The Biblical expression (Matt. xix. 24, &c.), "it is easier for a
camel to go through a needle's eye," &c., is sometimes explained by
saying that the "needle's eye" means the small gate which is opened in
the great gate of a city, when the latter is closed for the night; but
recent criticism (e.g. Post in _Hastings' Dict._, under "Camel")
throws doubt on this explanation, and assumes that the more violent
hyperbole is intended. There is a various reading [Greek: Khamilos]
(cable) for [Greek: Khamaelos] (camel), but Cheyne, in the _Ency.
Biblica_, rejects this (see CABLE).
CAMELFORD, THOMAS PITT, 1ST BARON (1737-1793), English politician and
art patron, was a nephew of the 1st earl of Chatham. He sat in
parliament from 1761 till 1784, siding against his uncle and following
George Grenville, who was also a relative; and in 1784 he was raised to
the peerage. He dabbled in architecture and the arts generally, and was
a prominent figure in the artistic circles of his day. His son THOMAS
PITT, 2nd Baron Camelford (1775-1804), who succeeded him in 1793, had an
adventurous and misspent career in the navy, but is principally
remembered for his death in a duel with Mr Best on the 10th of March
1804, the title becoming extinct.
CAMELLIA, a genus or subgenus of evergreen trees or shrubs belonging to
the natural order Ternstroemiaceae, with thick dark shining leaves and
handsome white or rose-coloured flowers. The name _Camellia_ was given
by Linnaeus in honour of George Joseph Camellus or Kamel, a Moravian
Jesuit who travelled in Asia and wrote an account of the plants of the
Philippine Island, Luzon, which is included in the third volume of John
Ray's _Historia Plantarum_ (1704). Modern botanists are agreed that the
tea-plant, placed by Linnaeus in a separate genus, _Thea_, is too nearly
allied to _Camellia_ to admit of the two being regarded as distinct
genera. _Thea_ and _Camellia_ are therefore now considered to represent
one genus, which has been generally called _Camellia_, but more
correctly _Thea_, as this name was the earlier of the two. Under the
latter view _Camellia_ is regarded as a subgenus or section of _Thea_.
It contains about eight species, natives of India, China and Japan. Most
of the numerous cultivated forms are horticultural products of _C.
japonica_, a native of China and Japan, which was introduced into Europe
by Lord Petre in 1739. The wild plant has red flowers, recalling those
of the wild rose, but most of the cultivated forms are double. In the
variety _anemonaeflora_ nearly all the stamens have become transformed
into small petaloid structures which give the flower the appearance of a
double anemone.
Another species, _C. reticulata_, a native of Hongkong, is also prized
for its handsome flowers, larger than those of _C. japonica_, which are
of a bright rose colour and as known in cultivation semi-double or
double.
Both _C. sasanqua_ and _C. drupifera_, the former inhabiting Japan and
China, the latter Cochin-China and the mountains of India, are
oil-yielding plants. The oil of _C. sasanqua_ (of which sasankwa is the
native Japanese name) has an agreeable odour and is used for many
domestic purposes. It is obtained from the seeds by subjecting them to
pressure sufficient to reduce them to a coarse powder, and then boiling
and again pressing the crushed material. The leaves are also used in the
form of a decoction by the Japanese women for washing their hair; and in
a dried state they are mixed with tea on account of their pleasant
flavour. The oil of _C. drupifera_, which is closely allied to _C.
sasanqua_, is used medicinally in Cochin-China. The flowers of these two
species, unlike those of _C. japonica_ and _C. reticulata_, are
odoriferous.
Camellias, though generally grown in the cool greenhouse, are hardy in
the south of England and the south-west of Scotland and Ireland. They
grow best in a rich compost of sandy peat and loam, and should not be
allowed to get too dry at the roots; a liberal supply of water is
especially necessary during the flowering period. The best
position--when grown out of doors--is one facing north or north-west,
with a wall or hedge behind for protection from cold winds. July is the
best time for planting; care must be taken that the roots are evenly
spread, not matted into a ball.
The plants are propagated by layers or cuttings, and the single-flowered
ones also by seeds. Cuttings are taken in August and placed in sandy
peat or loam in a cold shaded frame. In the following spring those which
have struck are placed in a gentle heat, and in September or October the
rooted plants are potted off. Camellias are also propagated by grafting
or inarching in early spring on stocks of the common variety of _C.
japonica._
The scale insect sometimes attacks the camellia. To remove the white
scale, the plants are washed with a sponge and solution of soft soap as
soon as their growth is completed, and again before the buds begin to
swell. The brown scale may be got rid of by repeated washings with one
of the many insecticides, but it should be applied at a temperature of
90 deg.
CAMEO, a term of doubtful origin, applied in the first instance to
engraved work executed in relief on hard or precious stones. It is also
applied to imitations of such stones in glass, called "pastes," or on
the shells of molluscous animals. A cameo is therefore the converse of
an intaglio, which consists of an incised or sunk engraving in the same
class of materials. For the history of this branch of art, and for an
account of some of its most remarkable examples, see GEM.
The origin of the word is doubtful and has been a matter of copious
controversy. The _New English Dictionary_ quotes its use in a Sarum
inventory of 1222, _"lapis unus cameu"_ and _"magnus camehu."_ The word
is in current use in the 13th century. Thus Matthew Paris, in his Life
of Abbot Leofric of St Albans, in the _Abbatum S. Albani Vitae_, says:
_"retentis quibusdam nobilibus lapidibus insculptis, quos camaeos
vulgariter appellamus."_ In variant forms the word has found its way
into most languages, e.g. Latin, _camahutus, camahelus, camaynus_;
Italian, _chammeo, chameo_; French, _camahieu, chemahou, camaut,
camaieu_. The following may be mentioned among the derivations that have
been proposed:--von Hammer: _camaut_, the hump of a camel; Littre and
others: _camateum_, an assumed Low Latin form from [Greek: kamateuein]
and [Greek: kamaton]; Chabouillet and Babelon: [Greek: keimaelia],
treasures, connecting the word in particular with the dispersion of
treasures from Constantinople, in 1204; King: Arabic _camea_, an amulet.
For a bibliography of the question, see Babelon, _Cat. des Camees ...
de la Bibliotheque Nationale_, p. iv.
CAMERA (a Latin adaptation of Gr. [Greek: kamara], an arched chamber),
in law, a word applied at one time to the English judges' chambers in
Serjeants' Inn, as distinct from their bench in Westminster Hall. It was
afterwards applied to the judges' private room behind the court, and,
hence, in the phrase _in camera_, to cases heard in private, i.e. in
chambers. So far as criminal cases are concerned, the courts have no
power to hear them in private, nor have they any power to order adults
(men or women) out of court during the hearing. In civil proceedings at
common law, it may also be laid down that the public cannot be excluded
from the court; in _Malan_ v. _Young_, 1889, 6 T.L.R. 68, Mr Justice
Denman held that he had power to hear the case _in camera_, but he
afterwards stated that there was considerable doubt among the judges as
to the power to hear cases _in camera_, even by consent, and the case
was, by consent of the parties, finally proceeded with before the judge
_as arbitrator_. In the court of chancery it is the practice to hear in
private cases affecting wards of the court and lunatics, family disputes
(by consent), and cases where a public trial would defeat the object of
the action (_Andrew_ v. _Raeburn_, 1874, L.R. 9 Ch. 522). In an action
for infringement of a patent for a chemical process the defendant was
allowed to state a secret process _in camera (Badische Anilin und Soda
Fabrik_ v. _Gillman_, 1883, 24 Ch. D. 156). The Court of Appeal has
decided that it has power to sit in private; in _Mellor_ v. _Thompson_,
1885, 31 Ch. D. 55, it was stated that a public hearing would defeat the
object of the action, and render the respondent's success in the appeal
useless. In matrimonial causes, the divorce court, following the
practice of the ecclesiastical courts under the provisions of the
Matrimonial Causes Act 1857, s. 22, hears suits for nullity of marriage
on physical grounds _in camera_, but not petitions for dissolution of
marriage, which must be heard in open court. It was also decided in
_Druce_ v. _Druce_, 1903, 19 T.L.R. 387, that, in cases for judicial
separation the court has jurisdiction to hear the case _in camera_,
where it is satisfied that justice cannot be done by hearing the case in
public.
CAMERA LUCIDA, an optical instrument invented by Dr William Hyde
Wollaston for drawing in perspective. Closing one eye and looking
vertically downwards with the other through a slip of plain glass, e.g.
a microscope cover-glass, held close to the eye and inclined at an angle
of 45 deg. to the horizon, one can see the images of objects in front,
formed by reflection from the surface of the glass, and at the same
time one can also see through the transparent glass. The virtual images
of the objects appear projected on the surface of a sheet of paper
placed beneath the slip of glass, and their outline can be accurately
traced with a pencil. This is the simplest form of the camera lucida.
The image (see fig. 1) is, however, inverted and perverted, and it is
not very bright owing to the poor reflecting power of unsilvered glass.
The brightness of the image is sometimes increased by silvering the
glass; and on removing a small portion of the silver the observer can
see the image with part of the pupil while he sees the paper through the
unsilvered aperture with the remaining part. This form of the instrument
is often used in conjunction with the microscope, the mirror being
attached to the eye-piece and the tube of the microscope being placed
horizontally.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.]
About the beginning of the 19th century Dr Wollaston invented a simple
form of the camera lucida which gives bright and erect images. A
four-sided prism of glass is constructed having one angle of 90 deg.,
the opposite angle of 135 deg., and the two remaining angles each of
67-1/2 deg. This is represented in cross-section and in position in
fig. 2. When the pupil of the eye is held half over the edge of the
prism a, one sees the image of the object with one half of the pupil and
the paper with the other half. The image is formed by successive total
reflection at the surfaces b c and a b. In the first place an inverted
image (first image) is formed in the face b c, and then an image of this
image is formed in a b, and it is the outline of this second image seen
projected on the paper that is traced by the pencil. It is desirable for
two reasons that the image should lie in the plane of the paper, and
this can be secured by placing a suitable lens between the object and
the prism. If the image does not lie in the plane of the paper, it is
impossible to see it and the pencil-point clearly at the same time.
Moreover, any slight movement of the head will cause the image to appear
to move relatively to the paper, and will render it difficult to obtain
an accurate drawing.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.]
Before the application of photography, the camera lucida was of
considerable importance to draughtsmen. The advantages claimed for it
were its cheapness, smallness and portability; that there was no
appreciable distortion, and that its field was much larger than that of
the camera obscura. It was used largely for copying, for reducing or for
enlarging existing drawings. It will readily be understood, for example,
that a copy will be half-size if the distance of the object from the
instrument is double the distance of the instrument from the copy.
(C. J. J.)
CAMERA OBSCURA, an optical apparatus consisting of a darkened chamber
(for which its name is the Latin rendering) at the top of which is
placed a box or lantern containing a convex lens and sloping mirror, or
a prism combining the lens and mirror. If we hold a common reading lens
(a magnifying lens) in front of a lamp or some other bright object and
at some distance from it, and if we hold a sheet of paper vertically at
a suitable distance behind the lens, we see depicted on the paper an
image of the lamp. This image is inverted and perverted. If now we place
a plane mirror (e.g. a lady's hand glass) behind the lens and inclined
at an angle of 45 deg. to the horizon so as to reflect the rays of light
vertically downwards, we can produce on a horizontal sheet of paper an
unperverted image of the bright object (fig. 1), i.e. the image has the
same appearance as the object and is not perverted as when the
reflection of a printed page is viewed in a mirror. This is the
principle of the camera obscura, which was extensively used in
sketching from nature before the introduction of photography, although
it is now scarcely to be seen except as an interesting side-show at
places of popular resort. The image formed on the paper may be traced
out by a pencil, and it will be noticed that in this case the image is
real--not virtual as in the case of the camera lucida. Generally the
mirror and lens are combined into a single piece of worked glass
represented in section in fig. 2. Rays from external objects are first
refracted at the convex surface _a b_, then totally reflected at the
plane surface _a c_, and finally refracted at the concave surface _b c_
(fig. 2) so as to form an image on the sheet of paper _d e._The curved
surfaces take the place of the lens in fig. 1, and the plane surface
performs the function of the mirror. The prism _a b c_ is fixed at the
top of a small tent furnished with opaque curtains so as to prevent the
diffused daylight from overpowering the image on the paper, and in the
darkened tent the images of external objects are seen very distinctly.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.]
[Illustration: FIG. 2.]
Quite recently, the camera obscura has come into use with submarine
vessels, the _periscope_ being simply a camera obscura under a new name.
(C. J. J.)
_History_.--The invention of this instrument has generally been
ascribed, as in the ninth edition of this work, to the famous Neapolitan
savant of the 16th century, Giovanni Battista della Porta, but as a
matter of fact the principle of the simple camera obscura, or darkened
chamber with a small aperture in a window or shutter, was well known and
in practical use for observing eclipses long before his time. He was
anticipated in the improvements he claimed to have made in it, and all
he seems really to have done was to popularize it. The increasing
importance of the camera obscura as a photographic instrument makes it
desirable to bring together what is known of its early history, which is
far more extensive than is usually recognized. In southern climes, where
during the summer heat it is usual to close the rooms from the glare of
the sunshine outside, we may often see depicted on the walls vivid
inverted images of outside objects formed by the light reflected from
them passing through chinks or small apertures in doors or
window-shutters. From the opening passage of Euclid's _Optics_ (_c._ 300
B.C.), which formed the foundation for some of the earlier middle age
treatises on geometrical perspective, it would appear that the above
phenomena of the simple darkened room were used by him to demonstrate
the rectilinear propagation of light by the passage of sunbeams or the
projection of the images of objects through small openings in windows,
&c. In the book known as Aristotle's _Problems_ (sect. xv. cap. 5) we
find the correlated problem of the image of the sun passing through a
quadrilateral aperture always appearing round, and he further notes the
lunated image of the eclipsed sun projected in the same way through the
interstices of foliage or lattice-work.
There are, however, very few allusions to these phenomena in the later
classical Greek and Roman writers, and we find the first scientific
investigation of them in the great optical treatise of the Arabian
philosopher Alhazen (q.v.), who died at Cairo in A.D. 1038. He seems
to have been well acquainted with the projection of images of objects
through small apertures, and to have been the first to show that the
arrival of the image of an object at the concave surface of the common
nerve--or the retina--corresponds with the passage of light from an
object through an aperture in a darkened place, from which it falls upon
a surface facing the aperture. He also had some knowledge of the
properties of concave and convex lenses and mirrors in forming images.
Some two hundred years later, between A.D. 1266 and 1279, these problems
were taken up by three almost contemporaneous writers on optics, two of
whom, Roger Bacon and John Peckham, were Englishmen, and Vitello or
Witelo, a Pole.
That Roger Bacon was acquainted with the principle of the camera obscura
is shown by his attempt at solving Aristotle's problem stated above, in
the treatise _De Speculis_, and also from his references to Alhazen's
experiments of the same kind, but although Dr John Freind, in his
_History of Physick_, has given him the credit of the invention on the
strength of a passage in the _Perspectiva_, there is nothing to show
that he constructed any instrument of the kind. His arrangement of
concave and plane mirrors, by which the realistic images of objects
inside the house or in the street could be rendered visible though
intangible, there alluded to, may apply to a camera on Cardan's
principle or to a method of aerial projection by means of concave
mirrors, which Bacon was quite familiar with, and indeed was known long
before his time. On the strength of similar arrangements of lenses and
mirrors the invention of the camera obscura has also been claimed for
Leonard Digges, the author of _Pantometria_ (1571), who is said to have
constructed a telescope from information given in a book of Bacon's
experiments.
Archbishop Peckham, or Pisanus, in his _Perspectiva Communis_ (1279),
and Vitello, in his _Optics_ (1270), also attempted the solution of
Aristotle's problem, but unsuccessfully. Vitello's work is to a very
great extent based upon Alhazen and some of the earlier writers, and was
first published in 1535. A later edition was published, together with a
translation of Alhazen, by F. Risner in 1572.
The first practical step towards the development of the camera obscura
seems to have been made by the famous painter and architect, Leon
Battista Alberti, in 1437, contemporaneously with the invention of
printing. It is not clear, however, whether his invention was a camera
obscura or a show box, but in a fragment of an anonymous biography of
him, published in Muratori's _Rerum Italicarum Scriptores_ (xxv. 296),
quoted by Vasari, it is stated that he produced wonderfully painted
pictures, which were exhibited by him in some sort of small closed box
through a very small aperture, with great verisimilitude. These
demonstrations were of two kinds, one nocturnal, showing the moon and
bright stars, the other diurnal, for day scenes. This description seems
to refer to an arrangement of a transparent painting illuminated either
from the back or the front and the image projected through a hole on to
a white screen in a darkened room, as described by Porta (_Mag. Nat._
xvii. cap. 7) and figured by A. Kircher (_Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae_),
who notes elsewhere that Porta had taken some arrangement of projecting
images from an Albertus, whom he distinguished from Albertus Magnus, and
who was probably L.B. Alberti, to whom Porta also refers, but not in
this connexion.
G.B.I.T. Libri-Carucci dalla Sommaja (1803-1869), in his account of the
invention of the camera obscura in Italy (_Histoire des sciences
mathematiques en Italic_, iv. 303), makes no mention of Alberti, but
draws attention to an unpublished MS. of Leonardo da Vinci, which was
first noticed by Venturi in 1797, and has since been published in
facsimile in vol. ii. of J.G.F. Ravaisson-Mollien's reproductions of the
MSS. in the Institut de France at Paris (MS. _D_, fol. 8 _recto_). After
discussing the structure of the eye he gives an experiment in which the
appearance of the reversed images of outside objects on a piece of paper
held in front of a small hole in a darkened room, with their forms and
colours, is quite clearly described and explained with a diagram, as an
illustration of the phenomena of vision. Another similar passage is
quoted by Richter from folio 404b of the reproduction of the _Codice
Atlantico_, in Milan, published by the Italian government. These are
probably the earliest distinct accounts of the natural phenomena of the
camera obscura, but remained unpublished for some three centuries.
Leonardo also discussed the old Aristotelian problem of the rotundity of
the sun's image after passing through an angular aperture, but not so
successfully as Maurolycus. He has also given methods of measuring the
sun's distance by means of images thrown on screens through small
apertures. He was well acquainted with the use of magnifying glasses and
suggested a kind of telescope for viewing the moon, but does not seem to
have thought of applying a lens to the camera.
The first published account of the simple camera obscura was discovered
by Libri in a translation of the _Architecture_ of Vitruvius, with
commentary by Cesare Caesariano, one of the architects of Milan
cathedral, published at Conio in 1521, shortly after the death of
Leonardo, and some twenty years before Porta was born. He describes an
experiment made by a Benedictine monk and architect, Dom Papnutio or
Panuce, of the same kind as Leonardo's but without the demonstration.
About the same time Francesco Maurolico, or Maurolycus, the eminent
mathematician of Messina, in his _Theoremata de Lumine et Umbra_,
written in 1521, fully investigated the optical problems connected with
vision and the passage of rays of light through small apertures with and
without lenses, and made great advances in this direction over his
predecessors. He was the first correctly to solve Aristotle's problem,
stated above, and to apply it practically to solar observations in a
darkened room (_Cosmographia_, 1535). Erasmus Reinhold has described the
method in his edition of G. Purbach's _Theoricae Novae Planetarum_
(1542), and probably got it from Maurolycus. He says it can also be
applied to terrestrial objects, though he only used it for the sun. His
pupil, Rainer Gemma-Frisius, used it for the observation of the solar
eclipse of January 1544 at Louvain, and fully described the methods he
adopted for making measurements and drawings of the eclipsed sun, in his
_De Radio Astronomico et Geometrico_ (1545). He says they can be used
for observation of the moon and stars and also for longitudes. The same
arrangement was used by Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, by M. Moestlin and his
pupil Kepler--the latter applying it in 1607 to the observation of a
transit of Mercury--also by Johann Fabricius, in 1611, for the first
observations of sun-spots. It is interesting to note this early
employment of the camera obscura in the field of astronomical research,
in which its latest achievements have been of such pre-eminent value.
The addition of optical appliances to the simple dark chamber for the
purpose of seeing what was going on outside, was first described by
Girolamo Cardan in his _De Subtilitate_ (1550), as noted by Libri. The
sun shining, he fixed a round glass speculum (_orbem e vitro_) in a
window-shutter, and then closing it the images of outside objects would
be seen transmitted through the aperture on to the opposite wall, or
better, a white paper screen suitably placed. The account is not very
clear, but seems to imply the use of a concave mirror rather than a
lens, which might be suggested by the word _orbem_. He refers to
Maurolycus' work with concave specula.
We now come to Giovanni Battista della Porta, whose account of the
camera obscura in the first edition of the _Magia Naturalis_, in four
books (1558, lib. iv. cap. 2), is very similar to Caesariano's--a
darkened room, a pyramidal aperture towards the sun, and a whitened wall
or white paper screens, but no lens. He discloses as a great secret the
use of a concave speculum in front of the aperture, to collect the rays
passing through it, when the images will be seen reversed, but by
prolonging them beyond the centre they would be seen larger and
unreversed. This is much the same as Cardan's method published eight
years earlier, but though more detailed is not very clear. He then notes
the application to portraiture and to painting by laying colours on the
projected images. Nothing is said about the use of a lens or of solar
observations. The second edition, in which he in the same words
discloses the use of a convex lens in the aperture as a secret he had
intended to keep, was not published till 1589, thirty-one years after
the first. In this interval the use of the lens was discovered and
clearly described by Daniello Barbaro, a Venetian noble, patriarch of
Aquileia, in his work _La Pratica della perspettiva_ (p. 192), published
in 1568, or twenty-one years before Porta's mention of it. The lens used
by Barbaro was an ordinary convex or old man's spectacle-glass; concave,
he says, will not do. He shows how the paper must be moved till it is
brought into the focus of the lens, the use of a diaphragm to make the
image clearer, and also the application of the method for drawing in
true perspective. That Barbaro was really the first to apply the lens to
the camera obscura is supported by Marius Bettinus in his _Apiaria_
(1645), and by Kaspar Schott in his _Magia Universalis_ (1657), the
former taunting Porta with the appropriation.
In an Italian translation of Euclid's _Optica_, with commentary,
Egnacio Danti (1573), after discussing the effects of plane, convex and
concave reflectors, fully describes the method of showing reversed
images passing through an aperture in a darkened room, and shows how, by
placing a mirror behind the aperture, unreversed images might be
obtained, both effects being illustrated by diagrams. F. Risner, who
died in 1580, also in his _Opticae_ (1606) very clearly explained the
reversal of the images of the simple camera obscura. He notes the
convenience of the method for solar observations and its previous use by
some of the observers already mentioned, as well as its advantages for
easily and accurately copying on an enlarged or reduced scale,
especially for chorographical or topographical documents. This is
probably the first notice of the application of the camera to
cartography and the reproduction of drawings, which is one of its
principal uses at the present time. In the _Diversarum Speculationum
Mathematicarum el Physicarum_ (1585), by the Venetian Giovanni Battista
Benedetti, there is a letter in which he discusses the simple camera
obscura and mentions the improvement some one had made in it by the use
of a double convex lens in the aperture; he also says that the images
could be made erect by reflection from any plane mirror.
Thus the use of the camera and of the lens with it was well known before
Porta published his second edition of the _Magia Naturalis_ in 1589. In
this the description of the camera obscura is in lib. xvii. cap. 6. The
use of the convex lens, which is given as a great secret, in place of
the concave speculum of the first edition, is not so clearly described
as by Barbaro; the addition of the concave speculum is proposed for
making the images larger and clearer, and also for making them erect,
but no details are given. He describes some entertaining peep-show
arrangements, possibly similar to Alberti's, and indicates how the dark
chamber with a concave speculum can be used for observing eclipses.
There is no mention whatever of a portable box or construction beyond
the darkened room, nor is there in his later work, _De Refractione
Optices Parte_ (1593), in which he discusses the analogy between vision
and the simple dark room with an aperture, but incorrectly. Though
Porta's merits were undoubtedly great, he did not invent or improve the
camera obscura. His only novelty was the use of it as a peep-show; his
descriptions of it are vague, but being published in a book of general
reference, which became popular, he acquired credit for the invention.
The first to take up the camera obscura after Porta was Kepler, who used
it in the old way for solar observations in 1600, and in his _Ad
Vitellionem Paralipomena_ (1604) discusses the early problems of the
passages of light through small apertures, and the rationale of the
simple dark chamber. He was the first to describe an instrument fitted
with a sight and paper screen for observing the diameters of the sun and
moon in a dark room. In his later book, _Dioptrice_ (1611), he fully
discusses refraction and the use of lenses, showing the action of the
double convex lens in the camera obscura, with the principles which
regulate its use and the reason of the reversal of the image. He also
demonstrates how enlarged images can be produced and projected on paper
by using a concave lens at a suitable distance behind the convex, as in
modern telephotographic lenses. He was the first to use the term _camera
obscura_, and in a letter from Sir H. Wotton written to Lord Bacon in
1620 we learn that Kepler had made himself a portable dark tent fitted
with a telescope lens and used for sketching landscapes. Further, he
extended the work of Maurolycus, and demonstrated the exact analogy
between the eye and the camera and the arrangement by which an inverted
image is produced on the retina.
In 1609 the telescope came into use, and the danger of observing the sun
with it was soon discovered. In 1611 Johann Fabricius published his
observations of sun-spots and describes how he and his father fell back
upon the old method of projecting the sun's image in a darkened room,
finding that they could observe the spots just as well as with the
telescope. They do not seem to have used a lens, or thought of using the
telescope for projecting an enlarged imase on Kepler's principle. This
was done in 1612 by Christoph Schemer, who fully described his method
of solar observation in the _Rosa Ursina_ (1630), demonstrating very
clearly and practically the advantages and disadvantages of using the
camera, without a lens, with a single convex lens, and with a telescopic
combination of convex object-glass and concave enlarging lens, the last
arrangement being mounted with an adjustable screen or tablet on an
equatorial stand. Most of the earlier astronomical work was done in a
darkened room, but here we first find the dark chamber constructed of
wooden rods covered with cloth or paper, and used separately to screen
the observing-tablet.
Various writers on optics in the 17th century discussed the principle of
the simple dark chamber alone and with single or compound lenses, among
them Jean Tarde (_Les Astres de Borbon_, 1623); Descartes, the pupil of
Kepler (_Dioptrique_, 1637); Bettinus (_Apiaria_, 1645); A. Kircher
(_Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae_, 1646); J. Hevelius (_Selenographia_,
1647); Schott (_Magia Universalis Naturae et Artis_, 1674); C.F.M.
Deschales (_Cursus, seu Mundus Mathematicus_, 1674); Z. Traber (_Nervus
Opticus_, 1675), but their accounts are generally more interesting
theoretically than as recording progress in the practical use and
development of the instrument.
The earliest mention of the camera obscura in England is probably in
Francis Bacon's _De Augmentis Scientiarum_, but it is only as an
illustration of the projected images showing better on a white screen
than on a black one. Sir H. Wotton's letter of 1620, already noted, was
not published till 1651 (_Reliquiae Wottonianae_, p. 141), but in 1658 a
description of Kepler's portable tent camera for sketching, taken from
it, was published in a work called _Graphice, or the most excellent Art
of Painting_, but no mention is made of Kepler. In W. Oughtred's English
edition (1633) of the _Recreations mathematiques_ (1627) of Jean
Leurechon ("Henry van Etten") there is a quaint description, with
figures, of the simple dark chamber with aperture, and also of a sort of
tent with a lens in it and the projection on an inner wall of the face
of a man standing outside. The English translation of Porta's _Natural
Magick_ was published in 1658.
Robert Boyle seems to have been the first to construct a box camera with
lens for viewing landscapes. It is mentioned in his essay _On the
Systematic or Cosmical Qualities of Things_ (ch. vi.), written about
1570, as having been made several years before and since imitated and
improved. It could be extended or shortened like a telescope. At one end
of it paper was stretched, and at the other a convex lens was fitted in
a hole, the image being viewed through an aperture at the top of the
box. Robert Hooke, who was some time Boyle's assistant, described
(_Phil. Trans._, 1668, 3, p. 741) a camera lucida on the principle of
the magic lantern, in which the images of illuminated and inverted
objects were projected on any desired scale by means of a broad convex
lens through an aperture into a room where they were viewed by the
spectators. If the objects could not be inverted, another lens was used
for erecting the images. From Hooke's _Posthumous Works_ (1705), p. 127,
we find that in one of the Cutlerian lectures on Light delivered in
1680, he illustrated the phenomena of vision by a darkened room, or
perspective box, of a peculiar pattern, the back part, with a concave
white screen at the end of it, being cylindrical and capable of being
moved in and out, while the fore part was conical, a double convex lens
being fixed in a hole in front. The image was viewed through a large
hole in the side. It was between 4 and 5 ft. long.
Johann Zahn, in his _Oculus Artificialis Teledioptricus_ (1685-1686),
described and figured two forms of portable box cameras with lenses. One
was a wooden box with a projecting tube in which a combination of a
concave with a convex lens was fitted, for throwing an enlarged image
upon the focusing screen, which in its proportions and application is
very similar to our modern telephotographic objectives. The image was
first thrown upon an inclined mirror and then reflected upwards to a
paper screen on the top of the box. In an earlier form the image is
thrown upon a vertical thin paper screen and viewed through a hole in
the back of the camera. There is a great deal of practical information
on lenses in connexion with the camera and other optical instruments,
and the book is valuable as a repertory of early practical optics, also
for the numerous references to and extracts from previous writers. An
improved edition was published in 1702.
Most of the writers already noticed worked out the problems connected
with the projection of images in the camera obscura more by actual
practice than by calculation, but William Molyneux, of Dublin, seems to
have been the first to treat them mathematically in his _Dioptrica Nova_
(1692), which was also the first work in English on the subject, and is
otherwise an interesting book. He has fully discussed the optical theory
of the dark chamber, with and without a lens, and its analogy to the
eye, also several optical problems relating to lenses of various forms
and their combinations for telescopic projection, rules for finding
foci, &c. He does not, however, mention the camera obscura as an
instrument in use, but in John Harris's _Lexicon Technicum_ (1704) we
find that the camera obscura with the arrangement called the "scioptric
ball," and known as _scioptricks_, was on sale in London, and after this
must have been in common use as a sketching instrument or as a show.
Sir Isaac Newton, in his _Opticks_ (1704), explains the principle of the
camera obscura with single convex lens and its analogy with vision in
illustration of his seventh axiom, which aptly embodies the correct
solution of Aristotle's old problem. He also made great use of the
simple dark chamber for his optical experiments with prisms, &c. Joseph
Priestley (1772) mentions the application of the solar microscope, both
to the small and portable and the large camera obscura. Many patterns of
these two forms for sketching and for viewing surrounding scenes are
described in W.J.'s Gravesande's _Essai de perspective_ (1711), Robert
Smith's _Compleat System of Optics_ (1738), Joseph Harris's _Treatise on
Optics_ (1775), Charles Hutton's _Philosophical and Mathematical
Dictionary_, and other books on optics and physics of that period. The
camera obscura was first applied to photography (q.v.) probably about
1794, by Thomas Wedgwood. His experiments with Sir Humphrey Davy in
endeavouring to fix the images of natural objects as seen in the camera
were published in 1802 (_Journ. Roy. Inst._). (J. Wa.)
CAMERARIUS, JOACHIM (1500-1574), German classical scholar, was born at
Bamberg on the 12th of April 1500. His family name was Liebhard, but he
was generally called Kammermeister, previous members of his family
having held the office of chamberlain (_camerarius_) to the bishops of
Bamberg. He studied at Leipzig, Erfurt and Wittenberg, where he became
intimate with Melanchthon. For some years he was teacher of history and
Greek at the gymnasium, Nuremberg. In 1530 he was sent as deputy for
Nuremberg to the diet of Augsburg, where he rendered important
assistance to Melanchthon in drawing up the Confession of Augsburg. Five
years later he was commissioned by Duke Ulrich of Wurttemberg to
reorganize the university of Tubingen; and in 1541 he rendered a similar
service at Leipzig, where the remainder of his life was chiefly spent.
He translated into Latin Herodotus, Demosthenes, Xenophon, Homer,
Theocritus, Sophocles, Lucian, Theodoretus, Nicephorus and other Greek
writers. He published upwards of 150 works, including a _Catalogue of
the Bishops of the Principal Sees_; _Greek Epistles_; _Accounts of his
Journeys_, in Latin verse; a Commentary on Plautus; a treatise on
Numismatics; _Euclid_ in Latin; and the Lives of Helius Eobanus Hessus,
George of Anhalt and Philip Melanchthon. His _Epistolae Familiares_
(published after his death) are a valuable contribution to the history
of his time. He played an important part in the Reformation movement,
and his advice was frequently sought by leading men. In 1535 he entered
into a correspondence with Francis I. as to the possibility of a
reconciliation between the Catholic and Protestant creeds; and in 1568
Maximilian II. sent for him to Vienna to consult him on the same
subject. He died at Leipzig on the 17th of April 1574.
See article by A. Horawitz in _Allgemeine deutsche Biographie_; C.
Bursian, _Die Geschichte der klassischen Philologie in Deutschland_
(1883); J.E. Sandys, _Hist. Class. Schol._ (ed. 1908), ii. 266.
CAMERARIUS, JOACHIM (1534-1598), German botanist and physician, son of
the classical scholar of the same name, was born at Nuremberg on the 6th
of November 1534. After finishing his studies in Germany he visited
Italy, where he graduated as doctor of medicine. On his return he was
invited to reside at the courts of several princes, but preferred to
settle in his native town of Nuremberg, where he had a botanical garden
and formed extensive collections. He wrote a _Hortus Medicus_ (1588) and
several other works. He died at Nuremberg on the 11th of October 1598.
CAMERARIUS, RUDOLF JAKOB (1665-1721), German botanist and physician, was
born at Tubingen on the 12th of February 1665, and became professor of
medicine and director of the botanical gardens at Tubingen in 1687. He
died at Tubingen on the 11th of September 1721. He is chiefly known for
his investigations on the reproductive organs of plants (_De sexu
plantarum epistola_, 1694).
CAMERINO (anc. _Camerinum_), a city and episcopal see (since 465, if not
sooner; Treia is now combined with it) of the Marches, Italy, in the
province of Macerata, 6 m. S. of the railway station of Castelraimondo
(to which there is an electric tramway) which is 24 m. W. of Macerata;
2148 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1901) of town, 4005; of commune, 12,083.
The cathedral is modern, the older building having fallen in 1799; the
church of S. Venanzio suffered similarly, but preserves a portal of the
15th century. The citadel, perhaps constructed from the plans of
Leonardo da Vinci, dates from 1503. Camerino occupies the site of the
ancient Camerinum, the inhabitants of which (_Camertes Umbri_) became
allies of the Romans in 310 B.C. (at the time of the attack on the
Etruscans in the Ciminian Forest). On the other hand, the [Greek:
Kamertioi] referred to in the history of the year 295 B.C. are probably
the inhabitants of Clusium. Later it appears as a dependent autonomous
community with the _foedus aequum_ (Mommsen, _Rom. Staatsrecht_, iii.
664). Two cohorts of Camertes fought with distinction under Marius
against the Cimbri. It was much affected by the conspiracy of Catiline,
and is frequently mentioned in the Civil Wars; under the empire it was a
_municipium_. It belonged to ancient Umbria, but was on the borders of
Picenum. No ancient buildings are visible, the Roman level lying as much
as 30 ft. below the modern.
See P. Savini, _Storia delta Citta di Camerino_ (2nd ed., Camerino,
1895); M. Mariani, _Intorno agli antichi Camerti Umbri_ (Camerino,
1900). (T. As.)
CAMERON, JOHN (1579-1623), Scottish theologian, was born at Glasgow
about 1579, and received his early education in his native city. After
having taught Greek in the university for twelve months, he removed to
Bordeaux, where he was soon appointed a regent in the college of
Bergerac. He did not remain long at Bordeaux, but accepted the offer of
a chair of philosophy at Sedan, where he passed two years. He then
returned to Bordeaux, and in the beginning of 1604 he was nominated one
of the students of divinity who were maintained at the expense of the
church, and who for the period of four years were at liberty to
prosecute their studies in any Protestant seminary. During this period
he acted as tutor to the two sons of Calignon, chancellor of Navarre.
They spent one year at Paris, and two at Geneva, whence they removed to
Heidelberg. In this university, on the 4th of April 1608, he gave a
public proof of his ability by maintaining a series of theses, _De
triplici Dei cum Homine Foedere_, which were printed among his works.
The same year he was recalled to Bordeaux, where he was appointed the
colleague of Dr Primrose; and when Francis Gomarus was removed to
Leiden, Cameron, in 1618, was appointed professor of divinity at Saumur,
the principal seminary of the French Protestants.
In 1620 the progress of the civil troubles in France obliged Cameron to
seek refuge for himself and family in England. For a short time he read
private lectures on divinity in London; and in 1622 the king appointed
him principal of the university of Glasgow in the room of Robert Boyd,
who had been removed from his office in consequence of his adherence to
Presbyterianism. Cameron was prepared to accept Episcopacy, and was
cordially disliked for his adherence to the doctrine of passive
obedience. He resigned his office in less than a year.
He returned to France, and lived at Saumur. After an interval of a year
he was appointed professor of divinity at Montauban. The country was
still torn by civil and religious dissensions; and Cameron excited the
indignation of the more strenuous adherents of his own party. He
withdrew to the neighbouring town of Moissac; but he soon returned to
Montauban, and a few days afterwards he died at the age of about
forty-six. Cameron left by his first wife several children, whose
maintenance was undertaken by the Protestant churches in France. All his
works were published after his death.
His name has a distinct place in the development of Calvinistic theology
in Europe. He and his followers maintained that the will of man is
determined by the practical judgment of the mind; that the cause of
men's doing good or evil proceeds from the knowledge which God infuses
into them; and that God does not move the will physically, but only
morally, by virtue of its dependence on the judgment of the mind. This
peculiar doctrine of grace and free-will was adopted by Amyraut, Cappel,
Bochart, Daille and others of the more learned among the Reformed
ministers, who dissented from Calvin's. The Cameronites (not to be
confused with the Scottish sect called Cameronians) are moderate
Calvinists, and approach to the opinion of the Arminians. They are also
called Universalists, as holding the universal reference of Christ's
death, and sometimes Amyraldists. The rigid adherents to the synod of
Dort accused them of Pelagianism, and even of Manichaeism, and the
controversy between the parties was carried on with great zeal; yet the
whole question between them was only, whether the will of man is
determined by the immediate action of God upon it, or by the
intervention of a knowledge which God impresses on the mind.
CAMERON, RICHARD (1648?-1680), founder of a Scottish religious sect of
Cameronians, which formed the nucleus of the regiment of this name in
the British army, was born at Falkland in the county of Fife. He was
educated at the village school, and his success was so great that, while
still a youth, he was appointed schoolmaster. In this situation he
became acquainted with some of the more enthusiastic field-preachers.
Persuaded by them he resigned his post and entered the family of Sir
Walter Scott of Harden as chaplain and tutor. Refusing to acknowledge
the Indulgence, he joined the ranks of the non-conforming ministers, and
incited the inhabitants of the southern counties of Scotland to protest
openly against the new edict. So formidable was the agitation that the
government pronounced illegal all armed assemblages for religious
purposes. Cameron took refuge in Holland, where he resided for some
time; but in the autumn of 1679 (probably) he returned to Scotland, and
once more made himself formidable to the government. Shortly after the
defeat of the Covenanters at Bothwell Bridge in that year, Cameron was
slain in a skirmish at the Aird's, or Airs, Moss, fighting bravely at
the head of the few troops which he had been able to collect. His prayer
before going into battle became a tradition--"Lord spare the green and
take the ripe." After the accession of William III. the survivors were
amnestied, and the Cameronian regiment was formed from them.
See Andrew Lang, _History of Scotland_, vol. iii. (1907);
Herzog-Hauck, _Realencyklopadie_ (1897), _s.v._ "Cameronianer"; A.
Smellie, _Men of the Covenant_; Herkless, _Richard Cameron_; P.
Walker, _Six Saints of the Covenant._
CAMERON, SIMON (1799-1889), American politician, was born in Lancaster
county, Pennsylvania, on the 8th of March 1799. Left an orphan at the
age of nine, he early entered journalism, and, in banking and railway
enterprises, accumulated a considerable fortune. He became influential
in Pennsylvania politics, and in 1845-1849 served in the United States
Senate, being elected by a combination of Democratic, Whig and
"American" votes to succeed James Buchanan. In 1854, having failed to
secure the nomination for senator from the "Know-Nothing" Party, which
he had recently joined, he became a leader of the "People's Party," as
the Republican Party was at first called in Pennsylvania. In 1857 he
was elected to the United States Senate as a Republican, despite a
Democratic majority in the state legislature, a fact that gave rise to
charges of bribery. His prominence as a candidate first for the
presidential and then for the vice-presidential nomination in the
Republican national convention of 1860 led to his being selected by
President Lincoln as secretary of war. His administration of this office
at a critical time was marked by his accustomed energy, but
unfortunately also by partiality in the letting of government contracts,
which brought about his resignation at Lincoln's request in January 1862
and his subsequent censure by the House of Representatives. Lincoln sent
him as minister to Russia, but he returned in November 1862. He again
served in the Senate (after 1872, being chairman of the committee on
foreign relations) from 1867 until 1877, when he resigned to make room
for his son, whose election he dictated. Cameron was one of the ablest
political organizers the United States has ever known, and his long
undisputed control of Pennsylvania politics was one of the most striking
examples of "boss rule" in American history. The definition of an honest
politician as "one who when he is bought will stay bought" has been
attributed to him. He died on the 26th of June 1889.
His son JAMES DONALD CAMERON (1833- ) was born at Middletown,
Pennsylvania, on the 14th of May 1833, graduated at Princeton in 1852,
became actively interested in his father's banking and railway
enterprises, and from 1863 to 1874 was president of the Northern Central
railway. Trained in the political school of his father, he developed
into an astute politician. From June 1876 to March 1877 he was secretary
of war in President Grant's cabinet. In the Republican national
convention of 1876 he took an influential part in preventing the
nomination of James G. Elaine, and later was one of those who directed
the policy of the Republicans in the struggle for the presidency between
Tilden and Hayes. From 1877 until 1897 he was a member of the United
States Senate, having been elected originally to succeed his father, who
resigned in order to create the vacancy. He was chairman of the
Republican national committee during the campaign of 1880.
CAMERON, VERNEY LOVETT (1844-1894), English traveller in Central Africa,
was born at Radipole, near Weymouth, Dorsetshire, on the 1st of July
1844. He entered the navy in 1857, served in the Abyssinian campaign of
1868, and was employed for a considerable time in the suppression of the
East African slave trade. The experience thus obtained led to his being
selected to command an expedition sent by the Royal Geographical Society
in 1873, to succour Dr. Livingstone. He was also instructed to make
independent explorations, guided by Livingstone's advice. Soon after the
departure of the expedition from Zanzibar, Livingstone's servants were
met bearing the dead body of their master. Cameron's two European
companions turned back, but he continued his march and reached Ujiji, on
Lake Tanganyika, in February 1874, where he found and sent to England
Livingstone's papers. Cameron spent some time determining the true form
of the south part of the lake, and solved the question of its outlet by
the discovery of the Lukuga river. From Tanganyika he struck westward to
Nyangwe, the Arab town on the Lualaba previously visited by Livingstone.
This river Cameron rightly believed to be the main stream of the Congo,
and he endeavoured to procure canoes to follow it down. In this he was
unsuccessful, owing to his refusal to countenance slavery, and he
therefore turned south-west. After tracing the Congo-Zambezi watershed
for hundreds of miles he reached Bihe and finally arrived at the coast
on the 28th of November 1875, being the first European to cress
Equatorial Africa from sea to sea. His travels, which were published in
1877 under the title _Across Africa_, contain valuable suggestions for
the opening up of the continent, including the utilization of the great
lakes as a "Cape to Cairo" connexion. In recognition of his work he was
promoted to the rank of commander, made a Companion of the Bath and
given the gold medal of the Geographical Society. The remainder of
Cameron's life was chiefly devoted to projects for the commercial
development of Africa, and to writing tales for the young. He visited
the Euphrates valley in 1878-1879 in connexion with a proposed railway
to the Persian Gulf, and accompanied Sir Richard Burton in his West
African journey of 1882. At the Gold Coast Cameron surveyed the Tarkwa
region, and he was joint author with Burton of _To the Gold Coast for
Gold_ (1883). He was killed, near Leighton Buzzard, by a fall from
horseback when returning from hunting, on the 24th of March 1894.
A second edition of _Across Africa_, with new matter and corrected
maps, appeared in 1885. A summary of Cameron's great journey, from his
own pen, appears in Dr Robert Brown's _The Story of Africa_, vol. ii.
pp. 266-279 (London, 1893).
CAMERON OF LOCHIEL, SIR EWEN (1629-1719), Scottish Highland chieftain,
was the eldest son of John Cameron and the grandson of Alan Cameron, the
head of the clan Cameron. Having lost his father in infancy he passed
part of his youth with the marquess of Argyll at Inveraray, leaving his
guardian about 1647 to take up his duties as chief of the clan Cameron,
a position in which he succeeded his grandfather. In 1653 Lochiel joined
the earl of Glencairn in his rising on behalf of Charles II., and after
the defeat of this attempt he served the Royalist cause by harassing
General Monk. In 1681 he was knighted by Charles II., and in July 1689
he was with Viscount Dundee at Killiecrankie. He was too old to share
personally in the Jacobite rising of 1715, but his sympathies were with
the Stuarts, and his son led the Camerons at Sheriffmuir. Lochiel, who
died in February 1719, is called by Macaulay the "Ulysses of the
Highlands." He was a man of enormous strength and size, and one who met
him in 1716 says "he wrung some blood from the point of my fingers with
a grasp of his hand." An incident showing his strength and ferocity in
single combat is used by Sir Walter Scott in _The Lady of the Lake_
(canto v.). Lochiel's son and successor, John, who was attainted for
sharing in the rebellion of 1715, died in Flanders in 1748. John's son
Donald, sometimes called "gentle Lochiel," joined Charles Edward, the
Young Pretender, in 1745, was wounded at Culloden, and escaped to
France, dying in the same year as his father. The 79th regiment, or
Cameron Highlanders, was raised from among the members of the clan in
1793 by Sir Alan Cameron (1753-1828).
See _Memoirs of Sir Ewen Cameron of Lochiel_ (Bannatyne Club, 1842).
CAMERONIANS, the name given to that section of the Scottish Covenanters
(q.v.) who followed Richard Cameron (q.v.), and who were chiefly found
among those who signed the Sanquhar Declaration in 1680. Known also as
"Society Men," "Sanquharians" and "Hillmen," they became a separate
church after the religious settlement of 1690, taking the official title
of Reformed Presbyterians in 1743. Societies of Cameronians for the
maintenance of the Presbyterian form of worship were formed about 1681;
their testimony, "The Informatory Vindication," is dated 1687; and they
quickly became the most pronounced and active adherents of the
covenanting faith. Holding fast to the two covenants, the National
Covenant of 1580 and the Solemn League and Covenant of 1643, they wished
to restore the ecclesiastical order which had existed between 1638 and
1649, and were dissatisfied with the moderate character of the religious
settlement of 1690. Refusing to take the oaths of allegiance to an
"uncovenanted" ruler, or to exercise any civil function, they passed
through a period of trial and found some difficulty in maintaining a
regular ministry; but in 1706 they were reinforced by some converts from
the established church. They objected strongly to the proposal for the
union of England and Scotland, and were suspected of abetting a rising
which took place in the west of Scotland in 1706; but there appears to
be no foundation for the statement that they intrigued with the
Jacobites, and they gave no trouble to the government either in 1715 or
in 1745. In 1712 they publicly renewed the covenants at Auchensauch Hill
in Lanarkshire, and in 1743 their first presbytery was constituted at
Braehead, while a presbytery was formed in North America in 1774. In
1863 the Cameronians, or Reformed Presbyterians, decided to inflict no
penalties upon those members who had taken the oaths, or had exercised
civil functions, and consequently a few congregations seceded. In 1876
the general body of the Reformed Presbyterians united with the Free
Church of Scotland, leaving the few seceding congregations as the
representatives of the principles of the Cameronians. In the British
army the first battalion of the Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) is
directly descended from the "Cameronian guard," which, composed of
Cameronians, was embodied by the convention parliament in 1689, and was
afterwards employed to restore order in the Highlands.
See J.H. Burton, _History of Scotland_, vols. vii. and viii.
(Edinburgh, 1905); and A. Lang, _History of Scotland_, vol. iv.
(Edinburgh, 1907).
CAMEROON[1] (Ger. _Kamerun_), a German protectorate in West Africa,
bounded W. by the Atlantic, N.W. by British Nigeria, N. by Lake Chad, E.
and S. by French Congo, save for a short distance on the south where it
is conterminous with the Spanish Muni river settlement.
[Illustration: CAMEROON]
_Boundaries and Area._--The sea frontier extends from the Rio del Rey,
just where the great bend of the coast-line east to south begins,
forming the Bight of Biafra, to the Campo river, a distance of 200 m.
The north-western boundary, laid down in an agreement between Germany
and Great Britain on the 15th of November 1893, runs from the mouth of
the Rio del Rey to the "rapids" of the Cross river in 8 deg. 48' E.
Thence it is continued in a north-east line towards Yola, as far as the
confines of that town. The boundary is then deflected south so as to
leave Yola in British territory, turning north again to cross the Benue
river at a spot 3 m. west of where the Faro joins the Benue. From this
point the frontier goes north-east to the border of Lake Chad, 35 m.
east of the meridian of the town of Kuka. The southern shores of Lake
Chad for a distance of some 40 m. belong to the protectorate. The south
and east boundaries were laid down by agreements between Germany and
France on the 24th of December 1885, the 15th of March 1894 and the 18th
of April 1908. The south boundary runs in a fairly direct line from the
mouth of the Campo river to the river Dscha (or Ngoko), which it follows
to its confluence with the Sanga. The eastern boundary runs from the
Sanga irregularly north to 10 deg. N., where it approaches the British
frontier at Yola, so that at its narrowest part the protectorate is
little more than 50 m. across. From 10 deg. N. the frontier turns
eastwards to the Logone, thence going north-east to the Shari river,
which it follows to Lake Chad. The protectorate has an area of about
190,000 sq. m. Estimated population (1908) 3,500,000, of whom 1128 were
whites.
_Origin of the Name._--The name Camaroes was first given by the
Portuguese discoverers of the 15th and 16th centuries to a large bay or
estuary, lying south-east of a great mountain close to the sea, met with
after passing the Niger delta. This estuary they called the Rio dos
Camaroes (the river of Prawns), from the abundance of the crustacea
found therein. The name Camaroes was also used to designate the
neighbouring mountains. The English usage until nearly the end of the
19th century was to confine the term "the Cameroons" to the mountain
range, and to speak of the estuary as the Cameroons river. Locally it
was often called "the Bay." On their acquisition of the country in 1884
the Germans extended the use of the name in its Teutonic
form--Kamerun--to the whole protectorate.
_Physical Features._--Cameroon forms the north-west corner of the great
Central African plateau. This becomes evident in its eastern section,
where are wide-spreading plains, which farther west assume an undulating
character, and gradually merge into a picturesque mountain range. This
range, running from north to south, is flanked by a parallel and lower
range in the west, with a wide valley between. In the north-west the
Upper Guinea mountains send their eastern spurs across the boundary, and
from a volcanic rift, which runs south-west to north-east, the Cameroon
peak towers up, its summit 13,370 ft. high. This mountain, whose
south-western base is washed by the Atlantic, is the highest point on
the western side of Africa, and it alone of the great mountains of the
continent lies close to the coast. From any vantage point, but
especially from the sea, it presents a magnificent spectacle, while some
30 m. westward rises Clarence peak, the culminating point of Fernando
Po. With an area, on an isolated base, of 700 to 800 sq. m., Cameroon
mountain has but two distinct peaks, Great Cameroon and Little Cameroon
(5820 ft.), which is from foot to top covered with dense forest. The
native designation of the highest peak is Mongo-ma-Loba, or the Mountain
of Thunder, and the whole upper region is usually called Mongo-mo-Ndemi,
or the Mountain of Greatness. On the principal summit there are a group
of craters. In 1909 the mountain was in eruption and huge streams of
lava were ejected. Inland the Chebchi and Mandara mountains indicate the
direction and extent of the rift.
The mountains of the plateau sweep grandly round to the east on
reaching the eighth degree of N. lat. Here they give rise to a number of
small rivers, which collect in the rift and form the Benue, the great
eastern affluent of the Niger. This part of the protectorate is known as
Adamawa (q.v.). Farther north, beyond the Mandara mountains, the
country, here part of the ancient sultanate of Bornu, slopes to the
shores of Lake Chad, and has a general level of 800 to 1000 ft. The
greater part of Cameroon is thus a mountainous country, with, on the
coast, a strip of low land. In the south this is very narrow; it widens
towards the north savewhere the Cameroon peak reaches to the sea.
At the foot of the Cameroon peak a number of estuaries cut deep bays
which form excellent harbours. The small rivers which empty into them
can be ascended for some miles by steam launches. The principal estuary,
which is over 20 m. wide, is called, as already noted, the Cameroon
river or bay. The term river is more particularly confined to a
ramification of the estuary which receives the waters of the Mungo river
(a considerable stream which flows south from the Cameroon mountains),
the Wuri, a river coming from the north-east, and various smaller
rivers. Under the shadow of Cameroon peak lies the bay of Ambas, with
the islands of Ndami (Ambas) and Mondola. It forms a tolerable harbour,
capable of receiving large vessels.
Traversing the central portion of the country is a large river known in
its upper course as the Lom, and in its lower as the Sanaga, which
enters the ocean just to the south of the Cameroon estuary. Both the Lom
and the Nyong (a more southerly stream) rise in the central plateau,
from which they descend in splendid cascades, breaking through the
parallel coast range in rapids, which indicate the extent of their
navigability. The Lokunja and Kribi are smaller rivers with courses
parallel to and south of the Nyong. In the south-east of the colony the
streams--of which the chief are the Dscha and Bumba--are tributaries of
the Sanga, itself an affluent of the Congo (q.v.). About 100 m. of the
right bank of the Sanga, from the confluence of the Dscha upwards, are
in German territory. In the north the country drains into Lake Chad
through the Logone and Shari (q.v.). Including the headwaters of the
Benue the colony has four distinct river-systems, one connecting with
the Niger, another with the Congo, and a third with Lake Chad, the
fourth being the rivers which run direct to the sea. The Niger and Shari
systems communicate, with, at high water, but one obstruction to
navigation. The connecting link is a marshy lake named Tuburi. From it
issues the Kebbi (Mao Kebi) a tributary of the Benue, and through it
flows a tributary of the Logone, the chief affluent of the Shari. The
one obstruction in the waterway is a fall of 165 ft. in the Kebbi.
_Geology._--The oldest rocks, forming the greater mass of the
hinterland, are gneisses, schists and granites of Archaean age. Along
the Benue river a sandstone (Benue sandstone) forms the banks to 14 deg.
E. Cretaceous rocks occur around the basalt platform of the Cameroon
mountain and generally along the coastal belt. Basalt and tuff, probably
of Tertiary age, form the great mass of the Cameroon mountain, also the
island of Fernando Po. Extensive areas in the interior, more especially
towards Lake Chad, are covered with black earth of alluvial or
lacustrine origin.
_Climate._--The country lies wholly within the tropics and has a
characteristic tropical climate. In the interior four seasons can be
distinguished; a comparatively dry and a wet one alternating. July to
October are the coldest months, and also bring most rain, but there is
hardly a month without rain. On the coast the temperature is high all
the year round, but on the plateau it is cooler. Malarial fever is
frequent, and even the Africans, especially those coming from other
countries, suffer from it. The middle zone of the Cameroon mountain has,
however, a temperate climate and affords excellent sites for sanatoria.
_Flora and Fauna._--The southern part of the low coast is chiefly grass
land, while the river mouths and arms of the bays are lined with
mangroves. The mountainous region is covered with primeval forest, in
which timber and valuable woods for cabinet-making are plentiful. Most
important are the _Elaeis guineensis, Sterculia acuminata_ and the wild
coffee tree. On Cameroon peak the forest ascends to 8000 ft.; above it
is grass land. Towards the east the forest gradually grows thinner,
assumes a park-like appearance, and finally disappears, wide grass
uplands taking its place. The country north of the Benue is rich and
well cultivated. Cotton and rubber are found in considerable quantities,
and fields of maize, corn, rice and sugarcane bear witness to the
fertility of the soil.
Animals are plentiful, including the great pachyderms and carnivora. The
latter prey on the various kinds of antelopes which swarm on the grass
lands. Two kinds of buffaloes are found in the forests, which are the
home of the gorilla and chimpanzee. Large rodents, like the porcupine
and cane rat, are numerous. Of birds there are 316 species, and several
of venomous snakes.
_Inhabitants._--The north of Cameroon is inhabited by Fula (q.v.) and
Hausa (q.v.) and allied tribes, the south by Bantu-speaking races. The
Fula came from the north and north-east, gradually driving the
Bantu-negroes before them. They brought horses and horned cattle,
unknown in these regions until then, and they founded well-organized
states, like that of Adamawa, now divided between Cameroon and the
British protectorate of Nigeria. In the vicinity of the rivers Benue,
Faro and Kebbi, the people, who are good agriculturists, raise cereals
and other crops, while on the plateaus stock-raising forms the chief
pursuit of the inhabitants. In this northern region villages are built
in the Sudanese zeriba style, surrounded with thorn fences; more
important places are enclosed by a well-built wall and strongly
fortified. Of martial disposition, the people often waged war with their
neighbours, and also amongst themselves until the pacification of the
hinterland by Germany at the beginning of the 20th century.
The Bantu-negroes inhabit the country south of about 7 deg. N. Chief
among the tribes are the Dualla (q.v.), the Ba-kwiri (q.v.), the
Ba-Long, the Ba-Farami, the Wuri, the Abo and the Ba-Kundu. They build
square houses, are active traders and are ruled by independent chiefs,
having no political cohesion. Among the Dualla a curious system of drum
signals is noteworthy. In the coast towns are numbers of Krumen, who,
however, rarely settle permanently in the country. The Fula, as also
most of the Hausa, are Moslems, the other tribes are pagans. Missionary
societies, both Protestant and Roman Catholic, are represented in the
colony, and their schools are well attended, as are the schools
belonging to the government. In all the schools German is taught, but
pidgin-English is largely spoken at the coast towns.
_Chief Towns._--Duala, the chief town in the protectorate, is situated
on the Cameroon estuary at the mouth of the Wuri river in 4 deg. 2' N. 9
deg. 42' E. It consists of various trading stations and native towns
close to one another on the south bank of the river and known, before
the German occupation, as Cameroon, Bell town, Akwa town, &c. Hickory,
on the north side of the stream and the starting point of the railway to
the interior, is also part of Duala, which has a total population of
22,000, including about 170 Europeans. Duala is the headquarters of the
merchants and missionaries. The principal streets are wide and tree
lined, the sanitation is good. The government offices are placed in a
fine park in which are statues of Gustav Nachtigal and others. The port
is provided with a floating dock. The seat of government is Buea, a post
3000 ft. above the sea on the slopes of the Cameroon mountain. Victoria
is a flourishing town in Ambas Bay, founded by the British Baptist
missionaries expelled from Fernando Po in 1858 (see below). Batanga and
Campo are trading stations in the southern portion of the colony. On the
route from Duala to Lake Chad is the large commercial town of Ngaundere,
inhabited chiefly by Hausas and occupied by the Germans in 1901. Another
large town is Garua on the Benue river. Farther north and within 30 m.
of Lake Chad is Dikwa (Dikoa), in Bornu, the town chosen by Rabah (q.v.)
as his capital after his conquest of Bornu. Gulfei on the lower Shari
and Kusseri on the Logone are also towns of some note. Ngoko is a
trading station on the Dscha, in the south-east of the protectorate,
near the confluence of that river with the Sanga.
_Products and Industry._--Cameroon is rich in natural products, one of
the most important being the oil-palm. Cocoa cultivation was introduced
by the Germans and proved remarkably successful. Rubber is collected
from the Landolphia and various species of Ficus. Palm-oil, palm
kernels, cocoa, copal, copra, Calabar beans, kola-nuts and ivory are the
principal exports. There are several kinds of finely-grained wood,
amongst which a very dark ebony is specially remarkable. Cotton, indigo
and various fibres of plants deserve notice. The natives grow several
kinds of bananas, yams and batatas, maize, pea-nuts, sugar-cane, sorghum
and pepper. Minerals have not been found in paying quantities. Iron is
smelted by the natives, who, especially amongst the Hausas, are very
clever smiths, and manufacture fine lances and arrow heads, knives and
swords, and also hoes. Dikwa is the centre of an important trade of
which the chief articles are coffee, sugar, velvet, silk and weapons, as
well as gold and silver objects brought by caravans from Tripoli. The
natives round the Cameroon estuary are clever carvers of wood, and make
highly ornamental figure heads for their canoes, which also sometimes
show very fine workmanship. In the interior the people use the
wild-growing cotton and fibres of plants to manufacture coarse drapery
and plait-work. Plantations founded by German industry are fairly
successful. Large reserves are set apart for the natives by government
when marking off the land granted to plantation companies. The
best-known of these companies, the _Sud-Kamerun_, holds a concession
over a large tract of country by the Sanga river, exporting its rubber,
ivory and other produce via the Congo. The principal imports are cotton
goods, spirits, building material, firearms, hardware and salt. The
annual value of the external trade in the period 1900-1905 averaged
about L800,000. In 1907 the value of the trade had increased to
L1,700,000. Some 70% of the import and export trade was with Germany,
the remainder being almost entirely with Great Britain. The percentage
of the trade with Germany was increasing, that with Britain decreasing.
_Communications._--There is regular steamship communication with Europe
by German and British boats. On the rivers which run into the Cameroon
estuary small steam launches ply. The protectorate belongs to the Postal
Union, and is connected by cable with the British telegraph station at
Bonny in the Niger delta.
An imperial guarantee of interest was obtained in 1905 for the
construction of a railway from Hickory to Bayong, a place 100 m. to the
north, the district traversed being fertile and populous. From Victoria
a line runs to Soppo (22 m.) near Buea and is continued thence
northward. Another line, sanctioned in 1908, runs S.E. from Duala to the
upper waters of the Nyong. In the neighbourhood of government stations
excellent roads have been built. The chief towns in the coast region are
connected by telegraph and telephone.
_Government Revenue, &c._--The administration is under the direction of
a governor appointed by and responsible to the imperial authorities. The
governor is assisted by a chancellor and other officials and an advisory
council whose members are merchants resident in the protectorate.
Decrees having the force of law are issued by the imperial chancellor on
the advice of the governor. In Adamawa and German Bornu are various
Mahommedan sultanates controlled by residents stationed at Garua and
Kusseri. Revenue is raised chiefly by customs dues on spirits and
tobacco and a general 10% _ad valorem_ duty on most goods. A poll tax is
imposed on the natives. The local revenue (L131,000 in 1905) is
supplemented by an imperial grant, the protectorate in the first
twenty-one years of its existence never having raised sufficient revenue
to meet its expenditure, which in 1905 exceeded L230,000. Order is
maintained by a native force officered by Germans.
_History._--Cameroon and the neighbouring coast were discovered by the
Portuguese navigator, Fernando Po, towards the close of the 15th
century. They were formerly regarded as within the Oil Rivers district,
sometimes spoken of as the Oil Coast. Trading settlements were
established by Europeans as early as the 17th century. The trade was
confined to the coast, the Dualla and other tribes being recognized
intermediaries between the coast "factories" and the tribes in the
interior, whither they allowed no strange trader to proceed. They took a
quantity of goods on trust, visited the tribes in the forest, and
bartered for ivory, rubber and other produce. This method of trade,
called the trust system, worked well, but when the country came under
the administration of Germany, the system broke down, as inland traders
were allowed to visit the coast. Before this happened the "kings" of the
chief trading stations--Akwa and Bell--were wealthy merchant princes.
From the beginning until near the end of the 19th century they were very
largely under British influence. In 1837 the king of Bimbia, a district
on the mainland on the north of the estuary, made over a large part of
the country round the bay to Great Britain. In 1845, at which time there
was a flourishing trade in slaves between Cameroon and America, the
Baptist Missionary Society made its first settlement on the mainland of
Africa, Alfred Saker (1814-1880) obtaining from the Akwa family the site
for a mission station. In 1848 another mission station was established
at Bimbia, the king agreeing to abolish human sacrifices at the funerals
of his great men. Into the Cameroon country Saker and his colleagues
introduced the elements of civilization, and with the help of British
men-of-war the oversea slave trade was finally stopped (_c._ 1875). The
struggles between the Bell (Mbeli) and Akwa families were also largely
composed. In 1858, on the expulsion of the Baptists from Fernando Po
(q.v.), Saker founded at Ambas Bay a colony of the freed negroes who
then left the island, the settlement being known as Victoria. Two years
after this event the first German factory was established in the estuary
by Messrs Woermann of Hamburg. In 1870 the station at Bimbia was given
up by the missionaries, but that at Akwa town continued to flourish, the
Dualla showing themselves eager to acquire education, while Saker
reduced their language to writing. He left Cameroon in 1876, the year
before George Grenfell, afterwards famous for his work on the Congo,
came to the country, where he remained three years. Like the earlier
missionaries he explored the adjacent districts, discovering the Sanaga
in its lower course. Although British influence was powerful and the
British consul for the Oil Rivers during this period exercised
considerable authority over the native chiefs, requests made by them--in
particular by the Dualla chiefs in 1882--for annexation by Great
Britain, were refused or neglected, with the result that when Germany
started on her quest to pick up unappropriated parts of the African
coast she was enabled to secure Cameroon. A treaty with King Bell was
negotiated by Dr Gustav Nachtigal, the signature of the king and the
other chiefs being obtained at midnight on the 15th of July 1884. Five
days later Mr E.H. Hewett, British consul, arrived with a mission to
annex the country to Great Britain.[2] Though too late to secure King
Bell's territory, Mr Hewett concluded treaties with all the neighbouring
chiefs, but the British government decided to recognize the German claim
not only to Bell town, but to the whole Cameroon region. Some of the
tribes, disappointed at not being taken over by Great Britain, refused
to acknowledge German sovereignty. Their villages were bombarded and
they were reduced to submission. The settlement of the English Baptists
at Victoria, Ambas Bay, was at first excluded from the German
protectorate, but in March 1887 an arrangement was made by which, while
the private rights of the missionaries were maintained, the sovereignty
of the settlement passed to Germany. The Baptist Society thereafter made
over its missions, both at Ambas Bay and in the estuary, to the Basel
Society.
The extension of German influence in the interior was gradually
accomplished, though not without considerable bloodshed. That part of
Adamawa recognized as outside the British frontier was occupied in 1901
after somewhat severe fighting. In 1902 the imperial troops first
penetrated into that part of Bornu reserved to Germany by agreements
with Great Britain and France. They found the country in the military
occupation of France. The French officers, who stated that their
presence was due to the measures rendered necessary by the ravages of
Rabah and his sons, withdrew their troops into French territory. The
shores of Lake Chad were first reached by a German military force on the
2nd of May 1902. In 1904 and again in 1905 there were native risings in
various parts of the protectorate. These disturbances were followed,
early in 1906, by the recall of the governor, Herr von Puttkamer, who
was called upon to answer charges of maladministration. He was succeeded
in 1907 by Dr T. Seitz. Collisions on the southern border of the
protectorate between French and German troops led in 1905-1906 to an
accurate survey of the south and east frontier regions and to a new
convention (1908) whereby for the straight lines marking the frontier in
former agreements natural features were largely substituted. Germany
gained a better outlet to the Sanga river.
The ascent of the Cameroon mountain was first attempted by Joseph
Merrick of the Baptist Missionary Society in 1847; but it was not till
1861 that the summit was gained, when the ascent was made by Sir Richard
Burton, Gustav Mann, a noted botanist, and Senor Calvo. The
starting-point was Babundi, a place on the seashore west of the
mountain. From the south-east the summit was reached by Mary Kingsley in
1895.
See Mary H. Kingsley, _Travels in West Africa_ (London, 1897); Sir R.
Burton, _Abeokuta and the Cameroons Mountains_ (2 vols., London,
1863); E.B. Underhill, _Alfred Saker ... A Biography_ (London, 1884);
Sir H.H. Johnston, _George Grenfell and the Congo ... and Notes on the
Cameroons ..._ (London, 1908); Max Buchner, _Kamerun Skizzen und
Betrachtungen_ (Leipzig, 1887); S. Passarge, _Adamaua_ (Berlin, 1895);
E. Zintgraph, _Nord-Kamerun_ (Berlin, 1895); F. Hutter, _Wanderungen
und Forschungen im Nord-Hinterland von Kamerun_ (Brunswick, 1902); F.
Bauer, _Die deutsche Niger-Benue-Tsadsee-Expedition_, 1902-1903
(Berlin, 1904); C. Rene, _Kamerun und die deutsche Tsadsee Eisenbahn_
(Berlin, 1905); O. Zimmermann, _Durch Busch und Steppe vom Campo bis
zum Schari, 1892-1902_ (Berlin, 1909); also British Foreign Office
Reports. For special study of particular sciences see F. Wohltmann,
_Der Plantagenbau in Kamerun und seine Zukunft_ (Berlin, 1896); F.
Plehn, _Die Kamerunkuste, Studien zur Klimatologie, Physiologie und
Pathologie in den Tropen_ (Berlin, 1898); E. Esch, F. Solger, M.
Oppenheim and 0. Jaekel, _Beitrage zur Geologie von Kamerun_
(Stuttgart, 1904). For geology the following works may also be
consulted: Stromer von Reichenbach, _Geologie der deutschen
Schutzgebiete in Afrika_ (Berlin, 1896); A. von Koenen, "Uber
Fossilien der unteren Kreide am Ufer des Mungo in Kamerun," _Abh. k.
Wiss._, Gottingen, 1897; E. Cohen, "Lava vom Camerun-Gebirge," _Neues
Jahrb. f. Min._, 1887. (F. R. C.)