Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume V.djvu/99

 COLONY Miquelon, Cayenne, Tahiti, New Caledonia, and the settlement on the Gaboon. England began to establish colonies under Queen Eliza- beth. They were sent chiefly toward the East, where they came in conflict with the es- tablishments which had been previously found- ed by the Portuguese and the Dutch. In 1623 the English were driven from the isl- ands which they had occupied, and confined to their settlements at Madras and on the Coro- mandel and Malabar coasts. The English colo- nies in India were under the administration of the East India company, which received its charter from Queen Elizabeth Dec. 31, 1600. Its charter was renewed, and a new company was chartered with similar powers. These companies were afterward united, and their union was ratified by act of parliament in 1708. The East India company was secured in the enjoyment of all benefits directly ob- tained from the English colonization of India. (See EAST INDIA COMPANIES.) The British colonization of North America was conducted upon different principles. Though the settle- ment made at Jamestown in 1607 was a matter of private enterprise, it was taken under the protection of the British government in 1624. Neither that colony nor the one planted by the Puritans in New England in 1620 was ever subjected to the exclusive control of a privileged trading company. The great suc- cess attained by the colonies in America which threw off their allegiance to Great Britain, tended to show that the prosperity and de- velopment of a colony is promoted by the ab- sence of control and regulation on the part of the mother country. This principle has been introduced into the British colonial system, and although the particular forms of adminis- tration vary in the different colonies, they are in general encouraged as far as possible to pro- vide for their own government. Compulsory transportation to remote colonies was long a means adopted by the British government for the punishment of criminals. James I. in 1619 authorized the sending of 100 dissolute persons to Virginia; and the practice was continued afterward. It was found that the criminals were gradually absorbed into society, and the working of the system was upon the whole sat- isfactory. But a similar success never attended the transportation for crime to Australia, which took the place of that to America; and the system was finally abandoned in 1857. The British colonies and foreign possessions at the present day are India, Ceylon, the Straits Set- tlements, Hong Kong, Mauritius, Aden, St. Helena, Ascension, Cape Colony, Natal, the Gold Coast, Sierra Leone, Gambia, Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand, Labuan, Sarawak, Malta, Gibraltar, Heligoland, the Dominion of Canada, Newfoundland, Labrador, British Honduras, British Guiana, the Bermudas, the Bahamas, the Leeward islands, Jamaica, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Barbadoes, Grenada, To- bago, Trinidad, Falkland islands, and several 212 VOL. v. i COLOR 95 small islands in the Pacific and Indian oceans. The course of proceeding which is followed by the United States in reference to the settle- ment of unoccupied territory is a system of colonization. The land is granted to actual set- tlers gratuitously, or on favorable terms, and the territory is governed by the United States until its population reaches a number sufficient to form a state, when the territory is admitted into the Union on an equal footing with the other states. COLOPHON, one of the twelve Ionian cities on the coast of Asia Minor, situated about 9 m. N. W. of Ephesus on the banks of the Halesus, a small stream, famed for the coldness of its waters. It was 2 m. from the coast, on which, however, it had a port, named Notium. The city and the port were connected by long walls. It suffered much from the Lydian king Gyges, from the Persians during the Peloponnesian war, and afterward from Lysimachus, king of Thrace. The name Colophon was finally trans- ferred to Notium. Only a few miserable cab- ins now mark its site. Colophon, according to Strabo, was celebrated both for its navy and its cavalry; indeed, the latter was so efficient, that it was said to carry victory wherever it went. Livy tells us that it was one of the cities hon- ored by the Romans with exemption from taxa- tion. It was one of the seven cities which claimed the honor of having given birth to Ho- mer. Mimnermus and Hermesianax the elegiac poets, Polymnestus the musician, Antimachus, Xenophanes, and Nicander were born there. COLOR, one of those simple and obvious qualities of physical objects, as perceived by us, which can only be defined by its syno- nymes, hue, dye, &c., or by some theory re- specting the nature of light, of bodies, or of vision, but the mode of manifestation or pro- duction of which is far from being equally ob- vious. The color of healthy arterial blood in the higher animals is always florid red; that of pure sky or air, blue; that of most growing leaves, some shade of -green. Many chemical compounds are known by certain colors, but by heat or other agencies these colors are often changed. The colors of certain paints and dyes are to a certain degree permanent, but by exposure to light and air they undergo a gradual change. Probably no colors are ab- solutely permanent, but those thus named are each so during a certain condition of the sub- stance to which it belongs. Other colors, as those shown by a diamond cut in certain forms, or by a prism, those of mother-of-pearl, of the plumage of birds, and of soap bubbles, depend on some accident of form or size of bodies, or of the structure of their surfaces, and these change with the position of the ob- server; hence these are known as variable col- ors. When white or solar light is transmitted through triangular prisms of glass, or other media differing in dispersive power from the air, the beam or ray of white is analyzed, being separated into the seven primary colors, red,