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CAIN

304

CAISSON

HALL CAINB

Cain, the first-born of Adam and Eve. A cultivator of the soil, he killed his brother Abel, because his brother's sacrifices were more acceptable to God than his own. For his crime he was condemned to be a fugitive and a vagabond on the earth. He went to the land of Nod, on the east of Eden, where he built a city, which he called Enoch from the name of his son.

Caine, Thomas Henry Hall, an eminent English novelist and dramatist, was born of Manx parentage in Cheshire, England, in 1853. His early years were spent as an architect, from which he drifted into journalism, thence into the writing of essays, poems and lastly novels. In fiction his first successes were in the writing of the Manx stories of The Deemster, The Bond-man and The Manxman. C o n t e mporary with these were The Shadow of

a Crime, A Son of Hagar and The Scapegoat. All of his stories show power, with much constructive skill, and the qualities that attract and hold the reader's interest. His late novels are The Christian, which, with others of his stories has been dramatized, and The Eternal City. He has also published Sonnets of Three Centuries and a volume of Recollections of Rossetti. He has for some time been actively interested in the government of the Isle of Man, and is a member of the House of Keys.

Cairo (kl'ro), a famous city and capital of modern Egypt, lies on the right bank of the Nile, near the commencement of the Delta. The modern city is built on the remains of four distinct cities, and is surrounded by stone walls with antique battlements. It is divided into quarters, occupied by the Moslems, the Jews, the Christians, etc., and these quarters are separated by gates closed at night. The most remarkable buildings are the mosques and minarets, which include some of the finest remains of Arabian architecture. The great pyramid is about ten miles from the city. Cairo is also the site of a university, founded in 971, to which 2,000 students flock annually from all parts of the Mohammedan world. The streets are narrow and are traversed by an endless stream of horses, asses, camels and human beings. A few broad streets run through the newer parts of the city. "With an area of about seven square miles

and a population of about 654,476, Cairo

is the largest city in Africa, and second only to Constantinople in the Turkish empire.

It was founded by the Arabs about 976 A. D., and was ruled by the Fatimite caliphs until 1171, when Saladin became master of Egypt. It was the capital of the sultans of Egypt until it was captured by the Turks in 1516. Since 1882 Cairo has been the center of British influence in Egypt. It is under the control of a special governor. Of the races which compose the population, the Arabs are the most numerous. There are about 35,000 Europeans. Railroads and telegraphs connect the city with Alexandria, Suez, etc., and steamers ply on the Nile. There is a busy trade, but few manufactures. There are good schools and a public library. The name Cairo is corrupted from El Kahira, meaning "the victorious." See Ball's Cairo of To-Day.

Cairo (kd'ro), a city, the capital of Alexander County, in southwest Illinois, situated at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, about midway between Memphis and St. Louis. Its wharves are thronged with steamboats and shipping, as it is the shipping-point for southern markets of the products of Illinois, Iowa and Indiana. An extensive system of levees now protects it from inundation. It is well served with railroads and maintains excellent public schools, and has a population of 14,548.

Caisson (kds'sori), a water-tight box used in laying foundations on bases under water or undersurface soils which are saturated in water. There are two kinds, the crib or open caisson and the pneumatic caisson. The open caisson is a box structure of wood or of iron, which is loaded so as to sink into the bed of the stream; the earth is then removed to the required depth and the inside of the caisson is filled with masonry or concrete, the whole forming a portion of the pier. In making the foundations for the Poughkeepsie bridge, the caissons used had a cross-section of 60x100 feet and a depth of over 100 feet. Pneumatic caissons are all on the principle of the diving bell. A large cylinder of boiler iron with closed top is sunk into the water, open end down. The water is kept out by keeping the caisson chamber filled with compressed air. Communication for the passage of workmen and materials is through an air lock. This is an ante-room, having air-tight doors both to the atmosphere and to the compressed air chamber. The caisson is sunk by digging out the soil underneath the caisson. In modern pneumatic caissons the air chamber is a steel arched chamber at the bottom of the caisson tube, and the masonry or concrete is built in on top of this chamber as the caisson sin^s. The air pressures ijsed ar^