Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume III.djvu/763

 CAPE VERD CAPILLARY VESSELS 753 CAPE VERD, the most westerly cape of the W. coast of Africa, between the rivers Senegal and Gambia; lat. 14 43' N., Ion. 17 34' W. It was discovered in 1446 by the Portuguese navigator Diniz Fernandez. CAPE VERD ISLANDS, a Portuguese colony situated in the Atlantic ocean, 320 in. W. of Cape Verd, between lat. 14 45' and 17 13' N., and Ion. 22 45' and 25 25' W. ; area, about 1,G50 sq. m. ; pop. in 1869, 70,164. The islands are of volcanic origin, and a volcano still exists on the island of Togo. The shores are low, but in the interior there are high mountains. The archipelago consists of the following 14 islands : Sal, Boavista, Mayo, San- tiago, Fogo, Brava, Grande, Rombo, Sao Nico- lao, Santa Luzia, Branco, Razo, Sao Vicente, and Santo Antonio. The soil is dry but fertile. The heat of the sun is great, but the climate is tempered by the sea breezes. The rainy season lasts from the middle of August to November, and is unhealthy for Europeans. There is a great want of water and trees. Sometimes no rain falls for several seasons, and then the dis- tress of the inhabitants is extreme. In 1832, after a three years' drought, 30,000 people per- ished. All the fruits of S. Europe and W. Afri- ca flourish here, particularly oranges, lemons, melons, and bananas ; so do rice, maize, wine, sugar, archil, cotton, and French beans. Coffee was introduced in 1790. Indigo grows wild. Goats and fowls are very numerous; goat skins are a principal article of export. Asses are reared and exported to the West Indies. The most remarkable of the wild animals are monkeys and bisam cats ; venomous reptiles are unknown ; whales are found in the neigh- boring seas, and turtles frequent the coasts. Salt is manufactured and exported to North America. In 1871 the entries at Santiago, the principal port, were 55 steamers of 47,688 tons, and 199 sailing vessels of 19,401 tons ; most of the steamers were Portuguese, bound to the W. coast of Africa. The natives are docile, indo- lent, and very religious. The Roman Catholic is the only form of worship. Mulattoes, a cross between Portuguese and negroes, form the next most numerous race. The whites con- stitute about one twentieth part of the popula- tion, the slaves one seventh. The language is corrupted Portuguese, which the Portuguese call lingua creoula. As the sea between the continent and the islands is beset with haze and fogs during the greater part of the year, ships sailing southward generally steer outside of the Cape Verd islands. The inhabitants have some commerce with Africa. The most considerable island of the group is Santiago, about 50 m. long and 23 broad in its widest part; pop. about 22,000. The governor re- sides at Porto Praya, a fortified seaport town on this island, with about 2,000 inhabitants. In 1870 the garrison on the islands consisted of two companies of artillery. The volcano of Fogo rises to the height of 9, 157 ft. The islands were discovered about 1450 by the Portuguese, in whose uninterrupted possession they have ever since remained. CAPE VINCENT, a township and port of entry of Jefferson co., N. Y. ; pop. of the township in 1870, 3,342 ; of the village, 1,269. The township borders on the St. Lawrence and Lake Ontario ; and the village is situated on the St. Lawrence, opposite Kingston, Canada, at the terminus of the Rome and Watertown railroad, and has a steamboat landing and a ship yard. CAPIAS (Lat. capio, to take), a name given to several species of judicial writs, the com- mand of which to the officer is that he take the person against whom they are directed into custody for a purpose specified. The principal of these are the capias ad re- spondendum, which issues at the commence- ment of a suit, and commands the officer to take the defendant into custody to answer the plaintiff's action, and the capias ad satis- faciendum, which commands the body of a party to be taken and detained in custody to satisfy a judgment rendered against him. Be- sides the writs against the person, there is also the capias in withernam, which directs the sheriff to take goods of a distrainor equal in value to those which he had distrained wrong- fully, and removed from the county or con- cealed so that they could not be taken on pro- cess. The capias utlagatum, formerly issued for the arrest of an outlaw, also sometimes contained a special command that the goods of the outlaw be taken. CAPILLARY ACTION (Lat. capillus, a hair), a manifestation of the force of adhesion shown by the movement of a fluid upon a solid surface placed partly within the fluid. It is called cap- illary because it is most striking on the inside of very small (capillary or hair-like) tubes. If the solid can be wet by the fluid, the fluid will rise in the tube, or on any surface, as water on glass or wood. If the solid cannot be wet by the fluid, the fluid will be depressed in the tube, as quicksilver is depressed in a glass tube. Capillary action has been investigated with great care, both by experiment and calculation, but its interest is chiefly theoretical, its prac- tical uses and laws being obvious. See La- place's Mecanique celeste, vol. iii. CAPILLARY VESSELS (Lat. capillaris, hair- like), the small vessels intermediate between the arteries and the veins ; so called from their minute size, and from the fact that they are all of nearly unvarying diameter, as compared with the larger vessels. The capillary blood vessels are composed of a delicate, transparent, elastic tubular membrane, marked at various points with small oval spots termed nuclei. Their average diameter in the human subject is about 38 ' 00 of an inch. They inosculate with each other very abundantly, making numerous com- munications in every direction at very short intervals, and form in this way what is known as the capillary plexus or network. In some organs, as in the lungs, these communications