Collins, William Wilkie
William Wilkie (1824-1889), a London novelist. His father was a landscape painter of good repute. The son studied law, but wrote stories. The Moonstone is perhaps the best. Armadale, A New Magdalen, The Woman in White, and The Dead Secret, are others which have been very popular. Several of these were published in American magazines before appearing in book form, and it is said brought their author immense sums of money. Few novelists have enjoyed a wider popularity in their own day than did Collins. His novels can never be regarded as great, however. He lacks the power of making fiction appear as reality. His characters are often unnatural and seem more like actors playing their parts on a stage than like live men and women. For skill in inventing and elaborating intricate plots, Collins is unequalled.
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Collinsville
a city in Illinois, in Madison co., on the Vandalia railroad. It is the center of an important coalmining region and has lead smelters and zinc works. There are also manufactures of flour and wool. The city has a hospital and a tuberculosis sanitarium. Pop. (1910) 7,478; (1920) 9,753.
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Colloquy of the Ancients
A collection of Ossianic legends, made into one about the thirteenth or fourteenth centuries. It relates how the Fian heroes, Keelta and Oisin, each with eight warriors, met to talk over the glorious past for the last time. Then Oisin returns to the Fairy Mound of his mother, and Keelta meets with St. Patrick and his monks at Drumdreg. Keelta tells the saint many tales, interspersed with lyrics, with which he is delighted, and he eventually baptises Keelta and his warriors and grants them absolution. Commentary on the Ancient War of the Knights: (See Alchemy .)
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Collusion
in law, a secret agreement between opposing litigants to obtain a particular judicial decision on a preconcerted statement of facts, whether true or false, to the injury of a third party. Collusion, when proved to exist, nullifies the judgment obtained through it.
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Collyer
ROBERT, an American clergyman; born in Keighley, Yorkshire, England, Dec. 8, 1823. He came to the United States in 1849, being then a Wesleyan preacher and a blacksmith; but became a Unitarian, and preached some years in Chicago, where he founded Unity Church in 1860. He was made pastor of the Church of the Messiah, New York City, in September, 1879, 1879, and pastor emeritus in 1896. Included in his publications are: "Nature and Life" (1866); "The Life that Now Is" (1871); "Lectures to Young Men and Women" (1886); "A Man in Earnest"; "Clear 66 Grit" (1914). His "Life and Letters" edited by J. H. Holmes was published in 1917. Died in November, 1912.
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Collyridians
a sect toward the close of the 4th century, so denominated from the little cakes which they offered to the Virgin Mary. The sect consisted chiefly of Arabian women, who met on a certain day of the year to celebrate a solemn feast and to render divine honors to the Virgin as to a goddess, eating the cakes which they offered in her name. While pagans they had been accustomed to offer similar cakes to Venus or Astarte.
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Colman
GEORGE, the Elder, an English dramatist; born in Florence, Italy, April 28, 1732. "The Deuce Is in Him," "New Brooms," "The Separate Maintenance," and several other comedies, proclaimed him a man of wit. He died in London, Aug. 14, 1794.
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Colocasia
a genus of plants, order Araceæ. The leaves of the colocasia are peltate, the stem herbaceous, the juice milky, the rootstocks tuberous. India is the home of the genus, though species are now cultivated in most hot countries. The rootstocks of C. himalensis form a chief portion of the food of some hill tribes. C. ant C. antiquorum, called by Linnæus Arum C., the best known species, is cultivated in India, Egypt, etc., for its leaves, which though acrid are boiled till they are wholesome, and eaten as spinach. It has been introduced into greenhouses. The stems and the tubers of C. indica are eaten in Brazil. The rootstocks of C. esculenta macrorhiza, called "tara" or "kopeh" in the South Sea Islands, are used as food. The leaves of C. esculenta have a quivering motion at uncertain intervals every day.
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Cologne Earth
a native pigment similar to the Vandyke brown in its uses and properties as a color. Republic of South
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Colombo
a seaport town, the capital of Ceylon, on the S. W. coast, and about 70 miles W. by S. of Kandy, with which it is connected by railway. It is a pleasant town with an extensive fort, within which are some of the best houses. On the margin of the sea is the Pettah or Black Town, inhabited chiefly by Singhalese, while in the environs are most of the houses occupied by the English. Through the construction of a breakwater and other works there is excellent harbor accommodation; and numerous vessels call here. Pop. about 215,000.
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Colon
ko-lon'. See Panama
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Colon (ASPINWALL the former)
or ASPINWALL (the former the official name), a free port of Panama, on Manzanillo Island, on the N. side of the Isthmus of Panama, at the Atlantic extremity of the interoceanic railway, and near that of the Panama canal. It had an important transit trade before the canal was begun, and since then_the place has been entirely transformed, a new town with wide and regular streets having been built on a tract of land reclaimed by the canal company. There is extensive harbor accommodation. The completion of the Panama canal made Colon an important commercial port. The United States Government has introduced modern systems of sanitation and sewers, which have made the city, formerly very unhealthful, one of the healthiest places in the tropics. Pop. about 20,000. See PANAMA.
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Colon (Greatest and widest of all)
the greatest and widest of all the intestines, about 8 or 9 hands' breadth long. It begins where the ilium ends, in the cavity of the os ilium on the right side; from thence ascending by the kidney on the same side, it passes under the concave side of the liver, to which it is sometimes tied, as likewise to the gallbladder, which tinges it yellow in that place; then it runs under the bottom of the stomach to the spleen in the left side, to which it is also knit; from thence it turns down to the left kidney; and thence passing, in form of an S, it terminates at the upper part of the os sacrum in the rectum. The Colon-bacillus is the microbe of Asiatic cholera.
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