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author or artist to the control of his production and the interests of American workmen; the attempt to legislate for them jointly has brought about no little confusion and inequity. If American working men cannot secure a living in competition with labourers on the other side of the Atlantic, their needs should be cared for under the provisions of the protective tariff. It is, however, the belief of a large number of those who are engaged in the manufacturing of books that, with his advanced methods of work, the skilled American labourer has no reason to dread the competition of European craftsmen. With this manufacturing condition out of the way, there would be nothing to prevent the United States from becoming a party to the Convention of Bern. This would place intellectual property on both sides of the Atlantic on the same footing.

2. The requirement of publication in the United States simultaneously with that in the country of origin, practically debars the authors of France, Germany, and other Continental countries from securing any substantial benefit from the publication of American editions of their works, although these states have extended to American authors, without restrictions, the full advantage of their statutes. The amended law should provide that a work in a foreign language, emanating from a country with which the United States has copyright relations, should be registered for copyright in regular course with the deposit for purposes of identification of two copies of the work in the text of the original, and with the further deposit of a copy of the titlepage in English. The law should provide that, in case within a specified term (say twelve months) there should be published a version in English, which had been printed from type set within the United States, and which had in other respects complied with the conditions of the American law, the work should secure the full protection of American copyright, not only for the English version as copyrighted, but for the original text. Under the present conditions the copyrighting of an American edition does not protect the original text from unauthorized translations. If, within the term specified, no edition should be produced for which the conditions of the American Act had been complied with, the right to reproduce the work in English might then fall into the public domain. A provision to such effect, while by no means sufficient to do full justice to Continental authors, would secure for such of these authors, whose books were available for the American-reading public, the substantial advantages of American copyright.

that "
every person who should invent and design, engrave,
etch, or work in mezzotinto or chiaroscuro, any historical
or other print or prints, should have the sole right and
liberty of printing and representing the same for the term
of fourteen years, to commence from the day of the first
publishing thereof, which shall be truly engraved with the
name of the proprietor on each plate, and printed on every
such print or prints." The penalty for piracy was the
forfeiture of the plate and all prints, with a fine of 5s. for
every pirated print.

Thirty-one years later (1766), in the reign of George III., a second Engraving Act was passed "to amend and render more effectual" the first Act, and "for vesting and securing to Jane Hogarth, widow, the property in certain prints," which extended the protection beyond the designer, who was also engraver, to any person who, not being himself a designer, made, or caused to be made, an engraving from any picture or other work of art. Jane Hogarth, the widow of the painter, found herself nearing the termination of the fourteen years' term of copyright granted by the first Act, with the probability that immediately on its expiry the engravings of her husband then on sale, and on which her livelihood depended, would be immediately pirated. It was mainly to save her from the loss of her livelihood that this second Copyright Bill extended the term of the copyright to twenty-eight years.

The engravers and publishers of the day were not overscrupulous, and they sought to evade the penalties of the copyright Acts by taking the designs, and adding to them or taking from them, or both, and producing fresh engravings, seeking to make it appear that they were producing new works. These practices assumed such proportions that it became necessary, eleven years after the passing of the second Act (1777), to call upon Parliament to put 3. The term of copyright in force in the United States is shorter through another short measure still further to protect the than that accorded under the law of any other literature-producing engraver, by prohibiting the copying "in whole or in country, excepting Greece. In France and in Russia the term part" (a clause not contained in the previous Acts), by covers the life of the author, and fifty years thereafter. In varying, adding to, or diminishing from, the main design Germany, since 1834, the term has been for the life of the author of an engraving without the express consent of the proand for thirty years thereafter. Under such a term of property the author is in a position to work, not only for himself, but for prietor or proprietors. These three Acts remain in force to his children. The United States, with its increasingly important the present day. In 1852, in an international copyright literary interests, ought not to be contented with a shorter term Act, it was declared that the Engraving Acts collectively than that in force in Germany. (G. H. p*.) were intended to include prints taken by lithography or any other mechanical process.

ARTISTIC COPYRIGHT.

History. Copyright, whether artistic or literary, is the creation of statute. Attempts were made by the first claimants of copyright to place property in ideas on a footing with other forms of property, and to claim for it rights in perpetuity; but in the year 1774 a decision in the House of Lords made it clear that neither public opinion nor law would recognize copyright as property in this sense. Since that time it has been recognized that property in copyright exists only by statute, and that its terms and conditions depend entirely upon Acts of the Legislature, and are liable at all times to alteration at the will of Parliament. Literary authors had protection for their work much earlier than artists. The first literary copyright Act came into existence in the reign of Queen Anne, but it was not until the reign of George II. that the Legislature afforded any protection for the work of artists. The first Artists' Copyright Bill was passed in the interest of William Hogarth, one of the greatest of English painters, who was engraver as well as painter, and who devoted a considerable portion of his time to engraving his own works. No sooner, however, were these published than his market was seriously damaged by the issue of inferior copies of his engravings by other publishers. To protect Hogarth from such piracy an Act was passed on 24th June 1735, which provided

In May 1814 an Act was passed to give protection to sculptors. The term of copyright for sculptors was a peculiar one. It was to last for fourteen years, with the proviso that, should the author be still alive, he should enjoy a further period of fourteen years, the copyright returning to him for the second fourteen should he have disposed of it for the first period. It is a condition of copyright with the sculptor that the author must put his name with the date upon every work before putting it forth or publishing it. A curious and interesting point in the interpretation of this Act is that according to the opinion of eminent jurists it is necessary to an infringement of the copyright of a piece of sculpture that the copy of it must take the form of another piece of sculpture; that a photograph, drawing, or engraving of a piece of sculpture is not to be considered a reproduction of it, and is, therefore, not an infringement of the sculptor's copyright.

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The Act of 1862. Strange as it may seem, painting was the last branch of the arts to receive copyright protection. The cause of the painters was taken up by the Society of Arts, who endeavoured, in the first instance, to pass an amendment and consolidation Bill dealing with engraving, sculpture, and painting; but, failing in their first effort, they limited their second to an attempt to pass a Bill in favour of painting, drawing, and photography. It was in the year 1862 that this Act, having passed

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through Parliament, came into force. The absence of any antecedent protection for the painter is clearly stated in its preamble, which reads as follows: Whereas by law as now established, the authors of paintings, drawings, and photographs have no copyright in such their works, and it is expectant that the law should in that respect be amended. Be it, therefore, enacted," &c. This preamble makes it clear that there is no copyright in any paintings, drawings, or photographs executed and dealt with before the year 1862; to be exact, 29th July of that year. The duration of the term of copyright in this Act of 1862 differs from its predecessors, by being made dependent on the life of the author, to which life seven years were added. In the Literary Copyright Act there are two terms-the life of the author and seven years, or forty-two years, whichever may prove the longer. In taking a fixed term like forty-two years it is necessary to have something to start from, and with a literary work it was easy to start from the date of publication. But pictures are not published. They may pass from the studio to the wall of the purchaser without being made public in any way. The difficulty was evidently before the author of this Act, and the artist's term was made his life and seven years after his death without any alternative. This term applies equally to photographers. Perhaps no Bill which ever passed through Parliament ostensibly for the purpose of benefiting a certain set of people has failed so completely as has this Bill to accomplish its end. It started by proposing to give copyright to authors of paintings, drawings, and photographs, and it would seem that no difficulty ought to have arisen as to whom such copyright should rightly belong; but the following clause of the Act has introduced confusion into the question of ownership :

Provided that when any painting, or drawing, or the negative of any photograph, shall for the first time after the passing of this Act be sold, or disposed of, or shall be made, or executed for, or on behalf of any other person for a good or valuable consideration, the person so selling or disposing of, or making or executing the same, shall not retain the copyright thereof unless it be expressly reserved to him by agreement in writing, signed at or before the time of such sale or disposition, by the vendee or assignee of such painting or drawing, or such negative of a photograph, or by the person on whose behalf the same shall be so made or executed; but the copyright shall belong to the vendee or assignee of such painting, or drawing, or such negative of a photograph, or to the person for or on whose behalf the same shall have been made or executed; nor shall the vendee or assignee thereof be entitled to such copyright unless at or before the time of such sale or disposition an agreement in writing, signed by the person so selling or disposing of the same, or by his agent duly authorized, shall have been made to that effect.

That is to say, after promising the author copyright in his work for life and seven years, the Act stipulates that in order to get it the author must, at the time of the first sale or disposition of his picture, obtain a document in writing from the purchaser of the picture, reserving the copyright to the author, and the Act goes on to say that if he does not take this step the copyright becomes the property of the purchaser of the picture, but with the proviso, in order to secure it to him, he must have a document signed by the artist assigning the copyright to him; but if neither of these things is done, and no document is signed, the copyright does not belong to either the artist who sells or the client who buys, and the Act is silent as to whom it does belong to. It has disThere is no copyright appeared and belongs to no one. existing in the work for any one. It has passed into the public domain, and any one who can get access to the work may reproduce it. Now, as most purchases are made from the walls of exhibitions, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the copyright is absolutely lost. And where the sale is arranged directly between the artist and his client, the difficulty experienced by the artist in raising the question

as to whom the copyright shall belong to is so great, owing to the dread lest the mere mention of the signing of a document should cause the selling of the picture to fall through, that in numerous such cases the copyright lapses and becomes public property. Photographers are not affected by this clause, because they do not as a rule sell the negatives they produce, and with them the copyright lies in the negative. They carry on their trade in prints without the question of the negative arising. The picture-dealer, also, who buys a picture and copyright is not subjected to the same disability as the painter. The picture-dealer can sell a picture without saying a word to his client as to the copyright, which he, nevertheless, retains intact; the provision is applicable only to the first sale of the work, which, therefore, throws the whole of the disability upon the painter.

The Act gives the copyright of every work executed on commission to the person by whom it is commissioned. It makes it compulsory upon every owner of a copyright that he should register it at Stationers' Hall before he can take any action at law to protect it. The copyright does not lapse if unregistered, but so long as it remains unregistered no action at law can be taken on account of any infringement. A copyright can be registered at any time, even after an infringement, but the owner of the copyright cannot recover for any infringement before registration. The Act provides for both penalties and damages in the following cases :

1. For infringing copyright in the ordinary way by issuing unlawful copies.

2. For fraudulently signing or affixing a fraudulent signature to a work of art.

3. For fraudulently dealing with a work so signed. 4. For fraudulently putting forth a copy of a work of art, whether there be copyright in it or not, as the original work of the artist.

5. For altering, adding to, or taking away from a work during the lifetime of the author if it is signed, and putting it forth as the unaltered work of the author. 6. For importing pirated works.

The incongruities of this Act were so apparent that its promoters desired to stop it, feeling that it would be better to have no Bill at all than one which conferred so little upon the people it was intended to benefit; but Lord Westbury, the Lord Chancellor, who had charge of the Bill in the House of Lords, advised them to let it go through with all its imperfections, that they might get the right of the painter to protection recognized. This advice was followed, and the Bill had no sooner become law than a fresh effort was started to have it amended. Year by year the agitation went on, with the exception only of a period when Irish affairs took up all the attention of Parliament, and domestic legislation was rendered impossible. But within the last few years copyright has been again "in the air," and several independent committees have been at work upon the subject; and in 1898 the Copyright Association of Great Britain promoted a Bill, which was introduced into the House of Lords by Lord Herschell. It was a measure designed to deal with all forms of copyrightliterary, musical, dramatic, and artistic,—and was remitted by the House of Lords for consideration to a committee, which, having sat for three sessions, decided not to proceed with Lord Herschell's measure, but to treat literature and art in separate Bills. It had

under its consideration an artistic Bill, drafted for and presented by the Royal Academy, and a literary Bill and an artistic Bill drafted by the Committee itself. The main proposals in the latter were to give copyright to the author of any artistic work or photograph for a period of life and thirty years, unless the work be commissioned, in which case the copyright was to be tended to be placed in a street or public place. The Bill provides the property of the employer, except in the case of sculpture insummary remedies for dealing with pirated works. It omits altogether any reference to registration, and it provides for international copyright.

To sum up the position of artistic copyright, we have five British Acts, three dealing with engraving, one with sculpture, and one with painting, drawing, and photography, and between them there is very little relation.

The

duction to the artist. Although the latter may really have no right in it, it is felt, as a practical matter, that he is largely interested in the character of the reproduction it is proposed to make. Hence the courtesy which is usually extended to him.

We have three terms of duration of copyright-28 years for engraving, 14 for sculpture, with a second 14 if the artist be alive at the end of the first, life and 7 years for painting, drawing, or photography. There are two different relations of the artist to his copyright. sculptor's right to sell his work and retain his copyright has Of late years, owing to the increased facilities of repronever been questioned so long as he signs and dates it. duction, the practice has become very common of splitting The painter's copyright is made to depend upon the sign-up copyrights and granting licenses in what may be deing of a document by the purchaser of his work. The engraver and the sculptor are not required to register; but the author's name, and the date of putting forth or publishing, must appear on his work, The painter cannot protect his copyright without registration, but this registration as it is now required is merely a pitfall for the unwary. Designed to give the public information as to the ownership and duration of copyrights, the uncertainty of its operation results in the prevention of information on these very points.

Difficult and complicated as is this whole subject of artistic copyright, it is perhaps not to be wondered at that ignorance of the law on the subject is very widespread, even amongst those who are most interested in its action. One of the commonest beliefs amongst artists is, that all they have to do to secure copyright is to register a picture at Stationers' Hall; but the authorities at Stationers' Hall ask no questions, and simply enter any particulars submitted to them on their printed form. Some artists make a practice, when they send a picture away to exhibition, to fill up one of these forms, reserving the copyright by their entry to themselves, in the belief that, if accompanied by the 1s. fee required by the Stationers' Hall, its entry will reserve the copyright to them, oblivious of the fact that the only thing which can reserve the copyright to them is the possession of a document assigning the copyright to them by the purchaser of the picture. Another useless method of attempting to reserve artists' copyrights is that adopted by the promoters of public exhibitions, with whom it is an almost constant practice to print on some portion of the catalogue of the exhibition a statement that "copyrights of all pictures are reserved," the impression apparently prevailing that a notice of this kind effectively reserves the copyright for the artist while selling his picture from the walls. It, of course, does no such thing, and the copyright of any picture sold in these circumstances, without the necessary document from the purchaser, must be lost to the artist, and pass irrevocably into the public domain.

In a work of art the work itself and the copyright are two totally distinct properties, and may be held by different persons. The conditions differ materially from those of a work of literature, in which as a rule there is no value apart from publication. There is a value in a work of art for its private enjoyment quite apart from its commercial value in the form of reproductions; but when the two properties exist in different hands, the person holding the copyright has no power to force the owner of the work of art to give him access to it for purposes of reproduction; this can only be effected by private arrangement. It has been argued that, as the two properties are so distinct, the owner of the copyright ought to have the right of access to the picture for the purpose of exercising his right to reproduce it. But it is easy to see that it would destroy the value of art property if proprietors knew that at any moment they might be forced to surrender their work for the purpose of reproduction, though for a time only.

There is often a strong sympathy between the artist and the person who buys his picture, and it is not at all unusual, when application is made to the owner of the picture for access to it, for him to submit the question of repro

scribed as very minute forms. It would, of course, be impossible for a publisher to pay an artist the sum at which he values his entire copyright, simply that he might reproduce his picture in the form of a black-and-white block in a magazine, and it has consequently become quite common for the artist to grant a license for any and every particular form of reproduction as it may be required, so that he may grant the right of reproduction in one particular form in one particular publication, and even for a particular period of time, reserving to himself thus the right to grant similar licenses to other publishers. This is apparently not to the injury of the artist; it is probably to his advantage, and it certainly promotes business. The great obstacle in the way of securing a really good Artistic Bill has been the introduction into it of photography. It was by a sort of accident that the photographer was given the same privileges as the painter in the Bill of 1862. The promoters of the Bill thought that the photographer would be protected by the Engraving Acts which covered prints; but since the photographers feared that, as their prints were of a different character from the prints from a plate, the Engraving Acts might not protect them, it was at the last moment decided to put photography into the Art Bill. The result of this was that the painter lost his chance of copyright on all works executed on commission. Legislators feared that if photographers held copyright in all their works the public would have no protection from the annoyance of seeing the photographs of their wives and daughters exhibited, and sold in shop windows by the side of ". professional beauties" and other people, and made articles of commerce. So in the case of commissioned works, the copyright was denied to both painters and photographers, and there seems considerable fear that in any new legislation the attempt to give the same terms to both painter and photographer may lead to great injury and injustice to the public.

The Royal Commission which reported on the subject in 1878 proposed two distinct terms of copyright for painting and photography. The term for the painter was dependent on his life; that for the photographer was a definitely fixed term of years from the date of publication of his photographs; and there can be little doubt that this is the right way to deal with the two branches of copyright. The artist who paints a picture signs it, and there is no difficulty in knowing who is the author of a painting and in whom the term of copyright is vested. But who knows anything as to the authorship of a photograph? In a very large number of cases a photograph is taken by an employee, who is here to-day and gone to-morrow, and even his employer knows nothing of his existence. course, it may suit an employer to be able to maintain secrecy as to the authorship of his negative, inasmuch as it enables him to go on claiming copyright fees indefinitely; but it is not to the public interest. In most countries on the Continent a photographer has the fixed term of five years' copyright in an original photograph dating from its publication, which date, together with the name and address of the photographer, has to be stamped on every copy issued. In the public interest some such method of dealing with photographs should be introduced into any new Act. If the choice is between the Continental method and registration, the photographer would probably

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choose the former, as it would entail no registration fees.

See also WALTER ARTHUR COPINGER, F.S.A. The Law of Copyright in Works of Literature and Art. London, 1893.RICHARD WINSLOW, M.A., LL.B. The Law of Artistic Copyright. London, 1889. (E. BA.)

Coquelin, Benoît Constant (1841-———), French actor, was born at Boulogne, January 24, 1841. He was originally intended to follow his father's trade of baker, but his love of acting led him to the Conservatoire, where he entered Regnier's class in 1859. He won a prize for comedy less than a year afterwards, and made his début in December 1860 at the Comédie Française, of which house he became a sociétaire four years later. His first successes, which were made in classical comedy, were brilliantly sustained during the twenty years that succeeded his election as sociétaire. During that time he "created" the leading parts in a number of new plays, including Gringoire (1867), Tabarin (1871), Paul Forestier (1871), L'Etrangère (1876), Jean Dacier (1877), Le Monde où l'on s'ennuie (1881), Les Rantzau (1884), and others. In consequence of a dispute with the authorities over the question of his right to make provincial tours in France, he resigned his position at the Comédie Française in 1886. Three years later, however, the breach was healed; and, after a successful series of tours in Europe and the United States, he rejoined the Comédie Française as pensionnaire in 1889. He remained there three years, during which time the most notable events were the début of his son Jean in 1890, and the production of Thermidor (a play suppressed, for political reasons, on the third occasion of its performance), and of a version of The Taming of the Shrew under the title of La Mégère Apprivoisée, both in 1891. In 1892 he broke definitely with the Comédie Française, and toured for some time through the capitals

of Europe with a company of his own.

In 1895 he joined the company at the Renaissance Theatre in Paris, and played there until he became director of the Porte-Saint-Martin Theatre in 1897. There his latest successes have been in Cyrano de Bergerac (1897) and Plus que Reine (1899). In 1900 he once more undertook an American tour. He has published: L'Art et le Comédien (1880), Molière et le Misanthrope (1881), essays on Eugène Manuel (1881) and Sully-Prudhomme (1882), L'Arnolphe de Molière (1882), Les Comédiens (1882), L'Art de dire le Monologue (with his brother, 1884), Tantuffe (1884), L'Art du Comédien (1894).

Coquimbo, a town and important port in Chile, in the province and department of the same name, situated in 29° 57′ 4′′ S. lat. and 71° 21′ 12" W. long. The population in 1895 was 7322. In 1898 it had 5.44 per cent. of the total export trade of Chile, and 3.34 per cent. of the import trade. In the same year it was visited by 484 ships (foreign and coastwise trade), of a total tonnage of 775,981 tons.

Corato, a town in the province of Bari, Apulia, Italy, 25 miles west from Bari, with olive and wine production. In the neighbourhood stands the Emperor Frederick II.'s

hunting-seat, Castel del Monte. The population (1901)

was 41,573.

Cordoba, a province in the centre of the Argentine Republic. The official area at the census of 1895 was 62,160 square miles; the population in 1895 amounted to 351,223-urban, 94,760; rural, 256,463. The province is divided into twenty-five departments. In 1895 there were 18,545 farms, 1,070,532 acres planted in cereals, 1,884,926 head of cattle, and 489,926 horses.

Cordoba, a city of the Argentine Republic, capital of the province of Cordoba, on the Rio Primero in 31° 25' S. lat. and 63° 42′ W. long., about 435 miles north-west of Buenos Aires; in communication by rail with all the principal towns of the Republic. It has greatly increased in importance since 1875: the population of the town in 1895 was 42,783; of the suburbs, 11,679. Besides its other educational and scientific institutions, it contains the National Meteorological Bureau of the Argentine, the National Academy of Sciences (1894), a national secondary school, two national schools for teachers, and a good public library. There is a bronze equestrian statue of General Paz, and another of the legislator Dr Sarsfield. Bridges have been constructed to connect the town with two new districts which have sprung up as a result of the introduction of an extensive scheme of irrigation. The water supply is excellent. For internal communication there is an efficient service of electric and other trams.

Cordova, a province in the south of Spain, with a population of 420,714 in 1887 and 443,582 in 1897. Its area is 5300 square miles, divided into 16 administrative districts and 74 parishes. The river Guadalquivir divides the province into two very dissimilar portions. On the right bank is the mountainous region of the Sierra Morena, less peopled and fertile than the left bank, with its great plains and slightly undulated country towards the south and south-east in the direction of some spurs of the Sierra Nevada. One of the most picturesque chains of this province is the Sierra de Cordova at some distance from, but along, the right bank of the Guadalquivir, that runs from east-north-east to west-south-west. waters the richest districts of Cordova, and has many tributaries, one of the most important being El Guadalimportance, and in the northern part of the province mellato. The Guadiato and Bombezar are next in

It

are several streams that are tributaries of the Guadiana. The climate is much varied. Snow is to be found for months on the highest peaks of the mountains, mild temperature in the plains except in the few torrid summer months, when rain seldom falls. The latest returns showed that out of 78,204 children of both sexes between the ages of 4 and 14, 36,357 only were on the school registers, and 27,940 attended classes. There are 266 miles of railways, some good first-class state roads, few good provincial and many fair municipal roads. Cordova is one of the provinces of Spain that pays most for the industrial and commercial taxes, though its principal resources and products are agricultural, and its mining interests anything but sufficiently developed. The mines, however, are important. Three lead, 11 argentiferous lead, and 25 coal mines were worked in 1898. Ten silver lead mines at work in 1898 produced 9059 metric tons, valued at £82,123, as compared with 6529 tons, valued at £61,945, in 1897. Three silver lead mines also produced 7439 tons, valued at £18,279, in 1898. The total value at pit's mouth of the output of the mines in 1898 was £257,269, against £193,656 in 1897. The coal mines are almost entirely in the hands of two important companies, Andaluces and Southern of Spain. The Belmez coal-field had in 1898 an output of

383,969 metric tons, valued £156,866, against 316,024 tons, valued £113,772, in 1897. This province also produced in 1898, 29,565 tons of coke, 20,105 of anthracite, 47 metric tons of silver. The most important group of silver lead mines belongs to Anglo-Bilbao companies, and the English lead works smelted 8573 English tons of lead ore from their Linares mines, producing therefrom 6258 English tons of pig lead. The live stock in the province consists of 11,149 horses, 14,584 mules, 12,923 asses,

25,857 cattle, 214,908 sheep, 61,703 goats, and 54,668 pigs. | of the ancient monuments; secondly, although there was About 365,000 acres are covered with wheat crops, 228,200 with barley, 50,820 with rye, 62,810 with oats, 36,357 with chick peas, 12,635 with vines, 482,495 with olives.

Cordova, the capital of the above province, had a population of 55,615 in 1887, and 55,506 in 1897. The township includes a very extensive territory outside the city proper; in fact, 310,000 acres of area, studded with factories of alcohol, hats, woollen stuffs, and silversmiths' works. The famous leather manufactures have decayed, though some good imitations of the old style are to be met with. Within the area of the town there are lovely gardens, plantations, orange, olive, and lemon groves, and pastures where popular and famed breeds of bulls for the national sport are reared, Cordova being celebrated for its school of bull-fighters. There are many modern public buildings and useful institutions, secondary and primary schools, a school founded in 1590 by the Bishop Pacheco of Cordova for girls, who take the same degrees as the other sex, a school of veterinaries, an academy of sciences, fine arts, and letters, polytechnic school, and an athenæum.

Corea. See KOREA.

Corfu. See GREECE (Ionian Islands).

Corinth. The modern town of New Corinth, capital of an arrondissement in the province of Argolis and Corinth, Greece, is situated on the isthmus of Corinth, near the Bay of Lepanto, Greece, about 3 miles from the site of the ancient city, at the junction of two railway lines, 57 miles west of Athens and 87 east-south-east of Patras, with which there is also frequent communication by steamer. With the opening of the Corinthian Ship Canal in 1893 its prosperity has somewhat revived. The chief exports are raisins, corn, oil, and silk. Population, 4100.

Corinth, after passing through its various stages called Greek, Roman, Byzantine, and Turkish, survived until 1858 as one of the most considerable towns of Greece, when it was, with the exception of a few houses, levelled to the ground by an earthquake, and New Corinth, a city with broad streets but no old traditions, was founded. A mere handful of the old population remained on the old site, which was marked out for continuous occupation by flowing water and fertile fields. At present a picturesque but poverty-stricken village of somewhat over 1000 inhabitants, mostly of Albanian descent, holds its place among the ruins of former days, and bears the name of Old Corinth. Its most picturesque features are its one gigantic plane tree nourished by the water of Pirene, shading nearly all of the public square, its venerable temple ruin, and AcroCorinth rising above the village to a height of nearly two thousand feet. The view even from the village, over the Corinthian Gulf, of Parnassus with its giant neighbours on the north, of Cyllene and its neighbours on the west, and of Geraneia on the east, is very fine; but from Acro-Corinth the view is still finer, and is perhaps unsurpassed by any in Greece.

Such were the attractions and the features of Corinth known to those who visited it before 1896. The excavations begun in that year by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, under the direction of Mr Rufus B. Richardson, have in each succeeding year brought to light important monuments of the ancient Modern city, both of Roman and of Greek times.

archæo

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outlook at the outset was not hopeful. In logical dis- the first place, the long and continuous occupacoveries. tion made it appear probable that the slow and remorseless wear of ages had done much more than the destruction of Mummius to obliterate the traces

one landmark of the old Greek city, namely, the old temple ruin, there was no certainty what one of the temples mentioned by Pausanias this was. In fact, by

a perverse error, which one topographer after another had handed along, the wrong name of Athena Chalinitis The current topowas quite commonly applied to it. graphy of Corinth was simply a web of conjecture, which gained nothing from the fact that one great name after The great another was added to the list of its vouchers. object to be attained by excavations was the locating of the agora; first, because Pausanias says that most of the important monuments of the city were in and near the agora; and secondly, because he could only thus be used as a guide and authority. As he mentions the monuments in order along the streets radiating from the agora, when the starting-point was once gained, one could hope to identify any foundations found along their various lines. One unsuccessful attempt to locate the agora by excavation had already been made.

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In the first year's work of the American School twentyone trial trenches from 10 to 20 feet deep, of varying lengths and scattered over a wide area, were dug, in the hope of finding, if not the agora itself, something which would give a clue that might lead up to the agora. The work was successful. Near the close of the campaign, somewhat less than a quarter of a mile to the north-west of the temple ruin, on the edge of a terrace, the theatre was found. This discovery laid the cornerstone of the topography of Corinth; for the theatre was, according to Pausanias, on the street leading from the agora towards Sicyon, and so to the west of the agora. Another trench, dug across the valley to the east of the temple, revealed a broad pavement of white limestone, extending from the north up the valley towards AcroCorinth. This was clearly one of the great thoroughfares of the city, and so probably the street mentioned by Pausanias as leading from Lechaeum up to the agora. It was already as good as certain that, by following up this pavement until it was intersected by a line coming from Sicyon past the theatre, one would find oneself in the agora. Even before the agora was found, the temple seemed to take its place as the temple of Apollo, mentioned by Pausanias as the first monument on your right as you go out of the agora on the street leading towards Sicyon." The limestone pavement yielded in the following year all that it had promised. It was soon seen to end in a flight of thirty-seven marble steps, in their present form of a late date, which lead up to the propylaea of the agora, the buttresses of which are well preserved and agree with the form of a Roman triumphal arch, a form given to the propylaea on the coins of imperial times from Domitian to Commodus. To the east of the staircase and close up against the agora itself, only at a much lower level, was found, buried under 35 feet of earth, the famous fountain, Pirene, tallying exactly with the description of Pausanias, as "a series of chambers resembling grottoes, and bearing a façade of white marble." This two-storey façade of porous stone, with arches opening into the chambers, belonged to the Roman city; and before the time of Pausanias, had received a facing of marble, which has now fallen off but has left traces of itself in the holes by which it was attached and in cartloads of chips which lay in front of the façade. This was not, however, the first form of Pirene. It was built up in front of a more simple Greek façade, which consisted of seven cross walls supporting a conglomerate stratum, and forming six chambers, whose only ornamentation was antae at the front end of the cross walls, and on

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