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 flow of the stream is equable. Timbered ravines lend charm to much of its shores, and in the mountains the scenery is most beautiful. Below Nashville the stream is some 400 to 500 ft. wide, and its high banks are for the most part of alluvium, with rocky bluffs at intervals. At the mouth of the river lies Cumberland Island, in the Ohio. During low water of the latter stream the Cumberland discharges around both ends of the island, but in high water of the Ohio the gradient of the Cumberland is so slight that its waters are held back, forming a deep quiet pool that extends some 20 m. up the river. A system of locks and dams below Nashville was planned in 1846 by a private company, which accomplished practically nothing. Congress appropriated $155,000 in 1832–1838; in the years immediately after 1888 $305,000 was expended, notably for deepening the shoals at the junction of the Cumberland and the Ohio; in 1892 a project was undertaken for 7 locks and dams 52 ft. wide and 280 ft. long below Nashville. Above Nashville $346,000 was expended on the open channel project (of 1871–1872) from Nashville to Cumberland Ford (at Pineville); in 1886 a canalization project was undertaken and 22 locks and dams below Burnside and 6 above Burnside were planned, but by the act of 1907 the project was modified—$2,319,000 had been appropriated up to 1908 for the work of canalization. During the Civil War Fort Donelson on the Cumberland, and Fort Henry near by on the Tennessee were erected by the Confederates, and their capture by Flag-officer A. H. Foote and General Grant (Feb. 1862) was one of the decisive events of the war, opening the rivers as it did for the advance of the Union forces far into Confederate Territory.

CUMBRAES, THE, two islands forming part of the county of Bute, Scotland, lying in the Firth of Clyde, between the southern shores of Bute and the coast of Ayrshire. , about 1 m. W.S.W. of Largs, is 3 m. long and 2 m. broad, and has a circumference of 10 m. and an area of 3200 acres or 5 sq. m. Its highest point is 417 ft. above the sea. There is some fishing and a little farming, but the mainstay of the inhabitants is the custom of the visitors who crowd every summer to Millport, which is reached by railway steamer from Largs. This town (pop. 1901, 1663) is well situated at the head of a fine bay and has a climate that is both warm and bracing. Its chief public buildings include the cathedral, erected in Gothic style on rising ground behind the town, the college connected with it, the garrison, a picturesque seat belonging to the marquess of Bute, who owns the island, the town hall, a public hall, library and reading room, the Lady Margaret fever hospital, and a marine biological station. The cathedral, originally the collegiate church, was founded in 1849 by the earl of Glasgow and opened in 1851. In 1876 it was constituted the cathedral of Argyll and the Isles. Millport enjoys exceptional facilities for boating and bathing, and there is also a good golf-course. Pop. (1901) 1754, of whom 1028 were females, and 59 spoke both English and Gaelic. lies to the south, separated by the Tan, a strait half a mile wide. It is 1 m. long, barely 1 m. broad, and has an area of almost a square mile. Its highest point is 409 ft. above sea-level. On the bold cliffs of the west coast stands a lighthouse. Robert II. is said to have built a castle on the island which was demolished by Cromwell’s soldiers in 1653.

The strata met with in the Great and Little Cumbrae belong to the Upper Old Red Sandstone and Carboniferous systems. The former, consisting of false-bedded sandstones and conglomerates, are confined to the larger island. The Carboniferous rocks of the Cumbrae belong to the lower part of the Calciferous Sandstone series with the accompanying volcanic zone. In the larger island these sediments, comprising sandstones, red, purple and mottled clays with occasional bands of nodular limestone or cornstone, occupy a considerable area on the north side of Millport Bay. In the Little Cumbrae they appear on the east side, where they underlie and are interbedded with the lavas. The interesting geological feature of these islands is the development of Lower Carboniferous volcanic rocks. They cover nearly the whole of the Little Cumbrae, where they give rise to marked terraced features and are arranged in a gentle synclinal fold. The flows are often scoriaceous at the top and sometimes display columnar structure, as in the crags at the lighthouse. Those rocks examined microscopically consist of basalts which are often porphyritic. In Great Cumbrae the intrusive rocks mark four periods of eruption, three of which may be of Carboniferous age. The oldest, consisting of trachytes, occur as sheets and dikes trending generally E.N.E., and are confined chiefly to the Upper Old Red Sandstone. They seem to be of older date than the Carboniferous lavas of Little Cumbrae and south Bute. Next come dikes of olivine basalt of the type of the Lion’s Haunch on Arthur’s Seat, which, though possessing the same general trend as the trachytes, are seen to cut them. The members of the third group comprise dikes of dolerite or basalt with or without olivine, which have a general east and west trend, and as they intersect the two previous groups they must be of later date. They probably belong to the east and west quartz dolerite dikes which are now referred to late Carboniferous time. Lastly there are representatives of the basalt dikes of Tertiary age with a north-west trend.

 CUMIN, or (Cuminum Cyminum), an annual herbaceous plant, a member of the natural order Umbelliferae and probably a native of some part of western Asia, but scarcely known at the present time in a wild state. It was early cultivated in Arabia, India and China, and in the countries bordering the Mediterranean. Its stem is slender and branching, and about a foot in height; the leaves are deeply cut, with filiform segments; the flowers are small and white. The fruits, the so-called seeds, which constitute the cumin of pharmacy, are fusiform or ovoid in shape and compressed laterally; they are two lines long, are hotter to the taste, lighter in colour, and larger than caraway seeds, and have on each half nine fine ridges, overlying as many oil-channels or vittae. Their strong aromatic smell and warm bitterish taste are due to the presence of about 3% of an essential oil. The tissue of the seeds contains a fatty oil, with resin, mucilage and gum, malates and albuminous matter; and in the pericarp there is much tannin. The volatile oil of cumin, which may be separated by distillation of the seed with water, is mainly a mixture of cymol or cymene, C10H14, and cumic aldehyde, C6H4(C3H7)COH. Cumin is mentioned in Isaiah xxviii. 25, 27, and Matthew xxiii. 23, and in the works of Hippocrates and Dioscorides. From Pliny we learn that the ancients took the ground seed medicinally with bread, water or wine, and that it was accounted the best of condiments as a remedy for squeamishness. It was found to occasion pallor of the face, whence the expression of Horace, exsangue cuminum (Epist. i. 19), and that of Persius, pallentis grana cumini (Sat. v. 55). Pliny relates the story that it was employed by the followers of Porcius Latro, the celebrated rhetorician, in order to produce a complexion such as bespeaks application to study (xx. 57). In the middle ages cumin was one of the commonest spices of European growth. Its average price per pound in England in the 13th and 14th centuries was 2d. or, at present value, about 1s. 4d. (Rogers, Hist. of Agric. and Prices, i. 631). It is stimulant and carminative, and is employed in the manufacture of curry powder. The medicinal use of the drug is now confined to veterinary practice. Cumin is exported from India, Mogador, Malta and Sicily.

 CUMMERBUND, a girdle or waistbelt (Hindostani kamar-band, a loin-band). In the East the principle of health is to keep the head cool and the stomach warm; the turban protects the one from the sun, and the cummerbund ensures the other against changes of temperature. In India the cummerbund consists of many folds of muslin or bright-coloured cloth.

 CUMMING, JOSEPH GEORGE (1812–1868), English geologist and archaeologist, was born at Matlock in Derbyshire on the 15th of February 1812. He was educated at Oakham grammar school, and Emmanuel College, Cambridge, taking the degree of M.A., and entering holy orders in 1835. In 1841 he was appointed vice-principal of King William’s College, Castletown, in the Isle of Man, and this position he held until 1856. During this period his leisure time was devoted to a study of the geology and archaeology of the island. The results were published in a classic volume The Isle of Man; its History, Physical, Ecclesiastical, Civil and Legendary (1848). In 1856 he became master of King Edward’s grammar school at Lichfield, in 1858 warden and professor of classical literature and geology in Queen’s College, Birmingham, in 1862 rector of Mellis, in Suffolk, and in 1867 vicar of St John’s, Bethnal Green, London. He died in London on the 21st of September 1868.