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RYSTALS, in Chemistry, salts or other matters mosthenes, who accused Ctesiphon of seditious views. Ctesiphon

Crystals CRYSTALS, salts or other matters Demosthenes undertook the defence of his friend, in

Ctesiphon.

Index; and CRYSTALLIZATION.

CTESIAS, a native of Cnidos, who accompanied Cyrus the son of Darius in his expedition against his brother Artaxerxes; by whom he was taken prisoner. But curing Artaxerxes of a wound he received in the battle, he became a great favourite at the court of Persia, where he continued practising physic for 17 years, and was employed in several negotiations. He wrote the History of Persia in 23 books, and a History of the Indies; but these works are now lost, and all we have remaining of them is an abridgement compiled by Photinus. The most judicious among the ancients looked upon Ctesias as a fabulous writer; yet several of the ancient historians and modern Christian writers have adopted in part his chronology of the Assyrian kings.

CTESIBIUS, a mathematician of Alexandria, about 120 years before Christ. He was the first who invented the pump. He also invented a clepsydra, or water-clock. This invention of measuring time by water was wonderful and ingenious. Water was let drop upon wheels which it turned: the wheels communicated their regular motion to a small wooden image, which by a gradual rise pointed with a stick to the proper hours and minutes, which were engraven on a column near the machine. This ingenious invention gave rise to many improvements; and the modern method of measuring time with an hour-glass is in imitation of the clepsydra of Ctesibius.

CTESIPHON, a celebrated Greek architect, who gave the designs of the famous temple of Ephesus, and invented a machine for bringing thither the columns to be used in that noble structure. He flourish ed 544 B. C.

CTESIPHON, in Ancient Geography, a large village, or rather a fine city, of Chalonitis, the most southern province of Assyria. It was situated on the left or east side of the Tigris, opposite to Seleucia on this side; and built by the Parthians, to rival Seleucia. Here the kings of Parthia passed the winter (Strabo); as they did the summer at Ecbatana.

CTESIPHON was also the name of several noted persons of antiquity. 1. An Athenian, who advised his fellow citizens to crown publicly Demosthenes with a golden crown for his probity and virtue. This was opposed by the orator schines, the rival of DeVOL. VII. Part I. +

a celebrated oration still extant, and Æschines was banished. 2. A Greek architect, who made the plan of Diana's temple at Ephesus. 3. An elegiac poet, whom King Attalus set over his possessions in Æolia. 4. A Greek historian, who wrote a history of Bœotia.

CUB, a bear's whelp. Among hunters, a fox and marten of the first year are also called cubs. See URSUS.

CUBA, a large and very important island in the West Indies, belonging to Spain. On the south-east it begins at 20. 10. N. Lat. touches the tropic of Cancer on the north, and extends from 74. to 85. 15. W. Long. It is 764 miles long, lies 60 miles to the west of Hispaniola, 25 leagues north of Jamaica, 100 miles to the south of Cape Florida; and commands the entrance of the gulfs both of Mexico and Florida, as also the windward passages. By this situation it may be called the key of the West Indies. It was discovered by Columbus in 1492, who gave it the name of Ferdinando, in honour of King Ferdinand of Spain; but it quickly after recovered its ancient name of Cuba. The natives did not regard Columbus with a very favourable eye at his landing; and the weather proving very tempestuous, he soon left this island, and sailed to Hayti, now called Hispaniola, where he was better received. The Spaniards, however, soon became masters of it. By the year 1511 it was totally conquered; and in that time they had destroyed, according to their own accounts, several millions of people. But the possession of Cuba was far from answering the expectations of the Spanish adventurers, whose avarice could be satiated with nothing but gold. These monsters, finding that there was gold upon the island, concluded that it must come from mines; and therefore tortured the few inhabitants they had left, in order to extort from them a discovery of the places where these mines lay. The miseries endured by these poor creatures were such that they almost unanimously resolved to put an end to their own lives; but were prevented by one of the Spanish tyrants called Vasco Porcellos. This wretch threatened to hang himself along with them, that he might have the pleasure, as he said, of tormenting them in the next world worse than he had done in this; and so much were they afraid of the Spaniards, that this A threat

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Cuba.

Cuba.

threat diverted these poor savages from their desperate resolution. In 1511, the town of Havannah was built, now the principal place on the island. The houses were at first built only of wood; and the town itself was for a long time so inconsiderable, that in 1536 it was taken by a French pirate, who obliged the inhabitants to pay 7co ducats to save it from being burnt. The very day after the pirate's departure, three Spanish ships arrived from Mexico, and having unloaded their cargoes, sailed in pursuit of the pirate ship. But such was the cowardice of the officers, that the pirate took all the three ships, and returning to the Havannah, obliged the inhabitants to pay 700 ducats more. To prevent misfortunes of this kind, the inhabitants built their houses of stone; and the place has since been strongly fortified. See HAVANNAH.

According to the Abbé Raynal, the Spanish settlement at Cuba is very important, on three accounts; 1. The produce of the country, which is considerable. 2. As being the staple of a great trade; and, 3. As being the key to the West Indies. The cultivation of sugar is carried on to a great extent, no fewer than 480 sugar engines having been erected, and the quantity exported having amounted on an average from 1801 to 1810 to 644,000 cwt. per annum. Coffee began to be planted in Cuba after the destruction of the coffee plantations in St Domingo; and in 1803 it produced about 12,000 quintals, or 18 millions of pounds. In 1763 some emigrants introduced bees, which multiplied with such rapidity in the hollows of old trees, that the inhabitants had ample supplies of honey for their own consumption, besides a surplus for exportation. Although the surface of the island is in general uneven and mountainous, yet it has plains sufficiently extensive, and well enough watered, to supply the consumption of the greatest part of Europe with sugar. The incredible fertility of its new lands, if properly managed, would enable it to surpass every other nation, however they may have now got the start of it: yet such is the indolence of the Spaniards, that to this day they have comparatively but few plantations, where, with the finest canes, they make but a small quantity of coarse sugar at a great expence. This serves partly for the Mexican market, and partly for the mother country. It has been expected with probability, that the tobacco imported from Cuba would compensate this loss; for after furnishing Mexico and Peru, there was sufficient, with the little brought from Caracca and Buenos Ayres, to supply all Spain. But this trade too has declined through the mismanagement of the court of Madrid. The article is monopolized for the benefit of the crown; and the planters have been exposed to such vexations, that its cultivation in 1803 had declined to 3,750,000 pounds, from 7,873,000 its amount in 1794. Cuba furnished considerable quantities of gold when the Spaniards first seized it, and it still yields some small supplies of this metal. The Spanish colonies have an universal trade in skins; and Cuba supplies annually about 10 or 12 thousand. The number might easily be increased in a country abounding with wild cattle, where some gentlemen possess large tracts of ground, that for want of population can scarce be applied to any other purpose than that of breeding cattle. The hundredth part of this island is not yet cleared. The true plantations are all confined

to the beautiful plains of the Havannah, and even those are not what they might be. The number of inhabitants has increased rapidly. In 1774 they amount- Cu ed to 220,000; but in 1804 the number was 432,000, including 108,000 slaves. The food of these different species consists of excellent pork, very bad beef, and cassava bread. The colony would be still more flourishing, if its productions had not been made the property of a company, whose exclusive privilege operates as a constant and invariable principle of discouragement. If any thing could supply the want of an open trade, and atone for the grievances occasioned by this monopoly at Cuba, it would be the advantage which this island has for such a long time enjoyed, in being the rendezvous of almost all the Spanish vessels that sail to the new world. This practice commenced almost with the colony itself. Ponce de Leon, having made an attempt upon Florida in 1512, became acquainted with the new canal of Bahama. It was immediately discovered that this was the best route the ships bound from Mexico to Europe could possibly take; and to this the wealth of the island is principally, if not altogether, owing.

CUBE, in Geometry, a solid body consisting of six equal sides. See GEOMETRY.

CUBE-Root of any Number or Quantity, is such a number or quantity, which, if multiplied into itself, and then again the product thence arising by that number or quantity, being the cube-root, this last product shall be equal to the number or quantity whereof it is the cube-root; as 2 is the cube-root of 8; because two times two is 4, and two times 4 is 8; and a+b is the cube-root of a3+3aab+3abb+b3. See ALGEBRA.

CUBEBS, in the Materia Medica, a small dried fruit resembling a grain of pepper, but often somewhat longer, brought into Europe from the island of Java. In aromatic warmth and pungency, they are far inferior to pepper.

CUBIC EQUATION. See ALGEBRA.

CUBIDIA, a genus of spars. The word is derived from xucos, "a die;" and is given them from their being of the shape of a common die, or of a cubic figure. These bodies owe this shape to an admixture of lead, and there are only two known species of the genus. 1. A colourless crystalline one, with thin flakes, found in the lead mines of Yorkshire, and some other parts of the kingdom; and, 2. A milky white one with thicker crusts. This is found in the lead-mines of Derbyshire and Yorkshire, but is usually small, and is not found plentifully.

CUBIT, in the mensuration of the ancients, a long measure, equal to the length of a man's arm, from the elbow to the tip of the fingers.

Dr Arbuthnot makes the English cubit equal to 18 inches; the Roman cubit equal to 1 foot 5.406 inches; and the cubit of the Scripture equal to 1 foot 9.888 inches.

CUBITEUS MUSCLES, the name of two muscles of the hand. See ANATOMY, Table of the Muscles.

CUBITUS, in Anatomy, a bone of the arm, reaching from the elbow to the wrist; otherwise called ulna, or the greater fossile. Some use the word for all that part of the arm between the elbow and the wrist; including the ulna or cubitus, properly so called, and the radius.

CUBOIDES, or OS CUBIFORME, in Anatomy, the

seventh

Cuboides seventh bone of the foot, so called from its being in form of a cube or die.

Cucumis.

CUCKING-STOOL, an engine invented for punishing scolds and unquiet women, by ducking them in water; called in ancient times a tumbrel, and sometimes a trebuchet. In Domesday, it is called cathedra stercoris; and it was in use even in the Saxon times, by whom it was described to be cathedra in qua rixosæ mulieres sedentes aquis demergebantur. It was anciently also a punishment inflicted upon brewers and bakers transgressing the laws; who were thereupon in such a stool immerged over head and ears in stercore, some stinking water. Some think it a corruption from ducking-stool; others from choaking-stool, quia hoc modo demersæ aquis fere suffocantur. See CASTIGA

TORY.

CUCKOW. See CUCULUS, ORNITHOLOGY, Index. CUCKOw-Spit, the same with froth-spit. See FROTISpit, and CICADA.

CUCUBALUS, BERRY-BEARING CHICK-WEED, a genus of plants belonging to the decandria class; and in the natural method ranking under the 22d order, Caryophyllei. See BOTANY Index.

CUCULUS, the CUCKOw, a genus of birds belonging to the order of picæ. See ORNITHOLOGY Index. CUCUMBER. See CUCUMIS, BOTANY Index. CUCUMIS, the CUCUMBER: a genus of plants belonging to the monoecia class; and in the natural method ranking under the 34th order, Cucurbitacea. See BOTANY Index.

Four varieties of the cucumis sativus are chiefly cultivated in this country. They are raised at three different seasons of the year: 1. on hot-beds, for early fruit; 2. under bell or hand-glasses, for the middle crop; 3. on the common ground, which is for a late crop, or to pickle. The cucumbers which are ripe before April are unwholesome; being raised wholly by the heat of the dung without the assistance of the sun. Those raised in April are good, and are raised in the following manner.

Towards the latter end of January, a quantity of fresh horse-dung must be procured with the litter among it; and a small proportion of sea-coal ashes should be added to it. In four or five days the dung will begin to heat; at which time a little of it may be drawn flat on the outside, and covered with two inches thickness of good earth: this must be covered with a bell glass; and after two days, when the earth is warm, the seeds must be sown on it, covered with a quarter of an inch of fresh earth, and the glass then set on again. The glass must be covered with a mat at night, and in four days the young plants will appear. When these are seen, the rest of the dung must be made up into a bed for one or more lights. This must be three feet thick, beat close together, and covered three inches deep with fine fresh earth; the frame must then be put on, and covered at night, or in bad weather, with mats. When the earth is hot enough, the young plants from under the bell must be removed into it, and set two inches distant. The glasses must be now and then a little raised, to give air to the plants, and turned often, to prevent the wet from the steam of the dung from dropping down upon them. The plants must be watered at proper times; and the water used for this purpose must be

Cucurbita.

set on the dung till it becomes as warm as the air in Cucumis the frame and as the young plants increase in bulk, they must be earthed up, which will give them great additional strength. If the bed is not hot enough, some fresh litter should be laid round its sides: and if too hot, some holes should be bored into several parts of it with a stake, which will let out the heat; and when the bed is thus brought to a proper coolness, the holes are to be stopped up again with fresh dung. When these plants begin to shoot their third or rough leaf, another bed must be prepared for them like the first; and when it is properly warm through the earth, the plants of the other bed must be taken up, and planted in this, in which there must be a hole in the middle of each light, about a foot deep, and nine inches over, filled with light and fine fresh earth laid hollow in form of a bason: in each of these holes there must be set four plants: these must be, for two or three days, shaded from the sun, that they may take firm root after which they must have all the sun they can, and now and then a little fresh air, as the weather will permit. When the plants are four or five inches high, they must be gently pegged down towards the earth, in directions as different from one another as may be; and the branches afterwards produced should be treated in the same manner. In a month after this the flowers will appear, and soon after the rudiments of the fruit. The glasses should now be carefully covered at night; and in the daytime the whole plants should be gently sprinkled with water. These will produce fruit till about midsummer; at which time the second crop will come in to supply their place; these are to be raised in the same manner as the early crop, only they do not require so much care and trouble. This second crop should be sown in the end of March or beginning of April. The season for sowing the cucumbers of the last crop, and for pickling, is towards the latter end of May, when the weather is settled: these are sown in holes dug to a little depth, and filled up with fine earth, so as to be left in the form of a bason; eight or nine seeds being put into one hole. These will come up in five or six days; and till they are a week old, are in great danger from the sparrows. After this they require only to be kept clear of weeds, and watered now and then. There should be only five plants left at first in each hole; and when they are grown a little farther up, the worst of these is to be pulled up, that there may' finally remain only four. The plants of this crop will begin to produce fruit in July.

CUCURBIT, the name of a chemical vessel employed in distillation, when covered with its head. Its name comes from its elongated form in shape of a gourd some cucurbits, however, are shallow and wide-mouthed. They are made of copper, tin, glass, and stone ware, according to the nature of the substances to be distilled. A cucurbit, provided with its capital, constitutes the vessel for distillation called an alembic.

CUCURBITA, the GOURD, and POMPION; a genus of plants belonging to the monccia class; and in the natural method ranking under the 34th order, Cucurbitacea. See BOTANY Index.

All the species of gourds and pompions, with their respective varieties, are raised from seed sown annually

Cucurbita in April or the beginning of May, either with or without the help of artificial heats. But the plants fowardCuddalore. ed in a hot bed till about a month old, produce fruit a month or six weeks earlier on that account, aud ripen proportionably sooner. The first species particularly will scarce ever produce tolerably sized fruit in this country, without the treatment above mentioned.

In this country these plants are cultivated only for curiosity; but in the places where they are natives, they answer many important purposes. In both the Indies, bottle-gourds are very commonly cultivated and sold in the markets. They make the principal food of the common people, particularly in the warm months of June, July, and August. The Arabians call this kind of gourd charrah. It grows commonly on the mountains in their deserts. The natives boil and season it with vinegar; and sometimes, filling the shell with rice and meat, make a kind of pudding of it. The hard shell is used for holding water, and some of them are capacious enough to contain 22 gallons; these, however, are very uncommon. The fruit of the pompion likewise constitutes a great part of the food of the common people during the hot months, in those places where they grow. If gathered when not much bigger than a hen or goose egg, and properly seasoned with butter, vinegar, &c. they make a tolerable good sauce for butcher's meat, and are also used in soups. In England they are seldom used till grown to maturity. A hole is then made in one side, through which the pulp is scooped out; after being divested of the seeds, it is mixed with sliced apples, milk, sugar, and grated nutmeg, and thus a kind of pudding is made. The whole is then baked in the oven, and goes by the name of a pumpkin pye. For this purpose the plants are cultivated in many places in England by the country people, who raise them upon old dung-hills. The third species is also used in North America for culinary purposes. The fruit is gathered when about half grown, boiled and eaten as sauce to butcher's meat. The squashes are also treated in the same manner, and by some people esteemed delicate eating.

CUCURBITACEÆ, the name of the 34th order in Linnæus's fragments of a natural method, consisting of plants which resemble the gourd in external figure, habit, virtues, and sensible qualities. This order contains the following genera, viz. gronovia, melothria, passiflora, anguria, bryonia, cucumis, cucurbita, sevillea, momordica, sicyos, trichosanthes.

CUCURUCU, in Zoology, the name of a serpent found in America, growing 10 or 12 feet long. It is also very thick in proportion to its length, and is of a yellowish colour, strongly variegated with black spots, which are irregularly mixed among the yellow, and often have spots of yellow within them. It is a very poisonous species, and greatly dreaded by the natives; but its flesh is a very rich food, and much esteemed among them, when properly prepared.

CUD, sometimes means the inside of the throat in beasts; but generally the food that they keep there, and chew over again. See ANATOMY Index.

CUDDALORE, a town on the coast of Coromandel in India, belonging to the English, very near the place where Fort, St David once stood. N. Lat. 1.

30. F. Long. 79. 53. 30. This place was reduced by Cudda the French in the year 1781; and in 1783 underwent a severe siege by the British forces commanded by General Stuart. At this time it was become the principal place of arms held by the enemy on that coast: they had exerted themselves to the utmost in fortifying it; and it was garrisoned by a numerous body of the best forces of France, well provided with artillery, and every thing necessary for making a vigorous defence.

Previous to the commencement of the siege, they had constructed strong lines of defence all along the fort, excepting one place where the town was covered by a wood, supposed to be inaccessible. Through this wood, however, General Stuart began to cut his way; on which the besieged began to draw a line of fortification within that also. The British commander then determined to attack these fortifications before they were quite completed; and for this purpose a vigorous attack was made by the troops under General Bruce. The grenadiers assailed a redoubt which greatly annoyed them, but were obliged to retire; on which the whole army advanced to the attack of the lines. The French defended themselves with resolution; and as both parties charged each other with fixed bayonets, a dreadful slaughter ensued. At last the British were obliged to retreat; but the French having imprudently come out of their lines to pursue them, were in their turn defeated, and obliged to give up the lines they had constructed with so much pains, and so gallantly defended. The loss on the part of the British amounted to near 1000 killed and wounded, one half of whom were Europeans; and that of the French was. not less than 600.

Though the British proved victorious in this contest, yet the victory cost so dear that there was not now a sufficient number to carry on the siege with any effect. The troops also became sickly; and their strength diminished so much, that the besieged formed a design of not only obliging them to raise the siege, but of totally destroying them. For this purpose 4000 men were landed from the squadron commanded by M. Suffrein; and the conduct of the enterprise committed to the Chevalier de Damas, an experienced and valiant officer. On the 25th of June 1783, he sallied out at the head of the regiment of Aquitaine, supposed to be one of the best in the French service, and of which he was colonel; with other troops selected. from the bravest of the garrison. The attack was. made by day-break; but though the British were at first put into some disorder, they quickly recovered themselves, and not only repulsed the enemy, but pursued them so warmly, that the Chevalier de Damas himself was killed, with about 200 of his countrymen,, and as many taken prisoners.

This engagement was attended with one of the most remarkable circumstances that happened during the whole war, viz. a corps of sepoy grenadiers encountering the French troops opposed to them with fixed bayonets, and overcoming them. This extraor dinary bravery was not only noticed with due applause, but procured for that corps a provision for themselves and families from the presidencies to which they belonged. No other operation of any consequence took.

place.

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