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CASSEL-CASSIANUS.

C. is America.-C. Fistula (Carthartocarpus) yields the on hills, which rise gently from the river. partially walled. In Friedrichs-Platz, the largest C. of the pharmacopoeias, the C. pods, Pipe C., or square in any German town, stands the Elector's Purging C. of the shops. It is a large tree, a native palace, a comparatively mean structure: structure: a little of Egypt and other parts of Africa, perhaps also of below is the first story of a magnificent palace the East Indies, in which, at all events, it is now commenced in 1820, and stopped in the following widely diffused and cultivated, as well as in the year by the death of the Elector who projected it. West Indies and warm parts of America. Its leaves Amongst the other public buildings and institutions, have 4-6 pair of ovate smooth leaflets, its flowers one of the most important is the Museum Frederi- are yellow and in loose racemes; its pods, which cianum, which has a library of 90,000 volumes and have obtained for it the name of Pudding-pipe some valuable MSS. The Picture-gallery contains Tree, are sometimes two feet in length, cylindrical, about 1400 paintings, including some excellent black, consisting of thin brittle woody valves, within specimens of the best masters. In the cabinet of which is a cavity divided by numerous thin transcuriosities, there are examples shewing the gradual verse partitions, each cell containing a single seed development and improvement of watchmaking imbedded in a soft black pulp. It is this pulp that from the earliest invention at Nuremberg to the is the part used in medicine; it has a sweetish present time. C. contains an observatory, and is the mucilaginous taste, and in small doses is a mild It is sometimes removed from the pods seat of a number of learned and scientific associa- laxative. tions. From 1807 to 1813 it was the capital of the when fresh; or an extract is obtained, after they kingdom of Westphalia. It has been the scene of are dried, by boiling and evaporating. It is said The C. pods serious disturbances and revolutionary movements to contain 61-69 per cent. of sugar. The of the West Indies contain much more pulp, and in recent periods of continental agitation. gardens of Wilhelmshöhe, called the German Ver- are therefore more valuable than those imported sailles, with their splendid fountains and cascades, from the East.-3. C. Bark, or C. lignea, sometimes and the colossal statue of Hercules, within the called China Cinnamon, is a bark very similar hollow of whose club eight persons can stand at one to cinnamon both in appearance and properties; time, are only three miles from Cassel. There are but in thicker pieces, and less closely quilled, of a manufactures of cotton, woollen, and silk fabrics, less sweet and delicate flavour, but more pungent. lace, and carpets. Under the name of Chassala, the It is the produce of the Cinnamomum Cassia or town appears to have existed as early as the 10th aromaticum, a tree of the same genus with the Cinnamon-tree, a native of China, and extensively century. cultivated there. It is highly esteemed by the CASSEL, a town of France, in the department Chinese, and is now largely imported into Europe. of the Nord, 27 miles north-west of Lille. As it contains a greater proportion of essential pleasantly situated on a hill, overlooking a country oil, and is also much cheaper than true cinnamon, on all sides so flat, that the view, although the it is much more generally used. The oil which elevation is only 800 feet, is said to be one of it contains is called Oil of Cassia, and is very the widest in Europe, extending over the broad similar to Oil of Cinnamon. Coarse cinnamon is fertile plains of Flanders, and to the chalk cliffs of sometimes sold as cassia. C. Buds are believed to England, and taking in 32 towns and 100 villages. be the dried flower-buds of the same tree which During the great trigonometrical survey undertaken yields C. bark. They are now imported into in the reign of the first Napoleon, Mont Cassel was Britain in large quantities, and are much used in one of the chief signal-stations. C. has manufac- confectionery. In flavour and other qualities, they tures of lace, linen, thread, hosiery, &c. Pop. 2700. resemble C. bark; in appearance, they are very It was known to the Romans, who had a station here, as Castellum.

It is

similar to cloves.

CASSIA NUS, JOANNES, or JOANNES MASSICA'SSIA, a name given by the ancients to a LIENSIS, or JOANNES EREMITA, a Christian teacher kind of medicinal bark, but their descriptions are of the ancient church, who flourished in the early so imperfect that it is impossible to determine part of the 5th c., and distinguished himself as what bark it is. The name is employed in the the promoter of monachism in Southern Gaul, and English translation of the Old Testament in Exodus as the opponent of the extreme dogmas of St. xxx. 24, and in Psa. xlv. 8, its use in these places Augustine respecting grace and free-will. Shortly being derived from the Septuagint; and it is not before 415 A. D., he went to Masilia (Marseille), improbably supposed that the substance intended is where he founded two monasteries according to the the same now known in our shops as Cassia Bark, or rules laid down in his De Institutis Canobiorum. Cassia lignea.-2. Cassia is now the botanical name One of these monasteries was for nuns; the other of a genus of plants of the natural order Leguminosa, was the famous Abbey of St. Victor, which under sub-order Casalpina, containing many species- C. is said to have possessed not less than 5000 more than two hundred having been described inmates, and which served as a model to a multitrees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants, natives of tude of monastic institutions in Gaul and Spain. Africa and of the warm parts of Asia and America. His Collationes Patrum Sceticorum is a work in 24 They have abruptly pinnate leaves, and flowers with chapters, each of which gives a 'spiritual colloquy deciduous calyx of five somewhat unequal sepals, between monks in the desert of Sketis,' regardcorolla of five petals, of which the lower ones are ing the monastic life, and the vexed questions of C.'s Grecian erudition, his dislike of the larger, ten free stamens, of which three are long, theology. four short, and three abortive, and anthers opening dogmatic subtilties, and his zeal for monastic habits, by two holes at the top. The leaves and pods of led him to oppose the doctrine of St. Augustine on many species have a peculiar sweetish but nauseous works and grace, and to set up a doctrine which smell, and a nauseous bitter taste accompanied with was known by the schoolmen as 'semi-pelagianism.' a loathsome sliminess. They seem all to contain See PELAGIANISM. As C.'s doctrine gained support the purgative principle called Cathartine (q. v.), and from the Massilian Monks, St. Augustine, having the leaves of some of the Asiatic and African species been informed of it by his friend Prosper of Aquiare highly valued, and much used as a medicine, taine, wrote strongly against it, especially in his under the name of SENNA (q. v.). The leaves of treatise De Gratia et Libero Arbitrio, contra CollaC. Marylandica possess similar properties, and are torem. It is not known when C. died; but it must now used to some extent in the United States of have been subsequent to 433 A. D.

The first 653

CASSICAN-CASSIOPEIA.

collected edition of the various works attributed to him was published at Basel, in 1559; the best at Frankfurt, in 1722. The best account of his life and writings is by Wiggers, De Johanni C. (Rostock, 1824-1825).

CA'SSICAN (Cassicus), a genus of birds allied to starlings, having an exactly conical bill, thick at the base, and extremely sharp pointed, the commissure forming an angulated line, the bill ascending on the forehead, and encroaching circularly on the plumage. They are all American birds of gregarious habits, feeding both on fruits and insects, and 'exhibiting such surprising skill and ingenuity in the structure of their nests, that an old lady once gravely asked an American ornithologist whether he did not think they might be taught to darn stockings! The crested C., or Crested Oriole (C. cristatus), is a native of Brazil, Guiana, and Paraguay. It is about 20 inches long, is sometimes seen in flocks of 50 or 100, and constructs its nest by knitting together shreds of a thin bark, Tillandsias, &c. The nest is about 36 inches long, and resembles a purse or pouch, the lower end hemispherical, and 10 inches wide, and is suspended from the extremity of a branch of a tall smooth-stemmed tree on the outskirt of a forest, apparently to insure safety from monkeys and serpents. Several of these nests are often to be seen hanging from the branches of the same tree.

CASSI'NI, the name of a family distinguished by their services in astronomy and geography. CASSINI, GIOVANNI DOMENICO, was born at Perinaldo, near Nice, on the 8th of June 1625, and studied at the College of Jesuits, Genoa. In 1650 he was appointed to the astronomical chair in the university of Bologna. His first work related to the comet of 1652. He subsequently devoted himself to the determination of astronomical refraction, and of the sun's parallax, &c. In 1664-1665 he determined the period of Jupiter's rotation. Subsequently he determined the periods of the planets Mars and Venus, as also of the apparent rotation of the sun. He it was who discovered the third and fifth satellites of Saturn, and afterwards the first and second, as well as the dual character of that planet's ring. He was also the first who carefully observed the zodiacal light; he demonstrated that the axis of the moon was not (as had been believed) at a right angle to the ecliptic, and explained the cause of the phenomenon known under the name of lunar libration. One of his finest observations was the coincidence of the nodes of the moon's equator and orbit. C. died September 14, 1712, at Paris, whither he had gone in 1669, at the invitation of Colbert, to take charge of the observatory erected by that minister.

the ecliptic very nearly, and the length of the year, &c.-His son, CESAR CASSINI, was also engaged in scientific pursuits.

CASSINI, JEAN DOMINIQUE, COMTE DE, the son of Cæsar Cassini, was born at Paris, June 30, 1748. He succeeded to the charge of the observatory, and completed in 1789 the great topographical map of decreed in 1793 that the observatory should no France, begun by his father. But it having been longer be in the hands of one person, three others of it along with C., whose conduct on learning this were in consequence elected to the superintendence fact shewed that he had a greater regard for his own dignity than for the whole stellar universe. refused to have anything mere to do with astrothrough a life that lasted nearly a century, and nomical science, and obstinately kept his purpose which was apparently so prolonged to test the durability of a Frenchman's disdain. In his 95th year he published a small volume of poems! He died

October 18, 1845.

He

CASSIODO'RUS, or (according to several MSS.) CASSIODOʻRIUS, MAGNUS AURELIUS, a Latin writer, who distinguished himself by his erudition in an age of barbarism, was born at Scylaceum (now Squillace), in Calabria, about 468 A. d. He was a member of a noble Roman family, and soon attracted the attention of Odoacer by his superior he held various offices, but after the defeat and abilities and accomplishments. Under this monarch murder of Odoacer by Theodoric the Ostrogoth, he passed into the service of the latter. The highest ministered the Ostrogothic power with remarkable honours now fell upon him; and for years he adhe withdrew to Calabria, where he founded the prudence and success. In his 70th year, however, other monks in the invaluable work of copying monastery of Viviers, and employed himself and the classical MSS.; his great desire being to improve the education of the clergy. C. was about 100 years rhetorical manuals, which were used as text-books old when he died. Besides his grammatical and during the middle ages, he wrote a very important This is a collection of state-papers, and is, in fact, work, entitled Variarum Epistolarum Libri XII. the most extensive as well as the most reliable source of information which we possess in regard to everything connected with the Ostrogothic rule in Italy. The style, however, is very peculiar, and shews the influence which the political career of C. The editio princeps of the Variarum was printed at had exercised on his language and modes of thought. Augsburg in 1533.

CASSIOPE'IA, the Lady in her Chair, a constellation in the northern hemisphere, near Cepheus, CASSINI, JACQUES, son of the preceding, was born and not far from the north pole. It is marked by at Paris, February 18, 1677. In 1694 he was elected five stars of the third magnitude, forming a figure a member of the Academy of Sciences. He travelled like an M. A line from Capella to the bright star in Italy, Holland, and England, where he formed in Cygnus passes nearly through the middle of this the acquaintance of Newton, Halley, Flamsteed, M. C., according to Flamsteed, contains 55 stars, &c., and was elected a member of the Royal Society of London. On the death of his father, he succeeded to the charge of the observatory at Paris, and died April 16, 1756. C. wrote several treatises on electricity, the barometer, &c. In his treatise, De la Grandeur et de la Figure de la Terre (Par. 1720), he attempted to shew that the earth must be a spheroid elongated at the poles. The Newtonians denied this, inasmuch as it was opposed to the ascertained facts of gravitation and rotation, which necessitated the earth's being a spheroid flattened at the poles. As an observer, C. was eminently successful. He determined the periods of rotation of all the satellites of Saturn then known, the inclination of the planetary orbits, the obliquity of

all of small magnitude. The figure is that of a woman sitting in a chair with a branch in her hand. In the year 1572, there all at once appeared in C. a new star. It was first noticed by Tycho Brahé on the 11th November, when its lustre exceeded that of all the fixed stars, and nearly equalled that of Venus. The star gradually diminished in lustre, from the time of its being observed until, in March 1574, it disappeared. It is said to have alarmed all the astronomers of the age. Tycho Brahé wrote a treatise on it, and supposed that it had previously appeared in 945 and 1264; but this supposition would not appear to be founded on reliable observation. Sir John Herschel suggests the possibility of its reappearance in 1872.

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CASSIQUIARÉ-CASSOWARY.

CASSIQUIA'RÉ, or CASSIQUIARI, a river of Venezuela, South America, forming the south bifurcation of the Orinoco, which it leaves in lat. 3° 10′ N., long. 66° 20' W., and after a rapid south-west course of about 130 miles, joins the Rio Negro in lat. 2° 5′ N., long. 67° 40′ W. About 100 yards in breadth when it issues from the Orinoco, it gradually increases until at its union with the Rio Negro it attains a width of 600 yards. By means of this singular river, water-communication is established, through the Amazon, Orinoco, and their affluents, between the interior of Brazil and the Caraccas in Venezuela.

CA'SSIS (Fr., the black currant-tree), a French liqueur prepared from black currants; the manufacture has recently become of great importance. See

CURRANT.

which he obtained, on condition of paying tribute and giving hostages.

CA'SSOCK, a long loose coat, formerly in common wear, but now usually worn only by the clergy. As worn by the clergy of the Church of England, it is a long coat with a single upright collar. Black is the common colour for all orders of the clergy, but on state occasions bishops frequently wear purple cassocks. In the Roman Catholic Church, cassocks vary in colour according to the dignity of the wearer priests wearing black, bishops purple, cardinals scarlet, and the pope white.

CA'SSOWARY (Casuarius), a genus of birds nearly allied to the ostrich (see BREVIPENNES and OSTRICH), but distinctively characterised by still greater shortness of wing, by a laterally compressed bill, by a bony crest, by pendent wattles on the naked neck, and by three toes on each foot, all furnished with claws, the inner toe short, and armed with a very long and sharp claw. There are also very important anatomical differences in its digestive organs, which are not adapted to the same coarse diet, for the C. 'has short intestines and small coeca, wants the intermediate stomach between the crop and gizzard, and its cloaca does not proportionally exceed that of other birds.' Only one species is known, Casuarius galeatus, sometimes called Emu by the older naturalists, before that name was appropriated to the Australian bird which now alone receives it. The C. is a native of the Moluccas, New Guinea, and other Asiatic islands, chiefly inhabiting deep forests. In general appearance, it is not unlike the ostrich, but has a much shorter neck. It is the largest known bird except the ostrich, and its height, when erect, is about five feet. It feeds on fruit, eggs, and succulent herbage. When attacked, it defends itself by kicking obliquely backwards with its feet, and by striking with its short wings, the rigid barbless shafts of which, C. although useless even to aid it in running, are not

CASSITE'RIDES. See SCILLY ISLES. CA'SSIUS, LONGI'NUS CAIUS, one of Cæsar's assassins. At the breaking out of the civil war, though a tribune of the plebs, he sided with Pompey and the aristocratic faction against Cæsar. He was taken prisoner by the latter, who pardoned him, and even made him one of his legates. In 44 B. C., through the influence of Cæsar, he was made Prætor Peregrinus, and was promised the governorship of Syria in the following year. But his mean and jealous spirit could not endure the burden of gratitude imposed upon him by the generosity of the dictator, and he resolved to be released by the murder of his benefactor. Having attached to himself the mutinous spirits among the subjugated aristocracy, and also won over M. Brutus, the pseudo-patriotic conspiracy was soon matured, and on the 15th of March, 44 B. C., Cæsar fell by the daggers of assassins. The result of this bloody deed was not what C. had expected. The popular feeling-as witnessed by the riots that broke out at Cæsar's funeral-was strongly against the murderers; and the military power fell into the hands of Mark Antony. therefore fled to the east, and made himself master of Syria. Afterwards he united his forces with those of Brutus, and having greedily plundered Asia Minor, they crossed the Hellespont in the beginning of 42 B. C., marched through Thrace, and took up a superior position near Philippi, in Macedonia. Here they were attacked by Antony and Octavian. The division commanded by C. was totally routed, although, on the other hand, Brutus succeeded in repulsing the troops of Octavian. C., supposing that all was lost, compelled his freedman, Pindarus, to put him to death. C.'s wife, a half sister of Brutus, survived him upwards of sixty years. She died in the reign of Tiberius, 22 A. D.

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CASSIUS, PURPLE OF, is a colouring substance of very ancient use, which is prepared by adding a mixed solution of protochloride and bichloride of tin gradually to a solution of chloride of gold, when a more or less abundant precipitate of the double stannate of gold and tin (AuO,SnO2+SnO,SnO2) is thrown down. The Purple of C. is soluble in ammonia, yielding a very pretty purple solution, from which it can again be obtained, with solid form unchanged, by evaporating the ammonia. Mixed with borax, or some fusible glass, Purple of C. is employed without value as weapons. There are only about by the potter to communicate a rich purple or rose five of them in each wing, somewhat resembling the tint to the better kinds of china, and it also imparts quills of a porcupine; and at the end of the last the red colour to the kind of glass known as Bo-joint of the wing there is a spur. The colour of the hemian glass.

CASSIVELAU'NUS, a British chief, who fought against Cæsar during his second invasion of the island, 54 B. C. He ruled the country north of the Thames, and had a great reputation as a warrior, but his capital was taken by the Romans, and he himself compelled to flee. He afterwards sued for peace,

Cassowary.

C. is brownish black; the feathers are loosely webbed, and hang down, so that, at a little distance, the bird seems clothed with hair. Those of the rump are 14 inches long, hanging down in place of a tail. The head and upper part of the neck are naked and of a bluish colour, and there are two pendent wattles, partly red and partly blue, on the

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