242 



CINNA CIPHERS. 



and, with a loss of 10,000 men, were driven from 

 the city. He flew to the allies, collected thirty le- 

 gions, called the proscribed to his support, and, 

 among these Marios, made himself master of Rome, 

 and assented to the plan of Marias to put to death 

 all tlie senators who were opposed to the people. 

 This massacre continued for five days. The follow- 

 ing year, he, together with Marius, arbitrarily assum- 

 ed the consulship. Sylla now appeared, and China 

 wished to march against him, but his soldiers refused, 

 an, I put him to death. 



CINNA, CORNELIUS, a grandson of Pompey, was 

 at the head of a conspiracy against Augustus, who 

 generously forgave him, and even transferred to him 

 the consulship. Ciiina was, therefore, devoted to 

 the emperor, till his death, with inviolable fidelity. 



CINNABAR. See Mercury. 



CINNAMON is the under branches of a tree of 

 the bay tribe (laurus cmnamomum), which is chiefly 

 found in the island of Ceylon, but which grows in 

 Malabar, and other parts of the East Indies. This 

 tree attains tlie height of twenty or thirty feet. Its 

 leaves are oval, each from four to six inches long, 

 and marked with three principal nerves. The flowers 

 stand on slender footstalks, and are of a pale-yellow 

 colour ; and the fruit is shaped somewhat like an 

 acorn. There are two principal seasons of the year, 

 in which tlie Ceylonese enter their woods for tlie pur- 

 pose of barking the cinnamon-trees. The first of 

 these commences in April, and the last hi Novem- 

 ber ; tlie former being that in which the great crop 

 is obtained. In this operation, the branches of three 

 years' growth are cut down, and the outside pellicle 

 of the bark is scraped away. The twigs are then ripped 

 up lengthwise with a knife, and the bark i gradually 

 loosened, till it can be entirely taken off. It is then 

 cut into slices, and, on being exposed to the sun, 

 curls up in drying. The smaller pieces, or qtulls, 

 as they are called, are inserted into the larger 

 ones, and these are afterwards tied into bundles. 

 Cinnamon is examined and arranged according to its 

 quality, by persons who, for this purpose, are obliged 

 to taste and chew it. This is a very troublesome and 

 disagreeable office, few persons being unable to hold 

 cut more than two or three days successively, as the 

 cinnamon deprives the tongue and lips of all the mu- 

 cus with which they are covered. After this exami- 

 nation, the bundles are made up to the length of 

 about four feet, and weigh about eighty-eight 

 pounds each. From the roots of the trees numerous 

 off-sets shoot up. These, when they have attained 

 the height of about ten feet, are cut down and barked, 

 being then about the thickness of a common walking 

 stick. The cinnamon which they yield is much finer 

 than any other. A French ship, bound, in 1782, from 

 the island of Bourbon to cape Francois, in St Domin- 

 go, and having on board various Oriental productions, 

 the cinnamon-tree among the rest, was taken by ad- 

 miral Rodney, who presented the rees to the assem- 

 bly of Jamaica ; and from this parent stock, different 

 parts of that island were afterwards supplied. In Cey- 

 lon, the cinnamon-trees are said to be so common as to 

 be used for fuel and other domestic purposes. The 

 smell of cinnamon, particularly of the thinnest pieces, 

 is delightfully fragrant, and its taste pungent and 

 aromatic, with considerable sweetness and astringen- 

 cy. If infused in boiling water, in a covered vessel, 

 it gives out much of its grateful flavour, and forms an 

 agreeable liquid. An oil is extracted from cinnamon, 

 which is heavier than water. This is prepared in 

 Ceylon, and almost wholly from the small and broken 

 pieces. It is made, however, in such small quantity, 

 that the. oil of cassia is generally substituted for it : in- 

 deed, the cassia bark is often substituted for cinnamon , 

 to which it has considerable resemblance, although in 



its qualities it is much weaker, and though it is im- 

 mediately distinguishable by its slimy taste. The 

 virtues of cinnamon are not confined to tlie bark. 

 The leaves, tlie fruit and the root, all yield oil of con- 

 siderable value. That from tlie fruit is highly fra- 

 grant, of thick consistence, and, at Ceylon, was for- 

 merly made into candles, for the sole use of tlie king. 



CINO DA PISTOIA; an Italian juris-consult 

 and poet ; born in 1270, at Pistoia, of the family of 

 s i i ii I ni li li , or Sinibaldi. His proper name was Guittone, 

 which tlie Florentines changed to Guittoncino, and 

 then abbreviated it to Cino. He finished his studier 

 at Bologna, and subsequently acted as judge in 

 Pistoia till 1307, when the civil war, known by the 

 name of the contest between the Neri and Bianchi, ob- 

 liged him to flee. He first took refuge with a friend 

 on tlie borders of Lombardy, who also belonged to 

 tlie party of tlie Bianclu', and whose daughter 

 Selvaggia, had gained his affection ; but her death 

 soon followed. Cino then travelled through Lom- 

 bardy and France, and remained some time t Paris, 

 but returned to Italy before 1314 ; for in that year he 

 published, at Bologna, his commentary on the Jus- 

 tinian code, which he had completed in two years, 

 and which excited universal admiration on account of 

 its extent and the difficulty of the subject. In con- 

 sequence of this, he received the diploma of doctor of 

 law. Several universities were anxious to secure his 

 services. He lived three years at Treviso, and still 

 longer at Perugia, where the famous Bartolo was his 

 scholar. It is doubtful whether, as some assert, he 

 actually instructed at Bologna, Sienna, and even at 

 Paris ; but he certainly was professor, in 1334, at the 

 university of Florence. He taught tlie civil law. 

 Petrarca and Boccaccio were not his scholars, as it 

 has been said. Cino returned to Pistoia in 1336, 

 where he died in the same or the beginning of the 

 following year. His commentary surpassed every 

 thing of the kind which had appeared before, and 

 went through several editions. He ranks amongst 

 the best of the early Italian poets, and resembles 

 Petrarca more than any of the other predecessors of 

 this poet. His poems, the principal subject of which 

 is the above-mentioned Selvaggia, were first published 

 at Rome, in 1558, by Pilli. They afterwards appear- 

 ed in Venice, increased by a second volume, which, 

 however, was not considered genuine. The most 

 complete edition is that of Ciampi (Florence, 1812, 

 second edition,) with the author's life. 



CINQUE PORTS ; eight seaports of England, on 

 the coasts of Kent and Sussex Dover, Sandwich, 

 Hastings, Hithe, Romney, Winchelsea, Rye, and Sea- 

 ford. They were originally only five, tlie three latter 

 having been declared ports subsequent to the first in- 

 stitution. They are under a lord warden, and are 

 endowed with considerable privileges. Though the 

 above-mentioned cities have long since lost their im- 

 portance, their harbours being filled with mud, so as 

 not to admit men-of-war, most of their privileges con- 

 tinue, as does the office of the warden, a mere sine- 

 cure, of 3000 annual income. 



CIPHERS are the signs for numbers, (q. v.) They 

 are either borrowed signs as letters, with which, for 

 instance, the Greeks and several tribes of the north 

 of Europe designated their numbers ; or peculiar 

 characters, as the Roman and modern or Arabic ones. 

 As the decimal system must be considered one of the 

 grandest inventions of man, we must also acknow- 

 ledge the system of numbers which we now use to be 

 a proof of extraordinary genius and a deep, philosophi- 

 cal mind ; and it cannot be doubted, that our progress 

 in mathematical science, abstract and applied, would 

 have been much slower without the Arabic ciphers, 

 which, in fact, are indispensable to the great calcula- 

 tions which occur daily in modern astromony. The 



