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C O L O M B E S —C O L O M B I A

ous change in the popular, and even the professional, way of regarding sea-power and its conditions. He did not invent the term “ sea-power,”—it is, as is shown elsewhere (Sea-Power), of very ancient origin,—nor did he employ it until Captain Mahan had made it a household word with all. But he thoroughly grasped its conditions, and in his great work on Naval Warfare (first published in 1891) he enunciated its principles with great cogency and with keen historic insight. The central idea of his teaching was that naval supremacy is the condition precedent of all vigorous military offensive across the seas, and, conversely, that no vigorous military offensive can be undertaken across the seas until the naval force of the enemy has been accounted for—either destroyed or defeated and compelled to withdraw to the shelter of its own ports, or at least driven from the seas by the menace of a force it dare not encounter in the open. This broad and indefeasible principle he enunciated and defended in essay after essay, in lecture after lecture, until what at first was rejected as a paradox came in the end to be accepted as a commonplace. He worked quite independently of Captain Mahan, and his chief conclusions were published before Captain Mahan’s works appeared. In the last edition of Naval Warfare he showed how, in the Cuban War, Captain Mahan had been driven by force of circumstances to adopt in practice the sound doctrine of the Command of the Sea, which in some of his works he had seemed in some measure to impugn. There was no jealousy and no rivalry between these two great writers on the philosophy of naval warfare. They worked on independent lines—Colomb perhaps with deeper and more consistent thought, but Mahan assuredly with a broader historical outlook, and with finer powers of lucid and orderly exposition. Colomb died quite suddenly and in the full swing of his literary activity on October 13, 1899, at Steeple Court, Botley, Hants. His latest published work was a biography of his friend Sir Astley Cooper Key, and his last article was a critical examination of the tactics adopted at Trafalgar, which showed his acumen and insight at their best. He left much valuable literary material in an unfinished state at his death. He was often thought too speculative, and even too visionary, by his contemporaries of a profession which is eminently practical, and little given to speculation even on the theory of its own ‘ occupation. He was indeed essentially a pioneer, and his larger range of thought often supplied the Navy with well-considered methods, of which practical men discerned neither the rationale nor the origin. But no naval officer of his time left a deeper or more lasting impression on the thought and action of the great service he adorned. „ . (j. R. T.) Colombes, a town in the arrondissement of St Denis, department of Seine, France, 7 miles north-northwest of Paris, near the left bank of the Seine, and on the railway from Paris to Havre. It has a 16th-century church with 12th-century tower, numerous villa residences and boarding schools, and manufactures of gelatine and starch. A castle formerly stood here, in which died Henrietta Maria, queen of Charles I. of England and daughter of Henry IV. of France. Port traffic (1899), 55,350 tons. Population (1901), 23,061. The adjacent town of Bois Colombes had a population (1896) of 10,404. Colombia, a country of South America extending from 12° 20' N. lat. to the still undefined boundaries of Ecuador, Peru, and Brazil. The boundary towards Venezuela, according to the arbitration of the Spanish Government in 1891, runs from the Bay of Calaboso westwards to the mountains of Oca, then southwards along the watershed between the Magdalena river and Lake Mara-

caibo as far as the Bio de Oro, whence it crosses the cordillera and follows successively the rivers Oira, Arauca, Meta, Orinoco, and Atabapo. Then it passes to the Piedra del Cocuy and follows the course of the Guainia to the frontier of Brazil. The boundary dispute with Peru and Ecuador was, by treaty of 1894, submitted to the arbitration of Spain. The question of the frontier towards Costa Bica was in 1899 submitted to the president of the French Bepublic, who gave his award on 15th September 1900. The boundary between the two republics is formed by the spur of the cordilleras starting from Cape Mona on the Atlantic and enclosing on the north the valley of the Bio Tarire, and by the watershed between the Atlantic and Pacific up to the parallel of 9° N. lat. It then follows the watershed between the Chiriqui Viejo and the affluents of the Dolce Gulf, ending at Burica Point on the Pacific. The islands east and south of Cape Mona are Colombian, to the west and north-west Costa Bican ; but seven islands at a greater distance, lying between the Mosquito coast and the isthmus of Panama, are Colombian. On the Pacific coast Colombia possesses Burica and the islands to the east; Costa Bica, those to the west. Area and Population.—According to a census taken in 1871 the total population was 2,951,323, consisting of 1,434,129 males and 1,517,194 females. An official estimate published in 1881, and considered to be approximately correct for the present date, gave the following details as regards area and population :— Population Square Departments. Square Miles. in 1881. Mile. Antioquia (1884) Bolivar Boyaca Cauca Cundinamarca (1884) Magdalena Panama. Santander Tolima (1884). Total
 * Area in Population per

22,316 21,345 33,351 257,462 79,810 24,440 31,571 16,409 18,069

470,000 280,000 702,000 621,000 569,000 90,000 285,000 555,000 306,000

504,773

3,878,000

21 13 21 27 39 35 17 7-7

This estimate includes some 220,000 uncivilized Indians, and the population of the different territories attached to departments. A later statement, published in 1893, estimates the total population at 4,060,000, but without precise data showing where the increase occurred. The principal towns are Bogota (the capital), with 110,000 inhabitants; Medellin, with 50,000; Panama, 30,000; Cartagena, 20,000 ; Bucaramanga, 20,000. No statistics of the movement of population are compiled. An official calculation in 1893 estimated the death-rate at 21 per 1000, 20 per cent, of the deaths being those of children under one year, and 30 per cent, of the total deaths those- of children under live years of age. Of the total population 68 8 per cent, are engaged in agriculture; 10-6 per cent, are labourers; 8’6, mechanics; 8‘4, commercial; 2‘0, miners. Spanish is spoken throughout Colombia, except among some of the tribes of Indians in the districts adjoining the Meta, Orinoco, and the affluents of these two rivers. The highlands are generally healthy, the lowlands and plains infected to some extent with malarial fever. The annual mean temperature at Bogota, 8300 feet above sea-level, is said to be 63° Fahr. Constitution and Government. —The constitution of 1863 was superseded in 1886 by that nowin force, which adopted a centralized organization and named the state the Bepublic of Colombia. The legislative power is entrusted to the Senate and the House of Representatives, together constituting the Congress, which meets at the capital every two years, on the 20th of July. The Senate consists of twenty-seven members, three from each department, who are elected for six years by the departmental assemblies (legislatures). The House of Representatives consists of sixty-eight members—one member for every 50,000 inhabitants; they are elected for four years directly by citizens able to read and write, or who have an income of $500 a year, or real estate worth $1500. The executive authority is vested in the President of the Republic, who is assisted by ministers chosen by him, and a Council of State consisting of seven members. He is elected by electoral colleges for six years, and when for any reason he ceases to act, the vicepresident takes his place.