CRO 



36 



site to Oranienbaum. The houses fronting the har- 

 bour are built of brick and stuccoed white, and the lofty 

 and spacious magazines inspire a stranger with a high 

 notion o't the place ; but this exaggerated opinion is 

 soon corrected, when lie observes the mean appearance 

 of the houses, which are principally of wood, and are 

 scattered up and down with little regularity. 



The principal public buildings are the imperial 

 hospital for sailors, the hospital for the town's people, 

 and the barracks, the marine academy for cadets having 

 been removed by Catharine II. The hospital, which 

 is on a very large scale, contained 25,007 patients in 

 1788, of whom 20,924 were cured; and in 1789 the 

 number was 16,809, of whom 12,974. were cured. 



The numerous vessels which frequent this town are 

 accommodated by three separate harbours. The eastern 

 harbour contained 20 ships of the line and 9 frigates in 

 the year 1778; the middle harbour is intended for fri- 

 gates, sloops of war, and yachts belonging to govern- 

 ment ; and the western harbour, which is appropriated 

 for merchant ships, can hold 600 vessels. Adjoining 

 to it is Peter's canal, which was begun in 1719 by 

 Peter the Great. In the same year he founded the 

 dry docks for building and careening ships of war, but 

 they were not completed until the reign of Elizabeth, 

 and they have received considerable improvements 

 from Catharine. At the extremity of these docks there 

 is a vast bason of granite 568 feet long, containing wa- 

 ter for the supply of the docks, which is pumped into 

 them by a steam engine whose cylinder is 6 feet 

 diameter, erected by the Carron Company of Scotland 

 in 1772. The docks, which can hold 10 men of war, 

 are faced with stone and paved with granite, and are 

 40 feet deep and 105 broad. The whole length of 

 these works is 4221 feet. The dock-yards are suppli- 

 ed with oak from the province of Cara ; and there is at 

 Cronstadt a foundery for casting cannon, and a rope- 

 work for manufacturing cables of all kinds. 



Some idea of the trade of Cronstadt may be formed 

 from the following Tables : 



Table shewing the Number of Merchant Ships that have 

 arrived annually at Cronstadt from Ens-land from 1753 

 to 1778. & J 



1753, 

 1754, 

 1755, 

 1756, 

 1757, 

 1758, 

 1759, 



Ships, 



, 149 

 , 236 

 , 160 

 186 

 129 

 161 

 206 



1760, 

 1761, 

 1762, 

 1763, 

 1767, 

 1768, 

 1769, 



Ships 



. 137 



. 130 



. 153 



, 149 



200 



277 



322 



1770, 

 1773, 

 1774, 

 1776, 



1777, 

 1778, 



Ships. 



. . 306 

 . . 319 

 . . 318 

 . - 320 

 . . 366 

 . . 252 



The following vessels arrived at Cronstadt in 1778. 



English, . 

 French, . . 

 Spanish, . 

 Russian, . , 



Portuguese, 

 Swedish, . 



Ships 

 252 



. 1 

 . 6 

 . 12 

 . 2 



. 47 



Dutch, . . 

 Spanish, . 

 Russian, . 

 Lubeck, . 

 Rostock, . 

 Dantzick, 



Ships 



147 



39 



26 



38 



29 

 o 



Ships. 

 Hamburgh, . 2 

 Stralsund, . . 1 

 Bremen, ... 3 



Total, . . 607 



The population of Cronstadt is generally estimated 

 at 30,000, the greater part of whom belong to the fleet 

 and the garrison. The number of registered burghers 

 does not exceed S00. See Tooke's View of the Russian 

 Umpire ; Storch's Picture of St Pet&vburgh; Coxe's 



CRO 



Travels in Poland, &c. vol. hi. p. 285, 307. Sih Edit. } 

 and Catteau Calleville Tableau de la Mere Ballique, 

 vol. ii. p. 309, 351. 00 



CROOKS, in Music, are appendages to the trumpet, 

 French-horn, and trombone, consisting of short tubes of 

 brass of different lengths, that fix on below the mouth- 

 piece, for lengthening or shortening the tube by chan- 

 ging them, in order either to tune these instruments to 

 the pitch of the organ or piano-forte, on which the con- 

 ductor is to perform at the commencement of a concert 

 or performance, or for changing the fundamental tone 

 after such adjustment of the pitch, or the key in which 

 the instrument is capable of performing, if it has not a 

 sliding movement or other contrivance for obviating 

 the necessity of this latter use of crooks. See Chro- 

 matic French Horn, Trumpet, and Trombone, (g) 



CROPS. See Agriculture. 



CROSS. See Crucifixion. 



CROSS Texture, in the manufacture of cloth, is a 

 species of weaving in most cases applicable chiefly to 

 those fabrics in which transparency is the principal qua- 

 lity, and hence very few kinds of it are used for any 

 other than ornamental purposes. Its origin, as far as 

 we know, is continental, although, like most other fa- 

 brics, the knowledge of it may very likely have origi- 

 nated in Asia. One particular fact relative to it may 

 perhaps strengthen this conjecture, and that is the tex- 

 ture of the common Russian table rubber. Although 

 the fabric of these rubbers is of the coarsest flaxen or 

 hempen yarn, and they are sold at very low prices, 

 the mode of weaving them is to this day unknown to 

 the rest of Europe ; and although machinery which 

 would effect them might be devised by a person skilled 

 in mechanical knowledge, and previously conversant 

 with the other kinds of crossed texture in use, yet the 

 apparatus which he must employ for an imitation of 

 this coarse article, if conducted upon principles in any 

 respect similar to those of other cross fabrics, would 

 probably be more expensive than what we use for the 

 richest silken nets. 



> In the absence of better and more authentic informa- 

 tion upon the subject, some conjectures upon the means 

 of effecting this manufacture in the most simple way, 

 Avill form some part of the conclusion of this article. 

 At present, the only remark which is drawn from the 

 notice now taken of it is this, that the small progress 

 which arts and sciences have hitherto made in Russia 

 comparatively with the rest of Europe, and the exist- 

 ence of one of the most complicated and difficult pro- 

 cesses of an ornamental manufacture in such a country, 

 afford sufficient reasons to doubt the originality of its 

 invention there. The contiguity of the Russian em- 

 pire to those regions of Asia from whence the other- 

 branches of the manufacture found their way into Ita- 

 ly, seem to warrant the presumption, that while they 

 found their way to the west, this particular one had by 

 some accident diverged to the north, ai»d established 

 itself in a rude state among the Muscovites. 



The generic distinction of this branch from all the 

 others, consists in the twining or crossing of the warp, 

 and hence it combines the strength of mechanical union 

 with a greater degree of lightness and transparency 

 than any other fabric of elotli. The common linau or 

 gauze is the ground-work or basis of all the varieties, 

 and its texture consists in "twining two contiguous 

 threads of warp alternately to the right and left during 

 the operation of weaving. The figures, illustrative of 

 the mechanical part of the operation of forming this 

 texture, which, with a single exception, has never been. 



Crooks 



