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COLD HARBOR
421
COLERIDGE

Cold Harbor, a village in Virginia, nine miles northeast of Richmond, where a bloody battle was fought, June 3, 1864, between the Federal army under Grant and the Confederate army under Lee. Lee held a strong position, having his entire line covered with earthworks. In the early morning the Federal line advanced in a grand assault on the Confederate works. They were obliged to pass over a naked plain covered by the Confederate guns. Bravely and swiftly they advanced, only, however, to be swept down by the enemy’s fire. In less than an hour after the first volley was fired 6,000 Union soldiers lay on the ground dead or wounded, and the assault failed. The attack was not renewed, and at night Lee, in turn, assaulted the Federal lines, but was repulsed.

Cold Storage. Food may be preserved either by some chemical change made in it or by keeping out the bacteria of decomposition or by cold. The first method, which includes smoking and the use of large quantities of sugar, has the disadvantage of making the food less wholesome. The second method depends upon the fact that bacteria are kept out with the air, and requires that the bacteria present in the food or vessel be first destroyed, usually by prolonged boiling. By this method the food loses taste, in most cases. Cold storage depends upon the fact that below a certain temperature the bacteria of decomposition cannot work, though they may continue alive. A mammoth’s flesh was preserved in the snows of Siberia for probably 20,000 years or more; and when found the dogs ate the flesh. Cold storage is the best method of preserving food. In 1867 the first refrigerator-car ran from Chicago to New York with a load of beef; it was a success, and enormous quantities of meat are now sent east in this way. The butchers in New York and other cities are able by the same method to keep the meat a long time after receiving it. Meat is now sent across the Atlantic in cold storage, especially to England, thus saving the expense and the risks of sending live animals. For about 25 years mutton has been sent in ever-increasing quantities from New Zealand and Australia to England by cold storage, with excellent results to all concerned. Fruits are now sent in refrigerator-cars from California and the south to all parts of the country. Bananas are thus packed, and the heat regulated on the journey, so that the bananas arrive at their destination at just the required degree of ripeness; for cold prevents ripening as well as decay. The cars are built double, with ice at each end, and a fan turned by the forward motion of the car keeps the air circulating over the ice to the meat and back again. The art of cold storage was neglected until the American people developed it into a great industry and common practice.

Cold Wave. From time to time great masses of air that have been chilled by the cold soil of northern Canada flow southward over the United States. Such cold waves, as they are called by the United States weather-bureau, usually cause a sudden fall in the temperature to the extent of at least 20°. The mass of cold air, being dense, usually lies near to the surface of the ground. It pushes its way beneath the less dense air of the south, which curls and rises away before it. The clouds which mark the advance of a cold wave, and often bring snow, seem to be caused by the cooling of the southern air, so that it can no longer contain so much water-vapor. A cold wave will sometimes reach even Mexico, where it is known as the Norte.

Cole, Thomas, an American painter, was born at Bolton-le Moors, England, Feb. 1, 1801. At Steubenville, O., where his father settled after emigrating to America, the sight of a wandering portrait-painter, with his canvas and colors, made him decide to become a painter. He painted portraits in several Ohio cities with no success, after which he set up as a landscape-painter at Philadelphia in 1823. Here he had a hard time, glad even to ornament chairs for a living. But in 1825 he painted several landscapes from sketches he had made in the Catskills, which gave him a name among artists. Prosperity at once followed and never afterward forsook him. Among his finest pictures are Mt. Ætna, View of the White Mountains and The Voyage of Life, the last a series of four pictures representing childhood, youth, manhood and old age. He died at Catskill, N. Y., Feb. 11, 1848.

Coleridge (kōl′rĭj), John Duke, Lord, son of a nephew of the poet, was born in 1820, and graduated at Oxford. He sat in Parliament from 1865 to 1873, where he was solicitor-general and attorney-general under Gladstone. In 1880 he became lord-chief-justice of England. He died on June 14, 1894.

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, an English poet, was born at Ottery St. Mary, England, Oct. 21, 1772. At the age of four he had read the Arabian Nights. Schooled at Christ’s Hospital, where he was poorly fed and badly taught, he afterward became a wide reader, reading Homer for the mere fun of it; and here he had as a school-comrade Charles Lamb. Here he planted the seeds of his after ill-health by bathing in the river with his clothes on, and then joining in a game or reading without changing his garments. Entering Cambridge, he was known as a great talker, a gift in which he excelled throughout life. Careless and extravagant, he was so exercised over his money troubles, that he fled and enlisted