CORDAY
455
CORINTH
water, and not below a hundred and twenty feet in depth. From that depth to the surface they live readily and form reefs. The great barrier reef (coral) of the northeastern coast of Australia stretches, with some interruptions, a thousand miles along the coast, and is in places from one to three miles wide and from twenty to sixty miles from the mainland. Some islands are entirely composed of coral-formations, and the everglades of Florida and the keys south of it are mainly coral-formations. There also are atolls or circular coral-reefs in mid-ocean, and, although their method of formation is now under dispute, the old explanation meets the requirement in some cases. It is supposed that they were originally built upon the sloping sides of a volcanic island and that, by very gradual sinking, the island disappeared below the water, leaving a central lagoon. The coral-animals, in the meantime, built toward the surface and kept pace with the subsidence. See Dana: Corals and Coral Islands; Darwin: Structure of Coral Reefs; Verrill in American Naturalist, Vol. II., p. 351.
Corday, Charlotte. See MARAT.
Cor'dova or Cor'doba, a city in Spain, on Guadalquivir River. Its old walls are surmounted by turrets, shut-in gardens, vineyards and narrow streets. Its cathedral was built as a Moorish mosque in the 8th century, and is the finest Mohammedan temple in Europe. Cordova was founded by the Romans in 132 B. C.; was captured by the Goths, and then by the Moors. From the 9th to the end of the i2th century it was one of the leading Moorish cities, famed for its mosque, palaces and great university. Cordova is also a province of Spain, with an area of 5,299 square miles and a population of 455,859. Its chief product is coal. Population of the town, (1900) 58,275.
Corea. See KOREA.
Corelli, Marie, a notable and prolific English novelist, the adopted daughter of the Scottish song-writer, the late Charles Mackay, was born of Italian parents and educated partly in England and partly in a convent in France. She was designed at first for a musical career; but early in the eighties she abandoned this for literature, making a marked success as a writer of fiction. It is said that a curious psychical experience, occurring to herself personally, suggested the theme of her first novel, which appeared in 1886,—A Romance of Two Worlds. This work, together with her novels, Bar abbas and The Mighty Atom, met with a phenomenal sale, and all have been translated into most of the languages ©f Europe, as well as into Persian and Hindustani. Hardly less successful have been her other stories: The Sorrows of Satan; The Soul of Lilith; Thelma; Wormwood; Ardath; The Murder of Delicia; The Master Christian', and Temporal Power.
Corfu (kor-foor), the largest of the Ionian Islands, the possession of Greece, lies at the entrance of the Adriatic Sea. It is 40 miles long and two and a half wide. The island is mountainous, the highest point being Pantocrator9 2,997 feet above the sea. The main export is olive-oil. Corfu was first named Corcyra, and was a colony of Corinth. It became so powerful that it fought with the mother-country the first sea-battle of which we know, in 665 B. C. Area 431 square miles; population (1896), 124,578. Population of the town of Corfu, 17,918.
Cor'inth, called the Star of Greece, lies on the Isthmus of Corinth, under the northern slope of the mountain, forming one of the strongest fortifications in the world, on which stood its citadel. With Argolis, Corinth forms a portion of the kingdom of Hellas, adjoining the isthmus that connects the Peloponnesus with Attica and the mainland. Its area is 1,442 square miles and the population of the province is about 170,000. The city has three harbors, and its position midway between the ^gean and Adriatic Seas made it a trade center. It was much easier to carry goods across the narrow isthmus than to sail around the Peloponnesus, and so in its western harbor lay ships from Italy, Sicily and Spain, while its two eastern harbors trafficked in the merchandise of Egypt, Syria, Phrygia and even India. Corinth itself exported chiefly statues, pictures, vases and bronze and earthenware vessels. Corinth built the first triremes or galleys, which, rowed by its numberless slaves, sailed everywhere, founding a dozen or more great colonies of the mother-country, the largest being Syracuse. We are told that Corinth was founded in 1350 B. C. by Sisyphus, an ^Eolian. Later, it was conquered by the Dorians. Sometimes it was under a king; at others under an oligarchy or the rule of the few. Its foremost king was Periander, who fostered the city's growth; the greatest patriot was Timoleon, whose love of his native city made him overthrow and slay his own brother, the tyrant, Timophanes, who had made himself master of Corinth. Corinth was the first city to become jealous of the rising power of Athens after the Persian War, and incited the other states to begin the great Peloponnesian War. Later, it waged the Corinthian War with Athens, Thebes and Argos against Sparta. Here Alexander was named the leader of the Greeks against Persia. In 146 B. C. the Romans razed Corinth to the ground. Just a hundred years later Julius Caesar rebuilt it, and it soon became again a great trading-center. St. Paul lived here a year and a half, founded a Christian church and afterward wrote to the Corinthians two of his letters. Here also were held the famous
