The strata met with in the Great and Little Cumbrae belong to the Upper Old Red Sandstone and Carboniferous systems. The former, consisting of false-bedded sandstones and conglomerates, are confined to the larger island. The Carboniferous rocks of the Cumbrae belong to the lower part of the Calciferous Sandstone series with the accompanying volcanic zone. In the larger island these sediments, comprising sandstones, red, purple and mottled clays with occasional bands of nodular limestone or cornstone, occupy a considerable area on the north side of Millport Bay. In the Little Cumbrae they appear on the east side, where they underlie and are interbedded with the lavas. The interesting geological feature of these islands is the development of Lower Carboniferous volcanic rocks. They cover nearly the whole of the Little Cumbrae, where they give rise to marked terraced features and are arranged in a gentle synclinal fold. The flows are often scoriaceous at the top and sometimes display columnar structure, as in the crags at the lighthouse. Those rocks examined microscopically consist of basalts which are often porphyritic. In Great Cumbrae the intrusive rocks mark four periods of eruption, three of which may be of Carboniferous age. The oldest, consisting of trachytes, occur as sheets and dikes trending generally E.N.E., and are confined chiefly to the Upper Old Red Sandstone. They seem to be of older date than the Carboniferous lavas of Little Cumbrae and south Bute. Next come dikes of olivine basalt of the type of the Lion’s Haunch on Arthur’s Seat, which, though possessing the same general trend as the trachytes, are seen to cut them. The members of the third group comprise dikes of dolerite or basalt with or without olivine, which have a general east and west trend, and as they intersect the two previous groups they must be of later date. They probably belong to the east and west quartz dolerite dikes which are now referred to late Carboniferous time. Lastly there are representatives of the basalt dikes of Tertiary age with a north-west trend.
CUMIN, or Cummin (Cuminum Cyminum), an annual herbaceous plant, a member of the natural order Umbelliferae and probably a native of some part of western Asia, but scarcely known at the present time in a wild state. It was early cultivated in Arabia, India and China, and in the countries bordering the Mediterranean. Its stem is slender and branching, and about a foot in height; the leaves are deeply cut, with filiform segments; the flowers are small and white. The fruits, the so-called seeds, which constitute the cumin of pharmacy, are fusiform or ovoid in shape and compressed laterally; they are two lines long, are hotter to the taste, lighter in colour, and larger than caraway seeds, and have on each half nine fine ridges, overlying as many oil-channels or vittae. Their strong aromatic smell and warm bitterish taste are due to the presence of about 3% of an essential oil. The tissue of the seeds contains a fatty oil, with resin, mucilage and gum, malates and albuminous matter; and in the pericarp there is much tannin. The volatile oil of cumin, which may be separated by distillation of the seed with water, is mainly a mixture of cymol or cymene, C10H14, and cumic aldehyde, C6H4(C3H7)COH. Cumin is mentioned in Isaiah xxviii. 25, 27, and Matthew xxiii. 23, and in the works of Hippocrates and Dioscorides. From Pliny we learn that the ancients took the ground seed medicinally with bread, water or wine, and that it was accounted the best of condiments as a remedy for squeamishness. It was found to occasion pallor of the face, whence the expression of Horace, exsangue cuminum (Epist. i. 19), and that of Persius, pallentis grana cumini (Sat. v. 55). Pliny relates the story that it was employed by the followers of Porcius Latro, the celebrated rhetorician, in order to produce a complexion such as bespeaks application to study (xx. 57). In the middle ages cumin was one of the commonest spices of European growth. Its average price per pound in England in the 13th and 14th centuries was 2d. or, at present value, about 1s. 4d. (Rogers, Hist. of Agric. and Prices, i. 631). It is stimulant and carminative, and is employed in the manufacture of curry powder. The medicinal use of the drug is now confined to veterinary practice. Cumin is exported from India, Mogador, Malta and Sicily.
CUMMERBUND, a girdle or waistbelt (Hindostani kamar-band, a loin-band). In the East the principle of health is to keep the head cool and the stomach warm; the turban protects the one from the sun, and the cummerbund ensures the other against changes of temperature. In India the cummerbund consists of many folds of muslin or bright-coloured cloth.
CUMMING, JOSEPH GEORGE (1812-1868), English geologist and archaeologist, was born at Matlock in Derbyshire on the 15th of February 1812. He was educated at Oakham grammar school, and Emmanuel College, Cambridge, taking the degree of M.A., and entering holy orders in 1835. In 1841 he was appointed vice-principal of King William’s College, Castletown, in the Isle of Man, and this position he held until 1856. During this period his leisure time was devoted to a study of the geology and archaeology of the island. The results were published in a classic volume The Isle of Man; its History, Physical, Ecclesiastical, Civil and Legendary (1848). In 1856 he became master of King Edward’s grammar school at Lichfield, in 1858 warden and professor of classical literature and geology in Queen’s College, Birmingham, in 1862 rector of Mellis, in Suffolk, and in 1867 vicar of St John’s, Bethnal Green, London. He died in London on the 21st of September 1868.
CUMNOCK AND HOLMHEAD, a police burgh of Ayrshire, Scotland, on the Lugar, 33¾ m. S. of Glasgow by road, with two stations (Cumnock and Old Cumnock) on the Glasgow & South-Western railway. Pop. (1901) 3088. It lies in the parish of Old Cumnock (pop. 5144), and is a thriving town, with a town hall, cottage hospital, public library and an athenaeum. Coal and ironstone are extensively mined in the neighbourhood, and the manufactures include woollens, tweeds, agricultural implements and pottery. When Alexander Peden (1626-1686), the persecuted Covenanter, died, he was buried in the Boswell aisle of Auchinleck church; but his corpse was borne thence with every indignity by a company of dragoons to the foot of the gallows at Cumnock, where they intended to hang it in chains. This proving to be impracticable they buried it at the gallows-foot. After the Revolution the inhabitants out of respect for the “Prophet’s” memory abandoned their then burying-ground and turned the old place of execution into the present cemetery. Five miles S.E. lies the parish of New Cumnock (pop. 5367) at the confluence of Afton Water and the Nith. It is rich in minerals, iron, coal, limestone and freestone, and has a station on the Glasgow & South-Western railway. Two miles N.W. of Cumnock is Auchinleck (pronounced Affleck), with a station on the Glasgow & South-Western railway. Coal and iron mining and farming are important industries. It is the seat of the Boswell family, three generations of which abbreviated greatness—Lord Auchinleck, the judge (who dubbed Dr Johnson “Ursa Major”), his son James, the biographer, and his grandson Sir Alexander, the author of “Gude nicht and joy be wi’ you a’,” “Jenny’s Bawbee,” “Jenny dang the weaver,” and other songs and poems, who perished miserably in a duel. Pop. of Auchinleck parish (1901) 6605.