The Project Gutenberg eBook ofEncyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Columbus" to "Condottiere"

The Project Gutenberg eBook ofEncyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Columbus" to "Condottiere"This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Columbus" to "Condottiere"Author: VariousRelease date: April 11, 2010 [eBook #31950]Most recently updated: January 6, 2021Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Marius Masi, Don Kretz, Juliet Sutherland andthe Online Distributed Proofreading Team athttps://www.pgdp.net*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA, 11TH EDITION, "COLUMBUS" TO "CONDOTTIERE" ***

This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

Title: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Columbus" to "Condottiere"Author: VariousRelease date: April 11, 2010 [eBook #31950]Most recently updated: January 6, 2021Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Marius Masi, Don Kretz, Juliet Sutherland andthe Online Distributed Proofreading Team athttps://www.pgdp.net

Title: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Columbus" to "Condottiere"

Author: Various

Release date: April 11, 2010 [eBook #31950]Most recently updated: January 6, 2021

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Marius Masi, Don Kretz, Juliet Sutherland andthe Online Distributed Proofreading Team athttps://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA, 11TH EDITION, "COLUMBUS" TO "CONDOTTIERE" ***

Articles in This Slice

COLUMBUS, a city and the county-seat of Muscogee county, Georgia, U.S.A., on the E. bank and at the head of navigation of the Chattahoochee river, about 100 m. S.S.W. of Atlanta. Pop. (1890) 17,303; (1900) 17,614, of whom 7267 were negroes; (1910, census) 20,554. There is also a considerable suburban population. Columbus is served by the Southern, the Central of Georgia, and the Seaboard Air Line railways, and three steamboat lines afford communication with Apalachicola, Florida. The city has a public library. A fall in the river of 115 ft. within a mile of the city furnishes a valuable water-power, which has been utilized for public and private enterprises. The most important industry is the manufacture of cotton goods; there are also cotton compresses, iron works, flour and woollen mills, wood-working establishments, &c. The value of the city’s factory products increased from $5,061,485 in 1900 to $7,079,702 in 1905, or 39.9%; of the total value in 1905, $2,759,081, or 39%, was the value of the cotton goods manufactured. There are many large factories just outside the city limits. Columbus was one of the first cities in the United States to maintain, at public expense, a system of trade schools. It has a large wholesale and retail trade. The city was founded in 1827 and was incorporated in 1828. In the latter year Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar (1798-1859) established here the ColumbusIndependent, a State’s-Rights newspaper. For the first twenty years the city’s leading industry was trade in cotton. As this trade was diverted by the railways to Savannah, the water-power was developed and manufactories were established. During the Civil War the city ranked next to Richmond in the manufacture of supplies for the Confederate army. On the 16th of April 1865 it was captured by a Union force under General James Harrison Wilson (b. 1837); 1200 Confederates were taken prisoners; large quantities of arms and stores were seized, and the principal manufactories and much other property were destroyed.

COLUMBUS, a city and the county-seat of Bartholomew county, Indiana, U.S.A., situated on the E. fork of White river, a little S. of the centre of the state. Pop. (1890) 6719; (1900) 8130, of whom 313 were foreign-born and 224 were of negro descent (1910 census) 8813. In 1900 the centre of population of the United States was 5 m. S.E. of Columbus. The city is served by the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St Louis, and the Pittsburg, Cincinnati, Chicago & St Louis railways, and is connected with Indianapolis and with Louisville, Ky., by an electric interurban line. Columbus is situated in a fine farming region, and has extensive tanneries, threshing-machine and traction and automobile engine works, structural iron works, tool and machine shops, canneries and furniture factories. In 1905 the value of the city’s factory product was $2,983,160, being 28.4% more than in 1900. The water-supply system and electric-lighting plant are owned and operated by the city.

COLUMBUS, a city and the county-seat of Lowndes county, Mississippi, U.S.A., on the E. bank of the Tombigbee river, at the head of steam navigation, 150. m. S.E. of Memphis, Tennessee. Pop. (1890) 4559; (1900) 6484 (3366 negroes); (1910) 8988. It is served by the Mobile & Ohio and the Southern railways, and by passenger and freight steamboat lines. It has cotton and knitting mills, cotton-seed oil factories, machine shops, and wagon, stove, plough and fertilizer factories; and is a market and jobbing centre for a fertile agricultural region. It has a public library, and is the seat of the Mississippi Industrial Institute and College (1885) for women, the first state college for women—the successor of the Columbus Female Institute (1848)—of Franklin Academy (1821), and of the Union Academy (1873) for negroes. The site was first settled about 1818; the city was incorporated in 1821, and in 1830 it became the county-seat of the newly formed Lowndes county. During the Civil War the legislature met here in 1863 and 1865, and in the former year Governor Charles Clark (1810-1877) was inaugurated here.

COLUMBUS,a city, a port of entry, the capital of Ohio, U.S.A., and the county-seat of Franklin county, at the confluence of the Scioto and Olentangy rivers, near the geographical centre of the state, 120 m. N.E. of Cincinnati, and 138 m. S.S.W. of Cleveland. Pop. (1890) 88,150; (1900) 125,560, of whom 12,328 were foreign-born and 8201 were negroes; (1910) 181,511. Columbus is an important railway centre and is served by the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis, the Pittsburg, Cincinnati, Chicago & St Louis (Pennsylvania system), the Baltimore & Ohio, the Ohio Central, the Norfolk & Western, the Hocking Valley, and the Cleveland, Akron & Columbus (Pennsylvania system) railways, and by nine interurban electric lines. It occupies a land area of about 17 sq. m., the principal portion being along the east side of the Scioto in the midst of an extensive plain. High Street, the principal business thoroughfare, is 100 ft. wide, and Broad Street, on which are many of the finest residences, is 120 ft. wide, has four rows of trees, a roadway for heavy vehicles in the middle, and a driveway for carriages on either side.

The principal building is the state capitol (completed in 1857) in a square of ten acres at the intersection of High and Broad streets. It is built in the simple Doric style, of grey limestone taken from a quarry owned by the state, near the city; is 304 ft. long and 184 ft. wide, and has a rotunda 158 ft. high, on the walls of which are the original painting, by William Henry Powell (1823-1879), of O. H. Perry’s victory on Lake Erie, and portraits of most of the governors of Ohio. Other prominent structures are the U.S. government and the judiciary buildings, the latter connected with the capitol by a stone terrace, the city hall, the county court house, the union station, the board of trade, the soldiers’ memorial hall (with a seating capacity of about 4500), and several office buildings. The city is a favourite meeting-place for conventions. Among the state institutions in Columbus are the university (see below), the penitentiary, a state hospital for the insane, the state school for the blind, and the state institutions for the education of the deaf and dumb and for feeble-minded youth. In the capitol grounds are monuments to the memory of Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James A. Garfield, William T. Sherman, Philip H. Sheridan, Salmon P. Chase, and Edwin M. Stanton, and a beautiful memorial arch (with sculpture by H. A. M‘Neil) to William McKinley.

The city has several parks, including the Franklin of 90 acres, the Goodale of 44 acres, and the Schiller of 24 acres, besides the Olentangy, a well-equipped amusement resort on the banks of the river from which it is named, the Indianola, another amusement resort, and the United States military post and recruiting station, which occupies 80 acres laid out like a park. The state fair grounds of 115 acres adjoin the city, and there is also a beautiful cemetery of 220 acres.

The Ohio State University (non-sectarian and co-educational), opened as the Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College in 1873, and reorganized under its present name in 1878, is 3 m. north of the capitol. It includes colleges of arts, philosophy and science, of education (for teachers), of engineering, of law, of pharmacy, of agriculture and domestic science, and of veterinary medicine. It occupies a campus of 110 acres, has an adjoining farm of 325 acres, and 18 buildings devoted to instruction, 2 dormitories, and a library containing (1906) 67,709 volumes, besides excellent museums of geology, zoology, botany and archaeology and history, the last being owned jointly by the university and bythe state archaeological and historical society. In 1908 the faculty numbered 175, and the students 2277. The institution owed its origin to federal land grants; it is maintained by the state, the United States, and by small fees paid by the students; tuition is free in all colleges except the college of law. The government of the university is vested in a board of trustees appointed by the governor of the state for a term of seven years. The first president of the institution (from 1873 to 1881) was the distinguished geologist, Edward Orton (1829-1899), who was professor of geology from 1873 to 1899.

Other institutions of learning are the Capital University and Evangelical Lutheran Theological Seminary (Theological Seminary opened in 1830; college opened as an academy in 1850), with buildings just east of the city limits; Starling Ohio Medical College, a law school, a dental school and an art institute. Besides the university library, there is the Ohio state library occupying a room in the capitol and containing in 1908 126,000 volumes, including a “travelling library” of about 36,000 volumes, from which various organizations in different parts of the state may borrow books; the law library of the supreme court of Ohio, containing complete sets of English, Scottish, Irish, Canadian, United States and state reports, statutes and digests; the public school library of about 68,000 volumes, and the public library (of about 55,000), which is housed in a marble and granite building completed in 1906.

Columbus is near the Ohio coal and iron-fields, and has an extensive trade in coal, but its largest industrial interests are in manufactures, among which the more important are foundry and machine-shop products (1905 value, $6,259,579); boots and shoes (1905 value, $5,425,087, being more than one-sixtieth of the total product value of the boot and shoe industry in the United States, and being an increase from $359,000 in 1890); patent medicines and compounds (1905 value, $3,214,096); carriages and wagons (1905 value, $2,197,960); malt liquors (1905 value, $2,133,955); iron and steel; regalia and society emblems; steam-railway cars, construction and repairing; and oleo-margarine. In 1905 the city’s factory products were valued at $40,435,531, an increase of 16.4% in five years. Immediately outside the city limits in 1905 were various large and important manufactories, including railway shops, foundries, slaughter-houses, ice factories and brick-yards. In Columbus there is a large market for imported horses. Several large quarries also are adjacent to the city.

The waterworks are owned by the municipality. In 1904-1905 the city built on the Scioto river a concrete storage dam, having a capacity of 5,000,000,000 gallons, and in 1908 it completed the construction of enormous works for filtering and softening the water-supply, and of works for purifying the flow of sewage—the two costing nearly $5,000,000. The filtering works include 6 lime saturators, 2 mixing or softening tanks, 6 settling basins, 10 mechanical filters and 2 clear-water reservoirs. A large municipal electric-lighting plant was completed in 1908.

The first permanent settlement within the present limits of the city was established in 1797 on the west bank of the Scioto, was named Franklinton, and in 1803 was made the county-seat. In 1810 four citizens of Franklinton formed an association to secure the location of the capital on the higher ground of the east bank; in 1812 they were successful and the place was laid out while still a forest. Four years later, when the legislature held its first session here, the settlement was incorporated as the Borough of Columbus. In 1824 the county-seat was removed here from Franklinton; in 1831 the Columbus branch of the Ohio Canal was completed; in 1834 the borough was made a city; by the close of the same decade the National Road extending from Wheeling to Indianapolis and passing through Columbus was completed; in 1871 most of Franklinton, which was never incorporated, was annexed, and several other annexations followed.

See J. H. Studer,Columbus, Ohio; its History and Resources(Columbus, 1873); A. E. Lee,History of the City of Columbus, Ohio(New York, 1892).

COLUMELLA, LUCIUS JUNIUS MODERATUS,of Gades, writer on agriculture, contemporary of Seneca the philosopher, flourished about the middle of the 1st centuryA.D.His extant works treat, with great fulness and in a diffuse but not inelegant style which well represents the silver age, of the cultivation of all kinds of corn and garden vegetables, trees, flowers, the vine, the olive and other fruits, and of the rearing of cattle, birds, fishes and bees. They consist of the twelve books of theDe re rustica(the tenth, which treats of gardening, being in dactylic hexameters in imitation of Virgil), and of a bookDe arboribus, the second book of an earlier and less elaborate work on the same subject.

The best complete edition is by J. G. Schneider (1794). Of a new edition by K. J. Lundström, the tenth book appeared in 1902 andDe arboribusin 1897. There are English translations by R. Bradley (1725), and anonymous (1745); and treatises,De Columellae vita et scriptis, by V. Barberet (1887), and G. R. Becher (1897), a compact dissertation with notes and references to authorities.

COLUMN(Lat.columna), in architecture, a vertical support consisting of capital, shaft and base, used to carry a horizontal beam or an arch. The earliest example in wood (2684B.C.) was that found at Kahun in Egypt by Professor Flinders Petrie, which was fluted and stood on a raised base, and in stone the octagonal shafts of the early temple at Deir-el-Bahri (c. 2850). In the tombs at Beni Hasan (2723B.C.) are columns of two kinds, the octagonal or polygonal shaft, and the reed or lotus column, the horizontal section of which is a quatrefoil. This became later the favourite type, but it was made circular on plan. In all these examples the column rests on a stone base. (See alsoCapitalandOrder.)

The column was employed in Assyria in small structures only, such as pavilions or porticoes. In Persia the column, employed to carry timber superstructures only, was very lofty, being sometimes 12 diameters high; the shaft was fluted, the number of flutes varying from 30 to 52.

The earliest example of the Greek column is that represented in the temple fresco at Cnossus (c. 1600B.C.), of which portions have been found. The columns were in cypress wood raised on a stone base and tapered downwards.1The same, though to a less degree, is found in the stone semi-detached columns which flank the doorway of the Tomb of Agamemnon at Mycenae; the shafts of these columns were carved with the chevron design.

The earliest Greek columns in stone as isolated features are those of the Temple of Apollo at Syracuse (early 7th centuryB.C.) the shafts of which were monoliths, but as a rule the Greek columns were all built of drums, sometimes as many as ten or twelve. There was no base to the Doric column, but the shafts were fluted, 20 flutes being the usual number. In the Archaic Temple of Diana at Ephesus there were 52 flutes. In the later examples of the Ionic order the shaft had 24 flutes. In the Roman temples the shafts were very often monoliths.

Columns were occasionally used as supports for figures or other features. The Naxian column at Delphi of the Ionic order carried a sphinx. The Romans employed columns in various ways: the Trajan and the Antonine columns carried figures of the two emperors; the columna rostrata (260B.C.) in the Forum was decorated with the beaks of ships and was a votive column, the miliaria column marked the centre of Rome from which all distances were measured. In the same way the column in the Place Vendôme in Paris carries a statue of Napoleon I.; the monument of the Fire of London, a finial with flames sculptured on it; the duke of York’s column (London), a statue of the duke of York.

With the exception of the Cretan and Mycenaean, all the shafts of the classic orders tapered from the bottom upwards, and about one-third up the column had an increment, known as theentasis, to correct an optical illusion which makes tapering shafts look concave; the proportions of diameter to height varied with the order employed. Thus, broadly speaking, a Roman Doric column will be eight, a Roman Ionic nine, a Corinthianten diameters in height. Except in rare cases, the columns of the Romanesque and Gothic styles were of equal diameter at top and bottom, and had no definite dimensions as regards diameter and height. They were also grouped together round piers which are known as clustered piers. When of exceptional size, as in Gloucester and Durham cathedrals, Waltham Abbey and Tewkesbury, they are generally called “pillars,” which was apparently the medieval term for column. The wordcolumna, employed by Vitruvius, was introduced into England by the Italian writers of the Revival.

In the Renaissance period columns were frequently banded, the bands being concentric with the column as in France, and occasionally richly carved as in Philibert De L’Orme’s work at the Tuileries. In England Inigo Jones introduced similar features, but with square blocks sometimes rusticated, a custom lately revived in England, but of which there are few examples either in Italy or Spain.

The word “column” is used, by analogy with architecture, for any upright body or mass, in chemistry, anatomy, typography, &c.

(R. P. S.)

1The tree-trunk used as a column was inverted to retain the sap; hence the shape.

COLURE(from Gr.κόλος, shortened, andοὐρά, tail), in astronomy, either of the two principal meridians of the celestial sphere, one of which passes through the poles and the two solstices, the other through the poles and the two equinoxes; hence designated assolstitial colureandequinoxial colure, respectively.

COLUTHUS,orColluthus, of Lycopolis in the Egyptian Thebaid, Greek epic poet, flourished during the reign of Anastasius I. (491-518). According to Suidas, he was the author ofCalydoniaca(probably an account of the Calydonian boar hunt),Persica(an account of the Persian wars), andEncomia(laudatory poems). These are all lost, but his poem in some 400 hexameters onThe Rape of Helen(Άρπαγὴ Έλένης) is still extant, having been discovered by Cardinal Bessarion in Calabria. The poem is dull and tasteless, devoid of imagination, a poor imitation of Homer, and has little to recommend it except its harmonious versification, based upon the technical rules of Nonnus. It related the history of Paris and Helen from the wedding of Peleus and Thetis down to the elopement and arrival at Troy.

The best editions are by Van Lennep (1747), G. F. Schäfer (1825), E. Abel (1880).

COLVILLE, JOHN(c. 1540-1605), Scottish divine and author, was the son of Robert Colville of Cleish, in the county of Kinross. Educated at St Andrews University, he became a Presbyterian minister, but occupied himself chiefly with political intrigue, sending secret information to the English government concerning Scottish affairs. He joined the party of the earl of Gowrie, and took part in the Raid of Ruthven in 1582. In 1587 he for a short time occupied a seat on the judicial bench, and was commissioner for Stirling in the Scottish parliament. In December 1591 he was implicated in the earl of Bothwell’s attack on Holyrood Palace, and was outlawed with the earl. He retired abroad, and is said to have joined the Roman Church. He died in Paris in 1605. Colville was the author of several works, including anOratio Funebrison Queen Elizabeth, and some political and religious controversial essays. He is said to be the author also ofThe Historie and Life of King James the Sext(edited by T. Thompson for the Bannatyne Club, Edinburgh, 1825).

Colville’sOriginal Letters, 1582-1603, published by the Bannatyne Club in 1858, contains a biographical memoir by the editor, David Laing.

COLVIN, JOHN RUSSELL(1807-1857), lieutenant-governor of the North-West Provinces of India during the mutiny of 1857, belonged to an Anglo-Indian family of Scottish descent, and was born in Calcutta on the 29th of May 1807. Passing through Haileybury he entered the service of the East India Company in 1826. In 1836 he became private secretary to Lord Auckland, and his influence over the viceroy has been held partly responsible for the first Afghan war of 1837; but it has since been shown that Lord Auckland’s policy was dictated by the secret committee of the company at home. In 1853 Mr Colvin was appointed lieutenant-governor of the North-West Provinces by Lord Dalhousie. On the outbreak of the mutiny in 1857 he had with him at Agra only a weak British regiment and a native battery, too small a force to make head against the mutineers; and a proclamation which he issued to the natives was censured at the time for its clemency, but it followed the same lines as those adopted by Sir Henry Lawrence and subsequently followed by Lord Canning. Exhausted by anxiety and misrepresentation he died on the 9th of September, his death shortly preceding the fall of Delhi.

His son,Sir Auckland Colvin(1838-1908), followed him in a distinguished career in the same service, from 1858 to 1879. He was comptroller-general in Egypt (1880 to 1882), and financial adviser to the khedive (1883 to 1887), and from 1883 till 1892 was back again in India, first as financial member of council, and then, from 1887, as lieutenant-governor of the North-West Provinces and Oudh. He was created K.C.M.G. in 1881, and K.C.S.I. in 1892, when he retired. He publishedThe Making of Modern Egyptin 1906, and a biography of his father, in the “Rulers of India” series, in 1895. He died at Surbiton on the 24th of March 1908.

COLVIN, SIDNEY(1845- ), English literary and art critic, was born at Norwood, London, on the 18th of June 1845. A scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge, he became a fellow of his college in 1868. In 1873 he was Slade professor of fine art, and was appointed in the next year to the directorship of the Fitzwilliam Museum. In 1884 he removed to London on his appointment as keeper of prints and drawings in the British Museum. His chief publications are lives of Landor (1881) and Keats (1887), in the English Men of Letters series; the Edinburgh edition of R. L. Stevenson’s works (1894-1897); editions of the letters of Keats (1887), and of theVailima Letters(1899), which R. L. Stevenson chiefly addressed to him;A Florentine Picture-Chronicle(1898), andEarly History of Engraving in England(1905). But in the field both of art and of literature, Mr Colvin’s fine taste, wide knowledge and high ideals made his authority and influence extend far beyond his published work.

COLWYN BAY,a watering-place of Denbighshire, N. Wales, on the Irish Sea, 40½ m. from Chester by the London & North-Western railway. Pop. of urban district of Colwyn Bay and Colwyn (1901) 8689. Colwyn Bay has become a favourite bathing-place, being near to, and cheaper than, the fashionable Llandudno, and being a centre for picturesque excursions. Near it is Llaneilian village, famous for its “cursing well” (St Eilian’s, perhaps Aelianus’). The stream Colwyn joins the Gwynnant. The name Colwyn is that of lords of Ardudwy; a Lord Colwyn of Ardudwy, in the 10th century, is believed to have repaired Harlech castle, and is considered the founder of one of the fifteen tribes of North Wales. Nant Colwyn is on the road from Carnarvon to Beddgelert, beyond Llyn y gader (gadair), “chair pool,” and what tourists have fancifully called Pitt’s head, a roadside rock resembling, or thought to resemble, the great statesman’s profile. Near this is Llyn y dywarchen (sod pool), with a floating island.

COLZA OIL,a non-drying oil obtained from the seeds ofBrassica campestris, var.oleifera, a variety of the plant which produces Swedish turnips. Colza is extensively cultivated in France, Belgium, Holland and Germany; and, especially in the first-named country, the expression of the oil is an important industry. In commerce colza is classed with rape oil, to which both in source and properties it is very closely allied. It is a comparatively inodorous oil of a yellow colour, having a specific gravity varying from 0.912 to 0.920. The cake left after expression of the oil is a valuable feeding substance for cattle. Colza oil is extensively used as a lubricant for machinery, and for burning in lamps.

COMA(Gr.κῶμα, fromκοιμᾶν, to put to sleep), a deep sleep; the term is, however, used in medicine to imply something more than its Greek origin denotes, namely, a complete and prolonged loss of consciousness from which a patient cannot be roused. There are various degrees of coma: in the slighterforms the patient can be partially roused only to relapse again into a state of insensibility; in the deeper states, the patient cannot be roused at all, and such are met with in apoplexy, already described. Coma may arise abruptly in a patient who has presented no pre-existent indication of such a state occurring. Such a condition is calledprimary coma, and may result from the following causes:—(1) concussion, compression or laceration of the brain from head injuries, especially fracture of the skull; (2) from alcoholic and narcotic poisoning; (3) from cerebral haemorrhage, embolism and thrombosis, such being the causes of apoplexy.Secondary comamay arise as a complication in the following diseases:—diabetes, uraemia, general paralysis, meningitis, cerebral tumour and acute yellow atrophy of the liver; in such diseases it is anticipated, for it is a frequent cause of the fatal termination. The depth of insensibility to stimulus is a measure of the gravity of the symptom; thus the conjunctival reflex and even the spinal reflexes may be abolished, the only sign of life being the respiration and heart-beat, the muscles of the limbs being sometimes perfectly flaccid. A characteristic change in the respiration, known as Cheyne-Stokes breathing occurs prior to death in some cases; it indicates that the respiratory centre in the medulla is becoming exhausted, and is stimulated to action only when the venosity of the blood has increased sufficiently to excite it. The breathing consequently loses its natural rhythm, and each successive breath becomes deeper until a maximum is reached; it then diminishes in depth by successive steps until it dies away completely. The condition of apnoea, or cessation of breathing, follows, and as soon as the venosity of the blood again affords sufficient stimulus, the signs of air-hunger commence; this altered rhythm continues until the respiratory centre becomes exhausted and death ensues.

Coma Vigilis a state of unconsciousness met with in the algide stage of cholera and some other exhausting diseases. The patient’s eyes remain open, and he may be in a state of low muttering delirium; he is entirely insensible to his surroundings, and neither knows nor can indicate his wants.

There is a distinct word “coma” (Gr.κόμη, hair), which is used in astronomy for the envelope of a comet, and in botany for a tuft.

COMA BERENICES(“Berenice’s Hair”), in astronomy, a constellation of the northern hemisphere; it was first mentioned by Callimachus, and Eratosthenes (3rd centuryB.C.), but is not included in the 48 asterisms of Ptolemy. It is said to have been named by Conon, in order to console Berenice, queen of Ptolemy Euergetes, for the loss of a lock of her hair, which had been stolen from a temple to Venus. This constellation is sometimes, but wrongly, attributed to Tycho Brahe. The most interesting member of this group is24 Comae, a fine, wide double star, consisting of an orange star of magnitude 5½, and a blue star, magnitude 7.

COMACCHIO,a town of Emilia, Italy, in the province of Ferrara, 30 m. E.S.E. by road from the town of Ferrara, on the level of the sea, in the centre of the lagoon of Valli di Comacchio, just N. of the present mouth of the Reno. Pop. (1901) 7944 (town), 10,745 (commune). It is built on no less than thirteen different islets, joined by bridges, and its industries are the fishery, which belongs to the commune, and the salt-works. The seaport of Magnavacca lies 4 m. to the east. Comacchio appears as a city in the 6th century, and, owing to its position in the centre of the lagoons, was an important fortress. It was included in the “donation of Pippin”; it was taken by the Venetians in 854, but afterwards came under the government of the archbishops of Ravenna; in 1299 it came under the dominion of the house of Este. In 1508 it became Venetian, but in 1597 was claimed by Clement VIII. as a vacant fief.

COMANA,a city of Cappadocia [frequently calledChryseorAurea,i.e.the golden, to distinguish it from Comana in Pontus; mod.Shahr], celebrated in ancient times as the place where the rites of Mā-Enyo, a variety of the great west Asian Nature-goddess, were celebrated with much solemnity. The service was carried on in a sumptuous temple with great magnificence by many thousands ofhieroduli(temple-servants). To defray expenses, large estates had been set apart, which yielded a more than royal revenue. The city, a mere apanage of the temple, was governed immediately by the chief priest, who was always a member of the reigning Cappadocian family, and took rank next to the king. The number of persons engaged in the service of the temple, even in Strabo’s time, was upwards of 6000, and among these, to judge by the names common on local tombstones, were many of Persian race. Under Caracalla, Comana became a Roman colony, and it received honours from later emperors down to the official recognition of Christianity. The site lies at Shahr, a village in the Anti-Taurus on the upper course of the Sarus (Sihun), mainly Armenian, but surrounded by new settlements of Avshar Turkomans and Circassians. The place has derived importance both in antiquity and now from its position at the eastern end of the main pass of the western Anti-Taurus range, the Kuru Chai, through which passed the road from Caesarea-Mazaca (mod.Kaisarieh) to Melitene (Malatia), converted by Septimius Severus into the chief military road to the eastern frontier of the empire. The extant remains at Shahr include a theatre on the left bank of the river, a fine Roman doorway and many inscriptions; but the exact site of the great temple has not been satisfactorily identified. There are many traces of Severus’ road, including a bridge at Kemer, and an immense number of milestones, some in their original positions, others in cemeteries.

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