Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 05.djvu/528

* CORYMBUS. 454 COSEGUINA. sisted in gathering it upward upon the crown and back of the liead in one l<not. It may be seen in its simplest form in tlio statue of the Venus de' Medici, in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence. COR'YPHA. See Fan Falsi ; Gebaxg Palm ; Talipot Palm. COR'YPHENE (Lat. cory[ihwiia. from Gk. Kopiipaiva, kori/phaiiia, a sort of fish,'-from Kopvifitj, korypltC, summit, but explained by popular ety- mologj' as /t6/)!'f, lorijs, helmet + <j/aireir, phai- iivin, to appear), or Dolphin. One of a genus of fishes (Coryphoena) of the family Coryphsenidie, to which the name 'dolphin.' properly belonging to the Cetacea, has been popularly transferred. The coryphenes are allied to the opahs, and are remarkable for the beauty and metallic brilliancy of their colors, which delight the spectator as the graceful fish are seen gliding with extreme rajjidity near the surface of the water, gleaming in the light; and the changes the colors undergo while the fish is dying have acquired a poetic celebrity. They have an elongated comj^ressed body covered with small scales, the head rising in a sharp crest, the mouth large. They are large fishes, attaining a length of six feet, and are inhabitants of the high seas of warm climates, where they chase the flying-fishes and other surface prey with great speed and voracity. The many described forms are probably all reducible to two or three species. The common, almost cosmopolitan coryphene (Cori/phti'iia hippiinis) occurs on the coast of the United States as far north as Cape Cod. "They a,j'e often caught by sailors at sea, and are considered most excellent food. It is an almost universal custom before eating them to test the flesh by putting a piece of silver into the vessel in which they have been cooked, it being a common belief that if the flesh is poisonous the silver will turn dark" (Goode). See Plate of Horse-Mackerel.s, etc. CORYPH'ODON (Neo-Lat., from Gk. Kopviij, Jcoryphr, summit + bSoh<:, odous, tooth). A fossil arablypod mammal of the Lower Koccne beds (Wasatch) of western America, related to Tinoceras and the uintatheria. A complete skele- ton of Coryphodon radians has been found, and is mounted in the American Museiun of Xatural History in New York City. It shows an animal between five and six feet in length, a size rather large for the Lower Eocene mammals, with large skull, formidable teeth, short neck, rather long body, and short, strong, bowed legs with spread- ing toes. The brain-cavity is remarkably small. The skeleton indicates a hea'V'. clumsy animal that lived in the bordering marshes of the Wasatch lakes, feeding on succulent water plants which it uprooted with its spreading front teeth. Coryphodon remains have also been foiuid in the Eocene beds of Europe. Consult Osborn. "A Complete Skeleton of Coryphodon Radians," Bnlletin nf the Americnn Mu.tiim of Xatural Histortf. vol. X. (New York, 1898). See Ter- TIARY SY.STEM : TiNOCERAS ; UlNTATHERIUM. CORY'ZA. See Ozena. COS (Gk. Kuf, Kos, It. Sfanchio, Turk. Tstan- hoi). One of the Dorian Sporades. off the southwest coast of Asia llinor, now belonging to Turkey. Cos is about 23 miles long. On the southern side of the island, a range of hills ex- tends along the coast : the western half of the island is also mountainous, but the eastern por- tion north of the jagged ridge of Mount Prion is a fertile plain, producing the grapes which furnish the chief modern exports. In ancient tin:es the island was famous for its perfumes, wines, and sill,; (probably produced from an inferior variety of worm), from which were woven the trans- Jiarent Coiiu garments worn by the courtesans of Greece and Home. There are many mineral springs on the island, which early became an im- portant seat of the worship of Asclepius, the god of healing. Cos was the birthplace of the great physician Hippocrates (q.v. ). The chief town, Cos, is situated on the northeast coast, on the site of the ancient city. In the centre of the main street is a gigantic palm-tree, said to have stood there before the Christian Era. To the northwest is an old fortress of the Knights of Saint .John. The harbor is small, and so filled with mud as to be available onl.y for small boats. The inhabitants are emplojed chiefly in agriculture. Cos is men- tioned in the Iliad among the allies of the Greeks, and the island seems to have been early colonized, perhaps from Thessaly. Later it was the seat of a Dorian colony, apparently from Epidaui-ns, and liecame one of the cities of the Dorian Hexapolis. It was a member of the Athenian League, and in the fourth century B.C. enjoyed a prosjierity which seems to have increased under Alexander and his successors. It was the birthplace of Ptolemy II. Philadelphus, and the home of Philetas, the bucolic poet, who founded on the island a school of which Theocritus (q,v.) was the most distinguished member. C'os was favored by the Romans, and seems to have been little disturbed till the Latin conquest of Constanti- nople (a.d. 1204). From that time till its capture by the Turks in 1523, Cos shared the vicissitudes of Rhodes and the neighboring isl- ands. Consult: Rayet, Mcinoire sur Vile de Cos (1876); Paton and Hicks, Inscriptions of Cos (Oxford, 1891), the introduction containing a brief history of the island: Herzog, Koische Forschtingen (Leipzig, 1899). CO'SA, .TiAN DE LA. See La Ccsa, Juan de. COSCIN'OMANCY (from Gk. wfTKuoi., kos- kinon, sieve -{- /javreia, manieia. divination). A species of divination, practiced from the earliest times by means of a sieve and a pdir of shears or forceps. Tylor IPrimitire Culture, I. 116) says: "The sieve was held hanging by a thread or by the points of a pair of shears stuck into its rim. and it would turn or swing or fall at the mentioii of a thief's name and give similar signs for other purposes." The ordeal of the Bible and "key is a survival of the old custom. The fiftieth Psalm is read, and when the verse beginning "When thou sawest a thief" is reached, the apparatus is expected to turn toward the culprit. See Superstition. COSE'CANT. See Trigonometry. COSEGUINA, kO'sa-g%ve'na, or COSIGTJI- NA, kCi'se-gwe'na. A volcano in the extreme western corner of Nicaragua. Central Amer- ica (Map: Central America, D 4). It is situated on a small peninsula which partly separates the fiulf of Fonscca from the Pacific; it has an alti- tude of over 3000 feet. During its latest eruption, on .January 20. 183.5, a shower of ashes fell for three days, and the explosion was heard as far as Me.xico.