614 



GUMMING 



CUNEIFORM 



but are stronger, and therefore to some palates 

 more pleasant. It is employed as a carminative 

 flavouring in many parts of the world ; but its 

 strictly medicinal use (as in plasters) is now chiefly 

 confined to veterinary practice. In Germany, it is 

 often put into bread ; in Holland, sometimes into 

 cheese. It contains a peculiar volatile oil (Oil of 

 Cummin). Cummin-seed is brought to Britain 

 mostly from Sicily and Malta. The fruit of 

 Lagoecia cuminoides, another umbelliferous plant, 

 a native of the Levant, is similar in its qualities 

 and uses to that of cummin. The Black Cummin 

 of the ancients is sometimes identified as a species 

 of Nigella (q.v.). 



dimming, CONSTANCE FREDERIKA GORDON, 

 a well-known traveller, was born 24th May 1837, 

 and was the sister of the lion-hunter (see below). 

 She has travelled extensively, having resided 

 for two years in Ceylon, and two in Fiji. She 

 has also visited Tahiti, China, Japan, California, 

 Hawaii, New Zealand, and Australia, and has 

 written various sprightly and entertaining volumes 

 of travel, including From the Hebrides to the 

 Himalayas (1876); At Home in Fiji (1881); A 

 Lady's Cruise in a French Man-of-war (1882); 

 Fire Fountains Hawaii (1883); Wanderings in 

 China (1885) ; Two Happy Years in Ceylon (1891). 



dimming, JOHN, divine and author, was born 

 in Fintray parish, Aberdeenshire, 10th November 

 1807. He was educated at King's College, Aber- 

 deen, where he took his degree of M.A. in 1827, 

 and in 1832 was ordained to the Scotch Church, 

 Crown Court, Covent Garden, London, where he 

 preached with great popularity and success till 

 1879. Edinburgh University gave him the degree 

 of D.D. in 1844. He was active in philanthropic 

 projects, and as a controversialist and lecturer 

 both against the party that formed the Scotch Free 

 Church and in the ' anti-Popery ' cause ; but his 

 celebrity was chiefly due to his writings on the 

 interpretation of prophecy. His audacity in this 



Perilous enterprise drew upon him much ridicule, 

 n 1868 he asked the pope if he might attend the 

 (Ecumenical Council, but his application was de- 

 clined through Archbishop Manning. After some 

 years of ill-health, Gumming died 5th July 1881. 

 His works number over a hundred various pub- 

 lications. Among them are Apocalyptic Sketches 

 (three series, 1848-50), Prophetic Studies (1850), 

 Signs of the Times (1854), The Millennial Rest 

 (1862), Ritualism the Highivay to Rome (1867), 

 The Sounding of the Last Trumpet (1867), and 

 The Seventh Vial (1870). 



dimming, ROUALEYN-GEORGE GORDON, the 

 African lion-hunter and the second son of Sir 

 William-Gordon Gordon-Camming, was born 15th 

 March 1820, and was educated at Eton. He be- 

 came a cornet in the Madras Cavalry in 1838, 

 served for a time in Canada, and joined the Cape 

 Mounted Rifles in 1843 ; but he soon resigned his 

 commission, and, till his return to England in 1848, 

 engaged in those famous hunting exploits narrated 

 in his Five Years of a Hunter's Life (1850), of 

 which he issued a condensed edition, entitled The 

 Lion-hunter of South Africa (1858). He died at 

 his residence, Fort Augustus, 24th March 1866. 



Cummins, MARIA SUSANNA, American novel- 

 ist, born at Salem, Massachusetts, April 9, 1827, 

 began to write in 1850, contributing presently to 

 the Atlantic Monthly and other magazines. Her 

 first novel, The Lamplighter (1854\ had a pheno- 

 menal sale, 40,000 copies being sold in two months ; 

 its entire sale in America alone has exceeded 

 120,000 copies. Her other books include Mabel 

 Vaughan (1857), El Fureidis (1860), and Haunted 

 Hearts ( 1864). She died at Dorchester, October 1, 

 1866. 



Climnock, OLD, a town of Ayrshire, on Lugar 

 Water, 18 miles by rail E. of Ayr, and 43 NW. of 

 Dumfries. The manufacture of wooden snuff-boxes 

 was many years since transferred to Mauchline, and 

 mining is now the chief industry. The Covenant- 

 ing 'prophet,' Peden (1626-86), lies in the church- 

 yard. Dumfries House, a seat of the Marquis of 

 Bute, is 2 miles W. Pop. 3104. See History by War- 

 wick ( Paisley, 1899). NEW CuMNOCK.on the Nith, 

 54 miles SE. of Old Cumnock, has 1514 inhabitants. 



Cumulative Voting. See REPRESENTATION. 



Cunard, SIR SAMUEL, was born 21st November 

 1787 at Halifax, Nova Scotia, where his father, a 

 Philadelphia merchant, had settled. Becoming 

 early a successful merchant and shipowner, Cunard 

 came to England in 1838, joined with George 

 Burns, Glasgow, and David M'lver, Liverpool, in 

 founding (1839) the British and North American 

 Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, and obtained 

 a contract from the British government for the 

 mail service between Liverpool and Halifax, 

 Boston, and Quebec. The first passage Avas that 

 of the Britannia in 1840, the time occupied being 

 fourteen days eight hours. Iron steamers were 

 first used in 1855, and paddle-wheels gave way 

 entirely to the screw after 1862. From its small 

 but successful beginning, Cunard 's undertaking 

 soon developed into one of the vastest of private 

 commercial concerns. In 1878 it was made into 

 a joint-stock company. Created a baronet in 1859, 

 Cunard died at London, 28th April 1865. 



Clinaxa, in Babylonia, east of the Euphrates, 

 about 60 miles N. of Babylon, noted for the battle 

 (401 B.C.) between Cyrus the younger and his 

 brother Artaxerxes Mnemon, in which the former 

 was killed. 



Cundinamarca, a central department of 

 Colombia, extending east to Venezuela. It is the 

 second largest department of the republic, with an 

 area of 8500 sq. m., excluding the territory to the 

 south-east of the Meta, which is about as large as 

 Italy. The population is about 570,000 (including 

 17,000 wandering Indians). The western part is 

 mountainous, with fertile valleys and plateaus ; in 

 the east are vast plains. It is well wooded, and 

 rich in minerals. The capital is Bogota (q.v.), 

 also capital of the republic. 



Cuneiform, Cuneatic, Wedge-shaped, Arrow- 

 headed (Fr. tete-d-clou, Ger. keilformig), are 

 terms for a certain form of writing, of which the 

 component parts resemble a wedge. It was used 

 by the ancient peoples of Akkad, Babylonia, 

 Assyria, Armenia, Elam, and Persia ; and was 

 inscribed upon stone, bronze, iron, glass, and clay. 

 Cuneiform inscriptions were chiselled upon stone 

 and iron, but they were impressed upon soft clay 

 with a pointed stylus having three unequal facets ; 

 the smallest to make the fine wedge of the cunei- 

 form signs, the middle-sized to make the thicker 

 wedges, and the largest to make the outer and 

 thick wedges of the characters. The first date 

 that can be assigned to the use of cuneiform 

 writing is about 3800 B.C., and its use was con- 

 tinued until after the birth of Christ. The earliest 

 inscription at present known is that inscribed 

 upon the porphyry whorl in the time of Sargon of 

 Agade ; the latest is a tablet preserved at Munich, 

 which may have been written about 83 A.D. 

 Cuneiform writing was first used in Mesopotamia, 

 and from thence it spread to Persia and to the 

 districts north of Nineveh. For nearly 1600 years 

 after its extinction its very existence was for- 

 gotten. The immense ruins found all over that 

 ancient kingdom, and especially those of ancient 

 Persepolis, had at all times attracted the attention 

 of eastern travellers ; still no one seems to have 

 dreamed that those strange wedges which com- 



