[1] This peculiarity is found as an accidental malformation in the
crows (_Corvidae_) and other groups; it is comparable to the
monstrosities seen in rabbits and other members of the order
_Glires_, in which the incisor teeth grow to an inordinate length.
[2] A medieval legend ascribes the conformation of bill and
coloration of plumage to a divine recognition of the bird's pity,
bestowed on Christ at the crucifixion.
[3] Dr Malmgren found a small flock on Bear Island (lat. 74(1/2) deg.
N.), but to this barren spot they must have been driven by stress of
weather.
CROSSEN, or KROSSEN, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Prussia, on
the Oder, here crossed by a bridge, at the influx of the Bober, 31 m.
S.E. of Frankfort-on-Oder by rail. Pop. (1900) 7369. Of the churches in
the town three are Protestant and one Roman Catholic. Besides the
modern school (Realprogymnasium), there are a technical school for
viniculture and fruit-growing and a dairy school. There are
manufactories of copper and brass ware, cloth, &c., while in the
surrounding country the chief industries are fruit and grape growing.
There is a brisk shipping trade, mainly in wine, fruit and fish. Crossen
was founded in 1005 and was important during the middle ages as a point
of passage across the Oder. It attained civic rights in 1232, was for a
time the capital of a Silesian duchy, which, on the death of Barbara of
Brandenburg, widow of the last duke, passed to Brandenburg (1482). In
May 1886 the town was devastated by a whirlwind.
CROSSING, in architecture, the term given to the intersection of the
nave and transept, frequently surmounted by a tower or by a dome on
pendentives.
CROSSKEY, HENRY WILLIAM (1826-1893), English geologist and Unitarian
minister, was born at Lewes in Sussex, on the 7th of December 1826.
After being trained for the ministry at Manchester New College
(1843-1848), he became pastor of Friargate chapel, Derby, until 1852,
when he accepted charge of a Unitarian congregation in Glasgow. In 1869
he removed to Birmingham, where until the close of his life he was
pastor of the Church of the Messiah. While in Glasgow his interest was
awakened in geology by the perusal of A. C. Ramsay's _Geology of the
Isle of Arran_, and from 1855 onwards he devoted his leisure to the
pursuit of this science. He became an authority on glacial geology, and
wrote much, especially in conjunction with David Robertson, on the
post-tertiary fossiliferous beds of Scotland (_Trans. Geol. Soc.
Glasgow_). He also prepared for the British Association a valuable
series of Reports (1873-1892) on the erratic Blocks of England, Wales
and Ireland. In conjunction with David Robertson and G. S. Brady he
wrote the _Monograph of the Post Tertiary Entomostraca of Scotland_, &c.
for the Palaeontographical Society (1874); and he edited H. Carvill
Lewis' _Papers and Notes on the Glacial Geology of Great Britain and
Ireland_, issued posthumously (1894). He died at Edgbaston, Birmingham,
on the 1st of October 1893.
See _H. W. Crosskey: his Life and Work_, by R. A. Armstrong (with
chapter on his geological work by Prof. C. Lapworth, 1895).
CROSS RIVER, a river of West Africa, over 500 m. long. It rises in 6
deg. N, 10 deg. 30' E. in the mountains of Cameroon, and flows at first
N.W. In 8 deg. 48' E., 5 deg. 50' N. are a series of rapids; below this
point the river is navigable for shallow-draught boats. At 8 deg. 20'
E., 6 deg. 10' N., its most northern point, the river turns S.W. and
then S., entering the Gulf of Guinea through the Calabar estuary. The
Calabar river, which rises about 5 deg. 30' N., 8 deg. 30' E., has a
course parallel to, and 10 to 20 m. east of, the Cross river. Near its
mouth, on its east bank, is the town of Calabar (q.v.). It enters the
estuary in 4 deg. 45' N. The Cross, Calabar, Kwa and other streams
farther east, which rise on the flanks of the Cameroon Mountains, form a
large delta. The Calabar and Kwa rivers are wholly within the British
protectorate of Southern Nigeria, as is the Cross river from its mouth
to the rapids mentioned. The upper course of the river is in German
territory.
CROSS-ROADS, BURIAL AT, in former times the method of disposing of
executed criminals and suicides. At the cross-roads a rude cross usually
stood, and this gave rise to the belief that these spots were selected
as the next best burying-places to consecrated ground. The real
explanation is that the ancient Teutonic peoples often built their
altars at the cross-roads, and as human sacrifices, especially of
criminals, formed part of the ritual, these spots came to be regarded as
execution grounds. Hence after the introduction of Christianity,
criminals and suicides were buried at the cross-roads during the night,
in order to assimilate as far as possible their funeral to that of the
pagans. An example of a cross-road execution-ground was the famous
Tyburn in London, which stood on the spot where the Oxford, Edgware and
London roads met.
CROSS SPRINGER, in architecture, the block from which the diagonal ribs
of a vault spring or start: the top of the springer is known as the
skewback (see ARCH).
CROTCH, WILLIAM (1775-1847), English musician, was born in Green's Lane,
Norwich, on the 5th of July 1775. His father was a master carpenter. The
child was extraordinarily precocious, and when scarcely more than two
years of age he played upon an organ of his parent's construction
something like the tune of "God save the King." At the age of four he
came to London and gave daily recitals on the organ in the rooms of a
milliner in Piccadilly. The precocity of his musical intuition was
almost equalled by a singularly early aptitude for drawing. In 1786 he
went to Cambridge as assistant to Dr Randall the organist. His oratorio
_The Captivity of Judah_ was played at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, on the
4th of June 1789. He was then only fourteen years of age. His intention
of entering the church carried him to Oxford in 1788, but the superior
attractions of a musical career acquired an increasing influence over
him, and in 1790 he was appointed organist of Christ Church. At the
early age of twenty-two he was appointed professor of music in the
university of Oxford, and there in 1799 he took his degree of doctor in
that art. In 1800 and the four following years he read lectures on music
at Oxford. Next he was appointed lecturer on music to the Royal
Institution, and subsequently, in 1822, principal of the London Royal
Academy of Music. His last years were passed at Taunton in the house of
his son, the Rev. W. R. Crotch, where he died suddenly on the 29th of
December 1847. He published a number of vocal and instrumental
compositions, of which the best is his oratorio _Palestine_, produced in
1812. In 1831 appeared an 8vo volume containing the substance of his
lectures on music, delivered at Oxford and in London. Previously, he had
published three volumes of _Specimens of Various Styles of Music_. Among
his didactic works is _Elements of Musical Composition and
Thorough-Bass_ (London, 1812). The oratorio bearing the title _The
Captivity of Judah_, and produced on the occasion of the installation of
the duke of Wellington as chancellor of the university of Oxford in
1834, is a totally different work from that which he wrote upon the same
subject as a boy of fourteen. He arranged for the pianoforte a number of
Handel's oratorios and operas, besides symphonies and quartetts of
Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. The great expectations excited by his
infant precocity were not fulfilled; for he manifested no extraordinary
genius for musical composition. But he was an industrious student and a
sound artist, and his name remains familiar in English musical history.
CROTCHET (from the Fr. _croche_, a hook; whence also the Anglicized
"crochet," pronounced as in French, for the knitting-work done with a
hook instead of on pins), properly a small hook, and so used of the
hook-like _setae_ or bristles found in certain worms which burrow in
sand. In music, a "crotchet" is a note of half the value of a minim and
double that of a quaver; it is marked by a round black head and a line
without a tail or hook; the French _croche_ is used of a "quaver" which
has a tail, but in ancient music the _semiminima_, the modern crotchet,
is marked by an open note with a hook. Derived either from an old French
proverbial phrase, _il a des crochues en teste_, or from a meaning of
twist or turn, as in the similar expression "crank," comes the sense of
a whim, fancy or perverse idea, seen also in the adjective "crotchety"
of a fussy unreasonable person.
CROTONA, CROTO or CROTON (Gr. [Greek: Kroton], mod. Cotrone) a Greek
town on the E. coast of the territory of the Bruttii (mod. _Calabria_),
on a promontory 7 m. N.W. of the Lacinian promontory. It was founded by
a colony of Achaeans led by Myscellus in 710 B.C. Its name was,
according to the legend, that of a local prince who afforded hospitality
to Heracles, but was accidentally killed by him and buried on the spot.
Like Sybaris, it soon became a city of power and wealth. It was
especially celebrated for its successes in the Olympic games from 588
B.C. onwards, Milo being the most famous of its athletes. Pythagoras
established himself here between 540 and 530 B.C. and formed a society
of 300 disciples (among whom was Milo), who acquired considerable
influence with the supreme council of 1000 by which the city was ruled.
In 510 B.C. Crotona was strong enough to defeat the Sybarites, with whom
it had previously been on friendly terms, and raze their city to the
ground. Shortly afterwards, however, an insurrection took place, by
which the disciples of Pythagoras were driven out, and a democracy
established. The victory of the Locrians and Phlegians over Crotona in
480 B.C. marked the beginning of its decline. It suffered after this
from the attacks of Dionysius I., who became its master for twelve
years, of the Bruttii, and of Agathocles, and even more from the
invasion of Pyrrhus, after which in 277 the Romans obtained possession
of it. Livy states that the walls had a length of 12 m. and that about
half the area within them had at that time ceased to be inhabited. After
the battle of Cannae Crotona revolted from Rome, and Hannibal made it
his winter quarters for three years. It was made a colony by the Romans
at the end of the war (194 B.C.). After that time but little is heard of
it, though Petronius mentions the corrupt morals of its inhabitants; but
it continues to be mentioned down to the Gothic wars. The importance of
the city was mainly due to its harbour, which, though not a good one,
was the only port between Tarentum and Rhegium. The original settlement
occupied the hill above it (143 ft.) and later became the acropolis. Its
healthy situation was famous in antiquity, and to this was ascribed its
superiority in athletics; it was the seat also of a medical school which
in the days of Herodotus was considered the first in Greece. Of the
exact site of the ancient city and its remains practically nothing is
known; a few fragments of the productions of its art preserved in
private hands at Cotrone are described by F. von Duhn in _Notizie degli
scavi_, 1897, 343 seq. (T. As.)
CROTONIC ACID (C4H6O2). Three acids of this empirical formula are known,
viz. crotonic acid, isocrotonic acid and methacrylic acid; the
constitutional formulae are--
HC.CO(2)H, HC.CO2H /CH3
.. .. CH2:C
HC.CH3 CH3.CH \CO2H.
Crotonic Acid. Isocrotonic Acid. Methacrylic Acid.
The isomerism of crotonic and isocrotonic acids is to be explained on
the assumption of a different spatial arrangement of the atoms in the
molecule (see STEREOCHEMISTRY).
Crotonic acid, so named from the fact that it was erroneously supposed
to be a saponification product of croton oil, may be prepared by the
oxidation of croton-aldehyde, CH3.CH:CH.CHO, obtained by dehydrating
aldol, or by treating acetylene successively with sulphuric acid and
water; by boiling allyl cyanide with caustic potash; by the distillation
of [beta]-oxybutyric acid; by heating paraldehyde with malonic acid and
acetic acid to 100 deg. C. (T. Komnenos, _Ann._, 1883, 218, p. 149).