The Project Gutenberg eBook ofEncyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Crocoite" to "Cuba"

The Project Gutenberg eBook ofEncyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Crocoite" to "Cuba"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, "Crocoite" to "Cuba"Author: VariousRelease date: January 20, 2012 [eBook #38622]Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Marius Masi, Don Kretz and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA, 11TH EDITION, "CROCOITE" TO "CUBA" ***

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, "Crocoite" to "Cuba"Author: VariousRelease date: January 20, 2012 [eBook #38622]Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Marius Masi, Don Kretz and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

Title: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Crocoite" to "Cuba"

Author: Various

Release date: January 20, 2012 [eBook #38622]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Marius Masi, Don Kretz and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA, 11TH EDITION, "CROCOITE" TO "CUBA" ***

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CROCOITE,a mineral consisting of lead chromate, PbCrO4, and crystallizing in the monoclinic system. It is sometimes used as a paint, being identical in composition with the artificial product chrome-yellow; it is the only chromate of any importance found in nature. It was discovered at Berezovsk near Ekaterinburg in the Urals in 1766; and named crocoise by F. S. Beudant in 1832, from the Greekκρόκος, saffron, in allusion to its colour, a name first altered to crocoisite and afterwards to crocoite. It is found as well-developed crystals of a bright hyacinth-red colour, which are translucent and have an adamantine to vitreous lustre. On exposure to light much of the translucency and brilliancy is lost. The streak is orange-yellow; hardness 2½-3; specific gravity 6.0. In the Urals the crystals are found in quartz-veins traversing granite or gneiss: other localities which have yielded good crystallized specimens are Congonhas do Campo near Ouro Preto in Brazil, Luzon in the Philippines, and Umtali in Mashonaland. Gold is often found associated with this mineral. Crystals far surpassing in beauty any previously known have been found in the Adelaide Mine at Dundas, Tasmania; they are long slender prisms, 3 or 4 in. in length, with a brilliant lustre and colour.

Associated with crocoite at Berezovsk are the closely allied minerals phoenicochroite and vauquelinite. The former is a basic lead Chromate, Pb3Cr2O9, and the latter a lead and copper phosphate-chromate, 2(Pb, Cu)CrO4. (Pb, Cu)3(PO4)2. Vauquelinite forms brown or green monoclinic crystals, and was named after L. N. Vauquelin, who in 1797 discovered (simultaneously with and independently of M. H. Klaproth) the element chromium in crocoite.

(L. J. S.)

CROCUS,a botanical genus of the natural order Iridaceae, containing about 70 species, natives of Europe, North Africa, and temperate Asia, and especially developed in the dry country of south-eastern Europe and western and central Asia. The plants are admirably adapted for climates in which a season favourable to growth alternates with a hot or dry season; during the latter they remain dormant beneath the ground in the form of a short thickened stem protected by the scaly remains of the bases of last season’s leaves (known botanically as a “corm”). At the beginning of the new season of growth, new flower- and leaf-bearing shoots are developed from the corm at the expense of the food-stuff stored within it. New corms are produced at the end of the season, and by these the plant is multiplied.

These crocuses of the flower garden are mostly horticultural varieties ofC. vernus,C. versicolorandC. aureus(Dutch crocus), the two former yielding the white, purple and striped, and the latter the yellow varieties. The crocus succeeds in any fairly good garden soil, and is usually planted near the edges of beds or borders in the flower garden, or in broadish patches at intervals along the mixed borders. The corms should be planted 3 in. below the surface, and as they become crowded they should be taken up and replanted with a refreshment of the soil, at least every five or six years. Crocuses have also a pleasing effect when dotted about on the lawns and grassy banks of the pleasure ground.

Some of the best of the varieties are:—Purple: David Rizzio, Sir J. Franklin, purpureus grandiflorus.Striped: Albion, La Majestueuse, Sir Walter Scott, Cloth ofSilver, Mme Mina.White: Caroline Chisholm, Mont Blanc.Yellow: Large Dutch.

The species of crocus are not very readily obtainable, but those who make a specialty of hardy bulbs ought certainly to search them out and grow them. They require the same culture as the more familiar garden varieties; but, as some of them are apt to suffer from excess of moisture, it is advisable to plant them in prepared soil in a raised pit, where they are brought nearer to the eye, and where they can be sheltered when necessary by glazed sashes, which, however, should not be closed except when the plants are at rest, or during inclement weather in order to protect the blossoms, especially in the case of winter flowering species. The autumn blooming kinds include many plants of very great beauty. The following species are recommended:—

Spring flowering:—Yellow:C. aureus,aureusvar.sulphureus,chrysanthus,Olivieri,Korolkowi,Balansae,ancyrensis,Susianus,stellaris.Lilac:C. Imperati,Sieberi,etruscus,vernus,Tomasinianus,banaticus.White:C. biflorusand vars.,candidus,vernusvars.Striped:C. versicolor,reticulatus.

Autumn flowering:—Yellow:C. Scharojani.Lilac:C. asluricus,cancellatusvar.,cilicicus,byzantinus(iridiflorus),longiflorus,medius,nudiflorus,pulchellus,Salzmanni,sativusvars. speciosus, zonatus. White: caspius, cancellatus, hadrialicus,marathonisius.

Winter flowering:—C. hyemaeis,laevigatus,vitellinus.

CROESUS,last king of Lydia, of the Mermnad dynasty, (560-546B.C.), succeeded his father Alyattes after a war with his half-brother. He completed the conquest of Ionia by capturing Ephesus, Miletus and other places, and extended the Lydian empire as far as the Halys. His wealth, due to trade, was proverbial, and he used part of it in securing alliances with the Greek states whose fleets might supplement his own army. Various legends were told about him by the Greeks, one of the most famous being that of Solon’s visit to him with the lessonit conveyed of the divine nemesis which waits upon overmuch prosperity (Hdt. i. 29 seq.; but seeSolon). After the overthrow of the Median empire (549B.C.) Croesus found himself confronted by the rising power of Cyrus, and along with Nabonidos of Babylon took measures to resist it. A coalition was formed between the Lydian and Babylonian kings, Egypt promised troops and Sparta its fleet. But the coalition was defeated by the rapid movements of Cyrus and the treachery of Eurybatus of Ephesus, who fled to Persia with the gold that had been entrusted to him, and betrayed the plans of the confederates. Fortified with the Delphic oracles Croesus marched to the frontier of his empire, but after some initial successes fortune turned against him and he was forced to retreat to Sardis. Here he was followed by Cyrus who took the city by storm. We may gather from the recently discovered poem of Bacchylides (iii. 23-62) that he hoped to escape his conqueror by burning himself with his wealth on a funeral pyre, like Saracus, the last king of Assyria, but that he fell into the hands of Cyrus before he could effect his purpose.1A different version of the story is given (from Lydian sources) by Herodotus (followed by Xenophon), who makes Cyrus condemn his prisoner to be burnt alive, a mode of death hardly consistent with the Persian reverence for fire. Apollo, however, came to the rescue of his pious worshipper, and the name of Solon uttered by Croesus resulted in his deliverance. According to Ctesias, who uses Persian sources, and says nothing of the attempt to burn Croesus, he subsequently became attached to the court of Cyrus and received the governorship of Barene in Media. Fragments of columns from the temple of Attemis now in the British Museum have upon them a dedication by Croesus in Greek.

See R. Schubert,De Croeso et Solone fabula(1868); M. G. Radet,La Lydie et le monde grec au temps des Mermnades(1892-1893); A. S. Murray,Journ. Hell. Studies, x. pp. 1-10 (1889); for the supposition that Croesus did actually perish on his own pyre see G. B. Grundy,Great Persian War, p. 28; Grote,Hist. of Greece(ed. 1907), p. 104. Cf.Cyrus;Lydia.

1This is probably a Greek legend (cf. the Attic vase of about 500B.C.inJourn. of Hell. Stud., 1898, p. 268).

CROFT, SIR HERBERT,Bart. (1751-1816), English author, was born at Dunster Park, Berkshire, on the 1st of November 1751, son of Herbert Croft (see below) of Stifford, Essex. He matriculated at University College, Oxford, in March 1771, and was subsequently entered at Lincoln’s Inn. He was called to the bar, but in 1782 returned to Oxford with a view to preparing for holy orders. In 1786 he received the vicarage of Prittlewell, Essex, but he remained at Oxford for some years accumulating materials for a proposed English dictionary. He was twice married, and on the day after his second wedding day he was imprisoned at Exeter for debt. He then retired to Hamburg, and two years later his library was sold. He had succeeded in 1797 to the title, but not to the estates, of a distant cousin, Sir John Croft, the fourth baronet. He returned to England in 1800, but went abroad once more in 1802. He lived near Amiens at a house owned by Lady Mary Hamilton, said to have been a daughter of the earl of Leven and Melville. Later he removed to Paris, where he died on the 26th of April 1816. In some of his numerous literary enterprises he had the help of Charles Nodier. Croft wrote the Life of Edward Young inserted in Johnson’sLives of the Poets. In 1780 he publishedLove and Madness, a Story too true, in a series of letters between Parties whose names could perhaps be mentioned were they less known or less lamented. This book, which passed through seven editions, narrates the passion of a clergyman named James Hackman for Martha Ray, mistress of the earl of Sandwich, who was shot by her lover as she was leaving Covent Garden in 1779 (see the Case and Memoirs of the late Rev. Mr James Hackman, 1779).Love and Madnesshas permanent interest because Croft inserted, among other miscellaneous matter, information about Thomas Chatterton gained from letters which he obtained from the poet’s sister, Mrs Newton, under false pretences, and used without payment. Robert Southey, when about to publish an edition of Chatterton’s works for the benefit of his family, published (November 1799) details of Croft’s proceedings in theMonthly Review. To this attack Croft wrote a reply addressed to John Nichols in theGentleman’s Magazine, and afterwards printed separately asChatterton and Love and Madness ...(1800). This tract evades the main accusation, and contains much abuse of Southey. Croft, however, supplied the material for the exhaustive account of Chatterton in A. Kippis’sBiographia Britannica(vol. iv., 1789). In 1788 he addressed a letter to William Pitt on the subject of a new dictionary. He criticized Samuel Johnson’s efforts, and in 1790 he claimed to have collected 11,000 words used by excellent authorities but omitted by Johnson. Two years later he issued proposals for a revised edition of Johnson’sDictionary, but subscribers were lacking and his 200 vols. of MS. remained unused. Croft was a good scholar and linguist, and the author of some curious books in French.

The Love Letters of Mr H. and Miss R. 1775-1779were edited from Croft’s book by Mr Gilbert Burgess (1895). See also John Nichols’sIllustrations ...(1828), v. 202-218.

CROFT, SIR JAMES(d. 1590), lord deputy of Ireland, belonged to an old family of Herefordshire, which county he represented in parliament in 1541. He was made governor of Haddington in 1549, and became lord deputy of Ireland in 1551. There he effected little beyond gaining for himself the reputation of a conciliatory disposition. Croft was all his life a double-dealer. He was imprisoned in the Tower for treason in the reign of Mary, but was released and treated with consideration by Elizabeth after her accession. He was made governor of Berwick, where he was visited by John Knox in 1559, and where he busied himself actively on behalf of the Scottish Protestants, though in 1560 he was suspected, probably with good reason, of treasonable correspondence with Mary of Guise, the Catholic regent of Scotland; and for ten years he was out of public employment. But in 1570 Elizabeth, who showed the greatest forbearance and favour to Sir James Croft, made him a privy councillor and controller of her household. He was one of the commissioners for the trial of Mary queen of Scots, and in 1588 was sent on a diplomatic mission to arrange peace with the duke of Parma. Croft established private relations with Parma, for which on his return he was sent to the Tower. He was released before the end of 1589, and died on the 4th of September 1590.

Croft’s eldest son, Edward, was put on his trial in 1589 on the curious charge of having contrived the death of the earl of Leicester by witchcraft, in revenge for the earl’s supposed hostility to Sir James Croft. Edward Croft was father of Sir Herbert Croft (d. 1622), who became a Roman Catholic and wrote several controversial pieces in defence of that faith. His son Herbert Croft (1603-1691), bishop of Hereford, after being for some time, like his father, a member of the Roman church, returned to the church of England about 1630, and about ten years later was chaplain to Charles I., and obtained within a few years a prebend’s stall at Worcester, a canonry of Windsor, and the deanery of Hereford, all of which preferments he lost during the Civil War and Commonwealth. By Charles II. he was made bishop of Hereford in 1661. Bishop Croft was the author of many books and pamphlets, several of them against the Roman Catholics; and one of his works, entitledThe Naked Truth, or the True State of the Primitive Church(London, 1675), was very celebrated in its day, and gave rise to prolonged controversy. The bishop died in 1691. His son Herbert was created a baronet in 1671, and was the ancestor of Sir Herbert Croft (q.v.), the 18th century writer.

Bibliography.—See Richard Bagwell,Ireland under the Tudors, vol. i. (3 vols., London, 1885); David Lloyd,State Worthies from the Reformation to the Revolution(2 vols., London, 1766); John Strype,Annals of the Reformation(Oxford, 1824), which contains an account of the trial of Edward Croft; S. L. Lee’s art. “Croft, Sir James,” inDict. of National Biography, vol. xiii.; and for Bishop Croft see Anthony à Wood,Athenae Oxonienses(ed. Bliss, 1813-1820); John Le Neve,Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae(ed. by T. D. Hardy, Oxford, 1854).

CROFT(orCrofts),WILLIAM(1678-1727), English composer, was born in 1678, at Nether Ettington in Warwickshire. He received his musical education in the Chapel Royal under Dr Blow. He early obtained the place of organist of St Anne’s, Soho, and in 1700 was admitted a gentleman extraordinary of the ChapelRoyal. In 1707 he was appointed joint-organist with Blow; and upon the death of the latter in 1708 he became solo organist, and also master of the children and composer of the Chapel Royal, besides being made organist of Westminster Abbey. In 1712 he wrote a brief introduction on the history of English church music to a collection of the words of anthems which he had edited under the title ofDivine Harmony. In 1713 he obtained his degree of doctor of music in the university of Oxford. In 1724 he published an edition of his choral music in 2 vols. folio, under the name ofMusica Sacra, or Select Anthems in score, for two, three, four, five, six, seven and eight voices, to which is added the Burial Service, as it is occasionally performed in Westminster Abbey. This handsome work included a portrait of the composer and was the first of the kind executed on pewter plates and in score. John Page, in hisHarmonia Sacra, published in 1800 in 3 vols. folio, gives seven of Croft’s anthems. Of instrumental music, Croft published six sets of airs for two violins and a bass, six sonatas for two flutes, six solos for a flute and bass. He died at Bath on the 14th of August 1727, and was buried in the north aisle of Westminster Abbey, where a monument was erected to his memory by his friend and admirer Humphrey Wyrley Birch. Burney in hisHistory of Musicdevotes several pages of his third volume (pp. 603-612) to Dr Croft’s life, and criticisms of some of his anthems. During the earlier period of his life Croft wrote much for the theatre, including overtures and incidental music forCourtship à la mode(1700),The Funeral(1702) andThe Lying Lover(1703).

CROFTER,a term used, more particularly in the Highlands and islands of Scotland, to designate a tenant who rents and cultivates a small holding of land or “croft.” This Old English word, meaning originally an enclosed field, seems to correspond to the Dutchkroft, a field on high ground or downs. The ultimate origin is unknown. By the Crofters’ Holdings (Scotland) Act 1886, a crofter is defined as the tenant of a holding who resides on his holding, the annual rent of which does not exceed £30 in money, and which is situated in a crofting parish. The wholesale clearances of tenants from their crofts during the 19th century, in violation of, as the tenants claimed, an implied security of tenure, has led in the past to much agitation on the part of the crofters to secure consideration of their grievances. They have been the subject of royal commissions and of considerable legislation, but the effect of the Crofters Act of 1886, with subsequent amending acts, has been to improve their condition markedly, and much of the agitation has now died out. A history of the legislation dealing with the crofters is given in the articleScotland.

CROKER, JOHN WILSON(1780-1857), British statesman and author, was born at Galway on the 20th of December 1780, being the only son of John Croker, the surveyor-general of customs and excise in Ireland. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated in 1800. Immediately afterwards he was entered at Lincoln’s Inn, and in 1802 he was called to the Irish bar. His interest in the French Revolution led him to collect a large number of valuable documents on the subject, which are now in the British Museum. In 1804 he published anonymouslyFamiliar Epistles to J. F. Jones, Esquire, on the State of the Irish Stage, a series of caustic criticisms in verse on the management of the Dublin theatres. The book ran through five editions in one year. Equally successful was theIntercepted Letter from Canton(1805), also anonymous, a satire on Dublin society. In 1807 he published a pamphlet onThe State of Ireland, Past and Present, in which he advocated Catholic emancipation.

In the following year he entered parliament as member for Downpatrick, obtaining the seat on petition, though he had been unsuccessful at the poll. The acumen displayed in his Irish pamphlet led Spencer Perceval to recommend him in 1808 to Sir Arthur Wellesley, who had just been appointed to the command of the British forces in the Peninsula, as his deputy in the office of chief secretary for Ireland. This connexion led to a friendship which remained unbroken till Wellington’s death. The notorious case of the duke of York in connexion with his abuse of military patronage furnished him with an opportunity for distinguishing himself. The speech which he delivered on the 14th of March 1809, in answer to the charges of Colonel Wardle, was regarded as the most able and ingenious defence of the duke that was made in the debate; and Croker was appointed to the office of secretary to the Admiralty, which he held without interruption under various administrations for more than twenty years. He proved an excellent public servant, and made many improvements which have been of permanent value in the organization of his office. Among the first acts of his official career was the exposure of a fellow-official who had misappropriated the public funds to the extent of £200,000.

In 1827 he became the representative of the university of Dublin, having previously sat successively for the boroughs of Athlone, Yarmouth (Isle of Wight), Bodmin and Aldeburgh. He was a determined opponent of the Reform Bill, and vowed that he would never sit in a reformed parliament; his parliamentary career accordingly terminated in 1832. Two years earlier he had retired from his post at the admiralty on a pension of £1500 a year. Many of his political speeches were published in pamphlet form, and they show him to have been a vigorous and effective, though somewhat unscrupulous and often virulently personal, party debater. Croker had been an ardent supporter of Peel, but finally broke with him when he began to advocate the repeal of the Corn Laws. He is said to have been the first to use (Jan. 1830) the term “conservatives.” He was for many years one of the leading contributors on literary and historical subjects to theQuarterly Review, with which he had been associated from its foundation. The rancorous spirit in which many of his articles were written did much to embitter party feeling. It also reacted unfavourably on Croker’s reputation as a worker in the department of pure literature by bringing political animosities into literary criticism. He had no sympathy with the younger school of poets who were in revolt against the artificial methods of the 18th century, and he was responsible for the famousQuarterlyarticle on Keats. It is, nevertheless, unjust to judge Croker by the criticisms which Macaulay brought against hismagnum opus, his edition of Boswell’sLife of Johnson(1831). With all its defects the work had merits which Macaulay was of course not concerned to point out, and Croker’s researches have been of the greatest value to subsequent editors. There is little doubt that Macaulay had personal reasons for his attack on Croker, who had more than once exposed in the House the fallacies that lay hidden under the orator’s brilliant rhetoric. Croker made no immediate reply to Macaulay’s attack, but when the first two volumes of theHistoryappeared he took the opportunity of pointing out the inaccuracies that abounded in the work. Croker was occupied for several years on an annotated edition of Pope’s works. It was left unfinished at the time of his death, but it was afterwards completed by the Rev. Whitwell Elwin and Mr W. J. Courthope. He died at St Albans Bank, Hampton, on the 10th of August 1857.

Croker was generally supposed to be the original from which Disraeli drew the character of “Rigby” inConingsby, because he had for many years had the sole management of the estates of the marquess of Hertford, the “Lord Monmouth” of the story; but the comparison is a great injustice to the sterling worth of Croker’s character.

The chief works of Croker not already mentioned were hisStories for Children from the History of England(1817), which provided the model for Scott’sTales of a Grandfather;Letters on the Naval War with America;A Reply to the Letters of Malachi Malagrowther(1826);Military Events of the French Revolution of 1830(1831); a translation of Bassompierre’sEmbassy to England(1819); and several lyrical pieces of some merit, such as theSongs of Trafalgar(1806) andThe Battles of Talavera(1809). He also edited theSuffolk Papers(1823),Hervey’s Memoirs of the Court of George II.(1817), theLetters of Mary Lepel, Lady Hervey(1821-1822), andWalpole’s Letters to Lord Hertford(1824). His memoirs, diaries and correspondence were edited by Louis J. Jennings in 1884 under the title ofThe Croker Papers(3 vols.).

CROKER, RICHARD(1843- ), American politician, was born at Blackrock, Ireland, on the 24th of November 1843. He was taken to the United States by his parents when two years old, and was educated in the public schools of New YorkCity, where he eventually became a member of Tammany Hall and active in its politics. He was an alderman from 1868 to 1870, a coroner from 1873 to 1876, a fire commissioner in 1883 and 1887, and city chamberlain from 1889 to 1890. After the fall of John Kelly he became the leader of Tammany Hall (q.v.), and for some time almost completely controlled the organization. His greatest political success was his bringing about the election of Robert A. van Wyck as first mayor of greater New York in 1897, and during van Wyck’s administration Croker is popularly supposed to have dominated completely the government of the city. After Croker’s failure to “carry” the city in the presidential election of 1900 and the defeat of his mayoralty candidate, Edward M. Shepard, in 1901, he resigned from his position of leadership in Tammany, and retired to a country life in England and Ireland. In 1907 he won the Derby with his race-horse Orby.

CROKER, THOMAS CROFTON(1798-1854), Irish antiquary and humorist, was born in Cork on the 15th of January 1798. He was apprenticed to a merchant, but in 1819, through the interest of John Wilson Croker, who was, however, no relation of his, he became a clerk in the Admiralty. Moore was indebted to him in the production of hisIrish Melodiesfor “many curious fragments of ancient poetry.” In 1825 he produced his most popular book, theFairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland, which he followed up by the publication of hisLegends of the Lakes(1829), hisAdventures of Barney Mahoney(1852), and an edition of thePopular Songs of Ireland(1839). In 1827 he was made a member of the Irish Academy; in 1839 and 1840 he helped to found the Camden and Percy Societies, and in 1843 the British Archaeological Association. He wroteNarratives Illustrative of the Contests in Ireland in 1641 and 1688(1841), for the Camden Society,Historical Songs of Ireland, &c. (1841), for the Percy Society, and several other works. He was also a member of the Hakluyt and the Antiquarian Society. He died in London on the 8th of August 1854.

CROLL, JAMES(1821-1890), Scottish man of science, was born of a peasant family at Little Whitefield, in the parish of Cargill, in Perthshire, on the 2nd of January 1821. He was regarded as an unpromising boy, but a trifling circumstance aroused a passion for reading, and he made great progress in self-education. He was apprenticed to a wheelwright at Collace in Perthshire, but being debarred by ill-health from manual labour, he became successively a shop-keeper and an insurance agent. In 1859 he was made keeper of the Andersonian Museum in Glasgow, a humble appointment, which, however, gave him congenial occupation. In 1857, being deeply impressed by the metaphysics of Jonathan Edwards, he had published an anonymous volume entitledThe Philosophy of Theism; but his connexion with the Museum induced him to take up physical science, and from 1861 onwards he studied with such perseverance that he was enabled to contribute papers to thePhilosophical Magazineand other journals. For that magazine in 1864 he wrote his celebrated essay “On the Physical Cause of the Changes of Climate during Geological Epochs.” This led to his receiving an appointment on the Scottish Geological Survey in 1867, and for thirteen years he took charge of the Edinburgh Office. In 1875 he summed up his researches upon the ancient condition of the earth in hisClimate and Time, in their Geological Relations, in which he contends that terrestrial revolutions are due in a measure to cosmical causes. This theory excited warm controversy. Croll’s replies to his opponents are collected in hisClimate and Cosmology(1885). He had been compelled by ill-health to withdraw from the public service in 1880; yet, working under the greatest difficulties, and harassed by the inadequacy of his retiring pension, he managed to produceStellar Evolution, discussing, among other things, the age of the sun, in 1889; andThe Philosophical Basis of Evolution, partly a critique of Herbert Spencer’s philosophy, in 1890. He died on the 15th of December 1890. The soundness of Croll’s astronomical theory regarding the glacial period has since been criticized by E. P. Culverwell in theGeological Magazinefor 1895, and by others; and it is now generally abandoned. Nevertheless it must be admitted that his character as a scientific worker under great discouragements was nothing less than heroic. The hon. degree of LL.D. was conferred on him in 1876 by the university of St Andrews; and he was elected F.R.S. in the same year.

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