Chapter 8

SeeVictoria County History, Essex;Charters and Letters Patent granted to the Borough of Colchester(Colchester, 1903); Morant,History of Colchester(1748); Harrod’sReport on the Records of Colchester(1865); Cutts,Colchester(Historic Towns) 1888; J. H. Round, “Colchester and the Commonwealth” inEng. Hist. Rev.vol. xv.; Benham,Red Paper Book of Colchester(1902), andOath 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. autumnaleand 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 ofΚολχικόν, fromΚολχίς, 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 aseau 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,colchicineandveratrine. Colchicine is the active principle and may be given in full form in doses of1⁄32to1⁄16grain. 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 bodycolchicein, 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) theVinum 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 theTinctura 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.

Incolchicum 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 woodenκύρβεις(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 sentLeo 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 Arabicgolgotar, which was probably a corruption of the Gr.χάλκανθος, fromχαλκός, copper,ἄνθος, 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 asCrocus Martis.

COLD(in O. Eng.caldandceald, 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, Dutchkoude,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 hisNew Experiments and Observations touching Cold, that “the dispute which is theprimum frigidumis 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 hisChemical Philosophygave 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 (seeHeatandThermodynamics). 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. (SeeLiquid Gases.)

For a “cold,” in the medical sense, seeCatarrhandRespiratory 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 werelocked 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 beingA Treatise on Wounds and Fevers(1765); he also wroteThe History of the Five Indian Nations depending on the Province of New York(1727, reprinted 1866 and 1905), and an elaborate work onThe Principles of Action in Matter(1751) which, with hisIntroduction to the Study of Physics(c. 1756), hisEnquiry into the Principles of Vital Motion(1766), and hisReflections(c. 1770), mark him as the first of American materialists and one of the ablest material philosophers of his day. I. Woodbridge Riley, inAmerican 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” inAmerican 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 aLife of Robert Fulton(1817) and aMemoir of the Celebration of the Completion of the New York Canals(1825).

COLD HARBOR,OldandNew, 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. (SeeWildernessandAmerican 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’sMarmion, 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, thoughto 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 theCentury(thenScribner’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 hisRemarks 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 greatDigest of Hindu Laws, which had been left unfinished by Sir William Jones. He translated the two treatisesMitacsharaandDayabhagaunder the titleLaw 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 hisSanskrit Grammar(1805), some papers on the religious ceremonies of the Hindus, and hisEssay 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’sTransactionswere 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 onMines and Quarries; andMineral 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 ℔. 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 hisLifeby 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. (SeeLadysmith.)

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 seeHexapoda. The name (Gr.κολεός, a sheath, andπτερά, 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 asuture. 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 theabdomen. 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.

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 (seeHexapoda) 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.

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