CASSINO CASSOWARY. 



83 



was concluded that the earth was an oblong sphe- 

 roid. Cassini continued the measurement, and main- 

 tained this opinion in his work De la Grandeur et de 

 la Figure de la Terre (Paris, 1720). In order to settle 

 the question, the academy was commissioned, in 

 1733, to measure the whole length of France from 

 Brest to Strasburg. Cassim directed this undertak- 

 ing, but was led into some errors by the detective 

 instruments of former observers. He died in 1756, 

 at Thury. Besides the above mentioned works, he 

 wrote Elements d 1 Astronomic (Paris, 1740, 4to), and 

 Tables Astr. His eloge in the Mem. de I Acad. 

 contains a biograpliical notice of him. 



3. Cassini de Thury, Caesar Francois, son of the pre- 

 ceding, born June 14, 1714, member of the academy 

 from his twenty-second year. He undertook a geo- 

 metrical survey of the whole of France, embracing 

 the determination of the distance of every place from 

 the meridian of Paris, and from the perpendicular of 

 that meridian. When the support of the government 

 was withdrawn, in 17515, Cassini formed a society for 

 advancing the requisite sums, which were to be re- 

 paid by the sale of the maps constructed from the 

 survey. The work was almost entirely finished, 

 when he died (1784). leaving many writings relating 

 to his great topograpliical undertaking. 



4. Jacques Dominique, count, son of the preceding, 

 born at Paris, 1740, was director of the observatory, 

 and member of the academy, and was a statesman of 

 ability, as well as a mathematician. In 1789, he 

 presented to the national assembly the Carte TOJHH 

 graphique de France, in 1,80 sheets, now increased to 

 182, by the addition of the Carte des Assemblages 

 des Triangles. The Atlas Nationale is a reduction 

 of it on a scale of one-third, prepared by Dumey, 

 and other engineers. Cassini was arrested by order 

 of the revolutionary tribunal. He escaped with life, 

 but lost the copperplates of the Carte de France, 

 which had cost half a million francs. There is a 

 second reduction of the large map, being only a 

 fourth of the size of the original, in twenty-four plates. 



CASSINO ; a game at cards, in which four are 

 dealt to each player, four being also placed on the 

 board. The object is to take as many cards as pos- 

 sible, by making combinations. Thus a ten in the 

 player's hand wfll take a ten from the board, or any 

 number of cards which can be made to combine into 

 tens. The greatest number of cards reckons three 

 points, and of spades, one ; the ten of diamonds, 

 two ; the two of spades, one ; and each of the aces, 

 one. 



CASSIODORUS, MARCUS AORELI "s, a learned 

 Roman, lived at the time of the dominion of the 

 Ostrogoths, and contributed to the promotion and 

 preservation of learning. He was born at Squillace 

 (Scylaceum), 480 A. D., or, as some say, 470, filled 

 several public offices in Rome, and became secretary 

 of the Ostrogoth king Theodoric, but, in 537, volun- 

 tarily retired to a monastery in Calabria, where he 

 died, 577. He made the monks of his convent copy 

 the manuscripts of the ancient authors, and his book 

 De Septem Disciplinis liberalibus, in which he treated 

 of the trivium and quadrivium, and inserted extracts 

 from the ancient classic literature, was of much 

 value in the middle ages. For Theodoric he also 

 wrote his compilation of letters, Variarum Epistola- 

 rum Libri XII. He likewise composed Historia Go- 

 thorum (a History of the Goths), of which we have 

 an epitome by Jornandes, and several theological 

 works of little importance. His works have been 

 collected by J. Caret (Venice, 1679, fol. ; new edit. 

 1721). 



CASSIOPEIA, in mythology; daughter of Ara- 

 bus, and wife of Cepheus, to whom she bore Andro- 

 meda. She dared to compare her beauty to tliat of 



the Nereides, who, enraged thereat, besought Nep- 

 tune for vengeance, The god, in compliance with 

 the request of the water-nymphs, laid waste 'the do- 

 minions of Cepheus by means of a deluge and a 

 dreadful sea-monster. Thus it appears that in an- 

 cient times, as well as in modern, nations have had 

 to suffer for the faults of their masters. Cassiopeia 

 was the mother of Atymnius by an intrigue with 

 Jupiter. In astronomy, Cassiopeia is a conspicuous 

 constellation in the northern hemisphere, situated 

 next to Cepheus. In 1572, a new and brilliant star 

 appeared in it, which, however, after a short time, 

 gradually diminished, and at last disappeared entirely. 

 It was thought, at that time, by many persons, that 

 this was the star which appeared to the wise men in 

 the East. The constellation Cassiopeia contains 

 fifty-two stars of the first six magnitudes. 



CASSIQUIARI; a river of Colombia, being a 

 large branch of the Rio Negro, and remarkable as 

 forming a communication between the two great 

 rivers, the Amazon and Orinoco. The Cassiquiari 

 flows from the Orinoco, and joins the Rio Negro, 

 which last is a large tributary of the Amazon. The 

 reality of this communication, which had been pre- 

 viously asserted by the Jesuit missionaries, was con- 

 firmed by the celebrated traveller Humboldt. 



C ASSITERIDES, hi ancient geography ; a name 

 given by Strabo to ten islands, N. W. of Spain, in 

 the open ocean, abounding in tin and lead. Strabo 

 says the Phoenicians only visited them. There are 

 no islands where he describes them to have been. 

 They are, perhaps, the modern Stilly islands. It is 

 probable that the ancient merchants kept their true 

 situation secret from interested views, which, in those 

 times, could easily be done. 



CASSIUS, LONGINUS CAIUS, the friend of Brutus, 

 was the questor of Crassus, and preserved the few 

 troops of that general who escaped from the bloody 

 battle with the Parthians. With these he defended 

 Syria against the Parthians till the arrival of Bibulus. 

 In the famous civil war that broke out between 

 Pompey and Cassar, he espoused the cause of the 

 former, and, as commander of his naval forces, ren- 

 dered him important services. When Caesar, after 

 the victory at Pharsalia, was in pursuit of Pompey, 

 he advanced with a few vessels, while crossing the 

 Hellespont, against a fleet of seventy sail commanded 

 by Cassius, and called upon him to surrender. The 

 latter, astonished by his daring courage, surrendered 

 at his summons. But, when it became evident that 

 Caesar was aiming at sole sovereignty, Cassius, who 

 was a zealous republican, resolved to destroy the 

 usurper, and executed his plan, with the aid of seve- 

 ral fellow conspirators, B. C. 44. He then, together 

 with Brutus, raised an army to maintain his country's 

 freedom. They were met by Octavius and Antony, 

 who professed themselves the avengers of Caesar, at 

 Philippi. The wing which Cassius commanded be- 

 ing defeated, he imagined that all was lost, and 

 killed himself, B. C. 42. Brutus called him the last 

 of the Romans. See Brutus and Ccesar. 



CASSOWARY (casuarius, Briss.) ; a genus of 

 birds, arranged by Cuvier in his family brevipennes, 

 the first of the order grallce, waders, to which they 

 are related solely by their long, naked, stilt-like 

 legs, and long neck. In the form of the bill and 

 their mode ofliving, they more closely resemble the 

 gallinaceous birds. The shortness of their wings 

 totally unfits them for flying, and it would seem 

 impossible for nature to have furnished muscular 

 power sufficient to move wings large enough to 

 sustain their great weight in the air. Unlike other 

 birds, their pectoral or wing-muscles are compara- 

 tively slight and weak, while those of their pos- 

 terior limbs are very robust and powerful. The 

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