THE ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA

A DICTIONARY OF ARTS, SCIENCES, LITERATURE AND GENERAL INFORMATION

ELEVENTH EDITION

VOLUME V SLICE VI
Celtes, Konrad to Ceramics

Articles in This Slice

CELTES, KONRAD (1459-1508), German humanist and Latin poet, the son of a vintner named Pickel (of which Celtes is the Greek translation), was born at Wipfeld near Schweinfurt. He early ran away from home to avoid being set to his father’s trade, and at Heidelberg was lucky enough to find a generous patron in Johann von Dalberg and a teacher in Agricola. After the death of the latter (1485) Celtes led the wandering life of a scholar of the Renaissance, visiting most of the countries of the continent, teaching in various universities, and everywhere establishing learned societies on the model of the academy of Pomponius Laetus at Rome. Among these was the Sodalitas litteraria Rhenana or Celtica at Mainz (1491). In 1486 he published his first book, Ars versificandi et carminum, which created an immense sensation and gained him the honour of being crowned as the first poet laureate of Germany, the ceremony being performed by the emperor Frederick III. at the diet of Nuremberg in 1487. In 1497 he was appointed by the emperor Maximilian I. professor of poetry and rhetoric at Vienna, and in 1502 was made head of the new Collegium Poetarum et Mathematicorum, with the right of conferring the laureateship. He did much to introduce system into the methods of teaching, to purify the Latin of learned intercourse, and to further the study of the classics, especially the Greek. But he was more than a mere classicist of the Renaissance. He was keenly interested in history and topography, especially in that of his native country. It was he who first unearthed (in the convent of St Emmeran at Regensburg) the remarkable Latin poems of the nun Hrosvitha of Gandersheim, of which he published an edition (Nuremberg, 1501), the historical poem Ligurinus sive de rebus gestis Frederici primi imperatoris libri x. (Augsburg, 1507), and the celebrated map of the Roman empire known as the Tabula Peutingeriana (after Konrad Peutinger, to whom he left it). He projected a great work on Germany; but of this only the Germania generalis and an historical work in prose, De origine, situ, moribus et institutis Nurimbergae libettus, saw the light. As a writer of Latin verse Celtes far surpassed any of his predecessors. He composed odes, elegies, epigrams, dramatic pieces and an unfinished epic, the Theodoriceis. His epigrams, edited by Hartfelder, were published at Berlin in 1881. His editions of the classics are now, of course, out of date. He died at Vienna on the 4th of February 1508.

For a full list of Celtes’s works see Engelbert Klüpfel, De vita et scriptis Conradi Celtis (2 vols., Freiburg, 1827); also Johann Aschbach, Die früheren Wanderjahre des Conrad Celtes (Vienna, 1869); Hartmann, Konrad Celtes in Nürnberg (Nuremberg, 1889).

CELTIBERIA, a term used by Greek and Roman writers to denote, sometimes the whole north-east of Spain, and sometimes the north-east part of the central plateau of the peninsula. The latter was probably the correct use. The Celtiberi, in this narrower sense, were not so much one tribe as a group of cantons—Arevaci, Pelendones, Berones and four or five others. They were the most warlike people in Spain, and for a long time offered a stubborn resistance to the Romans. Originally Carthaginian mercenaries, they were induced to serve the Romans in a similar capacity, and Livy (xxiv. 49) distinctly states that they were the first mercenaries in the Roman army. They did not, however, keep faith, and several campaigns were undertaken against them. In 179 b.c. the whole country was subdued by T. Sempronius Gracchus, who by his generous treatment of the vanquished gained their esteem and affection. In 153 they again revolted, and were not finally overcome until the capture of Numantia (133). The twenty years’ war waged round this city, and its siege and destruction by Scipio the Younger (133 b.c.) form only the most famous episode in the long struggle, which has left its mark in entrenchments near Numantia excavated in 1906-1907 by German archaeologists. After the fall of Numantia, and still more after the death of Sertorius (72 b.c.), the Celtiberians became gradually romanized, and town life grew up among their valleys; Clunia, for instance, became a Roman municipality, and ruins of its walls, gates and theatre testify to its civilization; while Bilbilis (Bambola), another municipality, was the birthplace of the eminently Roman poet Martial. The Celtiberians may have been so called because they were thought to be the descendants of Celtic immigrants from Gaul into Iberia (Spain), or because they were regarded (cf. Lucan iv. 9) as a mixed race of Celts and Spaniards (Iberians); in either case the name represents a geographer’s theory rather than an ascertained fact. That a strong Celtic element existed in Spain is proved both by numerous traditions and by the more trustworthy evidence of place-names. The Celtic place-names of Spain, however, are not confined to Celtiberia or even to the north and east; they occur even in the south and west.

A long description of the manners and customs of the Celtiberi is given by Diodorus Siculus (v. 33, 34). Their country was rough and unfruitful as a whole (barley, however, was cultivated), being chiefly used for the pasture of sheep. Its inhabitants either led a nomadic life or occupied small villages; large towns were few. Their infantry and cavalry were both excellent. In battle, they adopted the wedge-shaped formation of the column. They carried double-edged swords and short daggers for use hand to hand, the steel of which was hardened by being buried underground; their defensive armour was a light Gallic shield or a round wicker buckler, and greaves of felt round their legs. They wore brazen helmets with purple crests, and rough-haired black cloaks, in which they slept on the bare ground. Like the Cantabri, they washed themselves with urine instead of water. They were said to offer sacrifice to a nameless god (Strabo iii. p. 164) at the time of the full moon when all the household danced together before the doors of the houses. Although cruel to their enemies, they were hospitable to strangers. They ate meat of all kinds, and drank a kind of mead. E. Hübner’s article in Pauly-Wissowa’s Realencyclopadie, iii. (1886-1893), collects all the ancient references, which are almost all brief. Strabo’s notice (bk. iii.), based perhaps on Poseidonius, is fullest.

(F. J. H.)

CEMENT (from Lat. caementum, rough pieces of stone, a shortened form of caedimentum, from caedere, to cut), apparently first used of a mixture of broken stone, tiles, &c., with some binding material, and hence of any material capable of adhering to, and uniting into a coherent mass, fragments of a substance not in itself adhesive. The term is often applied to adhesive mixtures employed to unite objects or parts of objects (see below), but in engineering, when used without qualification, it means Portland cement, its modifications and congeners; these are all hydraulic cements, i.e. when set they resist the action of water, and can, under favourable conditions, be allowed to set under water.

Hydraulic Cements.—It was well known to builders in the earliest historic times that certain limes would, when set, resist the action of water, i.e. were hydraulic; it was also known that this property could be conferred on ordinary lime by admixture of silicious materials such as pozzuolana or tufa. We have here the two classes into which hydraulic cements are divided.

When pure chalk or limestone is “burned,” i.e. heated in a kiln until its carbonic acid has been driven off, it yields pure lime. This slakes violently with water, giving slaked lime, which can be made into a smooth paste with water Pozzuolanic cement. and mixed with sand to form common mortar. The setting of the mortar is due to the drying of the lime (a purely physical phenomenon, no chemical action occurring between the lime and the sand). The function of the sand is simply that of a diluent to prevent undue shrinkage and cracking in drying. Subsequent hardening of the mortar is caused by the gradual absorption of carbonic acid from the air by the lime, a skin of carbonate of lime being formed; but the action is superficial. Mortar made from pure or “fat” lime cannot withstand the action of water, and is only used for work done above water-level. If, however, such “fat” lime is mixed in the presence of water, not with sand but with silica in an active form, i.e. amorphous and (generally) hydrated, or with a silicate containing silica in an active condition, it will unite with the silica and form a silicate of lime capable of resisting the action of water. The mixture of the lime and active silica or silicate is a pozzuolanic cement. The simplest of all pozzuolanic cements would be a mixture of pure lime and hydrated silica, but though the latter is prepared artificially for various purposes, it is too expensive to be used as a cement material. A similar obstacle lies in the way of using a certain native form of active silica, viz. kieselguhr, for it is too valuable as an absorbent of nitroglycerine, for the manufacture of dynamite, to be available for making pozzuolanic cement. There are, however, many silicious substances occurring abundantly in nature which can thus be used. They are mostly of volcanic origin, and include pumice, tufa, santorin earth, trass and pozzuolana itself. The following analyses show their general composition:—

An artificial product which serves perfectly as a pozzuolana is granulated blast-furnace slag. The slag, which must contain a high percentage of lime, is granulated by being run while fused into abundance of water. This granulated slag differs from the same slag allowed to cool slowly, in that a portion of the energy which it possesses while fused is retained after it has solidified. It bears to ordinary slowly-cooled slag a similar relation to that borne by plastic sulphur to ordinary crystalline sulphur. This potential energy becomes kinetic when the slag is brought into contact with lime in the presence of water, and causes the formation of a true hydraulic silicate of lime. The following analysis shows the composition of a typical slag:—

Granulated slag of this character is ground with slaked lime until both materials are in a state of fine division and intimately mixed. The usual proportions are three of slag to one of slaked lime by weight. The product termed slag cement sets slowly, but ultimately attains a strength scarcely inferior to that of Portland cement. Although it is cheap and suitable for many purposes, its use is not large and tends to decrease. Pozzuolanic cements are little used in England. Generally speaking, they are only of local importance, their cheapness depending largely on the nearness and abundance of some suitable volcanic deposit of the trass or tufa class. They are not usually manufactured by the careful grinding together of the pozzuolana and the lime, but are mixed roughly, a great excess of pozzuolana being employed. This excess does no harm, for that part which fails to unite with the lime serves as a diluent, much as does sand in mortar. In fact, ordinary pozzuolanic cement made on the spot where it is to be used may be regarded as a better kind of common mortar having hydraulic qualities. Good hydraulic mortars may be made from lime mixed with furnace ashes or burnt clay as the pozzuolanic constituent.

Cements of the Portland type differ in kind from those of the pozzuolanic class; they are not mechanical mixtures of lime and active silica ready to unite under suitable conditions, but consist of definite chemical compounds of lime and Portland Cement silica and lime and alumina, which, when mixed with water, combine therewith, forming crystalline substances of great mechanical strength, and capable of adhering firmly to clean inert material, such as stone and sand. They are made by heating to a high temperature an intimate mixture of a calcareous substance and an argillaceous substance. The commonest of such substances in England are chalk and clay, but where local conditions demand it, limestone, marl, shale, slag or any similar material may be used, provided that the correct proportions of lime, silica and alumina are maintained. The earliest forms of cements of the Portland class were the hydraulic limes. These are still largely used, and are prepared by burning limestones containing clayey matter. Some of these naturally possess a composition differing but little from that of the mixture of raw materials artificially prepared for the manufacture of Portland cement itself. Although hydraulic limes have been in use from the most ancient times, their true nature and the reason of their resistance to water have only become known since 1791. Next in antiquity to hydraulic lime is Roman cement, prepared by heating an indurated marl occurring naturally in nodules. Its name must not be taken to imply that it was used by the ancients; in point of fact the manufacture of this substance dates back only to 1796.

With the growth of engineering in the early part of the 19th century arose a great demand for hydraulic cement. The supply of materials containing naturally suitable proportions of calcium carbonate and clay being limited, attempts were made to produce artificial mixtures which would serve a similar end. Among those who experimented in this direction was Joseph Aspdin, of Leeds, who added clay to finely ground limestone, calcined the mixture, and ground the product, which he called Portland cement. The only connexion between Portland cement and the place Portland is that the cement when set somewhat resembles Portland stone in colour. True, it is possible to manufacture Portland cement from Portland stone (after adding a suitable quantity of clay), but this is merely because Portland stone is substantially carbonate of lime; any other limestone would serve equally well. Although Portland cement is later in date than either Roman cement or hydraulic lime, yet on account of its greater industrial importance, and of the fact that, being an artificial product, it is of approximately uniform composition and properties, it may conveniently be treated of first. The greater part of the Portland cement made in England is manufactured on the Thames and Medway. The materials are chalk and Medway mud; in a few works the latter is replaced by gault.

The composition of typical samples of chalk and clay is shown in the following analyses:—

These materials are mixed in the proportion of about 3:1 by weight so that the dried mixture contains approximately 75% of calcium carbonate, the balance being clay. The mixing may be effected in several ways. The method once exclusively Mixing. used consists in mixing the raw materials with a large quantity of water in a wash mill, a machine having radial horizontal arms driven from a central vertical spindle and carrying harrows which stir up and intermix any soft material placed in the pit in which the apparatus revolves. The raw materials in the correct proportion are fed into this mill together with a large quantity of water. The thin watery “slip” or slurry flows into large settling tanks (“backs”) where the solids in suspension are deposited; the water is drawn off, leaving behind an intimate mixture of chalk and clay in the form of a wet paste. This is dug out, and after being dried on floors heated by flues is ready for burning. This process is now almost obsolete. According to present practice the raw materials are mixed in a wash mill with so much water that the resulting slurry contains 40 to 50% of water. The slurry, which is wet enough to flow, is ground between millstones so as to complete the process of comminution begun in the wash mill. Thorough grinding and mixing are of the utmost importance, as otherwise the cement ultimately produced will be unsound and of inferior quality. The drying of the slurry is generally effected by the waste heat of the kilns, so that while one charge is burning another is drying ready for the next loading of the kilns. The kilns commonly employed are “chamber kilns,” circular Loading the kiln. structures not unlike an ordinary running lime kiln, but having the top closed and connected at the side with a wide flue in which the slurry is exposed to the hot products of combustion from the kiln. The farther ends of the flues of several such kilns are connected with a chimney shaft. The slurry, in drying on the floor of the flue, forms a fairly tough cake which cracks spontaneously in the process of drying into rough blocks suitable for loading into the kiln. At the bottom of the kiln is a grate of iron bars, and on this wood and coke are piled to start the fire. A layer of dried slurry is loaded on this, then a layer of coke, then a layer of slurry, and so on until the kiln is filled with coke and slurry evenly distributed. Fresh slurry is run on to the drying floors, and the kiln is started. The construction of an ordinary chamber kiln may be gathered from the accompanying diagram (fig. l). The operation of burning is a slow one. An ordinary kiln, which will contain about 50 tons of slurry and 12 tons of coke, will take two days to get fairly alight, and will be another two or three days in burning out. Therefore, allowing adequate time for loading and unloading, each kiln will require about one week for a complete run. The output will be about 30 tons of “clinker” ready to be ground into cement. The grinding of the hard rock-like masses of clinker is effected between millstones, or in modern plants in ball-mills, tube-mills and edge-runners. It is an important part of the manufacture, because the finished cement should be as fine and “floury” as possible. The foregoing description represents the procedure in use in many English factories. There are various modifications in practice according to local conditions: a few of these may be described. In all cases, however, the main operations are the same, viz. intimately mixing the raw materials, drying the mixture, if necessary, and burning it at a clinkering temperature (about 1500° C. =2732° F.). Thus when hard limestone is the form of calcium carbonate locally available, it is ground dry and mixed with the correct proportion of clay also dried and ground. The mixture is slightly damped, moulded into rough bricks, dried and burned. A possible alternative is to burn the limestone first and mix the resulting lime with clay, the mixture being burned as before. By this method grinding the hard limestone is avoided, but there is an extra expenditure of fuel in the double burning.

Many different forms of kiln are used for burning Portland cement. Besides the chamber kilns which have been described, there are the old-fashioned bottle kilns, which are similar to the chamber kilns, but are bottle-shaped and open Other kilns. at the top; they do not dry the slurry for their next charge. Their use is becoming obsolete. There are also stage kilns of the Dietzsch type, which consist of two vertical shafts, one above the other, but not in the same vertical line, connected by a horizontal channel. At this middle portion and in the upper part of the lower shaft the burning proper proceeds; the upper shaft is full of unburnt raw material which is heated by the hot gases coming from the burning zone, and the lower shaft contains clinker already burned and hot enough to heat the incoming air which supplies that necessary for combustion at the clinkering zone. A pair of Dietzsch kilns, built back to back, are shown in fig. 2. There are other forms of shaft kiln, such as the Schneider, in which there is a burning zone, a heating and cooling zone as in the Dietzsch, but no horizontal stage, the whole shaft being in the same vertical plane. Another form is the Hoffmann or ring kiln, made up of a number of compartments arranged in a ring and connected with a central chimney; in these compartments rough brick-shaped masses of the raw materials are stacked, and between these bricks fuel is sprinkled. At a given moment one of these compartments is burning and at its full temperature; the air for combustion is drawn in through one or more compartments behind it which have just finished burning, and is thereby strongly heated; the products of combustion pass away through one or more compartments in front of it and heat their contents before they are subjected to actual combustion. It will be seen that the principle of the ring kiln is similar to that of the stage kiln. In each case the clinker which has just been burned and is fully hot serves to heat the air-supply to the compartment where combustion is actually proceeding; in like manner the raw materials about to be burned are well heated by the waste gases from the compartment in full activity before they themselves are burned. (It may be noted that here and generally in this article “burn” is used in the technical sense; it is technically correct to speak of cement clinker being “burned”, although it is not a fuel; in accurate terms it is the fuel which is burned, and it is the heat it generates which raises the clinker to a high temperature, i.e. technically “burns” it.) By this device a great part of the heat is regenerated and a saving of fuel is effected.

The methods of burning cement described above are obsolescent. They are being replaced by the rotatory process, so called because the cement is burned in rotating cylinders instead of in fixed kilns. These cylinders vary from 60 to 150 ft. in length, an ordinary length in modern practice being 100 Rotatory kilns. to 120 ft.; their diameter correspondingly varies from 6 ft. to 7 ft. 6 in. The cylinders are made of steel plate, lined with refractory bricks, are carried on rollers at a slight angle with the horizontal, and are rotated by power. At the upper end the raw material is fed in either as a dry powder or as a slurry; at the lower end is a powerful burner. In the early days of rotatory kilns producer gas was used as a fuel, but with little success; about 1895 petroleum was used in the United States with complete success, but at a relatively heavy cost. At the present time, finely powdered coal injected by a blast of air is almost universally employed, petroleum being used only where it is actually cheaper than coal. In the working of this type of kiln the rotation and slight inclination of the cylinder cause the raw material to descend towards the lower end. At the upper end the raw material is dried and heated moderately. As it descends it reaches a part of the kiln where the temperature is higher; here the carbonic acid of the carbonate of lime, and the combined water of the clay are driven off, and the resulting lime begins to act chemically on the dehydrated clay. The material is then in a partially burnt and slightly sintered state, but it is not fully clinkered and would not make Portland cement. The material continues to descend by the rotation of the kiln and reaches the lower end nearest the burner where the temperature is highest, and is there heated so highly that the union of the lime, silica and alumina is complete, and fully burnt clinker falls out of the kiln. It is extremely hot, and is cooled usually by being passed down one or more rotating cylinders, similar to the first, but smaller, and acting as coolers instead of kilns. On its way down the cylinders the clinker meets a current of cold air and is cooled, the air being correspondingly warmed and passing on to aid in the combustion of the fuel used in heating the kiln. This regenerative heating is similar in principle and effect to that obtained by means of the shaft and ring kilns described above. The output of these kilns varies from 200 to 400 tons per kiln per week according to their size and the nature of the raw materials burned, as against 30 tons per week for an ordinary chamber kiln. A large saving in labour is also secured. The rotatory system presents many advantages and is rapidly replacing the older methods of cement making. Fig. 3 represents diagrammatically a rotatory cement plant on the Hurry & Seaman system, which was one of the first to make cement by the rotatory process successfully on a large scale, using powdered coal as fuel. Rotatory kilns of various other makes are now in use, but the same principles are embodied, namely, the employment of a rotating inclined cylinder for burning the raw materials, a burner fed with powdered coal and a blast of air, and some device such as a cooling cylinder or cooling tower by which the clinker may be cooled and the air correspondingly heated on its way to the burner.

Another method of making Portland cement which has been proposed and tried with some success consists in fusing the raw materials together in an apparatus of the type of a blast furnace. The high temperature necessary to fuse cement clinker makes this process difficult to accomplish commercially, but it has many inherent merits and may be the process of the future, displacing the rotatory method.

Portland cement clinker, however produced, is a hard, rock-like substance of semi-vitrified appearance and very dark colour. The product from a well-run rotatory kiln is all evenly burnt and properly vitrified; that from an ordinary fixed kiln Cement clinker. of whatever type is apt to contain a certain amount (5 to 15%) of underburnt material, which is yellowish and friable and is not properly clinkered. This material must be picked out, as such underburnt stuff contains free lime or unsaturated lime compounds. These may slake slowly in the finished cement and cause such expansion as may destroy the work of which it forms part. Well-burnt, well-picked clinker when ground yields good Portland cement. Nothing is added during or after grinding save a small amount (1 to 2%) of calcium sulphate in the form either of gypsum or of plaster of Paris, which is sometimes needed to make the cement slower-setting. For the same purpose a small quantity of water (up to 2%) may be added either by moistening the clinker or by blowing steam into the mills in which the clinker is ground. This small addition for this specified purpose is recognized as legitimate, but the employment of various cheap materials such as ragstone and blast-furnace slag, sometimes added as diluents or make-weights, is adulteration and therefore fraudulent.

The composition of Portland cement varies within comparatively narrow limits, and for given raw materials the variations are tending Composition. to become smaller as regularity and skill in manufacture increase. The following analysis may be taken as typical of cements made from chalk and clay on the Thames and Medway:—

There may be variations from this composition according to the nature of the raw materials employed. Thus the silica may range from 19 to 27%, the alumina and ferric oxide jointly from 7 to 14%, the lime from 60 to 67%. All such variations are permissible provided that the quantity of silica and alumina is sufficient to saturate the whole of the lime and to leave none of it in a “free” condition, likely to cause the cement to expand after setting. Other things being equal, the higher the percentage of lime within the limits indicated above the stronger is the cement, but such highly limed cement is less easy to burn than cement containing about 62% of lime; and unless the burning is thorough and the raw materials are intimately mixed, the cement is apt to be unsound. Although the ultimate composition of cement, that is, the percentage of each base and acid present, can be accurately determined by analysis, its proximate composition, i.e. the nature and amount of the compounds formed from these acids and bases, can only be ascertained indirectly and with difficulty. The foundations of our knowledge on this subject were laid by H. le Chatelier, whose work has since been supplemented by that of Spenser B. Newberry, W.B. Newberry and Clifford Richardson. As the outcome of these inquiries it has been established that tricalcium silicate 3CaO·SiO2 is the essential constituent of Portland cement. The constituent of next importance is an aluminate, but whether this is dicalcium aluminate, 2CaO·Al2O3, or tricalcium aluminate, 3CaO·Al2O3, is still in doubt. In the following description it is assumed to be the tricalcium aluminate. The remaining silicates and aluminates present, and ferric oxide and magnesia, if existing in the moderate quantities which are usual in Portland cement of good quality, are of minor importance and may be regarded as little more than impurities. The silicates and aluminates of which Portland cement is composed are believed to exist not as individual units but as solid solutions of each other, these solid solutions taking the form of minerals recognizable as individuals. The two principal minerals are termed alite and celite; according to the best opinion, alite consists of a solid solution of tricalcium aluminate in tricalcium silicate, and celite of a solid solution of dicalcium aluminate in dicalcium silicate. Celite is little affected by water, and has but small influence on the setting; alite is decomposed and hydrated, this action constituting the main part of the setting of Portland cement. Both the components of alite react, and for simplicity their reactions may be stated in separate equations, thus:—

(1) 2(3CaO·SiO2) + 9H2O = 2(CaO·SiO2)·5H2O + 4Ca(OH)2
Tricalcium silicate.   Hydrated mono-   Calcium
calcium silicate.   hydroxide.

(2) 3CaO·Al2O3 + 12H2O = 3CaO·Al2O3·12H2O
Tricalcium aluminate.  Hydrated tricalcium aluminate.

Since alite is a solid solution and, although an individual mineral, is not a chemical unit, the proportion of tricalcium silicate to tricalcium aluminate in a given specimen of alite will vary; but, whatever the proportions, each of these substances will react in its characteristic manner according to the equations given above.

The precise mechanism of the process of setting of Portland cement is not known with certainty, but it is probably analogous to that of the setting of plaster of Paris, consisting in the dissolution of the compounds produced by hydration while they are in a more soluble form, their transition to a less soluble form, the consequent supersaturation of the solution, and the deposition of the surplus of the dissolved substance in crystals which interlock and form a coherent mass. This theory being accepted, it is evident that a small quantity of water, by successive dissolution and deposition of a substance capable of existing in a more soluble and in a less soluble form, is able to bring about the crystallization of an indefinitely large quantity of material. It is not necessary that there should be present sufficient water to dissolve the whole of the reacting substance at any one time; it is sufficient if there is enough for hydration and a small surplus for the crystallization by successive stages as above described. It is generally admitted that the aluminate is the chief agent in the first setting of the cement, and that its ultimate hardening and attainment of strength are due to the tricalcium silicate.

As mentioned above, the constituents other than the tricalcium silicate and tricalcium aluminate of which alite is composed, are of minor importance. The function of the ferric oxide present in ordinary cement is little more than that of a flux to aid the union of silica, alumina and lime in the clinker; its role in the setting of the cement is altogether secondary. In fact, excellent Portland cement can be prepared from materials free from iron. Such cement, if free also from manganese, is white, and its manufacture has been proposed for exterior decorative use. Magnesia, if present in Portland cement in quantity not exceeding 5%, appears to be inert, but there is evidence that in larger proportion, e.g. 10-15%, it may hydrate and set after the general setting of the cement, and may give rise to disruptive strains causing the cement to “blow” and fail. In so-called natural cement which is comparatively lightly burnt, the magnesia appears to be inert, and as much as 20 to 30% may be present. Another constituent of Portland cement which influences its setting time is calcium sulphate, naturally formed from the sulphur in the raw materials or fuel, or intentionally added to the finished cement as gypsum or plaster of Paris. It has a remarkable retarding effect on the hydration of the calcium aluminate, and consequently on the setting of the cement; thus it is that a little gypsum is often added to convert a naturally quick-setting cement into one which sets slowly. It will be observed that in the hydration of tricalcium silicate, the main constituent of Portland cement, a large portion of the lime appears as calcium hydroxide, i.e. slaked lime. It is evident that this will form a pozzuolanic cement if a suitable silicious material such as trass is added to the cement. The ultimate product when set may be regarded as a mixed Portland and pozzuolanic cement. The use of trass in this manner as an adjunct to Portland cement has been advocated by W. Michaelis, and undoubtedly increases the strength of the material, but it has not become general.

The quality of Portland cement is ascertained by its analysis and by determining its specific gravity, fineness, mechanical strength and soundness. A good sample will usually have a composition within the limits cited above and approximating Testing. to the typical figures given above. It will be ground so finely that not more than 3% will be left on a sieve of 76 × 76 meshes per sq. in., the wires of the sieve being 0.005 in. in diameter. It will have, when freshly burned, a specific gravity not lower than 3.15, and briquettes made from it and kept in water will possess a tensile strength of 400-500 ℔ per sq. in. seven days after they are made, while briquettes made from a mixture of 3 parts by weight of sand and 1 of cement will give about 225 ℔ per sq. in. at twenty-eight days. Formerly the soundness of cement was determined by keeping thin pats of the cement in cold water for twenty-eight days, or in warm water (110°-120° F.) for twenty-four hours, and examining for cracks or other signs of expansion. Modern practice is to measure the expansion of a test piece of cement kept in water at a temperature of 212° F. The simplest and most generally used method is due to H.L. le Châtelier, and consists in measuring the increase in circumference of a cylinder of cement 30 mm. in diameter by means of a split ring encircling the cylinder, the motion of which is magnified by two light rods extending radially. Another quantitative test for soundness is that formulated by L. Deval, who has shown that briquettes of 3 of sand and 1 of cement kept in water for two days at 80° C. = 176° F. attain approximately the same strength as similar briquettes attain at seven days in water at the ordinary temperature. In like manner briquettes kept at 176° F. for seven days are approximately equal in strength to those kept at the ordinary temperature for twenty-eight days. A cement not perfectly sound will give low results in the hot test, and a cement of indifferent soundness will crack and go to pieces. The test is admittedly severe, but can be passed without difficulty by cement made with proper care and skill. There are many modifications and elaborations of all the tests which have been mentioned. Cement for all important work is submitted to a rigorous system of testing and analysis before it is accepted and used.

Hydraulic Lime is a cement of the Portland as distinct from the pozzuolanic class. The most typical hydraulic lime is that known as Chaux du Theil, made from a limestone found at Ardèche in France. This limestone consists of calcium carbonate most intimately intermixed with very finely divided silica. It contains but little alumina and oxide of iron, which are the constituents generally necessary to bring about the union of silica and lime to form a cement, but in spite of this the silica is so finely divided and so well distributed that it unites readily with the lime when the limestone is burned at a sufficiently high temperature. English hydraulic limes are of a different class; they contain a good deal of alumina and ferric oxide, and in composition resemble somewhat irregular Portland cement.

Analyses of the two classes of hydraulic lime are as follows:—

Hydraulic lime contains a good deal of uncombined lime, and has to be slaked before it is used as a cement. In France this slaking is conducted systematically by the makers, the freshly burned lime being sprinkled with water and stored in large bins where slaking proceeds slowly and regularly until the whole of the surplus uncombined lime is slaked and rendered harmless, while the cementitious compounds, notably tricalcium silicate, remain untouched. In English practice hydraulic lime is slaked by the user. Seeing that regular and perfect slaking is more easily attained when working systematically on a large scale and by storing the material for a long period, the French method is the better and more rational. The product may then be regarded as a cement of the Portland class mixed with slaked lime. When gauged with water and made into a mortar it sets slowly, but ultimately becomes almost as strong as Portland cement. Its slow setting is an advantage for some purposes, e.g. for foundations and abutments where settlements may occur. The structure is free to take its permanent position before the lime sets, and cracks are thus avoided. A case in point is the employment of hydraulic lime in place of Portland cement as grouting outside the cast-iron tubes used for lining tunnels made by the shield system.

Roman Cement is another cement of the Portland class which came into use shortly before the manufacture of artificial Portland cement was attempted. It is still in use, though only for special purposes where a quick-setting material is required. It is made from septaria nodules which are dredged up on the Kent and Essex coasts and consist of about 60% of calcium carbonate mixed with clay, the mass being sufficiently indurated to remain coherent under water. The nodules are not prepared in any way, but simply burned at a moderate red heat.

The resulting cement varies somewhat in composition, but approximates to the following figures:—

The most characteristic constituent is the oxide of iron, which gives the cement a reddish colour, and the presence of manganese also differentiates Roman from Portland cement, which rarely contains appreciable quantities of that element. The high percentage of alumina causes the cement to be quick-setting, and it becomes hard in about five minutes. It resists the action of water, salt or fresh, very well, and is therefore useful in situations where the work is likely to be submerged immediately after it has been put in place.

The term Natural Cements is applied to cements made by burning mixtures of clay and carbonate of lime naturally occurring in approximately suitable proportions. They may be regarded as badly-mixed Portland cements, and need no special description. American “natural” cements are of a somewhat different class. They are usually made from a silicious limestone containing magnesia, and are comparatively lightly burned.

The following analysis is typical of a cement of this kind:—

These irregular cements of the Portland class are good building materials for ordinary purposes, but are not so suitable as good artificial Portland cement for heavy and important undertakings.

Passow Cement is a recent product which is in a class by itself. It is made by granulating blast furnace slag of suitable composition and finely grinding the product, either alone or with an admixture of about 10% of Portland cement clinker. It differs from ordinary slag cement (see above) in that it is not a pozzuolanic cement depending on the interaction of granulated slag and lime. The particular method of granulating slag for Passow cement produces a material which sets per se and attains a strength comparable with that of Portland cement. Passow cement has been successfully made from slag of different compositions in Germany, England and America.

The chief use of hydraulic cements, whether of the pozzuolanic or Portland class, is to act as an adhesive material in work which is to be exposed to water. No doubt in times of remote antiquity it was found that the jointing of masonry Uses of hydraulic cements. which was to be immersed required the use of a cement indifferent to the action of water. Ordinary mortar failed in such positions; mortar made from lime prepared from limestones or chalks containing a little clay was found to stand; mortar made from lime mixed with trass or similar active silicious material was also found to stand. On this observation rests the whole of the present enormous employment of hydraulic cements. It was a natural transition to utilize these cements not merely for jointing masonry but also for making concrete, and the only reason why hydraulic cements, as distinct from cements which are not hydraulic (e.g. ordinary mortar), are used for the latter purpose is their great mechanical strength. Their use in above-water work is checked by the low price of common brick. Even in such work, where it would be thought that masses of burnt clay would be the cheapest conceivable material, concrete is at least on level terms with its rival. It must be remembered that one of the great advantages of concrete is that five-sixths of its total mass may be provided from local sand and gravel, on which no carriage has to be paid. The cement, on which alone freight is to be reckoned, converts these from loose incoherent material into a solid stone. Thus it comes about that the largest use of cement is for manufacturing concrete for dock and harbour work, and for the making of foundations. It is also employed for the building of light bridges, floors, and pipes constructed of cement mortar disposed round a skeleton of iron rods. Such composite structures take advantage at once of the high tensile strength of iron and of the high compressive strength of cement mortar. (See also [Concrete].)

Good hydraulic cements are highly permanent materials provided certain conditions be observed. It might be supposed that hydraulic cements from their nature would be indifferent to the action of water, but this is only true if the structures of which they form part are sufficiently compact. In this case the action of the water is checked by the film of carbonate of lime which eventually forms oh the surface of calcareous cement. This, together with the compactness of the mortar, hinders the ingress and egress of water, and prevents the dissolution and ultimate destruction of the cement. But where the concrete or mortar is not well made and is porous, the continual passage of water through it will gradually break up and dissolve away the calcareous constituents of the cement until its strength is utterly destroyed. This destructive action is increased if the water contains sulphates or magnesium salts, both of which act chemically on the calcareous constituents of the cement. As sea-water contains both sulphates and magnesium salts, it is especially necessary in concrete for harbour work to take every care to produce an impervious structure. There are various minor external causes for the failure and ultimate destruction of cement mortar and concrete, but their discussion is a matter for the specialist. Failure from inherent vice in the cement has been already touched on; it can always be traced to want of skill and care in manufacture.

Calcium Sulphate Cements.—Under this term are comprehended all cements whose setting properties primarily depend on the hydration of calcium sulphate. They include plaster of Paris, Keene’s cement and many variants of these two types. The raw material is gypsum (q.v.). This may be almost chemically pure, when it is generally used for Keene’s cement; or it may contain smaller or greater quantities of impurities, in which case it is suitable for the preparation of cements of the plaster of Paris class. The mode of preparation is to calcine the gypsum at temperatures which depend on the class of cement to be produced. If plaster of Paris is to be made, calcination is carried out at about 204° C. (= 400° F.); at this temperature, gypsum, CaS04·2H20, loses three-quarters of its combined water and becomes 2CaSO4·H20. If a cement of the Keene’s cement class is to be prepared the temperature used is higher, e.g. 500° C. (= 932° F.), and the whole of the combined water of the gypsum is expelled, the anhydrous sulphate CaSO4 being obtained.

To produce plaster of Paris European practice consists in baking the mineral in ovens, and in America in heating it in kettles. Both processes are inferior in economy to calcination in rotatory kilns, a process which may be regarded as the method of Plaster of Paris; Keene’s cement. the present and the immediate future. Keene’s cement and its congeners are made in fixed kilns so constructed that only the gaseous products of combustion come into contact with the gypsum to be burnt, in order to avoid contamination with the ash of the fuel.

The setting of plaster of Paris depends on the fact that when 2CaSO4·H2O is treated with water it dissolves, forming a supersaturated solution of CaSO4·2H2O. The excess held temporarily in solution is then deposited in crystals of CaSO4·2H2O. In the light of this knowledge the mode of setting of plaster of Paris becomes clear. The plaster is mixed with a quantity of water sufficient to make it into a smooth paste; this quantity of water is quite insufficient to dissolve the whole of it, but it dissolves a small part, and gives a supersaturated solution of CaSO4·2H2O. In a few minutes the surplus hydrated calcium sulphate is deposited from the solution, and the water is capable again of dissolving 2CaSO4·H2O, which in turn is fully hydrated and deposited as CaSO4·2H2O. The process goes on until a relatively small quantity of water has by instalments dissolved and hydrated the 2CaSO4·H2O, and has deposited CaSO4·2H2O in felted crystals forming a solid mass well cemented together. The setting is rapid, occupying only a few minutes, and is accompanied by a considerable expansion of the mass. There is reason to suppose that the change described takes place in two stages, the gypsum first forming orthorhombic crystals and then crystallizing in the monosymmetric system. Gypsum thus crystallized is in its normal monosymmetric form, more stable under ordinary conditions than the orthorhombic form. Correlatively in its process of dehydration to form plaster of Paris, monosymmetric gypsum is converted into the orthorhombic form before it begins to be dehydrated.

The principles which govern the preparation and setting of the other class of calcium sulphate cements, that is, cements of the Keene class, are not fully understood, but there is a fair amount of knowledge on the subject, both empirical and scientific. The essential difference between the setting of Keene’s cement and that of plaster of Paris is that the former takes place much more slowly, occupying hours instead of minutes, and the considerable heating and expansion which characterize the setting of plaster of Paris are much less marked.

It is the practice in Great Britain to burn pure gypsum at a low temperature so as to convert it into the hydrate 2CaSO4·H2O, to soak the lumps in a solution of alum or of aluminium sulphate, and to recalcine them at about 500° C. On grinding they give Keene’s cement. Instead of alum various other salts, e.g. borax, may be used. The quantity of these materials is so small that analyses of Keene’s cement show it to be almost pure anhydrous calcium sulphate, and make it difficult to explain what, if any, influence these minute amounts of alum and the like can exert on the setting of the cement. It seems probable that the effect of the salts is inconsiderable, and that the governing condition is the temperature at which the cement has been burnt. The setting of Keene’s cement takes place by the same sort of process which has been described for the setting of plaster of Paris, the chief differences being that the substance dissolved is anhydrous calcium sulphate and that the operation takes a longer time.

All cements having calcium sulphate as their base are suitable only for indoor work because of the solubility of this substance. They form excellent decorative plasters on account of their clean white colour and the sharpness of castings made from them, this latter quantity being due to their expansion when setting.

See D.B. Butler, Portland Cement (London, 1905); E.C. Eckel, Cements, Limes and Plasters (New York, 1905); G.R. Redgrave and Charles Spackman, Calcareous Cements (London, 1905); F.H. Lewis, “Manufacture of Hydraulic Cements in the United States,” The Mineral Industry (New York, 1898); W.H. Stanger and Bertram Blount, “Cement Manufacture in Great Britain,” The Mineral Industry, New York, 1897 and 1905; Id. “The Testing of Hydraulic Cements,” Journ. Soc. Chem. Ind., 1894, 13, p. 455; Id., Proc. Inst. Civ. Eng., 1901; B. Blount, “Recent Progress in the Cement Industry,” Journ. Soc. Chem. Ind., 1906, 25, p. 1020; H.L. le Chatelier, Recherrhes experimenlales sur la constitution des mortiers hydrauliques; Desch, Concrete, No. 2, pp. 101-102; Davis, Journ. Soc. Chem. Ind., 1905, 26, p. 727.

(B. Bl.)

Adhesive Cements.—Mixtures of animal, vegetable and mineral substances are employed in great variety in the arts for making joints, mending broken china and other objects, &c. A strong cement for alabaster and marble, which sets in a day, may be prepared by mixing 12 parts of Portland cement, 8 of fine sand and 1 of infusorial earth, and making them into a thick paste with silicate of soda; the object to be cemented need not be heated. For stone, marble, and earthenware a strong cement, insoluble in water, can be made as follows:—skimmed-milk cheese is boiled in water till of a gluey consistency, washed, kneaded well in cold water, and incorporated with quicklime; the composition is warmed for use. A similar cement is a mixture of dried fresh curd with 1⁄10th of its weight of quicklime and a little camphor; it is made into a paste with water when employed. A cement for Derbyshire spar and china, &c., is composed of 7 parts of rosin and 1 of wax, with a little plaster of Paris; a small quantity only should be applied to the surfaces to be united, for, as a general rule, the thinner the stratum of a cement, the more powerful its action. Quicklime mixed with white of egg, hardened Canada balsam, and thick copal or mastic varnish are also useful for cementing broken china, which should be warmed before their application. For small articles, shellac dissolved in spirits of wine is a very convenient cement. Cements such as marine glue are solutions of shellac, india-rubber or asphaltum in benzene or naphtha. For use with wood which is exposed to moisture, as in the case of wooden cisterns, a mixture may be made of 4 parts of linseed oil boiled with litharge, and 8 parts of melted glue; other strong cements for the same purpose are prepared by softening gelatine in cold water and dissolving it by heat in linseed oil, or by mixing glue with one-fourth of its weight of turpentine, or with a little bichromate of potash. Mahogany cement, for filling up cracks in wood, consists of 4 parts of beeswax, 1 of Indian red and yellow-ochre to give colour. Cutler’s cement, used for fixing knife-blades in their hafts, is made of equal parts of brick-dust and melted rosin, or of 4 parts of rosin with 1 each of beeswax and brick-dust. For covering bottle-corks a mixture of pitch, brick-dust and rosin is employed. A cheap cement, sometimes employed to fix iron rails in stone-work, is melted brimstone, or brimstone and brick-dust. For pipe-joints, a mixture of iron turnings, sulphur and sal ammoniac, moistened with water, is employed. Japanese cement, for uniting surfaces of paper, is made by mixing rice-flour with water and boiling it. Jewellers’ or Armenian cement consists of isinglass with mastic and gum ammoniac dissolved in spirit. Gold and silver chasers keep their work firm by means of a cement of pitch and rosin, a little tallow, and brick-dust to thicken. Temporary cement for lathe-work, such as the polishing and grinding of jewelry and optical glasses, is compounded thus:—rosin, 4 oz.; whitening previously made red-hot, 4 oz.; wax, ¼ oz.

CEMETERY (Gr. κοιμητήριον, from κοιμᾶν, to sleep), literally a sleeping-place, the name applied by the early Christians to the places set apart for the burial of their dead. These were generally extra-mural and unconnected with churches, the practice of interment in churches or churchyards being unknown in the first centuries of the Christian era. The term cemetery has, therefore, been appropriately applied in modern times to the burial-grounds, generally extra-mural, which have been substituted for the overcrowded churchyards (q.v.) of populous parishes both urban and rural.

From 1840 to 1855, attention was repeatedly called to the condition of the London churchyards by correspondence in the press and by the reports of parliamentary committees, the first of which, that of Mr Chadwick, appeared in 1843. The vaults under the pavement of the churches, and the small spaces of open ground surrounding them, were crammed with coffins. In many of the buildings the air was so tainted with the products of corruption as to be a direct and palpable source of disease and death to those who frequented them. In the churchyards coffins were placed tier above tier in the graves until they were within a few feet (or sometimes even a few inches) of the surface, and the level of the ground was often raised to that of the lower windows of the church. To make room for fresh interments the sextons had recourse to the surreptitious removal of bones and partially-decayed remains, and in some cases the contents of the graves were systematically transferred to pits adjacent to the site, the grave-diggers appropriating the coffin-plates, handles and nails to be sold as waste metal. The neighbourhood of the churchyards was always unhealthy, the air being vitiated by the gaseous emanations from the graves, and the water, wherever it was obtained from wells, containing organic matter, the source of which could not be mistaken. In all the large towns the evil prevailed in a greater or less degree, but in London, on account of the immense population and the consequent mortality, it forced itself more readily upon public attention, and after more than one partial measure of relief had been passed the churchyards were, with a few exceptions, finally closed by the act of 1855, and the cemeteries which now occupy a large extent of ground to the north, south, east and west became henceforth the burial-places of the metropolis. Several of them had been already established by private enterprise before the passing of the Burial Act of 1855 (Kensal Green cemetery dates from 1832), but that enactment forms the epoch from which the general development of cemeteries in Great Britain and Ireland began. Burial within the limits of cities and towns is now almost everywhere abolished, and where it is still in use it is surrounded by such safeguards as make it practically innocuous. This tendency has been conspicuous both in the United Kingdom and the United States. The increasing practice of cremation (q.v.) has assisted in the movement for disposing of the dead in more sanitary conditions; and the proposals of Sir Seymour Haden and others for burying the dead in more open coffins, and abandoning the old system of family graves, have had considerable effect. The tendency has therefore been, while improving the sanitary aspects of the disposal of the dead, to make the cemeteries themselves as fit as possible for this purpose, and beautiful in arrangement and decoration.

The chief cemeteries of London are Kensal Green cemetery on the Harrow Road; Highgate cemetery on the slope of Highgate Hill; the cemetery at Abney Park (once the residence of Dr Watts); the Norwood and Nunhead cemeteries to the south of London; the West London cemetery at Brompton; the cemeteries at Ilford and Leytonstone in Essex; the Victoria cemetery and the Tower Hamlets cemetery in East London; and at a greater distance, accessible by railway, the great cemetery at Brookwood near Woking in Surrey, and the cemetery at New Southgate. The general plan of all these cemeteries is the same, a park with broad paths either laid out in curved lines as at Kensal Green and Highgate, or crossing each other at right angles as in the case of the West London cemetery. The ground on each side of these paths is marked off into grave spaces, and trees and shrubs are planted in the intervals between them. The buildings consist of a curator’s residence and one or more chapels, and usually there is also a range of family graves with imposing tombs, massive structures containing in their corridors recesses for the reception of coffins, generally closed only by an iron grating. The provincial cemeteries in the main features of their arrangements resemble those of the metropolis. One of the most remarkable is St James’s cemetery at Liverpool, which occupies a deserted quarry. The face of the eastern side of the quarry is traversed by ascending gradients off which open catacombs formed in the living rock,—a soft sandstone; the ground below is planted with trees, amongst which stand hundreds of gravestones. The main approach on the north side is through a tunnel, above which, on a projecting rock, stands the cemetery chapel, built in the form of a small Doric temple with tetrastyle porticos.

Many of the cities of America possess very fine cemeteries. One of the largest, and also the oldest, is that of Mount Auburn near Boston. Others of importance are the Laurel Hill cemetery (1836) at Philadelphia; the Greenwood cemetery (1838) at Brooklyn (New York); the Lake View cemetery at Cleveland, Ohio; while the cemeteries at New Orleans (q.v.) are famous for their beauty.

The chief cemetery of Paris is that of Père la Chaise, the prototype of the garden cemeteries of western Europe. It takes its name from the celebrated confessor of Louis XIV., to whom as rector of the Jesuits of Paris it once belonged. It was laid out as a cemetery in 1804. It has an area of about 200 acres, and contains about 20,000 monuments, including those of all the great men of France of the 19th century—marshals, generals, ministers, poets, painters, men of science and letters, actors and musicians. Twice the cemetery and the adjacent heights have been the scene of a desperate struggle; in 1814 they were stormed by a Russian column during the attack on Paris by the allies, and in 1871 the Communists made their last stand among the tombs of Père la Chaise; 900 of them fell in the defence of the cemetery or were shot there after its capture, and 200 of them were buried in quicklime in one huge grave and 700 in another. There are other cemeteries at Mont Parnasse and Montmartre, besides the minor burying-grounds at Auteuil, Batignolles, Passy, La Villette, &c. In consequence of all these cemeteries being more or less crowded, a great cemetery was laid out in 1874 on the plateau of Méry sur Oise, 16 m. to the north of Paris, with which it is connected by a railway line. It includes within its circuit fully 2 sq. m. of ground. The French cemetery system differs in many respects from the English. Every city and town is required by law to provide a burial-ground beyond its barriers, properly laid out and planted, and situated if possible on a rising ground. Each interment must take place in a separate grave. This, however, does not apply to Paris, where the dead are buried, forty or fifty at a time, in the fosses communes, the poor being interred gratuitously, and a charge of 20 francs being made in all other cases. The fosse is filled and left undisturbed for five years, then all crosses and other memorials are removed, the level of the ground is raised 4 or 5 ft. by fresh earth, and interments begin again. For a fee of 50 francs a concession temporaire for ten years can be obtained, but where it is desired to erect a permanent monument the ground must be bought by the executors of the deceased. In Paris the undertakers’ trade is the monopoly of a company, the Société des pompes funèbres, which in return for its privileges is required to give a free burial to the poor.

The Leichenhäuser, or dead-houses, of Frankfort and Munich form a remarkable feature of the cemeteries of these cities. The object of their founders was twofold—(1) to obviate even the remotest danger of premature interment, and (2) to offer a respectable place for the reception of the dead, in order to remove the corpse from the confined dwellings of the survivors. At Frankfort the dead-house occupies one of the wings of the propylaeum, which forms the main entrance to the cemetery. It consists of the warder’s room, where an attendant is always on duty, on each side of which there are five rooms, well ventilated, kept at an even temperature, and each provided with a bier on which a corpse can be laid. On one of the fingers is placed a ring connected by a light cord with a bell which hangs outside in the warder’s room. The use of the dead-house is voluntary. The bodies deposited there are inspected at regular intervals by a medical officer, and the warder is always on the watch for the ringing of the warning bell. One revival, that of a child, has been known to take place at Frankfort. The Leichenhaus of Munich is situated in the southern cemetery outside the Sendling Gate. At one end of the cemetery there is a semicircular building with an open colonnade in front and a projection behind, which contains three large rooms for the reception of the dead. At both Frankfort and Munich great care is taken that the attendants receive the dead confided to them with respect, and no interment is permitted until the first signs of decomposition appear; the relatives then assemble in one of the halls adjoining the Leichenhaus, and the funeral takes place. In any case there is, with ordinary care, little fear of premature interment, but in another way such places of deposit for the dead are of great use in large towns, as they prevent the evil effects which result from the prolonged retention of the dead among the living. Mortuaries for this purpose have also been established in many places in England.

In Italy the Campo Santo (Holy Field) is best illustrated by the famous one at Pisa, from which the name has been given to other Italian burying-grounds. Of the cemeteries still in use in southern Europe the catacombs (q.v.) of Sicily are the most curious. There is one of these under the old Capuchin monastery of Ziza near Palermo, where in four large airy subterranean corridors 2000 corpses are ranged in niches in the wall, many of them shrunk up into the most grotesque attitudes, or hanging with pendent limbs and head from their places. As a preparation for the niche, the body is desiccated in a kind of oven, and then dressed as in life and raised into its place in the wall. At the end of the principal corridor at Ziza there is an altar strangely ornamented with a kind of mosaic of human skulls and bones.

Cemeteries have been in use among many Eastern nations from time immemorial. In China, the high grounds near Canton and Macao are crowded with tombs, many of them being in the form of small tumuli, with a low encircling wall, forcibly recalling the ringed barrows of western Europe. But the most picturesque cemeteries in the world are those of the Turks. From them it was, perhaps, that the first idea of the modern cemetery, with its ornamental plantations, was derived. Around Constantinople the cemeteries form vast tracts of cypress woods under whose branches stand thousands of tombstones. A grave is never reopened; a new resting-place is formed for every one, and so the dead now occupy a wider territory than that which is covered by the homes of the living. The Turks believe that till the body is buried the soul is in a state of discomfort, and the funeral, therefore, takes place as soon as possible after death. No coffin is used, the body is laid in the grave, a few boards are arranged round it, and then the earth is shovelled in, care being taken to leave a small opening extending from the head of the corpse to the surface of the ground, an opening not unfrequently enlarged by dogs and other beasts which plunder the grave. A tombstone of white marble is then erected, surmounted by a carved turban in the case of a man, and ornamented by a palm branch in low relief if the grave is that of a woman. The turban by its varying form indicates not only the rank of the sleeper below but also the period of his death, for the fashion of the Turkish head-dress is always changing. A cypress is usually planted beside the grave, its odour being supposed to neutralize any noxious exhalations from the ground, and thus every cemetery is a forest, where by day hundreds of turtle doves are on the wing or perching on the trees, and where bats and owls swarm undisturbed at night. Especially for the Turkish women the cemeteries are a favourite resort, and some of them are always to be seen praying beside the narrow openings that lead down into a parent’s, a husband’s, or a brother’s grave. Some of the other cemeteries of Constantinople contrast rather unfavourably with the simple dignity of those which belong to the Turks. That of the Armenians abounds with bas-reliefs which show the manner of the death of whoever is buried below, and on these singular tombstones there are frequent representations of men being decapitated or hanging on the gallows.

See also the articles [Burial and Burial Acts]; [Cremation]; [Funeral Rites]; [Churchyard].

CENCI, BEATRICE (1577-1599), a Roman woman, famous for her tragic story; poetic fancy has woven a halo of romance about her, which modern historic research has to a large extent destroyed. Born at Rome, she was the daughter of Francesco Cenci (1549-1598), the bastard son of a priest, and a man of great wealth but dissolute habits and violent temper. He seems to have been guilty of various offences and to have got off with short terms of imprisonment by bribery; but the monstrous cruelty which popular tradition has attributed to him is purely legendary. His first wife, Ersilia Santa Croce, bore him twelve children, and nine years after her death he married Lucrezia Petroni, a widow with three daughters, by whom he had no offspring. He was very quarrelsome and lived on the worst possible terms with his children, who, however, were all of them more or less disreputable. He kept various mistresses and was even prosecuted for unnatural vice, but his sons were equally dissolute. His harsh treatment of his daughter Beatrice was probably due to his discovery that she had had an illegitimate child as the result of an intrigue with one of his stewards (A. Bertolotti, in his Francesco Cenci, publishes Beatrice’s will in which she provides for this child), but there is no evidence that he tried to commit incest with her, as has been alleged. The eldest son Giacomo was a riotous, dishonest young scoundrel, who cheated his own father and even attempted to murder him (1595). Two other sons, Rocco and Cristoforo, both of them notorious rakes, were killed in brawls. Finally Francesco’s wife Lucrezia and his children Giacomo, Bernardo and Beatrice, assisted by a certain Monsignor Guerra, plotted to murder him. Two bravos were hired (one of them named Olimpio, according to Bertolotti, was probably Beatrice’s lover), and Francesco was assassinated while asleep in his castle of Petrella in the kingdom of Naples (1598). Giacomo afterwards had one of the bravos murdered, but the other was arrested by the Neapolitan authorities and confessed everything. Information having been communicated to Rome, the whole of the Cenci family were arrested early in 1599; but the story of the hardships they underwent in prison is greatly exaggerated. Guerra escaped; Lucrezia, Giacomo and Bernardo confessed the crime; and Beatrice, who at first denied everything, even under torture, also ended by confessing. Great efforts were made to obtain mercy for the accused, but the crime was considered too heinous, and the pope (Clement VIII.) refused to grant a pardon; on the 11th of September 1599, Beatrice and Lucrezia were beheaded, and Giacomo, after having been tortured with red-hot pincers, was killed with a mace, drawn and quartered. Bernardo’s penalty, on account of his youth, was commuted to perpetual imprisonment, and after a year’s confinement he was pardoned. The property of the family was confiscated.

The romantic character of the history of this family has been the subject of poems, dramas and novels. Shelley’s tragedy is well known as a magnificent piece of writing, although the author adopts a purely fictitious version of the story. Nor is F.D. Guerrazzi’s novel, Beatrice Cenci (Milan, 1872), more trustworthy. The first attempt to deal with the subject on documentary evidence is A. Bertolotti’s Francesco Cenci e la sua famiglia (2nd ed., Florence, 1879), containing a number of interesting documents which place the events in their true light; cf. Labruzzi’s article in the Nuova Antologia, 1879, vol. xiv., and another in the Edinburgh Review, January 1879.

CENOBITES (from Gr. κοινός, common, and βίος, life), monks who lived together in a convent or community under a rule and a superior,—in contrast to hermits or anchorets who live in isolation. The Basilians (q.v.) in the East and the Benedictines (q.v.) in the West are the chief cenobitical orders (see [Monasticism]).

CENOMANI, a branch of the Aulerci in Gallia Celtica, whose territory corresponded generally to Maine in the modern department of Sarthe. Their chief town was Vindinum or Suindinum (corrupted into Subdinnum), afterwards Civitas Cenomanorum (whence Le Mans), the original name of the town, as usual in the case of Gallic cities, being replaced by that of the people. According to Caesar (Bell. Gall. vii. 75. 3), they assisted Vercingetorix in the great rising (52 b.c.) with a force of 5000 men. Under Augustus they formed a civitas stipendiaria of Gallia Lugdunensis, and in the 4th century part of Gallia Lugdunensis iii. About 400 b.c., under the leadership of Elitovius (Livy v. 35), a large number of the Cenomani crossed into Italy, drove the Etruscans southwards, and occupied their territory. The statement of Cato (in Pliny, Nat. Hist. iii. 130), that some of them settled near Massilia in the territory of the Volcae, may indicate the route taken by them. The limits of their territory are not clearly defined, but were probably the Athesis (Adige or Etsch) on the east, the Ollius (Oglio, or perhaps the Addua) on the west, and the Padus on the south. Livy gives their chief towns as Brixia (Brescia) and Verona; Pliny, Brixia and Cremona. The Cenomani nearly always appear in history as loyal friends and allies of the Romans, whom they assisted in the Gallic war (225 b.c.), when the Boii and Insubres took up arms against Rome, and during the war against Hannibal. They certainly joined in the revolt of the Gauls under Hamilcar (200), but after they had been defeated by the consul Gaius Cornelius (197) they finally submitted. In 49, with the rest of Gallia Transpadana, they acquired the rights of citizenship.

The orthography and the quantity of the penultimate vowel of Cenomani have given rise to discussion. According to Arbois de Jubainville, the Cenomăni of Italy are not identical with the Cenomāni (or Cenomanni) of Gaul. In the case of the latter, the survival of the syllable “man” in Le Mans is due to the stress laid on the vowel; had the vowel been short and unaccented, it would have disappeared. In Italy, Cenomani is the name of a people; in Gaul, merely a surname of the Aulerci.

See A. Voisin, Les Cénomans anciens et modernes (Le Mans, 1862); A. Desjardins, Géographic historique de la Gaule romaine, ii. (1876-1893); Arbois de Jubainville, Les Premiers Habitants de l’Europe (1889-1894); article and authorities in La Grande Encyclopédie; C. Hulsen in Pauly-Wissowa’s Realencyclopadie, iii. pt. 2 (1899); full ancient authorities in A. Holder, Alt-celtischer Sprachschatz, i. (1896).

CENOTAPH (Gr. κενός, empty, τάφος, tomb), a monument or tablet to the memory of a person whose body is buried elsewhere. The custom arose from the erection of monuments to those whose bodies could not be recovered, as in the case of drowning.

CENSOR (from Lat. censere, assess, estimate; in Gr. τιμητής). I. In ancient Rome, the title of the two Roman officials who presided over the census, the registration of individual citizens for the purpose of determining the duties which they owed to the community. In the etymology of the word lurks the idea of the arbitrary assignment of burdens or duties. Varro defines census as arbitrium, and derives the name censores from the position of these magistrates as arbitri populi (Varro, de Ling. Lat. v. 81; ap. Non. p. 519). This original idea of “discretionary power” was never entirely lost; although ultimately it came to be more intimately associated with the appreciation of morals than with the assignment of burdens. From the point of view of its moral significance the censorship was the Roman manifestation of that state control of conduct which was a not unusual feature of ancient societies. It is true that Rome possessed sumptuary laws, and laws dealing with moral offences, which it was the duty of other magistrates to enforce; but the organization for the control of conduct was mainly exhibited in the censorship, and, as thus exhibited, was at once simple and comprehensive.

The censorship was believed to have been instituted in 443 b.c. to relieve the consuls of the duties of registration. Since the periods of registration were quinquennial, it was not a continuous office; but its tenure does not seem to have been fixed until 434 b.c., when a lex Aemilia provided that the censors should hold office for eighteen months. This magistracy was at first confined to patricians; a plebeian censor is first mentioned in 351 b.c. A lex Publilia of 339 b.c. is said to have enacted that one censor must be a plebeian. Two plebeian censors were for the first time elected in 131 b.c. The election always took place in the Comitia Centuriata (see [Comitia]). The censorship, although lacking the powers implied in the imperium and the right of summoning the senate and the people, was not only one of the higher magistracies, but was regarded as the crown of a political career. It was an irresponsible office; and the only limitations on its powers were created by the restriction of tenure to a year and a half, the fact that re-election was forbidden, and the restraint imposed on each censor by the fact that no act of his was valid without the assent of his colleague.

The original functions of the censors were (1) the registration of citizens in the state-divisions, such as tribes and centuries; (2) the taxation of such citizens based on an estimate of their property; (3) the right of exclusion from public functions on moral grounds, known as the regimen morum; (4) the solemn act of purification (lustrum) which closed the census. Two other functions were subsequently added:—(5) the selection of the senate (lectio senatus, see [Senate]), and (6) certain financial duties such as the leasing of the contracts for tax-collecting and for the repair of public buildings. The first four of these functions were those of the census, which was a detailed examination of the citizen body as represented by heads of families (patres familiarum) in the Campus Martius. The equites were a select portion of this citizen body; but the review of these knights took place, not in the Campus, but in the Forum (see [Equites]). It was in connexion with this review of the ordinary citizens and the knights, as well as with the choice of senators, that the censors published their edicts stating the moral rules which they intended to enforce. The offences which they punished were sometimes concerned with family life and private relations, sometimes with breaches of political duty. Certain professions, such as that of an actor or gladiator, also invoked their stigma, and at times the disqualifications they pronounced were the consequence of a previous judicial condemnation. Infamia was the general name given to the disabilities pronounced by the censor. These varied in degree from the deprivation of a senator of his seat, or a knight’s loss of his horse, to exclusion from the tribes or centuries, an exclusion which entailed the loss of voting power. All the disabilities pronounced by one pair of censors might be removed by their successors.

The censorship, although its control over the senate came to be weakened (see [Senate]), lasted as long as the republic; and it was only suspended, not abolished, during the principate. Although the princeps exercised censorial functions, he was seldom censor. Yet the office itself was held by Claudius I. and Vespasian. Domitian assumed the title of life censor (censor perpetuus), but the precedent was not followed. A fruitless attempt to galvanize the republican office into new life was made in a.d. 251, during the reign of the emperor Decius.

Authorities.—Mommsen, Romisches Staatsrecht, ii. 331 foll. (3rd ed., Leipzig, 1887); Daremberg-Saglio, Dictionnaire des antiquités grecques et romaines, i. 990 foll. (1875, &c.); Lange, Romische Alterthumer, i. 572 foll. (Berlin, 1856, &c.); de Boor, Fasti Censorii (Berlin, 1873); Gerlach, Die romische Censur in ihrem Verhaltnisse zur Verfassung (Basel, 1842); Nitzsch, “Über die Census” in Neues Jahrbuch f. Phil. lxxiii. 730 (Leipzig, 1856); Zumpt, “Die Lustra der Römer” in Rhein. Museum, xxv. 465, xxvi. i.

(A. H. J. G.)

II. In modern times the word “censor” is used generally for one who exercises supervision over, or criticizes, the conduct of other persons. In the universities of Oxford and Cambridge it is the title of the official head or supervisor of the non-collegiate students (i.e. those who are not attached to a college, hall or hostel). In Oxford the censor is nominated by the vice-chancellor and the proctors, and holds office for five years; in Cambridge he is similarly appointed, and holds office for life. The censors of the Royal College of Physicians are the officials who grant licences.

Council of Censors, in American constitutional history, is the name given to a council provided by the constitution of Pennsylvania from 1776 to 1790, and by the constitution of Vermont from 1777 to 1870. Under both constitutions the council of censors was elected once in seven years, for the purpose of inquiring into the working of the governmental departments, the conduct of the state officers, and the working of the laws, and as to whether the constitution had been violated in any particular. The Vermont council of censors, limited in number to thirteen, had power, if they thought the constitution required amending in any particular, to call a convention for the purpose. A convention summoned by the council in 1870 amended the constitution by abolishing the censors.

For the censorship of the press, see [Press Laws]; for the censorship of plays, [Theatre]: Law, and [Lord Chamberlain].

CENSORINUS, Roman grammarian and miscellaneous writer, flourished during the 3rd century a.d. He was the author of a lost work De Accentibus, and of an extant treatise De Die Natali, written in 238, and dedicated to his patron Quintus Caerellius as a birthday gift. The contents are of a varied character: the natural history of man, the influence of the stars and genii, music, religious rites, astronomy, the doctrines of the Greek philosophers. The second part deals with chronological and mathematical questions, and has been of great service in determining the principal epochs of ancient history. The whole is full of curious and interesting information. The style is clear and concise, although somewhat rhetorical, and the Latinity, for the period, good. The chief authorities used were Varro and Suetonius. Some scholars, indeed, hold that the entire work is practically an adaptation of the lost Pratum of Suetonius. The fragments of a work De Natali Institutione, dealing with astronomy, geometry, music and versification, and usually printed with the De Die Natali of Censorinus, are not by him. Part of the original MS., containing the end of the genuine work, and the title and name of the author of the fragment are lost.

The only good edition with commentary is still that of H. Lindenbrog (1614); the most recent critical editions are by O. Jahn (1845), F. Hultsch (1867), and J. Cholodniak (1889). There is an English translation of the De Die Natali (the first eleven chapters being omitted) with notes by W. Maude (New York, 1900).

CENSUS (from Lat. censere, to estimate or assess; connected by some with centum, i.e. a count by hundreds), a term used to denote a periodical enumeration restricted, in modern times, to population, and occasionally to industries and agricultural resources, but formerly extending to property of all kinds, for the purpose of assessment.

Operations of this character have been conducted with different objects from very ancient times. The fighting strength of the children of Israel at the Exodus was ascertained by a count of all males of twenty years old and upwards, made by enumerators appointed for each clan. The Levites, who were exempted from military duties, were separately enumerated from the age of thirty upwards, and a similar process was ordained subsequently by Solomon, in order to distribute amongst them the functions assigned to the priestly body in connexion with the temple. The census unwillingly carried out by Joab at the behest of David related exclusively to the fighting men of the community, and the dire consequences ascribed to it were quoted in reprobation of such inquiries as late as the middle of the 18th century. It appears, too, that a register of the population of each clan was kept during the Babylonian captivity and its totals were published on their return to Jerusalem. In the Persian empire there was apparently some method in force by which the resources of each province were ascertained for the purpose of fixing the tribute. In China, moreover, an enumeration of somewhat the same nature was an ancient institution in connexion with the provincial revenues and military liabilities. In Egypt, Amasis had the occupation of each individual annually registered, nominally to aid the official supervision of morals by discouraging disreputable means of subsistence; and this ordinance, according to Herodotus, was introduced by Solon into the Athenian scheme of administration, where it developed later into an electoral record.

It was in Rome, however, that the system from which the name of the inquiry is derived was first established upon a regular footing. The original census was ascribed to Servius Tullius, and in the constitution which goes by his name it was decreed that every fifth year the population should be enumerated along with the property of each family—land, live-stock, slaves and freedmen. The main object was to ensure the accurate division of the people into the six main classes and their respective centuries, which were based upon considerations of combined numbers and wealth. With the increase of the city the operation grew in importance, and was followed by an official lustrum, or purificatory sacrifice, offered on behalf of the people by the censors or functionaries in charge of the classification. Hence the name of lustrum came to denote the intercensal term, or a period of five years. The word census, too, came to mean the property qualification of the class, as well as the process of registering the resources of the individual. Later, it was used in the sense of the imposition itself, in which it has survived in the contracted form of cess. Unfortunately the statistics of population thus collected were subordinated to the fiscal interests of the inquiry, and no record has been handed down relating to the population of the city and its neighbourhood. In the time of Augustus the census was extended to the whole empire. In the words of the Gospel of St Luke, he ordered “the whole world to be taxed,” or, according to the revised version, to be enrolled. The compilation of the results of this the most comprehensive enumeration till then attempted was engaging the attention of the emperor, it is said, just before his death, but was never completed. The various inquiries instituted during the middle ages, such as the Domesday Book and the Breviary of Charlemagne, were so far on the Roman model that they took little or no account of the population, the feudal system probably rendering information regarding it unnecessary for the purposes of taxation or military service.

The foundations of the census on the modern system were laid in Europe towards the middle or end of the 17th century. Sweden led the way, by making compulsory the parish record of births, deaths and marriages, kept by the clergy, and extending it to include the whole of the domiciled population of the parish. In France, Colbert, in 1670, ordered the extension to the rural communes of the system which had for many years been in force in Paris of registering and periodically publishing the domestic occurrences of the locality. Five years before this, however, a periodical enumeration by families and individuals had been established in the colony of New France, and was continued in Quebec from 1665 till 1754. This, therefore, may be considered to be the earliest of modern censuses.

Efforts have been almost unceasingly made since 1872 by statistical experts in periodical conference to bring about a general understanding, first, as to the subjects which may be considered most likely to be ascertained with approximate accuracy at a census, and secondly—a point of scarcely less importance—as to the form in which the results of the inquiry should be compiled in order to render comparison possible between the facts recorded in the different areas. In regard to the scope of the inquiry, it is recognized that much is practicable in a country where the agency of trained officials is employed throughout the operation which cannot be expected to be adequately recorded where the responsibility for the correctness of the replies is thrown upon the householder. The standard set up by eminent statisticians, therefore, may be taken to represent an ideal, not likely to be attained anywhere under present conditions, but towards which each successive census may be expected to advance. The subjects to which most importance is attached from the international standpoint are age, sex, civil condition, birthplace, illiteracy and certain infirmities. Occupation, too, should be included, but the record of so detailed a subject is usually considered to be better obtained by a special inquiry, rather than by the rough and ready methods of a synchronous enumeration. This course has been adopted in Germany, Belgium and France, and an approach to it is made in the decennial census of Canada and the United States. Religious denomination, another of the general subjects suggested, is of considerably more importance in some countries than in others, and the same may be said of nationality, which is often usefully supplemented by the return of mother-tongue. Nor should it be forgotten that the internal classification and the combinations of the above subjects are also matters to be treated upon some uniform plan, if the full value of the statistics is to be extracted from the raw material. On the whole, the progress towards a general understanding on many, if not most, of the questions here mentioned which has been made in the present generation, is a gratifying tribute to those who have long laboured in the cause of efficient enumeration.

The British Empire

England and Wales.—Up to the beginning of the 19th century the number of the population was a matter of estimate and conjecture. In 1753 a bill was introduced by a private member of the House of Commons, backed by official support, to provide for the annual enumeration of the people and of the persons in receipt of parochial relief. It was violently opposed as “subversive of the last remains of English liberty” and as likely to result in “some public misfortune or an epidemical distemper.” After passing that House, however, the bill was thrown out by the House of Lords. The fear of disclosing to the enemies of England the weakness of the country in fighting-material was one of the main objections offered to the proposal. By the end of the century, however, owing to a great extent to the publication of the essays of Malthus, the pendulum had swung far in the opposite direction, it was thought desirable to possess the means of judging from time to time the relations between an increasing population and the means of subsistence. A census bill, accordingly, again brought in by a private member, became law without opposition at the end of 1800, and the first enumeration under it took place in March of the following year, the operations being confined to Great Britain. The inquiry was entrusted in England to the overseers, acting under the justices of the peace and the high constables, and in Scotland, to village schoolmasters, under the sheriffs. A supplementary statement of births, deaths and marriages for each parish was required from the clergy, who transmitted it to parliament through the bishops and primates successively. There was no central office or control. The schedule required the number of houses, inhabited and otherwise, the population of each family, by sex, and the occupation, under one of the three heads, (a) agriculture, (b) trade, manufacture or industry, or (c) other than these two. The results, which were not satisfactory, were published without comment. Ten years later, the chief alteration in the inquiry was the substitution of the main occupation of the family for that of the individual. The report on this census contained a very valuable exposition of the difficulties involved in such operations and the numerous sources of error latent in an apparently simple set of questions. In 1821 an attempt to get a return of ages was made, but it was not repeated in 1831, when the attention of the enumerators was concentrated upon greater detail in the occupation record. Their efforts were successful in getting a better, but still far from complete result. The creation, in 1834, of poor law unions, and the establishment, in 1836, of civil registration districts, as a rule coterminous with them, provided a new basis for the taking of a census, and the operations in 1841 were made over accordingly to the supervision of the registrar-general and his staff. The inquiry was extended to the sex, age and occupation of every individual; those born in the district were distinguished from others, foreigners being also separately returned. The number of houses inhabited, uninhabited and under construction respectively, was noted in the return. The parish statement of births, deaths and marriages was sent up by the clergy for the last time. The most important innovation, however, was the transfer of the responsibility for filling up the schedule from the overseers to the householders, thereby rendering possible a synchronous record.

With some modification in detail, the system then inaugurated has been since maintained. In 1851 the relationship to the head of the family, civil condition, and the blind and deaf-mute were included in the inquiry. On this occasion, the act providing for the census was interpreted to authorize the collection of details regarding accommodation in places of public worship and the attendance thereat, as well as corresponding information about educational establishments. A separate report was published on the former subject which proved something of a storm centre. The census of 1871 obtained for the first time a return of persons of unsound mind not confined in asylums. During the next ten years, the separate areas for which population returns had to be prepared were seriously multiplied by the creation of sanitary districts, to the number of 966. The necessity, for administrative or other purposes, of tabulating separately the returns for so many cross-divisions of the country constitutes one of the main difficulties of the English census operations, more particularly as the boundaries of these areas are frequently altered. In anticipation of the census of 1891, a treasury committee was appointed to consider the various suggestions made in regard to the form and scope of the inquiry. Its proposals were adopted as to the subdivision of the occupation column into employer, employed and independent worker, and as to the record upon the schedule of the number of rooms occupied by the family, where not more than five. Separate entry was also made of the persons living upon property or resources, but not following any occupation. No action was taken, however, upon the more important recommendation that midway between two censuses a simple enumeration by sex and age should be effected. A return was also prepared in 1891, for Wales, of those who could speak only Welsh, only English, and both languages, but, owing to the inclusion of infants, the results were of little value. In 1901 the same information was called for, excluding all under three years of age. The term tenement, too, was substituted for that of storey, as the subdivision of a house, whilst in addition to inhabited and uninhabited houses, those occupied by day, but not by night, were separately recorded. The nationality of those born abroad, which used to be returned only for British subjects, was called for from all not born within the kingdom.

Scotland.—In the acts relating to the census from 1801 to 1851, provision for the enumeration of Scotland was made with that for England and Wales, allowance being made for the differences in procedure, which mainly concerned the agency to be employed. In 1855, however, civil registration of births and deaths was established in Scotland, and the conduct of the census of 1861 was, by a separate act, entrusted to the registrar-general of that country. The same course was followed at the three succeeding enumerations, but in 1901 the former practice was resumed. The complexity of administrative areas, though far less than in England, was simplified, and the census compilation proportionately facilitated, by the passing of the Local Government Act for Scotland, in 1889. In 1881, the definition of a house in Scotland was made identical with that in England, since previously what was called a house in the northern portion of Great Britain was known as a tenement in the south, and vice versa. Since 1861 a return has been called for in Scotland of the number of rooms with one or more windows, and that of children of school-age under instruction is also included in the inquiry. The number of persons speaking Gaelic was recorded for the first time in 1881. The question was somewhat expanded at the next census, and in 1901 was brought into harmony with the similar inquiry as to Welsh and Manx.

Ireland.—An estimate of the population of Ireland was made as early as 1672, by Sir W. Petty, and another in 1712, in connexion with the hearth-money, but the first attempt to take a regular census was made in 1811, through the Grand Juries. It was not successful, and in 1821 again, the inquiry was considered to be but little more satisfactory. The census of 1831 was better, but the results were considered exaggerated, owing to the system of paying enumerators according to the numbers they returned. The census, therefore, was supplemented by a revisional inquiry three years afterwards, in order to get a good basis for the newly introduced system of public instruction. The completion of the ordnance survey and the establishment of an educated constabulary force brought the operations of 1841 up to the level of those of the sister kingdom. The main difference in procedure between the two inquiries is that in Ireland the schedule is filled in by the enumerator, a member of the constabulary, or, in Dublin, of the metropolitan police, instead of being left to the householder. The tabulation of the returns, again, is carried out at the central office from the original schedule, and not, as in England, from the book into which the former has been copied by the enumerating agency. The inquiry in Ireland is more extensive than that in Great Britain. It includes, for instance, a considerable amount of information regarding holdings and stock. The details of house accommodation are fuller. A column is provided for the degree of education, and another for religious denomination, an addition which has always been successfully resisted in England. This last information was made voluntary in 1881 and the following enumerations without materially affecting the extent of the record. The inquiry as to infirmities, too, is made to extend to those temporarily incapacitated from work, whether at home or in a hospital. There is also a column for the entry of persons speaking the Irish language only or able to speak both that and English. In the report of 1901 for England and Wales (p. 170) a table is given showing, for the three divisions of the United Kingdom, the relative number of persons speaking the ancient languages either exclusively or in addition to English.

British Colonies and Dependencies.—A simultaneous and uniform census of the British empire is an ideal which appeals to many, but its practical advantages are by no means commensurate with the difficulties to be surmounted. Scattered as are the colonies and dependencies over the world, the date found most suitable for the inquiry in the mother country and the temperate regions of the north is the opposite in the tropics and inconvenient at the antipodes. Then, again, as to the scope of the inquiry, the administrative purposes for which information is thus collected vary greatly in the different countries, and the inquiry, too, has to be limited to what the conditions of the locality allow, and the population dealt with is likely to be able and willing to answer. By prearrangement, no doubt, uniformity may be obtained in regard to most of the main statistical facts ascertainable at a census, at all events in the more advanced units of the empire, and proposals to this effect were made by the registrar-general of England and Wales in his report upon the figures for 1901. Previous to that date, the only step towards compilation of the census results of the empire had been a bare statement of area and population, appended without analysis; comparison or comment, to the reports for England and Wales, from the year 1861 onwards. In 1905, however, the returns published in the colonial reports were combined with those of the United Kingdom, and the subjects of house-room, sex, age, civil condition, birthplace, occupation, and, where available, instruction, religion and infirmities, were reviewed as fully as the want of uniformity in the material permitted (Command paper, 2860, 1906). The measures taken by the principal states, colonies and dependencies for the periodical enumeration of their population are set forth below.

Canada.—The first enumeration of what was afterwards called Lower Canada, took place, as above stated, in 1665, and dealt with the legal, or domiciled, population, not with that actually present at the time of the census, a practice still maintained, in contrast to that prevailing in the rest of the empire. The record was by families, and included the sex, age and civil condition of each individual, with a partial return of profession or trade. Later on, the last item was abandoned in favour of a fuller return of agricultural resources, a feature which has remained a prominent part of the inquiry. After the British occupation, a census was taken in 1765 and 1784, and annually from 1824 to 1842, the information asked for differing from time to time. Enumerations were conducted independently by the different states until 1871, when the first federal census was taken of the older parts of the Dominion. Since then, the enumeration has been decennial, except in the case of the more recently colonized territories of Manitoba and the North-West, where an intermediate census was found necessary in 1885-1886. The census of Canada is organized on the plan adopted in the United States rather than in accordance with British practice, and includes much which is the subject of annual returns in the latter country, or is not officially collected at all. The details of deaths in the year preceding the census, for instance, are called for, there being no registration of such occurrences in the rural tracts. In consideration of the large immigrant population again, the birthplace of each parent is recorded, with details as to nationality, naturalization and date of immigration. Occupation is dealt with minutely, in conjunction with temporary unemployment, average wage or salary earned, and other particulars. No less than eleven schedules are employed, most of them relating to details of industries and production. The duty of filling up so comprehensive a return, involving an answer to 561 questions, is not left to the householder, but entrusted to enumerators specially engaged, working under the supervision of the Department of Agriculture. Owing to the sparse population and difficulties of communication in a great part of the dominion, the inquiry, though referred to a single date, is not completed on that day, a month being allowed to the enumerator for the collection of his returns and their revision and transmission to the central office. A special feature in the operations is the provision, necessitated by the record of the legal population, for the inclusion in the local return of the persons temporarily absent on the date of the census, and their adjustment in the general aggregates, a matter to which considerable attention is paid. The very large mass of detail collected at these inquiries entails an unusually long time spent in compilation; the statistics of population, accordingly, are available considerably in advance of those relating to production and industries.

Australasia.—As the sphere of the census operations in Canada has been gradually spreading from the small beginnings on the east coast to the immense territories of the north-west, so, in the island continent, colonization, first concentrated in the south-east, has extended along the coasts and thence into the interior, except in the northern region. The first act of effective occupation of the country having been the establishment of a penal settlement, the only population to be dealt with in the earlier years of British administration was that under restraint, with its guardians and a few scattered immigrants in the immediate neighbourhood of Sydney Cove. This was enumerated from 1788 onwards by official “musters,” at first weekly, and afterwards at lengthening intervals. The record was so inaccurate that it had no statistical value until 1820, when the muster was taken after due preparation and with greater care, approximating to the system of a regular census. The first operation, however, called by the latter name, was the enumeration of 1828, when an act was passed providing for the enumeration of the whole population, the occupied area and the live-stock. The details of population included sex, children and adults respectively, religion and status, that is whether free (immigrants or liberated convicts), on ticket-of-leave, or under restraint. A similar inquiry was made in 1833 and again in 1836. In 1841 a separate census was taken of New Zealand and Tasmania respectively. The scope of the inquiry in New South Wales was somewhat extended and made to include occupations other than agriculture and stock-breeding. Five years later, the increase of the population justified the further addition of particulars regarding birthplace and education. The record of status, too, was made optional, and in 1856 was omitted from the schedule. In that year, moreover, Victoria, which had become a separate colony, took its own census. South Australia, too, was enumerated in 1846, ten years after its foundation as a colony. From 1861 the census has been taken decennially by all the states except Queensland, where, as in New Zealand, it has been quinquennial since 1875 and 1881 respectively. Up to and including the census of 1901 each state conducted separately its own inquiries. The scheme of enumeration is based on that of Great Britain, modified to suit the conditions of a thin and widely scattered population. The schedules are distributed by enumerators acting under district supervisors; but it is found impossible to collect the whole number in a single day, nor does the mobility of the population in the rural tracts make such expedition necessary. In more than one state the police are employed as enumerators, but elsewhere, a staff has to be specially recruited for the purpose. The operations were improved and facilitated by means of an interstatal conference held before the census of 1891, at which a standard schedule was adopted and a series of general tables agreed upon, to be supplemented in greater detail according to the requirements of each state. The standard schedule, in addition to the leading facts of sex, age, civil condition, birthplace, occupation and house-room, includes education and sickness as well as infirmities, and leaves the return of religious denomination optional with the householder. Under the head of occupation, the bread-winner is distinguished from his dependants and is returned as employer, employed, or working on his own account, as is now the usual practice in census-taking. Each state issues its own report, in which the returns are worked up in the detail required for both local administrative purposes, and for comparison with the corresponding returns for the neighbouring territory. The reports for New South Wales and Victoria are especially valuable in their statistical aspect from the analysis they contain of the vital conditions of a comparatively young community under modern conditions of progress.

South Africa.—Almost from the date of their taking possession of the Cape of Good Hope and its vicinity, the Netherlands East Indian Company instituted annual returns of population, live-stock and agricultural produce. The results from 1687 for nearly a century were recorded, but do not appear to have been more accurate than those subsequently obtained on the same method by the British government, by whom they were discontinued in 1856. The information was collected by district officials, unguided by any general instructions as to form or procedure. The first synchronous census of the colony, as it was then constituted, took place in 1865, on a fairly comprehensive schedule. Ten years later the inquiry was extended to religion and civil condition, and for the census of 1891, again, a rather more elaborate schedule was used. The next census was deferred till 1904, in consequence of the disorganization produced by the Boer war. The inquiry was on the same lines as its predecessors, with a little more detail as to industries and religious denomination. Speaking generally, the administration of the operations is conducted upon the Australian plan, with special attention to allaying the distrust of the native and more ignorant classes, for which purpose the influence of the clergy was enlisted. In some tracts it was found advisable to substitute a less elaborate schedule for that generally prescribed. In Natal, indeed, where the first independent census was taken in 1891, the Kaffir population was not on that occasion enumerated at all. In 1904, however, they were counted on a very simple schedule, by sex and by large age-groups up to 40 years old, with a return of birthplace, in a form affording a fair indication of race. Natives of India, an element of considerable extent and importance in this colony, are enumerated apart from the white population, but in full detail, recognizing the remarkable difference between the European and the Oriental in the matter of age distribution and civil condition. The Transvaal and the Orange River colonies were enumerated in 1904. In the latter, a census had been taken in 1890, in considerable detail, but that of the Transvaal, in 1896, seems to have been far from complete or accurate even in regard to the white population. In Southern Rhodesia the white residents were enumerated in 1891, but it was not until 1904 that the whole population was included in the census. The difficulty in all these cases is that of procuring a sufficient quantity of efficient agency, especially where a large and illiterate native population has to be taken into account. For this reason, amongst others, no census had been taken up to 1906 of Northern Rhodesia, the British possessions and protectorates of eastern Africa, or, again, of Nigeria and the protectorates attached to the West African colonies of Gambia, Sierra Leone and Lagos.

The West Indies.—Each of the small administrative groups here included takes its census independently of the rest, though since 1871 all take it about the date fixed for that of the United Kingdom. The information required differs in each group, but the schedule is, as a rule, of a simple character, and the results of the inquiry are usually set forth with comparatively little comment or analysis. In some of the groups distinctions of colour are returned in general terms; in others, not at all. On the other hand, considerable detail is included regarding the indentured labourers recruited from India, and those of this class who are permanently settled on the land in Guiana and Trinidad. No census was taken in the former, or in Jamaica and Barbados, in 1901.

Ceylon.—Here the census is taken decennially, on the same date as in India, in consideration of the constant stream of migration between the two countries. The schedule is much the same as in India with the substitution of race for caste. Until 1901, however, it was not filled in by the enumerator, as in India, but was distributed before and collected after the appointed date as in Great Britain.

India.—The population of India is the largest aggregate yet brought within the scope of a synchronous and uniform enumeration. It amounts to three-fourths of that of the British Empire, and but little less than a fifth of the estimated population of the world. Between 1853 and 1881 each province conducted its own census operations independently, with little or no attempt at uniformity in date, schedule or tabulation. In the latter year the operations were placed for the first time under central administration, and the like procedure was adopted in 1891 and 1901, with such modification of detail as was suggested by the experience of the preceding census. On each occasion new areas had to be brought within the sphere of enumeration, whilst the necessity for the use in the wilder tracts of a schedule simpler in its demands than the standard, grew less as the country got more accustomed to the inquiry, and the efficiency of the administrative agency increased. Not more than 5% of the householders in India can read and write, and the proportion capable of fully understanding the schedule and of making the entries in it correctly is still lower. From the literate minority, therefore, agency has to be drawn in sufficient strength to take down every particle of the information dictated by the heads of families. As it would be impossible for an enumerator to get through this task in the course of the census night for more than a comparatively small number of houses, the operation is divided into two processes. First a preliminary record is made a short time before the night in question, of the persons ordinarily residing in each house. Then, on that night, the enumerator, reinforced if necessary by aid drafted from outside, revisits his beat, and brings the record up to date by striking out the absent and entering the new arrivals. The average extent of each beat is arranged to include about 300 persons. Thus, in 1901, not far from a million men were required for enumeration alone. To this army must be added the controlling agency, of at least a tenth of the above number, charged with the instruction of their subordinates, the inspection and correction of the preliminary record, and the transmission of the schedule books to the local centre after the census has been taken. The supply of agency for these duties is, fortunately, not deficient. Irrespective of the large number of clerks, village scribes and state and municipal employés which can be drawn upon with but slight interruption of official routine, there is a fair supply of casual literary labour up to the moderate standard required. The services, too, of the educated public are often voluntarily placed at the disposal of the local authorities for the census night, with no desire for remuneration beyond out-of-pocket expenses, and the addition, perhaps, of a personal letter of thanks from the chief official of the district. By means of a well-organized chain of tabulating centres, the preliminary totals, by sexes, of the 294 millions enumerated in 1901 were given to the public within a fortnight of the census, and differed from the final results by no more than 94,000, or .03%. The schedule adopted contains in addition to the standard subjects of sex, age, civil condition, birthplace, occupation and infirmities, columns for mother-tongue, religion and sect, and caste and sub-caste. It is printed in about 20 languages. The results for each province or large state are tabulated locally, by districts or linguistic divisions. The final compilation is done by a provincial superintendent, who prepares his own report upon the operations and results. This work has usually an interest not found in corresponding reports elsewhere, in the prominent place necessarily occupied in it by the ethnographical variety of the population.

Foreign Countries

Inquiries by local officials in connexion with measures of taxation, such as the hearth-tax in France, were instituted in continental Europe as early as the 14th century; but as the basis of an estimate of population they were intrinsically untrustworthy. Going outside Europe, an extreme instance of the results of combining a census with more definite administrative objects may be found in the census of China in 1711, when the population enumerated in connexion with a poll-tax and liability to military service, was returned as 28 millions; but forty years later, when the question was that of the measures for the relief of widespread distress, the corresponding total rose to 103 millions! The notion of obtaining a periodical record of population and its movement, dissociated from fiscal or other liabilities, originated, as stated above, in Sweden, where, in 1686, the birth and death registers, till then kept voluntarily by the parish clergy, were made compulsory and general, the results for each year being communicated to a central office. A census, as a special undertaking, was not, however, carried out in that country until 1749. The example of Sweden was followed in the next year by Finland, and twenty years later, by Norway, where the parish register was an existing institution, as in the neighbouring state. Several other countries followed suit in the course of the 18th century, though the results were either partial or inaccurate. Amongst them was Spain, though here a trustworthy census was not obtained until 1857, or perhaps 1887. Some of the small states of Italy, too, recorded their population in the middle of the above century, but the first general census of that country took place in 1861, after its unification. In Austria, a census was taken in 1754 by the parish clergy, concurrently with the civil authorities and the military commandants. Hungary was in part enumerated thirty years later. The starting-point of the modern census, however, in either part of the dual monarchy, was not until 1857. Speaking generally, most of the principal countries began the current series of their censuses between 1825 and 1860. The German empire has taken its census quinquennially since its foundation, but long before 1871 a census at short intervals used to be taken in all the states of the Zollverein, for the purpose of ascertaining the contribution to the federal revenue, the amount of which was revisable every three years. The last great country to enter the census field was Russia. From 1721, what are known as revisions of the population were periodically carried out, for military, fiscal and police purposes; but these were conducted by local officials without central direction or systematic organization. In 1897 a general census was taken as synchronously throughout the empire as was found possible. It embraced a population second to that of India alone, as China, probably the most populous country in the world, has not yet been subjected to this test. The inquiry was made in great detail, under central control, and on a plan sufficiently elastic to suit the requirements of so varied a country and population. As in India, the schedules had to be issued in an unusual number of languages, and were dealt with locally in the earlier stages of tabulation. The principal regions of which the population is still a matter of mere conjecture are the Turkish empire, Persia, Afghanistan, China and the Indo-Chinese peninsula, in Asia, nearly nine-tenths of Africa, and a considerable portion of South America.

(J. A. B.)

United States

Modern census-taking seems to have originated in the United States. Professor von Mayr declares in a recent and authoritative work, “It was no European state, but the United States of America that made a beginning of census-taking in the large and true sense of that word,” and Professor H. Wagner, writing of the censuses of Sweden, said to have been taken in the 18th century, uses these words, “Since 1749 careful parish registers have been kept by the clergy and have in general the value of censuses.” The same authority, although mentioning a reported census of Norway in 1769, indicates his conviction that the first real census of that country was in 1815. Sweden, Norway and the United States are the only countries with any claim to have taken the first modern census, as distinguished from a register of tax-payers, &c., the lineal descendant of the old Roman census, and the innovation seems to be due to the United States. If so, the first modern census was the American census of 1790. At the present date more than three-fifths of the estimated population of the world has been enumerated in this way. It is of interest accordingly to note how and why the device originated.

The Federal census, which began in 1790 and has been taken every ten years since under a mandate contained in the Constitution of the United States, was the outgrowth of a controversy in the convention which prepared the document. Representatives of the smaller states as a rule claimed that the vote, and so the influence, of the states in the proposed government should be equal. Representatives of the larger states as a rule claimed that their greater population and wealth were entitled to recognition. The controversy ended in the creation of a bicameral legislature in the lower branch of which the claim of the larger states found recognition, while in the upper, the Senate, each state had two votes. In the House of Representatives seats were to be distributed in proportion to the population, and the convention, foreseeing rapid changes of population, ordained an enumeration of the inhabitants and a redistribution or reapportionment of seats in the House of Representatives every ten years.

The provision of the Constitution on the subject is as follows:— “Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several states which may be included within this Union according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other persons. The actual enumeration shall be made within three years after the first meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent term of ten years, in such manner as they shall by law direct.”

In 1790 the population was reported classed as slaves and free, the free classed as white and others, the free whites as males and females, and the free white males as under or above sixteen years of age. In 1800 and 1810 the same classification was preserved, except that five age-groups instead of two were given for free white males and the same five were applied also to free white females. In connexion with the census of 1810 an attempt, perhaps the earliest in any country, was made to gather certain industrial statistics showing “the number, nature, extent, situation and value of the arts and manufactures of the United States.” In 1820 a sixth age class was introduced for free white males, an age classification of four periods was applied to the free coloured and the slaves of each sex, and the number of aliens and of persons engaged in agriculture, in manufactures and in commerce was called for. The inquiry into industrial statistics begun in 1810 was also repeated and extended.

In 1830 thirteen age classes were employed for free whites of each sex, and six for the free coloured and the slaves of each sex. The number of aliens, of the deaf and dumb and the blind were also gathered.

The law under which the census of 1840 was taken contained a novel provision for the preparation in connexion with the census of statistical tables giving “such information in relation to mines, agriculture, commerce, manufactures and schools as will exhibit a full view of the pursuits, industry, education and resources of the country.” This was about the first indication of a tendency, which grew in strength for half a century, to load the Federal census with inquiries having no essential or necessary connexion with its main purpose, which was to secure an accurate enumeration of the population as a basis for a reapportionment of seats in the House of Representatives. This tendency was largely due to a doubt whether the Federal government under the Constitution possessed the power to initiate general statistical inquiries, a doubt well expressed in the 9th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica by Francis A. Walker, himself a prominent member of the party whose contention he states:—

“The reservation by the states of all rights not granted to the general government makes it fairly a matter of question whether purely statistical inquiries, other than for the single purpose of apportioning representation, could be initiated by any other authority than that of the states themselves. That large party which advocates a strict and jealous construction of the constitution would certainly oppose any independent legislation by the national Congress for providing a registration of births, marriages and deaths, or for obtaining social and industrial statistics, whether for the satisfaction of the publicist or for the guidance of the legislature. Even though the supreme court should decide such legislation to be within the grant of powers to the general government, the distrust and opposition, on constitutional grounds, of so large a portion of the people, could not but go far to defeat the object sought.”

The difficulty stated in the foregoing quotation, although now mainly of historic importance, exerted great influence upon the development of the American census prior to 1900.

The pioneer work of the census of 1840 in the fields of educational statistics, statistics of occupations, of defective classes and of causes of death, suffered from numerous errors and defects. Public discussion of them contributed to secure radical modifications of scope and method at the census of 1850. Before the census law was passed, a census board, consisting of three members of the president’s cabinet, was appointed to draft plans for the inquiry, and the essential features of its report prepared after consultation with a number of leading statisticians were embodied in the law.

The census of 1850 was taken on six schedules, one for free inhabitants, one for slaves, one for deaths during the preceding year, one for agriculture, one for manufactures and one for social statistics. The last asked for returns regarding valuation, taxation, educational and religious statistics, pauperism, crime and the prevailing rates of wages in each municipal division. It was also the first American census to give a line of the schedule to each person, death or establishment enumerated, and thus to make the returns in the individual form indispensable for a detailed classification and compilation. The results of this census were tabulated with care and skill, and a preliminary analysis gave the salient results and in some cases compared them with European figures.

The census of 1860 followed the model of its predecessor with slight changes. When the time for the next census approached it was felt that new legislation was needed, and a committee of the House of Representatives, with James A. Garfield, afterwards president of the United States, at its head, made a careful and thorough study of the situation and reported an excellent bill, which passed the House, but was defeated by untoward influences in the Senate. In consequence the census of 1870 was taken with the outgrown machinery established twenty years earlier, a law characterized by Francis A. Walker, the superintendent of the census, who administered it, as “clumsy, antiquated and barbarous.” It suffered also from the fact that large parts of the country had not recovered from the ruin wrought by four years of civil war. In consequence this census marks the lowest ebb of American census work. Tie accuracy of the results is generally denied by competent experts. The serious errors were errors of omission, were probably confined in the main to the Southern states, and were especially frequent among the negroes.

Since 1870 the development of census work in the United States has been steady and rapid. The law, which had been prepared for the census of 1870 by the House committee, furnished a basis for greatly improved legislation in 1879, under which the tenth census was taken. By this law the census office for the first time was allowed to call into existence and to control an adequate local staff of supervisors and enumerators. The scope of the work was so extended as to make the twenty-two quarto volumes of the tenth census almost an encyclopaedia, not only of the population, but also of the products and resources of the United States. Probably no other census in the world has ever covered so wide a range of subjects, and perhaps none except that of India and the eleventh American census has extended through so many volumes. The topics usually contained in a census suffered from the great addition of other and less pertinent matter, and the reputation of the work was unfavourably affected by the length of time required to prepare and publish the volumes (the last ones not appearing until near the end of the decade), the original underestimate of the cost of the work, which made frequent supplementary appropriations necessary, the resignation of the superintendent, Francis A. Walker, in 1882, and the disability and death of his successor, Charles W. Seaton. The eleventh census was taken under a law almost identical with that of the tenth, and extended through twenty-five large volumes, presenting a work almost as encyclopaedic, but much more distinctively statistical.

The popular opinion of a census, at least in the United States, depends largely upon the degree to which its figures for the population of the country, of states, and especially of cities, meet or fail to meet the expectations of the interested public. Judged by this standard, the census of 1890 was less favourably received than that of 1880. The enumerated population of the country in 1880 was larger than had been anticipated; and in the face of these figures it was difficult for local complaints, even where they were made, to find hearing and acceptance. But according to the eleventh census the decennial rate of growth of population fell suddenly from over 30%, which the figures had shown between 1870 and 1880, and in every preceding decade of the century, except that of the Civil War, to less than 25%, in spite of an immigration nearly double that of any preceding decade. For this change no adequate explanation was offered by the census office. Hence the protests of those who believed that the figures for population were too small swelled into a general chorus of dissatisfaction. But the census was probably more correct than the critics. Most of the motives influencing popular estimates of population in the United States tend to exaggeration. The convention which drafted the Constitution of the United States attempted to secure a balance of interests by apportioning both representatives in Congress and direct taxes according to population. A passage in The Federalist suggests the motives of the convention as follows:—

“As the accuracy of the census to be obtained by Congress will necessarily depend in a considerable degree on the disposition if not co-operation of the states, it is of great importance that the states should feel as little bias as possible to swell or reduce the amount of their numbers. Were their share of representation alone to be governed by this rule, they would have an interest in exaggerating their inhabitants. Were the rule to decide their share of taxation alone, a contrary temptation would prevail. By extending the rule to both objects the states will have opposite interests, which will control and balance each other, and produce a requisite impartiality.”

With the disappearance of direct taxation as a source of federal revenue, the motive mentioned for understating the population disappeared. On the other hand, the desire for many representatives in Congress has been reinforced by the more influential feelings of local pride and of rivalry with other cities of somewhat similar size. Hence a complaint that the population is overstated is seldom heard, and hence, also, popular charges of an under-count afford little evidence that the population was really larger than stated by the census.

After the detailed tabulation had been completed, it was shown that the number of persons under ten years of age in 1890 was surprisingly small, and that this deficiency in children was a leading cause of the slow growth in population. Before the tabulation had been made Francis A. Walker wrote:—“If the birth-rate among the previously existing population did not suffer a sharp decline ... the census of 1890 cannot be vindicated. To ascertain the facts we must await the tabulation of the population by periods of life, and ascertain how many of the inhabitants of the United States of 1890 were under ten years of age.” These results thus confirmed the accuracy of the count of 1890. Efforts to invalidate the census returns by comparison with the registration records of Massachusetts cannot be deemed conclusive, since in the United States, as in Great Britain, the census must be deemed more accurate and less subject to error than registration records. A strong argument in favour of the eleventh census, apart from its self-consistency, is that its results as a whole fit in with the subsequent state enumerations. In eleven cases such enumerations have been taken; and on computing from them and the results of the federal census of 1880 what the population at the date of the eleventh census should have been, if the annual rate of increase had been uniform, it appears that in no case, except New York City and Oregon, was the difference between the enumerations and these estimates over 4%. In Oregon about 30,000 more people were found in 1890 than the estimate would lead one to expect; in New York city, about 100,000 less. It seems not improbable that in the latter, where the difficulties incident to a count during the summer are almost insurmountable, serious omissions occurred. Still, such a comparison confirms the accuracy of the eleventh census as a whole.

The results of the twelfth census (1900) further refute the argument that would maintain the eleventh census to be inaccurate because it showed a smaller rate of increase in population during the preceding decade than had been recorded by other censuses during earlier decades. The rate of increase during the decade ending in 1900 was even less than that for the preceding decade; and it is impossible that a falling off so marked could in two successive enumerations be the result of sheer inaccuracy. The rate of increase from 1890 to 1900, eliminating from the computation the population of Alaska, Hawaii, Indian Territory and Indian reservations, was 20.7; the rate of increase if these places are included—in which case the figures of the population of Hawaii in 1890 must be taken from the census of the Hawaiian government in that year—was 21%.

The law regulating the twelfth census deserves to rank with those of 1790, 1850 and 1879 as one of the four important laws relative to census work. By this law the census office was far more independent than ever before. Appointments and removals were made by the director of the census rather than by the secretary of the interior, and in all plans for the execution of the law the head of the office was responsible for success. The law divided the subjects of census inquiry into two parts—first, those of primary importance, requiring the aid of the enumerator; and, secondly, those of subsidiary importance, capable of production without the aid of the enumerator. The former had to be finished and published by 1st July 1902; the latter were not to be undertaken until the former were well advanced towards completion. By this means the attention of the office could be concentrated on a small number of subjects rather than distributed over the long list treated in the volumes of the tenth and eleventh censuses.

Under the federal form of government, with its delegation of all residuary powers to the several states, the United States have no system of recording deaths, births and marriages. Hence there is no such basis as exists in nearly every other civilized state for a national system of registration, and the country depends upon the crude method of enumerators’ returns for its information on vital statistics, except in the states and cities which have established a trustworthy registration system of their own. These are the New England states and a few others in their vicinity or influenced by their example. Enumerators’ returns in this field are so incomplete that hardly two-thirds of the deaths which have occurred in any community during the preceding year are obtained by an enumerator visiting the families, no satisfactory basis for the computation of death-rates is afforded, and the returns have comparatively little scientific value. In the regions where census tables and interpretations are derived from registration records kept by the several states or cities they are often made more complete than those in the state or municipal documents. The census of agriculture is also liable to a wide margin of error, owing to defects in farm accounts and the inability of many farmers to state the amount or the value even of the leading crops. The census figures relate to the calendar year preceding 1st June 1900, and hurried and careless answers about the preceding year’s crop are almost sure to have been given by many farmers in the midst of the summer’s work.

The difficulties facing the manufacturing census were of a different character. A large proportion of the industries of the country keep satisfactory accounts, and can answer the questions with some correctness. But manufacturers are likely to suspect the objects of the census, and to fear that the information given will be open to the public or betrayed to competitors. Furthermore, the manufacturing schedule presupposes some uniformity in the method of accounting among different companies or lines of business, and this is often lacking. Another source of error in the manufacturing census of the United States is that the words of the census law are construed as requiring an enumeration of the various trades and handicrafts, such as carpentering. The deficiencies in such returns are gross and notorious, but the census office feels obliged to seek for them and to report what it finds, however incomplete or incorrect the results may be. Even on the population returns certain answers, such as the number of the divorced or the number unable to read and write, may be open to question.

The wide range of the American census, and the publication of uncertain figures, find a justification in the fact that the development of accurate census work requires a long educational process in the office, and, above all, in the community. Rough approximations must always precede accurate measurements; and these returns, while often inaccurate, are better than nothing, and probably improve with each decade.

Besides, the breadth of its scope, in which the American census stands unrivalled, the most important American contribution to census work has been the application of electricity to the tabulation of the results, as was first done in 1890. The main difficulties which this method reduced were two. The production of tables for so enormous a population as that of the United States through the method of tallying by hand requires a great number of clerks and a long period of time, and when complete cannot be verified except by a repetition of the process. The new method abbreviates the time, since an electric current can tally almost simultaneously the data, the tallying of which by hand would be separated by appreciable intervals. The method also renders comparatively easy the verification of the results of certain selected parts.

Judged by European standards the cost of the American census is very great. The following table gives the total and the per capita cost of each enumeration.

For the sake of comparison it may be stated that the per capita cost of the English census of 1901 was 2.24 cents, or little more than one-tenth that of the American census. This difference is due in part to the greater scope and complexity of the American census, and in part to the fact that in the United States the field work is done by well-paid enumerators, while in England it is done in most cases by the heads of families, who are not paid.

The course of events has clearly established the fact that the authority of the Federal government in this field is greater than the strict constructionists of a previous generation as represented by General Walker in the passage already quoted believed it to be. Decision after decision of individual instances has made it a settled practice for the Federal government to co-operate with or to supplement the state governments in the gathering of statistics that may furnish a basis for state or Federal legislation. The law has allowed the Federal census office in its discretion to compile and publish the birth statistics of divisions in which they are accurately kept; one Federal report on the statistics of marriages and divorces throughout the country from 1867 to 1886 inclusive was published in 1889, and a second for the succeeding twenty-year period was published in 1908-1909; an annual volume gives the statistics of deaths for about half the population of the country, including all the states and cities which have approximately complete records of deaths; Federal agencies like the bureau of labour and the bureau of corporations have been created for the purpose of gathering certain social and industrial statistics, and the bureau of the census has been made a permanent statistical office.

The Federal census office has been engaged in the compilation and publication of statistics of many sorts. Among its important lines of work may be mentioned frequent reports during the cotton ginning season upon the amount of cotton ginned, supplemental census reports upon occupations, on employees and wages, and on further interpretation of various population tables, reports on street and electric railways, on mines and quarries, on electric light and power plants, on deaths in the registration area 1900-1904, on benevolent institutions, on the insane, on paupers in almshouses, on the social statistics of cities and on the census of manufactures in 1905. Congress has recently entrusted it with still further duties, and it has developed into the main statistical office of the Federal government, finding its nearest analogue probably in the Imperial Statistical Office in Berlin.

(W. F. W.)

CENTAUREA, in botany, a genus of the natural order Compositae, containing between four and five hundred species, and of wide distribution, but with its principal centre in the Mediterranean region. The plants are herbs with entire or cut often spiny-toothed leaves, and ovoid or globose involucres surrounding a number of tubular, oblique or two-lipped florets, the outer of which are usually larger and neuter, the inner bisexual. Four species are native in Britain. C. nigra is knapweed, common in meadows and pastureland; C. Cyanus is the bluebottle or cornflower, a well-known cornfield weed; C. Calcitrapa is star-thistle, a rare plant, found in dry waste places in the south of England, and characterized by the rose-purple flower-heads enveloped by involucral bracts which end in a long, stiff spine. Besides cornflower, a few other species are worth growing as garden plants; they are readily grown in ordinary soil:—C. Cineraria, a half-hardy perennial, native of Italy, is remarkable for its white downy foliage; C. babylonica (Levant) has large downy leaves and a tall spike of small yellow flowers; C. dealbata (Caucasus) is a low-growing plant with larger rose-coloured heads; C. macrocephala (Caucasus) has large yellow heads; C. montana (Pyrenees) large handsome blue heads; and C. ragusina (S.E. Europe) beautiful silver-haired leaves and yellow flowers.

CENTAURS, in Greek mythology, a race of beings part horse part man, dwelling in the mountains of Thessaly and Arcadia. The name has been derived (1) from κεντεῖν (goad) and ταῦρος (bull), implying a people who were primarily herdsmen, (2) from κεντεῖν and the common termination -αυρος or αὔρα (“air”) i.e. “spearmen.” The former is unsatisfactory partly from the philological standpoint, and the latter, though not certain, is preferable. The centaurs were the offspring of Ixion and Nephele (the rain-cloud), or of Kentauros (the son of these two) and some Magnesian mares or of Apollo and Hebe. They are best known for their fight with the Lapithae, caused by their attempt to carry off Deidameia on the day of her marriage to Peirithous, king of the Lapithae, himself the son of Ixion. Theseus, who happened to be present, assisted Peirithous, and the Centaurs were driven off (Plutarch, Theseus, 30; Ovid, Metam. xii. 210; Diod. Sic. iv. 69, 70). In later times they are often represented drawing the car of Dionysus, or bound and ridden by Eros, in allusion to their drunken and amorous habits. Their general character is that of wild, lawless and inhospitable beings, the slaves of their animal passions, with the exception of Pholus and Chiron. They are variously explained by a fancied resemblance to the shapes of clouds, or as spirits of the rushing mountain torrents or winds. As children of Apollo, they are taken to signify the rays of the sun. It is suggested as the origin of the legend, that the Greeks in early times, to whom riding was unfamiliar, regarded the horsemen of the northern hordes as one and the same with their horses; hence the idea of the Centaur as half-man, half-animal. Like the defeat of the Titans by Zeus, the contests with the Centaurs typified the struggle between civilization and barbarism.

In early art they were represented as human beings in front, with the body and hind legs of a horse attached to the back: later, they were men only as far as the waist. The battle with the Lapithae, and the adventure of Heracles with Pholus (Apollodorus, ii. 5; Diod. Sic. iv. II) are favourite subjects of Greek art (see Sidney Colvin, Journal of Hellenic Studies, i. 1881, and the exhaustive article in Roscher’s Lexikon der Mythologie). Fig. 34 in article [Greek Art] (the west pediment of the temple of Zeus at Olympia) represents the attempt of the Centaurs to carry off the bride of Peirithous.

CENTAURUS (“The Centaur”), in astronomy, a constellation of the southern hemisphere, mentioned by Eudoxus (4th century b.c.) and Aratus (3rd century b.c.), Ptolemy catalogued thirty-seven stars in it. α-Centauri is a splendid binary star. Its components are of the 1st magnitude, and revolve in a period of eighty-one years; and since its parallax is 0.75″, it is the nearest star to the earth; ω-Centauri, the finest globular star-cluster in the heavens, consists of about 6000 stars in a space of about 20′ diameter, of which about 125 variables have been examined. Nova Centauri, a “new” star, was discovered in 1895 by Mrs Fleming in photographs taken at Harvard.

CENTAURY (Erythraea Centaurium, natural order Gentianaceae), an annual herb with erect, smooth stem, usually branched above, and a terminal inflorescence with numerous small red or pink regular flowers with a funnel-shaped corolla. The plant occurs in dry pastures and on sandy coasts in Britain, and presents many varieties, differing in length of stem, degree of branching, width and shape of leaves, and laxity or closeness of the inflorescence. Several other species of the genus are grown as rock-plants.

CENTENARY (from Lat. centenarius, of or belonging to a hundred, from centeni, distributive of centum, hundred), a space of a hundred years, and particularly the celebration of an event on the lapse of a hundred years, a centennial anniversary. The word “centennial” (from Lat. centennis, from centum, and annus, a year), though usually an adjective as in “the Centennial State,” the name given to Colorado on its admission to statehood in 1876, is also used as a synonym of centenary.

CENTERVILLE, a city and the county-seat of Appanoose county, Iowa, U.S.A., in the south part of the state, about 90 m. N.W. of Keokuk. Pop. (1890) 3668; (1900) 5256; (1905, state census) 5967 (487 being foreign-born); (1910) 6936. Centerville is served by the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific and the Iowa Central railways. Among the principal buildings are the county court-house and the Federal building, and the city has a public library and a hospital. It is in one of the most productive coal regions of the state; it ships coal, limestone and livestock, has large bottling works, and manufactures iron, brick and tile, machine-shop products, woollen goods, shirts, cigars and flour. The place was platted in 1846, was called Chaldea until 1849, when the present name was adopted, was incorporated as a town in 1855, and in 1870 was chartered as a city of the second class. The city limits were extended in 1906-1907.

CENTIPEDE, the characteristic member of the group Chilopoda, a class of the Arthropoda, formerly associated with the Diplopoda (Millipedes), the Pauropoda and the Symphyla, to constitute the now abandoned group Myriapoda. The resemblance between the Chilopoda and the Diplopoda is principally superficial and due to the elongation and vermiform shape of the body, which in both is composed of a number of similar or subsimilar somites not differentiated as are those of Insecta, existing Arachnida and most Crustacea, into series or “tagmata” of varying function. Until 1893 no one doubted the correctness of the assumption that the Chilopoda and Diplopoda were orders of a class Myriapoda of the same systematic status as the Arachnida or Hexapoda. But in that year, R.I. Pocock and J.S. Kingsley independently pointed out that they differ as much from each other as either differs from the Hexapoda; and should, therefore, rank as distinct classes of Arthropods. Pocock, indeed, definitely associated the Chilopoda with the Hexapoda in a group, the Opisthogoneata (Opisthogonea), equivalent to a group, the Progoneata (Prosogonea), comprising the Diplopoda, Pauropoda and Symphyla. As the basis for this classification was taken the position of the generative orifices which open in the Opisthogonea at the posterior end and in the Prosogonea near the anterior end of the body. As a matter of fact, in the Chilopoda they are situated on the penultimate or pretelsonic somite; in the Hexapoda upon the antepenultimate somite (male) or a little farther forward (female). Moreover, the recent researches of Heymons into the embryology of Scolopendra, one of the Chilopods, has shown a close correspondence in the number of cephalic metameres between the Chilopoda and Hexapoda, a correspondence which has not yet been established in the case of the Diplopoda or Symphyla. This last discovery bears out the view of relationship between the centipedes and insects, to the exclusion of the Diplopoda, Symphyla and Pauropoda. But even if in the future it can be shown that all these groups can be brought into line with respect to the metamerism of the head, the position of the generative orifices will remain as a fundamental and constant character, distinguishing the Chilopoda from the other groups of so-called “Myriapods” and the Hexapoda from the Symphyla, which in many particulars they resemble.

Structure of the Chilopoda.—The exoskeletal elements of a typical somite consist of a dorsal plate or tergum, a ventral plate or sternum, a lateral or pleural membrane, often strengthened with chitinous sclerites, and a pair of appendages. At the anterior extremity there is a head-shield or cephalite, which bears eyes, when present, and a pair of antennae. In all centipedes, except the Scutigeridae, the preantennal portion of the cephalite is sharply reflexed, ventrally forming an area called the clypeus. The inferior edge of this bears the labrum, which is usually represented by a small median, and two large lateral plates. The appendages are modified as a single pair of antennae, four pairs of jaws or gnathites, a variable number of walking legs and a single pair of generative limbs or gonopods. The antennae, articulated to the forepart of the head and preoral in position, are long and flexible and consist of fourteen or more segments. The jaws of the first pair of mandibles are stout and bi-segmented, with a dentate cutting edge. Those of the second pair or maxillae vary considerably in structure in different groups. They are foliaceous and are usually regarded as biramous. In some genera (Scutigera, Lithobius) the inner branch consists of two distinct segments meeting those of the opposite side in the middle line. The outer branch, which is always larger, consists of three or four segments. Generally, however, the basal segments of the two branches are coalesced with each other and with the corresponding segments of the opposite side to form a single broad transverse plate. The above described condition seen in Scutigera suggests that two pairs of jaws may be involved in the formation of the maxillae in the Chilopoda. The jaws of the third pair, the palpognaths or second pair of maxillae, resemble dwarfed walking legs, and consist of five or six segments, of which the basal or coxa is united mesially to its fellow. The jaws of the fourth pair, the toxicognaths or poison-jaws, are long and powerful, and consist like the legs primarily of six segments, whereof the basal is large and usually fused with its fellow to form a large coxal plate, the second is small and generally suppressed by fusion with the third, the fourth and fifth are also small, while the sixth is transformed into a great piercing fang, at the tip of which opens the duct of a poison gland lodged within the appendage.

The tergal elements of the somites bearing the antennae, mandibles and maxillae appear to be represented by the head-shield or cephalite. The tergal element of the somite bearing the palpognath is usually suppressed; that of the toxicognath is sometimes of large size as in some Geophilomorpha (Himantarium), sometimes small as in Scutigera, Lithobius, Craterostigmus, sometimes suppressed probably by fusion with the tergum of the first leg-bearing somite as in the Scolopendromorpha. The sternal plates of all the jaw-bearing somites have disappeared, except in the case of the somite of the toxicognath, where it may be vestigial. In the case of the somites bearing the walking legs the tergal and sternal elements are preserved without fusion with the corresponding plates of the preceding or succeeding somites, so that great flexibility of the body is retained. The only exception to this is presented by Scutigera, where the terga corresponding to the somites bearing the fifteen pairs of legs are reduced by fusion and suppression to seven. The walking legs are articulated to the inferior portion of the pleural or lateral area of the somites close to the external margins of the sterna, which widely separate those of the left from those of the right side. Generally speaking the legs resemble each other, although as a rule they progressively increase in length towards the posterior end of the body. They consist typically of six segments, of which the basal is termed the coxa and the apical the tarsus. The tarsus is armed with a single terminal claw, and, except in the Geophilomorpha and a few genera of other orders, is divided by a mesial transverse joint into two segments, as is the case in Scolopendra and Lithobius for example. But in some of the longer-legged, swift-footed centipedes of the order Lithobiomorpha (e.g. Henicops, Cermalobius) the tarsi are further subdivided. The multiplication of sub-segments reaches its maximum in Scutigera, where the tarsi are extremely long, slender, flexible and annulated. The legs of the last pair are directed backwards in a line parallel with the long axis of the body, so that their coxae, fused in some cases with the pleural sclerites (Scolopendra, Geophilus), or free and of large size (Scutigera, Lithobius), serve to protect the small genital and anal somites. They are often greatly modified. In the males of some species of Lithobius one or more of the segments is inflated or furnished with tubercle-bearing, tactile bristles; in some Geophilomorpha the whole limb is thickened in the male sex. In most Scolopendromorpha the basal segment is armed beneath with spines or spikes (Dacetum, Scolopocryptops); sometimes the whole appendage is thickened and terminated by a sharp and serrate claw (Theatops, Plutonium). In these cases the legs act as weapons of defence and offence. In other cases (Newportia) the tarsi lose the claw, become many-jointed and act as feelers, while in Alipes the terminal segments are flattened, leaf-like and furnished with a peculiar stridulating organ. The genital somite is always small and sometimes retractile within the somite bearing the last pair of legs. Its tergal plate is usually retained, but its sternal plate is generally suppressed. In females of the Lithobiomorpha and Scutigeromorpha the appendages of this somite—the gonopods—are jointed, forcipate and relatively well developed although small. In the females of the other orders they are greatly reduced or absent. In the males their development varies considerably. They are well developed in Scutigera, where they form two pairs of digitiform sclerites, whereas in the Geophilomorpha they are reduced to a pair of very short, two-jointed limbs. The anal somite is always small and limbless. In Craterostigmus the genital and anal somites are represented by a pair of elongate valves projecting between the legs of the last pair. The structure of the gonopods is unknown, and the homology between the two valves and the skeletal elements of the somites in question not clearly understood.

A study of the development of Scolopendra has shown that the antennae of the adult are the appendages of the second postoral metamere and the mandibles those of the fourth, the first postoral metamere, which has a pair of transient preantennal appendages, and the third, which has no appendages, being excalated at an early stage of embryonic growth. Furthermore, behind the legs of the last pair two pairs of appendages are present. The second of these persists as the gonopods of the adult, but the first is suppressed. Possibly, however, it is represented in the male of Scutigera by the anterior branches of the gonopods. The cerebral or cephalic portion of the nervous system consists of a quadrilobate mass. From the two upper lobes, which are set transversely, arise the ocular nerves; from the two lower lobes, which are united by a transverse commissure, spring the antennal nerves in front and the chords which form the oesophageal collar behind. These chords unite below the oesophagus to form the compound suboesophageal ganglion, whence the nerves for the four pairs of jaws arise. The ventral system consists of a double chord uniting in each of the leg-bearing segments in a ganglionic swelling which gives off four pairs of nerves to the limbs and tissues of the somite. There is a single ganglion in the genital segment.

Eyes are frequently absent. When present they may be either simple or compound, i.e. consisting externally of a single lens (monomeniscous) of or an aggregation of lenses (polymeniscous). Simple eyes vary in number on each side of the head from one, as in Henicops, to many as forty, as in some species of Lithobius. In Scolopendra, where there are four, the corneal lens is a biconvex thickening of the cuticle. The soft or retinal portion of the eye beneath the lens consists of an aggregation of large cells forming a single layer continuous with the epidermic cells of the circumocular area. Thus the eye is monostichous. The arrangement of the cells, however, is peculiar. They are invaginated to form what may be described as a very deep cup with exceedingly thick walls and correspondingly narrow median space, the outer surface of the cup being formed by the inner or proximal ends of the cells and the inner surface by their outer or distal ends. It results from this arrangement that the cells forming all but the bottom of the invagination lie horizontally, i.e. at right angles to the vertical axis of the eye. From the distal ends of the cells are secreted chitinous rhabdomeres, forming a rhabdom which occupies and fills up the central portion of the cup beneath the middle of the corneal lens. The outer ends of the cells are nucleated and are continuous with the fibres of the optic nerve, which passes from the outer surface of the bottom of the cup to the brain. Compound eyes are found only in the Scutigeridae. Externally the eye consists of one hundred or more little lenses or lenticles. The retinal portion is composed of a corresponding number of ocular units or ommatidia. Each ommatidium is an elongated cone with its broad extremity abutting against the corneal lenticle. It consists of a non-nucleated crystalline cone developed from embryonic cells, and is enveloped in three tiers of large nucleated cells. The cells of the outermost tier are heavily pigmented; those of the middle and innermost (proximal) tiers, the retinal cells, are at their inner extremities produced into threads continuous with the fibres of the optic nerve. In the space between these cells and the crystalline cone which they surround, there is a layer of rhabdomeres deposited apparently by the cells.

A and B after Heymons, Bibl Zool, 1901, by permission of E. Nagele.
A, Brain of Scolopendra. n. ant, Antennal nerves;n. opt, ocular nerves; n. pr. ant, preantennal nerves;oes. comm, oesophageal commissure.	B, Section of Eye of Scolopendra. len,Corneal lens; ret, retinal or visual cells;n. opt, optic nerve.
Fig. 2.
C after Adensamer, Verh. z. b. Verein, Vienna, 1893, pl. vii.
C, Ocular unit or ommatidiumof compound Eye of Scutigera.len, corneal lenticle; c.c, crystallinecone; 1, pigmented cells ofoutermost tier; 2, 3, retinularcells of middle and innermosttiers; rbd, rhabdomeres; n. opt,optic nerve; pg, pigment cells.

The alimentary canal is a simple tube running without convolutions from the mouth to the anus. Its anterior portion or pharynx, which arises from the stomodaeal invagination in the embryo, is short; a pair of large, so-called salivary glands open into it. The mesenteric part of the canal is relatively wide and receives at its junction with the hind-gut the excretory products of a pair of very long and slender malpighian tubes of proctodaeal origin. The posterior end of the canal, arising from the proctodaeum, is relatively short and narrow.

The generative organs vary in structural details in different centipedes. In the male of Lithobius the testes consist of a single coiled tube lying above the alimentary canal. The slender vas deferens which proceeds from its hinder end divides posteriorly into a right and left branch, embracing the gut and uniting beneath it to form a common chamber or atrium within the genital orifice. The atrium receives the secretion of two pairs of large accessory glands; and a pair of tubes, or vesiculae seminales, open, one on each side, into the divided sperm ducts close to their point of origin above the intestine. The organs of the female are very similar. There is a large median ovary followed by a short oviduct forming a circum-intestinal collar and a common atrium. Into the latter open a pair of short receptacula seminis and the slender duct of two pairs of large accessory glands. There is nothing in the female corresponding to the supra-intestinal vesiculae seminales of the male. In the male of Scolopendra, on the contrary, there are as many as twelve pairs of somewhat sausage-shaped testes, approximated two by two. From each pair proceed two slender ducts which open into a median duct coiled in the posterior third of the body and much expanded in the last three of the leg-bearing segments. The right and left portions of the intestinal ring of the genital duct are unequally developed, and there are no vesiculae seminales, but two pairs of accessory glands communicate with the genital atrium as in Lithobius. In the female Scolopendra the right and left portions of the intestinal collar are also unequally developed, and only a single pair of accessory glands besides the receptacula seminis open into the atrium.

The heart is tubular and lies in the middle dorsal line immediately beneath the integument. It consists of a series of chambers corresponding roughly to the leg-bearing segments, and lies in a blood-sinus formed by a pericardial membrane whence large alary muscles extend to the sides of the body. Each chamber gives off in Scolopendra a pair of fine lateral vessels, and is furnished at its posterior extremity with a pair of orifices by which the blood re-enters the organ from the pericardial space. From the anterior chamber, which lies in the first or second leg-bearing segment, proceed three arteries, a median which runs forwards into the head to supply the brain and other organs, and a lateral which with its fellow of the opposite side forms an oesophageal aortic collar. From the sides of the latter arise vessels to the gnathites, and from its inferior portion an unpaired vessel passes forwards into the head and another backwards above the nerve chord to the posterior end of the body, supplying each segment in its course with a delicate lateral branch. In Scolopendra the chambers of the heart, excepting the first and last, which are small, are subequal in size; but in forms like Scutigera where the terga are very unequal in size a corresponding inequality in the size of the chambers is manifested.

A after Newport, Phil. Trans., 1843.B after Haase, Zool. Beitrage, i. pt. 65, 1884, by permission of J.N. Kern.C after Haase, loc. cit.
A, Anterior extremity ofScolopendra, showing twochambers of the heart (h), theaortic ring (a), the alae cordis(a.m) and a cardiac orifice (o).	B, Two segments of Scolopendra,showing the branchingand anastomosing tracheae and aspiracle (sp).
Fig 5.
C, A pair of tufted tracheaeof Scutigera. d, Dorsal plate;t.s, tracheal sac; tr, trachealtubes.

In all centipedes, except Scutigera, respiration is effected by chitinized tracheal tubes which extend with their ramifications throughout the body and open to the exterior by means of spiracles perforating the lateral or pleural membrane of more or fewer of the somites below the edge of the terga. Spiracles are never present upon the anal, genital and last leg-bearing somites, and only rarely, as in Henicops, upon the somite bearing the legs of the first pair. In the majority of cases the spiracles are circular, sigmoid or slit-like orifices, with chitinized rim, leading into a pocket-like integumental infolding, from which emanate numerous small tracheal tubes which soon anastomose to form the main tracheal trunks. In Dacetum, one of the Scolopendridae, there is no pocket-like infolding, the small tracheal tubes opening direct to the exterior on a large subcircular plate where their apertures fuse to form a complicated network. The apertures, as in the case of other genera, are protected by fine hairs; and the tracheae themselves are strengthened by a fine spiral filament. In the Lithobiidae the tracheae do not anastomose; but in Scolopendra and Geophilus the main trunks in each segment fuse transversely with those of the opposite side and also longitudinally with those of the preceding and succeeding segments.

In Scutigera the tracheae differ both in structure and position from those of all other Chilopoda. The spiracles, unpaired and seven in number, open in the median dorsal line. Each leads into a short sac from which five tracheal tubes depend into the pericardial blood-sinus.

Existing Chilopoda may be classified as follows, into five orders referable to two subclasses—

Subclass 1, Pleurostigma.—Chilopods furnished with a rich system of branching tracheal tubes, the spiracles of which are paired and open upon the pleural area of more or fewer of the somites. Each leg-bearing somite contains a distinct tergum and sternum, the number of sterna never exceeding that of the terga. Eyes are either preserved or lost; when preserved they are represented either by a single one-lensed ocellus or by an aggregation of such ocelli on each side of the head. The anterior portion of the head, bearing the labrum, is bent sharply downwards and backwards beneath the larger posterior portion lying behind the antennae, so that these appendages, approximated in the middle line, project directly forwards from the margin of the head formed by this retroversion of the labral area. The maxillae are short and have no sensory organ; the palpognaths consist of four segments, and the toxicognaths have their basal segments fused to form a single coxal plate.

Order 1. Geophilomorpha.—Chilopods with a large and indefinite number of somites, most of which are partially or completely divided into a smaller anterior segment, represented by a pretergal and two presternal sclerites, and a larger posterior segment bearing the spiracles and legs. Spiracles are present upon all the leg-bearing somites except the first and last; and the legs which are short and subequal in length consist of six segments, the basal of which remains small. There are no eyes, and the antennae consist invariably of fourteen segments. The tergal plate of the somite bearing the toxicognaths always remains distinct and separates the head-shield from the tergum of the first leg-bearing somite. The penultimate and antepenultimate segments of the toxicognaths are reduced on the preaxial side of the appendage to the condition of arthrodial integumental folds and suppressed on the postaxial side where the distal segment or fang is firmly jointed to the femoral segment. In the last leg-bearing somite the pleural sclerites coalesce with the coxa of the appendage; but the second segment (trochanter) of this appendage does not fuse with the third (femur). The genital and anal somites are not retractile within the last leg-bearing somite, and the gonopods typically persist in the male as small two-jointed appendages and in the female as jointed or unjointed sclerites. The young are hatched with the full number of segments.

Remarks.—The Geophilomorpha are universally distributed in suitable localities. The number of families into which the order should be divided is as yet unsettled, some authors admitting several groups of this rank, others referring all the genera to a single family, Geophilidae. In habits the Geophilidae are mostly subterranean, living in the earth and feeding principally upon earthworms. Occasionally they may be found eating fruit or fungi, probably for the sake of moisture. Although without eyes, they are extremely sensitive to light, and when exposed to it crawl away in serpentine fashion to the nearest sheltered spot, feeling the way with their antennae. They can, however, progress with almost equal facility backwards, using the legs of the posterior pair as feelers. Differing from the majority of the family in habits are the two species Linotaenia maritima and Schendyla submarina, which live under stones or seaweed between tide-marks on the coasts of western Europe. Most, if not all, the species are provided with glands, which open upon the sterna and secrete a fluid which in some forms (Himantarium) is blood-red, while in others it is phosphorescent. In the tropical form Orphnaeus phosphoreus the fluid is known to possess this property; and its luminosity has been repeatedly observed in England in the autumn in the case of Linotaenia acuminata and L. crassipes.

The number of pairs of legs within this family varies from between thirty and forty to over one hundred and seventy. Corresponding discrepancies are observable in size, the smallest specimens being less than 1 in. long and barely 1 mm. wide, while the largest example recorded, a specimen of Notiphilides from Venezuela, was 11 in. long and 1⁄3 of an inch wide.

When pairing takes place the female fertilizes herself by taking up a spermatophore which a male has left upon a sheet of web for that purpose. The female lays a cluster of eggs in some sheltered spot, sometimes in a specially prepared nest, and encircling them with her body, keeps guard until the young disperse and shift for themselves.

Order 2. Scolopendromorpha.—Chilopods differing principally from the Geophilomorpha in that the number of leg-bearing somites is definitely fixed at twenty-three or twenty-one. These are differentiated into larger and smaller, which alternate with nearly complete regularity. The anterior portion of each somite is only partially cut off as a subsegment. The tergal plate of the somite bearing the toxicognaths is suppressed, probably by fusion with the tergum of the first leg-bearing somite. The antennae consist of a number of segments varying from seventeen to about thirty, and usually differing in the individuals of a species. The second segment (trochanter) of the legs of the last pair is coalesced with the third (femur). In only one genus, namely Plutonium, which occurs in Italy, is there a pair of spiracles for each leg-bearing segment, except the first and last, as in the Geophilomorpha. In most genera there are only nine pairs of spiracles situated upon the 3rd, 5th, 8th, 10th, 12th, 14th, 16th, 18th and 20th leg-bearing segments, as in Scolopendra, Cormocephalus, Cryptops, &c. In genera with twenty-three pairs of legs, like Scolopocryptops, there is an additional pair of spiracles on the twenty-second pedigerous segment; and a few genera such as Rhysida, Edentistoma, possess a pair upon the 7th segment. Eyes, when present, are always four in number on each side. The newly hatched young has the full complement of appendages.

This order is divided into four families:—Scolopendridae (Scolopendra, Rhysida), Cryptopidae (Cryptops, Theatops), Scolopocryptopidae (Scolopocryptops, Otocryptops) and Newportudae (Newportia). Apart from the frigid zones it is cosmopolitan in distribution, though only one genus (Cryptops) extends into north temperate latitudes. In the tropics and warmer countries of the southern hemisphere the genera and species are particularly abundant, and individuals reach the greatest dimensions, some specimens of the tropical American species Scolopendra gigantea exceeding 12 in. in length. They are strictly carnivorous, their diet consisting of any animal, vertebrate or invertebrate, small enough to be overcome. They live in damp obscure places, under logs of wood or stones, and are nocturnal, shunning, like the Geophilidae, exposure to light; and as in the Geophilidae, the females guard their eggs and young until the latter disperse to lead an independent life.

Order 3. Craterostigmomorpha.—Chilopods with twenty-one tergal plates as in the typical genera of Scolopendromorpha, but with only fifteen pairs of legs as in the Lithobiomorpha. As in some members of the latter order there is a single ocellus on each side of the head, the penultimate and antepenultimate segments of the toxicognaths are complete on the postaxial side of the appendage, and spiracles are present upon the 3rd, 5th, 8th, 10th, 12th and 14th leg-bearing somites. In the size and shape of the head, of the toxicognaths, of the tergal plate of this somite, and of the first leg-bearing somite, great similarity to some genera of Geophilomorpha (e.g. Mecistocephalus) is presented; but in the structure of the posterior end of the body this order differs from all the other orders of Chilopoda. The skeletal elements of the last leg-bearing segment are welded together to form a subcylindrical tube, and the genital and anal somites are represented by a pair of chitinous valves capable of opening below for the escape of the genital and intestinal products.

This order, containing the family Craterostigmidae, is based upon a remarkable genus and species Craterostigmus tasmanianus, of which only two specimens are known. These were collected under stones upon the summit of Mount Rumney in Tasmania. They are about 1½ in. in length; but nothing has been recorded of their habits. The chief morphological interest attaching to Craterostigmus is that, apart from certain structural peculiarities of its own, it presents features previously believed to be found exclusively either in the Scolopendromorpha, or the Geophilomorpha, or the Lithobiomorpha; and it shows how the Lithobiomorpha may be derived from a Scolopendromorphous type most nearly resembling Plutonium by the excalation of the third, sixth, ninth, eleventh, fourteenth and seventeenth leg-bearing somites.

Order 4. Lithobiomorpha. Chilopoda with fifteen pairs of leg-bearing somites differentiated into larger and smaller, the 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 8th, 10th, 12th and 14th being large, the others small. Spiracles present upon all the larger with the exception sometimes of the 1st. The toxicognaths are relatively weaker than in the orders hitherto considered, and have their basal segments less firmly fused mesially. In correlation with their weaker muscularity the first leg-bearing segment is relatively small. The gonopods, present and usually jointed in both sexes, are especially well developed and forcipate in the female, and arise from a large ventral plate resulting from the fusion of their coxae with the sternum of the genital somite. The antennae are many-jointed, and there is a single ocellus or a cluster of ocelli on each side of the head. The coxae of the legs are large, and those of the last four or five pairs usually contain glands opening by large orifices. The newly-hatched young has only seven pairs of legs, the remaining pairs being successively added as growth proceeds.

The genera of this order are divisible into three families, the Lithobiidae (Lithobius, Bothropolys), Henicopidae (Henicops, Haasiella), the Cermatobiidae (Cermatobius). Cermatobius, based upon a single species, martensii, from the isl. of Adenara, is of peculiar interest, since in the absence of coxal pores, and the length and multi-articulation of the antennae and tarsal segments, it approaches more nearly to Scutigera than does any other pleurostigmous Chilopod. It is also stated that the spiracles have assumed a more dorsal position, thus foreshadowing the completely dorsal situation they have taken up in the Notostigma. The Henicopidae, containing centipedes of small size, attains its maximum of development in the southern continents and islands, more particularly Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and South America. One genus (Lamyctes) however, occurs in Europe. The Lithobiidae, on the contrary, are almost exclusively northern in range, being particularly abundant and of large size individually in Europe, extra-tropical Asia, and North and Central America. In habits the Lithobiidae closely resemble the Scolopendridae. They are, however, comparatively far more agile with their shorter, more compact bodies and stronger legs. They are mostly of small size, the largest species, Lithobius fusciatus, of south Europe measuring only 2 in. in length of body. The females do not guard their eggs, but coat them with soil and leave them to their fate.

Subclass 2, Notostigma.—Chilopods with a series of median dorsal tracheal sacs furnished with tubes dipping into the pericardial blood space, and opening each by an unpaired spiracle upon the 1st, 3rd, 5th, 8th, 10th, 12th and 14th leg-bearing somites. This characteristic is accompanied by the complete disappearance of the tergum of the 7th, either by fusion with that of the 8th or by excalation, and by the evanescence of the terga of the 2nd, 4th, 6th, 9th, 11th and 13th pedigerous somites. The preantennal area of the head is not strongly reflexed inferiorly, and the eyes are large and compound. The maxillae are long and have a sensory organ, the palpognaths are long, spiny and composed of five segments, like the primitive Chilopod leg, and the toxicognaths have their basal segments disunited and independently movable. Gonopods duplicated in the male.

This subclass contains the single order Scutigeromorpha and the family Scutigeridae. As in the Lithobiomorpha there are fifteen pairs of legs, the gonopods are well developed in both sexes and the young is hatched with only seven pairs of legs. The legs and antennae in the adult are extremely long and many jointed. In habits as well as in structure the Scutigeridae, of which Scutigera is the best-known genus, differ greatly from other centipedes. Although they hide under stones and logs of wood like Lithobius, they are not lucifugous but diurnal, and may be seen chasing their foes in the blazing sun. They run with astonishing speed and have the power of dropping their legs when seized. South of about the 40th parallel of north latitude they are universally distributed in suitable localities. In most species the body only reaches a length of about 1 in.; but twice that size or more is reached by examples of the Indian species Scutigera longicornis.

Some fossils of Carboniferous age have been described as Chilopoda by Scudder, who refers them to two families, Gerascutigeridae and Eoscolopendridae. But until the specimens have been examined by zoologists the genera they are alleged to represent cannot be taken seriously into consideration. Remains of centipedes closely related to existing forms have been recorded from Oligocene beds.

(R. I. P.)

CENTLIVRE, SUSANNA (c. 1667-1723), English dramatic writer and actress, was born about 1667, probably in Ireland, whither her father, a Lincolnshire gentleman named Freeman, had been forced to flee at the Restoration on account of his political sympathies. When sixteen she married the nephew of Sir Stephen Fox, and on his death within a year she married an officer named Carroll, who was killed in a duel. Left in poverty, she began to support herself, writing for the stage, and some of her early plays are signed S. Carroll. In 1706 she married Joseph Centlivre, chief cook to Queen Anne, who survived her. Her first play was a tragedy, The Perjured Husband (1700), and she herself appeared for the first time at Bath in her comedy Love at a Venture (1706). Among her most successful comedies are—The Gamester (1705); The Busy Body (1709); A Bold Stroke for a Wife (1718); The Basset-table (1706); and The Wonder! a Woman keeps a Secret (1714), in which, as the jealous husband, Garrick found one of his best parts. Her plots, verging on the farcical, were always ingenious and amusing, though coarse after the fashion of the time, and the dialogue fluent. She never seems to have acted in London, but she was a friend of Rowe, Farquhar and Steele. Mrs Centlivre died on the 1st of December 1723. Her dramatic works were published, with a biography, in 1761 (reprinted 1872).

CENTO, a town of Emilia, Italy, in the province of Ferrara, 18 m. S.E. direct from the town of Ferrara; 50 ft. above sea-level; it is reached by road (6 m. to the W.) from the station of S. Pietro in Casale, 15 m. S.W. by W. of Ferrara, and also by a steam tramway (18 m. N.) from Bologna to Pieve di Cento, on the opposite bank of the Reno. Pop. (1901) 4307 (town), 19,078 (commune). It is connected by a navigable canal with Ferrara. It was the birthplace of the painter Giovanni Francesco Barbieri (Guercino). The communal picture-gallery and several churches contain works by him, but none of first-rate importance. A statue of him stands in front of the 16th century Palazzo Governativo. The town was surrounded by walls, the gates of which are preserved. The origin of the name is uncertain.

CENTO (Gr. κέντρων, Lat. cento, patchwork), a composition made up by collecting passages from various works. The Byzantine Greeks manufactured several out of the poems of Homer, among which may be mentioned the life of Christ by the famous empress Eudoxia, and a version of the Biblical history of Eden and the Fall. The Romans of the later empire and the monks of the middle ages were fond of constructing poems out of the verse of Virgil. Such were the Cento Nuptialis of Ausonius, the sketch of Biblical history which was compiled in the 4th century by Proba Falconia, wife of a Roman proconsul, and the hymns in honour of St Quirinus taken from Virgil and Horace by Metellus, a monk of Tegernsee, in the latter half of the 12th century. Specimens may be found in the work of Aldus Manutius (Venice, 1504; Frankfort, 1541, 1544). In 1535 Laelius Capitulus produced from Virgil an attack upon the dissolute lives of the monks; in 1536 there appeared at Venice a Petrarca Spirituale; and in 1634 Alexander Ross (a Scotsman, and one of the chaplains of Charles I.) published a Virgilius Evangelizans, seu Historia Domini nostri Jesu Christi Virgilianis verbis et versibus descripta.

CENTRAL AMERICA, that portion of the American continent which lies between Mexico and Colombia, comprising the British crown colony of British Honduras, and the six independent republics of Guatemala, Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama. These seven divisions are described in separate articles. Central America is bounded towards the N. by the Caribbean Sea, and towards the S. by the Pacific Ocean, and extends between 7° 12′ and 18° 3′ N. and between 77° 12′ and 92° 17′ W. It has an area of about 208,500 sq. m., and stretches for some 1300 m. from N.W. to S.E., in a succession of three serpentine curves, reaching its greatest breadth, 450 m., between the Peninsula of Nicoya and the north coast of Honduras, and diminishing to 35 m. in the Isthmus of Panama. The eastern boundary of Central America was usually regarded as identical with that of Costa Rica until 1903, when the republic of Panama was formed out of the northern territories of Colombia; and the more modern definition given above does not command the universal assent of geographers, because it fails to include the whole region up to the natural frontier on the north-west, i.e. the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in Mexico. It has, however, the support of political and historical considerations, as well as of common usage; and it may therefore be regarded as adequate, although, in respect of climate and natural products, it would be more accurate to define Central America as lying between Tehuantepec and Darien.

Physical Features.—The Cordilleras, or mountain chains of Central America do not form a complete link between the western ranges in the north and south of the continent, for their continuity is interrupted by various depressions, of which the chief is the lacustrine basin of Nicaragua. With these exceptions, they traverse Central America from end to end, their main axis trending from north-west to south-east. They do not, as a rule, rise in sharply serrated ridges or series of volcanic crests, like the Andes, but the central Cordilleras are disposed in a succession of mountain masses, with many lesser chains radiating from them. The principal summits have an altitude of 12,000 and even, in a few cases, of 13,000 ft., and the general character of the ranges is volcanic, many craters being still active. Large tracts of land remained imperfectly surveyed at the beginning of the 20th century, owing to the unhealthiness of the tropical climate, and the dense underwoods which impede exploration. In the northern part of Guatemala, on the Pacific coast of the same country, in British Honduras, along the Segovia river, on the Mosquito Coast, and in the basin of Lake Nicaragua and the San Juan river, there are broad stretches of comparatively flat country. The main line of watershed is everywhere nearer to the Pacific than to the Atlantic, except in southern Costa Rica and Panama, where it is almost equidistant from the two oceans. In consequence, the rivers of the Pacific seaboard are mostly short and swift,—mere mountain torrents, in many instances, until they reach the sands and swamps which border the sea. The rivers of the Atlantic littoral descend more gradually, and by longer channels. The largest of them is the Segovia, in Nicaragua and Honduras, which has a course of 450 m. Lake Nicaragua, the largest inland sheet of water, has an area exceeding 3500 sq. m. There are also several mountain lakes of exceptional interest and beauty, such as Atitlán and Amatitlán, in Guatemala, besides two great land-locked salt-water lakes—the Pearl Lagoon of the Mosquito Coast, and the Carataska Lagoon in Honduras.

Geology.—The neck of land which unites the continents of North and South America is not, geologically, the direct continuation of either, but constitutes a third element which is wedged, as it were, between the other two. The folds in the earth’s crust which form the Andes and the Western ranges of North America, are not continued along the connecting isthmus, where, on the contrary, the strata are folded from west to east, obliquely across the trend of the continent. It should, however, be noticed that the Andes, as they approach the Caribbean sea, bend round towards the east; and it is probable that the folds of the North American Cordillera similarly bend eastward beneath the volcanic rocks of Mexico. The folds of Central America are tangential to the two arcs thus formed.

By far the greater part of Central America and Mexico is covered by Cretaceous and Tertiary deposits, both sedimentary and volcanic; but the foundation on which they rest is exposed at intervals. From the Rio Grande to the southern declivity of the Mexican plateau the existence of ancient crystalline rocks at the surface is yet unproved, but they probably occur in the Sierra Madre del Pacifico. South of the plateau, in the state of Oaxaca, low mountain ridges composed of granites and gneisses, supposed to be of Archaean age, begin to appear. They strike from west to east, and mark the front of the series of east and west folds which stand en échelon across the Central American region. Between the 15th and 17th parallels of latitude, in the state of Chiapas and in the republic of Guatemala, there is a second group of ridges composed of granites and schists with an eastward trend. In this case the evidence of age is clear, for the rocks are covered by a limestone which is proved to be Pre-Carboniferous. Similar rocks, supposed to be of Archaean or at least of early Palaeozoic age, occupy considerable areas in British Honduras, Honduras and northern Nicaragua, and occur also in Costa Rica and perhaps in Panama; and wherever the strike has been observed, it is approximately from west to east. The presence of Palaeozoic rocks has been proved in Guatemala and the adjacent state of Chiapas, where limestones have been found containing many unmistakable Carboniferous fossils, and below these is a considerable thickness of beds supposed to be Silurian. Nowhere else in the Central American region is there any palaeontological evidence of Palaeozoic rocks.

The Mesozoic series begins with sands and red or yellow clays containing plant remains and possibly of Triassic age; but the occurrence of these deposits is limited to a few small isolated outcrops. Jurassic beds have been found in Mexico but not in Central America. The Cretaceous system, consisting of a lower series of clays, sandstones and conglomerates, followed conformably by an upper series of limestones, covers a considerable area in Chiapas, Guatemala and Honduras, and is found also in Costa Rica. The upper series contains hippurites. The greater part of the eastern half of the Mexican plateau is also formed of Cretaceous beds.

The Tertiary system may be conveniently divided into two divisions. The lower, of Eocene and Oligocene age, consists generally of sand and clays which were evidently laid down near a shore line. The upper division also, including the Pliocene and Pleistocene (which have not yet been clearly distinguished from each other), is usually of shallow water origin; but in the northern part of Yucatan it includes beds of chalky limestone, like those of the Antilles, which may have been deposited in a deeper sea.

It is probable that folding took place at more than one geological epoch, and the whole series of beds up to the Oligocene is involved in the folds. The Pliocene, on the other hand, is usually undisturbed, and the final effort must, therefore, have occurred during the Miocene period, which appears to have been a period of great earth movement throughout the Caribbean region. From the southern extremity of the Mexican plateau to the Colombian border, the strike of the folds—of the Mesozoic and early Tertiary deposits, as well as of the older rocks—is in general from east to west; but there is one considerable exception. On both sides of the deep depression which crosses Honduras from Puerto Cortez to the Gulf of Fonseca, the strike is commonly from north to south. The depression is probably a “Graben” or trough formed by faulting.

The great volcanoes of Mexico and Central America stand upon the Pacific side of the continent, and it is only where the land contracts to a narrow neck that their products spread over to the Caribbean shore. The extent of the volcanic deposits is very great, and over a wide area they entirely conceal the original structural features of the country. The eruptions began towards the close of the Cretaceous period and continue to the present day. The rocks are lavas and ashes, chiefly of andesitic or basaltic composition, but rhyolites and trachytes also occur, and phonolite has been met with in one or two places.

According to R.T. Hill, there is but little geological evidence of any Tertiary or later connexion between the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific, excepting, perhaps, a shallow opening during the Eocene period. It should, however, be stated that all authorities are not agreed upon this point, and K. Sapper found marls and sandstones which he believes to belong to the Upper Tertiary, lying horizontally at a height of about 7500 ft. in the Mexican state of Chiapas. Unfortunately the fossils obtained from these beds were lost.

Climate.—The climate of Central America is subject to the most marked local differences of heat and cold, owing partly to the proximity of two oceans, partly to the variations of altitude which render such territories as the swamps of the coast, or the lowlands of British Honduras and northern Guatemala, totally unlike the alpine regions of Salvador and Costa Rica. The whole area may, however, be roughly divided into a tropical zone (tierra caliente), from sea-level to about 1500 ft.; a temperate zone (tierra templada), from 1500 to 5000 ft.; and a cold zone (tierra fria), above 5000 ft. These figures are, of course, only approximately correct; and it often happens that, at the same elevation, the heat is greater on the Pacific than on the Atlantic versant. The rainy season on the Pacific slope varies in duration from four to six months, between April and December. It lengthens as the altitude increases. On the coast, it corresponds with the prevalence of the south-west monsoon, the tempestuous Cordonazo de San Francisco, or “Flagellation of St Francis,” as it is called in Mexico, and it is often interrupted by an interval of two or three weeks of fine weather, known as the Veranillo de San Juan, or “Little summer of St John.” In the rainy season, the morning has usually a clear sky; about two or three o’clock in the afternoon the clouds begin to gather in great cumulus masses; suddenly the lightning flashes out and the rain crashes down; and by evening the sky is clear and starry. North winds are most usual during the dry season. On the Atlantic coast the trade-winds may bring rain in any month, and, owing to the moist atmosphere, the heat is more oppressive. The rainfall may vary in successive years from less than 50 in. to nearly 200 in., owing to the occurrence of cloud-bursts. Frosts are not rare above 7000 ft., but snow seldom falls.

Fauna.—The fauna of Central America is more closely connected with the fauna of South than with that of North America. As the region is comparatively small, and its limits conventional, there are comparatively few species that it can claim as peculiarly its own. It is almost entirely free from the presence of animals dangerous to man. Of felines it possesses the jaguar (Felis onza), popularly called the tiger; the cuguar (Felis concolor), popularly called the lion; the tigrillo (Felis tigrina), which is sometimes kept tame; and other species. Several species of monkeys (Mycetes and Ateles) are numerous in the warm coast region. The Mexican deer (Cervus mexicanus) has a wide range both in the lowlands and highlands. Besides the tapir there are several varieties of wild pig, such as the marrano de monte (Sus torquatus) and the jabali or javali (Sus labiatus javali). The Edentata are represented by a species of armadillo, the honey-bear (Myrmecophaga tomandua), and the Myrmecophaga didactyla; and among the rodents may be mentioned, besides rats, hares and rabbits, the fruit-eating cotorra and tepes-cuinte (Dasyprocta aguti and Coelogenys paca), and the troublesome Geomys mexicana. The manatee is common in all the larger streams. Much annoyance is caused to the agriculturist by the little marsupial called the tacuacine, or the Didelphys carcinora, its allied species. The bats are so numerous that villages have sometimes had to be left to their undisputed occupancy. In the south-east of Costa Rica the inhabitants are at times compelled to withdraw, with all their live-stock, before the swarms of large migratory vampires which in a single night can bleed the strongest animal to death. Most of the domestic animals—the horse, ox, goat, sheep, pig, dog, rabbit, common fowl, peacock and pigeon—are of European origin, and are popularly grouped together as animales de Castilla. For the bird collector there is a rich harvest. The catalogue of the National Museum at Washington shows that Costa Rica alone possesses more than twice as many species of birds as the whole of Europe. Among birds of prey it is sufficient to mention Corogyps atratus, the commonest of the vultures, which acts as a universal scavenger, the Cathartes aura, the beautiful Polyborus vulgaris, and the king of the vultures (Sarcorhamphus papa). Neither the condor of the southern continent nor the great eagles of the northern are known. The parrot, macaw and toucan are found in all parts; the crow, blackbird, Mexican jay, ricebird, swallow, rainbird, wood-pecker, humming-bird and trogon are also widely distributed. A bird of the last-named genus, the quetzal, quijal or quesal (Trogon resplendens) is of special note, not only from the fact that its yellow tail-feathers. 2 or 3 ft. long, were formerly worn as insignia by the Indian princes, but because it has been adopted as the emblematical figure on the national arms of Guatemala. The gallinaceous order is well represented, and comprises several peculiar species, as the pavo de cacho, and the Peten turkey (Meleagris ocellata), which has a bronze sheen on its plumage; and aquatic birds, it is almost needless to add, are unusually numerous in a region so richly furnished with lagoons, rivers and lakes.

Besides the alligator, which swarms in many rivers, the almost endless varieties of Central American reptiles include the harmless boba or chicken-snake, python and black snake; the venomous corali, taboba, culebra de sangre and rattlesnake; iguanas of great size, scorpions, edible lizards and other lizards said to be poisonous. In the rivers and lakes, as in both seas, fish of many kinds abound; turtles and tortoises are exported; and there are valuable pearl and oyster fisheries. Insect life is even richer and more varied. Of the Coleoptera, the Camelicorns, the Longicorns, the Curculionids, and the Chrysomelines are said to be best represented, and of the Lepidoptera the prevalent genera are—Ageronia, Papilio, Heliconia, Sphinx and Bombyx. There are five species of bees, and the European honey-bee, known as aveja de Castilla or “bee of Castile,” has been naturalized. Ants are common, and may sometimes be seen marching in a column 3 or 4 m. long. The mosquito, wood-tick, flea and locust are unfortunately no less plentiful in certain districts, but their distribution varies greatly, the mosquito being almost unknown in parts of Honduras. A curious species of butterfly is the Timetes Chiron, which migrates in countless multitudes from the forests of Honduras to the Mosquito Coast, but is never known to return.

Flora.—The flora of Central America ranges from the alpine to the tropical, with the transition from one climatic zone to another. Although its forest growths are, on the whole, inferior in size to those of corresponding latitudes in the eastern hemisphere, it is unsurpassed for beauty, luxuriance and variety. In the volcanic districts, the soil is extremely fertile, yielding, where cultivated and irrigated, magnificent crops of sugar, cotton, rice, tobacco, coffee, cocoa and maize. Indigo is produced in small quantities; sugar yields two or three crops, and maize as many as four, this cereal supplying a chief staple of food. Plantains, bananas, beans, tomatoes, yams, arrowroot, pine-apples, guavas, citrons and many other tropical fruits are also cultivated, while the extensive primeval forests abound in mahogany, cedars, rosewood, ironwood, rubber, gum copal, vanilla, sarsaparilla, logwood and many other dye-woods, medicinal plants, and valuable timbers. Conspicuous amongst the forest trees are the giant ceiba, or pyramidal bombax, and the splendid Coyal palm (Cocos butyracea, L.), with feathery leaves 15 to 20 ft. long, golden flowers 3 ft. high, and a sap which when fermented produces the intoxicating chicha or vino de Coyol. In Guatemala occurs the remarkable Herrania purpurea, a “Chocolate tree,” whose seeds yield a finer flavoured chocolate than the cocoa itself. The same country is famous for its magnificent orchids, huge arborescent thistles, and a remarkable plant called by the Spaniards Flor de la Calentura, “fever flower,” from the heat which it is said to emit at the moment of fertilization. Salvador produces an abundance of medicinal plants, notably the so-called Peruvian balsam (Myrospermum salvatorense); in Honduras there are immense forests of conifers, resembling those of the Landes in France; in Nicaragua a characteristic tree is the cortes (Tecoma sideroxylori) yielding timber as hard as ebony, and noteworthy for the golden blossom with which it is entirely covered after the leaves have fallen.

Inhabitants—In 1905 the population of Central America numbered about 4,750,000, and this total tends to increase, despite the unhealthy climate of many districts, the terribly high average of infant mortality, and the slow progress of immigration. Some authorities estimate it at 5,500,000. The vast majority of the inhabitants are of mixed Indian and Spanish blood, but the Indian element predominates everywhere except in Costa Rica, where the whites are exceptionally numerous. The Indian races have not shown the same power to adapt themselves to modern civilization as the Mexicans; in some regions there are tribes remaining in a state of complete savagery although before the Spanish conquest their ancestors attained a high level of culture (see below under Archaeology). The density of population throughout Central America is little more than 25 per sq. m.; and it is clear that several large areas now thinly peopled once maintained a far greater number of inhabitants. Such are parts of the Nicaraguan lake district, where the flora consists in great measure of plants that were formerly cultivated by the Indians. The depopulation of these areas was effected partly by tribal wars, partly by the harsh rule of the Spaniards. Apart from the German agricultural settlements in Guatemala and elsewhere, the foreign population is chiefly confined to the seaports and other centres of commerce, Great Britain, Germany and the United States being largely represented among the wealthier classes of residents; while the foreign labourers are mostly Italians or negroes, with a few Chinese on the Pacific coast.

History.—Central America was discovered by Columbus in August 1502; and part of the territory which is now Costa Rica was conquered by the Spaniards under Pedro Arias de Avila after 1513. Between 1522 and 1525, the authority of Avila was superseded, and his work of conquest completed by Hernando Cortes, who had already subjugated Mexico. Panama formed part of a distinct Spanish government, “New Granada”; British Honduras was colonized, though not formally annexed, in the 18th century; and over the Mosquito Coast the British government exercised a nominal protectorate after 1665. Otherwise the rest of Central America remained a Spanish dependency bearing the general name of “Guatemala,” until 1821. It ranked as a captaincy-general under the rule of a military governor, and was organized in five departments, corresponding in area with the modern republics of Guatemala, Honduras, Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. For three centuries it was administered by Spanish officials, who almost invariably devoted their whole energy to enriching themselves and the home authorities. The old Indian civilization was swept away; the native races were enslaved, maltreated and, for a time, demoralized. But their history offers no parallel to that of the West Indian Caribs, who failed to survive, and were replaced by hordes of African slaves. In Central America the Indians not only survived, thus leaving no room for any large negro population, but quickly acquired the language, religion and habits of their masters, with whom they intermarried. By the close of the 18th century, the majority had attained something like uniformity of life and thought. Racial distinctions had been obscured by intermarriage; even the term Ladino, or “Latin,” came to mean an educated man, whether of Spanish or Indian blood. Nowhere, except in Mexico, has a mixed or coloured race more completely absorbed the civilization of its white rulers; but so gradual and silent was the process that it passed almost unnoticed. Its result, the successful revolt of the Spanish colonies—colonies mainly peopled by Indians or half-castes—was no more a conflict of rival races or civilizations than the rebellion of the British colonies in North America.

“New Granada” attained its independence in 1819; and in 1821 “Guatemala” declared itself free. That the subsequent history of the Central American republics has been largely a record of civil war, maladministration and financial dishonesty, is perhaps due in part to racial inferiority. In part, however, it may be explained by the absence of any tradition of good government; perhaps also by the brevity and artificiality of the evolution which converted a debased slave-population into the citizens of modern democratic states. The five divisions of “Guatemala” were temporarily incorporated in the Mexican empire during 1822, but regained their autonomy (as Guatemala, Honduras, Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica) on the declaration of a Mexican republic, and in July 1823 combined to form the Republic of the United States of Central America. The Liberal or Federalist party, which was supreme in Honduras, found itself opposed by the Conservatives, including the clergy and former Spanish officials, who were very influential in Guatemala. A bitter and protracted struggle ensued. In 1837-1839 a Conservative rising, under Rafael Carrera, president of Guatemala, resulted in the overthrow of the Liberals, under General Francisco Morazan of Honduras; and in 1842, after a vain attempt to restore the Federal republic, Morazan was captured and shot. A fresh union of the republics (except Costa Rica) was concluded in 1842, and dissolved in 1845. The year 1850 was signalized by the conclusion, on the 19th of April, of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty (q.v.) between Great Britain and the United States, which was designed to facilitate the construction of an interoceanic canal. The history of this project is given in detail under [Panama Canal]. One important result of the treaty was the abandonment, in 1860, of the British protectorate over the Mosquito Coast. This event had been preceded by a decade of political disturbances. In 1850 Honduras, Salvador and Nicaragua had combined to restore federal unity; but their allied armies were defeated by the Guatemalans under Carrera. In 1856 the American adventurer, William Walker, endeavoured to usurp the government of Nicaragua; in 1860 he invaded Honduras and was captured and shot. His object was to assist the slave-holders of the United States by adding new slave-states to the Union. A further attempt to restore federal unity failed in 1885, and its promoter, Justo Rufino Barrios, president of Guatemala, lost his life. In 1895 the Greater Republic of Central America was formed by the union of Nicaragua, Salvador and Honduras; and a constitution was framed providing for the admission of Guatemala and Costa Rica; in December 1898 it was dissolved, as unsatisfactory to Salvador. On the 4th of November 1903 Panama, which had since 1863 formed part of Colombia, declared itself an autonomous republic. Its independence was immediately recognized by the United States, and shortly afterwards by the European powers. The United States also forbade the landing of any Colombian force on the territories of Panama, and thus guaranteed the security of the new state.

Bibliography.—For a general description of Central America, and especially of its physical features, the following monographs by K. Sapper are of prime importance:—In den Vulcangebieten Mittelamerikas und Westindiens (Stuttgart, 1905); Mittelamerikanische Reisen und Studien aus den Jahren 1888 bis 1900 (Brunswick, 1902), and Das nordliche Mittelamerika nebst einem Ausflug nach dem Hochland von Anahuac (Brunswick, 1897); these all contain many useful illustrations and maps. See also Central America and the West Indies, by A.H. Keane, edited by Sir C. Markham (London, 1901, 2 vols., with maps and illustrations); Central and South America, by H.W. Bates (London, 1882); The Spanish American Republics, by T. Child (London, 1892); and Expedition nach Zentral und Sudamerika, by P. Preuss (Berlin, 1901). For geology, see “The Geological History of the Isthmus of Panama and Portions of Costa Rica,” by R.T. Hill, in Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool. Harvard, vol. xxviii., No. 5 (1898); and the following by K. Sapper:— “Grundzüge der physikalischen Geographic von Guatemala,” in Petermann’s Mitt. Ergänzungsheft, No. 113 (1894), “Über Gebirgsbau und Boden des nördlichen Mittelamerika,” ibid., No. 127 (1899), and “Über Gebirgsbau und Boden des südlichen Mittelamerika,” ibid., No. 151 (1905). The States of Central America, by E.G. Squier (New York, 1858), is still valuable, as are others of the numerous essays, pamphlets, &c., on Central American affairs left by this author; see the bibliography of his writings published in New York in 1876. The Bulletins of the Bureau of American Republics (Washington, from 1893) give ample information on commerce and industry. See also History of Central America, by H. Bancroft (San Francisco, 1881-1887. 3 vols.).

Archaeology of Central America

Discoveries and investigations carried on during the 19th century have thrown much light on the splendid past of Central America. The still extant ruins of great buildings, unlike anything which is known in the old world, testify to the high culture attained in pre-Columbian days by several native peoples differing greatly from one another in speech and racial affinities. As a science the archaeology of Central America has scarcely yet emerged from its infancy. Entire branches are still wholly uninvestigated. Amongst the numerous problems which await solution must still be reckoned the decipherment of the inscriptions, which hitherto has not progressed beyond the discovery of calendar systems and the relative datings involved in such systems.

For a complete survey of this ancient civilization, so far as it has been investigated, it is necessary to include with Central America, properly so called, a considerable portion of the Mexican territories south and east of the isthmus of Tehuantepec. The peoples inhabiting Yucatan, Campeche, Guatemala, Chiapas and Oaxaca present at the first view striking ethnical differences. On a linguistic basis, however, they may be united into several large groups. Thus, Yucatan and the greater part of Guatamala are inhabited by the Mayas, with whom may be included the still savage Lacantun or Lacandones. Related to these linguistically are the Tzendals in Chiapas and the Quiches and Cackchiquels in Guatemala, as well as the less important tribes of the Mam, Pokoman, Pokonchi, Tzotzil, Tzutuhil and Ixil. Between these there are patches of country in which dialects of the Mexican are spoken. In Oaxaca there is an extraordinary mixture of languages, some of which, like that of the Huave of Tehuantepec, are of quite unknown affinities; the bulk of the population, however, is composed of Mixtecs and Zapotecs with which the Mixe and Zoque on the east are connected. Mexican dialects also occur in isolated parts of Oaxaca.

Mayan Culture.—The civilization of the Mayas may well have been reared upon one more ancient, but the life of that culture of which the ruins are now visible certainly lasted no more than 500 years. The date of its extinction is unknown, but in certain places, notably Mayapan and Chichenitza, the highest development seems to be synchronous with the appearance of foreign, viz. Mexican or Nahua elements (see below). This quite distinctive local character suggests that the cities in question played a certain preponderating role, a hypothesis with which the scanty documentary evidence is in agreement. On the other hand the Mayan culture evinces an evident tendency to assimilate heterogeneous elements, obliterating racial distinctions and imposing its own dominant character over a wide area. Oaxaca, the country of the Mixtecs and Zapotecs, became, as was natural from its geographical position midway between Yucatan and Mexico, the meeting-ground where two archaeological traditions which are sharply contrasted in their original homes united.

Central American architecture is characterized by a fine feeling for construction, and the execution is at once bold and aesthetically effective. Amongst the various ruins, some of which represent the remains of entire cities, Architecture while others are no more than groups of buildings or single buildings, certain types persistently recur. The commonest of such types are pyramids and galleries. The pyramids are occasionally built of brick, but most usually of hewn stone with a covering of finely-carved slabs. Staircases lead up to the top from one or more sides. Some pyramids are built in steps. Usually the platform on the top of a pyramid is occupied by buildings, the typical distribution of which is into two parts, viz. vestibule and sanctuary. In connexion with the pyramid there are various subsidiary structures, such as altars, pillars, and sacrificial stones, to meet the requirements of ritual and worship, besides habitations for officials and “tennis-courts” for the famous ball-game like that played by the Mexicans. The tennis-courts always run north and south, and all the buildings, almost without exception, have a definite orientation to particular points of the compass. Frequently the pyramids constitute one of the four sides of a quadrangular enclosure, within which are contained other pyramids, altars or other buildings of various dimensions.

The normal type of gallery is an oblong building, of which the front facing inwards to the enclosure is pierced by doors. These divide it into a series of rooms, behind which again there may be a second series. Occasionally the rooms are distributed round a central apartment, but this is ordinarily done only when a second storey has to be placed above them. The gallery-buildings may rise to as much as three storeys, the height, size and shape of the rooms being determined by the exigencies of vaulting. The principle of the true arch is unknown, so that the vaults are often of the corbelled kind, the slabs of the side-walls being made to overlap in succession until there remains only so narrow a space as may be spanned by a single flat stone. At Mitla, where the material used in the construction of the buildings was timber instead of stone, the larger rooms were furnished with stone pillars on which the beams could rest. The same principle recurs in certain ruins at Chichenitza. The tops and sides of the doors are often decorated with carved reliefs and hieroglyphs, and the entrances are sometimes supported by plain or carved columns and pilasters, of which style the serpent columns of Chichenitza afford the most striking example. On its external front one of these galleries may have a cornice and half-pillars. Above this is a plain surface of wall, then a rich frieze which generally exhibits the most elaborate ornamentation in the whole building. The subjects are geometrical designs in mosaic, serpents’ heads and human masks. The corners of the wall terminate in three-quarter pillars, above which the angles of the frieze frequently show grotesque heads with noses exaggerated into trunks. The roof of the gallery is flat and occasionally gabled.

Principal Sites.—Such are the general characteristics of Central American buildings, but it must be understood that almost every site exhibits peculiarities of its own, and the number of the ruined settlements even as at present known is very large. The most considerable are enumerated below.

Yucatan.—Of the very numerous ruins which are distributed over Yucatan and the islands of the east coast the majority still await exploration. A few words of special notice may be devoted to one or two sites in the centre of the peninsula which have already become famous. At Uxmal the buildings consist of five considerable groups, viz.—the Casa del Adivino, which is a step-pyramid 240 ft. long by 160 ft. wide and 80 ft. high, crowned by a temple 75 ft. long by 12 ft. wide; the Casa de Monjas, a striking erection of four oblong buildings on an extensive terrace; the Casa de Tortugas, Casa del Gobernador, and Casa de Palomas, the last of which is a group of six galleries surrounding a court. At Izamal there is a very imposing group of ruins, as yet quite insufficiently explored. At Chichenitza, a city of first-rate importance, situated 22 m. west of Valladolid, the ruins consist of eight principal groups, the chief of which are as follows. The Casa de Monjas, a three-storeyed building, attributable to several distinct periods; the Caracol, a round structure with dome in imitation of a snail-shell, showing evident traces of Mexican influence; El Castillo, a large temple standing on a base 200 ft. long and 75 ft. high, approached by staircases on all four sides, and furnished with serpent-pillars of a kind unknown anywhere else except at Uxmal and Tula near Mexico; an unnamed temple-pyramid, which is remarkable for a group of caryatid figures; a tennis-court; and finally the Tiger Temple, which contains marvellous coloured reliefs representing figures of warriors and place-hieroglyphs, all executed in a distinctively Mexican style. Yet another evidence of Mexican influence at Chichenitza is to be noted in five figures of the so-called Chac-mol type, that is to say, horizontal figures in which the arms are extended to the navel which is indicated by a cup-like depression. This Chac-mol type is characteristic of such sites as Tlascala and Cempoallan.

Other important sites in Yucatan are Chacmaltun, with fine wall-paintings; Tantah, with remarkable pillared facades; the ruins of Labna, Chunhuhub, and the caves of Loltun; and Xlabpak de Santa Rosa, where there is a three-storeyed temple palace. Two sculptured reliefs are of great interest; they represent a person holding a staff on which is a figure of the god Ah-bolon-tzacab.

Guatemala.—The Guatemalan ruins are distributed over a wide area. The most numerous and extensive are on the Usumacinta river. The most important sites in that district are Piedras Negras, and Yaxchilan or Menche Tinamit, where there are temples covered with sculptured reliefs and hieroglyphic inscriptions, and stelae and slabs carved with human figures placed in niches. In the Peten district, Tikal is famous for its splendid sculptures representing Kukulkan and other divinities. Near the modern city of Guatemala are the vast ruins of Guatemala-Mixco. Chacujál, which Cortes visited on his expedition of 1524-1525 is very possibly to be identified with the modern Pueblo Viejo on the river Tinaja. Chaculá and Quen-Santo between the headwaters of the Rio de Chiapas and the Rio Lacantun are two sites of a strongly marked local character. Series of three pyramids are peculiar to these two settlements, as also are pyramids with human figures on their platforms. Stelae discovered at Quen Santo have a calendar character, which proves that Mayan science had penetrated into what was probably the home of an old Lacantun culture.

Santa Lucia Cozumalhuapa, on the Pacific slope of the Cordilleras, is a very peculiar site. The ruins are those of a settlement which had already been deserted before Alvarado’s expedition of 1522. The sculptures of gods, goddesses and other figures, executed on enormous blocks of stone, show a distinctively Mexican character, with which, however, various Mayan features are blended. They may perhaps be attributed to some offshoot of the Nahua stock, probably the Pipil Indians, which developed on lines of its own in this remote corner.

Near the frontier of Honduras are the remarkable ruins of Quirigua, which rival Copan in importance and have suffered less from the ravages of the climate. The ruins of temples and palaces contain gigantic stone stelae of very fine workmanship, on which are sculptured human and animal figures representing hieroglyphs of the calendar dates.

Honduras.—Copan, one of the most important seats of Mayan civilization, lies close to the borders of Guatemala. The ruins comprise great buildings, temples, pyramids, &c. and contain sculptures of the highest interest. Especially noteworthy are altars in the form of a turtle and stelae covered with hieroglyphs. The hieroglyphs are of the kind usually found in such ruins, the meaning of which is so far clear that it is known that the commencement of an inscription records certain dates in the complicated calendar system of the Mayas. A collation of these dates demonstrates that the most ancient on record are separated from the most recent by an interval of only a few centuries. From this it may be concluded that the Mayan civilization, whether or not it was preceded by anything older, flourished for only a comparatively short period, the beginning of which cannot be placed many centuries before a.d. 1000.

According to Squier (Honduras, London, 1870, p. 75) the other principal ruins of Honduras are to be found in plains of the department of Comayagua, near Yarumela, near Lajamini, and in the ruined town of Cururu. They are “large, pyramidal, terraced structures, often faced with stones, conical mounds of earth and walls of stone.” Further ruins, such as those of Calamulla, Jamalteca, Maniana, Guasistagua, Chapuluca and Chapulistagua, are found in the department of Comayagua in the side valleys and adjoining tablelands. The most interesting and most extensive are the ruins of Tenampua (Pueblo Viejo), about 20 m. south-east of Comayagua. Here ramparts, defence works, terraced stone mounds and numerous large pyramids are to be found. Squier found further ruins in the west of Honduras, which have also been described in part by Stephens, and were probably first mentioned in 1576 by Diego Garcia de Palacio (Carta dirigida al Rei de España, published by Squier, New York, 1860).

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At Rio Ulloa are remains which testify to the existence of a large population in past days. Possibly they may be identified with a site of the name of Naco mentioned by Las Casas and by Bernal Diaz (Histoire véridique de la conquête de la Nouvelle Espagne, translated by D. Fourdanet, 2nd ed., Paris, 1877, ch. 178, p. 690).

Chiapas (Mexico).—The principal site is Palenque, the ruins of which were amongst the earliest of all to attract attention. The style of architecture, with the gigantic vaults and singular comb-shaped gables, distinguishes Palenque from Copan and Quirigua, which it surpasses also in the unequalled magnificence of its sculptures. Five out of the remarkably uniform series of buildings may be specially mentioned. They are the Great Palace, a complex structure of galleries and courts commanded by a three-storeyed tower, the Temples of the Cross, which are galleries constructed on terraces and containing the well-known reliefs, the Temple of Inscriptions, the Sun Temple and the Temple of the Relief. The sculptured figures of Palenque are familiar from many reproductions. The most characteristic groups represent a deity standing between worshippers who hold a staff surmounted by the water-god Ah-bolon-tzacab, the “god of the nine medicines.” The inscriptions on the famous Cross and in the Sun Temple contain calendar-datings which are remarkable as showing a particular combination of numbers and hieroglyphs, which does not occur elsewhere.

A whole series of sites is included within the geographical limits of Chiapas, which from the archaeologist’s standpoint must be considered as belonging properly to Guatemala. The country has been quite insufficiently explored.

Oaxaca (Mexico).—The bulk of the population of the province of Oaxaca is composed of a distinct racial group, best represented by the Zapotecs, who have been for an unknown length of time the intermediaries between the Nahua civilization of Mexico on the west and the Mayan on the east. The influence of the two separate currents may be detected in the bastard calendar system no less than in the still undeciphered inscriptions. The principal ruins are those of Mitla, the burial city of the priests and kings of the ancient Zapotecs, which bear a quite distinct character, though presenting certain analogies with the Mexican. One of the chief structures is a step-pyramid, rising in three steps to a height of 130 ft., another is a pyramid of brick. Besides these there are courts, surrounded by palaces which represented necropolises, the dwellings of the priests, of the chief priest, and of the king (with an audience-hall). The wall paintings of the “palaces” are especially admirable, and it is to be noted that the deities represented in them are those of the Mexican pantheon.

Monte Alban is interesting for the definitely Zapotec character of its sculptures. Quiengola near Tehuantepec is a site with extensive ruins including a fine tennis court.

British Honduras.—The antiquities of British Honduras have been but little investigated. In the scanty literature relating to them a few accounts of ruined places are to be found. In style these buildings closely resemble those of the neighbouring Yucatan. The ruins in the colony New Boston, mentioned by Froebel (Central America, p. 167), are of this kind. F. de P. Castells (see American Antiquarian, Chicago, 1904, vol. xxvi. pp. 32-37) describes the ruins, in the north of the colony, of “Ixim chech,” supposed to be the Indian form of the English name “Indian Church.” They are on the road to the Lake of Yaxha (green water), where further ruins are to be found. Thomas Gann gives detailed accounts of numerous mounds also in the northern part of British Honduras (see 19th Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, Washington, 1900, part i. pp. 661-692, with plates). The most interesting ruins are those which have been discovered in Santa Rita, at the mouth of the New River, near the town of Corosal. Here wonderful wall paintings in stucco came to light, which unfortunately Gann could only save in part. The remainder were destroyed by Indians. It should be remarked that a number of the mounds in Santa Rita were erected over ruins of buildings which must therefore be of older date than the mounds.

Salvador.—Pedro de Alvarado in his expedition of 1524 calls this whole district Cuscatan (Mex. Cozcatlan), that is, “Land of precious stones, of treasures, of abundance.” A further description of the land is given by Palacio (l.c.) in 1576. Although there are numerous relics of Mayan civilization buried in the earth; few ruins are to be seen on the surface. Karl Sapper has described three large ruins: Cuzcatlan near the capital, Tehuacan near S. Vicente, and Zacualpa on the Lake of Güija in the extreme north-west of the country. The ruins show a distinct affinity in style to those of the Mayan buildings in Guatemala, but they are less fine and artistically perfect. Probably the central and western districts of San Salvador were originally peopled by the same race of Mayas, and these tracts of country were later settled by the Mexican-speaking Pipiles.

A characteristic feature of the extensive ruins of Zacualpa is that the pyramids and ramparts have perpendicular steps which are higher than they are broad, and this peculiarity may be attributed to the influence of the Maya tribes, who are related to the Mams of Guatemala.

Decipherment of the Mayan Hieroglyphs.—The key to the decipherment, so far as this has progressed at present, was furnished by the Historia de las Cosas de Yucatan, a work written by Diego de Landa, the first bishop of the country. This professed to give, with much other more or less doubtful information, the full account of a calendar system analogous to that of the Mexicans, which was said to have been used by the Mayas (see [Mexico]). The signs for each of the 20 days and for the 18 weeks of 20 days are figured by Landa. The first step was to compare these with the hieroglyphic characters contained in the few Mayan picture manuscripts (Codex Troano, Cortesianus, Peresianus, Dresden Codex) which have survived the destructive fanaticism of the Spanish missionaries. Förstemann’s acute analysis detected that the bars and dots which occur along the margin and in the body of the pictorial scenes represented numerals, dots standing for each integer up to five, while for five a bar was used. Next, it was found that the order in which these numeral-signs are placed is regular, and that there are never more than five in a group. It was established that the first sign in such a group is that for the numeral 1 (Kin), the next that for 20 (Uinal), the third for 18×20 (Tun), the fourth for 18×20×20 (Katun), and the fifth for 18×20×20×20, that is to say, a cycle.

Had the available material for study been confined to the manuscripts, little more progress would have been made beyond establishing subsidiary details in the actual calendar. But when a similar analysis was applied to the numerous monuments discovered and figured by Maudslay and others, some important results of a general bearing were obtained. It was found that many of the hieroglyphs of various forms upon the stones were also of numeral value, and, what was of great importance, that they all referred back to a single starting-point. This starting-point or zero is no doubt the mythological date at which, according to Mayan cosmology, the world was created. It is placed at nine or ten cycles before the time when Copan and Quirigua were erected and the picture manuscripts made. And it is by reference to it in the inscriptions that such students as Seler, Goodman and others have been enabled, as already stated, to obtain a record of the relative chronology of the most famous monuments, to confine the period of their erection within the space of a few centuries, and approximately to fix even their absolute antiquity. Though much yet remains to be done, these are substantial results which have already been won from the study of the hieroglyphs.

Bibliography.—The Antiquités mexicaines of Dupaix (Paris, 1834), the Voyage pittoresque et archéologique dans la province d’Yucatan of F. de Waldeck (Paris, 1838), and the Monuments anciens du Mexique of Brasseur de Bourbourg and Waldeck (Paris, 1866) are quite out of date and superseded. Stephen’s Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan (New York, 1841 and 1867), and B.M. Norman’s Rambles in Yucatan (New York, 1843), are still of value, the first-mentioned especially for the drawings by Catherwood. Among the earlier writers may also be mentioned Charnay, Les Anciennes Villes du Nouveau Monde (Paris, 1885) and Cités et ruines américaines (Paris, 1863), the latter written in collaboration with Viollet-le-Duc. Those, however, who are not primarily bibliophiles will be content to study the following:—Maudslay (in Godman and Salvin’s Biologia Centrali-Americana, sect. Archaeology, London, 1889, &c.), a pioneer work containing the admirably presented results of scientific exploration. Maler, in Memoirs of the Peabody Museum, vol. ii. 1, 2 (Cambridge, U.S.A., 1901 and 1903); Holmes, Archaeological Studies among the Ancient Mexicans (Field Columbian Museum, Chicago, 1895); E. Seler, Die alten Ansiedelungen von Chacula (Berlin, 1901), Wandmalereien von Mitla (Berlin, 1895), Ges. Abhandlungen, vol. i. (Berlin, 1902) and vol. ii. (1904), Fuhrer von Mitla (Berlin, 1906). E. Förstemann has contributed many valuable essays to Globus and the Zeitschrift fur Ethnologie (Berlin); especially important are his commentaries to the Dresden Codex (Dresden, 1901), to the Codex Tro-Cortesianus Madrilensis (Danzig, 1902), and to the Codex Peresianus (Danzig, 1903). See also “The Archaic Maya Inscriptions,” by F.T. Goodman (in Biologia Centrali-Americana, section Archaeology, viii., 1897), and Report of an Archaeological Tour in Mexico in 1881, by A.F. Bandelier (Boston, 1884). Valuable bibliographies have been made by Bandelier (Notes on the Bibliography of Yucatan and Central America, Worcester, U.S.A., 1881) and by K. Häbler (“Die Maya Literatur und der Maya Apparat zu Dresden,” in the Zentralblatt fur Bibliothekwesen, xii., 1895). The Mayan picture MSS. have been published in facsimile as follows:—the Dresden Codex by Förstemann (Leipzig, 1880, and Dresden, 1892), and the Codex Tro by Brasseur de Bourbourg—Manuscrit Troano, étude sur le système graphique et la langue des Mayas (Paris, 1869-1870), the Codex Cortesianus by Léon de Rosny (Paris, 1883) and by F. de Dios de la Rada y Delgado and F.L. de Ayala y del Hierro (Madrid, 1893), the Codex Peresianus by Duruy and Brasseur de Bourbourg (Paris, 1864) and by L. de Rosny (Paris, 1887). The following relate especially to the ruins in Salvador:—La Universidad, by D. Gonzalez, vol. ii. ser. 3, No. 6, p. 283 (San Salvador, 1892-1893); Le Salvador pré-Colombien, études archéologiques, by F. de Montcasus de Ballore (Paris, 1891), 25 plates; Karl Sapper in Arch. fur Ethnologie, 9, p. 3 ff. (1896).

(W. L.*)

CENTRAL FALLS, a city of Providence county, Rhode Island, U.S.A., on the Blackstone river, about 5 m. N. of Providence. Pop. (1900) 18,167; (1905, state census) 19,446, of whom 8792 were foreign-born, 4164 being French-Canadian, 1587 being English, and 1292 being Irish; (1910) 22,754. It is served by the New York, New Haven & Hartford railway. The Blackstone furnishes good water-power, and the chief industry of the city is the manufacture of cotton goods; other important industries are the refining of copper and the manufacture of woollens, silks and hair-cloth. The total value of the factory product in 1905 was $5,090,984, being 12.9% more than in 1900. A settlement was established here about 1763 and was first a part of Smithfield, and then, after 1871, of Lincoln. About 1780 a chocolate mill was erected, and from then until 1827 the settlement was known as Chocolateville. It was incorporated as the Central Falls Fire District of Smithfield in 1847, and in 1895 was chartered as a city.

CENTRALIA, a city of Marion county, Illinois, U.S.A., in the S. part of the state, about 62 m. E. of St Louis. Pop. (1890) 4763; (1900) 6721 (571 foreign-born); (1910) 9680. The city is served by the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, the Illinois Central, the Illinois Southern, and the Southern railways; the first two have repair shops here. Centralia is situated in the central part of southern Illinois, popularly known as “Egypt.” Among its manufactures are window glass, envelopes, cigars, concrete blocks and flour. In and near the city coal is mined, and apples, strawberries and other fruits are raised, and the city is a shipping point for coal and fruit. Centralia was first settled in 1853, and was first chartered as a city in 1859.

CENTRAL INDIA, a collection of native states in India forming a separate agency, which must not be confounded with the Central Provinces. The Central India agency was formed in 1854, when Sir R. Hamilton was appointed agent to the governor-general. It lies between 21° 24′ and 26° 52′ N. and between 74° 0′ and 83° 0′ E., and may be said to consist of two large detached tracts of country which, with Jhansi as a pivot, spread outwards east and west into the peninsula, reaching northward to within some 30 m. of Agra, and southward to the valley of the Nerbudda and the Vindhya and Satpura ranges. The total area is 78,772 sq. m. It is bounded on the N. and N.E. by the United Provinces, on the W. and S.W. by Rajputana, some native states of the Bombay presidency, and Khandesh. The Central Provinces and the Bengal district of Chota Nagpur enclose it on the S. and E., while the Jhansi district of the United Provinces separates the two tracts.

Central India may be divided into three great natural divisions: the highlands of the Malwa plateau, with a mean elevation of some 1500 ft. above sea-level; the low-lying country some 600 ft. above sea-level, comprising the greater part of the eastern section of the agency; and the hilly tracts, which lie mostly to the south. The Malwa plateau consists of great undulating plains, separated by flat-topped hills, whose sides are boldly terraced, with here and there a scarp rising above the general level; it is covered with long grass, stunted trees and scrub, which owing to the presence of deciduous plants is of a uniform straw colour, except in the rains. The foundation of this plateau is a bed of sandstone and shales belonging to the Vindhyan series. This bed, which stretches east and west from Sasseram to Neemuch, and north and south from Agra to Hoshangabad, comprises the whole of the agency except the northern part of Bundelkhand. On the plateau itself the sandstone is generally overlaid by the Deccan trap, a blackish-coloured basaltic rock of volcanic origin, the high level tableland having been formed by a succession of lava flows, the valleys of Central India being merely “denudation hollows” carved out by the action of rain and rivers. It is apparently the northern limit of what was once a vast basaltic plain stretching from Goona to Belgaum, “one of the most gigantic outpourings of volcanic matter in the world.” The sandstone bed on which it rests is visible at a point just north of Goona, and in a small area round Bhilsa and Bhopal, as it is in those places freed from the layer of trap. The low-lying land includes roughly that part of the agency which lies to the east of the plateau and comprises the greater part of the political divisions of Bundelkhand and Baghelkhand and the country round Gwalior. The formation save in north Bundelkhand is sandstone of the Vindhyan series, free as a rule from “trap.” In the north of Bundelkhand the prevailing rock is gneiss and quartz. The quartz takes the shape of long serrated ridges, which are in many places a characteristic feature of the landscape. Trap appears here and there in intrusive dykes. The hilly tracts lie chiefly to the south of the agency, where the Vindhya, Satpura and Kaimur ranges are met with. The country is rough forest and jungle land little used for cultivation. The greater part of Central India is covered with the well-known “black cotton soil,” produced by the disintegration of the trap rock. It is a very rich loamy earth, possessing great fertility and an unusual power of retaining moisture, which makes artificial irrigation little needed. Opium and millet are the principal crops grown upon it. The ordinary “red soil” covers a large part of northern Bundelkhand, and as it requires much irrigation, tanks are a special feature in this country. Ethnologically as well as climatically the differences between the plateau and the eastern part of the agency are distinct and the languages markedly so. The plateau is inhabited by pure-blooded Rajput races, whose ancestry can be traced back for centuries, with all their numerous offshoots. The inhabitants of the low-lying country are also Rajputs, but their descent is mixed and as a rule the families of the plateau will have no marriage connexion with them. The races of the hilly tracts are semi-civilized tribes, who often flee at the mere sight of a white man, and have as yet been but little affected by the Hindu religion of their Rajput rulers. Of the climate of the plateau, Abul Fazl, the author of the Ain-i-Akbari, says: “The climate is so temperate that in the winter there is no occasion for warm clothing, nor is it necessary in summer to cool the water with saltpetre. But in the four rainy months the night here is cold enough to render a quilt necessary.” The rains of the south-east monsoon reach Central India as a rule about the 12th of July, and last until the end of September.

Administrative Divisions.—The Central India agency is divided for administrative purposes into eight units, two classed as residencies and six as agencies. These are the residencies of Gwalior and Indore, and the agencies of Baghelkhand, Bhopal, Bhopawar, Bundelkhand, Indore and Malwa. But these divisions are purely an artificial grouping for the purposes of the British government, the original native divisions consisting of 16 states and 98 minor states and estates. The 15 large states are Gwalior, Indore, Rewa, Bhopal, Dhar, Barwani, Datia, Orchha, Charkhari, Chhattarpur, Panna, Dewas (senior branch), Dewas (junior branch), Jaora and Ratlam. At the close of the Pindari War in 1818 the whole country that is now under the Central India agency was in great confusion and disorder, having suffered heavily from the extortions of the Mahratta armies and from predatory bands. It had been the policy of the great Mahratta chiefs, Holkar and Sindhia, to trample down into complete subjection all the petty Rajput princes, whose lands they seized and from whom they levied heavy contributions of money. Many of these minor chiefs had been expelled from their possessions, had taken refuge in the hills and forest, and retaliated upon the Mahratta usurpers by wasting the lands which they had lost, until the Mahrattas compounded for peace by payment of blackmail. In this state of affairs all parties agreed to accept the interposition of the British government for the restoration of order, and under Lord Hastings the work of pacification was effected. The policy pursued was to declare the permanency of the rights existing at the time of the British interposition, conditionally upon the maintenance of order; to adjust and guarantee the relations of subordinate and tributary chiefs to their superiors so as to prevent all further disputes or encroachments; and to settle the claims of the ousted landholders, who had resorted to pillage or blackmail, by fixing grants of land to be made to them, or settling the money allowances to be paid to them. The general result was to place all the privileges, rights and possessions of these inferior chiefs under the guarantee or protection of the British government, to whom all disputes between the superior and inferior states must be referred, and whose decision is final upon all questions of succession to hereditary rights or rulership. The states have no general ethnological affinity, such as exists in Rajputana. Their territories are in many cases neither compact nor continuous, consisting of a number of villages here and there, with a nucleus of more or less importance round the chief town. Their relations to the government of India and to each other present many variations. Ten of them are under direct treaty with the government of India; others are held under sanads and deeds of fealty and obedience; while a third class, known as the mediatized states, are held under agreements mediated by the British government between them and their superior chiefs.

Population.—The total population of the Central India agency in 1901 was 8,628,781, showing a decrease during the decade of 16.4%. Considerable losses were caused by the famines of 1897-1898 and 1899-1900, which were severely felt, especially in Bhopal and Malwa. The greater part of the population of Central India is of the Hindu religion, but a few Mahommedan groups still exist, either traces of the days when the Mogul emperors extended their sway from the Punjab to the Deccan, or else the descendants of those northern adventurers who hired out their services to the great Mahratta generals. Of the first Bhopal is the only example, while Jaora is the only notable instance of the other. Roughly there are four great sections of the population: the Mahratta section, who belong to the ruling circles; the Rajputs, who are also hereditary noblemen; the trading classes, consisting chiefly of Marwaris and Gujaratis; and lastly, the jungle tribes of Dravidian stock. The Mahrattas are foreigners, and, though rulers of the greater part of Central India, have no true connexion with the soil and are little met with outside cities, the vicinity of courts, and administrative centres. The Rajputs with all their endless ramifications form a large portion of the population. Originally invaders, they have so long held a stake in the soil that they have become almost part of the indigenous population. The Marwaris hold practically all the trade of Central India, with the exception of the Bora class of Mahommedans. They are either Vaishnavite Hindus or else Jains. Their advent into Central India dates, except in the case of one or two families, from the time of the Mahratta invasion only. The Jain portion of this community is very wealthy. The last section, that of the jungle tribes, is mostly of Dravidian or mixed Aryo-Dravidian origin, these tribes being the modern representatives of the former rulers and inhabitants of this country.

The British agent to the governor-general resides at Indore, and there are British cantonments at Mhow, Neemuch and Nowgong. The whole country is fairly provided with railways, largely at the expense of Sindhia.

CENTRAL PROVINCES AND BERAR, a province of British India, which was formed in October 1903 by the amalgamation of the Central Provinces and the Hyderabad Assigned Districts. The total area of the provinces is 113,281 sq. m., and the population on that area in 1901 was 10,847,325. As is shown by its name the province is situated in the centre of the Indian peninsula, comprising a large proportion of the broad belt of hill and plateau country which separates the plains of Hindustan from the Deccan. It is bounded on the N. and N.E. by the Central India states, and along a small strip of the Saugor district by the United Provinces; on the W. by Bhopal, Indore and the Khandesh district of Bombay; on the S. by Hyderabad and the large zamindari estates of the Madras presidency; and on the E. by these latter estates and the tributary states of Bengal. In October 1905 most of Sambalpur and five Oriya-speaking hill-states were transferred from the Central Provinces to Bengal, while the Hindi-speaking states of Chota Nagpur were transferred from Bengal to the Central Provinces. The province, therefore, now consists of the five British divisions of Jubbulpore, Nerbudda, Nagpur, Chhattisgarh and Berar, which are divided into the twenty-two districts of Saugor, Damoh, Jubbulpore, Mandla, Seoni, Narsinghpur, Hoshangabad, Nimar, Betul, Chhindwara, Wardha, Nagpur, Chanda, Bhandara, Balaghat, Raipur, Bilaspur, Amraoti, Akola, Ellichpur, Buldana and Wun; and the fifteen tributary states of Makrai, Bastar, Kanker, Nandgaon, Kairagarh, Chhuikhadan, Kawardha, Sakti, Raigarh, Sarangarh, Chang Bhakar, Korea, Sirguja, Udaipur and Jashpur.

The Central Provinces are divided into two parts by the Satpura range of hills (q.v.), which runs south of the Nerbudda river from east to west; so that, speaking generally, it consists of districts north of the Satpuras, districts on the Satpura Central Provinces. plateau, and districts south of the Satpuras. North of the Satpuras is the rich valley of the Nerbudda, which may be said to begin towards the north of the Jubbulpore district and to extend westward through the district of Narsinghpur as far as the western limit of Hoshangabad, a distance of nearly 300 m. The elevation of the valley above the sea varies from 1400 ft. at Jubbulpore to 1120 at Hoshangabad. In breadth it is about 30 m., extending between the Satpuras and the southern scarp of the Vindhyas. This great plain, 10,613 sq. m. in extent, contains for the most part land of extreme fertility. The continuation of the valley west of Hoshangabad forms the northern portion of the district of Nimar, the farther limit of which touches the Khandesh district of the Bombay presidency. Towards the river, though rich in parts, this tract of country is generally wild and desolate, but nearer the base of the hill range there is a large natural basin of fertile land which is highly cultivated. South of the Satpuras lies the great plain of Chhattisgarh at a mean elevation above the sea of 1000 ft.; it has an area of 23,000 sq. m., and forms the upper basin of the Mahanadi. Farther to the west and again divided off by hills is the great plain of Nagpur, extending over 24,000 sq. m. Its general surface inclines towards the south from 1000 ft. above the sea at Nagpur to 750 ft. at Chanda. To the south the province is shut in by the wide mountainous tract which stretches from the Bay of Bengal through Bastar to the Godavari, and west of that river is continued onward to the rocky ridges and plateaus of Khandesh by a succession of ranges that enclose the plain of Berar along its southern border.

Berar consists mainly of the valley lying between the Satpura range of mountains in the north and the Ajanta range in the south. The Gawilgarh hills, a range belonging to the Satpura mountains, form the northern border. On the east the Berar. frontier is marked by the Wardha river down to its confluence with the Penganga, and on the south by the Penganga for about two-thirds of the frontier’s length. The tract is half surrounded on the east, north and north-west by the Central Provinces, with which it is amalgamated. In addition to the Melghat mountain tract which walls it in on the north, Berar is divided into two sections, the Payanghat or lowland country, bounded on the north by the Gawilgarh hills, and on the south by the outer scarps of the Ajanta range, and the Balaghat or upland country above the Ajanta ridge, sloping down southwards beyond the ghats or passes which lead up to it. The Payanghat is a wide valley running up eastward between this ridge and the Gawilgarh hills, varying in breadth from 40 to 50 m., and broader towards the end than at its mouth. It contains all the best land in Berar; it is full of deep, rich, black alluvial soil, of almost inexhaustible fertility, and it undulates sufficiently to maintain a natural system of drainage, but there is nothing picturesque about this broad strip of champaign country. The upland tract, on the contrary, is diversified with low-lying plains, high plateaus, fertile bottoms and rocky wastes, and is rendered picturesque by rivers and groves.

Natural Features.—The provinces may be divided into two tracts of upland and three of plain, consisting of the Vindhya and Satpura plateaus, and the Berar, Nagpur and Chhattisgarh plains. To the north the districts of Saugor and Damoh form the southern boundary of the Vindhyan escarpment. In this region the sandstone rocks are generally overlaid with heavy black soil formed from the decaying trap, which is principally devoted to the cultivation of the spring crops, wheat and grain, while rice and hill millets are sown in the lighter and more sandy soils. Next, the long and narrow valley of the Nerbudda from Jubbulpore to Hoshangabad is formed of deep alluvial deposits of extreme richness and excellently suited to the growth of wheat. To the south of the Nerbudda the Satpura range stretches across the province, containing the greater part of five districts, its crystalline and sandstone rocks rising in places through the superficial stratum of trap, and with large areas of shallow stony land still covered to a great extent with forest interspersed by black-soil valleys of great fertility. In the latter are grown wheat and other spring crops, while the lighter kinds of rice and the hill millets are all that the poorer land can bear. To the south of the Satpuras and extending along its base from west to east lie successively the Berar, Nagpur and Chhattisgarh plains. The surface soil of Berar is to a great extent a rich black vegetable mould; and where this surface soil does not exist, there are muram and trap with a shallow upper crust of inferior light soil. The Nagpur country, drained by the Wardha and Wainganga rivers, contains towards the west the shallow black soil in which autumn crops like cotton and the large millet, juar, which do not require excessive moisture, can be successfully cultivated. The eastern part of the Nagpur country and the Chhattisgarh plain, comprising the Mahanadi basin, form the great rice tract of the province, its heavy rainfall and hard yellowish soil rendering it excellently adapted for the growth of this crop.

Climate.—As regards climate the districts of the Central Provinces are generally divided into hot and cool ones. In the latter division are comprised the two Vindhyan districts of Saugor and Damoh, Jubbulpore at the head of the Nerbudda valley, and the four Satpura districts of Mandla, Seoni, Betul and Chhindwara, which enjoy, owing to their greater elevation, a distinctly lower average temperature than the rest of the province. The ordinary variation is from 3 to 4 degrees, the mean maximum reading in the shade in a cooler district being about 105° as against 108° in the hotter ones for the month of May, and 79° as against 83° for the month of December. In the cold weather the temperature in Nagpur and the other hot districts is about the same as in Calcutta and substantially higher than that of northern India. The climate of Berar differs very little from that of the Deccan generally, except that in the Payanghat valley the hot weather may be exceptionally severe. The rainfall of the province is considerably heavier than in northern India, and the result of this is a cooler and more pleasant atmosphere during the monsoon season. The average rainfall, before it was affected by the abnormal seasons which followed 1892, was 51 in., varying from 33 in. in Nimar to 65 in Balaghat. In the autumn months malarial fever is prevalent in all thickly forested tracts and also in the rice country; but on the whole the province is considered to be healthy, and as the rains break fairly regularly in June and produce an immediate fall in the temperature, severe heat is only experienced for a period of from two to three months.

Agriculture.—Broadly speaking, the northern districts of the province produce principally cold weather crops, such as wheat and grain, and the eastern ones principally rice. At the beginning of the decade 1891-1901 wheat was the staple product of the Vindhyan and Nerbudda valley districts, and was also grown extensively in all the Satpura districts except Nimar and in Wardha and Nagpur. Cotton and juar were produced principally in Nimar, Nagpur, Wardha and the southern portion of Chhindwara, and the latter also in Chanda. In the Satpura districts the inferior soil was and is principally devoted to hill millets. Rice is an important crop in Damoh, Jubbulpore, Mandla, Seoni and Chanda, and is the chief staple of Bhandara, Balaghat, and the two eastern districts of Raipur and Bilaspur. The staple crops of Berar are cotton and juar. The succession of bad seasons which marked the end of the decade affected the distribution of the principal crops, but with the advent of more prosperous seasons things tend to return to their old level.

Industries.—The only important industries are connected with cotton and coal. In 1904 the total number of factories was 391, almost entirely cotton presses and ginning factories, which received an immense impetus from the rise in cotton prices. In 1896 a brewery was established at Jubbulpore. Two coal-mines are worked in the Central Provinces, at Warora and Mopani, to each of which there is a branch line of railway. In 1903-1904 there was a total yield of 160,000 tons, valued at about £45,000. In connexion with the Warora colliery there is a fire-clay business. The Mopani colliery, which dates back to 1860, is worked by a joint-stock company.

Trade.—The trade of the Central Provinces is conducted mainly by rail with Bombay and with Calcutta. The chief imports are cotton piece goods, cotton twist, salt, sugar, provisions, railway materials, raw cotton, metals, coal, tobacco, spices and kerosene oil. The chief exports are raw cotton, rice, wheat, oil-seeds, hides and lac. The exports of wheat are liable to extreme fluctuations, especially during famine periods.

Railways.—Until recently, the only railway in the Central Provinces was the Great Indian Peninsula, with two branches, one terminating at Nagpur, the other at Jubbulpore, whence it was continued by the East Indian system to Allahabad. The Bengal-Nagpur line has now opened up the eastern portion of the country, bringing it into direct connexion with Calcutta; and a new branch of the Indian Midland, from Saugor through Damoh, has been partly constructed as a famine work. Large portions, however, in the hilly centre and in the south-east, are still remote from railways.

Administration.—The administration of the province is conducted by a chief commissioner on behalf of the governor-general of India in council, assisted by members of the Indian civil service, provincial civil service, subordinate civil service, district and assistant superintendents of police, and officers specially recruited for various departments. The form of the administration of Berar was in 1903 entirely reorganized. Under the original settlement concluded by the treaties of 1853 and 1860 the revenues of the province were assigned primarily for the maintenance of the Hyderabad contingent, such surplus as accrued from year to year being made over to the nizam, while the province itself was administered in trust by the government of India through the resident at Hyderabad. In November 1902 a fresh settlement was arranged and Berar was leased in perpetuity to the British government in return for an annual rental of 25 lakhs. It remained under the administration of the resident until the 1st of October 1903, from which date it was amalgamated with the Central Provinces for administrative purposes. As the immediate result of this change the offices of heads of departments in Berar, except the judicial commissionership and the conservatorship of forests, were amalgamated with the corresponding appointments in the Central Provinces, and Berar is now treated as one of the divisions of that province for purposes of revenue administration, with a divisional commissioner as its immediate head.

Population.—The population of the Central Provinces and Berar as now defined according to the census of 1901 was 10,847,325, and is of very diverse ethical construction, having been recruited by immigration from the countries surrounding it on all sides. There are six main divisions of the people: the Dravidian tribes, who formerly held the country; Hindi-speaking immigrants from the north and north-west into Saugor, Damoh, the Nerbudda valley and the open country of Mandla and Seoni; Rajasthani-speaking immigrants from Central India into Nimar, Betul and parts of Hoshangabad, Narsinghpur and Chhindwara; Marathi-speaking immigrants from Bombay into Berar, the Mahratta districts and the southern tahsil of Betul; the Telugu castes in the Sironcha and Chanda tahsil of Chanda and the south of Bastar; and the Hindu immigrants into Chhattisgarh, who are supposed to have arrived many centuries ago when the Haihaya dynasty of Ratanpur rose into power.

Language.—Owing to the diversity of race, the diversity of language is equally great. Thirty languages and a hundred and six dialects are found in the Central Provinces alone, and twenty-eight languages and sixty-eight dialects in Berar. The chief of these languages are Western Hindi, Eastern Hindi, Rajasthani, Marathi, Oriya, Telugu and Dravidian dialects. Of these last the chief dialects are Gondi, Oraon or Kurukh, Kandhi and Kanarese, of which Gondi is by far the most important. There are also the Munda languages, of which the chief are Korku, Kharia and Munda or Kol. The chief languages of Berar are Marathi, Urdu, Gondi, Banjari, Hindi, Marwari, Telugu, Korku and Gujarati.

History.—The authentic history of the greater part of the country embraced in the Central Provinces does not begin till the 16th century a.d. By the people of northern India the country was known as Gondwana, after the savage tribes of Gonds by whom it was inhabited. The Mussulman invaders of the Deccan passed it by, not caring to enter its mountain fastnesses and impenetrable forests; though occasional inscriptions show that parts of it had fallen from time to time under the dominion of one or other of the great kingdoms of the north, e.g. of Asoka, of the Guptas of Maghada, or of the ancient Hindu kingdom of Vidarbha (Berar); and inscriptions and numerous discoveries of coins prove that, during the middle ages, the open spaces were occupied by a series of Rajput dynasties. Of these the most important was that of the Haihayas of Ratanpur, a family which, settled from time immemorial in the Nerbudda valley, had towards the close of the 10th century succeeded the Pandava dynasty of Maha Kosala (Chhattisgarh) and ruled, though from the 16th century onwards over greatly diminished territories, until its overthrow by the Mahrattas in 1745. The second ruler of this dynasty, Ratnaraja, was the founder of Ratanpur.

The inscriptional records cease abruptly in the 12th century, and no more is known of the country until the rise of the Gond dynasties from the 14th to the 16th centuries. The first of these is mentioned in 1398, when Narsingh Rai, raja of Kherla, is said by Ferishta to have ruled all the hills of Gondwana. He was finally overthrown and killed by Hoshang Shah, king of Malwa. The 16th century saw the establishment of a powerful Gond kingdom by Sangram Sah, who succeeded in 1480 as the 47th of the petty Gond rajas of Garha-Mandla, and extended his dominions so as to include Saugor and Damoh on the Vindhyan plateau, Jubbulpore and Narsinghpur in the Nerbudda valley, and Seoni on the Satpura highlands. Sangram Sah died in 1530; and the break up of his dominion began with the enforced cession to the Mogul emperor by Chandra Sah (1563-1575) of Saugor and Damoh and of that portion of his territories which afterwards formed the state of Bhopal.

About 200 years after Sangram Sah’s time, Bakht Buland, the Gond chieftain of a principality seated at Deogarh in Chhindwara, having visited Delhi, set about introducing the civilization he had there admired. He founded the city of Nagpur, which his successor made his capital. The Deogarh kingdom, at its widest extent, embraced the modern districts of Betul, Chhindwara, Nagpur, with parts of Seoni, Bhandara and Balaghat. In the south of the province Chanda was the seat of another Gond dynasty, which first came into prominence in the 16th century. The three Gond principalities of Garha-Mandla, Deogarh and Chanda were nominally subject to the Mogul emperors. In addition to the acquisitions made in the north at the expense of Garha-Mandla, the Moguls, after the annexation of Berar, established governors at Paunar in Wardha and Kherla in Betul. Having thus hemmed in the Gond states, however, they made no efforts to assert any effective sovereignty over them; the Gond rajas for their part were content with practical independence within their own dominions. Under their peaceful rule their territories flourished, until the weakening of the Mogul empire and the rise of the predatory Bundela and Mahratta powers, with the organized forces of which their semi-barbarous feudal levies were unable to cope, brought misfortune upon them.

In the 17th century Chhatarsal, the Bundela chieftain, deprived the Mandla principality of part of the Vindhyan plateau and the Nerbudda valley. In 1733 the peshwa of Poona invaded Bundelkhand; and in 1735 the Mahrattas had established their power in Saugor. In 1742 the peshwa advanced to Mandla and exacted the payment of chauth (tributary blackmail), and from this time until 1781, when the successors of Sangram Sah were finally overthrown, Garha-Mandla remained practically a Mahratta dependency. Meanwhile the other independent principalities of Gondwana had in turn succumbed. In 1743 Raghoji Bhonsla of Berar established himself at Nagpur, and by 1751 had conquered the territories of Deogarh, Chanda and Chhattisgarh. In 1741 Ratanpur had surrendered to the Mahratta leader Bhaskar Pant without a blow, and the ancient Rajput dynasty came to an end. In Chanda and Deogarh the Gond rajas were suffered by Raghoji Bhonsla and his successor to carry on a shadowy existence for a while, in order to give them an excuse for avoiding the claims of the peshwa as their overlord; though actually decisions in important matters were sought at Poona. Raghoji died in 1755, and in 1769 his son and successor, Janoji, was forced to acknowledge the peshwa’s effective supremacy. The Nagpur state, however, continued to grow. In 1785 Mudhoji (d. 1788), Janoji’s successor, bought from the Poona court the cession of Mandla and the upper Nerbudda valley, and between 1796 and 1798 this was followed by the acquisition of Hoshangabad and the larger part of Saugor and Damoh by Raghoji II. (d. 1816). Under this latter raja the Nagpur state covered practically the whole of the present Central Provinces and Berar, as well as Orissa and some of the Chota Nagpur states.

In 1803 Raghoji joined Sindhia against the British; the result was the defeat of the allies at Assaye and Argaon, and the treaty of Deogaon, by which Raghoji had to cede Cuttack, Sambalpur and part of Berar. Up to this time the rule of the Bhonsla rajas, rough warriors of peasant extraction, had been on the whole beneficent; but, soured by his defeat, Raghoji now set to work to recover some of his losses by a ruthless exploitation of the peasantry, and until the effective intervention of the British in 1818 the country was subjected to every kind of oppression. After Raghoji II.’s death in 1816 his imbecile son Parsaji was deposed and murdered by Mudhoji, known as Appa Sahib. In spite of a treaty signed with the British in this year, Mudhoji in 1817 joined the peshwa, but was defeated at Sitabaldi and forced to cede the rest of Berar to the nizam, and parts of Saugor and Damoh, with Mandla, Betul, Seoni and the Nerbudda valley, to the British. After a temporary restoration to the throne he was deposed, and Raghoji III., a grandchild of Raghoji II., was placed on the throne. During his minority, which lasted till 1840, the country was well administered by a British resident. In 1853, on the death of Raghoji III. without heirs, Nagpur lapsed to the British paramount power. Until the formation of the Central Provinces in 1861, Nagpur province, which consists of the present Nagpur division, Chhindwara and Chhatisgarh, was administered by a commissioner under the central government.

The territories in the north ceded in 1817 by the peshwa (parts of Saugor and Damoh) and in 1818 by Appa Sahib were in 1820 formed into the Saugor and Nerbudda Territories under an agent to the governor-general, and in 1835 were included in the newly formed North-West Provinces. In 1842, in consequence of a rising, they were again placed under the jurisdiction of an agent to the governor-general. Restored to the North-West Provinces in 1853, they were finally joined with the Nagpur province to constitute the new Central Provinces in 1861. On the 1st of October 1903 Berar also was placed under the administration of the commissioner of the Central Provinces (for history see [Berar]). In 1905 the greater part of Sambalpur district, with the feudatory states of Bamra, Rairakhol, Sonpur, Patna and Kalahandi, were transferred to Bengal, while the feudatory states of Chang Bhakar, Korea, Surguja, Udaipur and Jashpur were transferred from Bengal to the Central Provinces.

During the decade 1891-1901 the Central Provinces suffered from famine more severely than any other part of India. The complete failure of the rain in the autumn of 1896 caused scarcity to develop suddenly into famine, which lasted until the end of 1897. The total number of persons in receipt of relief reached its maximum of nearly 700,000 in May 1897. The expenditure on relief alone was about a million sterling; and the total cost of the famine, including loss of revenue, amounted to nearly twice that amount. During 1897 the death-rate for the whole province rose to sixty-nine per thousand, or double the average, while the birth-rate fell to twenty-seven per thousand. The Central Provinces were stricken by another famine, yet more severe and widespread, caused by the complete failure of the rains in 1899. The maximum of persons relieved for the whole province was 1,971,000 in June 1900. In addition, about 68,000 persons were in receipt of relief in the native states. During the three years 1899-1902 the total expenditure on famine relief amounted to about four millions sterling. Berar also suffered from the famines of 1897 and 1900.

See The Imperial Gazetteer of India (Oxford, 1908), x. 99, for list of authorities.

CENTUMVIRI (centum, hundred; vir, man), an ancient court of civil jurisdiction at Rome, probably instituted by Servius Tullius.[1] Its antiquity is attested by the symbol and formula used in its procedure, the lance (hasta) as the sign of true ownership, the oath or wager (sacramentum), the ancient formula for recovery of property or assertion of liberty. It is probably alluded to in Livy’s account of the Valerio-Horatian laws of 449 b.c. (Livy iii. 55, Consules ... fecerunt sanciendo ut qui tribunis plebis, aedilibus, judicibus, decemviris nocuisset, ejus caput Jovi sacrum esset). If the judices here mentioned are the centumviri, it is clear that they formed a tribunal which represented the interests of the plebs. This is in accordance with Cicero’s account (de Orat. i. 38. 173) of the sphere of their jurisdiction. He says this was mainly concerned with the property of which account was taken at the census; it was therefore in their power to make or unmake a citizen. They also decided questions concerning debt. Hence the plebs had an interest in securing their decisions against undue influence. They were never regarded as magistrates, but merely as judices, and as such would be appointed for a fixed term of service by the magistrate, probably by the praetor urbanus. But in Cicero’s time they were elected by the Comitia Tributa. They then numbered 105. Their original number is uncertain. It was probably increased by Augustus and in Pliny’s time had reached 180. The office was probably open in quite early times to both patricians and plebeians. The term is also applied in the inscriptions of Veii to the municipal senates and Cures, which numbered 100 members.

Authorities.—Tigerström, De Judicibus apud Romanos (Berlin, 1826); Greenidge, Legal Procedure of Cicero’s Time, pp. 40 ff., 58 ff., 182 ff., 264 (Oxford, 1901); Bethmann-Hollweg, Der romische Civilprozess, ii. 53 ff. (Bonn, 1864); Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopadie, iii. 1935 ff. (Wlassak).

(A. M. Cl.)

[1] Mommsen (Staatsrecht, i³. 275, n. 4, ii³. 231, n. 1, 590 f.) believed that the Centumviri were instituted about 150 b.c.