[1] In the _Abhandlungen der sächsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften_
(1850). Note that in A.D. 1, Dec. 25 was a Sunday and not a Friday.
[2] In a fragment preserved by an Armenian writer, Ananias of Shirak.
CHRISTMAS ISLAND, a British possession under the government of the
Straits Settlements, situated in the eastern part of the Indian Ocean
(in 10° 25' S., 105° 42' E.), about 190 m. S. of Java. The island is a
quadrilateral with hollowed sides, about 12 m. in greatest length and 9
in extreme breadth. It is probably the only tropical island that had
never been inhabited by man before the European settlement. When the
first settlers arrived, in 1897, it was covered with a dense forest of
great trees and luxuriant under-shrubbery. The settlement in Flying Fish
Cove now numbers some 250 inhabitants, consisting of Europeans, Sikhs,
Malays and Chinese, by whom roads have been cut and patches of cleared
ground cultivated.
The island is the flat summit of a submarine mountain more than 15,000
ft. high, the depth of the platform from which it rises being about
14,000 ft., and its height above the sea being upwards of 1000 ft. The
submarine slopes are steep, and within 20 m. of the shore the depth of
the sea reaches 2400 fathoms. It consists of a central plateau
descending to the water in three terraces, each with its "tread" and
"rise." The shore terrace descends by a steep cliff to the sea, forming
the "rise" of a submarine "tread" in the form of fringing reef which
surrounds the island and is never uncovered, even at low water, except
in Flying Fish Cove, where the only landing-place exists. The central
plateau is a plain whose surface presents "rounded, flat-topped hills
and low ridges and reefs of limestone," with narrow intervening valleys.
On its northern aspect this plateau has a raised rim having all the
appearances of being once the margin of an atoll. On these rounded hills
occurs the deposit of phosphate of lime which gives the island its
commercial value. The phosphatic deposit has doubtless been produced by
the long-continued action of a thick bed of sea-fowl dung, which
converted the carbonate of the underlying limestone into phosphate. The
flat summit is formed by a succession of limestones--all deposited in
shallow water--from the Eocene (or Oligocene) up to recent deposits in
the above-mentioned atoll with islands on its reef. The geological
sequence of events appears to have been the following:--After the
deposition of the Eocene (or Oligocene) limestone--which reposes upon a
floor of basalts and trachytes--basalts and basic tuffs were ejected,
over which, during a period of very slow depression, orbitoidal
limestones of Miocene age--which seem to make up the great mass of the
island--were deposited; then elapsed a long period of rest, during which
the atoll condition existed and the guano deposit was formed; from then
down to the present time there has succeeded a series of sea-level
subsidences, resulting in the formation of the terraces and the
accummulation of the detritus now seen on the first inland cliff, the
old submarine slope of the island. The occurrence of such a series of
Tertiary deposits appears to be unknown elsewhere. The whole series was
evidently deposited in shallow water on the summit of a submarine
volcano standing in its present isolation, and round which the ocean
floor has probably altered but a few hundred feet since the Eocene age.
Thus although the rocks of the southern coast of Java in their general
character and succession resemble those of Christmas Island, there lies
between them an abysmal trough 18,000 ft. in depth, which renders it
scarcely possible that they were deposited in a continuous area, for
such an enormous depression of the sea-floor could hardly have occurred
since Miocene times without involving also Christmas Island. One of the
main purposes of the exploration was to obtain light on the question of
the foundation of atolls.
The flora consists of 129 species of angiosperms, 1 _Cycas_, 22 ferns,
and a few mosses, lichens and fungi, 17 of which are endemic, while a
considerable number--not specifically distinct--form local varieties
nearly all presenting Indo-Malayan affinities, as do the single _Cycas_,
the ferns and the cryptogams. As to its fauna, the island contains 319
species of animals--54 only being vertebrates--145 of which are endemic.
A very remarkable distributional fact in regard to them, and one not yet
fully explained, is that a large number show affinity with species in
the Austro-Malayan rather than in the Indo-Malayan, their nearer,
region. The ocean currents, the trade-winds blowing from the Australian
mainland, and north-westerly storms from the Malayan islands, are no
doubt responsible for the introduction of many, but not all, of these
Malayan and Australasian species. The climate is healthy, the
temperature varying from 75° to 84° F. The prevailing wind is the S.E.
trade, which blows the greater part of the year. The rainfall in the
wet season is heavy, but not excessive, and during the dry season the
ground is refreshed with occasional showers and heavy dews. Malarial
fever is not prevalent, and it is interesting to note that there are no
swamps or standing waters on the island.
It is not known when and by whom the island was discovered, but under
the name of _Moni_ it appears on a Dutch chart of 1666. It was first
visited in 1688 by Dampier, who found it uninhabited. In 1886 Captain
Maclear of H.M.S. "Flying Fish," having discovered an anchorage in a bay
which he named Flying Fish Cove, landed a party and made a small but
interesting collection of the flora and fauna. In the following year
Captain Aldrich on H.M.S. "Egeria" visited it, accompanied by Mr J.J.
Lister, F.R.S., who formed a larger biological and mineralogical
collection. Among the rocks then obtained and submitted to Sir John
Murray for examination there were detected specimens of nearly pure
phosphate of lime, a discovery which eventually led, in June 1888, to
the annexation of the island to the British crown. Soon afterwards a
small settlement was established in Flying Fish Cove by Mr G. Clunies
Ross, the owner of the Keeling Islands, which lie about 750 m. to the
westward. In 1891 Mr Ross and Sir John Murray were granted a lease, but
on the further discovery of phosphatic deposits they disposed of their
rights in 1897 to a company. In the same year a thorough scientific
exploration was made, at the cost of Sir John Murray, by Mr C.W.
Andrews, of the British Museum.
See C.W. Andrews, _A Monograph of Christmas Island (Indian Ocean)_,
(London, 1900).
CHRISTODORUS, of Coptos in Egypt, epic poet, flourished during the reign
of Anastasius I. (A.D. 491-518). According to Suidas, he was the author
of [Greek: Patria], accounts of the foundation of various cities;
[Greek: Audiaka], the mythical history of Lydia; [Greek: Isaurika], the
conquest of Isauria by Anastasius; three books of epigrams; and many
other works. In addition to two epigrams (_Anthol. Pal._ vii. 697, 698)
we possess a description of eighty statues of gods, heroes and famous
men and women in the gymnasium of Zeuxippus at Constantinople. This
[Greek: ekphrasis], consisting of 416 hexameters, forms the second book
of the Palatine Anthology. The writer's chief models are Homer and
Nonnus, whom he follows closely in the structure of his hexameters.
Opinions are divided as to the merits of the work. Some critics regard
it as of great importance for the history of art and a model of
description; others consider it valueless, alike from the historical,
mythological and archaeological points of view.
See F. Baumgarten, _De Christodoro poëta Thebano_ (1881), and his
article in Pauly-Wissowa's _Realencyclopädie_, iii. 2 (1899); W.
Christ, _Geschichte der griechischen Litteratur_ (1898).
CHRISTOPHER, SAINT (_Christophorus, Christoferus_), a saint honoured in
the Roman Catholic (25th of July) and Orthodox Eastern (9th of May)
Churches, the patron of ferrymen. Nothing that is authentic is known
about him. He appears to have been originally a pagan and to have been
born in Syria. He was baptized by Babylas, bishop of Antioch; preached
with much success in Lycia; and was martyred about A.D. 250 during the
persecution under the emperor Decius.[1] Round this small nucleus of
possibility, however, a vast mass of legendary matter gradually
collected. All accounts agree that he was of great stature and
singularly handsome, and that this helped him not a little in his
evangelistic work. But according to a story reproduced in the _New Uniat
Anthology_ of Arcudius, and mentioned in Basil's _Monologue_,
Christopher was originally a hideous man-eating ogre, with a dog's face,
and only received his human semblance, with his Christian name, at
baptism. Most of his astounding miracles are of the ordinary type. He
thrusts his staff into the ground; whereupon it sprouts into a date
palm, and thousands are converted. Courtesans sent to seduce him are
turned by his mere aspect into Christians and martyrs. The Roman
governor is confounded by his insensibility to the most refined and
ingenious tortures. He is roasted over a slow fire and basted with
boiling oil, but tells his tormentors that by the grace of Jesus Christ
he feels nothing. When at last, in despair, they cut off his head, he
had converted 48,000 people.
The more conspicuous of these legends are included in the Mozarabic
_Breviary_ and _Missal_, and are given in the thirty-third sermon of
Peter Damien, but the best-known story is that which is given in the
_Golden Legend_ of Jacopus de Voragine. According to this,
Christopher--or rather Reprobus, as he was then called--was a giant of
vast stature who was in search of a man stronger than himself, whom he
might serve. He left the service of the king of Canaan because the king
feared the devil, and that of the devil because the devil feared the
Cross. He was converted by a hermit; but as he had neither the gift of
fasting nor that of prayer, he decided to devote himself to a work of
charity, and set himself to carry wayfarers over a bridgeless river. One
day a little child asked to be taken across, and Christopher took him on
his shoulder. When half way over the stream he staggered under what
seemed to him a crushing weight, but he reached the other side and then
upbraided the child for placing him in peril. "Had I borne the whole
world on my back," he said, "it could not have weighed heavier than
thou!" "Marvel not!" the child replied, "for thou hast borne upon thy
back the world and him who created it!" It was this story that gave
Christopher his immense popularity throughout Western Christendom.
See Bolland, _Acta Sanct._ vi. 146; Guenebault, _Dict. iconographique
des attributs des figures et des légendes des saints_ (Par., 1850);
Smith and Wace, _Dict. of Christ. Biog._ (London, 1877, &c., 4 vols.);
A. Sinemus, _Die Legende vom h. Christophorus_ (Hanover, 1868); and
other literature cited in Herzog-Hauck, _Realencyk._ iv. 60.