he was permitted to settle in Florence, where he
spent the rest of his days engaged on his _Storia del reame di Napoli_.
He died in 1831. His history (1st ed., Capolago, 1834), which deals with
the reigns of Charles III. and Ferdinand IV. (1734-1825), is still the
standard work for that period; but its value is somewhat diminished by
the author's bitterness against his opponents and the fact that he does
not give chapter and verse for his statements, many of which are based
on his recollection of documents seen, but not available at the time of
writing. Still, having been an actor in many of the events recorded, he
is on the whole accurate and trustworthy.
See Gino Capponi's memoir of him published in the _Storia del reame di
Napoli_ (2nd ed., Florence, 1848). (L. V.*)
COLLEY, SIR GEORGE POMEROY (1835-1881), British general, third son of
George Pomeroy Colley, of Rathangan, Co. Kildare, Ireland, and grandson
of the fourth Viscount Harberton, was born on the 1st of November 1835,
and entered the 2nd Queen's Regiment from Sandhurst as ensign in 1852.
From 1854 to 1860 he served in South Africa, and was employed in
surveying and as a magistrate in charge of the Bashi river district in
Kaffraria. Early in 1860 he went with his regiment to China to join the
Anglo-French expedition, and took part in the capture of the Taku forts
and the entry into Peking, returning to South Africa to complete his
work in Kaffraria (brevet-majority). In 1862 he entered the Staff
College and passed out in one year with honours. After serving as
brigade-major at Devonport for five years, he went to the War Office in
1870 to assist in the preparation of (Lord) Cardwell's measures of army
reform. He was appointed professor of military administration at the
Staff College in 1871. Early in 1873 he joined Sir Garnet Wolseley at
the Gold Coast, where he took charge of the transport, and the success
of the Ashanti expedition was in no small degree due to his exertions.
He was promoted brevet-colonel and awarded the C.B. In 1875 he
accompanied Wolseley to Natal (C.M.G.). On his return home he was
appointed military secretary to Lord Lytton, governor-general of India,
and in 1877 private secretary (K.C.S.I.). In 1879 he joined Wolseley as
chief of the staff and brigadier-general in S.E. Africa, but, on the
murder of Cavagnari at Kabul, returned to India. In 1880 he succeeded
Wolseley in S.E. Africa as high commissioner and general commanding, and
conducted the operations against the rebel Boers. He was defeated at
Laing's Nek and at the Ingogo river, and killed at Majuba Hill on the
27th of February 1881. He had a very high reputation not only for a
theoretical knowledge of military affairs, but also as a practical
soldier.
See _Life of Sir George Pomeroy Colley_ by Lieut.-Gen. Sir W. F.
Butler (London, 1899).
COLLIER, ARTHUR (1680-1732), English philosopher, was born at the
rectory of Steeple Langford, Wiltshire, on the 12th of October 1680. He
entered at Pembroke College, Oxford, in July 1697, but in October 1698
he and his brother William became members of Balliol. His father having
died in 1697, it was arranged that the family living of Langford Magna
should be given to Arthur as soon as he was old enough. He was presented
to the benefice in 1704, and held it till his death. His sermons show no
traces of his bold theological speculations, and he seems to have been
faithful in the discharge of his duty. He was often in pecuniary
difficulties, from which at last he was obliged to free himself by
selling the reversion of Langford rectory to Corpus Christi College,
Oxford. His philosophical opinions grew out of a diligent study of
Descartes and Malebranche. John Norris of Bemerton also strongly
influenced him by his _Essay on the Ideal World_ (1701-1704). It is
remarkable that Collier makes no reference to Locke, and shows no sign
of having any knowledge of his works. As early as 1703 he seems to have
become convinced of the non-existence of an external world. In 1712 he
wrote two essays, which are still in manuscript, one on substance and
accident, and the other called _Clavis Philosophica_. His chief work
appeared in 1713, under the title _Clavis Universalis_, or a _New
Inquiry after Truth_, being a _Demonstration of the Non-Existence or
Impossibility of an External World_ (printed privately, Edinburgh, 1836,
and reprinted in _Metaphysical Tracts_, 1837, edited by Sam. Parr). It
was favourably mentioned by Reid, Stewart and others, was frequently
referred to by the Leibnitzians, and was translated into German by von
Eschenbach in 1756. Berkeley's _Principles of Knowledge_ and _Theory of
Vision_ preceded it by three and four years respectively, but there is
no evidence that they were known to Collier before the publication of
his book.
His views are grounded on two presuppositions:--first, the utter
aversion of common sense to any theory of representative perception;
second, the opinion which Collier held in common with Berkeley, and
Hume afterwards, that the difference between imagination and sense
perception is only one of degree. The former is the basis of the
negative part of his argument; the latter supplies him with all the
positive account he has to give, and that is meagre enough. The
_Clavis_ consists of two parts. After explaining that he will use the
term "external world" in the sense of absolute, self-existent,
independent matter, he attempts in the first part to prove that the
visible world is not external, by showing--first, that the seeming
externality of a visible object is no proof of real externality, and
second, that a visible object, as such, is not external. The image of
a centaur seems as much external to the mind as any object of sense;
and since the difference between imagination and perception is only
one of degree, God could so act upon the mind of a person imagining a
centaur, that he would perceive it as vividly as any object can be
seen. Similar illustrations are used to prove the second proposition,
that a visible object, as such, is not external. The first part ends
with a reply to objections based on the universal consent of men, on
the assurance given by touch of the extra existence of the visible
world, and on the truth and goodness of God (Descartes), which would
be impugned if our senses deceived us. Collier argues naively that if
universal consent means the consent of those who have considered the
subject, it may be claimed for his view. He thinks with Berkeley that
objects of sight are quite distinct from those of touch, and that the
one therefore cannot give any assurance of the other; and he asks the
Cartesians to consider how far God's truth and goodness are called in
question by their denial of the externality of the secondary
qualities. The second part of the book is taken up with a number of
metaphysical arguments to prove the impossibility of an external
world. The pivot of this part is the logical principle of
contradiction. From the hypothesis of an external world a series of
contradictions are deduced, such as that the world is both finite and
infinite, is movable and immovable, &c.; and finally, Aristotle and
various other philosophers are quoted, to show that the external
matter they dealt with, as mere potentiality, is just nothing at all.
Among other uses and consequences of his treatise, Collier thinks it
furnishes an easy refutation of the Romish doctrine of
transubstantiation. If there is no external world, the distinction
between substance and accidents vanishes, and these become the sole
essence of material objects, so that there is no room for any change
whilst they remain as before. Sir William Hamilton thinks that the
logically necessary advance from the old theory of representative
perception to idealism was stayed by anxiety to save this miracle of
the church; and he gives Collier credit for being the first to make
the discovery.
His _Clavis Universalis_ is interesting on account of the resemblance
between its views and those of Berkeley. Both were moved by their
dissatisfaction with the theory of representative perception. Both
have the feeling that it is inconsistent with the common sense of
mankind, which will insist that the very object perceived is the sole
reality. They equally affirm that the so-called representative image
is the sole reality, and discard as unthinkable the unperceiving
material cause of the philosophers. Of objects of sense, they say,
their _esse_ is _percipi_. But Collier never got beyond a bald
assertion of the fact, while Berkeley addressed himself to an
explanation of it. The thought of a distinction between direct and
indirect perception never dawned upon Collier. To the question how all
matter exists in dependence on percipient mind his only reply is,
"Just how my reader pleases, provided it be somehow." As cause of our
sensations and ground of our belief in externality, he substituted for
an unintelligible material substance an equally unintelligible
operation of divine power. His book exhibits no traces of a scientific
development. The most that can be said about him is that he was an
intelligent student of Descartes and Malebranche, and had the ability
to apply the results of his reading to the facts of his experience. In
philosophy he is a curiosity, and nothing more. His biographer
attributes the comparative failure of the _Clavis_ to its inferiority
in point of style, but the crudeness of his thought had quite as much
to do with his failure to gain a hearing. Hamilton (_Discussions_, p.
197) allows greater sagacity to Collier than to Berkeley, on the
ground that he did not vainly attempt to enlist men's natural belief
against the hypothetical realism of the philosophers. But Collier did
so as far as his light enabled him. He appealed to the popular
conviction that the proper object of sense is the sole reality,
although he despaired of getting men to give up their belief in its
externality, and asserted that nothing but prejudice prevented them
from doing so; and there is little doubt that, if it had ever occurred
to him, as it did to Berkeley, to explain the genesis of the notion of
externality, he would have been more hopeful of commending his theory
to the popular mind.
In theology Collier was an adherent of the High Church party, though
his views were by no means orthodox. In the Jacobite _Mist's Journal_
he attacked Bishop Hoadly's defence of sincere errors. His views on
the problems of Arianism, and his attempt to reconcile it with
orthodox theology, are contained in _A Specimen of True Philosophy_
(1730, reprinted in _Metaphysical Tracts_, 1837) and _Logology, or a
Treatise on the Logos in Seven Sermons on John i. 1, 2, 3, 14_ (1732,
analysed in _Metaph. Tracts_). These may be compared with Berkeley's
_Siris_.
See Robt. Benson, _Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Arthur Collier_
(1837); Tennemann, _History of Philosophy_; Hamilton, _Discussions_;
A. C. Fraser, edition of _Berkeley's Works_; G. Lyon, "Un Idéaliste
anglais au XVIII. siècle," in _Rev. philos._ (1880), x. 375.
COLLIER, JEREMY (1650-1726), English nonjuring divine, was born at
Stow-with-Quy, Cambridgeshire, on the 23rd of September 1650. He was
educated at Ipswich free school, over which his father presided, and at
Caius College, Cambridge, graduating B.A. in 1673 and M.A. in 1676. He
acted for a short time as a private chaplain, but was appointed in 1679
to the small rectory of Ampton, near Bury St Edmunds, and in 1685 he was
made lecturer of Gray's Inn.
At the Revolution he was committed to Newgate for writing in favour of
James II. a tract entitled _The Desertion discuss'd in a Letter to a
Country Gentleman_ (1688), in answer to Bishop Burnet's defence of King
William's position. He was released after some months of imprisonment,
without trial, by the intervention of his friends. In the two following
years he continued to harass the government by his publications: and in
1692 he was again in prison under suspicion of treasonable
correspondence with James. His scruples forbade him to acknowledge the
jurisdiction of the court by accepting bail, but he was soon released.
But in 1696 for his boldness in granting absolution on the scaffold to
Sir John Friend and Sir William Parkyns, who had attempted the
assassination of William, he was obliged to flee, and for the rest of
his life continued under sentence of outlawry.
When the storm had blown over he returned to London, and employed his
leisure in works which were less political in their tone. In 1697
appeared the first volume of his _Essays on Several Moral Subjects_, to
which a second was added in 1705, and a third in 1709. The first series
contained six essays, the most notable being that "On the office of a
Chaplain," which throws much light on the position of a large section of
the clergy at that time. Collier deprecated the extent of the authority
assumed by the patron and the servility of the poorer clergy.
In 1698 Collier produced his famous _Short View of the Immorality and
Profaneness of the English Stage..._. He dealt with the immodesty of the
contemporary stage, supporting his contentions by a long series of
references attesting the comparative decency of Latin and Greek drama;
with the profane language indulged in by the players; the abuse of the
clergy common in the drama; the encouragement of vice by representing
the vicious characters as admirable and successful; and finally he
supported his general position by the analysis of particular plays,
Dryden's _Amphitryon_, Vanbrugh's _Relapse_ and D'Urfey's _Don Quixote_.
The Book abounds in hypercriticism, particularly in the imputation of
profanity; and in a useless display of learning, neither intrinsically
valuable nor conducive to the argument. He had no artistic appreciation
of the subject he discussed, and he mistook cause for effect in
asserting that the decline in public morality was due to the flagrant
indecency of the stage. Yet, in the words of Macaulay, who gives an
admirable account of the discussion in his essay on the comic dramatists
of the Restoration, "when all deductions have been made, great merit
must be allowed to the work." Dryden acknowledged, in the preface to his
_Fables_, the justice of Collier's strictures, though he protested
against the manner of the onslaught;[1] but Congreve made an angry
reply; Vanbrugh and others followed. Collier was prepared to meet any
number of antagonists, and defended himself in numerous tracts. _The
Short View_ was followed by a _Defence_ (1699), a _Second Defence_
(1700), and _Mr Collier's Dissuasive from the Playhouse, in a Letter to
a Person of Quality_ (1703), and a _Further Vindication_ (1708). The
fight lasted in all some ten years; but Collier had right on his side,
and triumphed; his position was, moreover, strengthened by the fact that
he was known as a Troy and high churchman, and that his attack could
not, therefore, be assigned to Puritan rancour against the stage.
From 1701 to 1721 Collier was employed on his _Great Historical,
Geographical, Genealogical and Poetical Dictionary_, founded on, and
partly translated from, Louis Moréri's _Dictionnaire historique_, and in
the compilation and issue of the two volumes folio of his own
_Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain from the first planting of
Christianity to the end of the reign of Charles II_. (1708-1714). The
latter work was attacked by Burnet and others, but the author showed
himself as keen a controversialist as ever. Many attempts were made to
shake his fidelity to the lost cause of the Stuarts, but he continued
indomitable to the end. In 1712 George Hickes was the only survivor of
the nonjuring bishops, and in the next year Collier was consecrated. He
had a share in an attempt made towards union with the Greek Church. He
had a long correspondence with the Eastern authorities, his last letters
on the subject being written in 1725. Collier preferred the version of
the _Book of Common Prayer_ issued in 1549, and regretted that certain
practices and petitions there enjoined were omitted in later editions.
His first tract on the subject, _Reasons for Restoring some Prayers_
(1717), was followed by others. In 1718 was published a new _Communion
Office taken partly from Primitive Liturgies and partly from the first
English Reformed Common Prayer Book,..._ which embodied the changes
desired by Collier. The controversy that ensued made a split in the
nonjuring communion. His last work was a volume of _Practical
Discourses_, published in 1725. He died on the 26th of April 1726.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--There is an excellent account of Collier in A. Kippis's
_Biographia Britannica_, vol. iv. (1789), where some sensible
observations by the editor are added to the original biography. A full
list of Collier's writings is given by the Rev. Wm. Hunt in the
article in the _Dictionary of National Biography_. For particulars of
Collier's history as a nonjuring bishop, see Thomas Lathbury, _A
History of the Nonjurors ..._ (1845). There is an excellent account of
the _Short View_ and the controversy arising from it in A. Beljame's
_Le Public et les hommes de lettres en Angleterre au XVIIIe siècle_
(2nd ed., 1897), pp. 244-263.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] "He is too much given to horse-play in his raillery, and comes to
battle like a dictator from the plough. I will not say, 'the zeal of
God's house has eaten him up'; but I am sure it has devoured some
part of his good manners and civility." (Dryden, _Works_, ed. Scott,
xi. 239).
COLLIER, JOHN PAYNE (1789-1883), English Shakespearian critic, was born
in London, on the 11th of January 1789. His father, John Dyer Collier
(1762-1825), was a successful journalist, and his connexion with the
press obtained for his son a position on the _Morning Chronicle_ as
leader writer, dramatic critic and reporter, which continued till 1847;
he was also for some time a reporter for _The Times_. He was summoned
before the House of Commons in 1819 for giving an incorrect report of a
speech by Joseph Hume. He entered the Middle Temple in 1811, but was not
called to the bar until 1829. The delay was partly due to his
indiscretion in publishing the _Criticisms on the Bar_ (1819) by "Amicus
Curiae." His leisure was given to the study of Shakespeare and the early
English drama. After some minor publications he produced in 1825-1827 a
new edition of Dodsley's _Old Plays_, and in 1833 a supplementary volume
entitled _Five Old Plays_. In 1831 appeared his _History of English
Dramatic Poetry and Annals of the Stage to the Restoration_, a badly
arranged, but valuable work. It obtained for him the post of librarian
to the duke of Devonshire, and, subsequently, access to the chief
collections of early English literature throughout the kingdom,
especially to the treasures of Bridgwater House. These opportunities
were unhappily misused to effect a series of literary fabrications,
which may be charitably, and perhaps not unjustly, attributed to
literary monomania, but of which it is difficult to speak with patience,
so completely did they for a long time bewilder the chronology of
Shakespeare's writings, and such suspicion have they thrown upon MS.
evidence in general. After _New Facts_, _New Particulars_ and _Further
Particulars_ respecting Shakespeare had appeared and passed muster,
Collier produced (1852) the famous _Perkins Folio_, a copy of the second
folio (1632), so called from a name written on the title-page. On this
book were numerous MS. emendations of Shakespeare said by Collier to be
from the hand of "an old corrector." He published these corrections as
_Notes and Emendations to the Text of Shakespeare_ (1852), and boldly
incorporated them in his edition (1853) of Shakespeare. Their
authenticity was disputed by S. W. Singer in _The Text of Shakespeare
Vindicated_ (1853) and by E. A. Brae in _Literary Cookery_ (1855) on
internal evidence; and when in 1859 the folio was submitted by its
owner, the duke of Devonshire, to experts at the British Museum, the
emendations were incontestably proved to be forgeries of modern date.
Collier was exposed by Mr Nicholas Hamilton in his _Inquiry_ (1860). The
point whether he was deceiver or deceived was left undecided, but the
falsifications of which he was unquestionably guilty among the MSS. at
Dulwich College have left little doubt respecting it. He had produced
the _Memoirs of Edward Alleyn_ for the Shakespeare Society in 1841. He
followed up this volume with the _Alleyn Papers_ (1843) and the _Diary
of P. Henslowe_ (1845). He forged the name of Shakespeare in a genuine
letter at Dulwich, and the spurious entries in Alleyn's _Diary_ were
proved to be by Collier's hand when the sale of his library in 1884 gave
access to a transcript he had made of the _Diary_ with interlineations
corresponding with the Dulwich forgeries. No statement of his can be
accepted without verification, and no manuscript he has handled without
careful examination, but he did much useful work. He compiled a valuable
_Bibliographical and Critical Account of the Rarest Books in the English
Language_ (1865); he reprinted a great number of early English tracts of
extreme rarity, and rendered good service to the numerous antiquarian
societies with which he was connected, especially in the editions he
produced for the Camden Society and the Percy Society. His _Old Man's
Diary_ (1871-1872) is an interesting record, though even here the taint
of fabrication is not absent. Unfortunately what he did amiss is more
striking to the imagination than what he did aright, and he will be
chiefly remembered by it. He died at Maidenhead, where he had long
resided, on the 17th of September 1883.
For an account of the discussion raised by Collier's emendations see
C.M. Ingleby, _Complete View of the Shakespeare Controversy_ (1861).
COLLIN, HEINRICH JOSEPH VON (1771-1811), Austrian dramatist, was born in
Vienna, on the 26th of December 1771. He received a legal education and
entered the Austrian ministry of finance where he found speedy
promotion. In 1805 and in 1809, when Austria was under the heel of
Napoleon, Collin was entrusted with important political missions. In
1803 he was, together with other members of his family, ennobled, and in
1809 made _Hofrat_. He died on the 28th of July 1811. His tragedy
_Regulus_ (1801), written in strict classical form, was received with
enthusiasm in Vienna, where literary taste, less advanced than that of
North Germany, was still under the ban of French classicism. But in his
later dramas, _Coriolan_ (1804), _Polyxena_ (1804), _Balboa_ (1806),
_Bianca della Porta_ (1808), he made some attempt to reconcile the
pseudo-classic type of tragedy with that of Shakespeare and the German
romanticists. As a lyric poet (_Gedichte_, collected 1812), Collin has
left a collection of stirring _Wehrmannslieder_ for the fighters in the
cause of Austrian freedom, as well as some excellent ballads (_Kaiser
Max auf der Martinswand_, _Herzog Leupold vor Solothurn_). His younger
brother Matthäus von Collin (1779-1824), was, as editor of the _Wiener
Jahrbücher für Literatur_, an even more potent force in the literary
life of Vienna. He was, moreover, in sympathy with the Romantic
movement, and intimate with its leaders. His dramas on themes from
Austrian national history (_Belas Krieg mit dem Vater_, 1808, _Der Tod
Friedrichs des Streitbaren_, 1813) may be regarded as the immediate
precursors of Grillparzer's historical tragedies.
His _Gesammelte Werke_ appeared in 6 vols. (1812-1814); he is the
subject of an excellent monograph by F. Laban (1879). See also A.
Hauffen, _Das Drama der klassischen Periode_, ii. 2 (1891), where a
reprint of _Regulus_ will be found. M. von Collin's _Dramatische
Dichtungen_ were published in 4 vols. (1815-1817); his _Nachgelassene
Schriften_, edited by J. von Hammer, in 2 vols. (1827). A study of his
life and work by J. Wihan will be found in _Euphorion_,
Ergänzungsheft, v. (1901).
COLLIN D'HARLEVILLE, JEAN FRANÇOIS (1755-1806), French dramatist, was
born at Mévoisins, near Maintenon (Eure-et-Loire), on the 30th of May
1755. His first dramatic success was _L'Inconstant_, a comedy accepted
by the Comédie Française in 1780, but not produced there until six years
later, though it was played elsewhere in 1784. This was followed by
_L'Optimiste, ou l'homme toujours content_ (1788), and _Châteaux en
Espagne_ (1789). His best play, _Le Vieux Célibataire_, appeared in
1793. Among his other plays are--the one-act comedy _Monsieur de Crac
dans son petit castel_ (1791), _Les Artistes_ (1796), _Les Moeurs du
jour_ (1800) and _Malice pour malice_ (1803). Collin was one of the
original members of the Institute of France, and died in Paris on the
24th of February 1806.
The 1822 edition of his _Théâtre et poésies fugitives_ contains a
notice by his friend the dramatist Andrieux. His _Théâtre_ was also
edited by L. Moland in 1876; and by Édouard Thierry in 1882.
COLLING, ROBERT (1749-1820), and CHARLES (1751-1836), English stock
breeders, famous for their improvement of the Shorthorn breed of cattle,
were the sons of Charles Colling, a farmer of Ketton near Darlington.
Their lives are closely connected with the history of the Shorthorn
breed. Of the two brothers, Charles is probably the better known, and it
was his visit to the farm of Robert Bakewell at Dishley that first led
the brothers to realize the possibilities of scientific cattle breeding.
Charles succeeded to his father's farm at Ketton. Robert, after being
first apprenticed to a grocer in Shields, took a farm at Barmpton. An
animal which he bought at Charles's advice for £8 and afterwards sold to
his brother, became known as the celebrated "Hubback," a bull which
formed the basis of both the Ketton and Barmpton herds. The two brothers
pursued the same system of "in and in" breeding which they had learned
from Bakewell, and both the Ketton and the Barmpton herds were sold by
auction in the autumn of 1810. The former with 47 lots brought £7116,
and the latter with 61 lots £7852. Robert Colling died unmarried at
Barmpton on the 7th of March 1820, leaving his property to his brother.
Charles Colling, who is remembered as the owner of the famous bulls
"Hubback," "Favourite" and "Comet," was more of a specialist and a
business man than his brother. He died on the 16th of January 1836.
See the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society, 1899, for a
biographical sketch of the brothers Colling, by C. J. Bates.
COLLINGWOOD, CUTHBERT COLLINGWOOD, BARON (1750-1810), British naval
commander, was born at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, on the 26th of September
1750. He was early sent to school; and when only eleven years of age he
was put on board the "Shannon," then under the command of Captain
(afterwards Admiral) Brathwaite, a relative of his own, to whose care
and attention he was in a great measure indebted for that nautical
knowledge which shone forth so conspicuously in his subsequent career.
After serving under Captain Brathwaite for some years, and also under
Admiral Roddam, he went in 1774 to Boston with Admiral Graves, and
served in the naval brigade at the battle of Bunker Hill (17th of June
1775), where he gained his lieutenancy. In 1779 he was made commander of
the "Badger," and shortly afterwards post-captain of the "Hinchinbroke,"
a small frigate. In the spring of 1780 that vessel, under the command of
Nelson, was employed upon an expedition to the Spanish Main, where it
was proposed to pass into the Pacific by navigating boats along the
river San Juan and the lakes Nicaragua and Leon. The attempt failed, and
most of those engaged in it became victims to the deadly influence of
the climate. Nelson was promoted to a larger vessel, and Collingwood
succeeded him in the command. It is a fact worthy of record that the
latter succeeded the former very frequently from the time when they
first became acquainted, until the star of Nelson set at
Trafalgar--giving place to that of Collingwood, less brilliant
certainly, but not less steady in its lustre.
After commanding in another small frigate, Collingwood was promoted to
the "Sampson" (64); and in 1783 he was appointed to the "Mediator,"
destined for the West Indies, where, with Nelson, who had a command on
that station, he remained till the end of 1786. With Nelson he warmly
co-operated in carrying into execution the provisions of the navigation
laws, which had been infringed by the United States, whose ships,
notwithstanding the separation of the countries, continued to trade to
the West Indies, although that privilege was by law exclusively confined
to British vessels. In 1786 Collingwood returned to England, where, with
the exception of a voyage to the West Indies, he remained until 1793, in
which year he was appointed captain of the "Prince," the flag-ship of
Rear-Admiral Bowyer. About two years previous to this event he had
married Miss Sarah Roddam--a fortunate alliance, which continued to be
a solace to him amidst the privations to which the life of a seaman must
ever be subject.
As captain of the "Barfleur," Collingwood was present at the naval
engagement which was fought on the 1st of June 1794; and on that
occasion he displayed equal judgment and courage. On board the
"Excellent" he shared in the victory of the 14th of February 1797, when
Sir John Jervis (Lord St Vincent) humbled the Spanish fleet off Cape St
Vincent. His conduct in this engagement was the theme of universal
admiration throughout the fleet, and greatly advanced his fame as a
naval officer. After blockading Cadiz for some time, he returned for a
few weeks to Portsmouth to repair. In the beginning of 1799 Collingwood
was raised to the rank of vice-admiral, and hoisting his flag in the
"Triumph," he joined the Channel Fleet, with which he proceeded to the
Mediterranean, where the principal naval forces of France and Spain were
assembled. Collingwood continued actively employed in watching the
enemy, until the peace of Amiens restored him once more to the bosom of
his family.
The domestic repose, however, which he so highly relished, was cut short
by the recommencement of hostilities with France, and in the spring of
1803 he quitted the home to which he was never again to return. The duty
upon which he was employed was that of watching the French fleet off
Brest, and in the discharge of it he displayed the most unwearied
vigilance. Nearly two years were spent in this employment; but Napoleon
had at length matured his plans and equipped his armament, and the grand
struggle which was to decide the fate of Europe and the dominion of the
sea was close at hand. The enemy's fleet having sailed from Toulon,
Admiral Collingwood was appointed to the command of a squadron, with
orders to pursue them. The combined fleets of France and Spain, after
spreading terror throughout the West Indies, returned to Cadiz. On their
way thither they bore down upon Admiral Collingwood, who had only three
vessels with him; but he succeeded in eluding the pursuit, although
chased by sixteen ships of the line. Ere one-half of the enemy had
entered the harbour he drew up before it and resumed the blockade, at
the same time employing an ingenious artifice to conceal the inferiority
of his force. But the combined fleet was at last compelled to quit
Cadiz; and the battle of Trafalgar immediately followed. The brilliant
conduct of Admiral Collingwood upon this occasion has been much and
justly applauded. The French admiral drew up his fleet in the form of a
crescent, and in a double line, every alternate ship being about a
cable's length to windward of her second, both ahead and astern. The
British fleet bore down upon this formidable and skilfully arranged
armament in two separate lines, the one led by Nelson in the "Victory,"
and the other by Collingwood in the "Royal Sovereign." The latter vessel
was the swifter sailer, and having shot considerably ahead of the rest
of the fleet, was the first engaged. "See," said Nelson, pointing to the
"Royal Sovereign" as she penetrated the centre of the enemy's line, "see
how that noble fellow Collingwood carries his ship into action!"
Probably it was at the same instant that Collingwood, as if in response
to the observation of his great commander, remarked to his captain,
"What would Nelson give to be here?" The consummate valour and skill
evinced by Collingwood had a powerful moral influence upon both fleets.
It was with the Spanish admiral's ship that the "Royal Sovereign"
closed; and with such rapidity and precision did she pour in her
broadsides upon the "Santa Anna," that the latter was on the eve of
striking in the midst of thirty-three sail of the line, and almost
before another British ship had fired a gun. Several other vessels,
however, seeing the imminent peril of the Spanish flag-ship, came to her
assistance, and hemmed in the "Royal Sovereign" on all sides; but the
latter, after suffering severely, was relieved by the arrival of the
rest of the British squadron; and not long afterwards the "Santa Anna"
struck her colours. The result of the battle of Trafalgar, and the
expense at which it was purchased, are well known. On the death of
Nelson, Collingwood assumed the supreme command; and by his skill and
judgment greatly contributed to the preservation of the British ships,
as well as of those which were captured from the enemy. He was raised to
the peerage as Baron Collingwood of Coldburne and Heathpool, and
received the thanks of both Houses of Parliament, with a pension of
£2000 per annum.
From this period until the death of Lord Collingwood no great naval
action was fought; but he was much occupied in important political
transactions, in which he displayed remarkable tact and judgment. Being
appointed to the command of the Mediterranean fleet, he continued to
cruise about, keeping a watchful eye upon the movements of the enemy.
His health, however, which had begun to decline previously to the action
of Trafalgar in 1805, seemed entirely to give way, and he repeatedly
requested government to be relieved of his command, that he might return
home; but he was urgently requested to remain, on the ground that his
country could not dispense with his services. This conduct has been
regarded as harsh; but the good sense and political sagacity which he
displayed afford some palliation of the conduct of the government; and
the high estimation in which he was held is proved by the circumstance
that among the many able admirals, equal in rank and duration of
service, none stood so prominently forward as to command the confidence
of ministers and of the country to the same extent as he did. After many
fruitless attempts to induce the enemy to put to sea, as well as to fall
in with them when they had done so (which circumstance materially
contributed to hasten his death), he expired on board the "Ville de
Paris," then lying off Port Mahon, on the 7th of March 1810.
Lord Collingwood's merits as a naval officer were in every respect of
the first order. In original genius and romantic daring he was inferior
to Nelson, who indeed had no equal in an age fertile in great
commanders. In seamanship, in general talent, and in reasoning upon the
probability of events from a number of conflicting and ambiguous
statements, Collingwood was equal to the hero of the Nile; indeed, many
who were familiar with both give him the palm of superiority. His
political penetration was remarkable; and so high was the opinion
generally entertained of his judgment, that he was consulted in all
quarters, and on all occasions, upon questions of general policy, of
regulation, and even of trade. He was distinguished for benevolence and
generosity; his acts of charity were frequent and bountiful, and the
petition of real distress was never rejected by him. He was an enemy to
impressment and to flogging; and so kind was he to his crew, that he
obtained amongst them the honourable name of father. Between Nelson and
Collingwood a close intimacy subsisted, from their first acquaintance in
early life till the fall of the former at Trafalgar; and they lie side
by side in the cathedral of St Paul's.
The selections from the public and private correspondence of Lord
Collingwood, published in 2 vols., 8vo, in 1828, contain some of the
best specimens of letter-writing in the language. See also _A Fine Old
English Gentleman exemplified in the Life and Character of Lord
Collingwood, a Biographical Study_, by William Davies (London, 1875).
COLLINGWOOD, a city of Bourke county, Victoria, Australia, suburban to
Melbourne on the N.E., on the Yarra Yarra river. Pop. (1901) 32,766. It
was the first town in Victoria incorporated after Melbourne and Geelong.
It is esteemed one of the healthiest of the metropolitan suburbs.
COLLINGWOOD, a town of Simcoe county, Ontario, Canada, 90 m. N.N.W. of
Toronto, on Georgian Bay, and on the Grand Trunk railway. Pop. (1901)
5755. It is the eastern terminus of two lines of steamers for the ports
of Lakes Huron and Superior. It contains a large stone dry-dock and
shipyard, pork factory, and saw and planing mills, and has a large
lumber, grain and produce export trade, besides a shipbuilding plant and
steel works.
COLLINS, ANTHONY (1676-1729), English deist, was born at Heston, near
Hounslow in Middlesex, on the 21st of June 1676. He was educated at Eton
and King's College, Cambridge, and was for some time a student at the
Middle Temple. The most interesting episode of his life was his intimacy
with Locke, who in his letters speaks of him with affection and
admiration. In 1715 he settled in Essex, where he held the offices of
justice of the peace and deputy-lieutenant, which he had before held in
Middlesex. He died at his house in Harley Street, London, on the 13th
of December 1729.
His writings are important as gathering together the results of previous
English Freethinkers. The imperturbable courtesy of his style is in
striking contrast to the violence of his opponents; and it must be
remembered that, in spite of his unorthodoxy, he was not an atheist or
even an agnostic. In his own words, "Ignorance is the foundation of
atheism, and freethinking the cure of it" (_Discourse of Freethinking_,
105).
His first work of note was his _Essay concerning the Use of Reason in
Propositions the Evidence whereof depends on Human Testimony_ (1707), in
which he rejected the distinction between _above_ reason and _contrary
to_ reason, and demanded that revelation should conform to man's natural
ideas of God. Like all his works, it was published anonymously, although
the identity of the author was never long concealed. Six years later
appeared his chief work, _A Discourse of Freethinking, occasioned by the
Rise and Growth of a Sect called Freethinkers_ (1713). Notwithstanding
the ambiguity of its title, and the fact that it attacks the priests of
all churches without moderation, it contends for the most part, at least
explicitly, for no more than must be admitted by every Protestant.
Freethinking is a right which cannot and must not be limited, for it is
the only means of attaining to a knowledge of truth, it essentially
contributes to the well-being of society, and it is not only permitted
but enjoined by the Bible. In fact the first introduction of
Christianity and the success of all missionary enterprise involve
freethinking (in its etymological sense) on the part of those converted.
In England this essay, which was regarded and treated as a plea for
deism, made a great sensation, calling forth several replies, among
others from William Whiston, Bishop Hare, Bishop Hoadly, and Richard
Bentley, who, under the signature of _Phileleutherus Lipsiensis_,
roughly handles certain arguments carelessly expressed by Collins, but
triumphs chiefly by an attack on trivial points of scholarship, his own
pamphlet being by no means faultless in this very respect. Swift also,
being satirically referred to in the book, made it the subject of a
caricature.
In 1724 Collins published his _Discourse of the Grounds and Reasons of
the Christian Religion_, with _An Apology for Free Debate and Liberty of
Writing_ prefixed. Ostensibly it is written in opposition to Whiston's
attempt to show that the books of the Old Testament did originally
contain prophecies of events in the New Testament story, but that these
had been eliminated or corrupted by the Jews, and to prove that the
fulfilment of prophecy by the events of Christ's life is all "secondary,
secret, allegorical, and mystical," since the original and literal
reference is always to some other fact. Since, further, according to him
the fulfilment of prophecy is the only valid proof of Christianity, he
thus secretly aims a blow at Christianity as a revelation. The
canonicity of the New Testament he ventures openly to deny, on the
ground that the canon could be fixed only by men who were inspired. No
less than thirty-five answers were directed against this book, the most
noteworthy of which were those of Bishop Edward Chandler, Arthur Sykes
and Samuel Clarke. To these, but with special reference to the work of
Chandler, which maintained that a number of prophecies were literally
fulfilled in Christ, Collins replied by his _Scheme of Literal Prophecy
Considered_ (1727). An appendix contends against Whiston that the book
of _Daniel_ was forged in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes (see DEISM).
In philosophy, Collins takes a foremost place as a defender of
Necessitarianism. His brief _Inquiry Concerning Human Liberty_ (1715)
has not been excelled, at all events in its main outlines, as a
statement of the determinist standpoint. One of his arguments, however,
calls for special criticism,--his assertion that it is self-evident that
nothing that has a beginning can be without a cause is an unwarranted
assumption of the very point at issue. He was attacked in an elaborate
treatise by Samuel Clarke, in whose system the freedom of the will is
made essential to religion and morality. During Clarke's lifetime,
fearing perhaps to be branded as an enemy of religion and morality,
Collins made no reply, but in 1729 he published an answer, entitled
_Liberty and Necessity_.
Besides these works he wrote _A Letter to Mr Dodwell_, arguing that it is
conceivable that the soul may be material, and, secondly, that if the soul
be immaterial it does not follow, as Clarke had contended, that it is
immortal; _Vindication of the Divine Attributes_ (1710); _Priestcraft in
Perfection_ (1709), in which he asserts that the clause "the Church ...
Faith" in the twentieth of the Thirty-nine Articles was inserted by fraud.
See Kippis, _Biographia Britannica_; G. Lechler, _Geschichte des
englischen Deismus_ (1841); J. Hunt, _Religious Thought in England_,
ii. (1871); Leslie Stephen, _English Thought in the 18th Century_, i.
(1881); A. W. Benn, _Hist. of English Rationalism in the 19th Century_
(London, 1906), vol. i. ch. iii.; J. M. Robertson, _Short History of
Freethought_ (London, 1906); and Deism.
COLLINS, JOHN CHURTON (1848-1908), English literary critic, was born on
the 26th of March 1848 at Bourton on the Water, Gloucestershire. From
King Edward's school, Birmingham, he went to Balliol College, Oxford,
where he graduated in 1872, and at once devoted himself to a literary
career, as journalist, essayist and lecturer. His first book was a study
of Sir Joshua Reynolds (1874), and later he edited various classical
English writers, and published volumes on _Bolingbroke and Voltaire in
England_ (1886), a _Study of English Literature_ (1891), a study of
_Dean Swift_ (1893), _Essays and Studies_ (1895), _Ephemera Critica_
(1901), _Essays in Poetry and Criticism_ (1905), and _Rousseau and
Voltaire_ (1908), his original essays being sharply controversial in
tone, but full of knowledge. In 1904 he became professor of English
literature at Birmingham University. For many years he was a prominent
University Extension lecturer, and a constant contributor to the
principal reviews. On the 15th of September 1908 he was found dead in a
ditch near Lowestoft, at which place he had been staying with a doctor
for the benefit of his health. The circumstances necessitated the
holding of an inquest, the verdict being that of "accidental death."
COLLINS, MORTIMER (1827-1876), English writer, was born at Plymouth,
where his father, Francis Collins, was a solicitor, on the 29th of June
1827. He was educated at a private school, and after some years spent as
mathematical master at Queen Elizabeth's College, Guernsey, he went to
London, where he devoted himself to journalism in the Conservative
interest. In 1855 he published his _Idyls and Rhymes_; and in 1865
appeared his first story, _Who is the Heir?_ A second volume of lyrics,
_The Inn of Strange Meetings_, was issued in 1871; and in 1872 he
produced his longest and best sustained poem, _The British Birds, a
communication from the Ghost of Aristophanes_. He also wrote several
capital novels, the best of which is perhaps _Sweet Anne Page_ (1868).
Some of his lyrics, in their light grace, their sparkling wit, their
airy philosophy, are equal to anything of their kind in modern English.
On his second marriage in 1868 he settled at Knowl Hill, Berkshire.
Collins was an athlete, an excellent pedestrian, and an enthusiastic
lover of country life; and from this time he rarely left his home for a
day. Conservative in his political and literary tastes, an ardent
upholder of Church and State, he was yet a hater of convention; and his
many and very varied gifts endeared him to a large circle of friends. He
died on the 28th of July 1876.
COLLINS, WILLIAM (1721-1759), English poet, was born on the 25th of
December 1721. He divides with Gray the glory of being the greatest
English lyrist of the 18th century. After some childish studies in
Chichester, of which his father, a rich hatter, was the mayor, he was
sent, in January 1733, to Winchester College, where Whitehead and Joseph
Warton were his school-fellows. When he had been nine months at the
school, Pope paid Winchester a visit and proposed a subject for a prize
poem; it is legitimate to suppose that the lofty forehead, the brisk
dark eyes and gracious oval of the childish face, as we know it in the
only portrait existing of Collins, did not escape the great man's
notice, then not a little occupied with the composition of the _Essay on
Man_.
In 1734 the young poet published his first verses, in a sixpenny
pamphlet on _The Royal Nuptials_, of which, however, no copy has come
down to us; another poem, probably satiric, called _The Battle of the
Schoolbooks_, was written about this time, and has also been lost. Fired
by his poetic fellows to further feats in verse, Collins produced, in
his seventeenth year, those _Persian Eclogues_ which were the only
writings of his that were valued by the world during his own lifetime.
They were not printed for some years, and meanwhile Collins sent, in
January and October 1739, some verses to the _Gentleman's Magazine_,
which attracted the notice and admiration of Johnson, then still young
and uninfluential. In March 1740 he was admitted a commoner of Queen's
College, Oxford, but did not go up to Oxford until July 1741, when he
obtained a demyship at Magdalen College. At Oxford he continued his
affectionate intimacy with the Wartons, and gained the friendship of
Gilbert White. Early in 1742 the _Persian Eclogues_ appeared in London.
They were four in number, and formed a modest pamphlet of not more than
300 lines in all. In a later edition, of 1759, the title was changed to
_Oriental Eclogues_. Those pieces may be compared with Victor Hugo's
_Les Orientales_, to which, of course, they are greatly inferior.
Considered with regard to the time at which they were produced, they are
more than meritorious, even brilliant, and one at least--the second--can
be read with enjoyment at the present day. The rest, perhaps, will be
found somewhat artificial and effete.
In November 1743 Collins was made bachelor of arts, and a few days after
taking his degree published his second work, _Verses humbly addressed to
Sir Thomas Hanmer_. This poem, written in heroic couplets, shows a great
advance in individuality, and resembles, in its habit of personifying
qualities of the mind, the riper lyrics of its author. For the rest, it
is an enthusiastic review of poetry, culminating in a laudation of
Shakespeare. It is supposed that he left Oxford abruptly in the summer
of 1744 to attend his mother's death-bed, and did not return. He is said
to have now visited an uncle in Flanders. His indolence, which had been
no less marked at the university than his genius, combined with a fatal
irresolution to make it extremely difficult to choose for him a path in
life. The army and the church were successively suggested and rejected;
and he finally arrived in London, bent on enjoying a small property as
an independent man about town. He made the acquaintance of Johnson and
others, and was urged by those friends to undertake various important
writings--a _History of the Revival of Learning_, several tragedies, and
a version of Aristotle's _Poetics_, among others--all of which he began
but lacked force of will to continue. He soon squandered his means,
plunged, with most disastrous effects, into profligate excesses, and
sowed the seed of his untimely misfortune.
It was at this time, however, that he composed his matchless
_Odes_--twelve in number--which appeared on the 12th of December 1746,
dated 1747. The original project was to have combined them with the odes
of Joseph Warton, but the latter proved at that time to be the more
marketable article. Collins's little volume fell dead from the press,
but it won him the admiration and friendship of the poet Thomson, with
whom, until the death of the latter in 1748, he lived on terms of
affectionate intimacy. In 1749 Collins was raised beyond the fear of
poverty by the death of his uncle, Colonel Martyn, who left him about
£2000, and he left London to settle in his native city. He had hardly
begun to taste the sweets of a life devoted to literature and quiet,
before the weakness of his will began to develop in the direction of
insanity, and he hurried abroad to attempt to dispel the gathering gloom
by travel. In the interval he had published two short pieces of
consummate grace and beauty--the _Elegy on Thomson_, in 1749, and the
_Dirge in Cymbeline_, later in the same year. In the beginning of 1750
he composed the _Ode on the Popular Superstitions of the Highlands_,
which was dedicated to the author of _Douglas_, and not printed till
long after the death of Collins, and an _Ode on the Music of the Grecian
Theatre_, which no longer exists, and in which English literature
probably has sustained a severe loss. With this poem his literary career
closes, although he lingered in great misery for nearly nine years. From
Gilbert White, who jotted down some pages of invaluable recollections of
Collins in 1781, and from other friends, we learn that his madness was
occasionally violent, and that he was confined for a time in an asylum
at Oxford. But for the most part he resided at Chichester, suffering
from extreme debility of body when the mind was clear, and incapable of
any regular occupation. Music affected him in a singular manner, and it
is recorded that he was wont to slip out into the cathedral cloisters
during the services, and moan and howl in horrible accordance with the
choir. In this miserable condition he passed out of sight of all his
friends, and in 1756 it was supposed, even by Johnson, that he was dead;
in point of fact, however, his sufferings did not cease until the 12th
of June 1759. No journal or magazine recorded the death of the forgotten
poet, though Goldsmith, only two months before, had begun the laudation
which was soon to become universal.
No English poet so great as Collins has left behind him so small a bulk
of writings. Not more than 1500 lines of his have been handed down to
us, but among these not one is slovenly, and few are poor. His odes are
the most sculpturesque and faultless in the language. They lack fire,
but in charm and precision of diction, exquisite propriety of form, and
lofty poetic suggestion they stand unrivalled. The ode named _The
Passions_ is the most popular; that _To Evening_ is the classical
example of perfect unrhymed verse. In this, and the _Ode to Simplicity_,
one seems to be handling an antique vase of matchless delicacy and
elegance. In his descriptions of nature it is unquestionable that he
owed something to the influence of Thomson. Distinction may be said to
be the crowning grace of the style of Collins; its leading peculiarity
is the incessant personification of some quality of the character. In
the _Ode on Popular Superstitions_ he produced a still nobler work; this
poem, the most considerable in size which has been preserved, contains
passages which are beyond question unrivalled for rich melancholy
fulness in the literature between Milton and Keats.
The life of Collins was written by Dr Johnson; he found an
enthusiastic editor in Dr Langhorne in 1765, and in 1858 a kindly
biographer in Mr Moy Thomas. (E. G.)
COLLINS, WILLIAM (1787-1847), English painter, son of an Irish picture
dealer and man of letters, the author of a _Life of George Morland_, was
born in London. He studied under Etty in 1807, and in 1809 exhibited his
first pictures of repute--"Boys at Breakfast," and "Boys with a Bird's
Nest." In 1815 he was made associate of the Royal Academy, and was
elected R. A. in 1820. For the next sixteen years he was a constant
exhibitor; his fishermen, shrimp-catchers, boats and nets, stretches of
coast and sand, and, above all, his rustic children were universally
popular. Then, however, he went abroad on the advice of Wilkie, and for
two years (1837-1838) studied the life, manners and scenery of Italy. In
1839 he exhibited the first fruits of this journey; and in 1840, in
which year he was appointed librarian to the Academy, he made his first
appearance as a painter of history. In 1842 he returned to his early
manner and choice of subject, and during the last years of life enjoyed
greater popularity than ever. Collins was a good colourist and an
excellent draughtsman. His earlier pictures are deficient in breadth and
force, but his later work, though also carefully executed, is rich in
effects of tone and in broadly painted masses. His biography by his son,
W. Wilkie Collins, the novelist, appeared in 1848.
COLLINS, WILLIAM WILKIE (1824-1889), English novelist, elder son of
William Collins, R.A., the landscape painter, was born in London on the
8th of January 1824. He was educated at a private school in Highbury,
and when only a small boy of twelve was taken by his parents to Italy,
where the family lived for three years. On their return to England
Wilkie Collins was articled to a firm in the tea trade, but four years
later he abandoned that business for the law, and was entered at
Lincoln's Inn in 1846, being called to the bar three years later. He
found little pleasure in his new career, however; though what he learned
in it was exceedingly valuable to him later. On his father's death in
1847 young Collins made his first essay in literature, publishing the
_Life of William Collins_, in two volumes, in the following year. In
1850 he put forth his first work of fiction, _Antonina, or the Fall of
Rome_, which was clearly inspired by his life in Italy. _Basil_ appeared
in 1852, and _Hide and Seek_ in 1854. About this time he made the
acquaintance of Charles Dickens, and began to contribute to _Household
Words_, where _After Dark_ (1856) and _The Dead Secret_ (1857) ran
serially. His great success was achieved in 1860 with the publication of
_The Woman in White_, which was first printed in _All the Year Round_.
From that time he enjoyed as much popularity as any novelist of his day,
_No Name_ (1862), _Armadale_ (1866), and _The Moonstone_, a capital
detective story (1868), being among his most successful books. After
_The New Magdalen_ (1873) his ingenuity became gradually exhausted, and
his later stories were little more than faint echoes of earlier
successes. He died in Wimpole Street, London, on the 23rd of September
1889. Collins's gift was of the melodramatic order, and while many of
his stories made excellent plays, several of them were actually
reconstructed from pieces designed originally for stage production. But
if his colours were occasionally crude and his methods violent, he was
at least a master of situation and effect. His trick of telling a story
through the mouths of different characters is sometimes irritatingly
disconnected; but it had the merit of giving an air of actual evidence
and reality to the elucidation of a mystery. He possessed in the highest
degree the gift of absorbing interest; the turns and complexities of his
plots are surprisingly ingenious, and many of his characters are not
only real, but uncommon. Count Fosco in _The Woman in White_ is perhaps
his masterpiece; the character has been imitated again and again, but no
imitation has ever attained to the subtlety and humour of the original.
COLLODION (from the Gr. [Greek: kolla], glue), a colourless, viscid
fluid, made by dissolving gun-cotton and the other varieties of
pyroxylin in a mixture of alcohol and ether. It was discovered in 1846
by Louis Nicolas Ménard in Paris, and independently in 1848 by Dr J.
Parkers Maynard in Boston. The quality of collodion differs according to
the proportions of alcohol and ether and the nature of the pyroxylin it
contains. Collodion in which there is a great excess of ether gives by
its evaporation a very tough film; the film left by collodion containing
a large quantity of alcohol is soft and easily torn; but in hot climates
the presence of an excess of alcohol is an advantage, as it prevents the
rapid evaporation of the ether. Under the microscope, the film produced
by collodion of good quality appears translucent and colourless. To
preserve collodion it should be kept cool and out of the action of the
light; iodized collodion that has been discoloured by the development of
free iodine may be purified by the immersion in it of a strip of silver
foil. For the iodizing of collodion, ammonium bromide and iodide, and
the iodides of calcium and cadmium are the agents employed (see
PHOTOGRAPHY). Collodion is used in surgery since, when painted on the
skin, it rapidly dries and covers the skin with a thin film which
contracts as it dries and therefore affords both pressure and
protection. Flexible collodion, containing Canada balsam and castor oil,
does not crack, but, on the other hand, does not contract. It is
therefore of less value. Collodion is applied to small aseptic wounds,
to small-pox pustules, and occasionally to the end of the urethra in
boys in order to prevent nocturnal incontinence. Collodion and crystals
of carbolic acid, taken in equal parts, are useful in relieving
toothache due to the presence of a carious cavity. _Vesicating_ or
_Blistering Collodion_ contains cantharidin as one of its constituents.
The styptic colloid of Richardson is a strong solution of tannin in
gun-cotton collodion. Similarly collodion may be impregnated with
salicylic acid, carbolic acid, iodine and other substances. Small
balloons are manufactured from collodion by coating the interior of
glass globes with the liquid; the film when dry is removed from the
glass by applying suction to the mouth of the vessel. M. E. Gripon found
(_Compt. rend._, 1875) that collodion membranes, like glass, reflect
light and polarize it both by refraction and reflection; they also
transmit a very much larger proportion of radiant heat, for the study of
which they are preferable to mica.
COLLOT D'HERBOIS, JEAN MARIE (1750-1796), French revolutionist, was a
Parisian by birth and an actor by profession. After figuring for some
years at the principal provincial theatres of France and Holland, he
became director of the playhouse at Geneva. He had from the first a
share in the revolutionary tumult; but it was not until 1791 that he
became a figure of importance. Then, however, by the publication of
_L'Almanach du Père Gérard_,[1] a little book setting forth, in homely
style, the advantages of a constitutional monarchy, he suddenly acquired
great popularity. His renown was soon increased by his active
interference on behalf of the Swiss of the Château-Vieux Regiment,
condemned to the galleys for mutiny at Nancy. His efforts resulted in
their liberation; he went himself to Brest in search of them; and a
civic feast was decreed on his behalf and theirs, which gave occasion
for one of the few poems published during his life by André Chénier. But
his opinions became more and more radical. He was a member of the
Commune of Paris on the 10th of August 1792, and was elected deputy for
Paris to the Convention, where he was the first to demand the abolition
of royalty (on the 21st of September 1792), and he voted the death of
Louis XVI. "_sans sursis_." In the struggle between the Mountain and the
Girondists he displayed great energy; and after the _coup d'état_ of the
31st of May 1793 he made himself conspicuous by his pitiless pursuit of
the defeated party. In June he was made president of the Convention; and
in September he was admitted to the Committee of Public Safety, on which
he was very active. After having entrusted him with several missions,
the Convention sent him, on the 30th of October 1793, to Lyons to punish
the revolt of that city. There he introduced the Terror in its most
terrible form.
In May 1794 an attempt was made to assassinate Collot; but it only
increased his popularity, and this won him the hatred of Robespierre,
against whom he took sides on the 9th Thermidor, when he presided over
the Convention during a part of the session. During the Thermidorian
reaction he was one of the first to be accused of complicity with the
fallen leader, but was acquitted. Denounced a second time, he defended
himself by pleading that he had acted for the cause of the Revolution,
but was condemned with Barère and Billaud-Varenne to transportation to
Cayenne (March 1795), where he died early in 1796.
Collot d'Herbois wrote and adapted from the English and Spanish many
plays, one of which, _Le Paysan magistrat_, kept the stage for several
years. _L'Almanach du Père Gérard_ was reprinted under the title of
_Étrennes aux amis de la Constitution française, ou entretiens du Père
Gérard avec ses concitoyens_ (Paris, 1792).
See F. A. Aulard, _Les Orateurs de la Législative et de la Convention_
(Paris, 1885-1886), t. ii. pp. 501-512. The principal documents
relative to the trial of Collot d'Herbois, Barère and Billaud-Varenne
are indicated in Aulard, _Recueil des actes du comité de salut
public_, t. i. pp. 5 and 6.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Michel Gérard was a popular Breton peasant deputy (see JACOBINS).
COLLUSION (from Lat. _colludere_, strictly, to play with), a secret
agreement or compact for some improper purpose. In judicial proceedings,
and particularly in matrimonial causes (see DIVORCE), collusion is a
deceitful agreement between two or more persons, or between one of them
and a third party, to bring an action against the other in order to
obtain a judicial decision, or some remedy which would not have been
obtained unless the parties had combined for the purpose or suppressed
material facts or otherwise.
COLLYER, ROBERT (1823- ), American Unitarian clergyman, was born in
Keighley, Yorkshire, England, on the 8th of December 1823. At the age of
eight he was compelled to leave school and support himself by work in a
linen factory. He was naturally studious, however, and supplemented his
scant schooling by night study. At fourteen he was apprenticed to a
blacksmith, and for several years worked at this trade at Ilkley. In
1849 he became a local Methodist minister, and in the following year
emigrated to the United States, where he obtained employment as a hammer
maker at Shoemakersville, Pennsylvania. Here he soon began to preach on
Sundays while still employed in the factory on week-days. His earnest,
rugged, simple style of oratory made him extremely popular, and at once
secured for him a wide reputation. His advocacy of anti-slavery
principles, then frowned upon by the Methodist authorities, aroused
opposition, and eventually resulted in his trial for heresy and the
revocation of his licence. He continued, however, as an independent
preacher and lecturer, and in 1859, having joined the Unitarian Church,
became a missionary of that church in Chicago, Illinois. In 1860 he
organized and became pastor of the Unity Church, the second Unitarian
church in Chicago. Under his guidance the church grew to be one of the
strongest of that denomination in the West, and Mr Collyer himself came
to be looked upon as one of the foremost pulpit orators in the country.
During the Civil War he was active in the work of the Sanitary
Commission. In 1879 he left Chicago and became pastor of the church of
the Messiah in New York city, and in 1903 he became pastor emeritus. He
published: _Nature and Life_ (1867); _A Man in Earnest: Life of A. H.
Conant_ (1868); _The Life That Now is_ (1871); _The Simple Truth_
(1877); _Talks to Young Men: With Asides to Young Women_ (1888); _Things
New and Old_ (1893); _Father Taylor_ (1906); and _A History of the Town
and Parish of Ilkley_ (with Horsefall Turner, 1886).
COLMAN, SAINT (d. 676), bishop of Lindisfarne, was probably an Irish
monk at Iona. Journeying southwards he became bishop of Lindisfarne in
661, and a favoured friend of Oswio, king of Northumbria. He was at the
synod of Whitby in 664, when the great dispute between the Roman and the
Celtic parties in the church was considered; as spokesman of the latter
party he upheld the Celtic usages, but King Oswio decided against him
and his cause was lost. After this event Colman and some monks went to
Iona and then to Ireland. He settled on the island of Inishbofin, where
he built a monastery and where he died on the 8th of August 676.
Colman must be distinguished from St Colman of Cloyne (c. 522-600), an
Irish saint, who became a Christian about 570; and also from another
Irishman, St Colman Ela (553-610), a kinsman of St Columba. The word
Colman is derived from the Latin _columbus_, a dove, and the _Book of
Leinster_ mentions 209 saints of this name.
COLMAN, GEORGE (1732-1794), English dramatist and essayist, usually
called "the Elder," and sometimes "George the First," to distinguish him
from his son, was born in 1732 at Florence, where his father was
stationed as resident at the court of the grand duke of Tuscany.
Colman's father died within a year of his son's birth, and the boy's
education was undertaken by William Pulteney, afterwards Lord Bath,
whose wife was Mrs Colman's sister. After attending a private school in
Marylebone, he was sent to Westminster School, which he left in due
course for Christ Church, Oxford. Here he made the acquaintance of
Bonnell Thornton, the parodist, and together they founded _The
Connoisseur_ (1754-1756), a periodical which, although it reached its
140th number, "wanted weight," as Johnson said. He left Oxford after
taking his degree in 1755, and, having been entered at Lincoln's Inn
before his return to London, he was called to the bar in 1757. A
friendship formed with David Garrick did not help his career as a
barrister, but he continued to practise until the death of Lord Bath,
out of respect for his wishes.
In 1760 he produced his first play, _Polly Honeycomb_, which met with
great success. In 1761 _The Jealous Wife_, a comedy partly founded on
_Tom Jones_, made Colman famous. The death of Lord Bath in 1764 placed
him in possession of independent means. In 1765 appeared his metrical
translation of the plays of Terence; and in 1766 he produced _The
Clandestine Marriage_, jointly with Garrick, whose refusal to take the
part of Lord Ogleby led to a quarrel between the two authors. In the
next year he purchased a fourth share in the Covent Garden Theatre, a
step which is said to have induced General Pulteney to revoke a will by
which he had left Colman large estates. The general, who died in that
year, did, however, leave him a considerable annuity. Colman was acting
manager of Covent Garden for seven years, and during that period he
produced several "adapted" plays of Shakespeare. In 1768 he was elected
to the Literary Club, then nominally consisting of twelve members. In
1774 he sold his share in the great playhouse, which had involved him in
much litigation with his partners, to Leake; and three years later he
purchased of Samuel Foote, then broken in health and spirits, the little
theatre in the Haymarket. He was attacked with paralysis in 1785; in
1789 his brain became affected, and he died on the 14th of August 1794.
Besides the works already cited, Colman was author of adaptations of
Beaumont and Fletcher's _Bonduca_, Ben Jonson's _Epicoene_, Milton's
_Comus_, and of other plays. He also produced an edition of the works of
Beaumont and Fletcher (1778), a version of the _Ars Poëtica_ of Horace,
an excellent translation from the _Mercator_ of Plautus for Bonnell
Thornton's edition (1769-1772), some thirty plays, many parodies and
occasional pieces. An incomplete edition of his dramatic works was
published in 1777 in four volumes.
His son, GEORGE COLMAN (1762-1836), known as "the Younger," English
dramatist and miscellaneous writer, was born on the 21st of October
1762. He passed from Westminster school to Christ Church, Oxford, and
King's College, Aberdeen, and was finally entered as a student of law at
Lincoln's Inn, London. While in Aberdeen he published a poem satirizing
Charles James Fox, called _The Man of the People_; and in 1782 he
produced, at his father's playhouse in the Haymarket, his first play,
_The Female Dramatist_, for which Smollett's _Roderick Random_ supplied
the materials. It was unanimously condemned, but _Two to One_ (1784) was
entirely successful. It was followed by _Turk and no Turk_ (1785), a
musical comedy; _Inkle and Yarico_ (1787), an opera; _Ways and Means_
(1788); _The Iron Chest_ (1796), taken from William Godwin's _Adventures
of Caleb Williams_; _The Poor Gentleman_ (1802); _John Bull, or an
Englishman's Fireside_ (1803), his most successful piece; _The Heir at
Law_ (1808), which enriched the stage with one immortal character, "Dr
Pangloss," and numerous other pieces, many of them adapted from the
French.
The failing health of the elder Colman obliged him to relinquish the
management of the Haymarket theatre in 1789, when the younger George
succeeded him, at a yearly salary of £600. On the death of the father
the patent was continued to the son; but difficulties arose in his way,
he was involved in litigation with Thomas Harris, and was unable to pay
the expenses of the performances at the Haymarket. He was forced to take
sanctuary within the Rules of the King's Bench. Here he resided for many
years continuing to direct the affairs of his theatre. Released at last
through the kindness of George IV., who had appointed him exon of the
Yeomen of the Guard, a dignity disposed of by Colman to the highest
bidder, he was made examiner of plays by the duke of Montrose, then lord
chamberlain. This office, to the disgust of all contemporary dramatists,
to whose MSS. he was as illiberal as he was severe, he held till his
death. Although his own productions were open to charges of indecency
and profanity, he was so severe a censor of others that he would not
pass even such words as "heaven," "providence" or "angel." His comedies
are a curious mixture of genuine comic force and sentimentality. A
collection of them was published (1827) in Paris, with a life of the
author, by J. W. Lake.
Colman, whose witty conversation made him a favourite, was also the
author of a great deal of so-called humorous poetry (mostly coarse,
though much of it was popular)--_My Night Gown and Slippers_ (1797),
reprinted under the name of _Broad Grins_, in 1802; and _Poetical
Vagaries_ (1812). Some of his writings were published under the assumed
name of Arthur Griffinhood of Turnham Green. He died in Brompton,
London, on the 17th of October 1836. He had, as early as 1784,
contracted a runaway marriage with an actress, Clara Morris, to whose
brother David Morris, he eventually disposed of his share in the
Haymarket theatre. Many of the leading parts in his plays were written
especially for Mrs Gibbs (_née_ Logan), whom he was said to have
secretly married after the death of his first wife.
See the second George Colman's memoirs of his early life, entitled
_Random Records_ (1830), and R. B. Peake, _Memoirs of the Colman
Family_ (1842).
COLMAN, SAMUEL (1832- ), American landscape painter, was born at
Portland, Maine, on the 4th of March 1832. He was a pupil of Ashur B.
Durand in New York, and in 1860-1862 studied in Spain, Italy, France and
England. In 1871-1876 he was again in Europe. In 1860, with James D.
Smilie, he founded the American Water Color Society, and became its
first president (1866-1867), his own water-colour paintings being
particularly fine. He was elected a member of the National Academy of
Design in 1862. Among his works are "The Ships of the Western Plains,"
in the Union League Club, New York; and "The Spanish Peaks, Colorado,"
in the Metropolitan Museum, New York.
COLMAR, or KOLMAR, a town of Germany, in the imperial province of
Alsace-Lorraine, formerly the capital of the department of Haut-Rhin in
France, on the Logelbach and Lauch, tributaries of the Ill, 40 m. S.S.W.
from Strassburg on the main line of railway to Basel. Pop. (1905)
41,582. It is the seat of the government for Upper Alsace, and of the
supreme court of appeal for Alsace-Lorraine. The town is surrounded by
pleasant promenades, on the site of the old fortifications, and has
numerous narrow and picturesque streets. Of its edifices the most
remarkable are the Roman Catholic parish church of St Martin, known also
as the _Münster_, dating from the 13th and 14th centuries, the Lutheran
parish church (15th century), the former Dominican monastery
(1232-1289), known as "Unterlinden" and now used as a museum, the
Kaufhaus (trade-hall) of the 15th century, and the handsome government
offices (formerly the Prefecture). Colmar is the centre of considerable
textile industries, comprising wool, cotton and silk-weaving, and has
important manufactures of sewing thread, starch, sugar and machinery.
Bleaching and brewing are also carried on, and the neighbourhood is rich
in vineyards and fruit-gardens. The considerable trade of the place is
assisted by a chamber of commerce and a branch of the Imperial Bank
(Reichsbank).
Colmar (probably the _columbarium_ of the Romans) is first mentioned, as
a royal _villa_, in a charter of Louis the Pious in 823, and it was here
that Charles the Fat held a diet in 884. It was raised to the status of
a town and surrounded with walls by Wölfelin, advocate (_Landvogt_) of
the emperor Frederick II. in Alsace, a masterful and ambitious man,
whose accumulated wealth was confiscated by the emperor in 1235, and who
is said to have been murdered by his wife lest her portion should also
be seized. In 1226 Colmar became an imperial city, and the civic rights
(_Stadtrecht_) conferred on it in 1274 by Rudolph of Habsburg became the
model for those of many other cities. Its civic history is much the same
as that of other medieval towns: a struggle between the democratic gilds
and the aristocratic "families," which ended in 1347 in the inclusion of
the former in the governing body, and in the 17th century in the
complete exclusion of the latter. In 1255 Colmar joined the league of
Rhenish cities, and in 1476 and 1477 took a vigorous share in the
struggle against Charles the Bold. In 1632, during the Thirty Years'
War, it was taken by the Swedes, and in 1635 by the French, who held it
till after the Peace of Westphalia (1649). In 1673 the French again
occupied it and dismantled the fortifications. In 1681 it was formally
annexed to France by a decree of Louis XIV.'s _Chambre de Réunion_, and
remained French till 1871, when it passed with Alsace-Lorraine to the
new German empire.
See "Annalen und Chronik von Kolmar," German translation, G. H. Pabst,
in _Geschichtsschreiber der deutschen Vorzeit_ (2nd ed., G.
Wattenbach, Leipzig, 1897); Sigmund Billing, _Kleine Chronik der Stadt
Kolmar_ (Colmar, 1891); Hund, _Kolmar vor und während seiner
Entwickelung zur Reichsstadt_ (Strassburg, 1899); J. Liblin,
_Chronique de Colmar_, 58-1400 (Mülhausen, 1867-1868); T. F. X.
Hunkler, _Gesch. der Stadt Kolmar_ (Colmar, 1838). For further
references see Ulysse Chevalier, _Répertoire des sources.
Topobibliographie_ (Montbéliard, 1894-1899); and Waltz, _Bibliographie
de la ville de Colmar_ (Mülhausen, 1902).
COLNE, a market town and municipal borough in the Clitheroe
parliamentary division of Lancashire, England, 34½ m. N. by E. from
Manchester by the Lancashire & Yorkshire railway; it is served also by a
branch of the Midland railway from Skipton. Pop. (1901) 23,000. It
stands on a hilly site above a small affluent of the river Calder. The
church of St Bartholomew retains some Norman work, but is chiefly of
various later periods. There is a cloth hall or piece hall, originally
used as an exchange when woollens were the staple of the town. The
grammar school is of interest as the place where John Tillotson
(1630-1694), archbishop of Canterbury, received early education. Colne
is a place of great antiquity, and many Roman coins have been found on
the site. As early as the 14th century it was the seat of a woollen
manufacture; but its principal manufactures now are cottons, printed
calicoes and muslin. In the neighbourhood are several limestone and
slate quarries. The town was incorporated in 1895, and the corporation
consists of a mayor, 6 aldermen and 18 councillors. Area, 5063 acres.
COLOCYNTH, COLOQUINTIDA or BITTER APPLE, _Citrullus Colocynthis_, a
plant of the natural order Cucurbitaceae. The flowers are unisexual; the
male blossoms have five stamens with sinuous anthers, the female have
reniform stigmas, and an ovary with three large fleshy placentas. The
fruit is round, and about the size of an orange; it has a thick
yellowish rind, and a light, spongy and very bitter pulp, which yields
the colocynth of druggists. The seeds, which number from 200 to 300, and
are disposed in vertical rows on the three parietal placentas of the
fruit, are flat and ovoid and dark-brown; they are used as food by some
of the tribes of the Sahara, and a coarse oil is expressed from them.
The pulp contains only about 3.5% of fixed oil, whilst the seeds
contains about 15%. The foliage resembles that of the cucumber, and the
root is perennial. The plant has a wide range, being found in Ceylon,
India, Persia, Arabia, Syria, North Africa, the Grecian Archipelago, the
Cape Verd Islands, and the south-east of Spain. The term _pakkuoth_,
translated "wild gourds" in 2 Kings iv. 39, is thought to refer to the
fruit of the colocynth; but, according to Dr Olaf Celsius (1670-1756), a
Swedish theologian and naturalist, it signifies a plant known as the
squirting cucumber, _Ecbalium Elaterium_.
The commercial colocynth consists of the peeled and dried fruits. In the
preparation of the drug, the seeds are always removed from the pulp. Its
active principle is an intensely bitter amorphous or crystalline
glucoside, colocynthin, C56H84O23, soluble in water, ether and
alcohol, and decomposable by acids into glucose and a resin,
colocynthein, C40H54O13. Colocynthein also occurs as such in
the drug, together with at least two other resins, citrullin and
colocynthiden. Colocynthin has been used as a hypodermic purgative--a
class of drugs practically nonexistent, and highly to be desired in
numberless cases of apoplexy. The dose recommended for hypodermic
injection is fifteen minims of a 1% solution in glycerin.
The British Pharmacopeia contains a compound extract of colocynth, which
no one ever uses; a compound pill--dose 4 to 8 grains--in which oil of
cloves is included in order to relieve the griping caused by the drug;
and the Pilula Colocynthidis et Hyoscyami, which contains 2 parts of the
compound pill to 1 of extract of hyoscyamus. This is by far the best
preparation, the hyoscyamus being added to prevent the pain and griping
which is attendant on the use of colocynth alone. The official dose of
this pill is 4 to 8 grains, but the most effective and least
disagreeable manner in which to obtain its action is to give four
two-grain pills at intervals of an hour or so.
In minute doses colocynth acts simply as a bitter, but is never given
for this purpose. In ordinary doses it greatly increases the secretion
of the small intestine and stimulates its muscular coat. The
gall-bladder is also stimulated, and the biliary function of the liver,
so that colocynth is both an excretory and a secretory cholagogue. The
action which follows hypodermic injection is due to the excretion of the
drug from the blood into the alimentary canal. Though colocynth is a
drastic hydragogue cathartic, it is desirable, as a rule, to supplement
its action by some drug, such as aloes, which acts on the large
intestine, and a sedative must always be added. Owing to its irritant
properties, the drug must not be used habitually, but it is very
valuable in initiating the treatment of simple chronic constipation, and
its pharmacological properties obviously render it especially useful in
cases of hepatitis and congestion of the liver.
Colocynth was known to the ancient Greek, Roman and Arabic physicians;
and in an Anglo-Saxon herbal of the 11th century (Cockayne, _Leechdoms_,
&c., vol. i. p. 325, London, 1864), the following directions are given
as to its use:--"For stirring of the inwards, take the inward neshness
of the fruit, without the kernels, by weight of two pennies; give it,
pounded in lithe beer to be drunk, it stirreth the inwards."
COLOGNE (Ger. _Köln_, or officially, since 1900, _Cöln_), a city and
archiepiscopal see of Germany, in the Prussian Rhine province, a
fortress of the first rank, and one of the most important commercial
towns of the empire. Pop. (1885) 239,437; (1900) 370,685; (1905)
428,503, of which about 80% are Roman Catholics. It lies in the form of
a vast semicircle on the left bank of the Rhine, 44 m. by rail
north-east from Aix-la-Chapelle, 24 south-east from Düsseldorf and 57
north-north-west from Coblenz. Its situation on the broad and navigable
Rhine, and at the centre of an extensive network of railways, giving it
direct communication with all the important cities of Europe, has
greatly fostered its trade, while its close proximity to the beautiful
scenery of the Rhine, has rendered it a favourite tourist resort. When
viewed from a distance, especially from the river, the city, with its
medieval towers and buildings, the whole surmounted by the majestic
cathedral, is picturesque and imposing. The ancient walls and ditches,
which formerly environed the city, were dismantled between 1881 and
1885, and the site of the old fortifications, bought from the government
by the municipality, were converted into a fine boulevard, the Ring,
nearly 4 m. long. Beyond the Ring, about ½ m. farther out, a new
continuous line of wall fortifications, with outlying clusters of
earthworks and forts, has since been erected; 1000 acres, now occupied
by handsome streets, squares and two public parks, were thus added to
the inner town, almost doubling its area.
Cologne is connected by bridges with the suburb of Deutz. Within the
outer municipal boundary are included (besides Deutz) the suburbs of
Bayenthal, Lindenthal, Ehrenfeld, Nippes, Sülz, Bickendorf, Niehl and
Poll, protected by another widely extended circle of detached forts on
both banks of the Rhine. Of the former city gates four have been
retained, restored and converted into museums: the Severin gate, on the
south, contains the geological section of the natural history museum;
the Hahnen gate, on the west, is fitted as the historical and
antiquarian museum of the city; and the Eigelstein gate, on the north,
accommodates the zoological section of the natural history museum.
Cologne, with the tortuous, narrow and dark streets and lanes of the old
inner town, is still regarded as one of the least attractive capital
cities of Germany; but in modern times it has been greatly improved, and
the evil smells which formerly characterized it have yielded to proper
sanitary arrangements. The most important squares are the Domhof, the
Heumarkt, Neumarkt, Alte Markt and Waidmarkt in the old inner, and the
Hansa-platz in the new inner town. The long Hohe-strasse of the old town
is the chief business street.
The cathedral or Dom, the principal edifice and chief object of interest
in Cologne, is one of the finest and purest monuments of Gothic
architecture in Europe (for plan, &c. see ARCHITECTURE: _Romanesque and
Gothic in Germany_). It stands on the site of a cathedral begun about
the beginning of the 9th century by Hildebold, metropolitan of Cologne,
and finished under Willibert in 873. This structure was ruined by the
Normans, was rebuilt, but in 1248 was almost wholly destroyed by fire.
The foundation of the present cathedral was then laid by Conrad of
Hochstaden (archbishop from 1238 to 1261). The original plan of the
building has been attributed to Gerhard von Rile (d. c. 1295). In 1322
the new choir was consecrated, and the bones of the Three Kings were
removed to it from the place they had occupied in the former cathedral.
After Conrad's death the work of building advanced but slowly, and at
the time of the Reformation it ceased entirely. In the early part of the
19th century the repairing of the cathedral was taken in hand, in 1842
the building of fresh portions necessary for the completion of the whole
structure was begun, and on the 15th of October 1880 the edifice,
finally finished, was opened in the presence of the emperor William I.
and all the reigning German princes. The cathedral, which is in the form
of a cross, has a length of 480, and a breadth of 282 ft.; the height of
the central aisle is 154 ft.; that of each of the towers 511 ft. The
heaviest of the seven bells (_Kaiserglocke_), cast in 1874 from the
metal of French guns, weighs 543 cwt., and is the largest and heaviest
bell that is rung. In the choir the heart of Marie de' Medici is buried;
and in the adjoining side-chapels are monuments of the founder and other
archbishops of Cologne, and the shrine of the Three Kings, which is
adorned with gold and precious stones. The three kings of Cologne
(Kaspar, Melchior and Balthazar) were supposed to be the three wise men
who came from the East to pay adoration to the infant Christ; according
to the legend, the emperor Frederick I. Barbarossa brought their bones
from Milan in 1162, and had them buried in Cologne cathedral, and
miraculous powers of healing were attributed to these relics. The very
numerous and richly-coloured windows, presented at various times to the
cathedral, add greatly to the imposing effect of the interior. The view
of the cathedral has been much improved by a clearance of the old houses
on the Domhof, including the archiepiscopal palace, but the new Hof,
though flanked by many fine buildings, is displeasing owing to the
intrusion of numerous modern palatial hotels and shops.
Among the other churches of Cologne, which was fondly styled in the
middle ages the "holy city" (_heilige Stadt_) and "German Rome," and,
according to legend, possessed as many sacred fanes as there are days in
the year, are several of interest both for their age and for the
monuments and works of art they contain. In St Peter's are the famous
altar-piece by Rubens, representing the Crucifixion of St Peter, several
works by Lucas van Leyden, and some old German glass-paintings. St
Martin's, built between the 10th and 12th centuries, has a fine
baptistery; St Gereon's, built in the 11th century on the site of a
Roman rotunda, is noted for its mosaics, and glass and oil-paintings;
the Minorite church, begun in the same year as the cathedral, contains
the tomb of Duns Scotus. Besides these may be mentioned the church of St
Pantaleon, a 13th-century structure, with a monument to Theophano, wife
of the emperor Otto II.; St Cunibert, in the Byzantine-Moorish style,
completed in 1248; St Maria im Capitol, the oldest church in Cologne,
dedicated in 1049 by Pope Leo IX., noted for its crypt, organ and
paintings; St Cecilia, St Ursula, containing the bones of that saint
and, according to legend, of the 11,000 English virgins massacred near
Cologne while on a pilgrimage to Rome; St Severin, the church of the
Apostles, and that of St Andrew (1220 and 1414), which contains the
remains of Albertus Magnus in a gilded shrine. Most of these, and also
many other old churches, have been completely restored. Among newer
ecclesiastical buildings must be mentioned the handsome Roman Catholic
church in Deutz, completed in 1896, and a large synagogue, in the new
town west of the Ring, finished in 1899.
Among the more prominent secular buildings are the Gürzenich, a former
meeting-place of the diets of the Holy Roman Empire, built between 1441
and 1447, of which the ground floor was in 1875 converted into a stock
exchange, and the upper hall, capable of accommodating 3000 persons, is
largely utilized for public festivities, particularly during the time of
the Carnival: the Rathaus, dating from the 13th century, with beautiful
Gobelin tapestries; the Tempelhaus, the ancestral seat of the patrician
family of the Overstolzens, a beautiful building dating from the 13th
century, and now the chamber of commerce; the Wallraf-Richartz Museum,
in which is a collection of paintings by old Italian and Dutch masters,
together with some works by modern artists; the Zeughaus, or arsenal,
built on Roman foundations; the Supreme Court for the Rhine provinces;
the post-office (1893); the Imperial Bank (Reichsbank); and the
municipal library and archives. The Wolkenburg, a fine Gothic house of
the 15th century, originally a patrician residence, was restored in
1874, and is now the headquarters of the famous men's choral society of
Cologne (Kölner Männergesangverein).
A handsome central railway station (high level), on the site of the old
station, and close to the cathedral, was built in 1889-1894. The railway
to Bonn and the Upper Rhine now follows the line of the _ceinture_ of
the new inner fortifications, and on this section there are three city
stations in addition to the central. Like all important German towns,
Cologne contains many fine monuments. The most conspicuous is the
colossal equestrian statue (22½ ft. high) of Frederick William III. of
Prussia in the Heumarkt. There are also monuments to Moltke (1881), to
Count Johann von Werth (1885), the cavalry leader of the Thirty Years'
War, and to Bismarck (1879). Near the cathedral is an archiepiscopal
museum of church antiquities. Cologne is richly endowed with literary
and scientific institutions. It has an academy of practical medicine, a
commercial high school, a theological seminary, four Gymnasia (classical
schools), numerous lower-grade schools, a conservatory of music and
several high-grade ladies' colleges. Of its three theatres, the
municipal theatre (Stadttheater) is famed for its operatic productions.
Commercially, Cologne is one of the chief centres on the Rhine, and has
a very important trade in corn, wine, mineral ores, coals, drugs, dyes,
manufactured wares, groceries, leather and hides, timber, porcelain and
many other commodities. A large new harbour, with spacious quays, has
been constructed towards the south of the city. In 1903, the traffic of
the port amounted to over one million tons. Industrially, also, Cologne
is a place of high importance. Of the numerous manufactures, among which
may be especially mentioned sugar, chocolate, tobacco and cigars, the
most famous is the perfume known as _eau de Cologne_ (q.v.) (_Kölnisches
Wasser_, i.e. Cologne-water).
Of the newspapers published at Cologne the most important is the
_Kölnische Zeitung_ (often referred to as the "Cologne Gazette"), which
has the largest circulation of any paper in Germany, and great weight
and influence. It must be distinguished from the _Kölnische
Volkszeitung_, which is the organ of the Clerical party in the Prussian
Rhine provinces.
_History._--Cologne occupies the site of _Oppidum Ubiorum_, the chief
town of the Ubii, and here in A.D. 50 a Roman colony, _Colonia_, was
planted by the emperor Claudius, at the request of his wife Agrippina,
who was born in the place. After her it was named Colonia Agrippina or
Agrippinensis. Cologne rose to be the chief town of Germania Secunda,
and had the privilege of the Jus Italicum. Both Vitellius and Trajan
were at Cologne when they became emperors. About 330 the city was taken
by the Franks but was not permanently occupied by them till the 5th
century, becoming in 475 the residence of the Frankish king Childeric.
It was the seat of a _pagus_ or _gau_, and counts of Cologne are
mentioned in the 9th century.
The succession of bishops in Cologne is traceable, except for a gap
covering the troubled 5th century, from A.D. 313, when the see was
founded. It was made the metropolitan see for the bishoprics of the
Lower Rhine and part of Westphalia by Charlemagne, the first archbishop
being Hildebold, who occupied the see from 785 to his death in 819. Of
his successors one of the most illustrious was Bruno (q.v.), brother of
the emperor Otto I., archbishop from 953 to 965, who was the first of
the archbishops to exercise temporal jurisdiction, and was also
"archduke" of Lorraine. The territorial power of the archbishops was
already great when, in 1180, on the partition of the Saxon duchy, the
duchy of Westphalia was assigned to them. In the 11th century they
became _ex-officio_ arch-chancellors of Italy (see ARCHCHANCELLOR), and
by the Golden Bull of 1356 they were finally placed among the electors
(_Kurfürsten_) of the Empire. With Cologne itself, a free imperial city,
the archbishop-electors were at perpetual feud; in 1262 the
archiepiscopal see was transferred to Brühl, and in 1273 to Bonn; it was
not till 1671 that the quarrel was finally adjusted. The archbishopric
was secularized in 1801, all its territories on the left bank of the
Rhine being annexed to France; in 1803 those on the right bank were
divided up among various German states; and in 1815 by the congress of
Vienna, the whole was assigned to Prussia. The last archbishop-elector,
Maximilian of Austria, died in 1801.
In Archbishop Hildebold's day Cologne was still contained by the square
of its Roman walls, within which stood the cathedral and the
newly-founded church of St Maria (known later as "im Capitol"); the city
was, however, surrounded by a ring of churches, among which those of St
Gereon, St Ursula, St Severin and St Cunibert were conspicuous. In 881
Norman pirates, sailing up the Rhine, took and sacked the city; but it
rapidly recovered, and in the 11th century had become the chief trading
centre of Germany. Early in the 12th century the city was enlarged by
the inclusion of suburbs of Oversburg; Niederich and St Aposteln; in
1180 these were enclosed in a permanent rampart which, in the 13th
century, was strengthened with the walls and gates that survived till
the 19th century.
The municipal history of Cologne is of considerable interest. In general
it follows the same lines as that of other cities of Lower Germany and
the Netherlands. At first the bishop ruled through his burgrave,
advocate, and nominated jurats (_scabini_, _Schöffen_). Then, as the
trading classes grew in wealth, his jurisdiction began to be disputed;
the _conjuratio pro libertate_ of 1112 seems to have been an attempt to
establish a commune (see Commune, Medieval). Peculiar to Cologne,
however, was the _Richerzeche_ (_rigirzegheide_), a corporation of all
the wealthy patricians, which gradually absorbed in its hands the
direction of the city's government (the first record of its active
interference is in 1225). In the 13th century the archbishops made
repeated efforts to reassert their authority, and in 1259 Archbishop
Conrad of Hochstaden, by appealing to the democratic element of the
population, the "brotherhoods" (_fraternitates_) of the craftsmen,
succeeded in overthrowing the Richerzeche and driving its members into
exile. His successor, Engelbert II., however, attempted to overthrow the
democratic constitution set up by him, with the result that in 1262 the
brotherhoods combined with the patricians against the archbishop, and
the Richerzeche returned to share its authority with the elected "great
council" (_Weiter Rat_). As yet, however, none of the trade or craft
gilds, as such, had a share in the government, which continued in the
hands of the patrician families, membership of which was necessary even
for election to the council and to the parochial offices. This continued
long after the battle of Worringen (1288) had finally secured for the
city full self-government, and the archbishops had ceased to reside
within its walls. In the 14th century a narrow patrician council
selected from the Richerzeche, with two burgomasters, was supreme. In
1370 an insurrection of the weavers was suppressed; but in 1396, the
rule of the patricians, having been weakened by internal dissensions, a
bloodless revolution led to the establishment of a comparatively
democratic constitution, based on the organization of the trade and
craft gilds, which lasted with but slight modification till the French
Revolution.
The greatness of Cologne, in the middle ages as now, was due to her
trade. Wine and herrings were the chief articles of her commerce; but
her weavers had been in repute from time immemorial, and exports of
cloth were large, while her goldsmiths and armourers were famous. So
early as the 11th century her merchants were settled in London, their
colony forming the nucleus of the Steelyard. When, in 1201, the city
joined the Hanseatic League (q.v.) its power and repute were so great
that it was made the chief place of a third of the confederation.
In spite of their feuds with the archbishops, the burghers of Cologne
were stanch Catholics, and the number of the magnificent medieval
churches left is evidence at once of their piety and their wealth. The
university, founded in 1389 by the sole efforts of the citizens, soon
gained a great reputation; in the 15th century its students numbered
much more than a thousand, and its influence extended to Scotland and
the Scandinavian kingdoms. Its decline began, however, from the moment
when the Catholic sentiment of the city closed it to the influence of
the Reformers; the number of its students sank to vanishing point, and
though, under the influence of the Jesuits, it subsequently revived, it
never recovered its old importance. A final blow was dealt it when, in
1777, the enlightened archbishop Maximilian Frederick (d. 1784) founded
the university of Bonn, and in 1798, amid the confusion of the
revolutionary epoch, it ceased to exist.
The same intolerance that ruined the university all but ruined the city
too. It is difficult, indeed, to blame the burghers for resisting the
dubious reforming efforts of Hermann of Wied, archbishop from 1515 to
1546, inspired mainly by secular ambitions; but the expulsion of the
Jews in 1414, and still more the exclusion, under Jesuit influence, of
Protestants from the right to acquire citizenship, and from the
magistracy, dealt severe blows at the prosperity of the place. A variety
of other causes contributed to its decay: the opening up of new trade
routes, the gradual ossification of the gilds into close and corrupt
corporations, above all the wars in the Netherlands, the Thirty Years'
War, and the Wars of the Spanish and Austrian Succession. When in 1794
Cologne was occupied by the French, it was a poor and decayed city of
some 40,000 inhabitants, of whom only 6000 possessed civic rights. When,
in 1801, by the treaty of Lunéville, it was incorporated in France, it
was not important enough to be more than the chief town of an
arrondissement. On the death of the last elector in 1801 the
archiepiscopal see was left vacant. With the assignment of the city to
Prussia by the congress of Vienna in 1815 a new era of prosperity began.
The university, indeed, was definitively established at Bonn, but the
archbishopric was restored (1821) as part of the new ecclesiastical
organization of Prussia, and the city became the seat of the president
of a governmental district. Its prosperity now rapidly increased; when
railways were introduced it became the meeting-place of several lines,
and in 1881 its growth necessitated the pushing outward of the circle of
fortifications.
See L. Ennen, _Gesch. der Stadt Köln_ (5 vols., Cologne, 1863-1880) to
1648, and _Frankreich und der Niederrhein_ (2 vols., ib., 1855, 1856),
a history of the city and electorate of Cologne since the Thirty
Years' War; R. Schultze and C. Steuernagel, _Colonia Agrippinensis_
(Bonn, 1895); K. Heldmann, _Der Kölngau und die Civitas Köln_ (Halle,
1900); L. Korth, _Köln im Mittelalter_ (Cologne, 1890); F. Lau,
_Entwickelung der kommunalen Verfassung der Stadt Köln bis zum Jahre
1396_ (Bonn, 1898); K. Hegel, _Städte und Gilden der germanischen
Völker im Mittelalter_ (2 vols., Leipzig, 1891), ii. p. 323; H.
Keussen, _Historische Topographie der Stadt Köln im Mittelalter_
(Bonn, 1906); W. Behnke, _Aus Kölns Franzosenzeit_ (Cologne, 1901);
Helmken, _Köln und seine Sehenswürdigkeiten_ (20th ed., Cologne,
1903). For sources see L. Ennen and G. Eckertz, _Quellen zur
Geschichte der Stadt Köln_ (6 vols., Cologne, 1860-1879); later
sources will be found in U. Chevalier, _Répertoire des sources hist.
Topo-bibliographie_ (Montbéliard, 1894-1899), s.v. Cologne, which
gives also a full list of works on everything connected with the city;
also in Dahlmann-Waitz, _Quellenkunde_ (ed. Leipzig, 1906), p. 17,
Nos. 252, 253. For the archdiocese and electorate of Cologne see
Binterim and Mooren, _Die Erzdiözese Köln bis zur französischen
Staatsumwälzung_, new ed. by A. Mooren in 2 vols. (Düsseldorf, 1892,
1893).
COLOMAN (1070-1116), king of Hungary, was the son of King Geza of
Hungary by a Greek concubine. King Ladislaus would have made the
book-loving youth a monk, and even designated him for the see of Eger;
but Coloman had no inclination for an ecclesiastical career, and, with
the assistance of his friends, succeeded in escaping to Poland. On the
death of Ladislaus (1095), he returned to Hungary and seized the crown,
passing over his legitimately born younger brother Almos, the son of the
Greek princess Sinadene. Almos did not submit to this usurpation, and
was more or less of an active rebel till 1108, when the emperor Henry V.
espoused his cause and invaded Hungary. The Germans were unsuccessful;
but Coloman thought fit to be reconciled with his kinsman and restored
to him his estates. Five years later, however, fearing lest his brother
might stand in the way of his heir, the infant prince Stephen, Coloman
imprisoned Almos and his son Béla in a monastery and had them blinded.
Despite his adoption of these barbarous Byzantine methods, Coloman was a
good king and a wise ruler. In foreign affairs he preserved the policy
of St Ladislaus by endeavouring to provide Hungary with her greatest
need, a suitable seaboard. In 1097 he overthrew Peter, king of Croatia,
and acquired the greater part of Dalmatia, though here he encountered
formidable rivals in the Greek and German emperors, Venice, the pope and
the Norman-Italian dukes, all equally interested in the fate of that
province, so that Coloman had to proceed cautiously in his expansive
policy. By 1102, however, Zara, Traú, Spalato and all the islands as far
as the Cetina were in his hands. But it was as a legislator and
administrator that Coloman was greatest (see HUNGARY: _History_). He was
not only one of the most learned, but also one of the most statesmanlike
sovereigns of the earlier middle ages. Coloman was twice married, (1)
in 1097 to Buzella, daughter of Roger, duke of Calabria, the chief
supporter of the pope, and (2) in 1112 to the Russian princess,
Euphemia, who played him false and was sent back in disgrace to her
kinsfolk the following year. Coloman died on the 3rd of February 1116.
COLOMB, PHILIP HOWARD (1831-1899), British vice-admiral, historian,
critic and inventor, the son of General G. T. Colomb, was born in
Scotland, on the 29th of May 1831. He entered the navy in 1846, and
served first at sea off Portugal in 1847; afterwards, in 1848, in the
Mediterranean, and from 1848 to 1851 as midshipman of the "Reynard" in
operations against piracy in Chinese waters; as midshipman and mate of
the "Serpent" during the Burmese War of 1852-53; as mate of the
"Phoenix" in the Arctic Expedition of 1854; as lieutenant of the
"Hastings" in the Baltic during the Russian War, taking part in the
attack on Sveaborg. He became what was known at that time as a "gunner's
lieutenant" in 1857, and from 1859 to 1863 he served as flag-lieutenant
to rear-admiral Sir Thomas Pasley at Devonport. Between 1858 and 1868 he
was employed in home waters on a variety of special services, chiefly
connected with gunnery, signalling and the tactical characteristics and
capacities of steam warships. From 1868 to 1870 he commanded the
"Dryad," and was engaged in the suppression of the slave trade. In 1874,
while captain of the "Audacious," he served for three years as
flag-captain to vice-admiral Ryder in China; and finally he was
appointed, in 1880, to command the "Thunderer" in the Mediterranean.
Next year he was appointed captain of the steam reserve at Portsmouth;
and after serving three years in that capacity, he remained at
Portsmouth as flag-captain to the commander-in-chief until 1886, when he
was retired by superannuation before he had attained flag rank.
Subsequently he became rear-admiral, and finally vice-admiral on the
retired list.
Few men of his day had seen more active and more varied service than
Colomb. But the real work on which his title to remembrance rests is the
influence he exercised on the thought and practice of the navy. He was
one of the first to perceive the vast changes which must ensue from the
introduction of steam into the navy, which would necessitate a new
system of signals and a new method of tactics. He set himself to devise
the former as far back as 1858, but his system of signals was not
adopted by the navy until 1867.
What he had done for signals Colomb next did for tactics. Having first
determined by experiment--for which he was given special facilities by
the admiralty--what are the manoeuvring powers of ships propelled by
steam under varying conditions of speed and helm, he proceeded to devise
a system of tactics based on these data. In the sequel he prepared a new
evolutionary signal-book, which was adopted by the royal navy, and still
remains in substance the foundation of the existing system of tactical
evolutions at sea. The same series of experimental studies led him to
conclusions concerning the chief causes of collisions at sea; and these
conclusions, though stoutly combated in many quarters at the outset,
have since been generally accepted, and were ultimately embodied in the
international code of regulations adopted by the leading maritime
nations on the recommendation of a conference at Washington in 1889.
After his retirement Colomb devoted himself rather to the history of
naval warfare, and to the large principles disclosed by its intelligent
study, than to experimental inquiries having an immediate practical aim.
As in his active career he had wrought organic changes in the ordering,
direction and control of fleets, so by his historic studies, pursued
after his retirement, he helped greatly to effect, if he did not
exclusively initiate, an equally momentous change in the popular, and
even the professional, way of regarding sea-power and its conditions. He
did not invent the term "sea-power,"--it is, as is shown elsewhere (see
SEA-POWER), of very ancient origin,--nor did he employ it until Captain
Mahan had made it a household word with all. But he thoroughly grasped
its conditions, and in his great work on naval warfare (first published
in 1891) he enunciated its principles with great cogency and with keen
historic insight. The central idea of his teaching was that naval
supremacy is the condition precedent of all vigorous military offensive
across the seas, and, conversely, that no vigorous military offensive
can be undertaken across the seas until the naval force of the enemy has
been accounted for--either destroyed or defeated and compelled to
withdraw to the shelter of its own ports, or at least driven from the
seas by the menace of a force it dare not encounter in the open. This
broad and indefeasible principle he enunciated and defended in essay
after essay, in lecture after lecture, until what at first was rejected
as a paradox came in the end to be accepted as a commonplace. He worked
quite independently of Captain Mahan, and his chief conclusions were
published before Captain Mahan's works appeared.
He died quite suddenly and in the full swing of his literary activity on
the 13th of October 1899, at Steeple Court, Botley, Hants. His latest
published work was a biography of his friend Sir Astley Cooper Key, and
his last article was a critical examination of the tactics adopted at
Trafalgar, which showed his acumen and insight at their best.
His younger brother, SIR JOHN COLOMB (1838-1909), was closely associated
in the pioneer work done for British naval strategy and Imperial
defence, and his name stands no less high among those who during this
period promoted accurate thinking on the subject of sea-power. Entering
the Royal Marines in 1854, he rose to be captain in 1867, retiring in
1869; and thenceforth he devoted himself to the study of naval and
military problems, on which he had already published some excellent
essays. His books on _Colonial Defence and Colonial Opinions_ (1873),
_The Defence of Great and Greater Britain_ (1879), _Naval Intelligence
and the Protection of Commerce_ (1881), _The Use and the Application of
Marine Forces_ (1883), _Imperial Federation: Naval and Military_ (1887),
followed later by other similar works, made him well known among the
rising school of Imperialists, and he was returned to parliament
(1886-1892) as Conservative member for Bow, and afterwards (1895-1906)
for Great Yarmouth. In 1887 he was created C.M.G., and in 1888 K.C.M.G.
He died in London on the 27th of May 1909. In Kerry, Ireland, he was a
large landowner, and became a member of the Irish privy council (1903),
and in 1906 he sat on the Royal Commission dealing with congested
districts.
COLOMBES, a town of France in the department of Seine, arrondissement of
St Denis, 7 m. N.N.W. of Paris. Pop. (1906) 28,920. It has a
16th-century church with 12th-century tower, a race-course, and numerous
villa residences and boarding-schools. Manufactures include oil, vinegar
and measuring-instruments. A castle formerly stood here, in which died
Henrietta Maria, queen of Charles I. of England.
COLOMBEY, a village of Lorraine, 4 m. E. of Metz, famous as the scene of
a battle between the Germans and the French fought on the 14th of August
1870. It is often called the battle of Borny, from another village 2½ m.
E. of Metz. (See METZ and FRANCO-GERMAN WAR.)
COLOMBIA, a republic of South America occupying the N.W. angle of that
continent and bounded N. by the Caribbean Sea and Venezuela, E. by
Venezuela and Brazil, S. by Brazil, Peru and Ecuador, and W. by Ecuador,
the Pacific Ocean, Panama and the Caribbean Sea. The republic is very
irregular in outline and has an extreme length from north to south of
1050 m., exclusive of territory occupied by Peru on the north bank of
the upper Amazon, and an extreme width of 860 m. The approximate area of
this territory, according to official calculations, is 481,979 sq. m.,
which is reduced to 465,733 sq. m. by Gotha planimetrical measurements.
This makes Colombia fourth in area among the South American states.
The loss of the department of Panama left the republic with unsettled
frontiers on every side, and some of the boundary disputes still
unsolved in 1909 concern immense areas of territory. The boundary with
Costa Rica was settled in 1900 by an award of the President of France,
but the secession of Panama in 1903 gave Colombia another unsettled line
on the north-west. If the line which formerly separated the Colombian
departments of Cauca and Panama is taken as forming the international
boundary, this line follows the water-parting between the streams which
flow eastward to the Atrato, and those which flow westward to the Gulf
of San Miguel, the terminal points being near Cape Tiburon on the
Caribbean coast, and at about 7° 10' N. lat. on the Pacific coast. The
boundary dispute with Venezuela was referred in 1883 to the king of
Spain, and the award was made in 1891. Venezuela, however, refused to
accept the decision. The line decided upon, and accepted by Colombia,
starts from the north shore of Calabozo Bay on the west side of the Gulf
of Maracaibo, and runs west and south-west to and along the
water-parting (Sierra de Perija) between the drainage basins of the
Magdalena and Lake Maracaibo as far as the source in lat. 8° 50' N. of a
small branch of the Catatumbo river, thence in a south-easterly
direction across the Catatumbo and Zulia rivers to a point in 72° 30' W.
long., 8° 12' N. lat., thence in an irregular southerly direction across
the Cordillera de Mérida to the source of the Sarare, whence it runs
eastward along that river, the Arauca, and the Meta to the Orinoco.
Thence the line runs south and south-east along the Orinoco, Atabapo and
Guainia to the Pedra de Cucuhy, which serves as a boundary mark for
three republics. Of the eastern part of the territory lying between the
Meta and the Brazilian frontier, Venezuela claims as far west as the
meridian of 69° 10'. Negotiations for the settlement of the boundary
with Brazil (q.v.) were resumed in 1906, and were advanced in the
following year to an agreement providing for the settlement of
conflicting claims by a mixed commission. With Ecuador and Peru the
boundary disputes are extremely complicated, certain parts of the
disputed territory being claimed by all three republics. Colombia holds
possession as far south as the Napo in lat. 2° 47' S., and claims
territory occupied by Peru as far south as the Amazon. On the other hand
Peru claims as far north as La Chorrera in 0° 49' S. lat., including
territory occupied by Colombia, and the eastern half of the Ecuadorean
department of Oriente, and Ecuador would extend her southern boundary
line to the Putumayo, in long. 71° 1' S., and make that river her
northern boundary as far north as the Peruvian claim extends. The
provisional line starts from the Japura river (known as the Caqueta in
Colombia) in lat. 1° 30' S., long. 69° 24' W., and runs south-west to
the 70th meridian, thence slightly north of west to the Igaraparana
river, thence up that stream to the Peruvian military post of La
Chorrera, in 0° 49' S. lat., thence west of south to Huiririmachico, on
the Napo. Thence the line runs north-west along the Napo, Coca and San
Francisco rivers to the Andean watershed, which becomes the dividing
line northward for a distance of nearly 80 m., where the line turns
westward and reaches the Pacific at the head of Panguapi Bay, into which
the southern outlet of the Mira river discharges (about 1° 34' N. lat.).
_Physical Geography._--Colombia is usually described as an extremely
mountainous country, which is true of much less than half its total
area. Nearly one half its area lies south-east of the Andes and
consists of extensive _llanos_ and forested plains, traversed by
several of the western tributaries of the Amazon and Orinoco. These
plains slope gently toward the east, those of the Amazon basin
apparently lying in great terraces whose escarpments have the
character of low, detached ranges of hills forming successive rims to
the great basin which they partly enclose. The elevation and slope of
this immense region, which has an approximate length of 640 m. and
average width of 320 m., may be inferred from the elevations of the
Caqueta, or Japura river, which was explored by Crevaux in 1878-1879.
At Santa Maria, near the Cordillera (about 75° 30' W. long.), the
elevation is 613 ft. above sea-level, on the 73rd meridian it is 538
ft., and near the 70th meridian 426 ft.--a fall of 187 ft. in a
distance of about 400 m. The northern part of this great region has a
somewhat lower elevation and gentler slope, and consists of open
grassy plains, which are within the zone of alternating wet and dry
seasons. In the south and toward the great lower basin of the Amazon,
where the rainfall is continuous throughout the year, the plains are
heavily forested. The larger part of this territory is unexplored
except along the principal rivers, and is inhabited by scattered
tribes of Indians. Near the Cordilleras and along some of the larger
rivers there are a few small settlements of whites and mestizos, but
their aggregate number is small and their economic value to the
republic is inconsiderable. There are some cattle ranges on the open
plains, however, but they are too isolated to have much importance. A
small part of the northern Colombia, on the lower courses of the
Atrato and Magdalena, extending across the country from the Eastern
to the Western Cordilleras with a varying width of 100 to 150 m., not
including the lower river basins which penetrate much farther inland,
also consists of low, alluvial plains, partly covered with swamps and
intricate watercourses, densely overgrown with vegetation, but in
places admirably adapted to different kinds of tropical agriculture.
These plains are broken in places by low ranges of hills which are
usually occupied by the principal industrial settlements of this part
of the republic, the lower levels being for the most part swampy and
unsuited for white occupation.
[Illustration: COLOMBIA]
The other part of the republic, which may be roughly estimated at
two-fifths of its total area, consists of an extremely rugged
mountainous country, traversed from south to north by the parallel
river valleys of the Magdalena, Cauca and Atrato. The mountain chains
which cover this part of Colombia are the northern terminal ranges of
the great Andean system. In northern Ecuador the Andes narrows into a
single massive range which has the character of a confused mass of
peaks and ridges on the southern frontier of Colombia. There are
several lofty plateaus in this region which form a huge central
watershed for rivers flowing east to the Amazon, west to the Pacific,
and north to the Caribbean Sea. The higher plateaus are called
_paramos_, cold, windswept, mist-drenched deserts, lying between the
elevations of 10,000 and 15,000 ft., which are often the only passes
over the Cordilleras, and yet are almost impassable because of their
morasses, heavy mists, and cold, piercing winds. The _paramos_ of Cruz
Verde (11,695 ft.) and Pasto, and the volcanoes of Chiles (15,900
ft.), Chumbul (15,715 ft.), and Pasto (13,990 ft.) are prominent
landmarks of this desolate region. North of this great plateau the
Andes divides into three great ranges, the Western, Central and
Eastern Cordilleras. The Central is the axis of the system, is
distinguished by a line of lofty volcanoes and _paramos_, some of
which show their white mantles 2000 to 3000 ft. above the line of
perpetual snow (approx. 15,000 ft. in this latitude), and is sometimes
distinguished with the name borne by the republic for the time being.
This range runs in a north-north-east direction and separates the
valleys of the Magdalena and Cauca, terminating in some low hills
south-west of El Banco, a small town on the lower Magdalena. The
principal summits of this range are Tajumbina (13,534 ft.), Pan de
Azucar (15,978 ft.), Purace (15,420 ft.), Sotara (15,420 ft.), Huila
(over 18,000 ft.), Tolima (18,432 ft.), Santa Isabel (16,700 ft.),
Ruiz (18,373 ft.), and Mesa de Herveo (18,300 ft.). The last named
affords a magnificent spectacle from Bogotá, its level top which is 5
or 6 m. across, and is formed by the rim of an immense crater, having
the appearance of a table, down the sides of which for more than 3000
ft. hangs a spotless white drapery of perpetual snow. The Western
Cordillera branches from the main range first and follows the coast
very closely as far north as the 4th parallel, where the San Juan and
Atrato rivers, though flowing in opposite directions and separated
near the 5th parallel by a low transverse ridge, combine to interpose
valleys between it and the Cordillera de Baudo, which thereafter
becomes the true coast range. It then forms the divide between the
Cauca and Atrato valleys, and terminates near the Caribbean coast. The
general elevation of this range is lower than that of the others, its
culminating points being the volcano Munchique (11,850 ft.)and Cerro
Leon (10,847 ft.). The range is covered with vegetation and its
Pacific slopes are precipitous and humid. The Cordillera de Baudo,
which becomes the coast range above lat. 4° N., is the southern
extension of the low mountainous chain forming the backbone of the
Isthmus of Panama, and may be considered the southern termination of
the great North American system. Its elevations are low and heavily
wooded. It divides on the Panama frontier, the easterly branch forming
the watershed between the Atrato and the rivers of eastern Panama, and
serving as the frontier between the two republics. The passes across
these ranges are comparatively low, but they are difficult because of
the precipitous character of their Pacific slopes and the density of
the vegetation on them. The Eastern Cordillera is in some respects the
most important of the three branches of the Colombian Andes. Its
general elevation is below that of the Central Cordillera, and it has
few summits rising above the line of perpetual snow, the highest being
the Sierra Nevada de Cocui, in lat. 6° 30' N. Between Cocui and the
southern frontier of Colombia there are no noteworthy elevations
except the so-called Paramo de Suma Paz near Bogotá, the highest point
of which is 14,146 ft. above sea-level, and the Chita _paramo_, or
range, north-east of Bogotá (16,700 ft.). Between the 5th and 6th
parallels the range divides into two branches, the eastern passing
into Venezuela, where it is called the Cordillera de Merida, and the
northern continuing north and north-east as the Sierra de Perija and
the Sierra de Oca, to terminate at the north-eastern extremity of the
Goajira peninsula. The culminating point in the first-mentioned range
is the Cerro Pintado (11,800 ft.). West of this range, and lying
between the 10th parallel and the Caribbean coast, is a remarkable
group of lofty peaks and knotted ranges known as the Sierra Nevada de
Santa Marta, the highest snow-crowned summit of which rises 17,389 ft.
above the sea according to some, and 16,728 according to other
authorities. This group of mountains, covering an approximate area of
6500 sq. m., lies immediately on the coast, and its highest summits
were long considered inaccessible. It stands detached from the lower
ranges of the Eastern Cordillera, and gives the impression that it is
essentially independent. The eastern Cordillera region is noteworthy
for its large areas of plateau and elevated valley within the limits
of the vertical temperate zone. In this region is to be found the
greater part of the white population, the best products of Colombian
civilization, and the greatest industrial development. The "sabana" of
Bogotá is a good illustration of the higher of these plateaus (8563
ft., according to Stieler's _Hand-Atlas_), with its mild temperature,
inexhaustible fertility and numerous productions of the temperate
zone. It has an area of about 2000 sq. m. The lower valleys, plateaus
and mountain slopes of this range are celebrated for their coffee,
which, with better means of transportation, would be a greater source
of prosperity for the republic than the gold-mines of Antioquia. The
mountainous region of Colombia is subject to volcanic disturbances and
earthquake shocks are frequent, especially in the south. These shocks,
however, are less severe than in Venezuela or in Ecuador.
Islands.
There are few islands on the coast of Colombia, and the great majority
of these are too small to appear on the maps in general use. Gorgona
is one of the larger islands on the Pacific coast, and is situated
about 25 m. from the mainland in lat. 3° N. It is 5¾ m. long by 1¾ m.
wide, and rises to an extreme elevation of 1296 ft. above sea-level.
It is a beautiful island, and is celebrated as one of Pizarro's
stopping places. It has been used by the Colombian government for
political offenders. Malpelo island, 282 m. west by south of
Charambira point, in lat. 3° 40' N., long. 81° 24' W., nominally
belongs to Colombia. It is a small, rocky, uninhabited island, rising
to an elevation of 846 ft. above the sea, and has no ascertained
value. The famous Pearl islands of the Gulf of Panama are claimed by
Colombia, and their pearl oyster fisheries are considered a rentable
asset by the government. The group covers an area of about 450 sq. m.,
and consists of 16 islands and several rocks. The largest is Rey
Island, which is about 17 m. long, north to south, and 8 m. broad,
with an extreme elevation of 600 ft. The other larger islands are San
José, Pedro Gonzales, Casaya, Saboga and Pacheca. There are several
fishing villages whose inhabitants are largely engaged in the pearl
fisheries, and a number of cocoa-nut plantations. The islands belong
chiefly to Panama merchants. There are several groups of small islands
on the northern coast, and a few small islands so near the mainland as
to form sheltered harbours, as at Cartagena. The largest of these
islands is Baru, lying immediately south of the entrance to Cartagena
harbour. North-west of Colombia in the Caribbean Sea are several small
islands belonging to the republic, two of which (Great and Little Corn
Is.) lie very near the coast of Nicaragua. The largest and most
important of these islands is Vieja Providencia (Old Providence), 120
m. off the Mosquito Coast, 4½ m. long, which supports a small
population.
Rivers.
The rivers of Colombia may be divided, for convenience of description,
into three general classes according to the destination of their
waters, the Pacific, Caribbean and Atlantic--the last reaching their
destination through the Amazon and Orinoco. Of these, the Caribbean
rivers are of the greatest economic importance to the country, though
those of the eastern plains may at some time become nearly as
important as transportation routes in a region possessing forest
products of great importance and rich in agricultural and pastoral
possibilities. It is worthy of note that the principal rivers of these
three classes--the Patia, Cauca, Magdalena, Caquetá and Putumayo--all
have their sources on the high plateaus of southern Colombia and
within a comparatively limited area. The Pacific coast rivers are
numerous, and discharge a very large volume of water into the ocean in
proportion to the area of their drainage basins, because of the heavy
rainfall on the western slopes of the Coast range. The proximity of
this range to the coast limits them to short, precipitous courses,
with comparatively short navigable channels. The principal rivers of
this group, starting from the southern frontier, are the Mira, Patia,
Iscuande, Micai, Buenaventura or Dagua, San Juan and Baudo. The Mira
has its principal sources in Ecuador, and for a short distance forms
the boundary line between the two republics, but its outlets and
navigable channel are within Colombia. It has a large delta in
proportion to the length of the river, which is visible evidence of
the very large quantity of material brought down from the neighbouring
mountain slopes. The Patia is the longest river of the Pacific group,
and is the only one having its sources on the eastern side of the
Western Cordillera. It is formed by the confluence of the Sotara and
Guaitara at the point where the united streams turn westward to cut
their way through the mountains to the sea. The Sotara or upper Patia
rises on the southern slope of a transverse ridge or dyke, between the
Central and Western Cordilleras, in the vicinity of Popayan, and flows
southward about 120 m. to the point of confluence with the Guaitara.
The latter has its sources on the elevated plateau of Tuquerres and
flows north-west to meet the Sotara. The canyon of the Patia through
the Western Cordillera is known as the "Minima gorge," and has been
cut to a depth of 1676 ft., above which the perpendicular mountain
sides rise like a wall some thousands of feet more. The upper course
of the Guaitara is known as the Carchi, which for a short distance
forms the boundary line between Colombia and Ecuador. At one point in
its course it is crossed by the Rumichaca arch, a natural arch of
stone, popularly known as the "Inca's bridge," which with the Minima
gorge should be classed among the natural wonders of the world. There
is a narrow belt of low, swampy country between the Cordillera and the
coast, traversed at intervals by mountain spurs, and across this the
river channels are usually navigable. The San Juan has built a large
delta at its mouth, and is navigable for a distance of 140 m. inland,
the river flowing parallel with the coast for a long distance instead
of crossing the coastal plain. It rises in the angle between the
Western Cordillera and a low transverse ridge connecting it with the
Baudo coast range, and flows westward down to the valley between the
two ranges, and then southward through this valley to about lat. 4°
15' N., where it turns sharply westward and crosses a narrow belt of
lowland to the coast. It probably has the largest discharge of water
of the Pacific group, and has about 300 m. of navigable channels,
including its tributaries, although the river itself is only 190 m.
long and the sand-bars at its mouth have only 7 or 8 ft. of water on
them. The San Juan is distinguished for having been one of the
proposed routes for a ship canal between the Caribbean and Pacific.
At one point in its upper course it is so near the Atrato that,
according to a survey by Captain C. S. Cochrane, R.N., in 1824, a
canal 400 yds. long with a maximum cutting of 70 ft., together with
some improvements in the two streams, would give free communication.
His calculations were made, of course, for the smaller craft of that
time.
The rivers belonging to the Caribbean system, all of which flow in a
northerly direction, are the Atrato, Bacuba, Sinú, Magdalena and
Zulia. The Bacuba, Suriquilla or Leon, is a small stream rising on the
western slopes of the Cordillera and flowing into the upper end of the
Gulf of Uraba. Like the Atrato it brings down much silt, which is
rapidly filling that depression. There are many small streams and one
important river, the Sinú, flowing into the sea between this gulf and
the mouth of the Magdalena. The Sinú rises on the northern slopes of
the Alto del Viento near the 7th parallel, and flows almost due north
across the coastal plain for a distance of about 286 m. to the Gulf of
Morosquillo. It has a very sinuous channel which is navigable for
small steamers for some distance, but there is no good port at its
outlet, and a considerable part of the region through which it flows
is malarial and sparsely settled. The most important rivers of
Colombia, however, are the Magdalena and its principal tributary, the
Cauca. They both rise on the high table-land of southern Colombia
about 14,000 ft. above sea-level--the Magdalena in the Laguna del Buey
(Ox Lake) on the Las Papas plateau, and the Cauca a short distance
westward in the Laguna de Santiago on the Paramo de Guanacas--and flow
northward in parallel courses with the great Central Cordillera,
forming the water-parting between their drainage basins. The principal
tributaries of the Magdalena are the Suaza, Neiva, Cabrera, Prado,
Fusagasaga, Funza or Bogotá, Carare, Opon, Sogamoso, Lebrija and
Cesar, and the western the La Plata, Paez, Saldaña, Cuello, Guali,
Samana or Miel, Nare or Negro and Cauca. There are also many smaller
streams flowing into the Magdalena from both sides of the valley. Of
those named, the Funza drains the "sabana" of Bogotá and is celebrated
for the great fall of Tequendama, about 480 ft. in height; the
Sogamoso passes through some of the richest districts of the republic;
and the Cesar rises on the elevated slopes of the Sierra Nevada de
Santa Marta and flows southward across a low plain, in which are many
lakes, to join the Magdalena where it bends westward to meet the
Cauca. The course of the Magdalena traverses nine degrees of latitude
and is nearly 1000 m. long. It is navigable for steamers up to La
Dorada, near Honda, 561 m. above its mouth, which is closed by
sand-bars to all but light-draught vessels, and for 93 m. above the
rapids at Honda, to Girardot. The river is also navigable at high
water for small steamers up to Neiva, 100 m. farther and 1535 ft.
above sea-level, beyond which point it descends precipitously from the
plateaus of southern Colombia. The Honda rapids have a fall of only 20
ft. in a distance of 2 m., but the current is swift and the channel
tortuous for a distance of 20 m., which make it impossible for the
light-draught, flat-bottomed steamers of the lower river to ascend
them. The Cauca differs much from the Magdalena, although its
principal features are the same. The latter descends 12,500 ft. before
it becomes navigable, but at 10,000 ft. below its source the Cauca
enters a long narrow valley with an average elevation of 3500 ft.,
where it is navigable for over 200 m., and then descends 2500 ft.
through a series of impetuous rapids for a distance of about 250 m.,
between Cartago and Cáceres, with a break of 60 m. above Antioquia,
where smooth water permits isolated navigation. While, therefore, the
Magdalena is navigable throughout the greater part of its course, or
from Girardot to the coast, with an abrupt break of only 20 ft. at
Honda which could easily be overcome, the Cauca has only 200 m. of
navigable water in the upper valley and another 200 m. on its lower
course before it joins the Magdalena in lat. 9° 30', the two being
separated by 250 m. of canyon and rapids. So difficult is the country
through which the Cauca has cut its tortuous course that the fertile
upper valley is completely isolated from the Caribbean, and has no
other practicable outlet than the overland route from Cali to
Buenaventura, on the Pacific. The upper sources of the Cauca flow
through a highly volcanic region, and are so impregnated with
sulphuric and other acids that fish cannot live in them. This is
especially true of the Rio Vinagre, which rises on the Purace volcano.
The principal tributaries are the Piendamó, Ovejas, Palo, Amaime and
Nechi, from the central Cordillera, of which the last named is the
most important, and the Jamundi and a large number of small streams
from the Western. The largest branch of the Cauca on its western side,
however, is the San Jorge, which, though rising in the Western
Cordillera on the northern slopes of the Alto del Viento, in about
lat. 7° N., and not far from the sources of the Sinú and Bacuba, is
essentially a river of the plain, flowing north-east across a level
country filled with small lakes and subject to inundations to a
junction with the Cauca just before it joins the Magdalena. Both the
San Jorge and Nechi are navigable for considerable distances. The
valley of the Cauca is much narrower than that of the Magdalena, and
between Cartago and Cáceres the mountain ranges on both sides press
down upon the river and confine it to a narrow canyon. The Cauca
unites with the Magdalena about 200 m. from the sea through several
widely separated channels, which are continually changing through the
wearing away of the alluvial banks. These changes in the channel are
also at work in the Lower Magdalena. The remaining rivers of the
Caribbean system, exclusive of the smaller ones rising in the Sierra
Nevada de Santa Marta, are the Zulia and Catatumbo, which rise in the
mountains of northern Santander and flow across the low plains of the
Venezuelan state of Zulia into Lake Maracaibo.
Of the rivers of the great eastern plains, whose waters pass through
the Orinoco and Amazon to the Atlantic, little can be said beyond the
barest geographical description. The size and courses of many of their
affluents are still unknown, as this great region has been only
partially explored. The largest of these rivers flow across the plains
in an easterly direction, those of the Orinoco system inclining
northward, and those of the Amazon system southward. The first include
the Guaviare or Guayabero, the Vichada, the Meta, and the upper course
of the Arauca. The Guaviare was explored by Crevaux in 1881. It rises
on the eastern slopes of the Eastern Cordillera between the 3rd and
4th parallels, about 75 m. south of Bogotá, and flows with a slight
southward curve across the llanos to the Orinoco, into which it
discharges at San Fernando de Atabapo in lat. 4° N. Its largest
tributary is the Inirida, which enters from the south. The Guaviare
has about 600 m. of navigable channel. The Meta rises on the opposite
side of the Cordillera from Bogotá, and flows with a sluggish current
east-north-east across the llanos to the Orinoco, into which it
discharges below the Atures rapids, in lat. 6° 22' N. It is navigable
throughout almost its whole length, small steamers ascending it to a
point within 100 m. of Bogotá. Its principal tributaries, so far as
known, are the Tuca, Chire and Casanare. The principal rivers of the
Amazon system are the Napo, the upper part of which forms the
provisional boundary line with Ecuador, the Putumayo or Iça, and the
Caqueta or Japurá (Yapurá), which flow from the Andes entirely across
the eastern plains, and the Guainia, which rises on the northern
slopes of the Serra Tunaji near the provisional Brazilian frontier,
and flows with a great northward curve to the Venezuelan and Brazilian
frontiers, and is thereafter known as the Rio Negro, one of the
largest tributaries of the Amazon. There are many large tributaries of
these rivers in the unexplored regions of south-eastern Colombia, but
their names as well as their courses are still unsettled.
Coasts.
The coast of Colombia faces on the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean
Sea, and is divided by the Isthmus of Panama into two completely
separated parts. The Pacific coast-line, omitting minor convolutions,
has a length of about 500 m., while that of the Caribbean is about 700
m. The former has been of slight service in the development of the
country because of the unsettled and unhealthy character of the coast
region, and the high mountain barriers between its natural ports and
the settled parts of the republic. There are only two commercial ports
on the coast, Tumaco and Buenaventura, though there are several
natural harbours which would be of great service were there any demand
for them. The rivers Mira, Patia and San Juan permit the entrance of
small steamers, as also some of the smaller rivers. The larger bays on
this coast are Tumaco, Chocó, Magdalena, Cabita, Coqui, Puerto Utria,
Solano, Cupica and Octavia--some of them affording exceptionally safe
and well-sheltered harbours. The Caribbean coast of Colombia has only
four ports engaged in international trade--Barranquilla, Cartagena,
Santa Marta and Rio Hacha. There are some smaller ports on the coast,
but they are open only to vessels of light draft and have no trade
worth mention. Barranquilla, the principal port of the republic, is
situated on the Magdalena, and its seaport, or landing-place, is
Puerto Colombia at the inner end of Savanilla Bay, where a steel pier
4000 ft. long has been built out to deep water, alongside which
ocean-going vessels can receive and discharge cargo. The bay is slowly
filling up, however, and two other landing-places--Salgar and
Savanilla--had to be abandoned before Puerto Colombia was selected.
The pier-head had 24 ft. of water alongside in 1907, but the silt
brought down by the Magdalena is turned westward by the current along
this coast, and may at any time fill the bay with dangerous shoals.
The oldest and best port on the coast is Cartagena, 65 m. south-west
of Barranquilla, which has a well-sheltered harbour protected by
islands, and is connected with the Magdalena at Calamar by railway.
The next best port is that of Santa Marta, about 46 m. east-north-east
of Barranquilla (in a straight line), with which it is connected by 23
m. of railway and 50 m. of inland navigation on the Ciénaga de Santa
Marta and eastern outlets of the Magdalena. Santa Marta is situated on
a small, almost landlocked bay, well protected from prevailing winds
by high land on the north and north-east, affording excellent
anchorage in waters free from shoaling through the deposit of silt.
The depth of the bay ranges from 4½ to 19 fathoms. The town stands at
the foot of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, which restricts the area
of cultivatable land in its immediate vicinity, and the enclosing high
lands make the climate hot and somewhat dangerous for foreigners.
Since the development of the fruit trade on the shores of the
Caribbean sea and Gulf of Mexico by an important American company,
which owns a large tract of land near Santa Marta devoted to banana
cultivation, and has built a railway 50 m. inland principally for the
transportation of fruit, the trade of the port has greatly increased.
The population of this region, however, is sparse, and its growth is
slow. The fourth port on this coast is Rio Hacha, an open roadstead,
about 93 m. east of Santa Marta, at the mouth of the small river
Rancheira descending from the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada de
Santa Marta. It has little trade, and the undeveloped, unpopulated
state of the country behind it affords no promise of immediate growth.
There are other small towns on the coast which are ports for the small
vessels engaged in the coasting and river trade, but they have no
international importance because of their inaccessibility to
ocean-going steamers, or the extremely small volume of their trade.
The Gulf of Uraba is a large bight or southerly extension of the Gulf
of Darien. It receives the waters of the Atrato, Bacuba, and a number
of small rivers, and penetrates the land about 50 m., but has very
little commercial importance because of the unhealthy and unsettled
character of the neighbouring country, and because of the bar across
its entrance formed by silt from the Atrato. The Gulf of Morosquillo,
a broad shallow indentation of the coast south of Cartagena, receives
the waters of the Rio Sinú, at the mouth of which is the small port of
Cispata. Between the mouth of the Magdalena and Santa Marta is the
Ciénaga de Santa Marta, a large marshy lagoon separated from the sea
by a narrow sand spit, having its "boca" or outlet at its eastern
side. There is some traffic in small steamers on its shallow waters,
which is increasing with the development of fruit cultivation on its
eastern and southern sides. It extends inland about 31 m., and marks a
deep indentation of the coast like the Gulf of Uraba.
_Geology._--The geology of Colombia is very imperfectly known, and it
is only by a comparison with the neighbouring regions that it is
possible to form any clear idea of the geological structure and
succession. The oldest rocks are gneisses and schists, together with
granite and other eruptive rocks. These are overlaid by sandstones,
slates and limestones, alternating with porphyries and porphyrites
sometimes in the form of sheets, sometimes as breccias and
conglomerates. Cretaceous fossils have been found abundantly in this
series, but it is still possible that earlier systems may be
represented. Coal-bearing beds, possibly of Tertiary age, occur in
Antioquia and elsewhere. Structurally, the four main chains of
Colombia differ considerably from one another in geological
constitution. The low Cordilleras of the Chocos, on the west coast,
are covered by soft Quaternary sandstones and marls containing shells
of extant species, such as still inhabit the neighbouring ocean. The
Western Cordillera is the direct continuation of the Western
Cordillera of Ecuador, and, like the latter, to judge from the
scattered observations which are all that are available, consists
chiefly of sandstones and porphyritic rocks of the Cretaceous series.
Between the Western and the Central Cordilleras is a longitudinal
depression along which the river Cauca finds its way towards the sea.
On the western side of this depression there are red sandstones with
coal-seams, possibly Tertiary; the floor and the eastern side consist
chiefly of ancient crystalline and schistose rocks. The Central
Cordillera is the direct continuation of the Eastern Cordillera of
Ecuador, and is formed chiefly of gneiss and other crystalline rocks,
but sedimentary deposits of Cretaceous age also occur. Finally the
Eastern branch, known as the Cordillera of Bogotá, is composed almost
entirely of Cretaceous beds thrown into a series of regular
anticlinals and synclinals similar to those of the Jura Mountains. The
older rocks occasionally appear in the centre of the anticlinals. In
all these branches of the Andes the folds run approximately in the
direction of the chains, but the Sierra de Santa Marta appears to
belong to a totally distinct system of folding, the direction of the
folds being from west to east, bending gradually towards the
south-east. Although volcanoes are by no means absent, they are much
less important than in Ecuador, and their products take a far smaller
share in the formation of the Andes. In Ecuador the depression between
the Eastern and Western Cordilleras is almost entirely filled with
modern lavas and agglomerates; in Colombia the corresponding Cauca
depression is almost free from such deposits. In the Central
Cordillera volcanoes extend to about 5° N.; in the Western Cordillera
they barely enter within the limits of Colombia; in the Cordillera of
Bogotá they are entirely absent.[1]
_Climate._--Were it not for the high altitudes of western Colombia,
high temperatures would prevail over the whole country, except where
modified by the north-east trade winds and the cold ocean current
which sweeps up the western coast. The elevated plateaus and summits
of the Andes are responsible, however, for many important and profound
modifications in climate, not only in respect to the lower
temperatures of the higher elevations, but also in respect to the
higher temperatures of the sheltered lowland valleys and the varying
climatic conditions of the neighbouring plains. The republic lies
almost wholly within the north torrid zone, a comparatively small part
of the forested Amazonian plain extending beyond the equator into the
south torrid zone. The great Andean barrier which crosses the republic
from the south to north acts as a condenser to the prevailing easterly
winds from the Atlantic, and causes a very heavy rainfall on their
eastern slopes and over the forested Amazon plain. High temperatures
as well as excessive humidity prevail throughout this region. Farther
north, on the open llanos of the Orinoco tributaries, the year is
divided into equal parts, an alternating wet and dry season, the sun
temperatures being high followed by cool nights, and the temperatures
of the rainy season being even higher. The rainfall is heavy in the
wet season, causing many of the rivers to spread over extensive areas,
but in the dry season the inundated plains become dry, the large
rivers fed by the snows and rainfall of the Andes return within their
banks, the shallow lagoons and smaller streams dry up, vegetation
disappears, and the level plain becomes a desert. The northern plains
of the republic are swept by the north-east trades, and here, too, the
mountain barriers exercise a strongly modifying influence. The low
ridges of the Sierra de Perijá do not wholly shut out these
moisture-laden winds, but they cause a heavy rainfall on their eastern
slopes, and create a dry area on their western flanks, of which the
Vale of Upar is an example. The higher masses of the Sierra Nevada de
Santa Marta cover a very limited area, leaving the trade winds a
comparatively unbroken sweep across the northern plains until checked
by the Western Cordillera, the Panama ranges and the Sierra de Baudo,
where a heavy precipitation follows. Farther south the coast ranges
cause a very heavy rainfall on their western slopes, which are quite
as uninhabitable because of rain and heat as are the coasts of
southern Chile through rain and cold. The rainfall on this coast is
said to average 73 in., though it is much higher at certain points and
in the Atrato Valley. As a result the coastal plain is covered with
swamps and tangled forests, and is extremely unhealthy, except at a
few favoured points on the coast. High temperatures prevail throughout
the greater part of the Magdalena and Cauca valleys, because the
mountain ranges which enclose them shut out the prevailing winds. At
Honda, on the Magdalena, 664 ft. above sea-level, the mean temperature
for the year is 82° F., and the mercury frequently rises to 102° in
the shade. These lowland plains and valleys comprise the climatic
tropical zone of Colombia, which is characterized by high
temperatures, and by excessive humidity and dense forests, an
exception to the last-named characteristic being the open llanos where
dry summers prevail. Above this tropical zone in the mountainous
regions are to be found all the varying gradations of climate which we
are accustomed to associate with changes in latitude. There are the
subtropical districts of the valleys and slopes between 1500 and 7500
ft. elevation, which include some of the most fertile and productive
areas in Colombia; the temperate districts between 7500 and 10,000
ft., the cold, bleak and inhospitable _paramos_ between 10,000 and
15,000 ft., and above these the arctic wastes of ice and snow. The
temperate and subtropical regions cover the greater part of the
departments traversed by the Eastern Cordillera, the northern end of
the Central Cordillera, the Santa Marta plateaus, and the Upper Cauca
Valley. They include the larger part of the white population and the
chief productive industries of the country. There is no satisfactory
record of temperatures and rainfall in these widely different climatic
zones from which correct averages can be drawn and compared.
Observations have been made and recorded at Bogotá and at some other
large towns, but for the greater part of the country we have only
fragmentary reports. The mean annual temperature on the eastern
plains, so far as known, ranges from 87° F. on the forested slopes to
90° and 91° on the llanos of the Meta and Arauca. On the Caribbean
coastal plain it ranges from 80° to 84°, but at Tumaco, on the Pacific
coast, within two degrees of the equator, it is only 79°. At Medellin,
in the mountainous region of Antioquia, 4950 ft. above sea-level, the
mean annual temperature is 70°, and the yearly rainfall 55 in., while
at Bogotá, 8563 ft., the former is 57° and the latter 44 in. At
Tuquerres, near the frontier of Ecuador, 10,200 ft. elevation, the
mean annual temperature is said to be 55°. The changes of seasons are
no less complicated and confusing. A considerable part of the republic
is covered by the equatorial belt of calms, whose oscillations divide
the year into a wet and dry season. This division is modified,
however, by the location of mountain ranges and by elevation. In the
Amazon region there is no great change during the year, and on the
northern plains the so-called dry season is one of light rains except
where mountain ranges break the sweep of the north-east trades. The
alternating wet and dry seasons are likewise to be found on the
Pacific coastal plain, though this region is not entirely dry and
vegetation never dries up as on the _llanos_. Above the lowland plains
the seasons vary in character according to geographical position and
elevation. The two-season division rules in the departments of
Santander and Antioquia, but without the extremes of humidity and
aridity characteristic of the eastern plains. Farther south, at
elevations between 800 and 9500 ft., the year is divided into four
distinct seasons--two wet and two dry--the former called _inviernos_
(winters) and the latter _veranos_ (summers). These seasons are
governed by the apparent movements of the sun, the winters occurring
at the equinoxes and the summers at the solstices. The _sabana_ of
Bogotá and neighbouring districts are subject to these changes of
season. At higher altitudes long, cold, wet winters are experienced,
with so short and cold a summer between them that the bleak _paramos_
are left uninhabited except by a few shepherds in the short dry
season.
_Fauna._--The geographical position of Colombia gives to it a fauna
and flora largely characteristic of the great tropical region of the
Amazon on the south-east, and of the mountainous regions of Central
America on the north-west. At the same time it is rich in animal and
plant types of its own, especially the latter, and is considered one
of the best fields in South America for the student and collector. The
fauna is essentially tropical, though a few species characteristic of
colder regions are to be found in the higher Andes. Of the Quadrumana
there are at least seventeen distinct species, and this number may be
increased after a thorough exploration of the forested eastern plains.
They are all arboreal in habit, and are to be found throughout the
forested lowlands and lower mountain slopes. The carnivora are
represented by seven or eight species of the Felidae, the largest of
which are the puma (_Felis concolor_) and the jaguar (_F. onca_).
These animals, together with the smaller ocelot, have a wide
geographical range, and are very numerous in the valley of the
Magdalena. Two species of bear and the "coatí" (_Nasua_) represent the
plantigrades and inhabit the mountain slopes, and, of Pachydermata,
the peccary (_Dicotyles_) and "danta" or tapir (_Tapirus_) have a wide
distribution throughout the lowland and lower plateau forests. The
Colombian tapir is known as the _Tapirus Roulini_, and is slightly
smaller than the Brazilian species (_T. americanus_). There are deer
in the forests and on the open savannahs, the rabbit and squirrel are
to be seen on the eastern slopes of the Andes, and partly amphibious
rodents, the "capybara" (_Hydrochoerus_) and "guagua" (_Coelogenys
subniger_), are very numerous along the wooded watercourses. The
sloth, armadillo, opossum, skunk and a species of fox complete the
list of the more common quadrupeds so far as known, though it is
certain that a careful biological survey would discover many others.
The large rivers of Colombia and the lakes of the lowlands are filled
with alligators, turtles, and fish, and several species of fish are
highly esteemed by the natives as food. The saurians are represented
on land by several species of lizard, some of them conspicuous for
their brilliant colouring, and by the large "iguana," whose flesh is
considered a great delicacy. Among the ophidians, which include many
harmless species, are the boa-constrictor, rattlesnake, the dreaded
_Lachesis_ and the coral snake. The "manatee" (_Manatus americanus_)
is found in the Atrato and other large Colombian rivers.
In bird and insect life Colombia is second only to Brazil. The condor,
which inhabits the higher Cordilleras, is peculiar to the whole Andean
region, and is the largest of the Raptores. Among other members of
this order are the eagle, osprey, vulture, buzzard, kite and hawk,
with about a dozen species in all. Parrots and paroquets are numerous
everywhere in the tropical and subtropical regions, as also the
gorgeously coloured macaw and awkward toucan. The largest class,
perhaps, is that formed by the astonishing number of water-fowl which
throng the shallow lagoons and river beaches at certain seasons of the
year. They are mostly migratory in habit, and are to be found in many
other countries. Among these are the large white crane and small
crane, the blue heron, the snowy-white egret, the roseate spoonbill
(_Platalea ajaja_), stork, bittern and many species of ducks. The
largest and most conspicuous member of this interesting family is the
_Mycteria americana_, the gigantic stork so frequently seen in the
Amazon valley, and even more numerous about the lagoons of northern
Colombia. One of the best game-birds of the forest is the "crested
curassow" (_Crax alector_), sometimes weighing 12lb, which feeds on
arboreal fruits and rarely comes to the ground. Colombia also
possesses many species of the beautiful little humming-bird, among
which are the tiny _Steganura Underwoodi_ and the sword-bill,
_Docimastes ensiferus_, which were found by Mr Albert Millican on a
bleak _paramo_ 12,000 ft. above sea-level. One of the most interesting
birds found in the country is the "weaver-bird" (_Cassicus persicus_),
which lives in colonies and suspends its long, pouch-like nest from
the end of a horizontal branch of some high, isolated tree. In regard
to insects, what has been said of Brazil will apply very closely to
Colombia. Mosquitoes, butterflies, spiders, beetles and ants are
infinitely numerous, and some of the species are indescribably
troublesome.
_Flora._--The Colombian flora is richer in species and individual
characteristics than the fauna, owing in part to its greater
dependence on climatic conditions. It ranges from the purely tropical
types of the lowlands to the Alpine species of the more elevated
_paramos_. It should be remembered, however, that large areas of the
lowland plains have only a very limited arboreal growth. These plains
include the extensive llanos of the Orinoco tributaries where coarse,
hardy grasses and occasional clumps of palms are almost the only
vegetation to be seen. There are other open plains in northern
Colombia, sometimes covered with a shrubby growth, and the "mesas"
(flat-topped mountains) and plateaus of the Cordilleras are frequently
bare of trees. Farther up, on the cold, bleak _paramos_, only stunted
and hardy trees are to be found. On the other hand, a luxuriant forest
growth covers a very large part of the republic, including the
southern plains of the Amazon tributaries, the foothills, slopes and
valleys of the Cordilleras, a larger part of the northern plains, and
the whole surface of the Western Cordillera and coast. The most
conspicuous and perhaps the most universal type in all these regions,
below an approximate elevation of 10,000 ft., is the palm, whose
varieties and uses are incredibly numerous. On the eastern plains are
to be found the "miriti" (_Mauritia flexuosa_) and the "pirijao" or
peach palm (_Guilielma speciosa_), called the "pupunha" on the Amazon,
whose fruit, fibre, leaf, sap, pith and wood meet so large a part of
the primary needs of the aborigines. A noteworthy palm of the eastern
Andean slopes is the "corneto" (_Deckeria_), whose tall, slender trunk
starts from the apex of a number of aerial roots, rising like a cone 6
to 8 ft. above the ground. It is one of the most fruitful of palms,
its clusters weighing from 120 to 200 lb each. Extensive groves of the
coco-nut palm are to be found on the Caribbean coast, the fruit and
fibre of which figure among the national exports. In north-eastern
Colombia, where a part of the year is dry, the "curuas" form the
prevailing species, but farther south, on the slopes of the
Cordilleras up to an elevation of 10,000 ft., the wax-palm, or "palma
de cera" (_Ceroxylon andicola_), is said to be the most numerous. It
is a tall slender palm, and is the source of the vegetable wax so
largely used in some parts of the country in the manufacture of
matches, a single stem sometimes yielding 16-20 lb. Another widely
distributed species in central Colombia is known as the "palmita del
Azufral" in some localities, and as the "palma real" and "palma dolce"
in others. Humboldt says it is not the "palma real" of Cuba (_Oreodoxa
regia_), but in the Rio Sinú region is the _Cocos butyracea_, or the
"palma dolce," from which palm wine is derived. Another palm of much
economic importance in Colombia is the "tagua" (_Phytelephas
macrocarpa_), which grows abundantly in the valleys of the Magdalena,
Atrato and Patia, and produces a large melon-shaped fruit in which are
found the extremely hard, fine-grained nuts or seeds known in the
commercial world as vegetable ivory. The Colombian "Panama hat" is
made from the fibres extracted from the ribs of the fan-shaped leaves
of still another species of palm, _Carludovica palmata_, while in the
Rio Sinú region the natives make a kind of butter ("manteca de
Corozo") from the _Elaeis melanococca_, Mart., by peeling the nuts in
water and then purifying the oil extracted in this way by boiling.
This oil was formerly used for illuminating purposes. The forests are
never made up wholly of palms, but are composed of trees of widely
different characters, including many common to the Amazon region,
together with others found in Central American forests, such as
mahogany and "vera" or lignum vitae (_Zygophyllum arboreum_).
Brazilwood (_Caesalpinia echinata_), valuable for its timber and
colouring extract, and "roco" (_Bixa orellana_), the "urucú" of Brazil
which furnishes the anatto of commerce, are widely distributed in
central and southern Colombia, and another species of the first-named
genus, the _C. coariaria_, produces the "divi-divi" of the Colombian
export trade--a peculiarly shaped seed-pod, rich in tannic and gallic
acids, and used for tanning leather. The rubber-producing _Hevea
guayanensis_ is found in abundance on the Amazon tributaries, and the
_Castilloa elastica_ is common to all the Caribbean river valleys.
Southern Colombia, especially the eastern slopes of the Andes,
produces another valuable tree, the _Cinchona calisaya_, from the bark
of which quinine is made. These are but a few of the valuable cabinet
woods, dye-woods, &c., which are to be found in the forests, but have
hardly been reached by commerce because of their inaccessibility and
the unsettled state of the country. The adventurous orchid-hunter,
however, has penetrated deeply into their recesses in search of choice
varieties, and collectors of these valuable plants are largely
indebted to Colombia for their specimens of _Cattleya Mendelli_,
_Warscewiczii_ and _Trianae_; _Dowiana aurea_; _Odontoglossum
crispum_, _Pescatorei_, _vexillarium_, _odoratum_, _coronarium_,
_Harryanum_, and _blandum_; _Miltonia vexillaria_; _Oncidium
carthaginense_ and _Kramerianum_; _Masdevalliae_, _Epidendra_,
_Schomburgkiae_ and many others. Colombia is also the home of the
American "Alpine rose" (_Befaria_), which is to be found between 9000
and 11,000 ft. elevation, and grows to a height of 5-6 ft. Tree ferns
have a remarkable growth in many localities, their stems being used in
southern Cundinamarca to make corduroy roads. The South American
bamboo (_Bambusa guadia_) has a very wide range, and is found nearly
up to the limit of perpetual snow. The cactus is also widely
distributed, and is represented by several well-known species. Among
the more common fruit-trees, some of which are exotics, may be
mentioned cacáo (_Theobroma_), orange, lemon, lime, pine-apple,
banana, guava (_Psidium_), breadfruit (_Artocarpus_), cashew
(_Anacardium_), alligator pear (_Persea_), with the apple, peach,
pear, and other fruits of the temperate zone on the elevated plateaus.
Other food and economic plants are coffee, rice, tobacco, sugar-cane,
cotton, indigo, vanilla, cassava or "yucca," sweet and white potatoes,
wheat, maize, rye, barley, and vegetables of both tropical and
temperate climates. It is claimed in Colombia that a species of wild
potato found on the _paramos_ is the parent of the cultivated potato.
_Population._--The number of the population of Colombia is very largely
a matter of speculation. A census was taken in 1871, when the population
was 2,951,323. What the vegetative increase has been since then (for
there has been no immigration) is purely conjectural, as there are no
available returns of births and deaths upon which an estimate can be
based. Civil war has caused a large loss of life, and the withdrawal
from their homes of a considerable part of the male population, some of
them for military service and a greater number going into concealment to
escape it, and it is certain that the rate of increase has been small.
Some statistical authorities have adopted 1½% as the rate, but this is
too high for such a period. All things considered, an annual increase of
1% for the thirty-five years between 1871 and 1906 would seem to be more
nearly correct, which would give a population in the latter
year--exclusive of the population of Panama--of a little over 3,800,000.
The _Statesman's Year Book_ for 1907 estimates it at 4,279,674 in 1905,
including about 150,000 wild Indians, while Supan's _Die Bevölkerung der
Erde_ (1904) places it at 3,917,000 in 1899. Of the total only 10% is
classed as white and 15% as Indian, 40% as _mestizos_ (white and Indian
mixture), and 35% negroes and their mixtures with the other two races.
The large proportion of mestizos, if these percentages are correct, is
significant because it implies a persistence of type that may largely
determine the character of Colombia's future population, unless the more
slowly increasing white element can be reinforced by immigration.
The white contingent in the population of Colombia is chiefly composed
of the descendants of the Spanish colonists who settled there during the
three centuries following its discovery and conquest. Mining enterprises
and climate drew them into the highlands of the interior, and there they
have remained down to the present day, their only settlements on the
hot, unhealthy coast being the few ports necessary for commercial and
political intercourse with the mother country. The isolation of these
distant inland settlements has served to preserve the language, manners
and physical characteristics of these early colonists with less
variation than in any other Spanish-American state. They form an
intelligent, high-spirited class of people, with all the defects and
virtues of their ancestry. Their isolation has made them ignorant to
some extent of the world's progress, while a supersensitive patriotism
blinds them to the discredit and disorganization which political strife
and misrule have brought upon them. A very small proportion of the white
element consists of foreigners engaged in commercial and industrial
pursuits, but they very rarely become permanently identified with the
fortunes of the country. The native whites form the governing class, and
enjoy most of the powers and privileges of political office.
Of the original inhabitants there remain only a few scattered tribes in
the forests, who refuse to submit to civilized requirements, and a much
larger number who live in organized communities and have adopted the
language, customs and habits of the dominant race. Their total number is
estimated at 15% of the population, or nearly 600,000, including the
120,000 to 150,000 credited to the uncivilized tribes. Many of the
civilized Indian communities have not become wholly Hispanicized and
still retain their own dialects and customs, their attitude being that
of a conquered race submitting to the customs and demands of a social
organization of which they form no part. According to Uricoechea there
are at least twenty-seven native languages spoken in the western part of
Colombia, fourteen in Tolima, thirteen in the region of the Caquetá,
twelve in Panama, Bolívar and Magdalena, ten in Bogotá and Cundinamarca,
and thirty-four in the region of the Meta, while twelve had died out
during the preceding century. The tribes of the Caribbean seaboard, from
Chiriqui to Goajira, are generally attached to the great Carib stock;
those of the eastern plains show affinities with the neighbouring
Brazilian races; those of the elevated Tuquerres district are of the
Peruvian type; and the tribes of Antioquia, Cauca, Popayan and Neiva
preserve characteristics more akin to those of the Aztecs than to any
other race. At the time of the Spanish Conquest the most important of
these tribes was the Muyscas or Chibchas, who inhabited the tablelands
of Bogotá and Tunja, and had attained a considerable degree of
civilization. They lived in settled communities, cultivated the soil to
some extent, and ascribed their progress toward civilization to a
legendary cause remarkably similar to those of the Aztecs of Mexico and
the Incas of Peru. They are represented by some tribes living on the
head-waters of the Meta, and their blood flows in the veins of the
_mestizos_ of the Bogotá plateau. Their ancient language has been partly
preserved through the labours of Gonzalo Bermudez, José Dadei, Bernardo
de Lugo, and Ezequiel Uricoechea, the last having made it the subject of
a special study. According to this author the Chibchas were composed of
three loosely united nationalities governed by three independent
chiefs--the _Zipa_ of Muequetá (the present Funza), the _Zaque_ of Hunsa
(now Tunja), and the _Jeque_ of Iraca, who was regarded as the successor
of the god Nemterequeteba, whom they worshipped as the author of their
civilization. The latter had his residence at Suamoz, or Sogamoso.
The Tayronas, of the Santa Marta highlands, who have totally
disappeared, were also remarkable for the progress which they had made
toward civilization. Evidence of this is to be found in the excellent
roads which they constructed, and in the skilfully made gold ornaments
which have been found in the district which they occupied, as well as in
the contemporary accounts of them by their conquerors. Among the tribes
which are still living in a savage state are the Mesayas, Caquetas,
Mocoas, Amarizanos, Guipanabis and Andaquies of the unsettled eastern
territories; the Goajiros, Motilones, Guainetas, and Cocinas of the Rio
Hacha, Upar and Santa Marta districts; and the Dariens, Cunacunas, and
Chocos of the Atrato basin. These tribes have successfully resisted all
efforts to bring them under political and ecclesiastical control, and
their subjection is still a matter of no small concern to the Colombian
government. As late as the year 1900 Mr Albert Millican, while
collecting orchids on the Opon river, a tributary of the Magdalena
between Bogotá and the Caribbean coast, was attacked by hostile Indians,
and one of his companions was killed by a poisoned arrow. These hostile
tribes are usually too small to make much trouble, but they are able to
make exploration and settlement decidedly dangerous in some districts.
The _mestizos_, like the whites and Indians, chiefly inhabit the more
elevated regions of the interior. They are of a sturdy, patient type,
like their Indian ancestors, and are sufficiently industrious to carry
on many of the small industries and occupations, and to meet the labour
requirements of the inhabited plateau districts. Those of the urban
middle classes are shopkeepers and artizans, and those of the lower
class are domestics and day labourers. The whites of Spanish descent
object to manual labour, and this places all such occupations in the
hands of the coloured races. In the country the _mestizos_ are small
agriculturists, herders, labourers and fishermen; but there are many
educated and successful merchants and professional men among them. There
are no social barriers in their intercourse with the whites, nor race
barriers against those who have political aspirations. The negroes of
pure blood are to be found principally on the coastal plains and in the
great lowland river valleys, where they live in great part on the
bounties of nature. A small percentage of them are engaged in trade and
other occupations; a few are small agriculturists.
Bogotá was reputed to be a centre of learning in colonial times, but
there was no great breadth and depth to it, and it produced nothing of
real value. By nature the Spanish-American loves art and literature, and
the poetic faculty is developed in him to a degree rarely found among
the Teutonic races. Writing and reciting poetry are universal, and fill
as important a place in social life as instrumental music. In Colombia,
as elsewhere, much attention has been given to belles-lettres among the
whites of Spanish descent, but as yet the republic has practically
nothing of a permanent character to show for it. The natural sciences
attracted attention very early through the labours of José Celestino
Mútis, who was followed by a number of writers of local repute, such as
Zea, Cabal, Cáldas, Pombo, Cespedes, Camacho and Lozano. We are indebted
to Humboldt for our earliest geographical descriptions of the northern
part of the continent, but to the Italian, Augustin Codazzi, who became
a Colombian after the War of Independence, Colombia is indebted for the
first systematic exploration of her territory. Geographical description
has had a peculiar fascination for Colombian writers, and there have
been a number of books issued since the appearance of Codazzi's
_Resumen_ and _Atlas_. Historical writing has also received much
attention, beginning with the early work of José Manuel Restrepo (1827),
and a considerable number of histories, compendiums and memoirs have
been published, but none of real importance. Some good work has been
done in ethnography and archaeology by some writers of the colonial
period, and by Ezequiel Uricoechea and Ernesto Restrepo.
_Territorial Divisions and Towns._--Previously to 1903 the republic was
divided into nine departments, which were then reduced to eight by the
secession of Panama. This division of the national territory was
modified in 1905, by creating seven additional departments from detached
portions of the old ones, and by cutting up the unsettled districts of
Goajira and the great eastern plains into four _intendencias_. The
fifteen departments thus constituted, with the official estimates of
1905 regarding their areas and populations, are as follows:--
Area Estimated Estimated
Department. sq. m. Population. Capital. Population.
Antioquia 24,400 750,000 Medellin 60,000
Atlantico 1,080 104,674 Barranquilla 40,115
Bolívar 23,940 250,000 Cartagena 14,000
Boyacá 4,630 350,000 Tunja 10,000
Cáldas 7,920 150,000 Manizales 20,000
Cauca 26,030 400,000 Popayán 10,000
Cundinamarca 5,060 225,000 Facatativá 12,000
Galán 6,950 300,000 San Gil 15,000
Huila 8,690 150,000 Neiva 10,000
Magdalena 20,460 100,000 Santa Marta 6,000
Nariño 10,040 200,000 Pasto 6,000
Quesada 2,900 300,000 Zipaquirá 12,000
Santander 11,970 300,000 Bucaramanga 20,000
Tolima 10,900 200,000 Ibagué 12,000
Tundama 2,390 300,000 Santa Rosa 6,000
Federal District .. 200,000 Bogotá 120,000
Intendencias (4) 277,620 .. .. ..
------- --------- ------ ------
Totals 444,980 4,279,674 .. ..
Of these departments the original eight are Antioquia, Bolívar, Boyacá
(or Bojacá), Cauca, Cundinamarca, Magdalena, Santander and Tolima. The
four intendencias are called Goajira, Meta, Alto Caquetá and Putumayo,
and their aggregate area is estimated to be considerably more than half
of the republic. The first covers the Goajira peninsula, which formerly
belonged to the department of Magdalena, and the other three roughly
correspond to the drainage basins of the three great rivers of the
eastern plains whose names they bear. These territories formerly
belonged to the departments of Boyacá, Cundinamarca and Cauca. The seven
new departments are: Atlantico, taken from the northern extremity of
Bolívar; Cáldas, the southern part of Antioquia; Galán, the southern
districts of Santander, including Charalá, Socorro, Velez, and its
capital San Gil; Huila, the southern part of Tolima, including the
headwaters of the Magdalena and the districts about Neiva and La Plata;
Nariño, the southern part of Cauca extending from the eastern Cordillera
to the Pacific coast; Quesada, a cluster of small, well-populated
districts north of Bogotá formerly belonging to Cundinamarca, including
Zipaquirá, Guatavita, Ubaté and Pacho; and Tundama, the northern part of
Boyacá lying on the frontier of Galán in the vicinity of its capital
Santa Rosa. The Federal District consists of a small area surrounding
the national capital taken from the department of Cundinamarca. These
fifteen departments are subdivided into provinces, 92 in all, and these
into municipalities, of which there are 740.
The larger cities and towns of the republic other than the department
capitals, with their estimated populations in 1904, are:--
Aguadas (Antioquia) 13,000
Antioquia " 13,000
Barbacoas (Nariño) 16,000
Buga (Cauca) 12,500
Cali (Cauca) 16,000
Chiquinquira (Boyacá) 18,000
La Mesa (Cundinamarca) 10,000
Pamplona (Santander) 11,000
Palmira (Cauca) 15,000
Pié de Cuesta (Santander) 12,000
Puerto Nacional 16,000
Rio Negro (Antioquia) 12,000
Santa Rosa de Osos (Antioquia) 11,000
Sonson 15,000
San José de Cúcuta (Santander) 13,000
Soatá (Boyacá) 16,000
Socorro (Galán) 20,000
Velez " 15,000
Among the smaller towns which deserve mention are Ambalema on the upper
Magdalena, celebrated for its tobacco and cigars; Buenaventura (q.v.);
Chaparral (9000), a market town of Tolima in the valley of the Saldaña,
with coal, iron and petroleum in its vicinity; Honda (6000), an
important commercial centre at the head of navigation on the lower
Magdalena; Girardot, a railway centre on the upper Magdalena; and
Quibdó, a small river town at the head of navigation on the Atrato.
_Communications._--The railway problem in Colombia is one of peculiar
difficulty. The larger part of the inhabited and productive districts of
the republic is situated in the mountainous departments of the interior,
and is separated from the coast by low, swampy, malarial plains, and by
very difficult mountain chains. These centres of production are also
separated from each other by high ridges and deep valleys, making it
extremely difficult to connect them by a single transportation route.
The one common outlet for these districts is the Magdalena river, whose
navigable channel penetrates directly into the heart of the country.
From Bogotá the Spaniards constructed two partially-paved highways, one
leading down to the Magdalena in the vicinity of Honda, while the other
passed down into the upper valley of the same river in a south-westerly
direction, over which communication was maintained with Popayan and
other settlements of southern Colombia and Ecuador. This highway was
known as the _camino real_. Political independence and misrule led to
the abandonment of these roads, and they are now little better than the
bridle-paths which are usually the only means of communication between
the scattered communities of the Cordilleras. In some of the more
thickly settled and prosperous districts of the Eastern Cordillera these
bridle paths have been so much improved that they may be considered
reasonably good mountain roads, the traffic over them being that of pack
animals and not of wheeled vehicles. Navigation on the lower Magdalena
closely resembles that of the Mississippi, the same type of light-draft,
flat-bottomed steamboat being used, and similar obstacles and dangers to
navigation being encountered. There is also the same liability to change
its channel, as shown in the case of Mompox, once an important and
prosperous town of the lower plain situated on the main channel, now a
decaying, unimportant place on a shallow branch 20 m. east of the main
river. Small steamers also navigate the lower Cauca and Nechi rivers,
and a limited service is maintained on the upper Cauca.
With three exceptions all the railway lines of the country lead to the
Magdalena, and are dependent upon its steamship service for
transportation to and from the coast. In 1906, according to an official
statement, these lines were: (1) The Barranquilla and Savanilla (Puerto
Colombia), 17½ m. in length; (2) the Cartagena and Calamar, 65 m.; (3)
the La Dorada & Arancaplumas (around the Honda rapids), 20½ m.; (4) the
Colombian National, from Girardot to Facatativá, 80 m., of which 48½ m.
were completed in 1906; (5) the Girardot to Espinal, 13½ m., part of a
projected line running south-west from Girardot; (6) the Sabana railway,
from Bogotá to Facatativá, 25 m.; (7) the Northern, from Bogotá to
Zipaquirá, 31 m.; (8) the Southern, from Bogotá to Sibaté, 18 m.; and
(9) the Puerto Berrio & Medellin, about 78 m. long, of which 36 are
completed. The three lines which do not connect with the Magdalena are:
(1) the Cúcuta and Villamazar, 43½ m., the latter being a port on the
Zulia river near the Venezuelan frontier; (2) the Santa Marta railway,
running inland from that port through the banana-producing districts,
with 41½ m. in operation in 1907; and (3) the Buenaventura and Cali, 23
m. in operation inland from the former. This gives a total extension of
383 m. in 1906, of which 226 were built to connect with steamship
transportation on the Magdalena, 49 to unite Bogotá with neighbouring
localities, and 108 to furnish other outlets for productive regions.
There is no system outlined in the location of these detached lines,
though in 1905-1908 President Reyes planned to connect them in such a
way as to form an extensive system radiating from the national capital.
Tramway lines were in operation in Bogotá, Barranquilla and Cartagena in
1907.
The telegraph and postal services are comparatively poor, owing to the
difficulty of maintaining lines and carrying mails through a rugged and
uninhabited tropical country. The total length of telegraph lines in
1903 was 6470 m., the only cable connexion being at Buenaventura, on the
Pacific coast. All the principal Caribbean ports and department capitals
are connected with Bogotá, but interruptions are frequent because of the
difficulty of maintaining lines through so wild a country.
There are only five ports, Buenaventura, Barranquilla, Cartagena, Santa
Marta and Rio Hacha, which are engaged in foreign commerce, though
Tumaco and Villamazar are favourably situated for carrying on a small
trade with Ecuador and Venezuela. Colombia has no part in the carrying
trade, however, her merchants marine in 1905 consisting of only one
steamer of 457 tons and five sailing vessels of 1385 tons. Aside from
these, small steamers are employed on some of the small rivers with
barges, called "bongoes," to bring down produce and carry back
merchandise to the inland trading centres. The coasting trade is
insignificant, and does not support a regular service of even the
smallest boats. The foreign carrying trade is entirely in the hands of
foreigners, in which the Germans take the lead, with the British a close
second. The Caribbean ports are in frequent communication with those of
Europe and the United States.
_Agriculture._--The larger part of the Colombian population is engaged
in agricultural and pastoral pursuits. Maize, wheat and other cereals
are cultivated on the elevated plateaus, with the fruits and
vegetables of the temperate zone, and the European in Bogotá is able
to supply his table very much as he would do at home. The plains and
valleys of lower elevation are used for the cultivation of coffee and
other sub-tropical products, the former being produced in nearly all
the departments at elevations ranging from 3500 to 6500 ft. This
industry has been greatly prejudiced by civil wars, which not only
destroyed the plantations and interrupted transportation, but deprived
them of the labouring force essential to their maintenance and
development. It is estimated that the revolutionary struggle of
1899-1903 destroyed 10% of the able-bodied agricultural population of
the Santa Marta district, and this estimate, if true, will hold good
for all the inhabited districts of the Eastern Cordillera. The best
coffee is produced in the department of Cundinamarca in the almost
inaccessible districts of Fusagasagá and La Palma. Tolima coffee is
also considered to be exceptionally good. The department of Santander,
however, is the largest producer, and much of its output in the past
has been placed upon the market as "Maracaibo," the outlet for this
region being through the Venezuelan port of that name. Coffee
cultivation in the Santa Marta region is receiving much attention on
account of its proximity to the coast.
The tropical productions of the lower plains include, among others,
many of the leading products of the world, such as cacáo, cotton,
sugar, rice, tobacco, and bananas, with others destined wholly for
home consumption, as yams, cassava and arracacha. Potatoes are widely
cultivated in the temperate and sub-tropical regions, and sweet
potatoes in the sub-tropical and tropical. Although it is found
growing wild, cacáo is cultivated to a limited extent, and the product
is insufficient for home consumption. Cotton is cultivated only on a
small scale, although there are large areas suitable for the plant.
The staple product is short, but experiments have been initiated in
the Santa Marta region to improve it. Sugar cane is another plant
admirably adapted to the Colombian lowlands, but it is cultivated to
so limited an extent that the sugar produced is barely sufficient for
home consumption. Both cultivation and manufacture have been carried
on in the old time way, by the rudest of methods, and the principal
product is a coarse brown sugar, called _panela_, universally used by
the poorer classes as an article of food and for making a popular
beverage. Antiquated refining processes are also used in the
manufacture of an inferior white sugar, but the quantity produced is
small, and it is unable to compete with beet-sugar from Germany. A
considerable part of the sugar-cane produced is likewise devoted to
the manufacture of _chicha_ (rum), the consumption of which is common
among the Indians and half-breeds of the Andean regions.
Rice is grown to a very limited extent, though it is a common article
of diet and the partially submerged lowlands are naturally adapted to
its production. Tobacco was cultivated in New Granada and Venezuela in
colonial times, when its sale was a royal monopoly and its cultivation
was restricted to specified localities. The Colombian product is best
known through the Ambalema, Girardot, and Palmira tobacco, especially
the Ambalema cigars, which are considered by some to be hardly
inferior to those of Havana, but the plant is cultivated in other
places and would probably be an important article of export were it
possible to obtain labourers for its cultivation. Banana cultivation
for commercial purposes is a comparatively modern industry, dating
from 1892 when the first recorded export of fruit was made. Its
development is due to the efforts of an American fruit-importing
company, which purchased lands in the vicinity of Santa Marta for the
production of bananas and taught the natives that the industry could
be made profitable. A railway was built inland for the transportation
of fruit to Santa Marta, and is being extended toward the Magdalena as
fast as new plantations are opened. The growth of the industry is
shown in the export returns, which were 171,891 bunches for 1892, and
1,397,388 bunches for 1906, the area under cultivation being about
7000 acres in the last-mentioned year. Yams, sweet potatoes, cassava
and arracacha are chiefly cultivated for domestic needs, but in common
with other fruits and vegetables they give occupation to the small
agriculturalists near the larger towns.
The pastoral industry dates from colonial times and engages the
services of a considerable number of people, but its comparative
importance is not great. The open plains, "mesas," and plateaus of the
north support large herds of cattle, and several cattle ranches have
been established on the Meta and its tributaries. Live cattle, to a
limited extent, are exported to Cuba and other West Indian markets,
but the chief produce from this industry is hides. The department of
Santander devotes considerable attention to horse-breeding. Goats are
largely produced for their skins, and in some localities, as in Cauca,
sheep are raised for their wool. Swine are common to the whole
country, and some attention has been given to the breeding of mules.
_Minerals._--The mineral resources of Colombia are commonly believed
to be the principal source of her wealth, and this because of the
precious metals extracted from her mines since the Spanish invasion.
The estimate aggregate for three and a half centuries is certainly
large, but the exact amount will probably never be known, because the
returns in colonial times were as defective as those of disorderly
independence have been. Humboldt and Chevalier estimated the total
output down to 1845 at £1,200,000, which Professor Soetbeer
subsequently increased to £169,422,750. A later Colombian authority,
Vicente Restrepo, whose studies of gold and silver mining in Colombia
have been generally accepted as conclusive and trustworthy, after a
careful sifting of the evidence on which these two widely diverse
conclusions were based and an examination of records not seen by
Humboldt and Soetbeer, reaches the conclusion that the region
comprised within the limits of the republic, including Panama, had
produced down to 1886 an aggregate of £127,800,000 in gold and
£6,600,000 in silver. This aggregate he distributes as follows:--
16th century £10,600,000
17th " 34,600,000
18th " 41,000,000
19th " 41,600,000
According to his computations the eight Colombian departments,
omitting Panama, had produced during this period in gold and silver:--
Antioquia £50,000,000
Cauca 49,800,000
Tolima 10,800,000
Santander 3,000,000
Bolívar 1,400,000
Cundinamarca 360,000
Magdalena 200,000
Boyacá 40,000
------------
£115,600,000
Three-fourths of the gold production, he estimates, was derived from
alluvial deposits. Large as these aggregates are, it will be seen that
the annual production was comparatively small, the highest average,
that for the 19th century, being less than £500,000 a year. Toward the
end of the 19th century, after a decline in production due to the
abolition of slavery and to civil wars, increased interest was shown
abroad in Colombian mining operations. Medellin, the capital of
Antioquia, is provided with an electrolytic refining establishment,
several assaying laboratories, and a mint. The department of Cauca is
considered to be the richest of the republic in mineral deposits, but
it is less conveniently situated for carrying on mining operations.
Besides this, the extreme unhealthiness of its most productive
regions, the Chocó and Barbacoas districts on the Pacific slope, has
been a serious obstacle to foreign enterprise. Tolima is also
considered to be rich in gold and (especially) silver deposits. East
of the Magdalena the production of these two metals has been
comparatively small. In compensation the famous emerald mines of Muzo
and Coscuez are situated in an extremely mountainous region north of
Bogotá and near the town of Chiquinaquirá, in the department of
Boyacá. The gems are found in a matrix of black slate in what appears
to be the crater of a volcano, and are mined in a very crude manner.
The mines are owned by the government. The revenue was estimated at
£96,000 for 1904. Platinum is said to have been discovered in Colombia
in 1720, and has been exported regularly since the last years of the
18th century. It is found in many parts of the country, but chiefly in
the Chocó and Barbacoas districts, the annual export from the former
being about 10,000 in value. Of the bulkier and less valuable minerals
Colombia has copper, iron, manganese, lead, zinc and mercury. Coal is
also found at several widely-separated places, but is not mined. There
are also indications of petroleum in Tolima and Bolívar. These
minerals, however, are of little value to the country because of their
distance from the seaboards and the costs of transportation. Salt is
mined at Zipaquirá, near Bogotá, and being a government monopoly, is a
source of revenue to the national treasury.
_Manufactures._--The Pradera iron works, near Bogotá, carry on some
manufacturing (sugar boilers, agricultural implements, &c.) in
connexion with their mining and reducing operations. Pottery and
coarse earthenware are made at Espinal, in Tolima, where the natives
are said to have had a similar industry before the Spanish conquest.
There are woollen mills at Popayan and Pasto, and small cigar-making
industries at Ambalema and Palmira. Hat-making from the "jipijapa"
fibre taken from the _Carludovica_ palm is a domestic industry in many
localities, and furnishes an article of export. Friction matches are
made from the vegetable wax extracted from the _Ceroxylon_ palm, and
are generally used throughout the interior. Rum and sugar are products
of a crude manufacturing industry dating from colonial times. A modern
sugar-mill and refinery at Sincerin, 28 m. from Cartagena, was the
first of its kind erected in the republic. It is partially supported
by the government, and the concession provides that the production of
sugar shall not be less than 2,600,000 lb per annum.
_Commerce._--In the Barranquilla customs returns for 1906 the imports
were valued at $6,787,055 (U.S. gold), on which the import duties were
$4,333,028, or an average rate of 64%. According to a statistical
summary issued in 1906 by the U.S. Bureau of Statistics, entitled
"Commercial America in 1905," the latest official return to the
foreign trade of Colombia was said to be that of 1898, which was:
imports 11,083,000 _pesos_, exports 19,158,000 _pesos_. Uncertainty in
regard to the value of the _peso_ led the compiler to omit the
equivalents in U.S. gold, but according to foreign trade returns these
totals represent gold values, which at 4s. per peso are: imports
£2,216,600, exports £3,831,600. In his annual message to congress on
the 1st of April 1907, President Reyes stated that the imports for
1904 were $14,453,000, and the exports $12,658,000, presumably U.S.
gold, as the figures are taken from the _Monthly Bulletin_ of the
Bureau cf American Republics (July 1907). An approximate equivalent
would be: imports £3,011,000, exports £2,637,000; which shows a small
increase in the first and a very large decrease in the second. The
imports include wheat flour, rice, barley, prepared foods, sugar,
coal, kerosene, beer, wines and liquors, railway equipment, machinery
and general hardware, fence wire, cotton and other textiles, drugs,
lumber, cement, paper, &c., while the exports comprise coffee,
bananas, hides and skins, tobacco, precious metals, rubber, cabinet
woods, divi-divi, dye-woods, vegetable ivory, Panama hats, orchids,
vanilla, &c.
_Government._--The government of Colombia is that of a centralized
republic composed of 15 departments, 1 federal district, and 4
intendencias (territories). It is divided into three co-ordinate
branches, legislative, executive and judicial, and is carried on under
the provisions of the constitution of 1886, profoundly modified by the
amendments of 1905. Previous to 1886, the departments were practically
independent, but under the constitution of that year the powers of the
national government were enlarged and strengthened, while those of the
departments were restricted to purely local affairs. The departments are
provided with biennial departmental assemblies, but their governors are
appointees of the national executive.
The legislative branch consists of a senate and chamber of deputies,
which meets at Bogotá biennially (after 1908) on February 1st for an
ordinary session of ninety days. The Senate is composed of 48 members--3
from each department chosen by the governor and his departmental
council, and 3 from the federal district chosen by the president himself
and two of his cabinet ministers. Under this arrangement the president
practically controls the choice of senators. Their term of office is
four years, and is renewed at the same time and for the same period as
those of the lower house. The chamber is composed of 67 members, elected
by popular suffrage in the departments, on the basis of one
representative for each 50,000 of population. The intendencias are
represented by one member each, who is chosen by the intendant, his
secretary, and 3 citizens elected by the municipal council of the
territorial capital. As the constituent assembly which amended the
constitution, according to the president's wishes in 1905, was to
continue in office until 1908 and to provide laws for the regulation of
elections and other public affairs, it appeared that the president would
permit no expression of popular dissent to interfere with his purpose to
establish a dictatorial régime in Colombia similar to the one in Mexico.
The executive power is vested in a president chosen by Congress for a
period of four years. The first presidential period, dating from the 1st
of January 1905, was for ten years, and no restriction was placed upon
the choice of President Rafael Reyes to succeed himself. The constituent
assembly gave the president exceptional powers to deal with all
administrative matters. He is assisted by a cabinet of six ministers,
interior, foreign affairs, finance, war, public instruction and public
works, who are chosen and may be removed by himself. The office of
vice-president is abolished, and the president is authorized to choose a
temporary substitute from his cabinet, and in case of his death or
resignation his successor is chosen by the cabinet or the governor of a
department who happens to be nearest Bogotá at the time. The president
is authorized to appoint the governors of departments, the intendants of
territories, the judges of the supreme and superior courts, and the
diplomatic representatives of the republic. His salary, as fixed by the
1905 budget, is £3600 a year, and his cabinet ministers receive £1200
each. The council of state is abolished and the senate is charged with
the duty of confirming executive appointments.
The judicial branch of the government, like the others, has been in
great measure reorganized. It consists of a supreme court of seven
members at Bogotá, and a superior court in each judicial district. There
are various inferior courts also, including magistrates or _jueces de
paz_, but their organization and functions are loosely defined and not
generally understood outside the republic. The supreme court has
appellate jurisdiction in judicial matters, and original jurisdiction in
impeachment trials and in matters involving constitutional
interpretation. Under the constitution of 1886 the judges of the higher
courts were appointed for life, but the reforms of 1905 changed their
tenure to five years for the supreme court and four years for the
superior courts, the judges being eligible for re-appointment.
The departments, which are administered by governors representing the
national executive, are permitted to exercise restricted legislative
functions relating to purely local affairs. Municipal councils are also
to be found in the larger towns. The governor is assisted by a
departmental council consisting of his secretaries and the president of
the Corte de Cuentas, which places the political administration of the
department under the direct control of the president at Bogotá.
The strength of the army is determined annually by congress, but every
able-bodied citizen is nominally liable to military service. Its peace
footing in 1898 was 1000 men. After the war of 1899-1903 its strength
was successively reduced to 10,000 and 5000, a part of this force being
employed in the useful occupation of making and repairing public roads.
The navy in 1906 consisted of only three small cruisers on the Caribbean
coast, and two cruisers, two gunboats, one troopship and two steam
launches on the Pacific. There was also one small gunboat on the
Magdalena.
_Education._--Although Bogotá was reputed to be an educational centre
in colonial times, so slight an influence did this exert upon the
country that Colombia ended the 19th century with no effective public
school system, very few schools and colleges, and fully 90% of
illiteracy in her population. This is due in great measure to the long
reign of political disorder, but there are other causes as well. As in
Chile, the indifference of the ruling class to the welfare of the
common people is a primary cause of their ignorance and poverty, to
which must be added the apathy, if not opposition, of the Church.
Under such conditions primary schools in the villages and rural
districts were practically unknown, and the parish priest was the only
educated person in the community. Nominally there was a school system
under the supervision of the national and departmental governments,
but its activities were limited to the larger towns, where there were
public and private schools of all grades. There were universities in
Bogotá and Medellin, the former having faculties of letters and
philosophy, jurisprudence and political science, medicine and natural
sciences, and mathematics and engineering, with an attendance of 1200
to 1500 students. The war of 1899-1903 so completely disorganized this
institution that only one faculty, medicine and natural sciences, was
open in 1907. There were also a number of private schools in the
larger towns, usually maintained by religious organizations. The
reform programme of President Reyes included a complete reorganization
of public instruction, to which it is proposed to add normal schools
for the training of teachers, and agricultural and technical schools
for the better development of the country's material resources. The
supreme direction of this branch of the public service is entrusted to
the minister of public instruction, and state aid is to be extended to
the secondary, as well as to the normal, technical and professional
schools. The secondary schools receiving public aid, however, have
been placed in charge of religious corporations of the Roman Catholic
Church. The expenditure on account of public instruction, which
includes schools of all grades and descriptions, is unavoidably small,
the appropriation for the biennium 1905-1906 being only £167,583. The
school and college attendance for 1906, according to the president's
review of that year, aggregated 218,941, of whom 50,691 were in
Antioquia, where the whites are more numerous than in any other
department; 4916 in Atlantico, which includes the city of
Barranquilla, and in which the negro element preponderates; and only
12,793 in the federal district and city of Bogotá where the _mestizo_
element is numerous. Although primary instruction is gratuitous it is
not compulsory, and these figures clearly demonstrate that school
privileges have not been extended much beyond the larger towns. The
total attendance, however, compares well with that of 1897, which was
143,096, although it shows that only 5% of the population,
approximately, is receiving instruction.
_Religion._--The religious profession of the Colombian people is Roman
Catholic, and is recognized as such by the constitution, but the
exercise is permitted of any other form of worship which is not
contrary to Christian morals or to the law. There is one Protestant
church in Bogotá, but the number of non-Catholics is small and
composed of foreign residents. There has been a long struggle between
liberals and churchmen in Colombia, and at one time the latter
completely lost their political influence over the government, but the
common people remained loyal to the Church, and the upper classes
found it impossible to sever the ties which bound them to it. The
constitution of 1861 disestablished the Church, confiscated a large
part of its property, and disfranchised the clergy, but in 1886
political rights were restored to the latter and the Roman Catholic
religion was declared to be the faith of the nation. The rulers of the
Church have learned by experience, however, that they can succeed best
by avoiding partisan conflicts, and the archbishop of Bogotá gave
effect to this in 1874 by issuing an edict instructing priests not to
interfere in politics. The Church influence with all classes is
practically supreme and unquestioned, and it still exercises complete
control in matters of education. The Colombian hierarchy consists of
an archbishop, residing at Bogotá, 10 bishops, 8 vicars-general, and
2170 priests. There were also in 1905 about 750 members of 10 monastic
and religious orders. There were 270 churches and 312 chapels in the
republic. Each diocese has its own seminary for the training of
priests.
_Finance._--In financial matters Colombia is known abroad chiefly
through repeated defaults in meeting her bonded indebtedness, and
through the extraordinary depreciation of her paper currency. The
public revenues are derived from import duties on foreign merchandise,
from export duties on national produce, from internal taxes and
royalties on liquors, cigarettes and tobacco, matches, hides and salt,
from rentals of state emerald mines and pearl fisheries, from stamped
paper, from port dues and from postal and telegraph charges. The
receipts and expenditure are estimated for biennial periods, but it
has not been customary to publish detailed results. Civil wars have of
course been a serious obstacle, but it was announced by President
Reyes in 1907 that the revenues were increasing. For the two years
1905 and 1906 the revenues were estimated to produce (at $5 to the £1
sterling) £4,203,823, the expenditures being fixed at the same amount.
The expenditures, however, did not include a charge of £424,000,
chiefly due on account of war claims and requisitions. During the
first year of this period the actual receipts, according to the
council of the corporation of foreign bondholders, were $9,149,591
gold (£1,829,918) and the payments $7,033,317 gold (£1,406,663). It
was expected by the government that the 1906 revenues would largely
exceed 1905, but the expectation was not fully realized, chiefly, it
may be assumed, because of the inability of an impoverished people to
meet an increase in taxation. An instance of this occurred in the
promising export of live cattle to Cuba and Panama, which was
completely suppressed in 1906 because of a new export tax of $3 gold
per head. Of the expenditures about one-fourth is on account of the
war department.
The foreign debt, according to the 1896 arrangement with the
bondholders which was renewed in 1905, is £2,700,000, together with
unpaid interest since 1896 amounting to £351,000 more. Under the 1905
arrangement the government undertook to pay the first coupons at 2½%
and succeeding ones at 3%, pledging 12 to 15% of the customs receipts
as security. The first payments were made according to agreement, and
it was believed in 1907 that the succeeding ones, together with
one-half of the unpaid interest since 1896, would also be met. It is
worthy of note that this debt, principal and accumulated interest,
exceeded six and a half millions sterling in 1873, and that the
bondholders surrendered about 60% of the claim in the hope of securing
the payment of the balance. It is also worthy of note that Panama
refused to assume any part of this debt without a formal recognition
of her independence by Colombia, and even then only a sum
proportionate to her population. The internal debt of Colombia in June
1906 was as follows:--
Consolidated 5,476,887 dollars silver,
Floating 2,345,658 " gold.
Whether or not this included the unpaid war claims was not stated.
_Money._---The monetary system, which has been greatly complicated by
the use of two depreciated currencies, silver and paper, has been
undergoing a radical reform since 1905, the government proposing to
redeem the depreciated paper and establish a new uniform currency on a
gold basis. The paper circulation in 1905 exceeded 700,000,000
_pesos_. The issue began in 1881 through the Banco Nacional de
Colombia, its value then being equal to that of the silver coinage.
Political troubles in 1884-1885 led to a suspension of cash payments
in 1885, and in 1886 Congress made the notes inconvertible and of
forced circulation. In 1894 the Banco Nacional ceased to exist as a
corporation, and thenceforward the currency was issued for account of
the national treasury. On October 16, 1899--the outstanding
circulation then amounting to 46,000,000 _pesos_,--the government
decreed an unlimited issue to meet its expenditures in suppressing the
revolution, and later on the departments of Antioquia, Bolívar, Cauca,
and Santander were authorized to issue paper money for themselves.
This suicidal policy continued until February 28, 1903, when,
according to an official statement, the outstanding paper circulation
was:--
Pesos.
National government issues 600,398,581
Department of Antioquia 35,938,495.60
" " Bolívar 18,702,100
" " Cauca 44,719,688.70
" " Santander 750,000
--------------
700,598,865.30
So great was the depreciation of this currency that before the end of
the war 100 American gold dollars were quoted at 22,500 _pesos_. The
declaration of peace brought the exchange rate down to the
neighbourhood of 10,000, where it remained, with the exception of a
short period during the Panama Canal negotiations, when it fell to
6000. This depreciation (10,000) was equivalent to a loss of 99% of
the nominal value of the currency, a paper _peso_ of 100 _centavos_
being worth only one centavo gold. International commercial
transactions were based on the American gold dollar, which was usually
worth 100 _pesos_ of this depreciated currency. Even at this
valuation, the recognized outstanding circulation (for there had been
fraudulent issues as well) amounted to more than £1,400,000. In 1903
Congress adopted a gold dollar of 1.672 grammes weight .900 fine
(equal to the U.S. gold dollar) as the monetary standard created a
redemption bureau for the withdrawal of the paper circulation,
prohibited the further issue of such currency, and authorized free
contracts in any currency. Previous to that time the law required all
contracts to specify payments in paper currency. Certain rents and
taxes were set aside for the use of the redemption bureau, and a
nominally large sum has been withdrawn from circulation through this
channel. On the 1st of January 1906, another monetary act came into
operation, with additional provisions for currency redemption and
improvement of the monetary system. A supplementary act of 1906 also
created a new national banking institution, called the Banco Central,
which is made a depository of the public revenues and is charged with
a considerable part of their administration, including payments on
account of the foreign debt and the conversion of the paper currency
into coin. The new law likewise reaffirmed the adoption of a gold
dollar of 1.672 grammes .900 fine as the unit of the new coinage,
which is:--
_Gold_:--
Double condor = 20 dollars.
Condor = 10 "
Half condor = 5 "
Dollar (mon. unit) = 100 cents.
_Silver_:--
Half dollar = 50 cents.
Peseta = 20 "
Real = 10 "
_Nickel_:--5 cents.
_Bronze_:--2 cents and 1 cent.
The silver coinage (.900 fine) is limited to 10%, and the nickel and
bronze coins to 2% of the gold coinage. The new customs tariff, which
came into force at the same time, was an increase of 70% on the rates
of 1904, and provided that the duties should be paid in gold, or in
paper at the current rate of exchange. This measure was designed to
facilitate the general resumption of specie payments.
_Weights and Measures._--The metric system of weights and measures has
been the legal standard in Colombia since 1857, but its use is
confined almost exclusively to international trade. In the interior
and in all domestic transactions the old Spanish weights and measures
are still used--including the Spanish _libra_ of 1.102 lb avoirdupois,
the _arroba_ of 25 _libras_ (12½ kilogrammes), the quintal of 100
_libras_ (50 kilog.), the _carga_ of 250 _libras_ (125 kilogs.), the
_vara_ of 80 centimetres, and the _fanega_. The litre is the standard
liquid measure. (A. J. L.)
HISTORY
The coast of Colombia was one of the first parts of the American
continent visited by the Spanish navigators. Alonso de Ojeda touched at
several points in 1499 and 1501; and Columbus himself visited Veragua,
Portobello, and other places in his last voyage in 1502. In 1508 Ojeda
obtained from the Spanish crown a grant of the district from Cape Vela
westward to the Gulf of Darien, while the rest of the country from the
Gulf of Darien to Cape Gracias-a-Dios was bestowed on his
fellow-adventurer, Nicuessa. The two territories designated respectively
Nueva Andalucia and Castella de Oro were united in 1514 into the
province of Tierra-firma, and entrusted to Pedro Arias de Avila. In
1536-1537 an expedition under Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada made their way
from Santa Marta inland by the river Magdalena, and penetrated to
Bogotá, the capital of the Muiscas or Chibchas. Quesada gave to the
country the name of New Granada.
By the middle of the century the Spanish power was fairly established,
and flourishing communities arose along the coasts, and in the
table-lands of Cundinamarca formerly occupied by the Muiscas. For the
better government of the colony the Spanish monarch erected a presidency
of New Granada in 1564, which continued till 1718, when it was raised to
the rank of a viceroyalty. In the following year, however, the second
viceroy, D. Jorge Villalonga, Count de la Cueva, expressing his opinion
that the maintenance of this dignity was too great a burden on the
settlers, the viceroyalty gave place to a simple presidency. In 1740 it
was restored, and it continued as long as the Spanish authority,
including within its limits not only the present Colombia, but also
Venezuela and Ecuador. An insurrection against the home government was
formally commenced in 1811, and an incessant war against the Spanish
forces was waged till 1824.
In 1819 the great national hero, Bolivar (q.v.), effected a union
between the three divisions of the country, to which was given the title
of the Republic of Colombia; but in 1829 Venezuela withdrew, and in
1830, the year of Bolivar's death, Quito or Ecuador followed her
example. The Republic of New Granada was founded on the 21st of November
1831; and in 1832 a constitution was promulgated, and the territory
divided into eighteen provinces, each of which was to have control of
its local affairs. The president was to hold office for four years; and
the first on whom the dignity was bestowed was General Francisco de
Paula Santander. His position, however, was far from enviable; for the
country was full of all the elements of unrest and contention. One of
his measures, by which New Granada became responsible for the half of
the debts of the defunct republic of Colombia, gave serious offence to a
large party, and he was consequently succeeded not, as he desired, by
José Maria Obando, but by a member of the opposition, José Ignacio de
Marquez. This gave rise to a civil war, which lasted till 1841, and not
only left the country weak and miserable, but afforded an evil precedent
which has since been too frequently followed. The contest terminated in
favour of Marquez, and he was succeeded in May 1841 by Pedro Alcantara
Herran, who had assisted to obtain the victory. In 1840 the province of
Cartagena had seceded, and the new president had hardly taken office
before Panama and Veragua also declared themselves independent, under
the title of the State of the Isthmus of Panama. Their restoration was,
however, soon effected; the constitution was reformed in 1843; education
was fostered, and a treaty concluded with the English creditors of the
republic. Further progress was made under General Tomas de Mosquera from
1845 to 1848; a large part of the domestic debt was cleared off,
immigration was encouraged, and free trade permitted in gold and
tobacco. The petty war with Ecuador, concluded by the peace of Santa
Rosa de Carchi, is hardly worthy of mention. From 1849 to 1852 the reins
were in the hands of General José Hilario Lopez, a member of the
democratic party, and under him various changes were effected of a
liberal tendency. In January 1852 slavery was entirely abolished. The
next president was José Maria Obando, but his term of office had to be
completed by vice-presidents Obaldia and Mallarino.
In 1853 an important alteration of the constitution took place, by which
the right was granted to every province to declare itself independent,
and to enter into merely federal connexion with the central republic,
which was now known as the Granadine Confederation. In 1856 and 1857
Antioquia and Panama took advantage of the permission. The Conservative
party carried their candidate in 1857, Mariano Ospino, a lawyer by
profession; but an insurrection broke out in 1859, which was fostered by
the ex-president Mosquera, and finally took the form of a regular civil
war. Bogotá was captured by the democrats in July 1861, and Mosquera
assumed the chief power. A congress at Bogotá established a republic,
with the name of the United States of Colombia, adopted a new federal
constitution, and made Mosquera dictator. Meanwhile the opposite party
was victorious in the west; and their leader, Julio Arboleda, formed an
alliance with Don Garcia Moreno, the president of Ecuador. He was
assassinated, however, in 1862; and his successor, Leonardo Canal, came
to terms with Mosquera at Cali. The dictatorship was resigned into the
hands of a convention (February 1863) at Rio Negro, in Antioquia; a
provisional government was appointed, a constitution was drawn up, and
Mosquera elected president till 1864. An unsuccessful attempt was also
made to restore the union between the three republics of the former
federation. The presidency of Manuel Murillo Toro (1864-1866) was
disturbed by various rebellions, and even Mosquera, who next came to the
helm, found matters in such a disorganized condition that he offered to
retire. On the refusal of his resignation, he entered into a struggle
with the majority in the congress, and ultimately resorted to an
adjournment and the unconstitutional arrest of 68 of the senators and
representatives. To the decree of impeachment published by the congress
he replied by a notice of dissolution and a declaration of war; but he
soon found that the real power was with his opponents, who effected his
arrest, and condemned him first to two years' imprisonment, but
afterwards by commutation to two years' exile. The presidency of Santos
Gutierrez (1868-1870) was disturbed by insurrections in different parts
of the republic, the most important of which was that in Panama, where
the most absolute disorganization prevailed. Under his successor,
General E. Salgar, a Liberal candidate elected in opposition to General
Herran, a treaty was finally concluded with the United States in
connexion with an interoceanic canal, a bank was established at Bogotá,
and educational reforms instituted. Manuel Murillo Toro (1872-1874) and
Santiago Perez (1874-1876) saw the country apparently acquiring
constitutional equilibrium, and turning its energies to the development
of its matchless resources.
The election for the presidential term 1876-1878 resulted in favour of
Aquiles Parra, who was succeeded in April 1878 by General Julian
Trujillo. His administration was marked by a strong effort to place the
financial position of the government on a more satisfactory footing, and
the internal indebtedness was substantially reduced during his rule. In
April 1880 Señor Rafael Nuñez acceded to the presidency. During his term
of office revolutionary disturbances occurred in the provinces of Cauca
and Antioquia, but were suppressed with no great difficulty. Provision
was made in 1880 for a settlement of the boundary dispute with Costa
Rica, and in July of that year the federal Congress authorized the
formation of a naval squadron. A movement was now set afoot in favour of
a confederation of the three republics of Colombia, Ecuador and
Venezuela on the basis of the original conditions existing after the
expulsion of Spanish authority, and a resolution was passed by the
chamber of deputies to that effect. The opposition shown by Venezuela
and Ecuador to this project prevented any definite result from being
achieved. In April 1882 Señor Francisco J. Laldua became president, but
his death occurring a year later, General José Eusebio Otalora was
nominated to exercise the executive power for the unexpired portion of
the term. In 1883 the dispute in connexion with the boundary between
Colombia and Venezuela was submitted by the two governments to the
arbitration of Alphonso XII., king of Spain, and a commission of five
members was appointed to investigate the merits of the respective
claims. The decision in this dispute was finally given by the queen
regent of Spain on the 16th of March 1891. In April 1884 Señor Rafael
Nuñez was again proclaimed president of the republic in his absence
abroad. Pending his return the administration was left in the hands of
General Campo Serrano and General Eliseo Payan. The Liberal party had
been instrumental in the re-election of Nuñez, and looked for a policy
in conformity with their views and political convictions. President
Nuñez had no sooner returned to Colombia than the Liberals discovered
that his political opinions had changed and had become strongly
Conservative. Discontent at this condition of affairs soon spread. Nuñez
from motives of ill-health did not openly assume the presidential
office, but from his house near Cartagena he practically directed the
government of the republic. The Liberals now began to foment a series of
revolutionary movements, and these led in 1885 to a civil war extending
over the departments of Boyaca, Cundinamarca, Magdalena and Panama.
General Reyes and General Velez were the two principal leaders of the
revolt. In order to protect the passage of the traffic across the
Isthmus of Panama during these disturbed times detachments of United
States marines were landed at Panama and Colon, in accordance with the
terms of the concession under which the railway had been constructed.
After a number of defeats the leaders of the revolt surrendered in
August 1885, and on the 5th of September following peace was officially
proclaimed. Nuñez, who had meanwhile assumed the presidential duties,
now brought about a movement in favour of a fresh Act of Constitution
for Colombia, and a new law to that effect was finally approved and
promulgated on 4th August 1886. Under the terms of this act the federal
system of government for Colombia was abolished, the states becoming
departments, the governors of these political divisions being appointed
by the president of the republic. Each department has a local
legislative assembly elected by the people. The national congress is
constituted of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Senate
is composed of twenty-seven members elected for six years, one-third
retiring every two years, three of whom are nominated by each of the
nine departments. The House of Representatives comprises members elected
for four years by universal suffrage, each department forming a
constituency and returning one member for every 50,000 inhabitants.
Congress convenes every two years. The presidential term of office under
the new act was fixed at six years in place of the two years formerly
prevailing. The judiciary was irremovable, and trial by jury was allowed
for criminal offences. Capital punishment was re-established, and the
press was made responsible for matter published. The unlicensed trade in
arms and ammunition thitherto existing was prohibited. Previous to 1886
the crime of murder was only punishable by 10 years' imprisonment, a
sentence which in practice was reduced to two-thirds of that term;
slander and libel were formerly offences which the law had no power to
restrain, and no responsibility attached to seditious publications.
After the promulgation of this new Act of Constitution President Nuñez
was proclaimed as president of the republic for the term ending in 1892.
He was unable, however, in consequence of ill-health, to reside at
Bogotá and discharge the presidential duties, and consequently in August
1888 Señor Cárlos Holguin was designated to act for him. In 1892
President Nuñez was again elected to the presidency for a term of six
years, his continued ill-health, however, forcing him to place the
active performance of his duties in the hands of the vice-president,
Señor Miguel Caro. In 1895 the Liberals made another attempt to seize
the government of the country, but the movement was suppressed without
any very great difficulty. In this same year Nuñez died, and
Vice-President Caro became the actual president, an office he had
practically filled during the three previous years. In 1898 Señor M. A.
Sanclemente, a strong Conservative, and supported by the Church party,
was elected to the presidency for the period ending in 1904. In October
1899 the Liberals organized another revolutionary outbreak for the
purpose of trying to wrest the power from Conservatives, but this
attempt had no better success than the movements of 1885 and 1895. In
January 1900, however, Vice-President José Marroquin seized upon the
government, imprisoned President Sanclemente (who died in prison in
March 1902), and another period of disturbance began. The rebels were
defeated in May in a desperate battle at Cartagena; and continuous
fighting went on about Panama, where British marines had to be landed to
protect foreign interests. As the year 1900 advanced, the conflict went
on with varying success, but the government troops were generally
victorious, and in August Vice-President Marroquin was recognized as the
acting head of the executive, with a cabinet under General Calderon. In
1901 the rebellion continued, and severe fighting took place about
Colon. Further complications arose in August, when trouble occurred
between Colombia and Venezuela. On the one hand, there were grounds for
believing that the Clericals and Conservatives in both countries were
acting together; and, on the other, it was expected that President
Castro of Venezuela would not be sorry to unite his own countrymen, and
to divert their attention from internal affairs, by a war against
Colombia. The Colombian revolutionary leaders had made use of the
Venezuelan frontier as a base of operations, and the result was an
invasion of Venezuelan territory by Colombian government troops, an
incident which at once caused a diplomatic quarrel. The United States
government in September offered its good offices, but President Castro
refused them, and the state of affairs became gradually more menacing.
Meanwhile both Panama and Colon were seriously threatened by the rebel
forces, who in November succeeded in capturing Colon by surprise. The
situation was complicated by the fact that the railway traffic on the
Isthmus was in danger of interruption, and on the capture of Colon it
became necessary for the American, British and French naval authorities
to land men for the protection of the railway and of foreign interests.
On the 18th of September the Venezuelans, who had entered Colombia, were
totally routed near La Hacha, and after fierce fighting the insurgents
at Colon were compelled to surrender on the 29th of November. But the
Civil War was not yet ended. For another eight months it was to
continue, causing immense damage to property and trade, and the loss of
tens of thousands of lives. In many towns and villages the male
population was almost entirely destroyed. Not till June 1903 was
internal peace finally restored. In the autumn of that same year
Colombia, exhausted and half ruined, was to suffer a further severe loss
in the secession of Panama.
The abrogation of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty in 1901, and the failure of
the second French company to construct a canal between Colon and Panama
(see PANAMA CANAL) had, after many hesitations, induced the United
States government to abandon the Nicaragua route and decide on adopting
that of Panama. Negotiations were set on foot with Colombia, and an
arrangement--under what was known as the Hay-Herran treaty--was made to
the following effect. Colombia agreed (1) to the transfer of the rights,
under the concession, of the French company to the United States; (2) to
cede, on a hundred years' lease, a right of way for the canal, and a
strip of land 5m. broad on either side of the waterway, and the two
ports of Colon and Panama. The United States agreed to pay Colombia (1)
£2,000,000 down in cash, and, ten years later, an annual rental of
£50,000, and further a share of the price paid to the French company,
_i.e._ £8,000,000, in which Colombia held 50,000 shares. This treaty was
signed by the plenipotentiaries and ratified by the United States
Senate. The Colombian Congress, however, refused to ratify the treaty on
the ground that when the negotiations had taken place the country was in
a state of siege, really in the hope of securing a larger money payment.
The adjournment took place on the 31st of October. On the 3rd of
November a revolution broke out at Panama, and the state seceded from
Colombia and declared itself to be an independent republic. This
opportune revolution was no doubt fomented by persons interested in the
carrying through of the United States scheme for piercing the isthmus,
but their task was one that presented no difficulties, for the isthmian
population had been in a state of perennial insurrection against the
central government for many years. Whoever may have instigated the
rising, this much is certain, that American warships prevented the
Colombian troops from landing to suppress the revolt. On the 7th of
November the United States government formally recognized the
independence of the republic of Panama (q.v.). The other powers in
succession likewise recognized the new state; the recognition of Great
Britain was given on the 26th of December. Colombia thus sacrificed a
great opportunity of obtaining, by the ratification of the Hay-Herran
treaty, such a pecuniary recompense for the interest in the territory
through which the canal was to be constructed as would have gone far to
re-establish her ruined financial credit.
In 1904 the troubled term of President Marroquin came to an end, and by
the narrowest of majorities General Rafael Reyes was elected in his
place. He had been sent as a special envoy to Washington to protest
against the recognition of Panama, and to attempt to revive the
Hay-Herran treaty, and to secure favourable terms for Colombia in the
matter of the canal. He failed to do so, but it was recognized that he
had discharged his difficult task with great skill and ability. On his
accession to office as president he found the country exhausted and
disorganized, more especially in the department of finance, and the
congress was on the whole hostile to him. Finding himself hampered in
his efforts to reform abuses, the president dissolved the congress, and
summoned a national constituent and legislative assembly to meet on the
15th of March 1905, and with its aid proceeded to modify the
constitution.
Having personal acquaintance with the success of the rule of President
Porfirio Diaz in Mexico, General Reyes determined to set about the
regeneration of Colombia by similar methods. His tenure of the
presidency was extended to a term of ten years from the 1st of January
1905, and the restriction as to re-election at the end of that term was
withdrawn, other alterations being made in the constitution with the
effect of placing General Reyes really in the position of a dictator. He
soon proved that he had the ability and the integrity of purpose to use
his great opportunity for the benefit of his country. His firm and
masterful government and wise measures did much to allay the spirit of
unrest which had so long been the bane of Colombia, and though an
attempt at assassination was made in the spring of 1906, the era of
revolution appeared to be over.
The chief foreign treaties entered into by Colombia in the last quarter
of the 19th century were:--(1) A treaty with Great Britain, signed on
the 27th of October 1888, for the extradition of criminals; (2) a treaty
of friendship, commerce and navigation with Italy, signed on the 27th of
October 1892; (3) two protocols with Italy, signed respectively on the
24th of May and on the 25th of August 1886, in connexion with the affair
of the Italian subject Cerruti; (4) a consular convention with Holland,
signed on the 20th of July 1881; (5) a treaty of peace and friendship
with Spain, signed on the 30th of January 1881; (6) a convention with
Spain for the reciprocal protection of intellectual property; (7) a
concordat with the Vatican, signed on the 31st of December 1887; (8) an
agreement with the Vatican, signed on the 20th of August 1892, in
connexion with ecclesiastical jurisdiction; (9) an agreement with the
republic of San Salvador, signed on the 24th of December 1880, in regard
to the despatch of a delegate to an international congress; (10) a
treaty of peace, friendship and commerce with Germany, signed on the
23rd of July 1892; (11) a treaty with the republic of Costa Rica, signed
in 1880, for the delimitation of the boundary; (12) the postal
convention, signed at Washington, on the 4th of July 1891; (13) a
convention with Great Britain, signed on the 31st of July 1896, in
connexion with the claim of Messrs Punchard, M'Taggart, Lowther & Co.;
(14) a treaty of friendship, commerce and navigation with Peru, signed
on the 6th of August 1898; (15) an extradition treaty with Peru, signed
on the 6th of August 1898; (16) a treaty of peace, friendship and
defensive alliance with Venezuela, signed on the 21st of November 1896,
and on the same date a treaty regulating the frontier commerce. (G. E.)
AUTHORITIES.--C. E. Akers, _A History of South America, 1854-1904_
(New York, 1905); J. J. Borda, _Compendio de historia de Colombia_
(Bogotá, 1890); Salvador Roldan Camacho, _Notas de viaje_ (Bogotá,
1890), and _Escritos varios_ (Bogotá, 1892); Dr Alfred Hettner,
_Reisen in den colombianischen Anden_ (Leipzig, 1888); Angel Lemos,
_Compendio de geografia de la Républica de Colombia_ (Medellin, 1894);
Albert Millican, _Travels and Adventures of an Orchid Hunter_ (London,
1891); J. M. Cordovez Mauro, _Reminiscencias Santafé y Bogotá_
(Bogotá, 1899); Norris and Laird (Bureau of Navigation), _Telegraphic
Determination of Longitudes in Mexico, Central America, the West
Indies, and on the North Coast of South America_ (Washington, 1891);
R. Nuñez and H. Jalhay, _La République de Colombia, géographie,
histoire, &c._ (Bruxelles, 1893); J. M. Q. Otero, _Historia Patria_
(Bogotá, 1891); Lisimaco Palaü, _La Républica de Colombia_ (1893); M.
Paz and F. Perez, _Atlas geográfico e histórico de la República de
Colombia_ (1893); R. S. Pereira, _Les États Unis de Colombia_ (Paris,
1883); Felipe Perez, _Geografia general, fisica y politica de los
Estados Unidos de Colombia_ (Bogotá, 1883); F. Loraine Petrie, _The
Republic of Colombia_ (London, 1906); Elisée Réclus, _Geografia de
Colombia_ (Bogotá, 1893); W. Reiss and A. Stübel, _Reisen in
Südamerika. Geologische Studien in der Republik Colombia_ (Berlin,
1893); Ernesto Restrepo, _Ensayo etnografico y arqueologico de la
provincia de los Quimbayas_ (Bogotá, 1892), and _Estudios sobre los
aborigines de Colombia_ (Bogotá, 1892); Vicente Restrepo, _Estudio
sobre las minas de oro y plata de Colombia_ (Bogotá, 1888, translated
by C. W. Fisher, New York, 1886); W. L. Scruggs, _The Colombian and
Venezuelan Republics_ (London, 1899; Boston, 1900); W. Sievers,
_Reisen in der Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta_ (Leipzig, 1887); F. J.
Vergara y Velasco, _Nueva geografia de Colombia_ (Bogotá, 1892); Frank
Vincent, _Around and About South America_ (New York, 1890); R. G.
Watson, _Spanish and Portuguese South America during the Colonial
Period_ (2 vols., London, 1884).
See also the diplomatic and consular reports of Great Britain and the
United States; publications of the International Bureau of American
Republics (Washington, D.C.); Bureau of Statistics, _Commercial
America in 1905_ (Washington, 1906).
FOOTNOTE:
[1] See A. Hettner and G. Linck, "Beiträge zur Geologie und
Petrographie der columbianischen Anden," _Zeits. deutsch. geol. Ges._
vol. xl. (1888), pp. 204-230; W. Sievers, "Die Sierra Nevada de Santa
Marta und die Sierra de Perijá," _Zeits. Ges. Erdk. Berlin_, vol.
xxiii. (1888), pp. 1-158 and p. 442, Pls. i. and iii.; A. Hettner,
"Die Kordillere von Bogotá," _Peterm. Mitt._, Ergänzungsheft 104
(1892), and "Die Anden des westlichen Columbiens," _Peterm. Mitt._
(1893), pp. 129-136; W. Reiss and A. Stübel, _Reisen in Süd America.
Geologische Studien in der Republik Colombia_ (Berlin, 1892-1899),--a
good geological bibliography will be found in part ii. of this work.
COLOMBIER, PIERRE BERTRAND DE (1299-1361), French cardinal and
diplomatist, was born at Colombier in Ardèche. He was nephew and
namesake of Cardinal Pierre Bertrand of Annonay. After a careful
juristic education he was successively advocate at the parlement of
Paris, intendant of the council of the count of Nevers (1321), and
counsellor-clerk to the parlement (1329). Having taken holy orders, he
became dean of St Quentin in 1330, and was employed to negotiate the
marriage of the duke of Normandy, the future king John the Good of
France, with the daughter of the king of Bohemia. In 1335 he became
bishop of Nevers, in 1339 of Arras, and contributed to bring the county
of Flanders into the kingdom of France. Created cardinal priest of St
Susanna in 1344, he was employed by the pope on important missions,
notably to negotiate peace or an armistice between France and England.
Having become bishop of Ostia in 1353, he was sent next year to Charles
IV. of Germany, and induced him to come to Italy to be crowned emperor
at Rome, 1355. In 1356 he went to France to try to arrange a peace with
England, and died in 1361 at the priory of Montaud near Avignon.
See A. Mazon, _Essai historique sur l'état du Vivarais pendant la
guerre de cent ans_ (Paris, 1889), with references there.
COLOMBO, the capital and principal seaport of Ceylon, situated on the
west coast of the island. Pop. (1901) 154,691. Colombo stands to the
south of the mouth of the river Kelani. The coast-land is here generally
low-lying, but broken by slight eminences. The great artificial harbour,
enclosed by breakwaters, is bounded on the south by a slight promontory.
This is occupied by the quarter of the city known as the Fort, from the
former existence of a fort founded by the Portuguese and reconstructed
by the Dutch. In 1869 the governor, Sir Hercules Robinson (afterwards
Lord Rosmead), obtained authority to demolish the fortifications, which
were obsolete for purposes of defence, and required 6000 men to man them
properly. The levelling of the walls and filling up of the moat made the
Fort much more accessible and healthy, and since then it has become the
business centre of the city. Here are situated Queen's House, the
governor's residence; the secretariat or government offices, and other
government buildings, such as the fine general post office and the
customs house. Here also are most of the principal hotels, which have a
peculiarly high reputation among European hotels in the East. A lofty
tower serves as the principal lighthouse of the port and also as a
clock-tower. On the south side of the Fort are extensive barracks. The
old banqueting-hall of the Dutch governors is used as the garrison
church of St Peter.
To the north-east of the Fort, skirting the harbour, are the Pettah, the
principal native quarter, the districts of Kotahena and Mutwall, and
suburbs beyond. In this direction the principal buildings are the
Wolfendahl church, a massive Doric building of the Dutch (1749); the
splendid Roman Catholic cathedral of St Lucia (completed in 1904); and
St Thomas's College (1851), which follows the lines of an English public
school. Close to this last is the Anglican cathedral of Christ Church.
The Kotahena temple is the chief Buddhist temple in Colombo.
To the north-east of the Fort is the Lake, a ramifying sheet of fresh
water, which adds greatly to the beauty of the site of Colombo, its
banks being clothed with luxuriant foliage and flowers. The narrow
isthmus between this lake and the sea, south of the Fort, is called
Galle Face, and is occupied chiefly by promenades and recreation
grounds. The peninsula enclosed by two arms of the Lake is known as
Slave Island, having been the site of a slave's prison under the Dutch.
South-east of this is the principal residential quarter of Colombo, with
the circular Victoria Park as its centre. To the east of the park a
series of parallel roads, named after former British governors, are
lined with beautiful bungalows embowered in trees. This locality is
generally known as the Cinnamon Gardens, as it was formerly a Dutch
reserve for the cultivation of the cinnamon bush, many of which are
still growing here. In the park is the fine Colombo Museum, founded by
Sir William Gregory; and near the neighbouring Campbell Park are the
handsome buildings of a number of institutions, such as Wesley College,
and the General, Victoria Memorial Eye and other hospitals. South of
Victoria Park is the Havelock racecourse. Among educational
establishments not hitherto mentioned are the Royal College, the
principal government institution, the government technical college and
St Joseph's Roman Catholic college. Most of the town is lighted by gas,
and certain quarters with electric light, and electric tramways have
been laid over several miles of the city roads. The water-supply is
drawn from a hill region 30 m. distant.
Under British rule Colombo has shared in the prosperity brought to the
island by the successive industries of coffee and tea-planting. At the
height of the coffee-growing enterprise 20,000 men, women and children,
chiefly Sinhalese and Tamils, found employment in the large factories
and stores of the merchants scattered over the town, where the coffee
was cleaned, prepared, sorted and packed for shipment. Tea, on the
contrary, is prepared and packed on the estates; but there is a
considerable amount of work still done in the Colombo stores in sorting,
blending and repacking such teas as are sold at the local public sales;
also in dealing with cacao, cardamoms, cinchona bark and the remnant
still left of the coffee industry. But it is to its position as one of
the great ports of call of the East that Colombo owes its great and
increasing importance. A magnificent breakwater, 4200 ft. long, the
first stone of which was laid by the prince of Wales in 1875, was
completed in 1884. This breakwater changed an open roadstead into a
harbour completely sheltered on the most exposed or south-west side; but
there was still liability in certain months to storms from the
north-west and south-east. Two additional arms were therefore
constructed, consisting of a north-east and north-west breakwater,
leaving two openings, one 800 ft. and the other 700 ft. wide, between
the various sections. The area enclosed is 660 acres. A first-class
graving-dock, of which the Admiralty bore half the cost, has also been
added. These improvements caused Galle to be abandoned as a port of call
for steamers in favour of Colombo, while Trincomalee has been abandoned
as a naval station. The port has assumed first-class importance, mail
steamers calling regularly as well as men-of-war and the mercantile
marine of all nations; and it is now one of the finest artificial
harbours in the world. The extension of railways also has concentrated
the trade of the island upon the capital, and contributed to its rise in
prosperity.
Colombo was originally known as the Kalantotta or Kalany ferry. By the
Arabs the name was changed to Kolambu, and the town was mentioned by Ibn
Batuta in 1346 as the largest and finest in Serendib. In 1517 the
Portuguese effected a settlement, and in 1520 they fortified their port
and bade defiance to the native besiegers. In 1586 the town was invested
by Raja Singh, but without success. On its capture by the Dutch in 1656
it was a flourishing colony with convents of five religious orders,
churches and public offices, inhabited by no fewer than 900 noble
families and 1500 families dependent on mercantile or political
occupations. In 1796 it was surrendered to the British.
COLON (formerly known as ASPINWALL), a city of the Republic of Panama,
on the Atlantic coast, in the Bay of Limon, and 47 m. by rail N.W. of
the city of Panama. Pop. (1908) about 3000, consisting largely of
Jamaica negroes and natives of mixed Spanish, Indian and African
descent. It is served by the Panama railway, which crosses the Isthmus
of Panama from ocean to ocean. Colon has a deep, though poorly sheltered
harbour, and is either the terminus or a place of call for seven lines
of steamships. It thus serves as an entrepôt for much of the commerce
between Atlantic and Pacific ports, and between the interior towns of
Central and South America and the cities of Europe and the United
States. The city lies on the west side of the low island of Manzanillo,
is bordered on the landward sides by swamp, and consists mainly of
unimposing frame houses and small shops. The most attractive parts are
the American quarter, where the employés of the Panama railway have
their homes, and the old French quarter, where dwelt the French officers
during their efforts to build the canal. In this last district, near the
mouth of the old canal, stands a fine statue of Christopher Columbus,
the gift of the empress Eugénie in 1870. Here also stands the mansion
erected and occupied by Ferdinand de Lesseps during his residence on the
isthmus. With the exception of railway shops, there are no important
industrial establishments.
Colon dates its origin from the year 1850, when the island of Manzanillo
was selected as the Atlantic terminus of the Panama railway. The
settlement was at first called Aspinwall, in honour of William H.
Aspinwall (1807-1875), one of the builders of the railway; but some
years afterwards its name was changed by legislative enactment to Colon,
in honour of Christopher Columbus, who entered Limon Bay in 1502. The
original name, however, survived among the English-speaking inhabitants
for many years after this change. With the completion of the railway in
1855, the town supplanted Chagres (q.v.) as the principal Atlantic port
of the isthmus. Later it acquired increased importance through its
selection by de Lesseps as the site for the Atlantic entrance to his
canal. During the revolution of 1885 it was partly burned and was
rebuilt on a somewhat larger plan. As the city has always been
notoriously unhealthful, the United States, on undertaking the
construction of the Panama Canal (q.v.), became interested in preventing
its becoming a centre of infection for the Canal Zone, and by the treaty
of November 1903 secured complete jurisdiction in the city and harbour
over all matters relating to sanitation and quarantine, and engaged to
construct a system of waterworks and sewers in the municipality, which
had been practically completed in 1907. The United States government has
also opened a port at Cristobal, within the Canal Zone.
COLON, a town of Matanzas province, Cuba, on the railway between
Matanzas and Santa Clara, and the centre of a rich sugar-planting
country. Pop. (1907) 7124.
COLON, (1) (Gr. [Greek: kolon], miswritten and mispronounced as [Greek:
kôlon], the term being taken from [Greek: kolos], curtailed), in
anatomy, that part of the greater intestine which extends from the
caecum to the rectum (see ALIMENTARY CANAL). (2.) (Gr. [Greek: kôlon], a
member or part), originally in Greek rhetoric a short clause longer
than the "comma," hence a mark (:), in punctuation, used to show a break
in construction greater than that marked by the semicolon (;), and less
than that marked by the period or full stop. The sign is also used in
psalters and the like to mark off periods for chanting. The word is
applied in palaeography to a unit of measure in MSS., amounting in
length to a hexameter line.
COLONEL (derived either from Lat. _columna_, Fr. _colonne_, column, or
Lat. _corona_, a crown), the superior officer of a regiment of infantry
or cavalry; also an officer of corresponding rank in the general army
list. The colonelcy of a regiment formerly implied a proprietary right
in it. Whether the colonel commanded it directly in the field or not, he
always superintended its finance and interior economy, and the
emoluments of the office, in the 18th century, were often the only form
of pay drawn by general officers. The general officers of the 17th and
18th centuries were invariably colonels of regiments, and in this case
the active command was exercised by the lieutenant-colonels. At the
present day, British general officers are often, though not always,
given the colonelcy of a regiment, which has become almost purely an
honorary office. The sovereign, foreign sovereigns, royal princes and
others, hold honorary colonelcies, as colonels-in-chief or honorary
colonels of many regiments. In other armies, the regiment being a
fighting unit, the colonel is its active commander; in Great Britain the
lieutenant-colonel commands in the field the battalion of infantry and
the regiment of cavalry. Colonels are actively employed in the army at
large in staff appointments, brigade commands, &c. extra-regimentally.
Colonel-general, a rank formerly used in many armies, still survives in
the German service, a colonel-general (_General-Oberst_) ranking between
a general of infantry, cavalry or artillery, and a general field marshal
(_General-Feldmarschall_). Colonels-general are usually given the
honorary rank of general field marshal.
COLONIAL OFFICE, the department of the administration of the United
Kingdom which deals with questions affecting the various colonial
possessions of the British crown. The department as it now exists is of
comparatively modern creation, dating only from 1854. The affairs of the
English colonies began to assume importance at the Restoration, and were
at first entrusted to a committee of the privy council, but afterwards
transferred to a commission created by letters patent. From 1672 to 1675
the council for trade was combined with this commission, but in the
latter year the colonies were again placed under the control of the
privy council. This arrangement continued until 1695, when a Board of
Trade and Plantations was created; its duty, however, was confined to
collecting information and giving advice when required. The actual
executive work was performed by the secretary of state for the southern
department, who was assisted, from 1768 to 1782, by a secretary of state
for the colonies. Both the Board of Trade and Plantations and the
additional secretary were abolished in 1782, and the executive business
wholly given over to the home office. In 1794 a third secretary of state
was reappointed, and in 1801 this secretary was designated as secretary
of state for war and the colonies. In 1854 the two offices were
separated, and a distinct office of secretary of state for the colonies
created.
The secretary of state for the colonies is the official medium of
communication with colonial governments; he has certain administrative
duties respecting crown colonies, and has a right of advising the veto
of an act of a colonial legislature--this veto, however, is never
exercised in the case of purely local statutes. He is assisted by a
permanent and a parliamentary under-secretary and a considerable
clerical staff.
As reorganized in 1907 the colonial office consists of three chief
departments: (1) the Dominions Department, dealing with the affairs of
the self-governing over-sea dominions of the British crown, and of
certain other possessions geographically connected with those dominions;
(2) the Colonial Department, dealing with the affairs of crown colonies
and protectorates; (3) the General Department, dealing with legal,
financial and other general business. In addition to these three
departments, standing committees exist to take a collective view of
such matters as contracts, concessions, mineral and other leases, and
patronage.
COLONNA, a noble Roman family, second only to the Gaetani di Sermoneta
in antiquity, and first of all the Roman houses in importance. The popes
Marcellinus, Sixtus III., Stephen IV. and Adrian III. are said to have
been members of it, but the authentic pedigree of the family begins with
Pietro, lord of Columna, Palestrina and Paliano (about 1100), probably a
brother of Pope Benedict IX. His great grandson Giovanni had two sons,
respectively the founders of the Colonna di Paliano and Colonna di
Sciarra lines. The third, or Colonna-Romano line, is descended from
Federigo Colonna (1223). In the 12th century we find the Colonna as
counts of Tusculum, and the family was then famous as one of the most
powerful and turbulent of the great Roman clans; its feuds with the
Orsini and the Gaetani are a characteristic feature of medieval Rome and
the Campagna; like the other great nobles of the Campagna the Colonna
plundered travellers and cities, and did not even spare the pope himself
if they felt themselves injured by him. Boniface VIII. attempted to
break their power, excommunicated them in 1297, and confiscated their
estates. He proclaimed a crusade against them and captured Palestrina,
but they afterwards revenged themselves by besieging him at Anagni, and
Sciarra Colonna laid violent hands on His Holiness, being with
difficulty restrained from actually murdering him (1303). In 1347 the
Colonna, at that time almost an independent power, were defeated by Cola
di Rienzi, but soon recovered. Pope Martin V. (1417-1431) was a Colonna,
and conferred immense estates on his family, including Marino, Frascati,
Rocca di Papa, Nettuno, Palinao, &c., in the Campagna, and other fiefs
in Romagna and Umbria. Their goods were frequently confiscated and
frequently given back, and the house was subject to many changes of
fortune; during the reign of Pope Alexander VI. they were again humbled,
but they always remained powerful and important, and members of the
family rose to eminence as generals, prelates and statesmen in the
service of the Church or other powers. In the war of 1522 between France
and Spain there were Colonna on both sides, and at the battle of Lepanto
(1571) Marc Antonio Colonna, who commanded the papal contingent, greatly
distinguished himself. A detailed record of the Colonna family would be
a history of Rome. To-day there are three lines of Colonna: (1) Colonna
di Paliano, with two branches, the princes and dukes of Paliano, and the
princes of Stigliano; (2) Colonna di Sciarra, with two branches, Colonna
di Sciarra, princes of Carbagnano, and Barberini-Colonna, princes of
Palestrina; and (3) Colonna-Romano. The Colonna palace, one of the
finest in Rome, was begun by Martin V. and contains a valuable picture
and sculpture gallery.
See A. von Reumont, _Geschichte der Stadt Rom_ (Berlin, 1868),
containing an elaborate account of the family; F. Gregorovius,
_Geschichte der Stadt Rom_ (Stuttgart, 1872); _Almanack de Gotha_.
(L. V.*)
COLONNA, GIOVANNI PAOLO (_circa_ 1637-1695), Italian musician, was born
in Bologna about 1637 and died in the same city on the 28th of November
1695. He was a pupil of Filippuzzi in Bologna, and of Abbatini and
Benevoli in Rome, where for a time he held the post of organist at S.
Apollinare. A dated poem in praise of his music shows that he began to
distinguish himself as a composer in 1659. In that year he was chosen
organist at S. Petronio in Bologna, where on the 1st of November 1674 he
was made chapel-master. He also became president of the Philharmonic
Academy of Bologna. Most of Colonna's works are for the church,
including settings of the psalms for three, four, five and eight voices,
and several masses and motets. He also composed an opera, under the
title _Amilcare_, and an oratorio, _La Profezia d' Eliseo_. The emperor
Leopold I. received a copy of every composition of Colonna, so that the
imperial library in Vienna possesses upwards of 83 church compositions
by him. Colonna's style is for the most part dignified, but is not free
from the inequalities of style and taste almost unavoidable at a period
when church music was in a state of transition, and had hardly learnt
to combine the gravity of the old style with the brilliance of the new.
COLONNA, VITTORIA (1490-1547), marchioness of Pescara, Italian poet,
daughter of Fabrizio Colonna, grand constable of the kingdom of Naples,
and of Anna da Montefeltro, was born at Marino, a fief of the Colonna
family. Betrothed when four years old at the instance of Ferdinand, king
of Naples, to Ferrante de Avalos, son of the marquis of Pescara, she
received the highest education and gave early proof of a love of
letters. Her hand was sought by many suitors, including the dukes of
Savoy and Braganza, but at nineteen, by her own ardent desire, she was
married to de Avalos on the island of Ischia. There the couple resided
until 1511, when her husband offered his sword to the League against the
French. He was taken prisoner at the battle of Ravenna (1512) and
conveyed to France. During the months of detention and the long years of
campaigning which followed, Vittoria and Ferrante corresponded in the
most passionate terms both in prose and verse. They saw each other but
seldom, for Ferrante was one of the most active and brilliant captains
of Charles V.; but Vittoria's influence was sufficient to keep him from
joining the projected league against the emperor after the battle of
Pavia (1525), and to make him refuse the crown of Naples offered to him
as the price of his treason. In the month of November of the same year
he died of his wounds at Milan. Vittoria, who was hastening to tend him,
received the news of his death at Viterbo; she halted and turned off to
Rome, and after a brief stay departed for Ischia, where she remained for
several years. She refused several suitors, and began to produce those
_Rime spirituali_ which form so distinct a feature in her works. In 1529
she returned to Rome, and spent the next few years between that city,
Orvieto, Ischia and other places. In 1537 we find her at Ferrara, where
she made many friends and helped to establish a Capuchin monastery at
the instance of the reforming monk Bernardino Ochino, who afterwards
became a Protestant. In 1539 she was back in Rome, where, besides
winning the esteem of Cardinals Reginald Pole and Contarini, she became
the object of a passionate friendship on the part of Michelangelo, then
in his sixty-fourth year. The great artist addressed some of his finest
sonnets to her, made drawings for her, and spent long hours in her
society. Her removal to Orvieto and Viterbo in 1541, on the occasion of
her brother Ascanio Colonna's revolt against Paul III., produced no
change in their relations, and they continued to visit and correspond as
before. She returned to Rome in 1544, staying as usual at the convent of
San Silvestro, and died there on the 25th of February 1547.
Cardinal Bembo, Luigi Alamanni and Baldassare Castiglione were among her
literary friends. She was also on intimate terms with many of the
Italian Protestants, such as Pietro Carnesecchi, Juan de Valdes and
Ochino, but she died before the church crisis in Italy became acute,
and, although she was an advocate of religious reform, there is no
reason to believe that she herself became a Protestant. Her life was a
beautiful one, and goes far to counteract the impression of the
universal corruption of the Italian Renaissance conveyed by such careers
as those of the Borgia. Her amatory and elegiac poems, which are the
fruits of a sympathetic and dainty imitative gift rather than of any
strong original talent, were printed at Parma in 1538; a third edition,
containing sixteen of her _Rime Spirituali_, in which religious themes
are treated in Italian, was published at Florence soon afterwards; and a
fourth, including a still larger proportion of the pious element, was
issued at Venice in 1544.
A great deal has been written about Vittoria Colonna, but perhaps the
best account of her life is A. Luzio's _Vittoria Colonna_ (Modena,
1885); A. von Reumont's _Vita di Vittoria Colonna_ (Italian corrected
edit., Turin, 1883) is also excellent; F. le Fèvre's _Vittoria
Colonna_ (Paris, 1856) is somewhat inaccurate, but T. Roscoe's
_Vittoria Colonna_ (London, 1868) may be recommended to English
readers; P. E. Visconti's _Le Rime di Vittoria Colonna_ (Rome, 1846)
deals with her poems. (L. V.*)
COLONNADE, in architecture, a range of columns (Ital. _colonna_) in a
row. When extended so as to enclose a temple, it is called a peristyle,
and the same term applies when round an open court, as in the houses at
Pompeii. When projecting in front of a building, it is called a portico,
as in the Pantheon at Rome and the National Gallery in London. When
enclosed between wings, as in Perrault's façade to the Louvre, it is
correctly described as a colonnade. Colonnades lined the streets of the
towns in Syria and Asia Minor, and they were largely employed in Rome.
COLONSAY, an island of the Inner Hebrides, Argyllshire, Scotland, 10 m.
S. of the Ross of Mull. It is 7½ m. long by 3 m. broad. The highest
point is Carnan Eoin (470 ft.). Towards the middle of the island lies
Loch Fada, nearly 2 m. long but very narrow, and there are two other
small lakes and a few streams. The coast-line, with frequent beautiful
sandy reaches, is much indented, the chief bays being Kiloran,
Kilchattan and Staosunaig. On the north-western coast the cliffs are
particularly fine. To the south, separated by a strait that is fordable
at low water, lies the isle of ORONSAY, 2¼ m. long by 2¾ m. wide. Both
islands contain a number of ecclesiastical remains, standing stones, and
some beautiful sculptured crosses. They are named after Columba and
Oran, who are said to have stopped here after they left Ireland. There
is regular communication between Scalasaig and Glasgow and the Clyde
ports. The golf-course at Kilchattan lends a touch of modernity to these
remote islands. Near Scalasaig a granite obelisk has been erected to the
memory of Sir Duncan M'Neill (1794-1874), a distinguished Scottish
lawyer, who took the title of Lord Colonsay when he became a lord of
appeal. The soil of both islands is fertile, potatoes and barley being
raised and cattle pastured. Population: Colonsay (1901), 301; Oronsay
(1901), 12.
COLONY (Lat. _colonia_, from _colonus_, a cultivator), a term most
commonly used to denote a settlement of the subjects of a sovereign
state in lands beyond its boundaries, owning no allegiance to any
foreign power, and retaining a greater or less degree of dependence on
the mother country. The founding and the growth of such communities
furnish matter for an interesting chapter in the history as well of
ancient as of modern civilization; and the regulation of the relations
between the parent state and its dependencies abroad gives rise to
important problems alike in national policy and in international
economics.
It was mainly the spirit of commercial enterprise that led the
Phoenicians to plant their colonies upon the islands and along the
southern coast of the Mediterranean; and even beyond the Pillars of
Hercules this earliest great colonizing race left enduring traces of its
maritime supremacy. Carthage, indeed, chief of the Phoenician
settlements, sent forth colonies to defend her conquests and strengthen
her military power; and these sub-colonies naturally remained in strict
subjection to her power, whereas the other young Phoenician states
assumed and asserted entire independence.
In this latter respect the Greek colonies resembled those of the
Phoenicians. From a very early period the little civic communities of
Greece had sent forth numerous colonizing streams. At points so far
asunder as the Tauric Chersonese, Cyrene and Massilia were found
prosperous centres of Greek commercial energy; but the regions most
thickly peopled by settlers of Greek descent were the western seaboard
of Asia Minor, Sicily and the southern parts of the Italian peninsula.
Nor were the least prosperous communities those which were sprung from
earlier colonies. The causes that led to the foundation of the Greek
colonies were very various. As in Phoenicia, pressure created by the
narrow limits of the home country coincided with an adventurous desire
to seek new sources of wealth beyond seas; but very many Greek
emigrations were caused by the expulsion of the inhabitants of conquered
cities, or by the intolerable domination of a hated but triumphant
faction within the native state. The polity of the new community, often
founded in defiance of the home authorities, might either be a copy of
that just left behind or be its direct political antithesis. But
wherever they went, and whether, as apparently in Asia Minor, Greek
blood was kept free from barbaric mixture, or whether, as in Magna
Graecia and Sicily, it was mingled with that of the aboriginal races,
the Greek emigrants carried with them the Hellenic spirit and the
Hellenic tongue; and the colonies fostered, not infrequently more
rapidly and more brilliantly than at home, Greek literature, Greek art
and Greek speculation. The relation to be preserved towards the mother
states was seldom or never definitely arranged. But filial feeling and
established custom secured a measure of kindly sympathy, shown by
precedence yielded at public games, and by the almost invariable
abstinence of the colony from a hostile share in wars in which the
mother city was engaged.
The relation of Rome to her colonies was altogether different. No Roman
colony started without the sanction and direction of the public
authority; and while the _Colonia Romano_ differed from the _Colonia
Latina_ in that the former permitted its members to retain their
political rights intact, the colony, whether planted within the bounds
of Italy or in provinces such as Gaul or Britain, remained an integral
part of the Roman state. In the earlier colonies, the state allotted to
proposing emigrants from amongst the needy or discontented class of
citizens portions of such lands as, on the subjection of a hostile
people, the state took into its possession as public property. At a
later time, especially after the days of Sulla, the distribution of the
territories of a vanquished Roman party was employed by the victorious
generals as an easy means of satisfying the claims of the soldiery by
whose help they had triumphed. The Roman colonies were thus not merely
valuable as _propugnacula_ of the state, as permanent supports to Roman
garrisons and armies, but they proved a most effective means of
extending over wide bounds the language and the laws of Rome, and of
inoculating the inhabitants of the provinces with more than the
rudiments of Roman civilization.
The occupation of the fairest provinces of the Roman empire by the
northern barbarians had little in common with colonization. The Germanic
invaders came from no settled state; they maintained loosely, and but
for a short while, any form of brotherhood with the allied tribes. A
nearer parallel to Greek colonization may be found in Iceland, whither
the adherents of the old Norse polity fled from the usurpation of Harold
Haarfager; and the early history of the English pale in Ireland shows,
though not in orderliness and prosperity, several points of resemblance
to the Roman colonial system.
Though both Genoese and Venetians in their day of power planted numerous
trading posts on various portions of the Mediterranean shores, of which
some almost deserve the name of colonies, the history of modern
colonization on a great scale opens with the Spanish conquests in
America. The first Spanish adventurers came, not to colonize, but to
satisfy as rapidly as possible and by the labour of the enslaved
aborigines, their thirst for silver and gold. Their conquests were
rapid, but the extension of their permanent settlements was gradual and
slow. The terrible cruelty at first exercised on the natives was
restrained, not merely by the zeal of the missionaries, but by effective
official measures; and ultimately home-born Spaniards and Creoles lived
on terms of comparative fairness with the Indians and with the
half-breed population. Till the general and successful revolt of her
American colonies, Spain maintained and employed the latter directly and
solely for what she conceived to be her own advantage. Her commercial
policy was one of most irrational and intolerable restriction and
repression; and till the end of Spanish rule on the American continent,
the whole political power was retained by the court at Madrid, and
administered in the colonies by an oligarchy of home-bred Spaniards.
The Portuguese colonization in America, in most respects resembling that
of Spain, is remarkable for the development there given to an
institution sadly prominent in the history of the European colonies. The
nearness of Brazil to the coast of Africa made it easy for the
Portuguese to supply the growing lack of native labour by the wholesale
importation of purchased or kidnapped Africans.
Of the French it is admitted that in their colonial possessions they
displayed an unusual faculty for conciliating the prejudices of native
races, and even for assimilating themselves to the latter. But neither
this nor the genius of successive governors and commanders succeeded in
preserving for France her once extensive colonies in Canada or her great
influence in India. In Algeria and West Africa the French government has
not merely found practical training schools for her own soldiers, but by
opening a recruiting field amongst the native tribes it has added an
available contingent to the French army.
The Dutch took early a leading share in the carrying trade of the
various European colonies. They have still extensive colonies in the
East Indian Archipelago, as well as possessions in the West Indies. The
Danish dependencies in the Antilles are but trifling in extent or
importance.
It is the English-speaking race, however, that has shown the most
remarkable energy and capacity for colonization. The English settlements
in Virginia, New England, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Pennsylvania,
Delaware, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia had, between the
first decade of the 17th and the seventh decade of the 18th century,
developed into a new nation, the United States of America. It is
unnecessary here to deal with the development of what have since been
the two great independent branches of the English-speaking people--those
of the United States (q.v.) and of the British Empire (q.v.), as their
history is given elsewhere. But the colonizing genius which, with the
British Isles as centre, has taken up the "white man's burden" in all
quarters of the globe, is universally recognized. In the problems of
government raised by the organization of the British dominions beyond
the seas the system of colonization has been developed to an extent
unknown under any other national flag.
COLOPHON, an ancient city of Ionia, situated inland about 15 m. N. of
Ephesus. Its port was at Notium or New Colophon. The site, now called
_Tracha_ (only recognized towards the end of the 19th century), lies
near Diermendere, 5 m. S. of Develikeui station on the Smyrna-Aidin
railway, and about 2 m. from the farms and hamlet of Malkajik. It is
almost entirely under cultivation, and there is little to be seen but
remains of the walls and certain tumuli. Rich tombs, however, have been
found beside the old roads leading to it, and the site is usually
regarded as a particularly promising one for excavation, since Colophon
was a very flourishing city in the great period of Ionia and had
declined and been largely superseded by Notium before the Roman age. The
common belief, however, that it had no existence after the time of
Lysimachus is not borne out by the remains on the site. Founded by
Andracmon of Pylos, it was at the acme of its prosperity in the 8th and
7th centuries B.C. up to the epoch of its sack by Gyges of Lydia in 665.
It claimed to have produced Homer, but its greatest genuine literary
name was Mimnermus. It seems to have been ruled by a rich aristocracy
which provided a famous troop of horse; and, from the Greek saying,
usually supposed to refer to the decisive effect of the final charge of
this troop in battle, the word _colophon_ has come to be used for the
final note appended to old printed books, containing date, &c. In 287
Lysimachus transferred a part of the population to his new city at
Ephesus. Though an Ionian colony Colophon did not share in the common
festival of the _Apaturia_ and seems to have been isolated for some
reason among its neighbours, with one of whom, Ephesus, it was
constantly at enmity. The forts by which Ephesus protected itself
against Colophonian invasion are still to be seen on the hills north of
the Caystrus.
Notium or New Colophon contained the important shrine of the Clarian
Apollo, whose site has recently been identified with probability by Th.
Makridy Bey during excavations conducted for the Ottoman museum.
See C. Schuchardt in _Athen. Mitteil._ (1886); W. M. Ramsay, _Hist.
Geog. of Asia Minor_ (addenda) (1890). (D. G. H.)
COLOPHON, a final paragraph in some manuscripts and many early printed
books (see BOOK), giving particulars as to authorship, date and place of
production, &c. Before the invention of printing, a scribe when he had
finished copying a book occasionally added a final paragraph at the end
of the text in which he recorded the fact, and (if he were so minded)
expressed his thankfulness to God, or asked for the prayers of readers.
In the famous Bodleian MS. 264 of the _Roman d'Alexandre_ there is an
unusually full note of this kind recording the completion of the copy on
the 18th of December 1338 and ending--
"Explicit iste liber, scriptor sit crimine liber,
Christus scriptorem custodiat ac det honorem."
Both in manuscripts and also in early printed books authors made use of
such a final paragraph for expressing similar feelings. Thus the
Guillermus who made a famous collection of sermons on the gospels for
Sundays and saints' days records its completion in 1437 and submits it
to the correction of charitable readers, and Sir Thomas Malory notes
that his _Morte d'Arthur_ "was ended the ix yere of the reygne of Kyng
Edward the fourth," and bids his readers "praye for me whyle I am on
lyue that God sende me good delyuerance, and whan I am deed I praye you
all praye for my soule." So again Jacobus Bergomensis records that his
_Supplementum Chronicarum_ was finished "anno salutis nostre 1483. 3º
Kalendas Julii in ciuitate Bergomi: mihi vero a natiuitate quadragesimo
nono," and in the subsequent editions which he revised brings both the
year and his own age up to date. Before printing was invented, however,
such paragraphs were exceptional, and many of the early printers,
notably Gutenberg himself, were content to allow their books to go out
without any mention of their own names. Fust and Schoeffer, on the other
hand, printed at the end of their famous psalter of 1457 the following
paragraph in red ink:--_Presens spalmorum (sic for psalmorum) codex
venustate capitalium decoratus Rubricationibusque sufficienter
distinctus, Adinuentione artificiosa imprimendi ac caracterizandi absque
calami vlla exaracione sic effigiatus, Et ad eusebiam dei industrie est
consummatus, Per Iohannem fust ciuem maguntinum, Et Petrum Schoffer de
Gernszheim Anno domini Millesimo. cccc. lvii In vigilia Assumpcionis_.
Similar paragraphs in praise of printing and of Mainz as the city where
the art was brought to perfection appear in most of the books issued by
the partners and after Fust's death by Schoeffer alone, and were widely
imitated by other printers. In their Latin Bible of 1462 Fust and
Schoeffer added a device of two shields at the end of the paragraph, and
this addition was also widely copied. Many of these final paragraphs
give information of great value for the history of printing; many also,
especially those to the early editions of the classics printed in Italy,
are written in verse. As the practice grew up of devoting a separate
leaf or page to the title of a book at its beginning, the importance of
these final paragraphs slowly diminished, and the information they gave
was gradually transferred to the title-page. Complete title-pages
bearing the date and name of the publishers are found in most books
printed after 1520, and the final paragraph, if retained at all, was
gradually reduced to a bare statement of the name of the printer. From
the use of the word in the sense of a "finishing stroke," such a final
paragraph as has been described is called by bibliographers a "colophon"
(Gr. [Greek: kolophôn]), but at what period this name for it was first
used has not been ascertained. It is quite possibly not earlier than the
18th century. (For origin see COLOPHON [city].) (A. W. PO.)
COLORADO, a state of the American union, situated between 41° and 37° N.
lat. and 102° and 109° W. long., bounded N. by Wyoming and Nebraska, E.
by Nebraska and Kansas, S. by Oklahoma and New Mexico, and W. by Utah.
Its area is 103,948 sq. m. (of which 290 are water surface). It is the
seventh largest state of the Union.
_Physiography._--Colorado embraces in its area a great variety of
plains, mountains and plateaus. It lies at the junction of the Great
Plains--which in their upward slant to the westward attain an average
elevation of about 4000 ft. along the east boundary of the state--with
the Rocky Mountains, to the west of which is a portion of the Colorado
Plateau. These are the three physiographic provinces of the state (see
also UNITED STATES, section _Geology_, ad fin., for details of
structure). The last-named includes a number of lofty plateaus--the Roan
or Book, Uncompahgre, &c., which form the eastern continuation of the
high plateaus of Utah--and covers the western quarter of the state. Its
eastern third consists of rich, unbroken plains. On their west edge lies
an abrupt, massive, and strangely uniform chain of mountains, known in
the neighbourhood of Colorado Springs as the Rampart Range, and in the
extreme north as the Front Range, and often denominated as a whole by
the latter name. The upturning of the rocks of the Great Plains at the
foot of the Front Range develops an interesting type of topography, the
harder layers weathering into grotesquely curious forms, as seen in the
famous Garden of the Gods at the foot of Pike's Peak. Behind this
barrier the whole country is elevated 2000 ft. or so above the level of
the plains region. In its lowest portions just behind the front ranges
are the natural "parks"--great plateaus basined by superb enclosing
ranges; and to the west of these, and between them, and covering the
remainder of the state east of the plateau region, is an entanglement of
mountains, tier above tier, running from north to south, buttressed
laterally with splendid spurs, dominated by scores of magnificent peaks,
cut by river valleys, and divided by mesas and plateaus. These various
chains are known by a multitude of local names. Among the finest of the
chains are the Rampart, Sangre de Cristo, San Juan, Sawatch (Saguache)
and Elk ranges. The first, like the other ranges abutting from north to
south upon the region of the prairie, rises abruptly from the plain and
has a fine, bold outline. It contains a number of fine summits dominated
by Pike's Peak (14,108 ft.). Much more beautiful as a whole is the
Sangre de Cristo range. At its southern end are Blanca Peak (14,390) and
Old Baldy (14,176, Hayden), both in Costilla county; to the northward
are Rito Alto Peak (12,989, Wheeler), in Custer county, and many others
of almost equal height and equal beauty. The mountains of the south-west
are particularly abrupt and jagged. Sultan Mountain (13,366, Hayden), in
San Juan county, and Mt. Eolus (14,079), in La Plata county, dominate
the fine masses of the San Juan ranges; and Mt. Sneffels (14,158,
Hayden), Ouray county, and Uncompahgre Peak (14,289), Hinsdale county,
the San Miguel and Uncompahgre ranges, which are actually parts of the
San Juan. Most magnificent of all the mountains of Colorado, however,
are the Sawatch and adjoining ranges in the centre of the state. The
former (the name is used a little loosely) consists of almost a solid
mass of granite, has an average elevation of probably 13,000 ft.,
presents a broad and massive outline, and has a mean breadth of 15 to 20
m. Mt. Ouray (13,956 ft.), in Chaffee county, may be taken as the
southern end, and in Eagle county, the splendid Mount of the Holy Cross
(14,170)--so named from the figure of its snow-filled ravines--as the
northern. Between them lie: in Chaffee county, Mt. Shavano (14,239,
Hayden), Mt. Princeton (14,196, Hayden), Mt. Yale (14,187, Hayden), Mt.
Harvard (14,375, Hayden), and La Plata Peak (14,342); in Pitkin county,
Grizzly Peak (13,956, Hayden); in Lake county, Elbert Peak (14,421), and
Massive mountain (14,424), the highest peak in the state; on the
boundary between Summit and Park counties, Mt. Lincoln (14,297, Hayden);
and, in Summit county, Mt. Fletcher (14,265). The Elk range is
geologically interesting for the almost unexampled displacement of the
strata of which it is composed, and the apparent confusion which has
thence arisen. Among the most remarkable of its separate summits, which
rise superbly in a crescent about Aspen, are North Italian Peak
(13,225), displaying the red, white and green of Italy's national
colours, White Rock Mountain (13,532), Mt. Owen (13,102), Teocalli
Mountain (13,220), Snow Mass (13,970, Hayden) and Maroon (14,003,
Hayden) mountains, Castle Peak (14,259), Capitol Mountain (13,997,
Hayden), Pyramid Peak (13,885, Hayden), Taylor Peak (13,419), and about
a dozen other summits above 12,000 ft. A few miles to the north and
north-east of the Mount of the Holy Cross are Red Mountain (13,333,
Wheeler), in Eagle county, Torrey Peak (14,336, Hayden) and Gray's Peak
(14,341, Hayden), in Summit county, Mt. Evans (14,330, Hayden), in Clear
Creek county, and Rosalie Peak (13,575), in Park county; a little
farther north, in Gilpin, Grand and Clear Creek counties, James Peak
(13,283, Hayden), and, in Boulder county, Long's Peak (14,271, Hayden).
Many fine mountains are scattered in the lesser ranges of the state.
Altogether there are at least 180 summits exceeding 12,000 ft. in
altitude, more than 110 above 13,000 and about 40 above 14,000.
Cirques, valley troughs, numberless beautiful cascades, sharpened alpine
peaks and ridges, glacial lakes, and valley moraines offer everywhere
abundant evidence of glacial action, which has modified profoundly
practically all the ranges. The Park Range east of Leadville, and the
Sawatch Range, are particularly fine examples. Much of the grandest
scenery is due to glaciation.
One of the most remarkable orographical features of the state are the
great mountain "parks"--North, Estes, Middle, South and San
Luis--extending from the northern to the southern border of the state,
and lying (with the exception of Middle Park) just east of the
continental divide. These "parks" are great plateaus, not all of them
level, lying below the barriers of surrounding mountain chains. North
Park, the highest of all, is a lovely country of meadow and forest.
Middle Park is not level, but is traversed thickly by low ranges like
the Alleghanies; in the bordering mountain rim are several of the
grandest mountain peaks and some of the most magnificent scenery of the
state. Estes Park is small, only 20 m. long and never more than 2 m.
broad; it is in fact the valley of Thompson Creek. Its surface is one of
charming slopes, and by many it is accounted among the loveliest of
Colorado valleys. Seven ranges lie between it and the plains. South Park
is similarly quiet and charming in character. Much greater than any of
these is San Luis Park. The surface is nearly as flat as a lake, and it
was probably at one time the bed of an inland sea. In the centre there
is a long narrow lake fed by many streams. It has no visible outlet, but
is fresh. The San Luis Park, which runs into New Mexico, is traversed by
the Rio Grande del Norte and more than a dozen of its mountain
tributaries. These parks are frequented by great quantities of large
game, and--especially the North and Middle--are famous hunting-grounds.
They are fertile, too, and as their combined area is something like
13,000 sq. m. they are certain to be of great importance in Colorado's
agricultural development.
The drainage system of the state is naturally very complicated. Eleven
topographical and climatic divisions are recognized by the United States
Weather Bureau within its borders, including the several parks, the
continental divide, and various river valleys. Of the rivers, the North
Platte has its sources in North Park, the Colorado (the Gunnison and
Grand branches) in Middle Park, the Arkansas and South Platte in South
Park--where their waters drain in opposite directions from Palmer's
Lake--the Rio Grande in San Luis Park. Three of these flow east and
south-east to the Missouri, Mississippi and the Gulf; but the waters of
the Colorado system flow to the south-west into the Gulf of California.
Among the other streams, almost countless in number among the mountains,
the systems of the Dolores, White and Yampa, all in the west, are of
primary importance. The scenery on the head-waters of the White and
Bear, the upper tributaries of the Gunnison, and on many of the minor
rivers of the south-west is wonderfully beautiful. The South Platte
falls 4830 ft. in the 139 m. above Denver; the Grand 3600 ft. in the 224
m. between the mouth of the Gunnison and the Forks; the Gunnison 6477
ft. in 200 m. to its mouth (and save for 16 m. never with a gradient of
less than 10 ft.); the Arkansas 7000 ft. in its 338 m. west of the
Kansas line. Of the smaller streams the Uncompahgre falls 2700 ft. in
134 m., the Las Animas 7190 ft. in 113 m., the Los Pinos 4920 ft. in 75
m., the Roaring Fork 5923 ft. in 64 m., the Mancos 5000 ft. in 62 m.,
the La Plata 3103 ft. in 43 m., the Eagle 4293 ft. in 62 m., the San
Juan 3785 in 303, the Lake Fork of the Gunnison 6047 in 59. The canyons
formed in the mountains by these streams are among the glories of
Colorado and of America. The grandest are the Toltec Gorge near the
Southern boundary line, traversed by the railway 1500 ft. above the
bottom; the Red Gorge and Rouge Canyon of the Upper Grand, and a
splendid gorge 16 m. long below the mouth of the Eagle, with walls
2000-2500 ft. in height; the Grand Canyon of the Arkansas (8 m.) above
Canyon City, with granite walls towering 2600 ft. above the boiling
river at the Royal Gorge; and the superb Black Canyon (15 m.) of the
Gunnison and the Cimarron. But there are scores of others which, though
less grand, are hardly less beautiful. The exquisite colour contrasts of
the Cheyenne canyons near Colorado Springs, Boulder Canyon near the city
of the same name, Red Cliff and Eagle River Canyons near Red Cliff,
Clear Creek Canyon near Denver--with walls at places 1000 ft. in
height--the Granite Canyon (11 m.) of the South Platte west of
Florissant, and the fine gorge of the Rio de las Animas (1500 ft.),
would be considered wonderful in any state less rich in still more
marvellous scenery. One peculiar feature of the mountain landscapes are
the mines. In districts like that of Cripple Creek their enormous ore
"dumps" dot the mountain flanks like scores of vast ant-hills; and in
Eagle River canyon their mouths, like dormer windows into the granite
mountain roof, may be seen 2000 ft. above the railway.
Many parts of the railways among the mountains are remarkable for
altitude, construction or scenery. More than a dozen mountain passes lie
above 10,000 ft. Argentine Pass (13,000 ft.), near Gray's Peak, is one
of the highest wagon roads of the world; just east of Silverton is Rio
Grande Pass, about 12,400 ft. above sea-level, and in the Elk Mountains
between Gunnison and Pitkin counties is Pearl Pass (12,715 ft.). Many
passes are traversed by the railways, especially the splendid scenic
route of the Denver and Rio Grande. Among the higher passes are Hoosier
Pass (10,309 ft.) in the Park Range, and Hayden Divide (10,780) and Veta
Pass (9390); both of these across the Sangre de Cristo range; the
crossing of the San Miguel chain at Lizard Head Pass (10,250) near Rico;
of the Uncompahgre at Dallas Divide (8977) near Ouray; of the Elk and
Sawatch ranges at Fremont (11,320), Tennessee (10,229), and Breckenridge
(11,470) passes, and the Busk Tunnel, all near Leadville; and Marshall
Pass (10,846) above Salida. Perhaps finer than these for their
wide-horizoned outlooks and grand surroundings are the Alpine Tunnel
under the continental divide of the Lower Sawatch chain, the scenery of
the tortuous line along the southern boundary in the Conejos and San
Juan mountains, which are crossed at Cumbres (10,003 ft.), and the
magnificent scenery about Ouray and on the Silverton railway over the
shoulder of Red Mountain (attaining 11,235 ft.). Notable, too, is the
road in Clear Creek Canyon--where the railway track coils six times upon
itself above Georgetown at an altitude of 10,000 ft.
_Climate._--The climate of Colorado is exceptional for regularity and
salubrity. The mean annual temperature for the state is about 46°. The
mean yearly isothermals crossing the state are ordinarily 35° to 50° or
55° F. Their course, owing to the complex orography of the state, is
necessarily extremely irregular, and few climatic generalizations can be
made. It can be said, however, that the south-east is the warmest
portion of the state, lying as it does without the mountains; that the
north-central region is usually coldest; that the normal yearly rainfall
for the entire state is about 15.5 in., with great local variations
(rarely above 27 in.). Winds are constant and rather high (5 to 10 m.),
and for many persons are the most trying feature of the climate. Very
intense cold prevails of course in winter in the mountains, and intense
heat (110° F. or more in the shade) is often experienced in summer,
temperatures above 90° being very common. The locality of least annual
thermometric range is Lake Moraine (10,268 ft. above the sea)--normally
91° F.; at other localities the range may be as great as 140°, and for
the whole state of course even greater (155° or slightly more). The
lowest monthly mean in 16 years (1887-1903) was 17.30. Nevertheless, the
climate of Colorado is not to be judged severe, and that of the plains
region is in many ways ideal. In the lowlands the snow is always slight
and it disappears almost immediately, even in the very foothills of the
mountains, as at Denver or Colorado Springs. However hot the summer day,
its night is always cool and dewless. Between July and October there is
little rain, day after day bringing a bright and cloudless sky. Humidity
is moderate (annual averages for Grand Junction, Pueblo, Denver and
Cheyenne, Wyo., for 6 A.M. about 50 to 66; for 6 P.M. 33 to 50); it is
supposed to be increasing with the increasing settlement of the country.
Sunshine is almost continuous, and splendidly intense. The maximum
number of "rainy" days (with a rainfall of more than 0.01 in.) rarely
approaches 100 at the most unfortunate locality; for the whole state the
average of perfectly "clear" days is normally above 50%, of "partly
cloudy" above 30, of "cloudy" under 20, of "rainy" still less. At
Denver, through 11 years, the actual sunlight was 70% of the possible;
many other points are even more favoured; very many enjoy on a third to
a half of the days of the year above 90% of possible sunshine. All
through the year the atmosphere is so dry and light that meat can be
preserved by the simplest process of desiccation. "An air more delicious
to breathe," wrote Bayard Taylor, "cannot anywhere be found; it is
neither too sedative nor too exciting, but has that pure, sweet,
flexible quality which seems to support all one's happiest and
healthiest moods." For asthmatic and consumptive troubles its
restorative influence is indisputable. Along with New Mexico and
Arizona, Colorado has become more and more a sanitarium for the other
portions of the Union. Among the secondary hygienic advantages are the
numerous mineral wells.
_Flora and Fauna._--The life zones of Colorado are simple in
arrangement. The boreal embraces the highest mountain altitudes; the
transition belts it on both sides of the continental divide; the upper
Sonoran takes in about the eastern half of the plains region east of the
mountains, and is represented further by two small valley penetrations
from Utah. Timber is confined almost wholly to the high mountain sides,
the mountain valleys and the parks being for the most part bare. Nowhere
is the timber large or dense. The timber-line on the mountains is at
about 10,000 ft., and the snow line at about 11,000. It is supposed that
the forests were much richer before the settlement of the state, which
was followed by reckless consumption and waste, and the more terrible
ravages of fire. In 1872-1876 the wooded area was estimated at 32% of
the state's area. It is certainly much less now. The principal trees,
after the yellow and lodgepole pines, are the red-fir, so-called hemlock
and cedar, the Engelmann spruce, the cottonwood and the aspen (_Populus
tremuloides_). In 1899 Federal forest reserves had been created,
aggregating 4849 sq. m. in extent, and by 1910 this had been increased
to 24,528 sq. m. The reserves cover altitudes of 7000 to 14,000 ft. The
rainfall is ample for their needs, but no other reserves in the country
showed in 1900 such waste by fire and pillage. The minor flora of the
country is exceedingly rich. In the plains the abundance of flowers,
from spring to autumn, is amazing.
Large game is still very abundant west of the continental divide. The
great parks are a favourite range and shelter. Deer and elk frequent
especially the mountains of the north-west, in Routt and Rio Blanco
counties, adjoining the reservations of the Uncompahgre (White River
Ute) and Uintah-Ute Indians--from whose depredations, owing to the
negligence of Federal officials, the game of the state has suffered
enormous losses. The bison have been exterminated. Considerable bands of
antelope live in the parks and even descend to the eastern plains, and
the mule-deer, the most common of large game, is abundant all through
the mountains of the west. Grizzly or silver-tip, brown and black bears
are also abundant in the same region. Rarest of all is the magnificent
mountain sheep. Game is protected zealously, if not successfully, by the
state, and it was officially estimated in 1898 that there were then
probably 7000 elk, as many mountain sheep, 25,000 antelope and 100,000
deer within its borders (by far the greatest part in Routt and Rio
Blanco counties). Fish are not naturally very abundant, but the mountain
brooks are the finest home for trout, and these as well as bass,
cat-fish and some other varieties have been used to stock the streams.
_Soil._--The soils of the lowlands are prevailing sandy loams, with a
covering of rich mould. The acreage of improved lands in 1900 was
returned by the federal census as 2,273,968, three times as much being
unimproved; the land improved constituted 3.4% of the state's area. The
lands available for agriculture are the lowlands and the mountain parks
and valleys.
Speaking generally, irrigation is essential to successful cultivation,
but wherever irrigation is practicable the soil proves richly
productive. Irrigation ditches having been exempted from taxation in
1872, extensive systems of canals were soon developed, especially after
1880. The Constitution of Colorado declares the waters of its streams
the property of the state, and a great body of irrigation law and
practice has grown up about this provision. The riparian doctrine does
not obtain in Colorado. In no part of the semi-arid region of the
country are the irrigation problems so diverse and difficult. In 1903
there were, according to the governor, 10 canals more than 50 m. in
length, 51 longer than 20 m., and hundreds of reservoirs. In 1899 there
were 7374 m. of main ditches. The average annual cost of water per acre
was then estimated at about 79 cents. The acres under ditch in 1902 were
greater (1,754,761) than in any other state; and the construction cost
of the system was then $14,769,561 (an increase of 25.6% from 1899 to
1902). There are irrigated lands in every county. Their area increased
8.9% in 1899-1902, and 80.9% from 1890 to 1900; in the latter year they
constituted 70.9% of the improved farm-land of the state, as against
48.8 in 1890. The land added to the irrigated area in the decade was in
1890 largely worthless public domain; its value in 1900 was about
$29,000,000. As a result of irrigation the Platte is often dry in
eastern Colorado in the summer, and the Arkansas shrinks so below Pueblo
that little water reaches Kansas. The water is almost wholly taken from
the rivers, but underflow is also utilized, especially in San Luis Park.
The South Platte is much the most important irrigating stream. Its
valley included 660,495 acres of irrigated land in 1902, no other valley
having half so great an area. The diversion of the waters of the
Arkansas led to the bringing of a suit against Colorado by Kansas in the
United States Supreme Court in 1902, on the ground that such diversion
seriously and illegally lessened the waters of the Arkansas in Kansas.
In 1907 the Supreme Court of the United States declared that Colorado
had diverted waters of the Arkansas, but, since it had not been shown
that Kansas had suffered, the case was dismissed, without prejudice to
Kansas, should it be injured in future by diversion of water from the
river. The exhaustion, or alleged exhaustion, by irrigation in Colorado
of the waters of the Rio Grande has raised international questions of
much interest between Mexico and the United States, which were settled
in 1907 by a convention pledging the United States to deliver 60,000
acre-feet of water annually in the bed of the Rio Grande at the Acequia
Madre, just above Juarez, in case of drought this supply being
diminished proportionately to the diminution in the United States. As a
part of the plans of the national government for reclamation of land in
the arid states, imposing schemes have been formulated for such work in
Colorado, including a great reservoir on the Gunnison. One of the
greatest undertakings of the national reclamation service is the
construction of 77 m. of canal and of a six-mile tunnel, beneath a
mountain, between the canyon of the Gunnison and the valley of the
Uncompahgre, designed to make productive some 140,000 acres in the
latter valley.
Apart from mere watering, cultivation is in no way intensive. One of the
finest farming regions is the lowland valley of the Arkansas. It is a
broad, level plain, almost untimbered, given over to alfalfa, grains,
vegetables and fruits. Sugar-beet culture has been found to be
exceptionally remunerative in this valley as well as in those of the
South Platte and Grand rivers. The growth of this interest has been
since 1899 a marked feature in the agricultural development of the
state; and in 1905, 1906 and 1907 the state's product of beets and of
sugar was far greater than that of any other state; in 1907, 1,523,303
tons of beets were worked--more than two-fifths of the total for the
United States. There are various large sugar factories (in 1903, 9, and
in 1907, 16), mainly in the north; also at Grand Junction and in the
Arkansas valley. The total value of all farm property increased between
1880 and 1900 from $42,000,000 to $161,045,101 and 45.9% from 1890 to
1900. In the latter year $49,954,311 of this was in live-stock
(increase 1890-1900, 121.1%), the remaining value in land with
improvements and machinery. The total value of farm products in 1899 was
$33,048,576; of this sum 97% was almost equally divided between crop
products and animal products, the forests contributing the remainder. Of
the various elements in the value of all farm produce as shown by the
federal census of 1900, live-stock, hay and grains, and dairying
represented 87.2%. The value of cereals ($4,700,271)--of which wheat and
oats represent four-fifths--is much exceeded by that of hay and forage
($8,159,279 in 1899). Wheat culture increased greatly from 1890 to 1900.
Flour made from Colorado wheat ranks very high in the market. As a
cereal-producing state Colorado is, however, relatively unimportant; nor
in value of product is its hay and forage crop notable, except that of
alfalfa, which greatly surpasses that of any other state. In 1906 the
state produced 3,157,136 bushels of Indian corn, valued at $1,578,568;
8,266,538 bushels of wheat, valued at $5,373,250; 5,962,394 bushels of
oats, valued at $2,683,077; 759,771 bushels of barley, valued at
$410,276; 43,580 bushels of rye, valued at $24,405; and 1,596,542 tons
of hay, valued at $15,167,149. The value of vegetable products, of
fruits, and of dairy products was, relatively, equally small (only
$7,346,415 in 1899). Natural fruits are rare and practically worthless.
Apples, peaches, plums, apricots, pears, cherries and melons have been
introduced. The best fruit sections are the Arkansas valley, and in the
western and south-western parts of the state. Melons are to some extent
exported, and peaches also; the musk-melons of the Arkansas valley
(Rocky Ford Canteloupes) being in demand all over the United States. The
fruit industry dates practically from 1890. The dairy industry is
rapidly increasing. In the holdings of neat cattle (1,453,971) and sheep
(2,045,577) it ranked in 1900 respectively seventeenth and tenth among
the states of the Union; in 1907, according to the _Yearbook_ of the
Department of Agriculture, there were in the state 1,561,712 neat cattle
and 1,677,561 sheep. Stock-raising has always been important. The parks
and mountain valleys are largely given over to ranges. The native
grasses are especially adapted for fodder. The grama, buffalo and bunch
varieties cure on the stem, and furnish throughout the winter an
excellent ranging food. These native grasses, even the thin bunch
varieties of dry hills, are surprisingly nutritious, comparing very
favourably with cultivated grasses. Large areas temporarily devoted to
cultivation with poor success, and later allowed to revert to ranges,
have become prosperous and even noted as stock country. This is true of
the sandhill region of eastern Colorado. The grass flora of the lowlands
is not so rich in variety nor so abundant in quality as that of high
altitudes. Before the plains were fenced large herds drifted to the
south in the winter, but now sufficient hay and alfalfa are cut to feed
the cattle during the storms, which at longest are brief. An account of
Colorado agriculture would not be complete without mentioning the
depredations of the grasshopper, which are at times extraordinarily
destructive, as also of the "Colorado Beetle" (_Doryphora
decemlineata_), or common potato-bug, which has extended its fatal
activities eastward throughout the prairie states.
_Minerals._--Colorado is pre-eminently a mineral region, and to this fact
it owes its colonization. It possesses unlimited supplies, as yet not
greatly exploited, of fine building stones, some oil and asphalt, and
related bituminous products, a few precious and semi-precious stones
(especially tourmalines, beryls and aquamarines found near Canyon near
the Royal Gorge of the Arkansas river), rare opalized and jasperized wood
(in the eastern part of the El Paso county), considerable wealth of lead
and copper, enormous fields of bituminous coal, and enormous wealth of
the precious metals. In the exploitation of the last there have been
three periods: that before the discovery of the lead-carbonate silver
ores of Leadville in 1879, in which period gold-mining was predominant;
the succeeding years until 1894, in which silver-mining was predominant;
and the period since 1894, in which gold has attained an overwhelming
primacy. The two metals are found in more than 50 counties, San Miguel,
Gilpin, Boulder, Clear Creek, Lake, El Paso and Teller being the leading
producers. The Cripple Creek field in the last-named county is one of the
most wonderful mining districts, past or present, of America. Leadville,
in Lake county, is another. The district about Silverton (product
1870-1900 about $35,000,000, principally silver and lead, and mostly
after 1881) has also had a remarkable development; and Creede, in the
years of its brief prosperity, was a phenomenal silver-field. From 1858
up to and including 1904 the state produced, according to the State
Bureau of Mines (whose statistics have since about 1890 been brought into
practical agreement with those of the national government) a value of no
less than $889,203,323 in gold, silver, lead, copper and zinc at market
prices. (If the value of silver be taken at coinage value this total
becomes vastly greater.) The yield of gold was $353,913,695-$229,236,997
from 1895 to 1904; of silver, $386,455,463-$115,698,366 from 1889 to
1893; of lead, $120,742,674--its importance beginning in 1879; of copper,
$17,879,446-$8,441,783 from 1898 to 1904; and of zinc, $10,212,045--all
this from 1902 to 1904. Silver-mining ceased to be highly remunerative
beginning with the closing of the India mints and repeal of the Sherman
Law in 1893; since 1900 the yield has shown an extraordinary decrease--in
1905 it was $6,945,581, and in 1907 $7,411,652--and it is said that as a
result of the great fall in the market value of the metal the mines can
now be operated only under the most favourable conditions and by exercise
of extreme economy. In Lake county, for example, very much of the
argentiferous ore that is too low for remunerative extraction (limit 1903
about $12.00 per ton) is used for fluxes.[1] The copper output was of
slight importance until 1889--$1,457,749 in 1905, and $1,544,918 in 1907;
and that of zinc was nil until 1902, when discoveries made it possible to
rework for this metal enormous dumps of waste material about the mines,
and in 1906 the zinc output was valued at $5,304,884. Lead products
declined with silver, but a large output of low ores has continued at
Leadville, and in 1905 the product was valued at $5,111,570, and in 1906
at $5,933,829. Up to 1895 the gold output was below ten million dollars
yearly; from 1898 to 1904 it ran from 21.6 to 28.7 millions. In 1897 the
product first exceeded that of California. In 1907 the value was
$20,826,194. Silver values ran, in the years 1880-1902, from 11.3 to 23.1
million dollars; and the quantities in the same years from 11.6 to 26.3
million ounces. In 1907 it was 11,229,776 oz., valued at $7,411,652.
Regarding again the total combined product of the above five metals, its
growth is shown by these figures for its value in the successive periods
indicated: 1858-1879, $77,380,140; 1879-1888, $220,815,709; 1889-1898,
$322,878,362; 1899-1904, $268,229,112. From 1900 to 1903 Colorado
produced almost exactly a third of the total gold and silver (market
value) product of the entire country.
In addition, iron ores (almost all brown hematite) occur abundantly, and
all material for making steel of excellent quality. But very little iron
is mined, in 1907 only 11,714 long tons, valued at $21,085. Of much more
importance are the manganiferous and the silver manganiferous ores,
which are much the richest of the country. Their product trebled from
1889 to 1903; and in 1907 the output of manganiferous ores amounted to
99,711 tons, valued at $251,207. A small amount is used for
spiegeleisen, and the rest as a flux.
The stratified rocks of the Great Plains, the Parks, and the Plateaus
contain enormous quantities of coal. The coal-bearing rocks are confined
to the Upper Cretaceous, and almost wholly to the Laramie formation. The
main areas are on the two flanks of the Rockies, with two smaller fields
in the Parks. The east group includes the fields of Canyon City (whose
product is the ideal domestic coal of the western states), Raton and the
South Platte; the Park group includes the Cones field and the Middle
Park; the west group includes the Yampa, La Plata and Grand River
fields--the last prospectively (not yet actually) the most valuable of
all as to area and quality. About three-fifths of all the coal produced
in the state comes from Las Animas and Huerfano counties. In 1901 about
a third and in 1907 nearly two-fifths of the state's output came from
Las Animas county. The Colorado fields are superior to those of all the
other Rocky Mountain states in area, and in quality of product. In 1907
Colorado ranked seventh among the coal-producing states of the Union,
yielding 10,790,236 short tons (2.2% of the total for the United
States). The total includes every variety from typical lignite to
typical anthracite. The aggregate area of beds is estimated by the
United States Geological Survey at 18,100 sq. m. (seventh in rank of the
states of the Union); and the accessible coal, on other authority, at
33,897,800,000 tons. The industry began in 1864, in which year 500 tons
were produced. The product first exceeded one million tons in 1882, two
in 1888, three in 1890, four in 1893, five in 1900. From 1897 to 1902
the yield almost doubled, averaging 5,267,783 tons (lignite,
semi-bituminous, bituminous, and a steady average production of 60,038
tons of anthracite). About one-fifth of the total product is made into
coke, the output of which increased from 245,746 tons in 1890 to
1,421,579 tons (including a slight amount from Utah) in 1907; in 1907
the coke manufactured in Colorado (and Utah) was valued at $4,747,436.
Colorado holds the same supremacy for coal and coke west of the
Mississippi that Pennsylvania holds for the country as a whole. The true
bituminous coal produced, which in 1897 was only equal to that of the
lignitic and semi-bituminous varieties (1.75 million tons), had come by
1902 to constitute three-fourths (5.46 million tons) of the entire coal
output. Much of the bituminous coal, especially that of the Canyon City
field, is so hard and clean as to be little less desirable than
anthracite; it is the favoured coal for domestic uses in all the
surrounding states.
Petroleum occurs in Fremont and Boulder counties. There have been very
few flowing wells. The product increased from 76,295 barrels in 1887 to
above 800,000 in the early 'nineties; it fell thereafter, averaging
about 493,269 barrels from 1899 to 1903; in 1905 the yield was 376,238
barrels; and in 1907, 331,851 barrels. In 1905 the state ranked
eleventh, in 1907 twelfth, in production of petroleum. It is mostly
refined at Florence, the centre of the older field. The Boulder district
developed very rapidly after 1902; its product is a high-grade
illuminant with paraffin base. Asphalt occurs in the high north rim of
Middle Park (c. 10,000 ft.). Tungsten is found in wolframite in Boulder
county. In 1903 about 37,000 men were employed in the mines of Colorado.
Labour troubles have been notable in state history since 1890.
Mineral springs have already been mentioned. They are numerous and occur
in various parts of the state. The most important are at Buena Vista,
Ouray, Wagon Wheel Gap, Poncha or Poncho Springs (90°-185° F.), Canyon
City, Manitou, Idaho Springs and Glenwood Springs (120°-140° F., highly
mineralized). The last three places, all beautifully situated--the first
at the base of Pike's Peak, the second in the Clear Creek Canyon, and
the third at the junction of the Roaring Fork with the Grand river--have
an especially high repute. In 1904 it was competently estimated that the
mineral yield and agricultural yield of the state were almost
equal--somewhat above $47,000,000 each.[2]
In 1900 only 4.6% of the population were engaged in manufactures. They
are mainly dependent on the mining industry. There are many large
smelters and reduction plants in the state, most of them at Denver,
Leadville, Durango and Pueblo; at the latter place there are also
blast-furnaces, a steel plant and rolling mills. Use is made of the most
improved methods of treating the ore. The cyanide process, introduced
about 1890, is now one of the most important factors in the utilization
of low-grade and refractory gold and silver ores. The improved dioxide
cyanide process was adopted about 1895. The iron and steel
product--mainly at Pueblo--is of great importance, though relatively
small as compared with that of some other states. Nevertheless, the very
high rank in coal and iron interests of the state among the states west
of the Mississippi, the presence of excellent manganiferous ores, a
central position for distribution, and much the best railway system of
any mountain state, indicate that Colorado will almost certainly
eventually entirely or at least largely control the trans-Mississippi
market in iron and steel. The Federal census of 1900 credited the
manufacturing establishments of the state with a capital of $62,825,472
and a product of $102,830,137 (increase 1890-1900, 142.1%); of which
output the gold, silver, lead and copper smelted amounted to
$44,625,305. Of the other products, iron and steel ($6,108,295),
flouring and grist-mill products ($4,528,062), foundry and machine-shop
products ($3,986,985), steam railway repair and construction work
($3,141,602), printing and publishing, wholesale slaughtering and meat
packing, malt liquors, lumber and timber, and coke were the most
important. The production of beet sugar is relatively important, as more
of it was produced in Colorado in 1905 than in any other state; in 1906
334,386,000 lb (out of a grand total for the United States of
967,224,000 lb) were manufactured here; the value of the product in 1905
was $7,198,982, being 29.2% of the value of all the beet sugar produced
in the United States in that year.[3]
_Railways._--On the 1st of January 1909 there were 5403.05 m. of railway
in operation. The Denver Pacific, built from Cheyenne, Wyoming, reached
Denver in June 1870, and the Kansas Pacific, from Kansas City, in August
of the same year. Then followed the building of the Denver & Rio Grande
(1871), to which the earlier development of the state is largely due.
The great Santa Fé (1873), Burlington (1882), Missouri Pacific (1887)
and Rock Island (1888) systems reached Pueblo, Denver and Colorado
Springs successively from the east. In 1888 the Colorado Midland started
from Colorado Springs westward, up the Ute Pass, through the South Park
to Leadville, and thence over the continental divide to Aspen and
Glenwood Springs. The Colorado & Southern, a consolidation of roads
connecting Colorado with the south, has also become an important system.
_Population._--The population of the state in 1870 was 39,864; in 1880,
194,327[4]; in 1890, 413,249; in 1900, 539,700; and in 1910, 799,024. Of
the 1900 total, males constituted 54.7%, native born 83.1%. The 10,654
persons of coloured race included 1437 Indians and 647 Chinese and
Japanese, the rest being negroes. Of 185,708 males twenty-one or more
years of age 7689 (4.1%) were illiterate (unable to write), including a
fourth of the Asiatics, a sixth of the Indians, one-nineteenth of the
negroes, one in twenty-four of the foreign born, and one in 147.4 of the
native born. Of 165 incorporated cities, towns and villages, 27 had a
population exceeding 2000, and 7 a population of above 5000. The latter
were Denver (133,859), Pueblo (28,137), Colorado Springs (21,085),
Leadville (12,455), Cripple Creek (10,147), Boulder (6150) and Trinidad
(5345). Creede, county-seat of Mineral county, was a phenomenal silver
camp from its discovery in 1891 until 1893; in 1892 it numbered already
7000 inhabitants, but the rapid depreciation of silver soon thereafter
caused most of its mines to be closed, and in 1910 the population was
only 741. Grand Junction (pop. in 1910, 7754) derives importance from
its railway connexions, and from the distribution of the fruit and other
products of the irrigated valley of the Grand river. Roman Catholics are
in the majority among church adherents, and Methodists and Presbyterians
most numerous of the Protestant denominations. The South Ute Indian
Reservation in the south of the state is the home of the Moache, Capote
and Wiminuche Utes, of Shoshonean stock.
_Administration._--The first and only state constitution was adopted in
1876. It requires a separate popular vote on any amendment--though as
many as six may be (since 1900) voted on at one election. Amendments
have been rather freely adopted. The General Assemblies are biennial,
sessions limited to 90 days (45 before 1884); state and county elections
are held at the same time (since 1902). A declared intention to become a
United States citizen ceased in 1902 to be sufficient qualification for
voters, full citizenship (with residence qualifications) being made
requisite. An act of 1909 provides that election campaign expenses shall
be borne "only by the state and by the candidates," and authorized
appropriations for this purpose. Full woman suffrage was adopted in 1893
(by a majority of about 6000 votes). Women have served in the
legislature and in many minor offices; they are not eligible as jurors.
The governor may veto any separate item in an appropriation bill. The
state treasurer and auditor may not hold office during two consecutive
terms. Convicts are deprived of the privilege of citizenship only during
imprisonment. County government is of the commissioner type. There is a
State Voter's League similar to that of Illinois.
In 1907 the total bonded debt of the state was $393,500; the General
Assembly in 1906 authorized the issue of $900,000 worth of bonds to fund
outstanding military certificates of indebtedness incurred in
suppressing insurrections at Cripple Creek and elsewhere in 1903-1904.
The question of issuing bonds for all outstanding warrants was decided
to be voted on by the people in November 1908. Taxation has been very
erratic. From 1877 to 1893 the total assessment rose steadily from
$3,453,946 to $238,722,417; it then fell at least partly owing to the
depreciation in and uncertain values of mining property, and from 1894
to 1900 fluctuated between 192.2 and 216.8 million dollars; in 1901 it
was raised to $465,874,288, and fluctuated in the years following; the
estimated total assessment for 1907 was $365,000,000.
Of charitable and reformatory institutions a soldiers' and sailors' home
(1889) is maintained at Monte Vista, a school for the deaf and blind
(1874) at Colorado Springs, an insane asylum (1879) at Pueblo, a home
for dependent and neglected children (1895) at Denver, an industrial
school for girls (1887) near Morrison, and for boys (1881) at Golden, a
reformatory (1889) at Buena Vista, and a penitentiary (1868) at Canyon
City. Denver was one of the earliest cities in the country to institute
special courts for juvenile offenders; a reform that is widening in
influence and promise. The parole system is in force in the state
reformatory; and in the industrial school at Golden (for youthful
offenders) no locks, bars or cells are used, the theory being to treat
the inmates as "students." The state has a parole law and an
indeterminate-sentence law for convicts.
[Illustration: Colorado map]
The public school system of Colorado dates from 1861, when a school law
was passed by the Territorial legislation; this law was superseded by
that of 1876, which with subsequent amendments is still in force. In
expenditure for the public schools per capita of total population from
1890 to 1903 Colorado was one of a small group of leading states. In
1906 there were 187,836 persons of school age (from 6 to 21) in the
state, and of these 144,007 were enrolled in the schools; the annual
cost of education was $4.34 per pupil. In 1902-1903, 92.5% of persons
from 5 to 18 years of age were enrolled in the schools. The institutions
of the state are: the University of Colorado, at Boulder, opened 1877;
the School of Mines, at Golden (1873); the Agricultural College, at Fort
Collins (1870); the Normal School (1891) at Greeley; and the
above-mentioned industrial schools. All are supported by special taxes
and appropriations--the Agricultural College receiving also the usual
aid from the federal government. Experiment stations in connexion with
the college are maintained at different points. Colorado College (1874)
at Colorado Springs, Christian but not denominational, and the
University of Denver, Methodist, are on independent foundations. The
United States maintains an Indian School at Grand Junction.
_History._--According as one regards the Louisiana purchase as including
or not including Texas to the Rio Grande (in the territorial meaning of
the state of Texas of 1845), one may say that all of Colorado east of
the meridian of the head of the Rio Grande, or only that north of the
Arkansas and east of the meridian of its head, passed to the United
States in 1803. At all events the corner between the Rio Grande and the
Arkansas was Spanish from 1819 to 1845, when it became American
territory as a part of the state of Texas; and in 1850, by a boundary
arrangement between that state and the federal government, was
incorporated in the public domain. The territory west of the divide was
included in the Mexican cession of 1848. Within Colorado there are
pueblos and cave dwellings commemorative of the Indian period and
culture of the south-west. Coronado may have entered Colorado in 1540;
there are also meagre records of indisputable Spanish explorations in
the south in the latter half of the 18th century (friars Escallante and
Dominguez in 1776). In 1806 Zebulon M. Pike, mapping the Arkansas and
Red rivers of the Louisiana Territory for the government of the United
States, followed the Arkansas into Colorado, incidentally discovering
the famous peak that bears his name. In 1819 Major S. H. Long explored
the valleys of the South Platte and Arkansas, pronouncing them
uninhabited and uncultivable (as he also did the valley of the Missouri,
whence the idea of the "Great American Desert"). His work also is
commemorated by a famous summit of the Rockies. There is nothing more of
importance in Colorado annals until 1858. From 1804 to 1854 the whole or
parts of Colorado were included, nominally, under some half-dozen
territories carved successively out of the Trans-Mississippi country;
but not one of these had any practical significance for an uninhabited
land. In 1828 (to 1832) a fortified trading post was established near La
Junta in the Arkansas valley on the Santa Fé trail; in 1834-1836 several
private forts were erected on the Platte; in 1841 the first overland
emigrants to the Pacific coast crossed the state, and in 1846-1847 the
Mormons settled temporarily at the old Mexican town of Pueblo. John C.
Frémont had explored the region in 1842-1843 (and unofficially in later
years for railway routes), and gave juster reports of the country to the
world than his predecessors. Commerce was tributary in these years to
the (New) Mexican town of Taos.
Colorado was practically an unknown country when in 1858 gold was
discovered in the plains, on the tributaries of the South Platte, near
Denver. In 1859 various discoveries were made in the mountains. The
history of Denver goes back to this time. Julesburg, in the extreme
north-east corner, at the intersection of the Platte valley and the
overland wagon route, became transiently important during the rush of
settlers that followed. Emigration from the East was stimulated by the
panic and hard times following 1857. During 1860, 1861 and 1862 there
was a continuous stream of immigration. Denver (under its present name),
Black Hawk, Golden, Central City, Mount Vernon and Nevada City were all
founded in 1859; Breckenridge, Empire, Gold Hill, Georgetown and Mill
City date from 1860 and 1861. The political development of the next few
years was very complicated. "Arapahoe County," including all Colorado,
was organized as a part of Kansas Territory in 1858; but a delegate was
also sent to Congress to work for the admission of an independent
territory (called "Jefferson"). At the same time, early in 1860, a
movement for statehood was inaugurated, a constitution being framed and
submitted to the people, who rejected it, adopting later in the year a
constitution of territorial government. Accordingly the Territory of
Jefferson arose, assuming to rule over six degrees of latitude (37°-43°)
and eight of longitude (102°-110°). Then there was the Kansas
territorial government also, and under this a full county organization
was maintained. Finally, peoples' court, acting wholly without reference
to Kansas, and with no more than suited them (some districts refusing
taxes) to the local "provisional" legislature, secured justice in the
mining country. The provisional legislature of the Territory of
Jefferson maintained a wholly illegal but rather creditable existence
somewhat precariously and ineffectively until 1861. Its acts, owing to
the indifference of the settlers, had slight importance. Some, such as
the first charter of Denver, were later re-enacted under the legal
territorial government, organized by the United States in February 1861.
Colorado City was the first capital, but was soon replaced by Golden,
which was the capital from 1862 until 1868, when Denver was made the
seat of government (in 1881 permanently, by vote of the people). In 1862
some Texas forces were defeated by Colorado forces in an attempt to
occupy the territory for the Confederacy. From 1864 to 1870 there was
trouble with the Cheyenne and Arapahoe Indians. A sanguinary attack on
an Indian camp in Kiowa county in 1864 is known as the Sand Creek
Massacre. In 1867 the Republican party had prepared for the admission of
Colorado as a state, but the enabling act was vetoed by President
Johnson, and statehood was not gained until 1876. Finally, under a
congressional enabling act of the 3rd of March 1875, a constitution was
framed by a convention at Denver (20th of December 1875 to 14th of March
1876) and adopted by the people on the 1st of July 1876. The admission
of Colorado to the Union was thereupon proclaimed on the 1st of August
1876.
From this time on the history of the state was long largely that of her
great mining camps. After 1890 industrial conditions were confused and
temporarily set greatly backward by strikes and lockouts in the mines,
particularly in 1894, 1896-1897 and 1903-1904, several times threatening
civil war and necessitating the establishment of martial law. Questions
of railways, of franchises, union scales and the recognition of the
union in contracts, questions of sheep and cattle interests, politics,
civic, legal and industrial questions, all entered into the economic
troubles of these years. The Colorado "labour wars" were among the most
important struggles between labour and capital, and afforded probably
the most sensational episodes in the story of all labour troubles in the
United States in these years. A state board of arbitration was created
in 1896, but its usefulness was impaired by an opinion of the state
attorney-general (in 1901) that it could not enforce subpoenas, compel
testimony or enforce decisions. A law establishing an eight-hour day for
underground miners and smelter employees (1899) was unanimously voided
by the state supreme court, but in 1902 the people amended the
constitution and ordered the general assembly to re-enact the law for
labourers in mines, smelters and dangerous employments. Following the
repeal of the Sherman Law and other acts and tendencies unfavourable to
silver coinage in 1893 and thereafter, the silver question became the
dominant issue in politics, resulting in the success of the
Populist-Democratic fusion party in three successive elections, and
permanently and greatly altering prior party organizations.
The governors of Colorado have been as follows:--
_Territorial._
W. Gilpin 1861 E. M. McCook 1869
J. Evans 1862 S. H. Elbert 1873
A. Cummings 1865 E. M. McCook 1874
A. C. Hunt 1867 J. L. Routt 1875
_State._
J. L. Routt Republican 1876
F. W. Pitkin " 1879
J. B. Grant Democrat 1883
B. H. Eaton Republican 1885
A. Adams Democrat 1887
J. A. Cooper Republican 1890
J. L. Routt " 1891
D. H. Waite Populist 1893
A. W. M'Intire Republican 1895
A. Adams Dem.-Populist 1897
C. S. Thomas " 1899
J. B. Orman " 1901
J. H. Peabody Republican 1903
A. Adams Democrat 1905[5]
Jesse F. M'Donald Republican 1905[5]
Henry A. Buchtel " 1907
John H. Shafroth Democrat 1909
AUTHORITIES.--For _topography and general description_: Hayden and
assistants, reports on _Colorado_, U.S. Department of the Interior,
Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories (13 vols.,
1867-1878), various reports, especially annual report for 1874;
Captain J. C. Frémont, _Report of the Exploring Expedition to the
Rocky Mountains in 1842_, published 1845 as Congressional document
28th Congress, 2nd Session, House Executive Document No. 166, and
various other editions. Other early exploring reports are: _The
Expeditions of Zebulon Montgomery Pike ... Through Louisiana Territory
and in New Spain in the Years 1805-6-7_, edited by E. Coues (3 vols.,
New York, 1895); _Account of an Expedition from Pittsburgh to the
Rocky Mountains, 1819-20, under the Command of Major S. H. Long;
compiled ... by Edwin James_ (3 vols., London; 2 vols., Philadelphia,
1823); Captain H. Stansbury, _Exploration of the Valley of the Great
Salt Lake_ (2 vols., Philadelphia, 1852; also as Senate Executive
Document No. 3, 32nd Congress Special Session); Francis Parkman, _The
California and Oregon Trail_ (New York, 1849; revised ed., Boston,
1892),--a narrative of personal experience, as are the two following
books: Bayard Taylor, _Colorado; A Summer Trip_ (New York, 1867);
Samuel Bowles, _The Switzerland of America, A Summer Vacation in
Colorado_ (Springfield, Mass., 1869); F. Fossett, _Colorado; A
Historical, Descriptive and Statistical Work on the Rocky Mountain
Gold and Silver Region_ (Denver, 1878; New York, 1879, 2nd ed., 1880).
On _fauna and flora_: United States Biological Survey, _Bulletins_
(especially No. 10), &c.; the _Biennial Report_ of the State Game and
Fish Commissioner; United States Geological Survey, _10th Annual
Report_, pt. v., and 20th A.R., pt. 5, and various publications of the
United States Forestry Division for forest and forest reserves; Porter
and Coulter, _Synopsis of the Flora of Colorado_ (1879); and scattered
papers in scientific periodicals. On _climate_: United States
Department of Agriculture, _Colorado Climate and Crop Service_
(monthly). On _soil and agriculture_: _Annual Report_ of the State
Board of Agriculture (since 1878), of the State Agricultural College,
Agricultural Experiment Station (since 1887), and of the State Board
of Horticulture; _Biennial Report_ of the State Board of Land
Commissioners (since 1879); publications of the United States
Department of Agriculture, various bulletins on agrostology, water
supply and irrigation, &c. (See Department bibliographies); United
States Census, 1900 (States), _Bulletin_ 177, "Agriculture in
Colorado" (Special), _Bulletin_ 16, "Irrigation in the United States"
(1902), &c.; United States Geological Survey, various materials,
consult bibliographies in its Bulletins 100, 177, 215, 301, &c. On
_manufactures_: publications of United States Census, 1900, and the
special census of manufactures, 1905. On _mineral industries_: United
States Geological Survey, _Annual Report_, annual volume on "Mineral
Resources"; also the annual _Mineral Industry_ (Rothwell's New
York-London); Colorado State Bureau of Mines, _Biennial Report_,
Inspector of Coal Mines, _Biennial Report_ (since 1883-1884); and an
enormous quantity of information in the publications of the United
States Geological Survey. For labour troubles see below. On
_railways_, see annual _Statistics of Railways_ of the United States
Interstate Commerce Commission, and Poor's Manual (Annual, New York).
_Rivers_, see _Index to Reports of the Chief of Engineers_, United
States Army (3 vols., 1900, covering 1866-1900); publications United
States Geological Survey. On _population_: United States Census, 1900.
_Administration_: J. W. Mills' _Annotated Statutes of the State of
Colorado ..._ (2 vols., Denver, 1891; vol. iii. 1896); Helen L.
Sumner, _Equal Suffrage in Colorado_ (New York, 1909,); J. E. Snook,
_Colorado History and Government_ (Denver, 1904), is a reliable school
epitome.
On _history_: F. L. Paxson, "A Preliminary Bibliography of Colorado
History," being vol. iii., No. 3, of _University of Colorado Studies_
(June 1906); H. H. Bancroft, _History of ... Nevada, Colorado and
Wyoming, 1540-1888_ (San Francisco, 1890); on _labour conditions and
troubles_ consult: _Reports_ of the State Bureau of Labour Statistics
(since 1892); _Annual Reports_ of the State Board of Arbitration
(since 1898); publications of United States Bureau of Labour
(bibliographies); also especially Senate Document 122, 58th Congress,
3rd Session, covering the years 1880-1904. See also CRIPPLE CREEK and
LEADVILLE.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The market value of silver varied in the years 1870-1885 from
$1.32 to $1.065 an ounce; 1886-1893, $0.995 to $0.782; 1894-1904,
$0.630 to $0.5722.
[2] The mineral yield for 1907, according to _The Mineral Resources
of the United States_, 1907, amounted to $71,105,128.
[3] The special census of manufactures of 1905 was concerned only
with the manufacturing establishments of the state conducted under
the so-called factory system. The capital invested in such
establishments was $107,663,500, and the product was valued at
$100,143,999. The corresponding figures for 1900 reduced to the same
standard for purposes of comparison were $58,172,865 and $89,067,879.
Thus during the five years the capital invested in factories
increased 85.1%, and the factory product 12.4%. The increase in
product would undoubtedly have been much greater but for the labour
disturbances (described later in the article), which occurred during
this interval. Of the total product in 1905 more than four-fifths
were represented by the smelting of lead, copper and zinc ores, the
manufacture of iron and steel, the production of coke, and the
refining of petroleum. The value of the flour and grist-mill product
was $5,783,421.
[4] Census figures before 1890 do not include Indians on
reservations.
[5] Adams was inaugurated on the 10th of January, having been elected
on the return of the vote, which had been notoriously corrupted in
Denver and elsewhere. The Republican legislature, after investigating
the election and upon receiving from Peabody a written promise that
he would resign in twenty-four hours, declared on the 16th of March
that Peabody was elected. His resignation on the 17th of March made
Lieutenant-Governor M'Donald governor of the state.
COLORADO RIVER, a stream in the south of the Argentine Republic. It has
its sources on the eastern slopes of the Andes in the lat. of the
Chilean volcano Tinguiririca (about 34° 48' S.), and pursues a general
E.S.E. course to the Atlantic, where it discharges through several
channels of a delta extending from lat. 39° 30' to 39° 30' S. Its total
length is about 620 m., of which about 200 m. from the coast up to
Pichemahuida is navigable for vessels of 7 ft. draft. It has been
usually described as being formed by the confluence of the Grande and
Barrancas, but as the latter is only a small stream compared with the
Grande it is better described as a tributary, and the Grande as a part
of the main river under another name. After leaving the vicinity of the
Andes the Colorado flows through a barren, arid territory and receives
no tributary of note except the Curaco, which has its sources in the
Pampa territory and is considered to be part of the ancient outlet of
the now closed lacustrine basin of southern Mendoza. The bottom lands of
the Colorado in its course across Patagonia are fertile and wooded, but
their area is too limited to support more than a small, scattered
population.
COLORADO RIVER, a stream in the south-west of the United States of
America, draining a part of the high and arid plateau between the Rocky
mountains and the Sierra Nevada in California. The light rainfall
scarcely suffices over much of the river's course to make good the loss
by evaporation from the waters drained from mountain snows at its
source. Its headwaters are known as the Green river, which rises in
north-west Wyoming and after a course of some 700 m. due south unites in
south-east Utah with the Grand river, flowing down from Colorado, to
form the main trunk of the Colorado proper. The Green cuts its way
through the Uinta mountains of Wyoming; then flowing intermittently in
the open, it crosses successive uplifts in a series of deep gorges, and
flows finally at the foot of canyon walls 1500 ft. high near its
junction with the Grand.
The Colorado in its course below the junction has formed a region that
is one of the most wonderful of the world, not only for its unique and
magnificent scenery, but also because it affords the most remarkable
example known of the work of differential weathering and erosion by wind
and water and the exposure of geologic strata on an enormous scale.
Above the Paria the river flows through scenery comparatively tame until
it reaches the plateau of the Marble Canyon, some 60 m. in length. The
walls here are at first only a few score of feet in height, but increase
rapidly to almost 5000 ft. At its southern end is the Little Colorado.
Above this point eleven rivers with steep mountain gradients have joined
either the Green or the Grand or their united system. The Little
Colorado has cut a trench 1800 ft. deep into the plateau in the last 27
m. as it approaches the Colorado, and empties into it 2625 ft. above the
sea. Here the Colorado turns abruptly west directly athwart the folds
and fault line of the plateau, through the Grand Canyon (q.v.) of the
Colorado, which is 217 m. long and from 4 to 20 m. wide between the
upper cliffs. The walls, 4000 to 6000 ft. high, drop in successive
escarpments of 500 to 1600 ft., banded in splendid colours, toward the
gloomy narrow gorge of the present river. Below the confluence of the
Virgin river of Nevada the Colorado abruptly turns again, this time
southward, and flows as the boundary between Arizona and California and
in part between Arizona and Nevada, and then through Mexican territory,
some 450 m. farther to the Gulf of California. Below the Black Canyon
the river lessens in gradient, and in its lower course flows in a broad
sedimentary valley--a distinct estuarine plain extending northward
beyond Yuma--and the channel through much of this region is bedded in a
dyke-like embankment lying above the flood-plain over which the escaping
water spills in time of flood. This dyke cuts off the flow of the river
to the remarkable low area in southern California known as the Salton
Sink, or Coahuila Valley, the descent to which from the river near Yuma
is very much greater than the fall in the actual river-bed from Yuma to
the gulf. In the autumn of 1904, the diversion flow from the river into
a canal heading in Mexican territory a few miles below Yuma, and
intended for irrigation of California south of the Sink, escaped
control, and the river, taking the canal as a new channel, recreated in
California a great inland sea--to the bed of which it had frequently
been turned formerly, for example, in 1884 and 1891--and for a time
practically abandoned its former course through Mexican territory to the
Gulf of California. But it was effectively dammed in the early part of
1907 and returned to its normal course, from which, however, there was
still much leakage to Salton Sea; in July 1907 the permanent dam was
completed. From the Black Canyon to the sea the Colorado normally flows
through a desert-like basin, to the west of which, in Mexico, is Laguna
Maquata (or Salada), lying in the so-called Pattie Basin, which was
formerly a part of the Gulf of California, and which is frequently
partially flooded (like Coahuila Valley) by the delta waters of the
Colorado. Of the total length of the Colorado, about 2200 m., 500 m. or
more from the mouth are navigable by light steamers, but channel
obstacles make all navigation difficult at low water, and impossible
about half the year above Mojave. The whole area drained by the river
and its tributaries is about 225,000 sq. m.; and it has been estimated
by Major J. W. Powell that in its drainage basin there are fully 200,000
sq. m. that have been degraded on an average 6000 ft. It is still a
powerful eroding stream in the canyon portion, and its course below the
canyons has a shifting bed much obstructed by bars built of sediment
carried from the upper course. The desert country toward the mouth is
largely a sandy or gravelly aggradation plain of the river. The regular
floods are in May and June. Others, due to rains, are rare. The rise of
the water at such times is extraordinarily rapid. Enormous drift is left
in the canyons 30 or 40 ft. above the normal level. The valley near Yuma
is many miles wide, frequently inundated, and remarkably fertile; it is
often called the "Nile of America" from its resemblance in climate,
fertility, overflows and crops. These alluvial plains are covered with a
dense growth of mesquite, cottonwood, willow, arrowwood, quelite and
wild hemp. Irrigation is essential to regular agriculture. There is a
fine delta in the gulf. The Colorado is remarkable for exceedingly high
tides at its mouth and for destructive bores.
In 1540, the second year that Spaniards entered Arizona, they discovered
the Colorado. Hernando de Alarcon co-operating with F. V. de Coronado,
explored with ships the Gulf of California and sailed up the lower
river; Melchior Diaz, marching along the shores of the gulf, likewise
reached the river; and Captain Gárcia López de Cárdenas, marching from
Zuñi, reached the Grand Canyon, but could not descend its walls. In 1604
Juan de Oñate crossed Arizona from New Mexico and descended the Santa
Maria, Bill Williams and Colorado to the gulf. The name Colorado was
first applied to the present Colorado Chiquito, and probably about 1630
to the Colorado of to-day. But up to 1869 great portions of the river
were still unknown. James White, a miner, in 1867, told a picturesque
story (not generally accepted as true) of making the passage of the
Grand Canyon on the river. In 1869, and in later expeditions, the feat
was accomplished by Major J. W. Powell. There have been since then
repeated explorations and scientific studies.
See C. E. Dutton, "Tertiary History of the Grand Canyon," _U.S.
Geological Survey, Monograph II_. (1882); J. W. Powell, _Exploration
of the Colorado River_ (Washington, 1875), and _Canyons of the
Colorado_ (Meadville, Pa. 1895); F. S. Dellenbaugh, _Romance of the
Colorado River_ (New York, 1902), and _Canyon Voyage_ (1908); G. W.
James, _Wonders of the Colorado Desert_ (2 vols., Boston, 1906).
COLORADO SPRINGS, a city and the county-seat of El Paso county,
Colorado, U.S.A., about 75 m. S. of Denver. Pop. (1890) 11,140; (1900)
21,085, of whom 2300 were foreign-born; (1910) 29,078. The city is
served by the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fè, the Denver & Rio Grande, the
Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific (of which the city is a terminus), the
Colorado & Southern, the Colorado Springs & Cripple Creek District
(controlled by the Colorado & Southern), and the Colorado Midland
railways, of which the first three are continental systems. Continuous
on the west with Colorado Springs is Colorado City (pop. in 1900, 2914),
one of the oldest settlements of Colorado, and the first capital (1861).
Colorado Springs is superbly situated where the Rocky Mountains rise
from the great plains of the prairie states, surrounded on all sides by
foothills save in the south-east, where it is open to the prairie. To
the south of the mesa (tableland) on which it lies is the valley of
Fountain Creek. To the west is the grand background of the canyon-riven
Rampart range, with Pike's Peak (q.v.) dominating a half-dozen other
peaks (among them Cameron Cone, Mt. Rosa, Cheyenne Mt.) 9000 to 12,000
ft. in height. Monument Creek traverses the city. The streets are of
generous width (100-140 ft.), and are well shaded by trees. There are
several fine parks. The city is the seat of a state asylum for the
deaf, dumb and blind, of a printers' home for union men, which was
endowed in 1892 by Anthony J. Drexel and George W. Childs, and of
Colorado College (1874), one of the leading educational institutions of
the Rocky Mountain states, and the oldest institution for higher
education in the state. The college is coeducational and non-sectarian.
In 1908 it had a permanent endowment of about $425,000, a faculty of 46
and 607 students; the library contained 40,000 bound volumes and as many
pamphlets. The departments of the institution are a college of arts;
schools of engineering (1903), music, and (1906) forestry; and the
Cutler Academy, a preparatory school under the control of the college.
In 1905 Gen. W. J. Palmer (1836-1909) and W. A. Bell gave to the college
Manitou Park, a tract of forest land covering about 13,000 acres and
situated about 20 m. from Colorado Springs.
Bright sunshine and a pleasant climate (mean annual temperature about
48° F., rainfall 14 in., falling almost wholly from April to September,
relative humidity 59), combined with beautiful scenery, have made the
city a favourite health resort and place of residence. Land deeds for
city property have always excluded saloons. The municipality owns and
operates the water system, water being drawn from lakes near Pike's
Peak. The scenery about the city is remarkable. Manitou (6100-6300 ft.)
a popular summer resort, lies about 6 m. (by rail) north-west of
Colorado Springs, in a glen at the opening of Ute Pass (so-named because
it was formerly used by the Ute Indians), with the mountains rising from
its edge. Its springs of soda and iron belong to the class of weak
compound carbonated soda waters. In the neighbourhood are the Cave of
the Winds, the Grand Caverns, charming glens, mountain lakes and
picturesque canyons; and the Garden of the Gods (owned by the
city)--approached between two tremendous masses of red rock 330 ft.
high, and strewn (about 500 acres) with great rocks and ridges of
brightly coloured sandstone, whose grotesque shapes and fantastic
arrangement have suggested a playground of superhuman beings. At the
southern end of the Rampart range is Cheyenne Mt. (9407 ft.), on whose
slope was buried Helen Hunt Jackson ("H.H."), who has left many pictures
of this country in her stories. The two Cheyenne Canyons, with walls as
high as 1000 ft. and beautiful falls, and the road over the mountain
side toward Cripple Creek, afford exquisite views. Monument Park (10 m.
N.) is a tract of fantastically eroded sandstone rocks, similar to those
in the Garden of the Gods.
In 1859 a winter mining party coming upon the sunny valley near the
present Manitou, near the old Fontaine-qui-Bouille, settled "El Dorado."
Colorado City is practically on the same site. In 1870, as part of the
town development work of the Denver & Rio Grande railway, of which
General W. J. Palmer was the president, a land company founded Colorado
Springs. In 1872 Manitou (first La Fontaine) was founded. Colorado
Springs was laid out in 1871, was incorporated in 1872, and was first
chartered as a city in 1878. A new charter (May 1909) provided for the
recall of elective officials. A road over the Ute Pass to South Park and
Leadville was built, and at one time about 12,000 horses and mules were
employed in freighting to the Leadville camps. The Chicago, Rock Island
& Pacific railway reached the city in 1888. The greatest part of the
Cripple Creek mining properties is owned in Colorado Springs, where the
exchange is one of the greatest in the world.
COLOSSAE, once the great city of south-west Phrygia, was situated on
rising ground (1150 ft.) on the left bank of the Lycus (_Churuk Su_), a
tributary of the Maeander, at the upper end of a narrow gorge 2½ m.
long, where the river runs between cliffs from 50 to 60 ft. high. It
stood on the great trade route from Sardis to Celaenae and Iconium, and
was a large, prosperous city (Herod, vii. 30; Xenophon, _Anab._ i. 2, §
6), until it was ruined by the foundation of Laodicea in a more
advantageous position. The town was celebrated for its wool, which was
dyed a purple colour called _colossinus_. Colossae was the seat of an
early Christian church, the result of St Paul's activity at Ephesus,
though perhaps actually founded by Epaphras. The church, to which St
Paul wrote a letter, was mainly composed of mingled Greek and Phrygian
elements deeply imbued with fantastic and fanatical mysticism. Colossae
lasted until the 7th and 8th centuries, when it was gradually deserted
under pressure of the Arab invasions. Its place was taken by Khonae
(_Khonas_)--a strong fortress on a rugged spur of Mt. Kadmus, 3 m. to
the south, which became a place of importance during the wars between
the Byzantines and Turks, and was the birthplace of the historian,
Nicetas Khoniates. The worship of angels alluded to by St Paul (Col. ii.
18), and condemned in the 4th century by a council at Laodicea,
reappears in the later worship of St Michael, in whose honour a
celebrated church, destroyed by the Seljuks in the 12th century, was
built on the right bank of the Lycus.
See Sir W. M. Ramsay, _Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia_, vol. i.
COLOSSAL CAVERN, a cave in Kentucky, U.S.A., the main entrance of which
is at the foot of a steep hill beyond Eden Valley, and 1½ m. from
Mammoth Cave. It is connected with what has long been known as the Bed
Quilt Cave. Several entrances found by local explorers were rough and
difficult. They were closed when the property was bought in 1896 by the
Louisville & Nashville railway and a new approach made as indicated on
the accompanying map. From the surface to the floor is 240 ft.; under
Chester Sandstone and in the St Louis Limestone. Fossil corals fix the
geological age of the rock. The temperature is uniformly 54° Fahr., and
the atmosphere is optically and chemically pure. Lovely incrustations
alternate with queer and grotesque figures. There are exquisite gypsum
rosettes and intricately involved helictites.
[Illustration: map of Colossal Cavern.]
Tremendous forces have been at work, suggesting earthquakes and
eruptions; but really all is due to the chemical and mechanical action
of water. The so-called "Ruins of Carthage" fill a hall 400 ft. long by
100 ft. wide and 30 ft. high, whose flat roof is a vast homogeneous
limestone block. Isolated detached blocks measure from 50 to 100 ft. in
length. Edgar Vaughan and W. L. Marshall, civil engineers, surveyed
every part of the cave. Vaughan's Dome is 40 ft. wide, 300 ft. long, and
79 ft. high. Numerous other domes exist, and many deep pits. The
grandest place of all is the Colossal Dome, which used to be entered
only from the apex by windlass and a rope reaching 135 ft. to the floor.
This is now used only for illumination by raising and lowering a
fire-basket. The present entrance is by a gateway buttressed by
alabaster shafts, one of which, 75 ft. high, is named Henry Clay's
Monument. The dome walls arise in a series of richly tinted rings, each
8 or 10 ft. thick, and each fringed by stalactites. The symmetry is
remarkable, and the reverberations are strangely musical. The Pearly
Pool, in a chamber near a pit 86 ft. deep, glistens with countless cave
pearls. The route beyond is between rows of stately shafts, and ends in
a copious chalybeate spring. Blind flies, spiders, beetles and crickets
abound; and now and then a blind crawfish darts through the waters; but
as compared with many caverns the fauna and flora are not abundant. It
is conjectured, not without some reason, that there is a connexion, as
yet undiscovered, between the Colossal and the Mammoth caves. It seems
certain that Eden Valley, which now lies between them, is a vast
"tumble-down" of an immense cavern that formerly united them into one.
(H. C. H.)
COLOSSIANS, EPISTLE TO THE, the twelfth book of the New Testament, the
authorship of which is ascribed to the Apostle Paul. Colossae, like the
other Phrygian cities of Laodicea and Hierapolis, had not been visited
by Paul, but owed its belief in Jesus Christ to Epaphras, a Colossian,
who had been converted by Paul, perhaps in Ephesus, and had laboured not
only in his native city but also in the adjacent portions of the Lycus
valley,--a Christian in whom Paul reposed the greatest confidence as one
competent to interpret the gospel of whose truth Paul was convinced (i.
7; iv. 12, 13). This Epaphras, like the majority of the Colossians, was
a Gentile. It is probable, however, both from the letter itself and from
the fact that Colossae was a trade centre, that Jews were there with
their synagogues (cf. also Josephus, _Ant._ xii. 149). And it is further
probable that some of the Gentiles, who afterwards became Christians,
were either Jewish proselytes or adherents who paid reverence to the God
of the Jews. At all events, the letter indicates a sensitiveness on the
part of the Christians not only to oriental mysticism and theosophy (cf.
Sir W. M. Ramsay, _Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia_, and _Church in the
Roman Empire_), but also to the Judaism of the Diaspora.
Our first definite knowledge of the Colossian Church dates from the
presence of Epaphras in Rome in A.D. 62-64 (or A.D. 56-58), when Paul
was a prisoner. He arrived with news, perhaps with a letter (J. R.
Harris, _Expositor_, Dec. 1898, pp. 404 ff.), touching the state of
religion in Colossae. Paul learns, to his joy, of their faith, hope and
love; of the order and stability of their faith; and of their reception
of Christ Jesus the Lord (i. 4, 8; ii. 5-7). He sees no sign of an
attack upon him or his gospel. On the contrary, loyalty to him and
sympathy with him in his sufferings are everywhere manifest (i. 9, 24;
ii. 2; iv. 8); and the gospel of Christ is advancing here as elsewhere
(i. 6). At the same time he detects a lack of cheerfulness and a lack of
spiritual understanding in the Church. The joy of the gospel, expressing
itself in songs and thanksgivings, is damped (iii. 15, 16), and, above
all, the message of Christ does not dwell richly enough in them. Though
the believers know the grace of God they are not filled with a knowledge
of his will, so that their conduct is lacking in that strength and joy
and perfection, that richness of the fulness of knowledge expected of
those who had been made full in Christ (i. 6, 9-11, 28; ii. 2, 7, 10).
The reason for this, Paul sees, is the influence of the claim made by
certain teachers in Colossae that the Christians, in order to attain
unto and be assured of _full_ salvation, must supplement Paul's message
with their own fuller and more perfect wisdom, and must observe certain
rites and practices (ii. 16, 21, 23) connected with the worship of
angels (ii. 18, 23) and elementary spirits (ii. 8, 20).
The origin and the exact nature of this religious movement are alike
uncertain. (1) If it represents a type of syncretism as definite as that
known to have existed in the developed gnostic systems of the 2nd
century, it is inconceivable that Paul should have passed it by as
easily as he did. (2) As there is no reference to celibacy, communism
and the worship of the sun, it is improbable that the movement is
identical with that of the Essenes. (3) The phenomena might be explained
solely on the basis of Judaism (von Soden, Peake). Certainly the
asceticism and ritualism might so be interpreted, for there was among
the Jews of the Dispersion an increasing tendency to asceticism, by way
of protest against the excesses of the Gentiles. The reference in ii. 23
to severity of the body may have to do with fasting preparatory to
seeing visions (cf. _Apoc. Baruch_, xxi. 1, ix. 2, v. 7). Even the
worship of angels, not only as mediators of revelation and visions, but
also as cosmical beings, is a well-known fact in late Judaism (_Apoc.
Bar._ lv. 3; _Ethiopic Enoch_, lx. 11, lxi. 10; Col. ii. 8, 20; Gal. iv.
3). As for the word "philosophy" (ii. 8), it is not necessary to take it
in the technical Greek sense when the usage of Philo and Josephus
permits a looser meaning. Finally the references to circumcision,
_paradosis_ (ii. 8) and _dogmata_ (ii. 20), directly suggest a Jewish
origin. If we resort solely to Judaism for explanation, it must be a
Judaism of the Diaspora type. (4) The difficulty with the last-mentioned
position is that it under-estimates the speculative tendencies of the
errorists and ignores the direct influence of oriental theosophy. It is
quite true that Paul does not directly attack the speculative position,
but rather indicates the practical dangers inherent therein (the denial
of the supremacy of Christ and of full salvation through Him); he does
not say that the errorists hold Christ to be a mere angel or an aeon, or
that words like _pleroma_ (borrowed perhaps from their own vocabulary)
involve a rigorous dualism. Yet his characterization of the movement as
an arbitrary religion (ii. 23), a philosophy which is empty deceit (ii.
8), according to elemental spirits and not according to Christ, and a
higher knowledge due to a mind controlled by the flesh (ii. 18); his
repeated emphasis on Christ, as supreme over all things, over men and
angels, agent in creation as well as in redemption, in whom dwelt bodily
the fulness of the Godhead; and his constant stress upon knowledge,--all
these combine to reveal a speculation real and dangerous, even if naïve
and regardless of consequences, and to suggest (with Jülicher and
McGiffert) that in addition to Jewish influence there is also the direct
influence of Oriental mysticism.
To meet the pressing need in Colossae, Paul writes a letter and entrusts
it to Tychichus, who is on his way to Colossae with Onesimus, Philemon's
slave (iv. 7, 9). (On the relation of this letter to Ephesians and to
the letter to be sent from Laodicea to Colossae, see EPHESIANS, EPISTLE
TO THE.) His attitude is prophylactic, rather than polemic, for the
"philosophy" has not as yet taken deep root. His purpose is to restore
in the hearts of the readers the joy of the Spirit, by making them see
that Christ fulfils every need, and that through faith in Him and love
from faith, the advance is made unimpeded unto the perfect man. He will
eliminate foreign accretions, that the gospel of Christ may stand forth
in its native purity, and that Christ Himself may in all things have the
pre-eminence.
The letter begins with a thanksgiving to God for the spiritual growth of
the Colossians, and continues with a prayer for their fuller knowledge
of the divine will, for a more perfect Christian life, and for a spirit
of thanksgiving, seeing that it is God who guarantees their salvation in
Christ (i. 1-14). It is Christ who is supreme, not angels, for He is the
agent in creation; and it is solely on the basis of faith in Him, a
faith expressing itself in love, that redemption is appropriated, and
not on the basis of any further requirements such as ascetic practices
and the worship of angels (i. 15-23). It is with a full message that
Paul has been entrusted, the message of Christ, who alone can lead to
all the riches of fulness of knowledge. And for this adequate knowledge
the readers should be thankful (i. 23--ii. 7). Again he urges, that
since redemption is in Christ alone, and that, too, full redemption and
on the basis of faith alone, the demand for asceticism and meaningless
ceremonies is folly, and moreover robs Christ, in whom dwells the divine
fulness, of His rightful supremacy (ii. 8-23). And he exhorts them as
members of the Body of Christ to manifest their faith in Christian love,
particularly in their domestic relations and in their contact with
non-Christians (iii. i-iv. 6). He closes by saying that Tychichus will
give them the news. Greetings from all to all (iv. 7-18).
A letter like this, clear cut in its thought, teeming with ideas
emanating from an unique religious experience, and admirably adjusted to
known situations, bears on the face of it the marks of genuineness even
without recourse to the unusually excellent external attestation. It is
not strange that there is a growing consensus of opinion that Paul is
the author. With the critical renaissance of the early part of the 19th
century, doubts were raised as to the genuineness of the letter (e.g. by
E. T. Mayerhoff, 1838). Quite apart from the difficulties created by the
Tübingen theory, legitimate difficulties were found in the style of the
letter, in the speculation of the errorists, and in the theology of the
author. (1) As to style, it is replied that if there are peculiarities
in _Colossians_, so also in the admittedly genuine letters, _Romans_,
_Corinthians_, _Galatians_. Moreover, if _Philippians_ is Pauline, so
also the stylistically similar _Colossians_ (cf. von Soden). (2) As to
the speculation of the errorists, it is replied that it is explicable in
the lifetime of Paul, that some of the elements of it may have their
source in pre-Christian Jewish theories, and that recourse to the
developed gnosticism of the 2nd century is unnecessary. (3) As to the
Christology of the author, it is replied that it does not go beyond what
we have already in Paul except in emphasis, which itself is occasioned
by the circumstances. What is implicit in _Corinthians_ is explicit in
_Colossians_. H. J. Holtzmann (1872) subjected both _Colossians_ and
_Ephesians_ to a rigorous examination, and found in _Colossians_ at
least a nucleus of Pauline material. H. von Soden (1885), with
well-considered principles of criticism, made a similar examination and
found a much larger nucleus, and later still, (1893), in his commentary,
reduced the non-Pauline material to a negligible minimum. Harnack,
Jülicher and McGiffert, however, agree with Lightfoot, Weiss, Zahn (and
early tradition) in holding that the letter is wholly Pauline--a
position which is proving more and more acceptable to contemporary
scholarship.
AUTHORITIES.--In addition to the literature already mentioned, see the
articles of Sanday on "Colossians" and Robertson on "Ephesians" in
Smith's _Bible Dictionary_ (2nd ed., 1893), and the article of A.
Jülicher on "Colossians and Ephesians" in the _Encyclopaedia Biblica_
(1899); the Introductions of H. J. Holtzmann (1892), B. Weiss (1897),
Th. Zahn (1900) and Jülicher (1906); the histories of the apostolic
age by C. von Weizsäcker (1892), A. C. M'Giffert (1897) and O.
Pfleiderer (_Urchristentum_, 1902); and the commentaries of J. B.
Lightfoot (1875), H. von Soden (1893) T. K. Abbott (1897), E. Haupt
(1902), Peake (1903) and P. Ewald (1905). (J. E. F.)
COLOSSUS, in antiquity a term applied generally to statues of great size
(hence the adjective "colossal"), and in particular to the bronze statue
of the sun-god Helios in Rhodes, one of the wonders of the world, made
from the spoils left by Demetrius Poliorcetes when he raised the siege
of the city. The sculptor was Chares, a native of Lindus, and of the
school of Lysippus, under whose influence the art of sculpture was led
to the production of colossal figures by preference. The work occupied
him twelve years, it is said, and the finished statue stood 70 cubits
high. It stood near the harbour ([Greek: epi limeni]), but at what point
is not certain. When, and from what grounds, the belief arose that it
had stood across the entrance to the harbour, with a beacon light in its
hand and ships passing between its legs, is not known, but the belief
was current as early as the 16th century. The statue was thrown down by
an earthquake about the year 224 B.C.; then, after lying broken for
nearly 1000 years, the pieces were bought by a Jew from the Saracens,
and probably reconverted into instruments of war.
Other Greek colossi were the Apollo of Calamis; the Zeus and Heracles of
Lysippus; the Zeus at Olympia, the Athena in the Parthenon, and the
Athena Promachos on the Acropolis--all the work of Pheidias.
The best-known Roman colossi are: a statue of Jupiter on the Capitol; a
bronze statue of Apollo in the Palatine library; and the colossus of
Nero in the vestibule of his Golden House, afterwards removed by Hadrian
to the north of the Colosseum, where the basement upon which it stood is
still visible (Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ xxxiv. 18).
COLOUR (Lat. _color_, connected with _celare_, to hide, the root
meaning, therefore, being that of a covering). The visual apparatus of
the eye enables us to distinguish not only differences of form, size and
brilliancy in the objects looked upon, but also differences in the
character of the light received from them. These latter differences,
familiar to us as differences in _colour_, have their physical origin in
the variations in wave-length (or frequency) which may exist in light
which is capable of exciting the sensation of vision. From the physical
point of view, light of a _pure colour_, or homogeneous light, means
light whose undulations are mathematically of a simple character and
which cannot be resolved by a prism into component parts. All the
visible pure colours, as thus defined, are to be found in the spectrum,
and there is an infinite number of them, corresponding to all the
possible variations of wave-length within the limits of the visible
spectrum (see SPECTROSCOPY). On this view, there is a strict analogy
between variations of _colour_ in light and variations of _pitch_ in
sound, but the visible spectrum contains a range of frequency extending
over about one octave only, whereas the range of audibility embraces
about eleven octaves.
Of all the known colours it might naturally be thought that white is the
simplest and purest, and, till Sir Isaac Newton's time, this was the
prevailing opinion. Newton, however, showed that white light could be
decomposed by a prism into the spectral colours red, orange, yellow,
green, blue, indigo and violet; the colours appearing in this order and
passing gradually into each other without abrupt transitions. White is
therefore not a simple colour, but is merely the colour of sunlight, and
probably owes its apparently homogeneous character to the fact that it
is the average colour of the light which fills the eye when at rest. The
colours of the various objects which we see around us are not due (with
the exception of self-luminous and fluorescent bodies) to any power
possessed by these objects of creating the colours which they exhibit,
but merely to the exercise of a selective action on the light of the
sun, some of the constituent rays of the white light with which they are
illuminated being absorbed, while the rest are reflected or scattered in
all directions, or, in the case of transparent bodies, transmitted.
White light is thus the basis of all other colours, which are derived
from it by the suppression of some one or more of its parts. A red
flower, for instance, absorbs the blue and green rays and most of the
yellow, while the red rays and usually some yellow are scattered. If a
red poppy is illuminated successively by red, yellow, green and blue
light it will appear a brilliant red in the red light, yellow in the
yellow light, but less brilliant if the red colour is pure; and black in
the other colours, the blackness being due to the almost complete
absorption of the corresponding colour.
Bodies may be classified as regards colour according to the nature of
the action they exert on white light. In the case of ordinary opaque
bodies a certain proportion of the incident light is irregularly
reflected or scattered from their surfaces. A white object is one which
reflects nearly all the light of all colours; a black object absorbs
nearly all. A body which reflects only a portion of the light, but which
exhibits no predominance in any particular hue, is called _grey_. A
white surface looks grey beside a similar surface more brilliantly
illuminated.
The next class is that of most transparent bodies, which owe their
colour to the light which is transmitted, either directly through, or
reflected back again at the farther surface. A body which transmits all
the visible rays equally well is said to be colourless; pure water, for
example, is nearly quite colourless, though in large masses it appears
bluish-green. A translucent substance is one which partially transmits
light. Translucency is due to the light being scattered by minute
embedded particles or minute irregularities of structure. Some fibrous
specimens of tremolite and gypsum are translucent in the direction of
the fibres, and practically opaque in a transverse direction. Coloured
transparent objects vary in shade and hue according to their size; thus,
a conical glass filled with a red liquid commonly appears yellow at the
bottom, varying through orange up to red at the upper part. A coloured
powder is usually of a much lighter tint than the substance in bulk, as
the light is reflected back after transmission through only a few thin
layers. For the same reason the powders of transparent substances are
opaque.
Polished bodies, whether opaque or transparent, when illuminated with
white light and viewed at the proper angle, reflect the incident light
regularly and appear white, without showing much of their distinctive
colours.
Some bodies reflect light of one colour and transmit that of another;
such bodies nearly always possess the properties of _selective_ or
_metallic reflection_ and _anomalous dispersion_. Most of the coal-tar
dyes belong to this category. Solid eosin, for example, reflects a
yellowish-green and transmits a red light. Gold appears yellow under
ordinary circumstances, but if the light is reflected many times from
the surface it appears a ruby colour. On the other hand, a powerful beam
of light transmitted through a thin gold-leaf appears green.
Some solutions exhibit the curious phenomenon of _dichromatism_ (from
[Greek: di-], double, and [Greek: chrôma], colour), that is, they appear
of one colour when viewed in strata of moderate thickness, but of a
different colour in greater thicknesses (see Absorption of Light).
The blue colour of the sky (q.v.) has been explained by Lord Rayleigh as
due to the scattering of light by small suspended particles and air
molecules, which is most effective in the case of the shorter waves
(blue). J. Tyndall produced similar effects in the laboratory. The green
colour of sea-water near the shore is also due to a scattering of light.
The colours of bodies which are gradually heated to white incandescence
occur in the order--red, orange, yellow, white. This is because the
longer waves of red light are first emitted, then the yellow as well, so
that orange results, then so much green that the total effect is yellow,
and lastly all the colours, compounding to produce white. Fluorescent
bodies have the power of converting light of one colour into that of
another (see FLUORESCENCE).
Besides the foregoing kinds of colorization, a body may exhibit, under
certain circumstances, a colouring due to some special physical
conditions rather than to the specific properties of the material; such
as the colour of a white object when illuminated by light of some
particular colour; the colours seen in a film of oil on water or in
mother-of-pearl, or soap-bubbles, due to interference (q.v.); the
colours seen through the eyelashes or through a thin handkerchief held
up to the light, due to diffraction (q.v.); and the colours caused by
ordinary refraction, as in the rainbow, double refraction and
polarization (qq.v.).
_Composition of Colours._--It has been already pointed out that white
light is a combination of all the colours in the spectrum. This was
shown by Newton, who recombined the spectral colours and produced white.
Newton also remarks that if a froth be made on the surface of water
thickened a little with soap, and examined closely, it will be seen to
be coloured with all the colours of the spectrum, but at a little
distance it looks white owing to the combined effect on the eye of all
the colours.
The question of the composition of colours is largely a physiological
one, since it is possible, by mixing colours, say red and yellow, to
produce a new colour, orange, which appears identical with the pure
orange of the spectrum, but is physically quite different, since it can
be resolved by a prism into red and yellow again. There is no doubt that
the sensation of colour-vision is threefold, in the sense that any
colour can be produced by the combination, in proper proportions, of
three standard colours. The question then arises, what are the three
primary colours? Sir David Brewster considered that they were red,
yellow and blue; and this view has been commonly held by painters and
others, since all the known brilliant hues can be derived from the
admixture of red, yellow and blue pigments. For instance, vermilion and
chrome yellow will give an orange, chrome yellow and ultramarine a
green, and vermilion and ultramarine a purple mixture. But if we
superpose the pure spectral colours on a screen, the resulting colours
are quite different. This is especially the case with yellow and blue,
which on the screen combine to produce white, generally with a pink
tint, but cannot be made to give green. The reason of this difference in
the two results is that in the former case we do not get a true
combination of the colours at all. When the mixed pigments are
illuminated by white light, the yellow particles absorb the red and blue
rays, but reflect the yellow along with a good deal of the neighbouring
green and orange. The blue particles, on the other hand, absorb the red,
orange and yellow, but reflect the blue and a good deal of green and
violet. As much of the light is affected by several particles, most of
the rays are absorbed except green, which is reflected by both pigments.
Thus, the colour of the mixture is not a mixture of the colours yellow
and blue, but the remainder of white light after the yellow and blue
pigments have absorbed all they can. The effect can also be seen in
coloured solutions. If two equal beams of white light are transmitted
respectively through a yellow solution of potassium bichromate and a
blue solution of copper sulphate in proper thicknesses, they can be
compounded on a screen to an approximately white colour; but a single
beam transmitted through both solutions appears green. Blue and yellow
pigments would produce the effect of white only if very sparsely
distributed. This fact is made use of in laundries, where cobalt blue is
used to correct the yellow colour of linen after washing.
Thomas Young suggested red, green and violet as the primary colours, but
the subsequent experiments of J. Clerk Maxwell appear to show that they
should be red, green and blue. Sir William Abney, however, assigns
somewhat different places in the spectrum to the primary colours, and,
like Young, considers that they should be red, green and violet. All
other hues can be obtained by combining the three primaries in proper
proportions. Yellow is derived from red and green. This can be done by
superposition on a screen or by making a solution which will transmit
only red and green rays. For this purpose Lord Rayleigh recommends a
mixture of solutions of blue litmus and yellow potassium chromate. The
litmus stops the yellow and orange light, while the potassium chromate
stops the blue and violet. Thus only red and green are transmitted, and
the result is a full compound yellow which resembles the simple yellow
of the spectrum in appearance, but is resolved into red and green by a
prism. The brightest yellow pigments are those which give both the pure
and compound yellow. Since red and green produce yellow, and yellow and
blue produce white, it follows that red, green and blue can be
compounded into white. H. von Helmholtz has shown that the only pair of
simple spectral colours capable of compounding to white are a
greenish-yellow and blue.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.]
Just as musical sounds differ in pitch, loudness and quality, so may
colours differ in three respects, which Maxwell calls _hue_, _shade_ and
_tint_. All hues can be produced by combining every pair of primaries in
every proportion. The addition of white alters the tint without
affecting the hue. If the colour be darkened by adding black or by
diminishing the illumination, a variation in shade is produced. Thus the
hue red includes every variation in tint from red to white, and every
variation in shade from red to black, and similarly for other hues. We
can represent every hue and tint on a diagram in a manner proposed by
Young, following a very similar suggestion of Newton's. Let RGB (fig. 1)
be an equilateral triangle, and let the angular points be coloured red,
green and blue of such intensities as to produce white if equally
combined; and let the colour of every point of the triangle be
determined by combining such proportions of the three primaries, that
three weights in the same proportion would have their centre of gravity
at the point. Then the centre of the triangle will be a neutral tint,
white or grey; and the middle points of the sides Y, S, P will be
yellow, greenish-blue and purple. The hue varies all round the
perimeter. The tint varies along any straight line through W. To vary
the shade, the whole triangle must be uniformly darkened.
The simplest way of compounding colours is by means of Maxwell's colour
top, which is a broad spinning-top over the spindle of which coloured
disks can be slipped (fig. 2). The disks are slit radially so that they
can be slipped partially over each other and the surfaces exposed in any
desired ratio. Three disks are used together, and a match is obtained
between these and a pair of smaller ones mounted on the same spindle. If
any five colours are taken, two of which may be black and white, a match
can be got between them by suitable adjustment. This shows that a
relation exists between any four colours (the black being only needed to
obtain the proper intensity) and that consequently the number of
independent colours is three. A still better instrument for combining
colours is Maxwell's colour box, in which the colours of the spectrum
are combined by means of prisms. Sir W. Abney has also invented an
apparatus for the same purpose, which is much the same in principle as
Maxwell's colour box. Several methods of colour photography depend on
the fact that all varieties of colour can be compounded from red, green
and blue in proper proportions.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.]
[Illustration: (After Müller-Pouillet's _Lehrbuch der Physik_, 1897.)
FIG. 3.]
Any two colours which together give white are called _complementary_
colours. Greenish-yellow and blue are a pair of complementaries, as
already mentioned. Any number of pairs may be obtained by a simple
device due to Helmholtz and represented in fig. 3. A beam of white
light, decomposed by the prism P, is recompounded into white light by
the lens l and focussed on a screen at f. If the thin prism p is
inserted near the lens, any set of colours may be deflected to another
point n, thus producing two coloured and complementary images of the
source of light.
_Nature of White Light._--The question as to whether white light
actually consists of trains of waves of regular frequency has been
discussed in recent years by A. Schuster, Lord Rayleigh and others, and
it has been shown that even if it consisted of a succession of somewhat
irregular impulses, it would still be resolved, by the dispersive
property of a prism or grating, into trains of regular frequency. We may
still, however, speak of white light as compounded of the rays of the
spectrum, provided we mean only that the two systems are mathematically
equivalent, and not that the homogeneous trains exist as such in the
original light.
See also Newton's _Opticks_, bk. i. pt. ii.; Maxwell's _Scientific
Papers_; Helmholtz's papers in _Poggendorf's Annalen_; Sir G. G.
Stokes, _Burnett Lectures for 1884-5-6_; Abney's _Colour Vision_
(1895). (J. R. C.)
COLOURS, MILITARY, the flags carried by infantry regiments and
battalions, sometimes also by troops of other arms. Cavalry regiments
and other units have as a rule standards and guidons (see FLAG). Colours
are generally embroidered with mottoes, symbols, and above all with the
names of battles.
From the earliest time at which men fought in organized bodies of
troops, the latter have possessed some sort of insignia visible over all
the field of battle, and serving as a rallying-point for the men of the
corps and an indication of position for the higher leaders and the men
of other formed bodies. In the Roman army the eagle, the _vexillum_, &c.
had all the moral and sentimental importance of the colours of to-day.
During the dark and the middle ages, however, the basis of military
force being the individual knight or lord, the banner, or other flag
bearing his arms, replaced the regimental colour which had signified the
corporate body and claimed the devotion of each individual soldier in
the ranks, though the original meaning of the colour as a corps, not a
personal distinction, was sometimes maintained by corporate bodies (such
as trade-gilds) which took the field as such. An example is the famous
_carroccio_ or standard on wheels, which was frequently brought into the
field of battle by the citizen militia of the Italian cities, and was
fought for with the same ardour as the royal standard in other medieval
battles.
The application of the word "colour" to such insignia, however, dates
only from the 16th century. It has been suggested that, as the
professional captain gradually ousted the nobleman from the command of
the drilled and organized companies of foot--the man of gentle birth, of
course, maintained his ascendancy in the cavalry far longer--the leaders
of such bodies, no longer possessing coat-armour and individual banners,
had recourse to small flags of distinctive colour instead. "Colour" is
in the 16th century a common name in England and middle Europe for the
unit of infantry; in German the _Fähnlein_ (colour) of landsknechts was
a strong company of more than 300 foot. The ceremonial observances and
honours paid nowadays to the colours of infantry were in fact founded
for the most part by the landsknechts, for whom the flag (carried by
their "ensign") was symbolical of their intense regimental life and
feeling. The now universal customs of constituting the colour guard of
picked men and of saluting the colours were in equal honour then; before
that indeed, the appearance of the personal banner of a nobleman implied
his actual presence with it, and the due honours were paid, but the
colour of the 16th century was not the distinction of one man, but the
symbol of the corporate life and unity of the regiment, and thus the new
colour ceremonial implied the same allegiance to an impersonal
regimental spirit, which it has (with the difference that the national
spirit has been blended with the regimental) retained ever since. The
old soldier rallied to the colours as a matter of habit in the confusion
of battle, and the capture or the loss of a colour has always been
considered a special event, glorious or the reverse, in the history of a
regiment, the importance of this being chiefly sentimental, but having
as a very real background the fact that, if its colour was lost, a
regiment was to all intents and purposes dissolved and dispersed.
Frederick the Great and Napoleon always attached the highest importance
to the maintenance at all costs of the regimental colours. Even over
young troops the influence of the colour has been extraordinary, and
many generals have steadied their men in the heat of battle by taking a
regimental colour themselves to lead the advance or to form up the
troops. Thus in the first battle of Bull Run (1861) the raw Confederate
troops were rallied under a heavy fire by General Joseph Johnston, their
commander-in-chief, who stood with a colour in his hand until the men
gathered quickly in rank and file. The archduke Charles at Aspern (1809)
led his young troops to the last assault with a colour in his hand.
Marshal Schwerin was killed at the battle of Prague while carrying a
regimental colour.
In the British army colours are carried by guards and line (except
rifle) battalions, each battalion having two colours, the king's and the
regimental. The size of the colour is 3 ft. 9 in. by 3 ft., and the
length of the stave 8 ft. 7 in. The colour has a gold fringe and gold
and crimson tassels, and bears various devices and "battle honours."
Both colours are carried by subaltern officers, and an escort of
selected non-commissioned officers forms the rest of the colour party.
The ceremony of presenting new colours is most impressive. The old
colours are "trooped" (see below) before being cased and taken to the
rear. The new colours are then placed against a pile of drums and then
uncased by the senior majors and the senior subalterns. The consecration
follows, after which the colours are presented to the senior subalterns.
The battalion gives a general salute when the colours are unfurled, and
the ceremony concludes with a march past. "Trooping the colour" is a
more elaborate ceremonial peculiar to the British service, and is said
to have been invented by the duke of Cumberland. In this, the colour is
posted near the left of the line, the right company or guard moves up to
it, and an officer receives it, after which the guard with the colour
files between the ranks of the remainder from left to right until the
right of the line is reached.
In the United States army the infantry regiment has two colours, the
national and the regimental. They are carried in action.
In the French army one colour (_drapeau_) is carried by each infantry
regiment. It is carried by an officer, usually a _sous-lieutenant_, and
the guard is composed of a non-commissioned officer and a party of
"first class" soldiers. Regiments which have taken an enemy's colour or
standard in battle have their own colours "decorated," that is, the
cross of the Legion of Honour is affixed to the stave near the point.
Battle honours are embroidered on the white of the tricolour. The
_eagle_ was, in the First and Third Empires, the infantry colour, and
was so called from the gilt eagle which surmounted the stave. The
_chasseurs à pied_, like the rifles of the British army, carry no
colours, but the battalion quartered for the time being at Vincennes
carries a colour for the whole arm in memory of the first _chasseurs de
Vincennes_. As in other countries, colours are saluted by all armed
bodies and by individual officers and men. When the _drapeau_ is not
present with the regiment its place is taken by an ordinary flag.
The colours of the German infantry, foot artillery and engineers vary in
design with the states to which the corps belong in the first instance;
thus, black and white predominate in Prussian colours, red in those of
Württemberg regiments, blue in Bavarian, and so on. The point of the
colour stave is decorated in some cases with the iron cross, in memory
of the War of Liberation and of the war of 1870. Each battalion of an
infantry regiment has its own colour, which is carried by a
non-commissioned officer, and guarded as usual by a colour party. The
colour is fastened to the stave by silver nails, and the ceremony of
driving the first nail into the stake of a new colour is one of great
solemnity. Rings of silver on the stave are engraved with battle
honours, the names of those who have fallen in action when carrying the
colour, and other commemorative names and dates. The oath taken by each
recruit on joining is sworn on the colour (_Fahneneid_).
The practice in the British army of leaving the colours behind on taking
the field dates from the battle of Isandhlwana (22nd January 1879), in
which Lieutenants Melvill and Coghill lost their lives in endeavouring
to save the colours of the 24th regiment. In savage warfare, in which
the British regular army is more usually engaged, it is true that no
particular reason can be adduced for imperilling the colours in the
field. It is questionable, however, whether this holds good in civilized
warfare. Colours were carried in action by both the Russians and the
Japanese in the war of 1904-5, and they were supplemented on both sides
by smaller flags or camp colours. The conception of the colour as the
emblem of union, the rallying-point, of the regiment has been mentioned
above. Many hold that such a rallying-point is more than ever required
in the modern _guerre de masses_, when a national short-service army is
collected in all possible strength on the decisive battle-field, and
that scarcely any risks or loss of life would be disproportionate to the
advantages gained by the presence of the colours. There is further a
most important factor in the problem, which has only arisen in recent
years through modern perfection in armament. In the first stages of an
attack, the colours could remain, as in the past, with the closed
reserves or line of battle, and they would not be uncased and sent into
the thick of the fight at all hazards until the decisive assault was
being delivered. Then, it is absolutely essential, as a matter of
tactics, that the artillery (q.v.), which covers the assault with all
the power given it by modern science and training, should be well
informed as to the progress of the infantry. This covering fire was
maintained by the Japanese until the infantry was actually in the smoke
of their own shrapnel. With uniforms of neutral tint the need of some
means whereby the artillery officers can, at 4000 yds. range,
distinguish their own infantry from that of the enemy, is more
pronounced than ever. The best troops are apt to be unsteadied by being
fired into by their own guns (e.g. at Elandslaagte), and the more
powerful the shell, and the more rapid and far-ranging the fire of the
guns, the more necessary it becomes to prevent such accidents. A
practicable solution of the difficulty would be to display the colours
as of old, and this course would not only have to an enhanced degree the
advantages it formerly possessed, but would also provide the simplest
means for ensuring the vitally necessary co-operation of infantry and
artillery in the decisive assault. The duty of carrying the colours was
always one of special danger, and sometimes, in the old short-range
battles, every officer who carried a flag was shot. That this fate would
necessarily overtake the bearer under modern conditions is far from
certain, and in any case the few men on the enemy's side who would be
brave enough to shoot accurately under heavy shell fire would, however
destructive to the colour party, scarcely inflict as much damage on the
battalion as a whole, as a dozen or more accidental shells from the
massed artillery of its own side.
COLOUR-SERGEANT, a non-commissioned officer of infantry, ranking, in the
British army, as the senior non-commissioned officer of each company. He
is charged with many administrative duties, and usually acts as pay
sergeant. A special duty of the colour-sergeants of a battalion is that
of attending and guarding the colours and the officers carrying them. In
some foreign armies the colours are actually carried by
colour-sergeants. The rank was created in the British army in 1813.
COLOURS OF ANIMALS. Much interest attaches in modern biology to the
questions involved in the colours of animals. The subject may best be
considered in two divisions: (1) as regards the uses of colour in the
struggle for existence and in sexual relationships; (2) as regards the
chemical causation.
1. BIONOMICS
_Use of Colour for Concealment._--_Cryptic colouring_ is by far the
commonest use of colour in the struggle for existence. It is employed
for the purpose of attack (_aggressive resemblance_ or _anticryptic
colouring_) as well as of defence (_protective resemblance_ or
_procryptic colouring_). The fact that the same method, concealment, may
be used both for attack and defence has been well explained by T. Belt
(_The Naturalist in Nicaragua_, London, 1888), who suggests as an
illustration the rapidity of movement which is also made use of by both
pursuer and pursued, which is similarly raised to a maximum in both by
the gradual dying out of the slowest through a series of generations.
Cryptic colouring is commonly associated with other aids in the struggle
for life. Thus well-concealed mammals and birds, when discovered, will
generally endeavour to escape by speed, and will often attempt to defend
themselves actively. On the other hand, small animals which have no
means of active defence, such as large numbers of insects, frequently
depend upon concealment alone. Protective resemblance is far commoner
among animals than aggressive resemblance, in correspondence with the
fact that predaceous forms are as a rule much larger and much less
numerous than their prey. In the case of insectivorous Vertebrata and
their prey such differences exist in an exaggerated form. Cryptic
colouring, whether used for defence or attack, may be either _general_
or _special_. In _general resemblance_ the animal, in consequence of its
colouring, produces the same effect as its environment, but the
conditions do not require any special adaptation of shape and outline.
General resemblance is especially common among the animals inhabiting
some uniformly coloured expanse of the earth's surface, such as an ocean
or a desert. In the former, animals of all shapes are frequently
protected by their transparent blue colour; on the latter, equally
diverse forms are defended by their sandy appearance. The effect of a
uniform appearance may be produced by a combination of tints in
startling contrast. Thus the black and white stripes of the zebra blend
together at a little distance, and "their proportion is such as exactly
to match the pale tint which arid ground possesses when seen by
moonlight" (F. Galton, _South Africa_, London, 1889). _Special
resemblance_ is far commoner than general, and is the form which is
usually met with on the diversified surface of the earth, on the shores,
and in shallow water, as well as on the floating masses of Algae on the
surface of the ocean, such as the Sargasso Sea. In these environments
the cryptic colouring of animals is usually aided by special
modifications of shape, and by the instinct which leads them to assume
particular attitudes. Complete stillness and the assumption of a certain
attitude play an essential part in general resemblance on land; but in
special resemblance the attitude is often highly specialized, and
perhaps more important than any other element in the complex method by
which concealment is effected. In special resemblance the combination of
colouring, shape and attitude is such as to produce a more or less exact
resemblance to some one of the objects in the environment, such as a
leaf or twig, a patch of lichen, or flake of bark. In all cases the
resemblance is to some object which is of no interest to the enemy or
prey respectively. The animal is not hidden from view by becoming
indistinguishable from its background, as in the cases of general
resemblance, but it is mistaken for some well-known object.
In seeking the interpretation of these most interesting and elaborate
adaptations, attempts have been made along two lines. First, it is
sought to explain the effect as a result of the direct influence of the
environment upon the individual (G. L. L. Buffon), or by the inherited
effects of effort and the use and disuse of parts (J. B. P. Lamarck).
Second, natural selection is believed to have produced the result, and
afterwards maintained it by the survival of the best concealed in each
generation. The former suggestions break down when the complex nature of
numerous special resemblances is appreciated. Thus the arrangement of
colours of many kinds into an appropriate pattern requires the
co-operation of a suitable shape and the rigidly exact adoption of a
certain elaborate attitude. The latter is instinctive, and thus depends
on the central nervous system. The cryptic effect is due to the exact
co-operation of all these factors; and in the present state of science
the only possible hope of an interpretation lies in the theory of
natural selection, which can accumulate any and every variation which
tends towards survival. A few of the chief types of methods by which
concealment is effected may be briefly described. The colours of large
numbers of Vertebrate animals are darkest on the back, and become
gradually lighter on the sides, passing into white on the belly. Abbott
H. Thayer (_The Auk_, vol. xiii., 1896) has suggested that this
gradation obliterates the appearance of solidity, which is due to
shadow. The colour-harmony, which is also essential to concealment, is
produced because the back is of the same tint as the environment (_e.g._
earth) bathed in the cold blue-white of the sky, while the belly, being
cold blue-white bathed in shadow and yellow earth reflections, produces
the same effect. Thayer has made models (in the natural history museums
at London, Oxford and Cambridge) which support his interpretation in a
very convincing manner. This method of neutralizing shadow for the
purpose of concealment by increased lightness of tint was first
suggested by E. B. Poulton in the case of a larva (_Trans. Ent. Soc.
Lond._, 1887, p. 294) and a pupa (_Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond._, 1888, pp.
596, 597), but he did not appreciate the great importance of the
principle. In an analogous method an animal in front of a background of
dark shadow may have part of its body obliterated by the existence of a
dark tint, the remainder resembling, e.g., a part of a leaf (W. Müller,
_Zool. Jahr. J. W. Spengel_, Jena, 1886). This method of rendering
invisible any part which would interfere with the resemblance is well
known in mimicry. A common aid to concealment is the adoption by
different individuals of two or more different appearances, each of
which resembles some special object to which an enemy is indifferent.
Thus the leaf-like butterflies (_Kallima_) present various types of
colour and pattern on the under side of the wings, each of which closely
resembles some well-known appearance presented by a dead leaf; and the
common British yellow under-wing moth (_Tryphaena pronuba_) is similarly
polymorphic on the upper side of its upper wings, which are exposed as
it suddenly drops among dead leaves. Caterpillars and pupae are also
commonly _dimorphic_, green and brown. Such differences as these extend
the area which an enemy is compelled to search in order to make a
living. In many cases the cryptic colouring changes appropriately
during the course of an individual life, either seasonally, as in the
ptarmigan or Alpine hare, or according as the individual enters a new
environment in the course of its growth (such as larva, pupa, imago,
&c.). In insects with more than one brood in the year, _seasonal
dimorphism_ is often seen, and the differences are sometimes appropriate
to the altered condition of the environment as the seasons change. The
causes of change in these and Arctic animals are insufficiently worked
out: in both sets there are observations or experiments which indicate
changes from within the organism, merely following the seasons and not
caused by them, and other observations or experiments which prove that
certain species are susceptible to the changing external influences. In
certain species concealment is effected by the use of adventitious
objects, which are employed as a covering. Examples of this
_allocryptic_ defence are found in the tubes of the caddis worms
(_Phryganea_), or the objects made use of by crabs of the genera _Hyas_,
_Stenorhynchus_, &c. Such animals are concealed in any environment. If
sedentary, like the former example, they are covered up with local
materials; if wandering, like the latter, they have the instinct to
reclothe. Allocryptic methods may also be used for aggressive purposes,
as the ant-lion larva, almost buried in sand, or the large frog
_Ceratophrys_, which covers its back with earth when waiting for its
prey. Another form of allocryptic defence is found in the use of the
colour of the food in the digestive organs showing through the
transparent body, and in certain cases the adventitious colour may be
dissolved in the blood or secreted in superficial cells of the body:
thus certain insects make use of the chlorophyll of their food (Poulton,
_Proc. Roy. Soc._ liv. 417). The most perfect cryptic powers are
possessed by those animals in which the individuals can change their
colours into any tint which would be appropriate to a normal
environment. This power is widely prevalent in fish, and also occurs in
Amphibia and Reptilia (the chameleon affording a well-known example).
Analogous powers exist in certain Crustacea and Cephalopoda. All these
rapid changes of colour are due to changes in shape or position of
superficial pigment cells controlled by the nervous system. That the
latter is itself stimulated by light through the medium of the eye and
optic nerve has been proved in many cases. Animals with a short
life-history passed in a single environment, which, however, may be very
different in the case of different individuals, may have a different
form of _variable cryptic colouring_, namely, the power of adapting
their colour once for all (many pupae), or once or twice (many larvae).
In these cases the effect appears to be produced through the nervous
system, although the stimulus of light probably acts on the skin and not
through the eyes. Particoloured surfaces do not produce particoloured
pupae, probably because the antagonistic stimuli neutralize each other
in the central nervous system, which then disposes the superficial
colours so that a neutral or intermediate effect is produced over the
whole surface (Poulton, _Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond._, 1892, p. 293). Cryptic
colouring may incidentally produce superficial resemblances between
animals; thus desert forms concealed in the same way may gain a likeness
to each other, and in the same way special resemblances, e.g. to lichen,
bark, grasses, pine-needles, &c., may sometimes lead to a tolerably
close similarity between the animals which are thus concealed. Such
likeness may be called _syncryptic_ or _common protective_ (or
_aggressive_) _resemblance_, and it is to be distinguished from mimicry
and common warning colours, in which the likeness is not incidental, but
an end in itself. Syncryptic resemblances have much in common with those
incidentally caused by functional adaptation, such as the mole-like
forms produced in the burrowing Insectivora, Rodentia and Marsupialia.
Such likeness may be called _syntechnic resemblance_, incidentally
produced by dynamic similarity, just as syncryptic resemblance is
produced by static similarity.
_Use of Colour for Warning and Signalling, or Sematic Coloration._--The
use of colour for the purpose of warning is the exact opposite of the
one which has been just described, its object being to render the animal
conspicuous to its enemies, so that it can be easily seen, well
remembered, and avoided in future. Warning colours are associated with
some quality or weapon which renders the possessor unpleasant or
dangerous, such as unpalatability, an evil odour, a sting, the
poison-fang, &c. The object being to warn an enemy off, these colours
are also called _aposematic_. Recognition markings, on the other hand,
are _episematic_, assisting the individuals of the same species to keep
together when their safety depends upon numbers, or easily to follow
each other to a place of safety, the young and inexperienced benefiting
by the example of the older. Episematic characters are far less common
than aposematic, and these than cryptic; although, as regards the latter
comparison, the opposite impression is generally produced from the very
fact that concealment is so successfully attained. Warning or aposematic
colours, together with the qualities they indicate, depend, as a rule,
for their very existence upon the abundance of palatable food supplied
by the animals with cryptic colouring. Unpalatability, or even the
possession of a sting, is not sufficient defence unless there is enough
food of another kind to be obtained at the same time and place (Poulton,
_Proc. Zool. Soc._, 1887, p. 191). Hence insects with warning colours
are not seen in temperate countries except at the time when insect life
as a whole is most abundant; and in warmer countries, with well-marked
wet and dry seasons, it will probably be found that warning colours are
proportionately less developed in the latter. In many species of African
butterflies belonging to the genus _Junonia_ (including _Precis_) the
wet-season broods are distinguished by the more or less conspicuous
under sides of the wings, those of the dry season being highly cryptic.
Warning colours are, like cryptic, assisted by special adaptations of
the body-form, and especially by movements which assist to render the
colour as conspicuous as possible. On this account animals with warning
colours generally move or fly slowly, and it is the rule in butterflies
that the warning patterns are similar on both upper and under sides of
the wings. Many animals, when attacked or disturbed, "sham death" (as it
is commonly but wrongly described), falling motionless to the ground. In
the case of well-concealed animals this instinct gives them a second
chance of escape in the earth or among the leaves, &c., when they have
been once detected; animals with warning colours are, on the other hand,
enabled to assume a position in which their characters are displayed to
the full (J. Portschinsky, _Lepidopterorum Rossiae Biologia_, St
Petersburg, 1890, plate i. figs. 16, 17). In both cases a definite
attitude is assumed, which is not that of death. Other warning
characters exist in addition to colouring: thus sound is made use of by
the disturbed rattlesnake and the Indian _Echis_, &c. Large birds, when
attacked, often adopt a threatening attitude, accompanied by a
terrifying sound. The cobra warns an intruder chiefly by attitude and
the dilation of the flattened neck, the effect being heightened in some
species by the "spectacles." In such cases we often see the combination
of cryptic and sematic methods, the animal being concealed until
disturbed, when it instantly assumes an aposematic attitude. The
advantage to the animal itself is clear: a poisonous snake gains nothing
by killing an animal it cannot eat; while the poison does not cause
immediate death, and the enemy would have time to injure or destroy the
snake. In the case of small unpalatable animals with warning colours the
enemies would only first become aware of the unpleasant quality by
tasting and often destroying their prey; but the species would gain by
the experience thus conveyed, even though the individual might suffer.
An insect-eating animal does not come into the world with knowledge: it
has to be educated by experience, and warning colours enable this
education as to what to avoid to be gained by a small instead of a large
waste of life. Furthermore, great tenacity of life is usually possessed
by animals with warning colours. The tissues of aposematic insects
generally possess great elasticity and power of resistance, so that
large numbers of individuals can recover after very severe treatment.
The brilliant warning colours of many caterpillars attracted the
attention of Darwin when he was thinking over his hypothesis of sexual
selection, and he wrote to A. R. Wallace on the subject (C. Darwin,
_Life and Letters_, London, 1887, iii. 93). Wallace, in reply, suggested
their interpretation as warning colours, a suggestion since verified by
experiment (_Proc. Ent. Soc. Lond._, 1867, p. lxxx; _Trans. Ent. Soc.
Lond._, 1869, pp. 21 and 27). Although animals with warning colours are
probably but little attacked by the ordinary enemies of their class,
they have special enemies which keep the numbers down to the average.
Thus the cuckoo appears to be an insectivorous bird which will freely
devour conspicuously coloured unpalatable larvae. The effect of the
warning colours of caterpillars is often intensified by gregarious
habits. Another aposematic use of colours and structures is to divert
attention from the vital parts, and thus give the animal attacked an
extra chance of escape. The large, conspicuous, easily torn wings of
butterflies and moths act in this way, as is found by the abundance of
individuals which may be captured with notches bitten symmetrically out
of both wings when they were in contact. The eye-spots and "tails" so
common on the hinder part of the hind wing, and the conspicuous apex so
frequently seen on the fore wing, probably have this meaning. Their
position corresponds to the parts which are most offen found to be
notched. In some cases (e.g. many _Lycaenidae_) the "tail" and eye-spot
combine to suggest the appearance of a head with antennae at the
posterior end of the butterfly, the deception being aided by movements
of the hind wings. The flat-topped "tussocks" of hair on many
caterpillars look like conspicuous fleshy projections of the body, and
they are held prominently when the larva is attacked. If seized, the
"tussock" comes out, and the enemy is greatly inconvenienced by the fine
branched hairs. The tails of lizards, which easily break off, are to be
similarly explained, the attention of the pursuer being probably still
further diverted by the extremely active movements of the amputated
member. Certain crabs similarly throw off their claws when attacked, and
the claws continue to snap most actively. The tail of the dormouse,
which easily comes off, and the extremely bushy tail of the squirrel,
are probably of use in the same manner. Animals with warning colours
often tend to resemble each other superficially. This fact was first
pointed out by H. W. Bates in his paper on the theory of mimicry
(_Trans. Linn. Soc._ vol. xxiii., 1862, p. 495). He showed that the
conspicuous, presumably unpalatable, tropical American butterflies,
belonging to very different groups, which are mimicked by others, also
tend to resemble each other, the likeness being often remarkably exact.
These resemblances were not explained by his theory of mimicry, and he
could only suppose that they had been produced by the direct influence
of a common environment. The problem was solved in 1879 by Fritz Müller
(see _Proc. Ent. Soc. Lond._, 1879, p. xx.), who suggested that life is
saved by this resemblance between warning colours, inasmuch as the
education of young inexperienced enemies is facilitated. Each species
which falls into a group with common warning (_synaposematic_) colours
contributes to save the lives of the other members. It is sufficiently
obvious that the amount of learning and remembering, and consequently of
injury and loss of life involved in the process, are reduced when many
species in one place possess the same aposematic colouring, instead of
each exhibiting a different "danger-signal." These resemblances are
often described as "Müllerian mimicry," as distinguished from true or
"Batesian mimicry" described in the next section. Similar synaposematic
resemblances between the specially protected groups of butterflies were
afterwards shown to exist in tropical Asia, the East Indian Islands and
Polynesia by F. Moore (_Proc. Zool. Soc._, 1883, p. 201), and in Africa
by E. B. Poulton (_Report Brit. Assoc._, 1897, p. 688). R. Meldola
(_Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist._ x., 1882, p. 417) first pointed out and
explained in the same manner the remarkable general uniformity of colour
and pattern which runs through so many species of each of the
distasteful groups of butterflies; while, still later, Poulton (_Proc.
Zool. Soc._, 1887, p. 191) similarly extended the interpretation to the
synaposematic resemblances between animals of all kinds in the same
country. Thus, for example, longitudinal or circular bands of the same
strongly contrasted colours are found in species of many groups with
distant affinities.
Certain animals, especially the Crustacea, make use of the special
defence and warning colours of other animals. Thus the English
hermit-crab, _Pagurus Bernhardus_, commonly carries the sea-anemone,
_Sagartia parasitica_, on its shell; while another English species,
_Pagurus Prideauxii_, inhabits a shell which is invariably clothed by
the flattened _Adamsia palliata_.
The white patch near the tail which is frequently seen in the gregarious
Ungulates, and is often rendered conspicuous by adjacent black markings,
probably assists the individuals in keeping together; and appearances
with probably the same interpretation are found in many birds. The white
upturned tail of the rabbit is probably of use in enabling the
individuals to follow each other readily. The difference between a
typical aposematic character appealing to enemies, and episematic
intended for other individuals of the same species, is well seen when we
compare such examples as (1) the huge banner-like white tail,
conspicuously contrasted with the black or black and white body, by
which the slow-moving skunk warns enemies of its power of emitting an
intolerably offensive odour; (2) the small upturned white tail of the
rabbit, only seen when it is likely to be of use and when the owner is
moving, and, if pursued, very rapidly moving, towards safety.
_Mimicry_ (see also MIMICRY) or _Pseudo-sematic Colours_.--The fact that
animals with distant affinities may more or less closely resemble each
other was observed long before the existing explanation was possible.
Its recognition is implied in a number of insect names with the
termination -_formis_, usually given to species of various orders which
more or less closely resemble the stinging Hymenoptera. The usefulness
of the resemblance was suggested in Kirby and Spence's _Introduction to
Entomology_, London, 1817, ii. 223. H. W. Bates (_Trans. Linn. Soc._
vol. xxiii., 1862, p. 495) first proposed an explanation of mimicry
based on the theory of natural selection. He supposed that every step in
the formation and gradual improvement of the likeness occurred in
consequence of its usefulness in the struggle for life. The subject is
of additional interest, inasmuch as it was one of the first attempts to
apply the theory of natural selection to a large class of phenomena up
to that time well known but unexplained. Numerous examples of mimicry
among tropical American butterflies were discussed by Bates in his
paper; and in 1866 A. R. Wallace extended the hypothesis to the
butterflies of the tropical East (_Trans. Linn. Soc._ vol. xxv., 1866,
p. 19); Roland Trimen (_Trans. Linn. Soc._ vol. xxvi., 1870, p. 497) to
those of Africa in 1870. The term mimicry is used in various senses. It
is often extended, as indeed it was by Bates, to include all the
superficial resemblances between animals and any part of their
environment. Wallace, however, separated the cryptic resemblances
already described, and the majority of naturalists have followed this
convenient arrangement. In cryptic resemblance an animal resembles some
object of no interest to its enemy (or prey), and in so doing is
concealed; in mimicry an animal resembles some other animal which is
specially disliked by its enemy, or some object which is specially
attractive to its prey, and in so doing becomes conspicuous. Some
naturalists have considered mimicry to include all superficial
likenesses between animals, but such a classification would group
together resemblances which have widely different uses. (1) The
resemblance of a mollusc to the coral on which it lives, or an external
parasite to the hair or skin of its host, would be _procryptic_; (2)
that between moths which resemble lichen, _syncryptic_; (3) between
distasteful insects, _synaposematic_; (4) between the Insectivor mole
and the Rodent mole-rat, _syntechnic_; (5) the essential element in
mimicry is that it is a false warning (pseud-aposematic) or false
recognition (pseud-episematic) character. Some have considered that
mimicry indicates resemblance to a moving object; but apart from the
non-mimetic likenesses between animals classified above, there are
ordinary cryptic resemblances to drifting leaves, swaying bits of twig,
&c., while truly mimetic resemblances are often specially adapted for
the attitude of rest. Many use the term mimicry to include synaposematic
as well as pseudo-sematic resemblances, calling the former "Müllerian,"
the latter "Batesian," mimicry. The objection to this grouping is that
it takes little account of the deceptive element which is essential in
mimicry. In synaposematic colouring the warning is genuine, in
pseud-aposematic it is a sham. The term mimicry has led to much
misunderstanding from the fact that in ordinary speech it implies
deliberate imitation. The production of mimicry in an individual animal
has no more to do with consciousness or "taking thought" than any of the
other processes of growth. Protective mimicry is here defined as an
advantageous and superficial resemblance of one animal to another, which
latter is specially defended so as to be disliked or feared by the
majority of enemies of the groups to which both belong--a resemblance
which appeals to the sense of sight, sometimes to that of hearing, and
rarely to smell, but does not extend to deep-seated characters except
when the superficial likeness is affected by them. _Mutatis mutandis_
this definition will apply to aggressive (pseud-episematic) resemblance.
The conditions under which mimicry occurs have been stated by
Wallace:--"(1) that the imitative species occur in the same area and
occupy the same station as the imitated; (2) that the imitators are
always the more defenceless; (3) that the imitators are always less
numerous in individuals; (4) that the imitators differ from the bulk of
their allies; (5) that the imitation, however minute, is _external_ and
_visible_ only, never extending to internal characters or to such as do
not affect the external appearance." It is obvious that conditions 2 and
3 do not hold in the case of Müllerian mimicry. Mimicry has been
explained, independently of natural selection, by the supposition that
it is the common expression of the direct action of common causes, such
as climate, food, &c.; also by the supposition of independent lines of
evolution leading to the same result without any selective action in
consequence of advantage in the struggle; also by the operation of
sexual selection.
It is proposed, in conclusion, to give an account of the broad aspects
of mimicry, and attempt a brief discussion of the theories of origin of
each class of facts (see Poulton, _Linn. Soc. Journ. Zool._, 1898, p.
558). It will be found that in many cases the argument here made use of
applies equally to the origin of cryptic and sematic colours. The
relationship between these classes has been explained: mimicry is, as
Wallace has stated (_Darwinism_, London, 1889), merely "an exceptional
form of protective resemblance. "Now, protective (cryptic) resemblance
cannot be explained on any of the lines suggested above, except natural
selection; even sexual selection fails, because cryptic resemblance is
especially common in the immature stages of insect life. But it would be
unreasonable to explain mimetic resemblance by one set of principles and
cryptic by another and totally different set. Again, it may be plausible
to explain the mimicry of one butterfly for another on one of the
suggested lines, but the resemblance of a fly or moth to a wasp is by no
means so easy, and here selection would be generally conceded; yet the
appeal to antagonistic principles to explain such closely related cases
would only be justified by much direct evidence. Furthermore, the
mimetic resemblances between butterflies are not haphazard, but the
models almost invariably belong only to certain sub-families, the
_Danainae_ and _Acraeinae_ in all the warmer parts of the world, and, in
tropical America, the _Ithomiinae_ and _Heliconinae_ as well. These
groups have the characteristics of aposematic species, and no theory but
natural selection explains their invariable occurrence as models
wherever they exist. It is impossible to suggest, except by natural
selection, any explanation of the fact that mimetic resemblances are
confined to changes which produce or strengthen a superficial likeness.
Very deep-seated changes are generally involved, inasmuch as the
appropriate instincts as to attitude, &c., are as important as colour
and marking. The same conclusion is reached when we analyse the nature
of mimetic resemblance and realize how complex it really is, being made
up of _colours_, both pigmentary and structural, _pattern_, _form_,
_attitude_ and _movement_. A plausible interpretation of colour may be
wildly improbable when applied to some other element, and there is _no_
explanation except natural selection which can explain all these
elements. The appeal to the direct action of local conditions in common
often breaks down upon the slightest investigation, the difference in
habits between mimic and model in the same locality causing the most
complete divergence in their conditions of life. Thus many insects
produced from burrowing larvae mimic those whose larvae live in the
open. Mimetic resemblance is far commoner in the female than in the
male, a fact readily explicable by selection, as suggested by Wallace,
for the female is compelled to fly more slowly and to expose itself
while laying eggs, and hence a resemblance to the slow-flying freely
exposed models is especially advantageous. The facts that mimetic
species occur in the same locality, fly at the same time of the year as
their models, and are day-flying species even though they may belong to
nocturnal groups, are also more or less difficult to explain except on
the theory of natural selection, and so also is the fact that mimetic
resemblance is produced in the most varied manner. A spider resembles
its model, an ant, by a modification of its body-form into a superficial
resemblance, and by holding one pair of legs to represent antennae;
certain bugs (Hemiptera) and beetles have also gained a shape unusual in
their respective groups, a shape which superficially resembles an ant; a
Locustid (_Myrmecophana_) has the shape of an ant painted, as it were,
on its body, all other parts resembling the background and invisible; a
Membracid (Homoptera) is entirely unlike an ant, but is concealed by an
ant-like shield. When we further realize that in this and other examples
of mimicry "the likeness is almost always detailed and remarkable,
however it is attained, while the methods differ absolutely," we
recognize that natural selection is the only possible explanation
hitherto suggested. In the cases of aggressive mimicry an animal
resembles some object which is attractive to its prey. Examples are
found in the flower-like species of _Mantis_, which attract the insects
on which they feed. Such cases are generally described as possessing
"alluring colours," and are regarded as examples of aggressive
(anticryptic) resemblance, but their logical position is here.
_Colours displayed in Courtship, Secondary Sexual Characters, Epigamic
Colours._--Darwin suggested the explanation of these appearances in his
theory of _sexual selection_ (_The Descent of Man_, London, 1874). The
rivalry of the males for the possession of the females he believed to be
decided by the preference of the latter for those individuals with
especially bright colours, highly developed plumes, beautiful song, &c.
Wallace does not accept the theory, but believes that natural selection,
either directly or indirectly, accounts for all the facts. Probably the
majority of naturalists follow Darwin in this respect. The subject is
most difficult, and the interpretation of a great proportion of the
examples in a high degree uncertain, so that a very brief account is
here expedient. That selection of some kind has been operative is
indicated by the diversity of the elements into which the effects can be
analysed. The most complete set of observations on epigamic display was
made by George W. and Elizabeth G. Peckham upon spiders of the family
_Attidae_ (_Nat. Hist. Soc. of Wisconsin_, vol. i., 1889). These
observations afforded the authors "conclusive evidence that the females
pay close attention to the love-dances of the males, and also that they
have not only the power, but the will, to exercise a choice among the
suitors for their favour." Epigamic characters are often concealed
except during courtship; they are found almost exclusively in species
which are diurnal or semi-diurnal in their habits, and are excluded from
those parts of the body which move too rapidly to be seen. They are very
commonly directly associated with the nervous system; and in certain
fish, and probably in other animals, an analogous heightening of effect
accompanies nervous excitement other than sexual, such as that due to
fighting or feeding. Although there is epigamic display in species with
sexes alike, it is usually most marked in those with secondary sexual
characters specially developed in the male. These are an exception to
the rule in heredity, in that their appearance is normally restricted to
a single sex, although in many of the higher animals they have been
proved to be latent in the other, and may appear after the essential
organs of sex have been removed or become functionless. This is also the
case in the Aculeate Hymenoptera when the reproductive organs have been
destroyed by the parasite _Stylops_. J. T. Cunningham has argued
(_Sexual Dimorphism in the Animal Kingdom_, London, 1900) that secondary
sexual characters have been produced by direct stimulation due to
contests, &c., in the breeding period, and have gradually become
hereditary, a hypothesis involving the assumption that acquired
characters are transmitted. Wallace suggests that they are in part to be
explained as "recognition characters," in part as an indication of
surplus vital activity in the male.
AUTHORITIES.--The following works may also be consulted:--T. Eimer,
_Orthogenesis der Schmetterlinge_ (Leipzig, 1898); E. B. Poulton, _The
Colours of Animals_ (London, 1890); F. E. Beddard, _Animal Coloration_
(London, 1892); E. Haase, _Researches on Mimicry_ (translation,
London, 1896); A. R. Wallace, _Natural Selection and Tropical Nature_
(London, 1895); _Darwinism_ (London, 1897); A. H. Thayer and G. H.
Thayer, _Concealing-Coloration in the Animal Kingdom_ (New York,
1910). (E. B. P.)
2. CHEMISTRY
The coloration of the _surface_ of animals is caused either by
_pigments_, or by a certain _structure_ of the surface by means of which
the light falling on it, or reflected through its superficial
transparent layers, undergoes diffraction or other optical change. Or it
may be the result of a combination of these two causes. It plays an
important part in the relationship of the animal to its environment, in
concealment, in mimicry, and so on; the presence of a pigment in the
integument may also serve a more direct physiological purpose, such as a
respiratory function. The coloration of birds' feathers, of the skin of
many fishes, of many insects, is partially at least due to structure and
the action of the peculiar pigmented cells known as "chromatophores"
(which W. Garstang defines as pigmented cells specialized for the
discharge of the chromatic function), and is much better marked when
these have for their background a "reflecting layer" such as is provided
by guanin, a substance closely related to uric acid. Such a mechanism is
seen to greatest advantage in fishes. Among these, guanin may be present
in a finely granular form, causing the light falling on it to be
scattered, thus producing a white effect; or it may be present in a
peculiar crystalline form, the crystals being known as "iridocytes"; or
in a layer of closely apposed needles forming a silvery sheet or mirror.
In the iris of some fishes the golden red colour is produced by the
light reflected from such a layer of guanin needles having to pass
through a thin layer of a reddish pigment, known as a "lipochrome."
Again, in some lepidopterous insects a white or a yellow appearance is
produced by the deposition of uric acid or a nearly allied substance on
the surface of the wings. In many animals, but especially among
invertebrates, colouring matters or pigments play an important rôle in
surface coloration; in some cases such coloration may be of benefit to
the animal, but in others the integument simply serves as an organ for
the excretion of waste pigmentary substances. Pigments (1) may be of
direct physiological importance; (2) they may be excretory; or (3) they
may be introduced into the body of the animal with the food.
Of the many pigments which have been described up to the present time,
very few have been subjected to elementary chemical analysis, owing to
the great difficulties attending their isolation. An extremely small
amount of pigment will give rise to a great amount of coloration, and
the pigments are generally accompanied by impurities of various kinds
which cling to them with great tenacity, so that when one has been
thoroughly cleansed very little of it remains for ultimate analysis.
Most of these substances have been detected by means of the
spectroscope, their absorption bands serving for their recognition, but
mere identity of spectrum does not necessarily mean chemical identity,
and a few chemical tests have also to be applied before a conclusion can
be drawn. The absorption bands are referred to certain definite parts of
the spectrum, such as the Fraunhofer lines, or they may be given in
wave-lengths. For this purpose the readings of the spectroscope are
reduced to wave-lengths by means of interpolation curves; or if Zeiss's
microspectroscope be used, the position of bands in wave-lengths
(denoted by the Greek letter [lambda]) may be read directly.
Haemoglobin, the red colouring matter of vertebrate blood,
C758H1203N195S3FeO218, and its derivatives haematin, C32H30N4FeO3, and
haematoporphyrin, C16H18N2O3, are colouring matters about which we
possess definite chemical knowledge, as they have been isolated,
purified and analysed. Most of the bile pigments of mammals have
likewise been isolated and studied chemically, and all of these are
fully described in the text-books of physiology and physiological
chemistry. Haemoglobin, though physiologically of great importance in
the respiratory process of vertebrate animals, is yet seldom used for
surface pigmentation, except in the face of white races of man or in
other parts in monkeys, &c. In some worms the transparent skin allows
the haemoglobin of the blood to be seen through the integument, and in
certain fishes also the haemoglobin is visible through the integument.
It is a curious and noteworthy fact that in some invertebrate animals in
which no haemoglobin occurs, we meet with its derivatives. Thus haematin
is found in the so-called bile of slugs, snails, the limpet and the
crayfish. In sea-anemones there is a pigment which yields some of the
decomposition-products of haemoglobin, and associated with this is a
green pigment apparently identical with biliverdin (C16H18N2O4), a green
bile pigment. Again, haematoporphyrin is found in the integuments of
star-fishes and slugs, and occurs in the "dorsal streak" of the
earth-worm _Lumbricus terrestris_, and perhaps in other species.
Haematoporphyrin and biliverdin also occur in the egg-shells of certain
birds, but in this case they are derived from haemoglobin. Haemoglobin
is said to be found as low down in the animal kingdom as the
Echinoderms, e.g. in _Ophiactis virens_ and _Thyonella gemmata_. It also
occurs in the blood of _Planorbis corneus_ and in the pharyngeal muscles
of other mollusca.
A great number of other pigments have been described; for example, in
the muscles and tissues of animals, both vertebrate and invertebrate,
are the histohaematins, of which a special muscle pigment, myohaematin,
is one. In vertebrates the latter is generally accompanied by
haemoglobin, but in invertebrates--with the exception of the pharyngeal
muscles of the mollusca--it occurs alone. Although closely related to
haemoglobin or its derivative haemochromogen, the histohaematins are yet
totally distinct, and they are found in animals where not a trace of
haemoglobin can be detected. Another interesting pigment is turacin,
which contains about 7% of nitrogen, found by Professor A. H. Church in
the feathers of the Cape lory and other plantain-eaters, from which it
can be extracted by water containing a trace of ammonia. It has been
isolated, purified and analysed by Professor Church. From it may be
obtained turacoporphyrin, which is identical with haematoporphyrin, and
gives the band in the ultra-violet which J. L. Soret and subsequently A.
Gamgee have found to be characteristic of haemoglobin and its compounds.
Turacin itself gives a peculiar two-banded spectrum, and contains about
7% of copper in its molecule. Another copper-containing pigment is
haemocyanin, which in the oxidized state gives a blue colour to the
blood of various Mollusca and Arthropoda. Like haemoglobin, it acts as
an oxygen-carrier in respiration, but it takes no part in surface
coloration.
A class of pigments widely distributed among plants and animals are the
lipochromes. As their name denotes, they are allied to fat and generally
accompany it, being soluble in fat solvents. They play an important part
in surface coloration, and may be greenish, yellow or red in colour.
They contain no nitrogen. As an example of a lipochrome which has been
isolated, crystallized and purified, we may mention carotin, which has
recently been found in green leaves. Chlorophyll, which is so often
associated with a lipochrome, has been found in some Infusoria, and in
_Hydra_ and _Spongilla_, &c. In some cases it is probably formed by the
animal; in other cases it may be due to symbiotic algae, while in the
gastric gland of many Mollusca, Crustacea and Echinodermata it is
derived from food-chlorophyll. Here it is known as entero-chlorophyll.
The black pigments which occur among both vertebrate and invertebrate
animals often have only one attribute in common, viz. blackness, for
among the discordant results of analysis one thing is certain, viz. that
the melanins from vertebrate animals are not identical with those from
invertebrate animals. The melanosis or blackening of insect blood, for
instance, is due to the oxidation of a chromogen, the pigment produced
being known as a uranidine. In some sponges a somewhat similar pigment
has been noticed. Other pigments have been described, such as
actiniochrome, echinochrome, pentacrinin, antedonin, polyperythrin
(which appears to be a haematoporphyrin), the floridines,
spongioporphyrin, &c., which need no mention here; all these pigments
can only be distinguished by means of the spectroscope.
Most of the pigments are preceded by colourless substances known as
"chromogens," which by the action of the oxygen of the air and by other
agencies become changed into the corresponding pigments. In some cases
the pigments are built up in the tissues of an animal, in others they
appear to be derived more or less directly from the food. Derivatives of
chlorophyll and lipochromes especially, seem to be taken up from the
intestine, probably by the agency of leucocytes, in which they may occur
in combination with, or dissolved by, fatty matters and excreted by the
integument. In worms especially, the skin seems to excrete many effete
substances, pigments included. No direct connexion has been traced
between the chlorophyll eaten with the food and the haemoglobin of blood
and muscle. Attention may, however, be drawn to the work of Dr E.
Schunck, who has shown that a substance closely resembling
haematoporphyrin can be prepared from chlorophyll; this is known as
phylloporphyrin. Not only does the _visible_ spectrum of this substance
resemble that of haematoporphyrin, but the _invisible_ ultra-violet
also, as shown by C. A. Schunck.
The reader may refer to E. A. Schäfer's _Text-Book of Physiology_
(1898) for A. Gamgee's article "On Haemoglobin, and its Compounds"; to
the writer's papers in the _Phil. Trans._ and _Proc. Roy. Soc._ from
1881 onwards, and also _Quart. Journ. Micros. Science_ and _Journ. of
Physiol._; to C. F. W. Krukenberg's _Vergleichende physiologische
Studien_ from 1879 onwards, and to his _Vorträge_. Miss M. I. Newbigin
collected in _Colour in Nature_ (1898) most of the recent literature
of this subject. Dr E. Schunck's papers will be found under the
heading "Contribution to the Chemistry of Chlorophyll" in _Proc. Roy.
Soc._ from 1885 onwards; and Mr C. A. Schunck's paper in _Proc. Roy.
Soc._ vol. lxiii. (C. A. MacM.)
COLSTON, EDWARD (1636-1721), English philanthropist, the son of William
Colston, a Bristol merchant of good position, was born at Bristol on the
2nd of November 1636. He is generally understood to have spent some
years of his youth and manhood as a factor in Spain, with which country
his family was long connected commercially, and whence, by means of a
trade in wines and oil, great part of his own vast fortune was to come.
On his return he seems to have settled in London, and to have bent
himself resolutely to the task of making money. In 1681, the date of his
father's decease, he appears as a governor of Christ's hospital, to
which noble foundation he afterwards gave frequently and largely. In the
same year he probably began to take an active interest in the affairs of
Bristol, where he is found about this time embarked in a sugar refinery;
and during the remainder of his life he seems to have divided his
attention pretty equally between the city of his birth and that of his
adoption. In 1682 he appears in the records of the great western port as
advancing a sum of £1800 to its needy corporation; in 1683 as "a free
burgess and _meire_ (St Kitts) merchant" he was made a member of the
Merchant's Hall; and in 1684 he was appointed one of a committee for
managing the affairs of Clifton. In 1685 he again appears as the city's
creditor for about £2000, repayment of which he is found insisting on in
1686. In 1689 he was chosen auditor by the vestry at Mortlake, where he
was residing in an old house once the abode of Ireton and Cromwell. In
1691, on St Michael's Hill, Bristol, at a cost of £8000, he founded an
almshouse for the reception of 24 poor men and women, and endowed with
accommodation for "Six Saylors," at a cost of £600, the merchant's
almshouses in King Street. In 1696, at a cost of £8000, he endowed a
foundation for clothing and teaching 40 boys (the books employed were to
have in them "no tincture of Whiggism"); and six years afterwards he
expended a further sum of £1500 in rebuilding the school-house. In 1708;
at a cost of £41,200, he built and endowed his great foundation on Saint
Augustine's Back, for the instruction, clothing, maintaining and
apprenticing of 100 boys; and in time of scarcity, during this and next
year, he transmitted "by a private hand" some £20,000 to the London
committee. In 1710, after a poll of four days, he was sent to
parliament, to represent, on strictest Tory principles, his native city
of Bristol; and in 1713, after three years of silent political life, he
resigned this charge. He died at Mortlake in 1721, having nearly
completed his eighty-fifth year; and was buried in All Saints' church,
Bristol.
Colston, who was in the habit of bestowing large sums yearly for the
release of poor debtors and the relief of indigent age and sickness, and
who gave (1711) no less than £6000 to increase Queen Anne's Bounty Fund
for the augmentation of small livings, was always keenly interested in
the organization and management of his foundations; the rules and
regulations were all drawn up by his hand, and the minutest details of
their constitution and economy were dictated by him. A high churchman
and Tory, with a genuine intolerance of dissent and dissenters, his name
and example have served as excuses for the formation of two political
benevolent societies--the "Anchor" (founded 1769) and the "Dolphin"
(founded 1749),--and also the "Grateful" (founded 1758), whose rivalry
has been perhaps as instrumental in keeping their patron's memory green
as have the splendid charities with which he enriched his native city
(see BRISTOL).
See Garrard, _Edward Colston, the Philanthropist_ (4to, Bristol,
1852); Pryce, _A Popular History of Bristol_ (1861); Manchee, _Bristol
Charities_.
COLT, SAMUEL (1814-1862), American inventor, was born on the 19th of
July 1814 at Hartford, Connecticut, where his father had a manufactory
of silks and woollens. At the age of ten he left school for the factory,
and at fourteen, then being in a boarding school at Amherst,
Massachusetts, he made a runaway voyage to India, during which (in 1829)
he constructed a wooden model, still existing, of what was afterwards to
be the revolver (see PISTOL). On his return he learned chemistry from
his father's bleaching and dyeing manager, and under the assumed name
"Dr Coult" travelled over the United States and Canada lecturing on that
science. The profits of two years of this work enabled him to continue
his researches and experiments. In 1835, having perfected a
six-barrelled rotating breech, he visited Europe, and patented his
inventions in London and Paris, securing the American right on his
return; and the same year he founded at Paterson, New Jersey, the Patent
Arms Company, for the manufacture of his revolvers only. As early as
1837 revolvers were successfully used by United States troops, under
Lieut.-Colonel William S. Harney, in fighting against the Seminole
Indians in Florida. Colt's scheme, however, did not succeed; the arms
were not generally appreciated; and in 1842 the company became
insolvent. No revolvers were made for five years, and none were to be
had when General Zachary Taylor wrote for a supply from the seat of war
in Mexico. In 1847 the United States government ordered 1000 from the
inventor; but before these could be produced he had to construct a new
model, for a pistol of the company's make could nowhere be found. This
commission was the beginning of an immense business. The little armoury
at Whitneyville (New Haven, Connecticut), where the order for Mexico was
executed, was soon exchanged for larger workshops at Hartford. These in
their turn gave place (1852) to the enormous factory of the Colt's
Patent Fire-Arms Manufacturing Company, doubled in 1861, on the banks of
the Connecticut river, within the city limits of Hartford, where so many
millions of revolvers with all their appendages have been manufactured.
Thence was sent, for the Russian and English governments, to Tula and
Enfield, the whole of the elaborate machinery devised by Colt for the
manufacture of his pistols. Colt introduced and patented a number of
improvements in his revolver, and also invented a submarine battery for
harbour defence. He died at Hartford on the 10th of January 1862.
COLT'S-FOOT, the popular name of a small herb, _Tussilago Farfara_, a
member of the natural order Compositae, which is common in Britain in
damp, heavy soils. It has a stout branching underground stem, which
sends up in March and April scapes about 6 in. high, each bearing a head
of bright yellow flowers, the male in the centre surrounded by a much
larger number of female. The flowers are succeeded by the fruits, which
bear a soft snow-white woolly pappus. The leaves, which appear later,
are broadly cordate with an angular or lobed outline, and are covered on
the under-face with a dense white felt. The botanical name, _Tussilago_,
recalls its use as a medicine for cough (_tussis_). The leaves are
smoked in cases of asthma.
COLUGO, or COBEGO, either of two species of the zoological genus
_Galeopithecus_. These animals live in the forests of the Malay
Peninsula, Sumatra, Borneo and the Philippine Islands, where they feed
chiefly on leaves, and probably also on insects. In size they may be
compared with cats; the long slender limbs are connected by a broad fold
of skin extending outwards from the sides of the neck and body, the
fingers and toes are webbed, and the hind-limbs joined by an outer
membrane as in bats. Their habits are nocturnal, and during the daytime
they cling to the trunks or limbs of trees head downwards in a state of
repose. With the approach of night their season of activity commences,
when they may be occasionally seen gliding from tree to tree supported
on their cutaneous parachute, and they have been noticed as capable of
traversing in this way a space of 70 yds. with a descent of only about
one in five. Europeans in the East know these animals as "flying
lemurs." (See GALEOPITHECUS.)
COLUMBA, SAINT (Irish, _Colum_), Irish saint, was born on the 7th of
December 521, in all probability at Gartan in Co. Donegal. His father
Feidlimid was a member of the reigning family in Ireland and was closely
allied to that of Dalriada (Argyll). His mother Eithne was of Leinster
extraction and was descended from an illustrious provincial king. To
these powerful connexions as much as to his piety and ability, he owed
the immense influence he possessed. Later lives state that the saint was
also called Crimthann (fox), and Reeves suggests that he may have had
two names, the one baptismal, the other secular. He was afterwards known
as Columkille, or Columba of the Church, to distinguish him from others
of the same name. During his early years the Irish Church was reformed
by Gildas and Finian of Clonard, and numerous monasteries were founded
which made Ireland renowned as a centre of learning. Columba himself
studied under two of the most distinguished Irishmen of his day, Finian
of Moville (at the head of Strangford Lough) and Finian of Clonard.
Almost as a matter of course, under such circumstances, he embraced the
monastic life. He was ordained deacon while at Moville, and afterwards,
when about thirty years of age, was raised to the priesthood. During his
residence in Ireland he founded, in addition to a number of churches,
two famous monasteries, one named Daire Calgaich (Derry) on the banks of
Lough Foyle, the other Dair-magh (Durrow) in King's county.
In 563 he left his native land, accompanied by twelve disciples, and
went on a mission to northern Britain, perhaps on the invitation of his
kinsman Conall, king of Dalriada. Irish accounts represent Columba as
undertaking this mission in consequence of the censure expressed against
him by the clergy after the battle of Cooldrevny; but this is probably a
fabrication. The saint's labours in Scotland must be regarded as a
manifestation of the same spirit of missionary enterprise with which so
many of his countrymen were imbued. Columba established himself on the
island of Hy or Iona, where he erected a church and a monastery. About
the year 565 he applied himself to the task of converting the heathen
kingdom of the northern Picts. Crossing over to the mainland he
proceeded to the residence, on the banks of the Ness, of Brude, king of
the Picts. By his preaching, his holy life, and, as his earliest
biographers assert, by the performance of miracles, he converted the
king and many of his subjects. The precise details, except in a few
cases, are unknown, or obscured by exaggeration and fiction; but it is
certain that the whole of northern Scotland was converted by the labours
of Columba, and his disciples and the religious instruction of the
people provided for by the erection of numerous monasteries. The
monastery of Iona was reverenced as the mother house of all these
foundations, and its abbots were obeyed as the chief ecclesiastical
rulers of the whole nation of the northern Picts. There were then
neither dioceses nor parishes in Ireland and Celtic Scotland; and by the
Columbite rule the bishops themselves, although they ordained the
clergy, were subject to the jurisdiction of the abbots of Iona, who,
like the founder of the order, were only presbyters. In matters of
ritual they agreed with the Western Church on the continent, save in a
few particulars such as the precise time of keeping Easter and manner of
tonsure.
Columba was honoured by his countrymen, the Scots of Britain and
Ireland, as much as by his Pictish converts, and in his character of
chief ecclesiastical ruler he gave formal benediction and inauguration
to Aidan, the successor of Conall, as king of the Scots. He accompanied
that prince to Ireland in 575, and took a leading part in a council held
at Drumceat in Ulster, which determined once and for all the position of
the ruler of Dalriada with regard to the king of Ireland. The last years
of Columba's life appear to have been mainly spent at Iona. There he was
already revered as a saint, and whatever credit may be given to some
portions of the narratives of his biographers, there can be no doubt as
to the wonderful influence which he exercised, as to the holiness of his
life, and as to the love which he uniformly manifested to God and to his
neighbour.
In the summer of 597 he knew that his end was approaching. On Saturday
the 8th of June he was able, with the help of one of his monks, to
ascend a little hill above the monastery and to give it his farewell
blessing. Returning to his cell he continued a labour in which he had
been engaged, the transcription of the Psalter. Having finished the
verse of the 34th Psalm where it is written, "They who seek the Lord
shall want no manner of thing that is good," he said, "Here I must
stop:--what follows let Baithen write"; indicating, as was believed, his
wish that his cousin Baithen should succeed him as abbot. He was present
at evening in the church, and when the midnight bell sounded for the
nocturnal office early on Sunday morning he again went thither
unsupported, but sank down before the altar and passed away as in a
gentle sleep.
Several Irish poems are ascribed to Columba, but they are manifestly
compositions of a later age. Three Latin hymns may, however, be
attributed to the saint with some degree of certainty.
The original materials for a life of St Columba are unusually full.
The earliest biography was written by one of his successors, Cuminius,
who became abbot of Iona in 657. Much more important is the
enlargement of that work by Adamnan, who became abbot of Iona in 679.
These narratives are supplemented by the brief but most valuable
notices given by the Venerable Bede. See W. Reeves, _Life of St
Columba, written by Adamnan_ (Dublin, 1857); W. F. Skene, _Celtic
Scotland_, vol. ii. "Church and Culture" (Edinburgh, 1877).
(E. C. Q.)
COLUMBAN (543-615), Irish saint and writer, was born in Leinster in 543,
and was educated in the monastery of Bangor, Co. Down. About the year
585 he left Ireland together with twelve other monks, and established
himself in the Vosges, among the ruins of an ancient fortification
called Anagrates, the present Anegray in the department of Haute-Saône.
His enemies accused him before a synod of French bishops (602) for
keeping Easter according to the old British and now unorthodox way, and
a more powerful conspiracy was organized against him at the court of
Burgundy for boldly rebuking the crimes of King Theuderich II. and the
queen-mother Brunhilda. He was banished and forcibly removed from his
monastery, and with St Gall and others of the monks he withdrew into
Switzerland, where he preached with no great success to the Suebi and
Alamanni. Being again compelled to flee, he retired to Italy, and
founded the monastery of Bobbio in the Apennines, where he remained till
his death, which took place on the 21st of November 615. His writings,
which include some Latin poems, prove him a man of learning, and he
appears to have been acquainted not only with the Latin classics, but
also with Greek, and even Hebrew.
The collected edition of St Columban's writings was published by
Patrick Fleming in his _Collectanea sacra Hiberni_ (Louvain, 1667),
and reproduced by Migne, p. 4, vol. lxxxvi. (Paris, 1844). See
further, Wright's _Biographia Literaria_. Columban's _Regula
Coenobitalis cum Poenitenliali_ is to be found in the _Codex
Regularum_ (Paris, 1638). A complete bibliography is given in U.
Chevallier, _Répertoire des sources hist_. (Bio. Bibliogr.), vol. i.
990 (Paris, 1905).
COLUMBANI, PLACIDO, Italian architectural designer, who worked chiefly
in England in the latter part of the 18th century. He belonged to the
school of the Adams and Pergolesi, and like them frequently designed the
enrichments of furniture. He was a prolific producer of chimney-pieces,
which are often mistaken for Adam work, of moulded friezes, and painted
plaques for cabinets and the like. There can be no question that the
English furniture designers of the end of the 18th century, and
especially the Adams, Hepplewhite and Sheraton, owed much to his
graceful, flowing and classical conceptions, although they are often
inferior to those of Pergolesi. His books are still a valuable
store-house of sketches for internal architectural decoration. His
principal works are:--_Vases and Tripods_ (1770); _A New Book of
Ornaments, containing a variety of elegant designs for Modern Panels,
commonly executed in Stucco, Wood or Painting, and used in decorating
Principal Rooms_ (1775); _A variety of Capitals, Friezes and Corniches,
and how to increase and decrease them, still retaining their
proportions_ (1776). He also assisted John Crunden in the production of
_The Chimneypiece Makers' Daily Assistant_ (1776).
COLUMBARIUM (Lat. _columba_, a dove), a pigeon-house. The term is
applied in architecture to those sepulchral chambers in and near Rome,
the walls of which were sunk with small niches (_columbaria_) to receive
the cinerary urns. Vitruvius (iv. 2) employs the term to signify the
holes made in a wall to receive the ends of the timbers of a floor or
roof.
COLUMBIA, a city and the county-seat of Boone county, Missouri, U.S.A.,
situated in the central part of the state, about 145 m. (by rail) W.N.W.
of St Louis. Pop. (1890) 4000; (1900) 5651 (1916 negroes); (1910) 9662.
Columbia is served by the Wabash and the Missouri, Kansas & Texas
railways. It is primarily an educational centre, is a market for grain
and farm products, and has grain elevators, a packing house, a shoe
factory and brick works. Columbia is the seat of the University of
Missouri, a coeducational state institution, established in 1839 and
opened in 1841; it received no direct financial support from the state
until 1867, and its founding was due to the self-sacrifice of the people
of the county. It is now liberally supported by the state; in 1908 its
annual income was about $650,000. In 1908 the university had (at
Columbia) 200 instructors and 2419 students, including 680 women;
included in its library is the collection of the State Historical
Society. The School of Mines of the university is at Rolla, Mo.; all
other departments are at Columbia. A normal department was established
in 1867 and opened in 1868; and women were admitted to it in 1869. The
College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts became a department of the
university in 1870. The law department was opened in 1872, the medical
in 1873, and the engineering in 1877. The graduate department was
established in 1896, and in 1908 a department of journalism was
organized. On the university campus in the quadrangle is the monument of
grey granite erected over the grave of Thomas Jefferson, designed after
his own plans, and bearing the famous inscription written by him. It was
given to the university by descendants of Jefferson when Congress
appropriated money for the monument now standing over his grave. Near
the city is the farm of the agricultural college and the experiment
station. At Columbia, also, are the Parker Memorial hospital, the
Teachers College high school, the University Military Academy, the
Columbia Business College, Christian College (Disciples) for women,
established in 1851, its charter being the first granted by Missouri for
the collegiate education of Protestant women; the Bible College of the
Disciples of Christ in Missouri; and Stephens College (under Baptist
control) for women, established in 1856. The municipality owns the
water-works and the electric lighting plant. Columbia was first settled
about 1821.
COLUMBIA, a borough of Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., on the W.
bank of the Susquehanna river (here crossed by a long steel bridge),
opposite Wrightsville and about 81 m. W. by N. of Philadelphia. Pop.
(1890) 10,599; (1900) 12,316, of whom 772 were foreign-born; (1910)
11,454. It is served by the Pennsylvania, the Philadelphia, Baltimore &
Washington, the Philadelphia & Reading, and the Northern Central
railways, and by interurban electric railways. The river here is about a
mile wide, and a considerable portion of the borough is built on the
slope of a hill which rises gently from the river-bank and overlooks
beautiful scenery. The Pennsylvania railway has repair shops here, and
among Columbia's manufactures are silk goods, embroidery and laces, iron
and steel pipe, engines, laundry machinery, brushes, stoves, iron toys,
umbrellas, flour, lumber and wagons; the city is also a busy shipping
and trading centre. Columbia was first settled, by Quakers, in 1726; it
was laid out as a town in 1787; and in 1814 it was incorporated. In 1790
it was one of several places considered in Congress for a permanent site
of the national capital.
COLUMBIA, the capital city of South Carolina, U.S.A., and the
county-seat of Richland county, on the E. bank of the Congaree river, a
short distance below the confluence of the Saluda and the Broad rivers,
about 130 m. N.W. of Charleston. Pop. (1890) 15,353; (19O0) 21,108, of
whom 9858 were negroes; and (1910) 26,319. It is served by the Atlantic
Coast Line, the Southern, the Seaboard Air Line, and the Columbia,
Newberry & Laurens railways. Columbia is picturesquely situated on the
level top of a bluff overlooking the Congaree, which falls about 36 ft.
in passing by, but is navigable for the remainder of its course. The
surrounding country is devoted chiefly to cotton culture. The state
house, United States government building and city hall are fine
structures. Some of the new business houses are ten or more storeys in
height. The state penitentiary and the state insane asylum are located
here, and Columbia is an important educational centre, being the seat of
the university of South Carolina, the Columbia College for women
(Methodist Episcopal South, 1854), the College for women (Presbyterian,
1890), and the Presbyterian Theological Seminary (1828); and the Allen
University (African Methodist Episcopal; coeducational, 1880), and the
Benedict College (Baptist) for negroes. The University of South
Carolina, organized in 1801 and opened in 1805, was known as South
Carolina College in 1805-1863, 1878-1887 and 1891-1906, and as the
university of South Carolina in 1866-1877, 1888-1891 and after 1906; in
1907-1908 it had departments of arts, science, pedagogy and law, an
enrolment of 285 students, and a faculty of 25 instructors. By means of
a canal abundant water power is furnished by the Congaree, and the city
has some of the largest cotton mills in the world; it has, besides,
foundries and machine shops and manufactories of fertilizers and
hosiery. The manufactures under the factory system were valued at
$3,133,903 in 1900 and at $4,676,944 in 1905--a gain, greater than that
of any other city in the state, of 49.2% in five years. In the
neighbourhood are several valuable granite quarries. The municipality
owns and operates its water-works.
While much of the site was still a forest the legislature, in 1786,
chose it for the new capital. It was laid out in the same year, and in
1790 the legislature first met here. Until 1805, when it was
incorporated as a village, Columbia was under the direct government of
the legislature; in 1854 it was chartered as a city. On the morning of
the 17th of February 1865 General W. T. Sherman, on his march through
the Carolinas, entered Columbia, and on the ensuing night a fire broke
out which was not extinguished until most of the city was destroyed. The
responsibility for this fire was charged by the Confederates upon the
Federals and by the Federals upon the Confederates.
COLUMBIA, a city and the county-seat of Maury county, Tennessee, U.S.A.,
situated on the Duck river, in the central part of the state, 46 m. S.
of Nashville. Pop. (1890) 5370; (1900) 6052 (2716 negroes); (1910) 5754.
Columbia is served by the Louisville & Nashville, and the Nashville,
Chattanooga & St Louis railways. It is the seat of the Columbia
Institute for girls (under Protestant Episcopal control), founded in
1836, and of the Columbia Military Academy. Columbia is in a fine
farming region; is engaged extensively in the mining and shipping of
phosphates; has an important trade in live-stock, especially mules;
manufactures cotton, lumber, flour, bricks, pumps and woollen goods; and
has marble and stone works. Columbia was settled about 1807 and was
incorporated in 1822. During the Civil War it was the base from which
General N. B. Forrest operated in 1862-1863, and was alternately
occupied by Confederate and Federal forces during General Hood's
Nashville campaign (November-December 1864).
COLUMBIA RIVER, a stream of the north-west United States and south-west
Canada, about 939 m. in length, draining a basin of about 250,000 sq.
m., of which 38,395 are in British Columbia; some 105,000 sq. m. belong
to the valley of the Snake and 11,700 to that of the Willamette. The
source of the river is partly in the Yellowstone country, partly near
the Titon peaks, and partly in the pine-clad mountains of British
Columbia. Some American geographers regard the head as that of the Clark
Fork, but it is most generally taken to be in British Columbia about 80
m. north of the United States line. From this point it runs some 150 m.
to the north-west to the "Big Bend," and then in a great curve
southward, enclosing the superb ranges of the Selkirks, crossing the
international line near the boundary of Washington and Idaho, where it
is joined by the Pend Oreille river, or Clark Fork, already referred to.
This latter river rises in the Rocky Mountains west of Helena, Montana,
falls with a heavy slope (1323 ft. in 167 m.) to its confluence with the
Flathead, flows through Lake Pend Oreille (27 m.) in northern Idaho, and
runs in deep canyons (falling 900 ft. in 200 m.) to its junction with
the Columbia, which from this point continues almost due south for more
than 106 m. Here the Columbia is joined by the Spokane, a large river
with heavy fall, and enters the "Great Plain of the Columbia," an area
of some 22,000 sq. m., resembling the "parks" of Colorado, shut in on
all sides by mountains: the Moses range to the north, the Bitter Root
and Coeur d'Alène on the east, the Blue on the south, and the Cascades
on the west. The soil is rich, yielding great harvests of grain, and the
mountains rich in minerals as yet only slightly prospected. After
breaking into this basin the river turns sharply to the west and skirts
the northern mountain barrier for about 105 m. Where it strikes the
confines of the Cascades, it is joined by the Okanogan, turns due south
in the second Big Bend, and flows about 200 m. to its junction with the
Snake near Wallula.
After the confluence of the Snake with the Columbia the greater river
turns west toward the Pacific. Throughout its course to this point it
may be said that the Columbia has no flood plain; everywhere it is
cutting its bed; almost everywhere it is characterized by canyons,
although above the Spokane the valley is much broken down and there is
considerable timbered and fertile bench land. Below the Spokane the
canyon becomes more steep and rugged. From the mouth of the Okanogan to
Priests Rapids extends a superb canyon, with precipitous walls of black
columnar basalt 1000 to 3000 ft. in height. The finest portion is below
the Rock Island Rapids. In this part of its course, along the Cascade
range in the Great Plain and at its passage of the range westward,
rapids and cascades particularly obstruct the imperfectly opened bed. In
the lower Columbia, navigation is first interrupted 160 m. from the
mouth at the Cascades, a narrow gorge across the Cascade range 4.5 m.
long, where the river falls 24 ft. in 2500; the rapids are evaded by a
canal constructed (1878-1896) by the Federal government, and by a
portage railway (1890-1891). Fifty-three miles above this are the
Dalles, a series of falls, rapids and rock obstructions extending some
12 m. and ending at Celilo, 115m. below Wallula, with a fall of 20 ft.
There are also impediments just below the mouth of the Snake; others in
the lower course of this river below Riparia; and almost continuous
obstructions in the Columbia above Priests Rapids. The commerce of the
Columbia is very important, especially that from Portland, Vancouver,
Astoria, and other outlets of the Willamette valley and the lower
Columbia. The grain region of the Great Plain, the bottom-land orchards
and grain field on the plateaus of the Snake, have not since 1880 been
dependent upon the water navigation for freighting, but in their
interest costly attempts have been made to open the river below the
Snake uninterruptedly to commerce.
The Columbia is one of the greatest salmon streams of the world (see
OREGON). The tonnage of deep-sea vessels in and out over the bar at the
river's mouth from 1890-1899 was 9,423,637 tons. From 1872-1899 the
United States government expended for improvement of the Snake and
Columbia $6,925,649. The mouth of the latter is the only deep-water
harbour between San Francisco and Cape Flattery (700 m.), and the only
fresh water harbour of the Pacific coast. To facilitate its entrance,
which, owing to bars, tides, winds, and the great discharge of the
river, has always been difficult, a great jetty has been constructed
(1885-1895, later enlarged) to scour the bars. It was about 4.5 miles
long, and in 1903 work was begun to make it 2.5 miles longer. The tides
are perceptible 150 m. above the mouth (mean tide at Astoria _c._ 6.2
ft.), the average tidal flow at the mouth being about 1,000,000 cub. ft.
per second; while the fresh water outflow is from 90,000 to 300,000 cub.
ft. according to the stage of water, and as high as 1,000,000 cub. ft.
in time of flood. Improvements were undertaken by the Federal government
and a state commission in 1902 in order to secure a 25-ft. channel from
Portland to the sea.
In 1792, and possibly also in 1788, the river mouth was entered by
Captain Robert Gray (1755-1806) of Boston, Mass., who named the river
after his own vessel, "Columbia," which name has wholly supplanted the
earlier name, "Oregon." In 1804-1805 the river was explored by
Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. Upon these discoveries the United
States primarily based its claim to the territory now embraced in the
states of Oregon and Washington.
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, one of the oldest and most important of the higher
institutions of learning in the United States, located for the most part
on Morningside Heights, New York city. It embraces Columbia College,
founded as King's College in 1754; a school of medicine (the College of
Physicians and Surgeons) founded in 1767, in West 59th Street; a school
of law, founded in 1858; schools of applied science, including a school
of mines and schools of chemistry and engineering, separately organized
in 1896; a school of architecture, organized in 1881; graduate schools
of political science, organized in 1880, philosophy, organized in 1890,
and pure science, organized in 1892; and a school of journalism; closely
affiliated with it are the College of Pharmacy, founded in 1829, in West
68th Street; Teachers' College, founded in 1886, as the New York College
for the Training of Teachers, and essentially a part of the university
since 1899; and Barnard College (for women) founded in 1889, and
essentially a part of the university since 1900. Reciprocal relations
also exist between the university and both the General Theological
Seminary of the Protestant Episcopal Church and the Union Theological
Seminary, thus practically adding to the university a theological
department. Columbia also nominates the American professors who lecture
at German universities by the reciprocal arrangement made in 1905, the
German professors lecturing in America being nominated by the Prussian
ministry of education. Women are now admitted to all the university
courses except those in law, medicine, technology and architecture.
Since 1900 a summer session has been held for six weeks and attended
largely by teachers. Teachers and others, under the direction of the
Teachers' College, are afforded an opportunity to pursue courses _in
absentia_ and so meet some of the requirements for an academic degree or
a teacher's diploma. All students of good ability are enabled to
complete the requirements for the bachelor's degree together with any
one of the professional degrees by six years of study at the university.
Several courses of lectures designed especially for the public--notably
the Hewitt Lectures, in co-operation with Cooper Union--are delivered at
different places in the city and at the university.
In 1908 there were in Columbia University in all departments 609
instructors and 4096 students; of these 420 were in Barnard College, 850
were in the Teachers' College, and 229 were in the College of Pharmacy.
The numerous University publications include works embodying the
results of original research published by the University Press;
"Studies" published in the form of a series by each of several
departments, various periodicals edited by some members of the faculty,
such as the _Columbia University Quarterly_, the _Political Science
Quarterly_, and the _School of Mines Quarterly_; and several papers or
periodicals published by the students, among which are the _Columbia
Spectator_, a daily paper, the _Columbia Law Review_, the _Columbia
Monthly_ and the _Columbia Jester_.
With two or three unimportant exceptions the buildings of the university
on Morningside Heights have been erected since 1896. They include,
besides the several department buildings, a library building, a
university hall (with gymnasium), Earl Hall (for social purposes), St
Paul's chapel (dedicated in 1907), two residence halls for men, and one
for women. The library contains about 450,000 volumes exclusive of
duplicates and unbound pamphlets. The highest authority in the
government of the institution is vested in a board of twenty-four
trustees, vacancies in which are filled by co-optation; but the
immediate educational interests are directed largely by the members of
the university council, which is composed of the president of the
university, the dean and one other representative from the faculty of
each school. The institution is maintained by the proceeds from an
endowment fund exceeding $15,000,000, by tuition fees ranging, according
to the school, from $150 to $250 for each student, and by occasional
gifts for particular objects.
The charter (1754) providing for the establishment of King's College was
so free from narrow sectarianism as to name ministers of five different
denominations for ex-officio governors, and the purpose of the
institution as set forth by its first president, Dr Samuel Johnson
(1696-1772) was about as broad as that now realised. In 1756 the
erection of the first building was begun at the lower end of Manhattan
Island, near the Hudson, and the institution prospered from the
beginning. From 1776 to 1784, during the War of Independence, the
exercises of the college were suspended and the library and apparatus
were stored in the New York city hall. In 1784 the name was changed to
Columbia College, and an act of the legislature was passed for creating
a state university, of which Columbia was to be the basis. But the plan
was not a success, and three years later, in 1787, the act was repealed
and the administration of Columbia was entrusted to a board of trustees
of which the present board is a successor. In 1857 there was an
extensive re-organization by which the scope of the institution was much
enlarged, and at the same time it was removed to a new site on Madison
Avenue between 49th and 50th Streets. From 1890 to 1895 much
centralization in its administration was effected, in 1896 the name of
Columbia University was adopted, and in the autumn of 1897 the old site
and buildings were again abandoned for new, this time on Morningside
Heights.
See _A History of Columbia University_, by members of the faculty (New
York, 1904); and J. B. Pine, "King's College, now Columbia
University," in _Historic New York_ (New York, 1897).
COLUMBINE (Ital. _columbina_, from _columba_, a dove), in pantomime
(q.v.) the fairy-like dancer who is courted by Harlequin. In the
medieval Italian popular comedy she was Harlequin's daughter.
COLUMBINE, an erect perennial herbaceous plant known botanically as
_Aquilegia vulgaris_ (natural order Ranunculaceae). In Med. Latin it was
known as _Columbina sc. herba_, the dove's plant. The slender stem bears
delicate, long-stalked, deeply divided leaves with blunt segments, and a
loose panicle of handsome drooping blue or white flowers, which are
characterized by having all the five petals spurred. The plant occurs
wild in woods and thickets in England and Ireland, and flowers in early
summer. It is well known in cultivation as a favourite spring flower, in
many varieties, some of which have red flowers.
COLUMBITE, a rare mineral consisting of iron niobate, FeNb2O6, in
which the iron and niobium are replaced by varying amounts of manganese
and tantalum respectively, the general formula being (Fe, Mn) (Nb,
Ta)2O6. It was in this mineral that Charles Hatchett discovered,
in 1801, the element niobium, which he himself called columbium after
the country (Columbia or America) whence came the specimen in the
British Museum collection which he examined. The species has also been
called niobite. It crystallizes in the orthorhombic system, and the
black, opaque crystals are often very brilliant with a sub-metallic
lustre. Twinned crystals are not uncommon, and there is a distinct
cleavage parallel to the face marked _b_ in the figure. Hardness 6;
specific gravity 5.3. With increasing amount of tantalum the specific
gravity increases up to 7.3, and members at this end of the series are
known as tantalite (FeTa2O6). Specimens in which the iron is
largely replaced by manganese are known as manganocolumbite or
manganotantalite, according as they contain more niobium or more
tantalum. Columbite occurs as crystals and compact masses in granite and
pegmatite at Rabenstein in Lower Bavaria, the Ilmen Mountains in the
Urals, Haddam in Connecticut, and several other localities in the United
States; also in the cryolite of Greenland. Tantalite is from Finland,
and it has recently been found in some abundance in the deposits of
cassiterite in the tin-field of Greenbushes in the Blackwood district,
Western Australia.
[Illustration: Crystal of Columbite.]
Dimorphous with columbite and tantalite are the tetragonal minerals
tapiolite (= skogbölite) and mossite, so that the four form an
isodimorphous group with the general formula (Fe, Mn) (Nb, Ta)2O6.
Mossite is from a pegmatite vein near Moss in Norway, and tapiolite is
from Finland. All these minerals contain tin in small amount.
(L. J. S.)
COLUMBIUM, or NIOBIUM (symbol Cb or Nb, atomic weight 94), one of the
metallic elements of the nitrogen group, first detected in 1801 by C.
Hatchett in a specimen of columbite (niobite) from Massachusetts (_Phil.
Trans._ 1802, 49). It is usually found associated with tantalum, the
chief minerals containing these two elements being tantalite, columbite,
fergusonite and yttrotantalite; it is also a constituent of pyrochlor,
euxenite and samarskite. Columbium compounds are usually prepared by
fusing columbite with an excess of acid potassium sulphate, boiling out
the fused mass with much water, and removing tin and tungsten from the
residue by digestion with ammonium sulphide, any iron present being
simultaneously converted into ferrous sulphide. The residue is washed,
extracted by dilute hydrochloric acid, and again well washed with
boiling water. It is then dissolved in hydrofluoric acid and heated in
order to expel silicon fluoride; finally the columbium, tantalum and
titanium fluorides are separated by the different solubilities of their
double fluorides (C. Marignac, _Ann. chim. et phys._ 1866 [4], 8, p. 63;
1868, 13, p. 28; see also W. Gibbs, _Jahresb._ 1864, p. 685; R. D. Hall
and E. F. Smith, _Proc. Amer. Philos. Soc._ 1905, 44, p. 177).
The metal was first obtained by C. W. Blomstrand (_Journ. prak. Chem._
1866, 97, p. 37) by reducing the chloride with hydrogen; it has more
recently been prepared by H. Moissan by reducing the oxide with carbon
in the electric furnace (the product obtained always contains from 2-3%
of combined carbon), and by H. Goldschmidt and C. Vautin (_Journ. Soc.
Chem. Industry_, 1898, 19, p. 543) by reducing the oxide with aluminium
powder. As obtained by the reduction of the chloride, it is a steel grey
powder of specific gravity 7.06. It burns on heating in air; and is
scarcely attacked by hydrochloric or nitric acids, or by _aqua regia_;
it is soluble in warm concentrated sulphuric acid.
_Columbium hydride_, CbH, is obtained as a greyish metallic powder,
when the double fluoride, CbF5, 2KF, is reduced with sodium. It
burns when heated in air, and is soluble in warm concentrated
sulphuric acid. Three oxides of columbium are certainly known, namely
the _dioxide_, Cb2O2, the _tetroxide_, Cb2O4, and the
_pentoxide_, Cb2O5, whilst a fourth oxide, _columbium trioxide_,
Cb2O3, has been described by E. F. Smith and P. Maas (_Zeit. f.
anorg. Chem._ 1894, 7, p. 97). _Columbium dioxide_, Cb2O2, is
formed when dry potassium columbium oxyfluoride is reduced by sodium
(H. Rose, _Pogg. Ann._ 1858, 104, p. 312). It burns readily in air,
and is converted into the pentoxide when fused with acid potassium
sulphate. _Columbium_ _tetroxide_, Cb2O4 is obtained as a black
powder when the pentoxide is heated to a high temperature in a current
of hydrogen. It is unattacked by acids. _Columbium pentoxide_
(columbic acid), Cb2O5, is obtained from columbite, after the
removal of tantalum (see above). The mother liquors are concentrated,
and the double salt of composition 2KF·CbOF3·H2O, which
separates, is decomposed by sulphuric acid, or by continued boiling
with water (C. Marignac; see also G. Krüss and L. F. Nilson, _Ber._
1887, 20, p. 1676). It is a white amorphous infusible powder, which
when strongly heated in sulphuretted hydrogen, yields an oxysulphide.
Several hydrated forms are known, yielding salts known as
_columbates_. A _percolumbic acid_, HCbO4·nH2O, has been
prepared by P. Melikoff and L. Pissarjewsky (_Zeit. f. anorg. Chem._
1899, 20, p. 341), as a yellow amorphous powder by the action of
dilute sulphuric acid on the potassium salt, which is formed when
columbic acid is fused in a silver crucible with eight times its
weight of caustic potash (_loc. cit._). Salts of the acid H3CbO8
have been described by C. W. Balke and E. F. Smith (_Jour. Amer. Chem.
Soc._ 1908, 30, p. 1637).
_Columbium trichloride_, CbCl3, is obtained in needles or crystalline
crusts, when the vapour of the pentachloride is slowly passed through
a red-hot tube. When heated in a current of carbon dioxide it forms
the oxychloride CbOCl3, and carbon monoxide. _Columbium
pentachloride_, CbCl5, is obtained in yellow needles when a mixture of
the pentoxide and sugar charcoal is heated in a current of air-free
chlorine. It melts at 194° C. (H. Deville) and boils at 240.5° C. It
is decomposed by water, and dissolves in hydrochloric acid. _Columbium
oxychloride_, CbOCl3, is formed when carbon tetrachloride, and
columbic acid are heated together at 440° C.: 3CCl4 + Cb2O5 = 2CbOCl3
+ 3COCl2, and also by distilling the pentachloride, in a current of
carbon dioxide, over ignited columbic acid. It forms a white silky
mass which volatilizes at about 400° C. It deliquesces in moist air,
and is decomposed violently by water. _Columbium pentafluoride_, CbF5,
is obtained when the pentoxide is dissolved in hydrofluoric acid. It
is only known in solution; evaporation of the solution yields the
pentoxide. The _oxyfluoride_, CbOF3, results when a mixture of the
pentoxide and fluorspar is heated in a current of hydrochloric acid.
It forms many double salts with other metallic fluorides.
_Columbium oxysulphide_, CbOS3, is obtained as a dark bronze coloured
powder when the pentoxide is heated to a white heat in a current of
carbon bisulphide vapour; or by gently heating the oxychloride in a
current of sulphuretted hydrogen. It burns when heated in air, forming
the pentoxide and sulphur dioxide.
_Columbium nitride_, Cb3N5 (?), is formed when dry ammonia gas is
passed into an ethereal solution of the chloride. A heavy white
precipitate, consisting of ammonium chloride and columbium nitride, is
thrown down, and the ammonium chloride is removed by washing it out
with hot water, when the columbium nitride remains as an amorphous
residue (Hall and Smith, _loc. cit._).
_Potassium fluoxy percolumbate_, K2CbO2F5·H2O, is prepared by
dissolving potassium columbium oxyfluoride in a 3% solution of
hydrogen peroxide. The solution turns yellow in colour, and, when
saturated, deposits a pasty mass of crystals. The salt separates from
solutions containing hydrofluoric acid in large plates, which are
greenish yellow in colour.
The atomic weight was determined by C. Marignac (_Ann. chim. et phys._
1866 (4), 8, p. 16) to be 94 from the analysis of potassium columbium
oxyfluoride, and the same value has been obtained by T. W. Richards
(_Journ. Amer. Chem. Soc._ 1898, 20, p. 543).
COLUMBUS, CHRISTOPHER [in Spanish CRISTOBAL COLÓN] (c. 1446, or perhaps
rather 1451,-1506) was the eldest son of Domenico Colombo and Suzanna
Fontanarossa, and was born at Genoa either about 1446 or in 1451, the
exact date being uncertain. His father was a wool-comber, of some small
means, who lived till 1498. According to the life of Columbus by his son
Ferdinand (a statement supported by Las Casas), young Christopher was
sent to the university of Pavia, where he devoted himself to astronomy,
geometry and cosmography. Yet, according to the admiral's own statement,
he became a sailor at fourteen. Evidently this statement, however,
cannot mean the abandonment of all other employment, for in 1470, 1472,
and 1473 we find him engaged in trade at Genoa, following the family
business of weaving, and (in 1473) residing at the neighbouring Savona.
In 1474-1475 he appears to have visited Chios, where he may have resided
some time, returning to Genoa perhaps early in 1476. Thence he seems to
have again set out on a voyage in the summer of 1476, perhaps bound for
England; on the 13th of August 1476, the four Genoese vessels he
accompanied were attacked off Cape St Vincent by a privateer, one
Guillaume de Casenove, surnamed Coullon or Colombo ("Columbus"); two of
the four ships escaped, with Christopher, to Lisbon. In December 1476,
the latter resumed their voyage to England, probably carrying with them
Columbus, who, after a short stay in England, claims to have made a
voyage in the northern seas, and even to have visited Iceland about
February 1477. This last pretension is gravely disputed, but it is
perhaps not to be rejected, and we may also trace the Genoese about this
time at Bristol, at Galway, and probably among the islands west and
north of Scotland. Soon after this he returned to Portugal, where
(probably in 1478) he married a lady of some rank, Felipa Moñiz de
Perestrello, daughter of Bartholomew Perestrello, a captain in the
service of Prince Henry the Navigator, and one of the early colonists
and first governor of Porto Santo. Felipa was also a cousin of the
archbishop of Lisbon at this time (1478).
Idea of western passage to Asia.
About 1479 Columbus visited Porto Santo, here as in Portugal probably
employing his time in making maps and charts for a livelihood, while he
pored over the logs and papers of his deceased father-in-law, and talked
with old seamen of their voyages, and of the mystery of the western
seas. About this time, too, if not earlier, he seems to have arrived at
the conclusion that much of the world remained undiscovered, and step by
step conceived that design of reaching Asia by sailing west which was to
result in the discovery of America. In 1474 he is said to have
corresponded with Paolo Toscanelli, the Florentine physician and
cosmographer, and to have received from him valuable suggestions, both
by map and letter, for such a Western enterprise. (The whole of this
incident has been disputed by some recent critics.) He had perhaps
already begun his studies in a number of works, especially the _Book_ of
Marco Polo and the _Imago Mundi_ of Pierre d'Ailly, by which his
cosmographical and geographical conceptions were largely moulded. His
views, as finally developed and presented to the courts of Portugal and
Spain, were supported by three principal lines of argument, derived from
natural reasons, from the theories of geographers, and from the reports
and traditions of mariners. He believed the world to be a sphere; he
underestimated its size; he overestimated the size of the Asiatic
continent. And the farther that continent extended towards the east, the
nearer it came towards Spain. Nor were these theories the only supports
of his idea. Martin Vicente, a Portuguese pilot, was said to have found,
400 leagues to the westward of Cape St Vincent, and after a westerly
gale of many days' duration, a piece of strange wood, wrought, but not
with iron; Pedro Correa, Columbus's own brother-in-law, was said to have
seen another such waif at Porto Santo, with great canes capable of
holding four quarts of wine between joint and joint, and to have heard
of two men being washed up at Flores "very broad-faced, and differing in
aspect from Christians." West of Europe, now and then, men fancied there
hove in sight the mysterious islands of St Brandan, of Brazil, of
Antillia or of the Seven Cities. In his northern journey, too, some
vague and formless traditions may have reached the explorer's ear of the
voyages of Leif Ericson and Thorfinn Karlsefne, and of the coasts of
Markland and Vinland. All were hints and rumours to bid the bold mariner
sail towards the setting sun, and this he at length determined to do.
Quest of a patron.
The concurrence of some state or sovereign, however, was necessary for
the success of this design. Columbus, on the accession of John II. of
Portugal, seems to have entered the service of this country, to have
accompanied Diego d'Azambuja to the Gold Coast, and to have taken part
in the construction of the famous fort of St George at El Mina
(1481-1482). On his return from this expedition, he submitted to King
John the scheme he had now matured for reaching Asia by a western route
across the ocean. The king was deeply interested in the rival scheme (of
an eastern or south-eastern route round Africa to India) which had so
long held the field, which had been initiated by the Genoese in 1291,
and which had been revived, for Portugal, by Prince Henry the Navigator;
but he listened to the Genoese, and referred him to a committee of
council for geographical affairs. The council's report was adverse; but
the king, who was yet inclined to favour the theory of Columbus,
assented to the suggestion of the bishop of Ceuta that the plan should
be carried out in secret and without its author's knowledge. A caravel
was despatched; but it returned after a brief absence, the sailors
having lost heart, and refused to venture farther. Upon discovering
this treachery, Columbus left Lisbon for Spain (1484), taking with him
his son Diego, the only issue of his marriage with Felipa Moñiz, who was
by this time dead. He departed secretly;--according to some writers, to
give the slip to King John; according to others, to escape his
creditors.
Columbus next betook himself to the south of Spain, and while meditating
an appeal to the king of France, opened his plans to the count (from
1491, duke) of Medina Celi. The latter gave him great encouragement,
entertained him for two years, and even determined to furnish him with
three or four caravels, to carry out his great design. Finally, however,
being deterred by the consideration that the enterprise was too vast for
a subject, he turned his guest from the determination he had come to of
making application at the court of France, by writing on his behalf to
Queen Isabella; and Columbus repaired to the court at Cordova at her
bidding (1486).
It was an ill moment for the navigator's fortune. Castile and Leon were
in the thick of that struggle which resulted in the final conquest of
the Granada Moors; and neither Ferdinand nor Isabella had time as yet to
give due consideration to Columbus' proposals. The adventurer was indeed
kindly received; he was handed over to the care of Alonso de
Quintanilla, whom he speedily converted into an enthusiastic supporter
of his theory. He made many other friends, and among them Beatriz
Enriquez, the mother of his second son Fernando. But the committee,
presided over by the queen's confessor, Fray Hernando de Talavera, which
had been appointed to consider the new project, reported that it was
vain and impracticable.
From Cordova Columbus followed the court to Salamanca, having already
been introduced by Quintanilla to the notice of the grand cardinal,
Pedro Gonzalez de Mendoza, "the third king of Spain"; the latter had
befriended and supported the Genoese, and apparently arranged the first
interview between him and Queen Isabella. At Salamanca prolonged
discussions took place upon the questions now raised; the Dominicans of
San Esteban entertained Columbus during the conferences (1486-1487). In
1487 Columbus, who had been following the court from place to place
(billeted in towns as an officer of the sovereigns, and gratified from
time to time with sums of money towards his expenses), was present at
the siege of Malaga. In 1488 he was invited by the king of Portugal, his
"especial friend," to return to that country, and was assured of
protection against arrest or proceedings of any kind (March 20): he had
probably made fresh overtures to King John shortly before; and in the
autumn of 1488 we find him in Lisbon, conferring with his brother
Bartholomew and laying plans for the future. We have no record of the
final negotiations of Columbus with the Portuguese government, but they
clearly did not issue in anything definite, for Christopher now returned
to Spain (though not till he had witnessed the return of Bartholomew
Diaz from the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope and his reception by
King John), while Bartholomew proceeded to England with a mission to
interest King Henry VII. in the Columbian schemes. If the London
enterprise was unsuccessful (as indeed it proved), it was settled that
Bartholomew should carry the same invitation to the French court. He did
so; and here he remained till summoned to Spain in 1493. Meantime
Christopher, unable throughout 1490 to get a hearing at the Spanish
court, was in 1491 again referred to a _junta_, presided over by
Cardinal Mendoza; but this _junta_, to Columbus' dismay, once more
rejected his proposals; the Spanish sovereigns merely promised him that
when the Granada war was over, they would reconsider what he had laid
before them.
Columbus was now in despair. He at once betook himself to Huelva, a
little maritime town in Andalusia, north-west of Cadiz, with the
intention of taking ship for France. He halted, however, at the
monastery of La Rabida, near Huelva, and still nearer Palos, where he
seems to have made lasting friendships on his first arrival in Spain in
January 1485, where he especially enlisted the support of Juan Perez,
the guardian, who invited him to take up his quarters in the monastery,
and introduced him to Garcia Fernandez, a physician and student of
geography. Juan Perez had been the queen's confessor; he now wrote to
her in urgent terms, and was summoned to her presence; and money was
sent to Columbus to bring him once more to court. He reached Granada in
time to witness the surrender of the city (January 2, 1492), and
negotiations were resumed. Columbus believed in his mission, and stood
out for high terms; he asked for the rank of admiral at once ("Admiral
of the Ocean" in all those islands, seas, and continents that he might
discover), the vice-royalty of all he should discover, and a tenth of
the precious metals discovered within his admiralty. These conditions
were rejected, and the negotiations were again interrupted. An interview
with Mendoza appears to have followed; but nothing came of it, and
before the close of January 1492, Columbus actually set out for France.
At length, however, on the entreaty of the Queen's confidante, the
Marquesa de Moya, of Luis de Santangel, receiver of the ecclesiastical
revenues of the crown of Aragon, and of other courtiers, Isabella was
induced to determine on the expedition. A messenger was sent after
Columbus, and overtook him near a bridge called "Pinos," 6 m. from
Granada. He returned to the camp at Santa Fé; and on the 17th of April
1492, the agreement between him and their Catholic majesties was signed
and sealed.
As his aims included not only the discovery of Cipangu or Japan, but
also the opening up of intercourse with the grand khan of Cathay, he
received a royal letter of introduction to the latter. The town of Palos
was ordered to find him two ships, and these were soon placed at his
disposal. But no crews could be got together, in spite of the indemnity
offered to criminals and "broken men" who would serve on the expedition;
and had not Juan Perez succeeded in interesting in the cause the Palos
"magnates" Martin Alonso Pinzon and Vicente Yañez Pinzon, Columbus'
departure had been long delayed. At last, however, men, ships and stores
were ready. The expedition consisted of the "Santa Maria," a decked ship
of 100 tons with a crew of 52 men, commanded by the admiral in person;
and of two caravels; the "Pinta" of 50 tons, with 18 men, under Martin
Pinzon; and the "Nina," of 40 tons, with 18 men, under his brother
Vicente Yañez, afterwards (1499) the first to cross the line in the
American Atlantic.
First voyage.
America discovered.
The adventurers numbered 88-souls; and on Friday, the 3rd of August
1492, at eight in the morning, the little fleet weighed anchor, and
stood for the Canary Islands. An abstract of the admiral's diary made by
Las Casas is yet extant; and from it many particulars may be gleaned
concerning this first voyage. Three days after the ships had set sail
the "Pinta" lost her rudder; the admiral was in some alarm, but
comforted himself with the reflection that Martin Pinzon was energetic
and ready-witted; they had, however, to put in at Teneriffe, to refit
the caravel. On the 6th of September they weighed anchor once more with
all haste, Columbus having been informed that three Portuguese caravels
were on the look-out to intercept him. On the 13th of September the
westerly variations of the magnetic needle were for the first time
observed; on the 15th a meteor fell into the sea at four or five leagues
distance; soon after they arrived at those vast plains of seaweed called
the Sargasso Sea; while all the time, writes the admiral, they had most
temperate breezes, the sweetness of the mornings being especially
delightful, the weather like an Andalusian April, and only the song of
the nightingale wanting. On the 17th the men began to murmur; they were
frightened by the strange phenomena of the variation of the compass, but
the explanation Columbus gave restored their tranquillity. On the 18th
they saw many birds, and a great ridge of low-lying cloud; and they
expected to see land. On the 20th they saw boobies and other birds, and
were sure the land must be near. In this, however, they were
disappointed; and thenceforth Columbus, who was keeping all the while a
double reckoning, one for the crew and one for himself, had great
difficulty in restraining the evil-disposed from the excesses they
meditated. On the 25th Martin Alonso Pinzon raised the cry of land, but
it proved false, as did the rumour to the same effect on the 7th of
October, from the "Niña." But on the 11th the "Pinta" fished up a cane,
a pole, a stick which appeared to have been wrought with iron, and a
board, while the "Niña" sighted a branch covered with berries; "and with
these signs all of them breathed and were glad." At ten o'clock on that
night Columbus himself perceived and pointed out a light ahead, and at
two in the morning of Friday, the 12th of October 1492, Rodrigo de
Triana, a sailor aboard the "Niña," announced the appearance of what
proved to be the New World. The land sighted was an island, called by
the Indians Guanahani, and named by Columbus San Salvador. It is
generally identified with Watling Island.
The same morning Columbus landed, richly clad, and bearing the royal
banner of Spain. He was accompanied by the brothers Pinzon, bearing
banners of the Green Cross (a device of the admiral's), and by great
part of the crew. When they all had "given thanks to God, kneeling upon
the shore, and kissed the ground with tears of joy, for the great mercy
received," the admiral named the island, and took solemn possession of
it for their Catholic majesties of Castile and Leon. At the same time
such of the crews as had shown themselves doubtful and mutinous sought
his pardon weeping, and prostrated themselves at his feet.
Into the remaining detail of this voyage, of highest interest as it is,
it is impossible to go further. It will be enough to say that it
resulted in the discovery of the islands of Santa Maria de la Concepcion
(Rum Cay), Fernandina (Long Island), Isabella (Crooked Island), Cuba or
_Juana_ (named by Columbus in honour of the young prince of Spain), and
Hispaniola, Haiti, or San Domingo. Off the last of these the "Santa
Maria" went aground, owing to the carelessness of the steersman. No
lives were lost, but the ship had to be unloaded and abandoned; and
Columbus, who was anxious to return to Europe with the news of his
achievement, resolved to plant a colony on the island, to build a fort
out of the material of the stranded hulk, and to leave the crew. The
fort was called La Navidad; 44 Europeans were placed in charge. On the
4th of January 1493 Columbus, who had lost sight of Martin Pinzon, set
sail alone in the "Niña" for the east; and two days afterwards the
"Pinta" joined her sister-ship. A storm, however, separated the vessels,
and it was not until the 18th of February that Columbus reached the
island of Santa Maria in the Azores. Here he was threatened with capture
by the Portuguese governor, who could not for some time be brought to
recognize his commission. On the 24th of February, however, he was
allowed to proceed, and on the 4th of March the "Niña" dropped anchor
off Lisbon. The king of Portugal received the admiral with the highest
honours. On the 13th of March the "Niña" put out from the Tagus, and two
days afterwards, Friday, the 15th of March, she reached Palos.
The court was at Barcelona; and thither, after despatching a letter
announcing his arrival, Columbus proceeded in person. He entered the
city in a sort of triumphal procession, was received by their majesties
in full court, and, seated in their presence, related the story of his
wanderings, exhibiting the "rich and strange" spoils of the new-found
lands,--the gold, the cotton, the parrots, the curious arms, the
mysterious plants, the unknown birds and beasts, and the Indians he had
brought with him for baptism. All his honours and privileges were
confirmed to him; the title of Don was conferred on himself and his
brothers; he rode at the king's bridle; he was served and saluted as a
grandee of Spain. A new and magnificent scutcheon was also blazoned for
him (4th May 1493), whereon the royal castle and lion of Castile and
Leon were combined with the five anchors of his own coat of arms. Nor
were their Catholic highnesses less busy on their own account than on
that of their servant. On the 3rd and 4th of May Alexander VI. granted
bulls confirming to the crowns of Castile and Leon all the lands
discovered, or to be discovered, west of a line of demarcation drawn 100
leagues west of the Azores, on the same terms as those on which the
Portuguese held their colonies along the African coast. A new expedition
was got in readiness with all possible despatch, to secure and extend
the discoveries already made.
Second voyage.
After several delays the fleet weighed anchor on the 24th of September
1493 and steered westwards. It consisted of three great carracks
(galleons) and fourteen caravels (light frigates), having on board over
1500 men, besides the animals and materials necessary for colonization.
Twelve missionaries accompanied the expedition, under the orders of
Bernardo Buil or Boil, a Benedictine; Columbus had been already directed
(29th May 1493) to endeavour by all means in his power to Christianize
the inhabitants of the islands, to make them presents, and to "honour
them much", while all under him were commanded to treat them "well and
lovingly," under pain of severe punishment. On the 13th of October the
ships, which had put in at the Canaries, left Ferro; and on Sunday, the
3rd of November, after a single storm, "by the goodness of God and the
wise management of the admiral" an island was sighted to the west, which
was named Dominica. Northwards from this the isles of Marigalante and
Guadalupe were next discovered and named; while on the north-western
course to La Navidad those of Montserrat, Antigua, San Martin, Santa
Cruz and the Virgin Islands were sighted, and the island now called
Porto Rico was touched at, hurriedly explored, and named San Juan
Bautista. On the 22nd of November Columbus came in sight of Hispaniola,
and sailing westward to La Navidad, found the fort burned and the colony
dispersed. He decided on building a second fort, and coasting on 30 m.
east of Monte Cristi, he pitched on a spot where he founded the city of
Isabella.
The climate proved unhealthy; the colonists were greedy of gold,
impatient of control, proud, ignorant and mutinous; and Columbus, whose
inclination drew him westward, was doubtless glad to escape the worry
and anxiety of his post, and to avail himself of the instructions of his
sovereigns as to further discoveries. On the 2nd of February 1494 he
sent home, by Antonio de Torres, that despatch to their Catholic
highnesses by which he may be said to have founded the West Indian slave
trade. He established the mining camp of San Tomaso in the gold country
of Central Hispaniola; and on the 24th of April 1494, having nominated a
council of regency under his brother Diego, and appointed Pedro Margarit
his captain-general, he again put to sea. After following the southern
shore of Cuba for some days, he steered southwards, and discovered (May
14th) the island of Jamaica, which he named Santiago. He then resumed
his exploration of the Cuban coast, threaded his way through a labyrinth
of islets which he named the Garden of the Queen (Jardin de la Reyna),
and, after coasting westwards for many days, became convinced that he
had discovered continental land. He therefore caused Perez de Luna, the
notary, to draw up a document to this effect (12th of June 1494), which
was afterwards taken round and signed (the admiral's steward witnessing)
by the officers, men and boys of his three caravels, the "Niña," the
"Cordera," and the "San Juan." He then stood to the south-east, and
sighted the island of Evangelista (now Isla de los Pinos), revisited
Jamaica, coasted the south of Hispaniola, and on the 24th of September
touched at and named the island of La Mona, in the channel between
Hispaniola and Porto Rico. Thence he had intended to sail eastwards and
complete the survey of the Caribbean Archipelago; but he was exhausted
by the terrible tear and wear of mind and body he had undergone (he says
himself that on this expedition he was three-and-thirty days almost
without sleep), and on the day following his departure from La Mona he
fell into a lethargy, that deprived him of sense and memory, and had
well-nigh proved fatal to life. At last, on the 29th of September, the
little fleet dropped anchor off Isabella, and in his new city the
admiral lay sick for five months.
The colony was in a sad plight. Every one was discontented, and many
were sick, for the climate was unhealthy and there was nothing to eat.
Margarit and Boil had deserted the settlement and fled to Spain, but ere
his departure the former, in his capacity of captain-general, had done
much to outrage and alienate the Indians. The strongest measures were
necessary to undo this mischief, and, backed by his brother Bartholomew,
Columbus proceeded to reduce the natives under Spanish sway. Alonso de
Ojeda succeeded by a brilliant _coup de main_ in capturing the cacique
Caonabo, and the rest submitted. Five ship-loads of Indians were sent
off to Seville (24th June 1495) to be sold as slaves; and a tribute was
imposed upon their fellows, which must be looked upon as the origin of
that system of _repartimientos_ or _encomiendas_ which was afterwards to
work such mischief among the conquered. In October 1495 Juan Aguado
arrived at Isabella, with a royal commission to report on the state of
the colony; here he took up the position of a judge of Columbus's
government; and much recrimination followed. Columbus decided to return
home; he appointed his brother Bartholomew _adelantado_ of the island;
and on the 10th of March 1496 he quitted Hispaniola in the "Niña." The
vessel, after a protracted and perilous voyage, reached Cadiz on the
11th of June 1496, where the admiral landed, wearing the habit of a
Franciscan. He was cordially received by his sovereigns, and a new fleet
of eight vessels was put at his disposal. By royal patent, moreover, a
tract of land in Hispaniola, of 50 leagues by 20, was offered to him,
with the title of duke or marquis (which he declined); for three years
he was to receive an eighth of the gross and a tenth of the net profits
on each voyage; the right of creating a _mayorazgo_ or perpetual entail
of titles and estates was granted him; and his two sons were received
into Isabella's service as pages.
Third voyage.
Meanwhile, however, the preparing of the fleet proceeded slowly, and it
was not till the 30th of May 1498 that he set sail with his main fleet
of six ships--two caravels had already been sent on ahead. From San
Lucar he steered for Porto Santo, Madeira, and Gomera, despatching three
vessels direct from the Canaries to Hispaniola. He next proceeded to the
Cape Verde Islands, which he quitted on the 5th of July. On the 31st of
the same month, being greatly in need of water, and fearing that no land
lay westwards as he had hoped, Columbus had turned his ship's head
north, when Alonzo Perez of Huelva saw land about 15 leagues to the
south-west. It was crowned with three hill-tops, from which
circumstance, and in fulfilment of a vow made at starting (to name the
first land discovered on this voyage in honour of the Trinity), the
admiral named it Trinidad, which name it yet bears. On Wednesday, the
1st of August, he beheld for the first time the mainland of South
America, the continent he had sought so long. It seemed to him but an
insignificant island, and he called it Isla Santa. Sailing westwards,
next day he saw the Gulf of Paria (named by him the Golfo de la
Ballena), into which he was borne at immense risk on the ridge of waters
formed by the meeting of the sea and the Orinoco estuaries. For several
days he coasted the continent, esteeming as islands the various
projections he saw, and naming them accordingly, nor was it until he had
realized the volume poured out by the Orinoco that he began to perceive
the truly continental character of his last discovery. He was now
anxious to revisit the colony in Hispaniola; and after sighting Tobago,
Grenada, and Margarita, made for San Domingo, the new capital of the
settlement, where he arrived on the 31st of August. He found that
affairs had not prospered well in his absence. By the vigour and
activity of the _adelantado_, the whole island had been reduced under
Spanish sway; but under the leadership of Francisco Roldan the
malcontent settlers had risen in revolt, and Columbus had to compromise
matters in order to restore peace. Roldan retained his office of chief
justice; and such of his followers as chose to remain in the island were
gratified with _repartimientos_ of land and labour.
At home, however, court favour had turned against Columbus. For one
thing, the ex-colonists were often bitterly hostile to the admiral and
his brothers. They were wont to parade their grievances in the very
court-yards of the Alhambra, to surround the king when he came forth
with complaints and reclamations, to insult the discoverer's young sons
with shouts and jeers. Again, the queen began to criticize severely the
shipment of Indians from the new-found lands to Spain. And once more,
there was no doubt that the colony itself, whatever the cause, had not
prospered so well as might have been desired. Ferdinand's support of
Columbus had never been very hearty, and his inclination to supersede
the Genoese now prevailed over the queen's friendliness. Accordingly, on
the 21st of May 1499, Francisco Bobadilla was appointed governor and
judge of Hispaniola during royal pleasure, with authority to examine
into all complaints. Columbus was ordered to deliver up his charge to
Bobadilla, and to accept whatever the latter should deliver him from the
sovereigns. Bobadilla left Spain in June 1500, and landed in Hispaniola
on the 23rd of August.
Columbus, meanwhile, had restored such tranquillity as was possible in
his government. With Roldan's help he had beaten off an attempt on the
island of the adventurer Ojeda, his old lieutenant; the Indians were
being collected into villages and Christianized. Gold-mining was
profitably pursued; in three years, he calculated, the royal revenues
might be raised to an average of 60,000,000 reals. The arrival of
Bobadilla, however, speedily changed this state of affairs. On landing,
he took possession of the admiral's house and summoned him and his
brothers before him. Accusations of severity, of injustice, of venality
even, were poured down on their heads, and Columbus anticipated nothing
less than a shameful death. Bobadilla put all three in irons, and
shipped them off to Spain.
Alonso Vallejo, captain of the caravel in which the illustrious
prisoners sailed, still retained a proper sense of the honour and
respect due to Columbus, and would have removed the fetters; but to this
Columbus would not consent. He would wear them, he said, until their
highnesses, by whose order they had been affixed, should order their
removal; and he would keep them afterwards "as relics and as memorials
of the reward of his service." He did so. His son Fernando "saw them
always hanging in his cabinet, and he requested that when he died they
might be buried with him." Whether this last wish was complied with is
not known.
A heart-broken and indignant letter from Columbus to Doña Juana de
Torres, formerly nurse of the infante Don Juan, arrived at court before
the despatch of Bobadilla. It was read to the queen, and its tidings
were confirmed by communications from Alonso Vallejo and the alcaide of
Cadiz. There was a great movement of indignation; the tide of popular
and royal feeling turned once more in the admiral's favour. He received
a large sum to defray his expenses; and when he appeared at court, on
the 17th of December 1500, he was no longer in irons and disgrace, but
richly apparelled and surrounded with friends. He was received with all
honour and distinction. The queen is said to have been moved to tears by
the narration of his story. Their majesties not only repudiated
Bobadilla's proceedings, but declined to inquire into the charges that
he at the same time brought against his prisoners, and promised Columbus
compensation for his losses and satisfaction for his wrongs. A new
governor, Nicolas de Ovando, was appointed, and left San Lucar on the
13th of February 1502, with a fleet of thirty ships, to supersede
Bobadilla. The latter was to be impeached and sent home; the admiral's
property was to be restored; and a fresh start was to be made in the
conduct of colonial affairs. Thus ended Columbus's history as viceroy
and governor of the new Indies which he had presented to the country of
his adoption.
Fourth voyage.
His hour of rest, however, was not yet come. Ever anxious to serve their
Catholic highnesses, "and particularly the queen," he had determined to
find a strait through which he might penetrate westwards into Portuguese
Asia. After the usual inevitable delays his prayers were granted, and on
the 9th of May 1502, with four caravels and 150 men, he weighed anchor
from Cadiz, and sailed on his fourth and last great voyage. He first
betook himself to the relief of the Portuguese fort of Arzilla, which
had been besieged by the Moors, but the siege had been raised before he
arrived. He put to sea westwards once more, and on the 15th of June
discovered the island of Martinino (probably St Lucia). He had received
positive instructions from his sovereigns on no account to touch at
Hispaniola; but his largest caravel was greatly in need of repairs, and
he had no choice but to abandon her or disobey orders. He preferred the
latter alternative, and sent a boat ashore to Ovando, asking for a new
ship and for permission to enter the harbour to weather a hurricane
which he saw was coming on. But his requests were refused, and he
coasted the island, casting anchor under lee of the land. Here he
weathered the storm, which drove the other caravels out to sea, and
annihilated the homeward-bound fleet, the richest that had till then
been sent from Hispaniola. Roldan and Bobadilla perished with others of
the admiral's enemies; and Fernando Columbus, who accompanied his father
on this voyage, wrote long afterwards, "I am satisfied it was the hand
of God, for had they arrived in Spain they had never been punished as
their crimes deserved, but rather been favoured and preferred."
After recruiting his flotilla at Azua, Columbus put in at Jaquimo and
refitted his four vessels; and on the 14th of July 1502 he steered for
Jamaica. For several days the ships wandered painfully among the keys
and shoals he had named the Garden of the Queen, and only an opportune
easterly wind prevented the crews from open mutiny. The first land
sighted (July 30th) was the islet of Guanaja, about 40 m. east of the
coast of Honduras. Here he got news from an old Indian of a rich and
vast country lying to the eastward, which he at once concluded must be
the long-sought-for empire of the grand khan. Steering along the coast
of Honduras, great hardships were endured, but nothing approaching his
ideal was discovered. On the 12th of September Cape Gracias-a-Dios was
rounded. The men had become clamorous and insubordinate; not until the
5th of December, however, would he tack about and retrace his course. It
now became his intention to plant a colony on the river Veragua, which
was afterwards to give his descendants a title of nobility; but he had
hardly put about when he was caught in a storm, which lasted eight days,
wrenched and strained his crazy, worm-eaten ships severely, and finally,
on Epiphany Sunday 1503, blew him into an embouchure which he named
Belem or Bethlehem. Gold was very plentiful in this place, and here he
determined to found his settlement. By the end of March 1503 a number of
huts had been run up, and in these the _adelantado_ (Bartholomew
Columbus), with 80 men, was to remain, while Christopher returned to
Spain for men and supplies. Quarrels, however, arose with the natives;
the cacique was made prisoner, but escaped again; and before Columbus
could leave the coast he had to abandon a caravel, to take the settlers
on board, and to relinquish the enterprise of colonization. Steering
eastwards, he left a second caravel at Puerto Bello; he thence bore
northwards for Cuba, where he obtained supplies from the natives. From
Cuba he bore up for Jamaica, and there, in the harbour of San Gloria,
now St Ann's Bay, he ran his ships aground in a small inlet still called
Don Christopher's Cove (June 23rd, 1503).
The expedition was received with great kindness by the natives, and here
Columbus remained upwards of a year, awaiting the return of his
lieutenant Diego Mendez, whom he had despatched to Ovando for
assistance. During his critical sojourn here, the admiral suffered much
from disease and from the lawlessness of his followers, whose misconduct
had alienated the natives, and provoked them to withhold their
accustomed supplies, until he dexterously worked upon their
superstitions by prognosticating an eclipse. Two vessels having at last
arrived for his relief, Columbus left Jamaica on the 28th of June 1504,
and, after calling at Hispaniola, set sail for Spain on the 12th of
September. After a tempestuous voyage he landed once more at San Lucar
on the 7th of November 1504.
As he was too ill to go to court, his son Diego was sent thither in his
place, to look after his interests and transact his business. Letter
after letter followed the young man from Seville--one by the hands of
Amerigo Vespucci. A licence to ride on muleback was granted him on the
23rd of February 1505; and in the following May he was removed to the
court at Segovia, and thence again to Valladolid. On the landing of
Philip and Juana at Coruña (25th of April 1506), although "much
oppressed with the gout and troubled to see himself put by his rights,"
he is known to have sent off the _adelantado_ to pay them his duty and
to assure them that he was yet able to do them extraordinary service.
The last documentary note of him is contained in a final codicil to the
will of 1498, made at Valladolid on the 19th of May 1506. By this the
old will is confirmed; the _mayorazgo_ is bequeathed to his son Diego
and his heirs male, failing these to Fernando, his second son, and
failing these to the heirs male of Bartholomew; only in case of the
extinction of the male line, direct or collateral, is it to descend to
the females of the family; and those into whose hands it may fall are
never to diminish it, but always to increase and ennoble it by all means
possible. The head of the house is to sign himself "The Admiral." A
tenth of the annual income is to be set aside yearly for distribution
among the poor relations of the house. A chapel is founded and endowed
for the saying of masses. Beatriz Enriquez is left to the care of the
young admiral. Among other legacies is one of "half a mark of silver to
a Jew who used to live at the gate of the Jewry, in Lisbon." The codicil
was written and signed with the admiral's own hand. Next day (20th of
May 1506) he died.
After the funeral ceremonies at Valladolid, Columbus's remains were
transferred to the Carthusian monastery of Santa Maria de las Cuevas,
Seville, where the bones of his son Diego, the second admiral, were also
laid. Exhumed in 1542, the bodies of both father and son were taken over
sea to Hispaniola and interred in the cathedral of San Domingo. In
1795-1796, on the cession of that island to the French, the relics were
re-exhumed and transferred to the cathedral of Havana, whence, after the
Spanish-American War of 1898 and the loss of Cuba, they were finally
removed to Seville cathedral, where they remain. The present heir and
representative of Columbus belongs to the Larreategui family,
descendants of the discoverer through the female line, and retains the
titles of admiral and duke of Veragua.
[Illustration: Columbus Cipher.
The interpretation of the seven-lettered cipher, accepting the smaller
letters of the second line as the final ones of the words, seems to be
_Salve Christus, Maria, Yosephus_. The name _Christopher_
(_Christoferens_) appears in the last line.]
In person Columbus was tall and shapely. The only authentic portrait of
him is that which once belonged to Paulus Jovius, and is still in the
possession of the de Orchi family (related to Jovius by female descent)
at Como. It shows us a venerable man with clean-shaven face, thin grey
hair, high forehead, sad thoughtful eyes. It bears the inscription
_Columbus Lygur. novi orbis repertor_.
AUTHORITIES.--Fernando Columbus, _Historie del Signor Don Fernando
Colombo ... e vera relatione della vita ... dell' Ammiraglio D.
Christoforo Colombo_ (the Spanish original of this, written before
1539, is lost; only the Italian version remains, first published at
Venice in 1571; a good edition appeared in London in 1867); Bartolomé
de las Casas, _Historia de las Indias_, written 1527-1561, but first
printed at Madrid in 1875, after remaining in manuscript more than
three centuries; Andres Bernandez, _Historia de los Reyes Catolicos_
(contemporary with Fernando Columbus's _Historie_, but first printed
at Granada in 1856; best edition, Seville, 1870); Gonzalo Fernandez
Oviedo y Valdes, _Historia general de las Indias_ (Seville, 1535; best
edition, Madrid, 1851-1855); Peter Martyr d'Anghiera, _Opus
Epistolarum_, first published in 1530, and _De Orbe Novo_ (_Decades_),
printed in 1511 and 1530; Francisco Lopez de Gomara, _Historia general
de las Indias_ (Saragossa, 1552-1553, and Antwerp, 1554); Antonio de
Herrera, _Historia general de las Indias occidentales_ (publication
first completed in 1615, but best edition perhaps that of 1730,
Madrid); Juan Bautista Muñoz, _Historia del Nuevo Mundo_ (Madrid,
1793); Martin Fernandez Navarrete, _Coleccion de los Viages y
descubrimientos que hicieron por mar los Españoles_ (Madrid,
1825-1837); Washington Irving, _History of the Life and Voyages of
Christopher Columbus_ (London, 1827-1828); Alex. von Humboldt, _Examen
critique_ (Paris, 1836-1839); R. H. Major, _Select Letters of_
_Columbus_ (London, Hakluyt Society, 1847); Fernandez Duro, _Colon y
Pinzon_ (Madrid, 1883); Henry Harrisse, _Christophe Colomb_ (Paris,
1884), and _Christophe Colomb devant l'histoire_ (Paris, 1892); Justin
Winsor, _Christopher Columbus_ (Cambridge, Mass., 1891); Josè Maria
Asensio, _Cristoval Colon_ (Barcelona, 1892); Clements R. Markham,
_Life of Christopher Columbus_ (London, 1892); John Fiske, _Discovery
of America_ (Boston and New York, 1892); E. J. Payne, _History of the
New World called America_, vol. i. (Oxford, 1892); Paul Gaffarel,
_Histoire de la découverte de l'Amérique_ (Paris, 1892); Charles I.
Elton, _Career of Columbus_ (London, 1892); _Raccolta Colombiana_
(1892, &c.); Sophus Ruge, _Columbus_ (Berlin, 1902); John Boyd
Thatcher, _Christopher Columbus_ (New York, 1903-1904); Henry Vignaud,
_La Lettre et la carte de Toscanelli_ (Paris, 1901), and _Études
critiques sur la vie de Colomb avant ses découvertes_ (Paris, 1905);
Filson Young, _Christopher Columbus and the New World of his
discovery_ (London, 1906). (C. R. B.)
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 6 - "Cockaigne" to "Columbus, Christopher"" ***
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