CREMORNE GARDENS 



CRESS 



657 



bouring octagonal Baptistery ; the Palazzo Pulilico 

 ( l-Ji.'ii; tin- so -called Campo Santo; and the famous 

 Torra/./o ( 1'Jss) or \te\fry the loftiest campanile in 

 Italy, being 396 feet high, and commanding mag- 

 niliccnt views over the fertile plain* of Milan. By 

 means of the Po, Cremona carries on a considerable 

 trade in the produce of the district ; and it ha* 

 manufactures of >ilk, cotton, earthenware, and 

 chemicals. In the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries 

 it was greatly celebrated for its manufacture of 

 violins, tin- most famoun makers being the Amatis, 

 the Guarneris, and Stradivari (see VlOLIN). Pop. 

 31,930. Cremona is the capital of a province of the 

 same name ; area, 632 sq. m. ; pop. ( 1886) 314,755. 



Cremorne Gardens, near Battersea Bridge, 

 an the north side of the Thames, a very popular 

 place of amusement for Londoners down to 1877, 

 when they were closed. 



Crenelle, a Battlement (q.v.), or an embrasure 

 in a battlement. CRENELLE, in Heraldry, em- 

 battled, signifies that any ordinary is drawn like 

 the battlements of a wall. 



Creole (Span, criollo), in general an indi- 

 vidual born in the country but not of indigenous 

 blood, a term applied, especially in the former 

 Spanish, French, and Portuguese colonies of 

 America, Africa, and the East Indies, to natives 

 of pure European blood (sangre azul), in opposition 

 to immigrants themselves born in Europe, or to the 

 offspring of mixed blood, as mulattoes, quadroons, 

 Eurasians, and the like. In Brazil the native whites 

 call themselves Brasileiros. Creole dialects are 

 corruptions of French, Spanish, Portuguese, Eng- 

 lish, or Dutch, arising in various colonies, and 

 may be studied in such formal treatises as Thomas, 

 The Theory and Practice of Creole Grammar ( Port 

 of Spain, 1869), and Quentin, L'Histoire de Cayenne 

 ft ae la Grammaire Creole (Paris, 1872). Mr 

 Cable's stories revealed to English readers the 

 singularly quaint charm of the phraseology and 

 manners of the Creole population of Louisiana. 



Creosote. See CREASOTE. 



Crescendo, in Music, means a gradual increas- 

 ing of sound, or changing from piano to forte and 

 fortissimo. It is marked thus =^^33, or with 

 the abbreviation cresc. The converse is decrescendo. 

 The swell of a good organ produces a most perfect 

 crescendo. 



Crescent. A representation of the half-moon 

 with the horns turned upwards, called a crescent, 

 is often used as an emblem of progress and suc- 

 cess. It was the emblem of the Greek before it 

 became that of the Turkish rule (see CONSTANTI- 

 NOPLE, p. 433) ; but it was not adopted by the 

 Turks from the Greeks it had been used by them 

 hundreds of years before in Central Asia. Genghis 

 Khan's Tartars had the crescent on their banners, 

 and so had the Janissaries of Sultan Orchan. 



Crescent, a decoration, sometimes called 

 order of, in Turkey. In 1799, after the battle of 

 Aboukir, the Sultan Selim III. testified his grati- 

 tude to Nelson by sending him a crescent richly 

 adorned with diamonds. It was not intended as 

 an order, but Nelson wore it on his coat ; and 

 Selim, Mattered by the value attached to his gift, 

 resolved that a similar decoration should be con- 

 ferred on foreigners who have done service to the 

 state. There was an old Order of the Crescent, 

 instituted by Rene, Duke of Anjou, in 1464. 



Crescentia. See CALABASH TREE. 



Cress, a name given to many plants belonging 

 to the order Cruciferse, which have in common, in 

 greater or less degree, a pungent must&rd-like taste, 

 and antiscorbutic, diaphoretic, and other medi- 

 cinal qualities. They are very generally distrib- 

 uted abundantly over the temperate and northern 



countries of the earth, and much used M naiad* 

 and medicinally by the peoples of theme countries. 

 In Britain the most commonly used in the Common 

 Cress (Lepidium aativum), of which there are several 



Common Cress 



(Lepidium sativum) : 



a, silicule. 



Bitter Cress 



( Cardamine amara) '. 



a, silique, opening. 



varieties, the most favoured being that known as 

 the Curled Cress. Sown thickly in soil in moderate 

 heat under glass, this may be raised during winter 

 in a few days ; and the seeds spread out thickly on 

 flannel, which is kept saturated with warm vapour, 

 as from a boiler or tank of boiling water, will 

 vegetate and yield a crop within 48 hours after 

 sowing. In this way it has been found invaluable 

 during arctic voyages as an antiscorbutic. The 

 Poor Man's Pepper is the .Brood-leaved Cress ( L. 

 latifolium), a native of Britain, and formerly used 

 as a condiment by the poor. The Virginian Cress 

 (L. virginicum) has 

 similar properties to 

 the Common Cress, and 

 is cultivated in Britain, 

 in North America, and 

 in the West Indies for 

 use as a salad. L. pis- 

 cidiitm, a native of the 

 South Sea Islands, is 

 there used to stupefy 

 fish, and by sailors as 

 an antiscorbutic. The 

 allied genus Barbarea 

 supplies the Winter 

 Cress or Yellow Rocket 

 of gardens (B. vul- 

 garis), a native of 

 Britain, and the Ameri- 

 can Cress (B. pr&cox), 

 by some regarded as 

 merely a variety of 

 the preceding, is also a 

 native of Britain, the 

 European continent, 

 and America, where 

 both are used for the 

 purposes already de- 

 scribed. The Bitter Cress ( Cardamine amara), the 

 Lady's Smock or Cuckoo-flower (C. pratensis), and 

 the Hairy Cress (C. hirsuta), are all natives of 

 Britain and of other temperate and northern 

 countries of the globe, but being more bitter than 



Water Cress 



(Nasturtium officinalt). 



