CROLY 



CROMPTON 



577 



..-ic;il Survey <>f Scotland, luit retired in 1SS1. 

 AH l'.i;s. and LL.D. since i*7i>, he died i;,th 



December |M!M) (see his Life by ,1. ( '. Irons, 

 IVMJ). Mesides many papers in the -cicntific jour- 

 nal*, he \\rote 77/c 'riiilnxiifihif of Thfimn (1 *">"), 

 Clunntr mitt Time (1875), Dixrttxsiiinii on Clunntf 

 mi, I t'i>.vml</tf (1886), HIM! Mrlliir Ki;,l uti>,), 

 (lss>). C/iiiiufi- ti/iti Time, one of tin* most im 



|nirt:iiit t tributions to geological climatology, 



\\orked out in detail t lie view with which ('roll's 

 name is identified, that, contrary to the opinion of 

 most physicists, changes of the earth'* climate, 

 sin-h as the -L-u-ial periods, arc due to the secular 

 \ ariaiions in the eccentricity of the earth's orhit, 

 together with consequences arising out of them, 

 such its the deflection of ocean currents. See 

 < 'i.i MATE, GLACIAL PERIOD, PRECESSION. 



Troly, GEORGE, poet, romance-writer, bio- 

 grapher, and preacher, was lx>rn at Dulilin in 

 17*0, and educated at Trinity College there. He 

 took orders in 1804, and in 1810 came to London, 

 where, after twenty-four years of literary labour, he 

 in 1835 became rector of St Stephen's, Walbrook. 

 He died 24th NovemW 1860. Between 1817 and 

 1858 Dr Croly published some forty works the best 

 known l>eing the romance of Salathicl. See the 

 Memoir prefixed to his Book of Job ( 1863). 



< roin ;i r 1 y. the county town of Cromartyshire, 

 on the southern shore of the Cromarty Firth, 2 

 miles from its entrance, and 19 NNE. of Inver- 

 ness. Nothing remains of the old stronghold of the 

 Urquharts, the most famous of whom was Rabelais' 

 translator, Sir Thomas. From him the estate 

 came to the second son of that Sir George Mac- 

 kenzie who in 1685 was created Viscount Tarbat, 

 and in 1703 Earl of Cromarty a title forfeited by 

 the third earl for his share in the '45, but revived 

 in 1861 in favour of his descendant, the Duchess of 

 Sutherland, who, dying in 1888, was succeeded 

 therein by her secona surviving son, Francis. 

 In 1859 a statue was erected of Hugh Miller 

 (q.v.). The population has dwindled from 2215 

 in 1831 to 1308 in 1891, though with Wick 

 and four other burghs Cromarty still returns 

 a member to parliament. CROMARTY FIRTH, a 

 land-locked inlet on the north-east coast of 

 Scotland, extends 19 miles north-eastward and 

 eastward to the Moray Firth, and is inclosed by 

 the counties of Ross and Cromarty. It forms a 

 noble harbour, 1 mile to 7| miles broad, and 5 to 

 :r> fat horns deep ; receives at its head the Conon ; 

 and narrows at its entrance to 7 furlongs, l>etween 

 the beetling North and South Sutors, 400 and 463 

 feet high. On its shores are the towns of Dingwall, 

 Invergordon, and Cromarty (the last has declined 

 with the rise of the second ) ; the old red sandstone 

 near its mouth is classic as Hugh Miller's hunting- 

 ground. CROM'ARTYSHIRE, once a Scottish county, 

 369 sq. in. in area, consisting of ten detached por- 

 tions scattered up and down Ross-shire (q.v.), 

 with which it was incorporated by the Local 

 Government Act of 188J). It comprised the ancient 

 sheriffdom of Cromarty, and outlying bits annexed 

 thereto towards the close of the 17th century at the 

 instigation of Viscount Tarbat, who wished thai to 

 hold jurisdiction over every part of his estates. 

 Pop., with Ross-shire (1891*), 77,810. See Sir W. 

 Fraser's Earls of C'romurty (2 vols. 1876). 



Cromdale, a place in Elginshire, on the right 

 bank of the Spey, 5 miles NE. of Grantown. Here, 

 on 1st May 1690, 800 Jacobite Highlanders were 

 surprised and routed by a body of King William's 

 dragoons. This encounter is celebrated in a song 

 called The Haughs of Cromdale. 



Crome, JOHN (known as 'Old Crome'), land- 

 scape-painter, the chief member of the ' Norwich 

 School' of artists, was born in that city, the son 

 141 



of a pour weaver, 22*1 December 1768. After 

 nerving ax an errand -boy to a physician, lie wan 

 apprenticed to a house-painter ; but, showing a 

 strong jiredilection for art, he wan befriended by 

 Mr T. Harvey, of Catton, who procured him em- 

 ployment as a drawing-master, and permitted him 

 to study works by Gaupboroagh and the Dutch 

 masters in his collection. He also received some 

 instruction from lieecheyand Opie. He wan mainly 

 influential in founding, in 1803, the Norwich Society 

 of Artists, which held exhibitions from 1805, and 

 of which he was president in 1808. He , , a 

 uiomilly visited London, where he exhibited in 

 the Academy and the British Institution ; and a 

 tour through Belgium and France in 1814 resulted 

 in ' The Fishmarket on the Beach, Boulogne,' 

 and 'The Boulevard des Italiens, Paris.' But 

 his subjects were nearly always derived from the 

 scenery of his native county, which, though found- 

 ing Ins practice upon that of the Dutch land- 

 scapists, he treated in a singularly direct and 

 individual fashion, painting trees, and especially 

 the oak, with exceptional fidelity and beauty. 

 His works realised only most moderate prices 

 during the artist's life ; but he is now recognised 

 as one of the great names among English land- 

 scapists, and fine examples of his art fetch very 

 large sums. Several of his oil-paintings, includ- 

 ing the great ' Mousehold Heath,' are in the 

 National Gallery ; and among his other master- 

 pieces maybe mentioned 'Carrow Abbey,' 'View 

 of Chapel Fields, Norwich,' ' Oak at Poringland,' 

 'The Willow,' and in the Fitzwilliain Museum, 

 Cambridge, the 'Clump of Trees, Hautbois Com- 

 mon.' He also practised as a water-colour painter, 

 but his works in this medium are rare ; and a series 

 of his etchings of ' Norfolk Picturesque Scenery ' 

 was published in 1834, and has been repeatedly 

 re-issued. The earlier impressions are fine and 

 valuable. He died, 22d April 1821, at Norwich, 

 where, in the following year, a collected exhibition 

 of his works was brought together, and he was 

 fully represented in the Royal Academy Old 

 Masters Exhibition, 1878. His eldest son, John 

 Bernay Crome (1794-1842), painted landscapes in 

 a style similar to those of bis father, as whose 

 productions they are frequently sold. 



Cromer, a pleasant watering-place on the 

 coast of Norfolk, 23 miles N. of Norwich by a 

 railway opened in 1877. The sea has here made 

 great encroachments on the cliffs since 1350, 

 though the town itself is now protected by a sea- 

 wall, formed in 1877, with an esplanade and a 

 jetty, at a cost of nearly 10,000. There are 

 capital sands and golf-links ( 1887), and the church 

 has a noble flint-work tower of 160 feet. Pop. 

 of parish ( 1891 ) 2197. It gives a peer's title to Sir 

 Evelyn Baring (q.v.). See Rye's Cramer (1889). 



Cromlech (from the Gaelic crom, 'curved,' 

 and laic, 'a stone') is a modern term, formerly 

 applied by British archaeologists to a class of 

 megalithic monuments, consisting of one Hat 

 stone supported on two or more upright stones, 

 and forming a kind of open chamber with a roof. 

 It is now generally recognised, however, that the*.- 

 are merely the denuded or uncovered chambers of 

 chambered cairns (see (\\IRX) or harrows (see BAR- 

 ROW), for which another modern term, Dolmen 

 (q.v.), is now generally substituted. The French 

 arch.-eologists retain the use of the word cromlech, 

 but they have always applied it to those groups 

 of standing stones which in Britain and Scandi- 

 navia are called Stone Circles (q.v.). 



Crompton. SAMTKL, whose- invention of the 

 spinning-male entitles him to rank as one of man- 

 kind's greatest benefactors, was born, the son of 

 a small farmer, at Firwood, near Bolton, Lonca- 



