CRANNOGES. in which Ireland is so rich, it was seen that, in 848 A. D., a hostile Irish chief 'plundered the island of Loch Gabhor [as Lagore was then written], and afterwards burned it, so that it was level with the ground;' and that again, in 933 A. D., the island of Loch Gabhor was pulled down' by the piratical Norsemen. Mr Wilde's discovery at Lagore was followed by other discoveries of the same kind elsewhere in Ireland, so that in 1857 the existence of about fifty C. had been ascertained; and every succeeding year has seen an increase of the number. They shew several varieties of construction. The island at Lagore is a type of the purely artificial crannoge. But most frequently the crannoge was partly natural. An islet just level with the water, was raised artificially a foot or two above it. An islet too small to be a convenient habitation, or too easy of landing to be a place of defence, had its area artificially enlarged, or its banks artificially strengthened, generally by piles or stockades, but occasionally by heaps of stones. The space thus enclosed is generally a circle of from 60 to 80 feet in diameter; but in some cases the enclosed space is larger, and of an oval shape. The piles are generally of oak, mostly young trees, from four to nine inches broad, still bearing marks of the hatchet; usually a single row has been considered enough, but there are instances of two, and even of three rows. It would seem that originally the piles had risen several feet above the water, and it has been supposed that they were interlaced with branches placed horizontally, so as to form a screen or breastwork. The area within the stockade is sometimes wholly or partially covered with a layer of round logs, from four to six feet long, having stones, clay, or gravel above them. Fragments of oak-framing, with mortises and cheeks cut in them, have been found within the piles. In almost every instance, a few flat stones, apparently serving as a hearth, have been observed near the middle of the enclosure: in several C., two or three hearths have been met with. In some cases, a causeway leads from the island to the mainland; but in general the crannoge was to be reached only by boat, and scarcely any crannoge has been discovered with out the remains of a primitive canoe, hollowed out of the trunk of an oak, being found beside it. In at least one crannoge, a pier or jetty projected from the island; it was a double row of piles and stretchers, running parallel to each other at a distance of about eight feet, and supporting a platform of logs. On almost every crannoge one or two querns (q. v.) have been found, along with bones of oxen, deer, goats, and swine, horns of cattle, deer, sheep, and goats, boars' tusks, and sharpening stones: fragments of pottery, and articles of stone, bone, horn, wood, glass, copper, bronze, brass, and iron, are of somewhat rarer occurrence. Many of the C. had been submerged by the gradual rise of the lakes in which they stood, so that their existence only became known as the great drainage-works of late years reduced the waters to their old level. The accompanying woodcut shews a section (on the scale of 1 inch to 20 feet) of the crannoge in Ardakillin Lough, near Stokestown, in the county of Roscommon. The uppermost line marks the highest level of the waters of the lake; the middle line, the common winter level; the third line, the common summer level. The upper surface of the crannoge was formed of a layer of loose stones, surrounded by a wall, partly supported by piles. The stones rested on the natural clay, peat, and boulders of the island, in digging through which strata of ashes, bones, and logs of timber were met with. The stockades were of oak; the oblique or slanting stockade shewn in the woodcut represents a girdle of sheet-piling which quite encircled the crannoge. The woodcut on the following page gives a ground-plan (on the scale of 1 inch to 20 feet) of one of two C. in Drumaleague Lough, in the county of Leitrim. The circle within the ring of stockades is 60 feet in diameter; in some places there are two, and in others, three rows of stockades; and within this outer ring, there are groups of piles, some of them arranged apparently for some special purpose. The oblong space in the middle, marked A, is covered by a rude platform of round logs, chiefly of alder, from four to six feet in length; it was probably the floor of the log-house, which was the chief or only dwelling-place on the islet. B shews where the hearth stood a collection of stones, still retaining traces of fire; C marks a heap of stiff clay; D, the root of a large tree nearly buried in the peat, the surface of the wood being bevelled off with a hatchet, so as to form a sort of table, under which was found A heap of bones, apparently of deer and swine. The Irish annals, it has been seen, make mention of C. as early as the 9th c., and they figure in history down to the middle of the 17th century. The crannoge of Lough Lynch, in Antrim, is shewn as the birthplace of Colkitto, a chief who figured in Montrose's wars, and has found a place in one of Milton's sonnets. The crannoge of Roughan Lake, near Dungannon, was the last retreat of Sir Phelim O'Neil in 1641. Two years later, there is record of an attempt to flood the crannoge of Loughinsholin, in the county of Londonderry, by turning a stream into the lake, and damming up its outlet. This attempt failed; but in 1645 the garrison were compelled by hunger to give the crannoge to the flames, and make their escape. In 1567, an agent of the English government, who was asked what were the castles of the O'Neil, wrote in reply: For castles, he trusteth no point thereunto for his safety, as appeareth by the razing of the strongest castles of all his countries; and that fortification that he only dependeth upon is in certain fresh-water lochs in his country, which from the sea there comes neither ship nor boat to approach them: it is thought that there, in the said fortified islands, lieth all his plate (which is much), and money, prisoners, and gages [i. e., hostages]; which islands have in wars heretofore been attempted, and now of late again by the lord-deputy there, Sir Harry Sydney, which for want of means for safe conduct upon the water hath not prevailed.' While archaeologists were still exploring the C. of Ireland, structures of a similar kind were CRANNOGES. discovered in the heart of the European continent. the mud around them, found heaps of primitive The winter of 1853-1854 was one of the driest weapons, tools, and utensils, made of stone and that had been seen in Switzerland, and the lakes bone. Closer examination satisfied him that the piles had supported a platform; that on this platform huts had been raised; and that after being thus occupied, probably for centuries, the structure had been destroyed by fire. The discovery in the Lake of Zurich of these Keltis, he pfahlbauten (Celtic pile-buildings), as Dr Keller called them-habitations lacustres (lake-dwellings), as other Swiss archæologists have termed them-was followed almost immediately by the discovery of erections of the same kind in other lakes of Switzerland. No fewer than from 30 to 40 have been found in the upper and lower lakes of Constance; as many as 30 in the Lake of Geneva; more than 20 in the Lake of Neuchâtel; 10 in the Lake of Bienne; besides others in the deep peat-bogs which surround the hill of Chamblon, in the Vallée de l'Orbe, and in the lakes of Morat, Inkwyl near Soleure, Moosseedorf near Bern, Pfaffikon near Zurich, Wauwyl near Lucerne, and Nussbaumen in the canton of Thurgau. The site chosen for these lake-dwellings was generally a sunny and sheltered bay, with a gently shelving bottom of mud or clay. The piles, from four to ten inches sank to a lower level than was ever known before. | in diameter, were rudely fashioned of whatever wood The inhabitants of the village of Meilen, on the Lake of Zurich, took advantage of this unusual subsidence to reclaim a piece of land from the lake. As the work went on, a learned antiquary, Dr Ferdinand Keller, discovered the remains of rows of deeply driven piles, and, imbedded in was at hand, oak, fir, ash, beech, birch, cherry, or apple. They were driven in a depth of not less than six or seven feet of water, at a distance of from 100 to 300 feet from the shore. They were ranged generally from one to two feet apart, in the form of a narrow parallelogram, having its longest side in a CRANNOGES. In at least one instance, the remains of a bridge or gangway, leading from the platform to the shore, have been discovered. Many small boats, hollowed out of the trunks of trees, have been found; and one large vessel of the same kind, 50 feet long, and 34 feet wide, has been observed at the bottom of the Lake of Bienne. The woodcut on the preceding page shews the pfahlbauten, as the Swiss archæologists believe them to have been in their original state. The lake-dwellings of Switzerland have obviously much more resemblance to those of Lake Prasias, described by Herodotus, than to the C. of Ireland. But the Swiss at the same time can shew examples of the Irish type. At Nidau Steinberg, in the Lake of Bierne, there is an artificial mound of stones, resting, ou horizontal planks, and encircled by a row of upright piles. It is now submerged, but when as the Swiss believe-the lake stood at a lower level, it must have been an island. At Moringen, in the same lake, there is another pile-building, enclosing a mound of stones which has an area of about half an acre. A canoe which had been used in its construction lies with its load of stones at the bottom of the lake. Structures still more nearly resembling the Irish C. have been found in the lakes of Inkwyl, Nussbaumen, and Wauwyl. History and tradition are alike silent as to the pile-buildings of the Swiss lakes. That they belong to a remote age, will readily be granted, even by those who may hesitate to accept 'the stone, bronze, and iron periods' on which the Swiss antiquary rests their claims to 'pre-historic' antiquity; or who may question the grounds on which the Swiss naturalist assigns them to the 15th c. before the Christian era. Of the remains found in them, many appear to be those of a rude people-such as spear-points, arrowheads, axes, chisels, knives, and even small saws, of flint and stone; arrow-heads, daggers, hammers, bodkins, needles, pins, rings, bracelets, necklaces, of bone or horn. Articles of bronze, some of them richly ornamented, are at the same time of common occurrence; and swords and other objects of iron are met with in considerable numbers. Some of the Swiss archaeologists seem at one time to have thought that the piles surrounded by stone and bone implements shewed marks of greater age than the piles surrounded by bronze implements. It is now admitted, however, that both stone and bronze objects, and bronze and iron objects, are to be found in the same group of piles. It is to be remarked, too, that many of the objects of stone, bone, horn, bronze, and iron, are fashioned of the same shape, and for the same use, differing only in the substance of which they are made. Whoever the dwellers on the pfahlbauten were, their remains shew that they grew wheat and barley; that they ate the flesh of the ox, the goat, the sheep, and the pig; that among the beasts of the chase which they hunted down was the now extinct species of the aurochs (see BISON); that they had horses, dogs, and cats; that they had apples, pears, wild-plums, and wood-raspberries; that they baked pottery; that their women plied the distaff and knitted; that they made empen mats; and that they wove linen cloths. Hitherto, archæologists knew of lake-dwellings as existing only in Ireland and Switzerland; but in 1857, Mr Joseph Robertson read a paper to the Society of Scottish Antiquaries, proving that they were to be found in almost every province of Scotland. He not only ascertained the existence of about 50 examples, but was able to shew from records that they were known in Scotland by the same name of C. which they received in Ireland. The resemblance between the Scottish and Irish types seems, indeed, to be complete. Every variety of structure observed in the one country is to be found in the other, from the purely artificial island, framed of oak-beams, mortised together, to the natural island, artificially fortified or enlarged by girdles of oak-piles or ramparts of loose stones; from the island with a pier projecting from its side, to the island communicating with the mainland by a causeway. If there be any difference between the C. of the two countries, it is that the number of C. constructed altogether of stones is greater in Scotland than in Ireland--a difference which is readily explained by the difference in the physical circumstances of the two countries. Among the more remarkable of the Scotch C. is that in the loch of Forfar, which bears the name of St Margaret, the queen of King Malcolm Canmore, who died in 1097. It is chiefly natural, but has been strengthened by piles and stones, and the care taken to preserve this artificial barrier is attested by a record of the year 1508. Another crannogethat of Lochindorb, in Moray-was visited by King Edward I. of England in 1303, about which time it was fortified by a castle of such mark that in 1336, King Edward III. of England led an army to its relief through the mountain-passes of Athol and Badenoch. A third crannoge-that of Loch Cannor or Kinord, in Aberdeenshire-appears in history in 1335, had King James IV. for its guest in 1506, and continued to be a place of strength until 1648, when the estates of parliament ordered its fortifications to be destroyed. It has an area of about an acre, and owes little or nothing to art beyond a rampart of stones and a row of piles. In the same lake there is another and much smaller crannoge, which is wholly artificial. Forty years after the dismantling of the crannoge of Loch Cannor, the crannoge of Lochan-Eilean, in Strathspey, is spoken of as useful to the country in time of troubles or wars, for the people put in their goods and children here, and it is easily defended.' Canoes hollowed out of the trunks of oaks have been found as well beside the Scotch, as beside the Irish crannoges. Bronze vessels, apparently for kitchen purposes, are also of frequent occurrence, but do not seem to be of a very ancient type. Deer's horns, boars' tusks, and the bones of domestic animals, have been discovered; and in one instance a stone hammer, and in another what seem to be pieces for some such game as draughts or backgammon, have been dug up. Since 1857, the existence of lake-dwellings has been discovered in Savoy, in Upper Italy, in Hanover, in Prussia, and in Denmark. Less certain traces have been found in England, in draining a mere at Wretham Hall, near Thetford, in Norfolk. The savages of Borneo and New Guinea still live on the water, in huts perched upon platforms supported by piles; and wooden houses raised upon piles are common in Burmah and Siam, on the creeks and rivers of the Strait of Malacca, and it is believed elsewhere in Asia. A bas-relief from the palace of Sennacherib, engraved in Mr Layard's Monuments of Nineveh, represents what seem to be artificial islands, formed, it would seem, by wattling together the tall reeds of the marshes on the lower part of the Euphrates. The C. of Ireland are described in the Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, vols. i., v., vii.; Mr Wilde's Catalogue of the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy; The Archæological Journal, vols. iii., vi.; Mr Digby Wyatt's Observations on the Early Habitations of the Irish (Lond. 1858); The Ulster Journal of Archæology, No. 26; Proceedings of the Kilkenny Archeological Society, No. 27. The chief works on the lake-dwellings of Switzerland are Dr Ferdinand Keller's three papers on Pfahlbauten, and Dr L. Rutimeyer's Untersuchung der Thierveste CRAPE-CRATAEGUS. aus den Pfahlbauten, all published in the Mittheilungen der Antiquarischen Gesellschaft in Zurich, band ix., xii., xiii.; M. Frederic Troyon's Habitations Lacustres de la Suisse (Lausanne, 1857); his Ossemens et Antiquités du Lac de Moossedorf, in the Bibliothèque Universelle de Genève, for May 1857; his Details of Discoveries at the Lake Habitations of Switzerland, in the Ulster Journal of Archaeology, No. 29; MM. Alb. Jahn and J. Uhlmann's Die Pfahlbau-Alterthümer von Moossedorf (Bern, 1857); and M. A. Morlot's Etudes Géologico-Archéologiques en Danemark et en Suisse, in the Bulletin de la Société Vaudoise des Sciences Naturelles, t. vi. (Lausanne, 1860). The Scottish C. are described in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, vol. iii. On the subject of pile-buildings generally, reference may be made to Mr W. M. Wylie's paper On Lake-dwellings of the Early Periods, in the Archeologia, vol. xxxviii. (Lond. 1860), and Pallafittes of the L. of Neuchatel, by E. Desor, in the annual report of the Smithsonian Inst. for 1865. CRAPE, a thin fabric made of raw silk, which has been tightly twisted, without removing the viscous matter with which it is covered when spun by the worm. It is simply woven as a thin gauze, then dressed with a thick solution of gum, which in drying causes the threads partially to untwist, and thus gives a wrinkled and rough appearance to the fabric. It is usually dyed black, and used for mourning apparel. CRAS-CROM, an ancient and rude instrument of agriculture in the Highlands, consisting, as its name in Gaelic imports, of a crooked stick shod with iron, with a small projecting bar to rest the foot upon. CRA'SHAW, RICHARD, an English poet, whose devotional strains exhibit imagination of a high order, with great copiousness and beauty of language, was the son of a clergyman in the English Church, and was born in London, at what date is unknown. He was educated at the Charter-house, and at Cambridge, where he obtained a fellowship in 1637. He entered the church about 1641, it is said, and became an earnest and eloquent preacher; but in 1644 he was ejected from his fellowship by the parliament, for refusing to take the Covenant. He went to France, adopted the Roman Catholic faith, and suffered great pecuniary distress, until, through Cowley's influence, he was introduced to Queen Henrietta Maria, who recommended him to certain dignitaries of the church in Italy. He soon obtained a secretaryship to one of the cardinals at Rome, and was made a canon of the church of Loretto. In this office he died about 1650. In 1634, C. published a volume of Latin poems, in which appeared the famous line, sometimes attributed to Dryden and others, relative to the miracle of the water being turned into wine. 'Nympha pudica Deum vidit et erubuit.' In 1646 appeared his Steps to the Temple, The Delights of the Muses, and Carmen Deo Nostro, in which there is much fervid poetry. C. greatly resembles George Herbert in his cast of thought, and is not inferior to him in richness of fancy, though we find in him more exaggeration and conceit. CRASSULA'CEÆ, a natural order of exogenous plants, some of them shrubby, and some herbaceous, all remarkable for their succulency. About 300 species are known, among which are house-leeks, stone-crops, rose-root, &c. They are widely distributed over the world, but South Africa particularly abounds in them. Most of them grow in dry places, and derive their nourishment from the air rather than from the soil, their roots seeming chiefly intended to fix them to the spot. Many of them are much cultivated in green-houses, more on account of their grotesque forms than for the beauty of their flowers. Some are refrigerant, and one or two are even used as food; others, on account of the tannin which they contain, are astringent ; and some are acrid. CRA'SSUS, the surname of several old Roman families, among which that of the Licinii was most remarkable.-CRASSUS (LUCIUS LICINIUS), born in 140 B. C., was the best orator of his age, and was us distinguished for his wit as for his rectitude in the capacity of proconsul. In 95 B.C. he was elected consul, along with Quintus Mucius Scævola (who had been his colleague in all his previous offices). During their consulship was enacted the Lex Licinia Mucia de Civibus regundis, banishing from Rome all who had not the full rights of citizens. This imbittered the feelings of foreigners toward Rome, and partly led to the Social War. As censor, C., in 92 B. C., closed all the schools of the rhetors-asserting that they had exercised a bad influence on the minds of young men. In consequence of the excitement attending a debate in the senate, C. died in 91 B. C. CRASSUS, MARCUS LICINIUS, the triumvir, was born sometime before 115 B. C. His father and brother suffered death from the party of Marius, 81 B. C., and he himself-though young-was subjected to a jealous and dangerous surveillance. In 85 B. C., to escape from this, he went to Spain. He afterwards joined Sulla (83 B. C.), and distinguished himself in the battle against the Samnites at the gates of Rome. As prætor he crushed the Servile revolt, by the conquest of Spartacus at the battle of Lucania (71 B. C.), and in the following year was made consul with Pompey, a colleague whom he hated. On the other hand, Cæsar valued the friendship of C., the most wealthy of Roman citizens. During his consulate, C. gave a feast to the people, which was spread on 10,000 tables, and distributed a provision of corn for three months. Plutarch estimates the wealth of C. as more than 7000 talents, and Pliny states that the lands of C. were worth 8000 talents. About 60 B. C., Cæsar, Pompey, and C. entered into a private arrangement for their common benefit. This paction is known as the first triumvirate. See CESAR. In 57 B. C., as consul with Pompey, he gained the province of Syria, and professed to make preparations of war against the Parthians; but the acquisition of more wealth seems to have been his main object, and this he effected by plundering the towns and temples in Syria. At length, however, he set out, but was misguided by a treacherous Arab, and utterly defeated at the river Bilecha by the Parthians. C. now retreated to the town of Carrhæ, intending to pass into Armenia; but was beguiled into a conference with the Parthian general, Surenas, and was slain at the appointed place of meeting. His quæstor, Cassius, with 500 cavalry, escaped into Syria; but the remaining Romans were cattered and made prisoners, or put to death. CRATAE'GUS, a genus of plants of the natur order Rosacea, sub-order Pomeæ, very nearly allied to Mespilus (Medlar) and Pyrus (Pear, Apple, &c.), but distinguished by the acute calycine segments, and by the round or oval fruit, closed at the apex, and concealing the upper end of the bony cells. The species are pretty numerous, natives of the temper ate parts of the northern hemisphere, and in general have flowers in beautiful terminal corymbs. They are all large shrubs or small trees, more or less spiny, whence the name THORN has been very gener ally applied to them. The only native of Britain is CRATER-CRAYFISH. the common HAWTHORN (q. v.), (C. oxyacantha). tutions-in fact the whole public and private life of Most of the species resemble it considerably in habit, the Athenians-were considered by C. a legitimate size, form of leaf, &c. A number of them are now mark for censorious satire. The greatest men did frequent in plantations and shrubberies in Britain, not escape. Pericles, for instance, was frequently of which perhaps the most common is the Cock's- and fiercely abused. C.'s style was very metaphorSPUR THORN (C. crus-galli), a native of North ical and ingenious. Of his twenty-one comedies, America from Canada to Carolina. Its leaves are nine of which obtained the first prize in the pub not lobed; its fruit rather larger than that of the lic competitions, we possess only some fragments. hawthorn. The AZAROLE (C. Azarolus), a native of These have been collected by Meineke in his Frag the south of Europe, and the ARONIA (C. Aronia), menta Comicorum Græcorum (Berlin, 1840).-There a native of the Levant, are occasionally cultivated was also a younger CRATINUS, a contemporary o! for their fruit, which is about the size of the Plato, who belonged to the school of the Midak Siberian crab, and is used either for dessert or for Comedy. pies. C. Orientalis (or odoratissima) and C. tanacetifolia have also fruit of considerable size. The latter is much eaten in Armenia. C. Mexicana has a large fruit, like a small apple, but not eatable. It is, however, very ornamental. The wood of most of the species much resembles that of the hawthorn. It is common to graft the rarer species on the hawthorn.-C. pyracantha differs much in appearance from most of the genus; being a pretty evergreen shrub, with lanceolate crenate leaves, and rich clusters of red berries, which remain on it all winter; a native of rocky places in the south of Europe and the Caucasus. It is often employed in Britain as an ornamental covering for walls, and is known as the PYRACANTHA. CRATER (Gr. a cup), the central cup-shaped cavity in the summit of a volcano (q. v.), through Crater of Kilauea in the island of Hawaii, Pacific Ocean: Depth about 1500 feet; circumference about 2 miles. which the lava, stones, scoria, &c., are for the most part ejected. These materials sometimes escape from immense rents in the sides of the volcano, as was the case in the famous eruption of Hecla in 1783, when two enormous streams of lava poured from its side to the distance, the one of 40, the other of 50 miles. Nor are the volcanic materials, when they escape through a crater, always ejected through the old vent on the summit; some other portion of the mountain may yield more readily to the pressure from within, and thus one or more lateral craters be formed, which, however, increase in height from the accumulation of ejected materials, and eventually, if the eruption continues, overtop the former cone. CRATI'NUS, a Greek comic poet, born about 519 B. C. Next to his younger contemporaries, Eupolis and Aristophanes, he is the most valuable representative of the Old Attic comedy. He changed its outward form considerably, and also sought to add to its vigour and power. Before his time, the number of actors had been indefinite; he limited them to three. He was the first to make comedy pungent and personal The habits, manners, insti CRATI PPUS, a Peripatetic philosopher, was a native of Mitylene, and a contemporary of Cicero. He appears to have been held in the highest estima. tion by the great men of his age. Cicero calls him the prince of all the philosophers whom he had known. Pompey visited him after his defeat at Pharsalia, and received at his hands the consolations of philosophy; and Brutus went to Athens, to which city C. had latterly betaken himself, to listen to his prelections, even while making preparations to meet Octavius and Antony. Nothing that C. wrote has survived. CRAYER, CASPAR DE, a Flemish historical and portrait painter, was born at Antwerp in 1582. He lived first at Brussels, and afterwards at Ghent, where he died in 1669. For the churches at Ghent he executed twenty-one altar-pieces. His works are to be found all through Flanders and Brabant. The galleries of Vienna and Munich also possess a few. Their main characteristics are vigour and boldness of design, and care and truthfulness in execution. Rubens was a great admirer of Crayer. CRAYFISH, or CRAW'FISH (Astacus fluviatilis), a crustacean of the order Decapoda (see CRAB), sub-order Macroura (i. e., long-tailedcharacterised by the elongation of the abdomen, and its termination in a sort of fin composed of five pieces and expanded laterally); nearly allied to the lobster, from which, however, it differs in having the middle plate of the tail-fin transversely divided by a suture. They inhabit the rivers and streams of North America and Europe, and a species occurs in those of England, making burrows in clayey banks, and coming forth at night in search of food, which consists chiefly of molluscs, small fishes, larvæ of aquatic insects, and animal substances of almost any kind. It is esteemed for the table, and is readily attracted by a bait of decaying flesh or animal garbage, which being Crayfish (Astacus fluviatilis). enclosed in a net or in a bundle of twigs, numbers of C. may be captured at a time.-Other species of C. abound in some of the warmer parts of the world. |