[1] Élie Bocthor (1784-1821) was a French orientalist of Coptic origin. He was the author of a Traité des conjugaisons written in Arabic, and left his Dictionary in MS.
CAUTERETS, a watering-place of south-western France in the department of Hautes-Pyrénées, 20 m. S. by W. of Lourdes by rail. Pop. (1906) 1030. It lies in the beautiful valley of the Gave de Cauterets, and is well known for its copious thermal springs. They are chiefly characterized by the presence of sulphur and silicate of soda, and are used in the treatment of diseases of the respiratory organs, rheumatism, skin diseases and many other maladies. Their temperature varies between 75° and 137° F. The springs number twenty-four, and there are nine bathing establishments. Cauterets is a centre for excursions, the Monné (8935 ft.), the Cabaliros (7655 ft.), the Pic de Chabarrou (9550 ft.), the Vignemale (10,820 ft.), and other summits being in its neighbourhood.
CAUTIN, a province of southern Chile, bounded N. by Arauco, Malleco and Bio-Bio, E. by Argentina, S. by Valdivia, and W. by the Pacific. Its area is officially estimated at 5832 sq. m. Cautin lies within the temperate agricultural and forest region of the south, and produces wheat, cattle, lumber, tan-bark and fruit. The state central railway from Santiago to Puerto Montt crosses the province from north to south, and the Cautin, or Imperial, and Tolten rivers (the latter forming its southern boundary) cross from east to west, both affording excellent transportation facilities. The province once formed part of the territory occupied by the Araucanian Indians, and its present political existence dates from 1887. Its population (1905) was 96,139, of whom a large percentage were European immigrants, principally Germans. The capital is Temuco, on the Rio Cautin; pop. (1895) 7078. The principal towns besides Temuco are Lautaro (3139) and Nueva Imperial (2179), both of historic interest because they were fortified Spanish outposts in the long struggle with the Araucanians.
CAUTLEY, SIR PROBY THOMAS (1802-1871), English engineer and palaeontologist, was born in Suffolk in 1802. After some years’ service in the Bengal artillery, which he joined in 1819, he was engaged on the reconstruction of the Doab canal, of which, after it was opened, he had charge for twelve years (1831-1843). In 1840 he reported on the proposed Ganges canal, for the irrigation of the country between the rivers Ganges, Hindan and Jumna, which was his most important work. This project was sanctioned in 1841, but the work was not begun till 1843, and even then Cautley found himself hampered in its execution by the opposition of Lord Ellenborough. From 1845 to 1848 he was absent in England owing to ill-health, and on his return to India he was appointed director of canals in the North-Western Provinces. After the Ganges canal was opened in 1854 he went back to England, where he was made K.C.B., and from 1858 to 1868 he occupied a seat on the council of India. He died at Sydenham, near London, on the 25th of January 1871. In 1860 he published a full account of the making of the Ganges canal, and he also contributed numerous memoirs, some written in collaboration with Dr Hugh Falconer, to the Proceedings of the Bengal Asiatic Society and the Geological Society of London on the geology and fossil remains of the Sivalik Hills.
CAUVERY, or Kaveri, a river of southern India. Rising in Coorg, high up amid the Western Ghats, in 12° 25′ N. lat. and 75° 34′ E. long., it flows with a general south-eastern direction across the plateau of Mysore, and finally pours itself into the Bay of Bengal through two principal mouths in Tanjore district. Its total length is 472 m., the estimated area of its basin 27,700 sq.m. The course of the river in Coorg is very tortuous. Its bed is generally rocky; its banks are high and covered with luxuriant vegetation. On entering Mysore it passes through a narrow gorge, but presently widens to an average breadth of 300 to 400 yds. Its bed continues rocky, so as to forbid all navigation; but its banks are here bordered with a rich strip of cultivation. In its course through Mysore the channel is interrupted by twelve anicuts or dams for the purpose of irrigation. From the most important of these, known as the Madadkatte, an artificial channel is led to a distance of 72 m., irrigating an area of 10,000 acres, and ultimately bringing a water-supply into the town of Mysore. In Mysore state the Cauvery forms the two islands of Seringapatam and Sivasamudram, which vie in sanctity with the island of Seringam lower down in Trichinopoly district. Around the island of Sivasamudram are the celebrated falls of the Cauvery, unrivalled for romantic beauty. The river here branches into two channels, each of which makes a descent of about 200 m. in a succession of rapids and broken cascades. After entering the Madras presidency, the Cauvery forms the boundary between the Coimbatore and Salem districts, until it strikes into Trichinopoly district. Sweeping past the historic rock of Trichinopoly, it breaks at the island of Seringam into two channels, which enclose between them the delta of Tanjore, the garden of southern India. The northern channel is called the Coleroon (Kolidam); the other preserves the name of Cauvery. On the seaward face of its delta are the open roadsteads of Negapatam and French Karikal. The only navigation on any portion of its course is carried on in boats of basket-work. It is in the delta that the real value of the river for irrigation becomes conspicuous. This is the largest delta system, and the most profitable of all the works in India. The most ancient irrigation work is a massive dam of unhewn stone, 1080 ft. long, and from 40 to 60 ft. broad, across the stream of the Cauvery proper, which is supposed to date back to the 4th century, is still in excellent repair, and has supplied a model to British engineers. The area of the ancient system was 669,000 acres, the modern about 1,000,000 acres. The chief modern work is the anicut across the Coleroon, 2250 ft. long, constructed by Sir Arthur Cotton between 1836 and 1838. The Cauvery Falls have been utilized for an electric installation, which supplies power to the Kolar gold-mines and light to the city of Mysore.
The Cauvery is known to devout Hindus as Dakshini Ganga, or the Ganges of the south, and the whole of its course is holy ground. According to the legend there was once born upon earth a girl named Vishnumaya or Lopamudra, the daughter of Brahma; but her divine father permitted her to be regarded as the child of a mortal, called Kavera-muni. In order to obtain beatitude for her adoptive father, she resolved to become a river whose waters should purify from all sin. Hence it is that even the holy Ganges resorts underground once in the year to the source of the Cauvery, to purge herself from the pollution contracted from the crowd of sinners who have bathed in her waters.