470 



COQUIMBO 



CORAL 



Coqiiilllbo, also called LA SERENA, capital of 

 a province of Chili, stands near the mouth of the 

 river Coquimbo, on three terraces. A is a hand- 

 some town, with anew cathedral, seminary, Lyceum, 

 and hospital. Pop. 14,000. The port of Coquimbo 

 is on a bay, 6 miles S W. , and has a population of 

 5000. It exports copper, silver, and manganese 

 ores, wool, cattle, hay, and cobalt. The province 

 of Coquimbo occupies the entire breadth of the 

 country from the sea to the Andes. Its area is 

 12,855 sq. m. ; pop. (1885) 176,244. The rainfall is 

 small, save in the south, where some farming is 

 carried on. The main occupation is mining of 

 copper, as also silver and gold. See CHILI. 



Coqui'to (Jubcea spectabilis), a beautiful 

 Chilian palm, of which the sap is boiled down as 

 syrup ( miel de palma ). 

 Coracias. See ROLLER. 

 Coracle, CURRACH, or COURACH ( Celt, corwg, 

 curach ; Lat. curuca, carrocium, carabus), the name 

 given in the British Islands to a canoe or boat made 

 of a slender frame of wood or wicker-work, and 

 covered with skins. Skiffs of this sort, as well as 

 canoes hollowed out of the trunks of oaks, were 

 in use among the Britons in the earliest times of 

 which we have record. Julius Caesar, who built 

 some of them after the British model, tells us that 

 the keel and gunwales were of light wood, and the 

 sides of wicker covered with 

 hides. The first occurrence 

 of the name seems to be 

 in Gildas, who wrote in the 

 6th century ; he speaks of 

 the coracle as in use among 

 the Scots and the Picts. A 

 long voyage in the North 

 Sea, made in a coracle, dur- 

 ing the same century, by 

 one of the companions of 

 St Columba, is commemo- 

 rated by Adamnan, who 

 died in 704. In 878 three 

 Irish missionaries sailed in 

 a coracle from Ireland to 

 Cornwall ; the voyage occu- 

 pied seven days ; and the 

 size of the coracle is in- 

 dicated by the remark that it was one of two skins 

 and a half. An old Life of St Patrick speaks of a 

 coracle 'of one skin, with neither helm nor oar.' 

 The coracle of a larger size had a mast and sail. 

 The coracle, often now covered with tarpaulin, is 

 still used on the Severn, the Dee, and on the 

 Irish coast (Clare and Donegal). The last coracle 

 known to have been used in Scotland is in the 

 museum at Elgin. It was employed on the Spey 

 towards the end of the 18th century. Shaw's His- 

 tory of Moray (1775) describes the coracle, which 

 had then become rare, as ' oval in shape, near 3 feet 

 broad and 4 long ; a small keel running from the head 

 to the stern ; a few ribs placed across the keel, and a 

 ring of pliable wood around the lip of the machine.. 

 The whole is covered with the rough hide of an ox 

 or a horse ; the seat is in the middle ; it carries but 

 one person, or, if a second goes into it to be wafted 

 over a river, he stands behind the rower, leaning 

 on his shoulders. In floating timber, a rope is 

 fixed to the float, and the rower holds it in one 

 hand, and with the other manages the paddle. He 

 keeps the float in deep water, and brings it to shore 

 when he will. In returning home, he carries the 

 machine on his shoulders, or on a horse. ' One who 

 figures in the Dunciad Aaron Hill the poet by 

 showing the Strathspey Highlanders how to make 

 their timber into a navigable raft, hastened the 

 disappearance of the coracle from Scotland. A 

 boat of bison skin, essentially the same with the 



Coracle. 



British coracle, is in use among some of the Indians 

 of North America. 



Coracoid, an important paired -bone in the 

 breast-girdle, forming along with the scapula the 

 articulation for the fore-limb, ant 5 always lying 

 ventrally. In the lower fishes the entire girdle is 

 cartilaginous ; in the bony fishes distinct coracoids 

 first appear ; they are well seen in Amphibia and 

 in all reptiles except snakes ; they are very large 

 and strong in birds ; but become mere processes of 

 the scapula in mammals. They very often exhibit 

 a special anterior portion known as the pre- 

 coracoid. See BIRD, SKELETON, Huxley's Anatomy 

 of the Vertebrates, and such comparative anatomy 

 text-books as those of Gegenbaur and Wiedersheim 

 (translated by Prof essors Bell and Parker). 



Corais (Fr. CORAY), ADAMANTIOS, a learned 

 Hellenist, was born at Smyrna, 27th April 1748. 

 He early abandoned hereditary mercantile pursuits 

 to devote himself to letters at Paris, where he 

 lived till his death, 6th April 1833. He published 

 editions of many ancient Greek authors, as the 

 JEthiopica of Heliodorus, and laboured all his life 

 to promote Greek learning and the feeling for 

 Greek patriotism. His Atakta, ou Melanges sur 

 la Litterature Grecque Moderne (5 vols. Paris, 

 1828-35) is a work of great value. His auto- 

 biography was published at Paris in 1829-33 ; his 

 papers and letters at Athens (8 vols. 1881-91). See 

 Koraes, a monograph by Thereianos (Trieste, 1891 ). 



Coral, a term loosely applied to any animal in 

 the class Crelenterata which forms a hard skeleton. 

 The tubular organ-pipe coral, the noble or red coral 

 of commerce, and the reef -building madrepore corals, 

 are familiar examples. Presuming an acquaintance 

 with the general features of the class, as summed 

 up in the article CcELENTERATA, we may notice 

 at the outset the fact that the formation of hard 

 supporting structures is exhibited in very varied 

 degrees, in manifold styles of architecture, and in 

 widely separated forms. 



Different Kinds of Coral. (I) Among the 

 Hydrozoa the skeletal investment of the polyp 



Fig. 1. 



A, branch of Dendrophyllia ; B, part of a stock of red coral, 

 with (a) fully extended polyp, and (6, 6) two polyps, partly 

 extended. 



types, Avhen present, is usually horny. In one 

 subdivision, however, the supporting framework is 

 limy, and to these forms Millepores (q.v.) and 

 Sty'lasterids the title Hydrocorallina is fitly 

 applied. (2) It is, however, in the other sub-class 



