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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 His editions of the classics are now, of course, out of date.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.

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.

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 654 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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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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.

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 660 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.

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; 661 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.

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.

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 662 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.

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.

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.

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 663 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 664 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 665 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. 666 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.

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 667 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 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:—

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%.

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.

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, 670 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.

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.

Subclass 2, Notostigma.—Chilopods with a series of median 674 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.

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.

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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 677 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.

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 678 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 679 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.