Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/603

Rh and generally British rural scenery, mostly under its cheerful, calm, and pleasurable aspects, in open daylight. This bo rendered with elegant and equable skill, colour rather grey in tint, especially in his later years, and more than average technical accomplishment ; his works have little to excite, but would, in most conditions of public taste, retain their power to attract. Creswick was industrious and extremely prolific ; he produced, besides a steady outpouring of paintings, numerous illustrations for books, lie was personally genial, a dark, bulky man, somewhat heavy and graceless in aspect in his later years. He died at his house in Eayswater, Linden Grove, De cember 28, 1869, after a few years of declining health. Among his principal works may be named England, 1847; Home by the Sands, and a Squally Day, 1848; Passing Showers, 1849; the Wind on Shore, a First Glimpse of the Sea, and Old Trees, 1850; a Mouatain Lake, Moonrise, 1852; Changeable Weather, 1865; also the London Road, a Hundred Years ago ; the Weald of Kent; the Valley Mill (a Cornish subject) ; a Shady Glen ; the Windings of a River; the Shade of the Beech Tregs; the Course of the Greta; the Wharfe; Glendalough, and other Irish subjects, 1836 to 1840; the Forest Farm. Mr Frith for figures, and Mr Ansdell for animals, occasionally worked in collaboration with Creswick.  CRETE, or, ane of the largest islands in the Mediterranean, situated between 34 50 and 35 40 N. lat., and between 23 30 and 26 20 E. long. It is thus the most southerly portion of Europe. By its position south of the ^Egean Sea or Archipelago, extending to the north-west to within 60 miles of Cape Malea in the Peloponnesus, while its north-east angle is distant only about 110 miles from Cape Krio in Asia Minor (a great part of which interval is filled up by the large islands of Carpathus and Rhodes), it forms the natural limit between the Archipelago and the Mediterranean, as well as one of the chief lines of natural connection between the southern shores of Europe and Asia. The island is of a very elon gated form, being not less than 160 miles in length, while its breadth does not anywhere exceed thirty-five miles, and is in some places narrowed to only ten or twelve miles.

Island of Crete.

Mountains.—By far the greater part of the surface of tho island is occupied by ranges of mountains, some of which attain to a very considerable height. Nearly in the centre of the island rises the lofty group, or rather mass, of Mount Ida, now called Psiloriti (a corruption of vif/yXopeiTiov, &quot; the high mountain ), which is not less than 8060 feet in height, forming a nearly isolated mass, separated by tracts of comparatively low elevation from the mountain ranges to the east and west of it. In the western portion of tho island is found the range of the White Mountains (called by the natives Madara Vouna), the central group of which is nearly if not quite as elevated as Mount Ida, rising to a height of at least 8000 feet, and of considerably greater extent, sending down spurs to the west and north-west, which fill up almost the whole of that portion of the island, while the main mass abuts directly upon the south coast for a space of twenty-five to thirty miles, and is then con tinued by a ridge of inferior elevation, but still ranging from 50UO to 6000 feet in height, till it sinks into the plain of the Messara nearly due south of Mount Ida, from which it is separated only by the valley of Sulia. The eastern half of the island is less mountainous, and none of the summits attain so great an elevation ; but the central group of the Lasethe Mountains rises to the height of 7100 feet, and its summits, like those of Mount Ida and the White Mountains, are covered with snow throughout the greater part of the year. The range of Mount Kophino, which separates the plain of the Messara from the south coast, rises abruptly from the sea to a height of 3750 feet, while the subordinate ranges, that fill up the extreme- eastern portion of the island, nowhere attain to the eleva tion of 4000 feet. The isolated peak of Mount Luktas, nearly due south of the city of Candia, though not exceed ing 2700 feet in height, has attained great celebrity from its being reputed in ancient times to contain the burial- place of Zeus, which continued to be regarded with venera tion by the Cretans till after the time of Constantine. The intervals between these mountain groups are filled up for the most part by undulating tracts, consisting of hills of Tertiary formation and comparatively low elevation, but still rising occasionally to a height of from 2000 to 3000 feet. Such a tract is that which extends across tLa island from the neighbourhood of Candia to the plain of Messara in the south ; and a similar one, though of less extent, between Hierapytna on the south and the Gulf of Mirabella on the north, forms a kind of isthmus not more than seven miles across by which the easternmost portion of Crete is united with the rest of the island. Very few plains of any considerable extent occur. Much the largest of these is that called the plain of Messara, in the south of the island, which extends inland from the sea at tho foot of Mount Ida, between the slopes of that mountain and the range of Mount Kophino, which, as already stated, separates it from the sea. It is about thirty-five miles in length, with a breadth of from six to ten miles. The plain which adjoins the city of Canea is of great fertility but of small extent, not exceeding seven or eight miles in width. One leading characteristic of the mountain regions of Crete is the occurrence of depressed valleys or basins at a considerable height above the sea, forming crater-like hollows without any outlet for their waters, and containing plains of considerable extent, which afford admirable pasturage in spring and early summer. The most remark able of these upland basins (which appear to answer precisely to the Yailahs of the Lycian Taurus) are that called Nida, on the flanks of Mount Ida, at an elevation of between 5000 and 6000 feet ; tho more extensive one called Omalo, in the White Mountains, at a height of about 4000 feet ; and one in the Lasethe Mountains about 3000 feet above the sea, which is the most extensive of tho three, and incloses a beautiful plain, containing no less than fifteen villages, with a population of between 3000 and 4000 souls.

Rivers.—From its peculiar conformation it naturally results that Crete contains no rivers of any importance. The most considerable stream is that called the leropotamo (the ancient Electra), which flows through the plain of tho Messara and falls into the sea on the south coast. Tho Mylopotamo (the ancient Oaxes), which traverses the fertile district north of Mount Ida, is the most important of those on the north coast ; while the Platania, a small stream which falls into the sea a few miles west of Canea, deserves notice chiefly as being mentioned by Homer under the name of lardanus.

Coast-line.—The coasts of Crete, in consequence of its mountainous character, present a very broken and varied outline. In the west especially they form a number of 