796 



CAIMACAN CAISSON. 



still found time for other labours. From the manu- 

 scripts of Bouguer, who had intrusted them to him at 

 the time of his death, he published Traite <le la 6>- 

 fliitimt de la Lumii're, and wholly revised tlie Traite 

 dr Xuvigation. He afterwards published the obser- 

 vations of the landgrave of Hesse-Cassel anil Walther, 

 Uie travels of Chazelle to Egypt, and r euillee's voyage 

 to the Canary islands. A violent attack of the gout 

 having interrupted his labours, he resumed them, as 

 soon as he was able, with too much eagerness, ex- 

 hausted his weak frame, and diet! in 1762. He be- 

 queathed his manuscripts to his friend Maraldi, who 

 published the del Austral, preceded by an eloge of 

 tlit- author, by Brotier. Never was there a greater 

 friend of labour and truth than C. The number, as 

 well as the accuracy of his observations, is worthy of 

 admiration, more particularly if we consider that all 

 his astronomical labours took place within twenty- 

 seven years. His Journal du t'oyage/ait au Cap de 

 Bonne Espcrance was edited by Carlier (Paris 1763). 



CAIMACAN (lieutenant) ; a title of the grand signior, 

 the grand vizier, and the governor of Constanti- 

 nople. 



CAIMAN. See Cayman Islands. 



CAIN ; the eldest son of Adam and Eve ; the first 

 murderer. Jealous of the favour shown to his 

 younger brother (see Abel), he murders him in the 

 field. The avenging voice of conscience asks him 

 the terrible question, " Cain, where is thy brother?" 

 which he vainly endeavours to evade " Am I my 

 brother's keeper?" The curse is pronounced upon 

 him ; he is declared a fugitive and a wanderer on.the 

 face of the earth. His remorse and despair fill him 

 with the apprehension of retribution of death from 

 the hand of whoever shall meet him. But a mark is 

 set upon him, as a sign, lest any one should kill him. 

 He then, continues Moses ,(Gen. iv. 16 24), went out 

 and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden 

 (q. v.). His wife bore him a son, Enoch, who built 

 a city. Jabal, one of- his descendants, is called the 

 father of those who live in tents (scenites). Jubal, 

 brother of Jabal, was the first musician, and Tubal- 

 cain, another brother, was the first smith. This is 

 the last information which the Mosaic history gives of 

 the family of Cain, unless we suppose the beautiful 

 daughters of men (Gen. \\. 2), or the giants (Gen. vi. 

 4), to be his posterity. Josephus relates, that he be- 

 came the leader of a band of robbers, committed all 

 sorts of licentiousness, corrupted the simplicity of 

 primitive manners by bis luxury, established the right 

 of property by setting up landmarks, and was the in- 

 ventor of weights and measures. 



CAIQUE, GRAND ; a small island among the Baha- 

 mas ; Ion. 7O W. ; lat. 19 50' N. The Little C. 

 lies southwest of the former. 



CA-!RA. These famous revolutionary couplets were 

 written on the occasion of the celebration of the cap- 

 ture of the Bastile, when the civic oath was taken 

 before the altar of the country. The celebration took 

 place OP the Champ de Mars, July 14, 1790, in the 

 midst of torrents of rain. The refrain, or chorus, 

 nms thus : 



Ah : fa ira, ?a ira, fa ira, 



En depit <f I'aristocrat' et d' la pluie, 



Ah ! ja ira, &c. 



Nous nous mouillerons, mais fa tinira. 



This, it will be seen, was directed against the aristo- 

 crats. The famous Marseillaise, or Marseilles hymn, 

 which resounded throughout Europe during the wars 

 of the young republic against the coalition of sove- 

 reigns, was directed against foreign, as the (a-ira was 

 against the domestic, enemies of the revolution. The 

 author and composer of the Marseillaise (Rouget de 

 1'Isle), an officer of the engineers, narrowly escaped 

 with his head, during the reign of terror. (See Poe- 



sies Rev. et Anti-Rev., Paris, 1821, 2 vols.) These 

 poems were proscribed by the directory in 1797, and 

 were not restored to favour till the late revolution of 

 1830. See Marseilles Hymn. 



CAIRN ; a name given to heaps of stones, common 

 in Great Britain, particularly in Scotland and Wales, 

 generally of a conical form, and crowned by a. flat 

 stone. They are of various sizes, and were probably 

 constructed for different objects. Some are evidently 

 sepulchral, containing urns, stone chests, bones, &c. 

 Others were erected to commemorate some remarka- 

 ble event, and others appear to have been intended 

 for religious rites. See Tumuli. 



CAIRNGORM, or BLUE MOUNTAIN; a mountain of 

 Scotland, belonging to the Grampian hills It is par- 

 ticularly celebrated for the crystals found on it, called 

 cairngorms, of various colours and sizes. They have 

 now become scarce. They are, in general, of a smoky 

 or yellowish hue (smoky quartz and yellow quartz), 

 and are used for seals and other trinkets. They are 

 regular hexagonal crystals, with a pyramidal top, 

 and some have been found weighing three or four 

 ounces. Beside these stones, fine specimens of as- 

 bestos covered with calcarious crystallization, talc, 

 zeolite, and spars, are frequently found. The moun- 

 tain rises 4,050 feet above the level of the sea. 



CAIRO (in Arabic, Kaltira, which signifies victori- 

 ous) ; the capital city of Egypt. It lies on the east 

 bank of the Nile, Ion. 32 E. lat. 30 N., in a sandy 

 plain, and contains Old Cairo, Boulac (the harbour}, 

 and New Cairo, which are, to a considerable degree, 

 distinct from each other. The city itself, separate 

 from the gardens and plantations which surround it, 

 is three and a fourth leagues in circuit, has thirty-one 

 gates, and 2,400 irregular, unpaved streets, which, 

 during the night, are closed at the end of the quarter, 

 to prevent disturbances ; also, 25,840 houses, for the 

 most part built of brick, with fiat roofs, and more 

 than 200,000 inhabitants Arabs or Mohammedans, 

 Coptish Christians, Mamelukes, Greeks, Syrians, Ar- 

 menians, Jews, and natives of various countries of 

 Europe. The castle, situated on a rock, containing 

 Joseph's well, 276 feet deep, is the residence of the 

 pacha. There are eighty public baths, three hundred 

 mosques, two Greek, twelve Coptish, and one Arme- 

 nian church, thirty-six synagogues, and many silk, 

 camlet, tapestry, gunpowder, leather, linen, and cot- 

 ton factories. The commerce of the city is very 

 great, since it is the centre of communication between 

 Europe, the Mediterranean sea, Asia, and the north 

 of Africa. Here is also a Mohammedan high-school, 

 a printing-office, and a library of 25,000 volumes. 

 A line of telegraphs extends from hence to Alexan- 

 dria, about 255 miles distant, by which intelligence 

 is communicated in forty minutes. In the neigh- 

 bourhood is an aqueduct of 317 arches ; also Boulac, 

 the harbour of C., which contains an institution for 

 100 scholars, supported by the pacha, and a printing- 

 office. In 1798, C. was taken by the French. See 

 Egypt. 



CAISSON; 1. a chest filled with combustibles, and 

 buried under ground, in order to explode at a particu- 

 lar time. It is also a covered waggon for the provi- 

 sions and ammunition of an army. 2. In architec- 

 ture, a kind of chest, case, or flat-bottomed boat, used 

 in the construction of bridges, large enough to contain 

 an entire pier, which is built in it ; the caisson is then 

 sunk to the bed of the river, and the sides removed 

 from the bottom, which is left as a foundation for the 

 pier. Floating vessels, under the same name, are 

 used to close the entrances of docks and basins. A 

 groove is worked in the masonry of the entrance, and 

 a vessel of the shape of the opening, with a projection 

 corresponding to the groove, a hanging scuttle on 

 each side, and furnished with pumps, is floated into 





