CAIC CAILLE. 



795 



the dismay which the resurrection of Lazarus produc- 

 ed among the priests and Pharisees, he proposed the 

 death of Christ (John xi. 49, 50) ; and when the offi- 

 cers of the Jewish hierarchy arrested Jesus, they car- 

 ried him to Annas, and then to C., from whom he was 

 transferred to the hands of the civil authority. C. was 

 deposed, A. D. 35, and Jonathan appointed in his 

 stead. 



CAIC, or CAIQUE; a skiff of a galley. It was point- 

 ed at both ends, and was twenty-five feet long by six 

 broad and two and a half deep. It went out of' use 

 with the galley. The name is now applied, in the 

 Levant, and particularly in the Black sea, to small 

 barks. (In the latter sea they are manned by Cossacks.) 

 It is also used in the French navy for a small vessel. 



CAICOS, or CAYOS ; a cluster of small islands or rocks, 

 called Little and Great Caicos, between Hayti, or St 

 Domingo, and the Bahama islands. The largest, 

 called Grand Caico, is sixty miles long, and two or 

 three broad. St George's Key is the principal har- 

 bour. Population in 1803, forty whites and about 

 1200 slaves. Lon. 72 W. ; lat. 21 36' N. 



CAILAS, or CAILASA ; the loftiest ridge of the Him- 

 alaya mountains (q. v.). On its eastern side is a 

 remarkable peak, called the Lingam of Siva or Ma- 

 hadeva, an object of great veneration to his votaries. 

 It is the favourite abode of Siva, and blooms with 

 eternal spring. 



CAILLK, Nicholas Louis de la, an eminent mathe- 

 matician and astronomer, was born at Rumigny, not 

 far from Rosoy, in Thierache, 1713, studied at the col- 

 lege at Lisieux, and wished to dedicate himself to the 

 service of the church. But, at this time, his atten- 

 tion was directed to astronomy, and he carried the 

 spirit of geometry into the scholastic philosophy, and 

 even into theology, of which he wished to reform the 

 language, and treat the propositions after the manner 

 of Euclid. He soon renounced theology altogether. 

 Cassini and Maraldi were his friends, and with them 

 he drew up a description of the coast of France, from 

 Nantes to Bayonne. On account of the accuracy and 

 skill which he displayed in this operation, he was 

 selected to take part in the verification of the meridi- 

 an, which was then beginning to be a subject of inte- 

 rest. He began this great work April 30, 1739, and, 

 in this year, finished all the triangles from Paris to 

 Perpignan ; measured the bases of Bourges, Rhodez, 

 and Aries ; observed the azimuths and zenith distances 

 of the stars at Bourges, Rhodez, and Perpignan, and 

 took the principal share in the measurement of the 

 degree of longitude which terminates at the harbour 

 of Cette. During the severe winter of 1740, he ex- 

 tended his triangles over the principal mountains of 

 Auvergne, to connect with the meridian a new basis 

 measured at Riom. The object of this excursion was 

 to procure additional information for the purpose of 

 clearing up the doubt which he entertained concern- 

 ing the basis of Juvisy, measured by Picard in 1669. 

 He had discovered and demonstrated that this basis 

 was a thousandth part too long, from whence it follows, 

 that the toise used by Picard was at least a line shorter 

 than the toise of the academy. This assertion of his, 

 so long contested, was now placed beyond doubt. 

 During his absence, he was made professor of mathe- 

 matics in the college of Mazarin, in consequence of 

 which, the continuation of the meridian in the north 

 was delayed till the next autumn. C. ended his sur- 

 veys in the course of some months ; during which he 

 measured two basis more, and made the astronomical 

 observations at Paris and Dunkirk. After his return 

 he commenced the calculations for which he had pre- 

 pared the materials by these long operations, and, by 

 a comparison of the different arcs which he had mea- 

 sured, lie showed that the degrees increase from the 

 equator to the poles a result diametrically opposite 



to the old measurement His works on geometry, 

 mechanics, astronomy, and optics, which followed 

 each other in a few years, show with what ability he 

 discharged the duties of professor. His Ephemerides, 

 and the numerous and able memoirs which he present- 

 ed to the academy of sciences, and his calculations of 

 the eclipses for 1800 years, in the first edition of his 

 Art de verifier les Dates, prove with what ardour he 

 pursued his astronomical studies. He had undertaken 

 the correction of the list of stars, according to the 

 method of corresponding heights. In "1740, he was 

 in possession of an observatory erected for him at the 

 college Mazarin. True to the laborious method which 

 he believed the best, C. spent his days and nights, for 

 fourteen years, in making observations on the sun, the 

 planets, and the stars, to rectify the astronomical ca- 

 talogues and tables. He had received the two six- 

 foot sectors, with which he had verified the meridian 

 of France. Desirous of observing the stars of the 

 southern hemisphere, which never appear above the 

 horiiion at Paris, he formed the plan of a voyage to 

 the Cape of Good Hope. He saw immediately the 

 advantage to be derived from this change of place, 

 in determining the parallax of the moon, of Mars, and 

 Venus, and the refraction of the rays of light. La- 

 lande (q. v.), then nineteen years old, was sent to 

 Berlin, which lies nearly under the same meridian as 

 the Cape, to take corresponding measures at the same 

 time. This astronomical undertaking cost four years 

 of journeys and labour. C, determined the position 

 of about 10,000 stars, in 127 nights, with wonderful 

 accuracy. As his departure from the Cape was de- 

 layed, he employed the interval in measuring a de- 

 gree of the southern hemisphere. 'He also received 

 orders to superintend the constmction of an accurate 

 chart of the Isle of France and the Isle of Bourbon, 

 though one had recently been executed by the cele- 

 brated navigator d'Apres. After his return, he em- 

 ployed himself, witli great assiduity, in comparing 

 the different methods which had been proposed for 

 solving the problem of the longitude. (See Longitude, 

 Geograph.) He chose, for this purpose, the distances 

 of the moon from the sun or the stars, showed the 

 advantage of this method, and proposed a plan for 

 a nautical almanac, since universally adopted. For 

 the use of navigators with but little knowledge, he 

 contrived ingenious and graphic means of assistance, 

 by which they were made acquainted, in an easy 

 manner, with a method which must otherwise have 

 terrified them by the length of the calculations. C. 

 divided his time between his observatory, his calcula- 

 tions, his duties as an academician and professor, and 

 the publication of his different works. Now a ppeared 

 his tables of the sun, Astronomice Fundamenta novis- 

 sima Salts et Stellarum observat. stabil. (Paris, 1775), 

 the continuation of his Ephemerides. He was parti- 

 cularly engbged in observations of the moon, and the 

 stars of the zodiac. Finding the method of corres- 

 ponding heights too slow for the vast plan which 

 he haof formed, he fixed in his observatory a me 

 ridian telescope, which gave him the right ascen- 

 sion of the stars with much more ease. But in order 

 to attain the degree of accuracy at which he aimed, 

 he made it a rule to admit no star into his new cata- 

 logue, which he had not observed for three or four 

 days, comparing it each time with several of those, 

 the places of which he had previously determined 

 with so much care. He thus attained a greater de- 

 gree of accuracy than his celebrated rivals, Bradley 

 and Mayer, who were furnished with better instru- 

 ments, jind generally contented themselves with a 

 single observation of the stars of lesser magnitude. 

 It is to be regretted, that this great work has not 

 been edited with greater accuracy by the friend and 

 scholar of C. Engaged in so many employments, C. 

 Ivfl 



