COL OMB A handsome central railway station (high level) was built in 1889-94. The railway now follows the line of the ceinture of the new inner fortifications, and there are three city stations in addition to the central. Like all important German towns, Cologne has of recent years been beautified by fine monuments. The most conspicuous is the colossal equestrian statue (22| feet high) of Frederick William III. in the Heumarkt. There are also monuments to Moltke (1881), to Johann von Werth (1885), the cavalry leader of the Thirty Years’ War, and to Bismarck (1879). Near the cathedral is an archiepiscopal museum of church antiquities. Cologne has, further, a large civic hospital, a conservatory of music, a commercial school (1900), a commercial high school (1901), a girls’ commercial high school (1900), theological and teachers’ seminaries, a girls’ college (1900), and lunatic asylums. Commercially, Cologne is one of the chief centres on the Rhine, and has a very important trade in corn, wine, mineral ores, coals, drugs, dyes, manufactured wares, groceries, leather and hides, timber, porcelain, and many other commodities. A large new harbour, with spacious quays, has been constructed towards the south of the city. In 1898 a total of 3461 vessels of 1,323,800 tons entered and cleared the port. Industrially, too, Cologne is a place of very considerable importance. The manufacture of machinery, bricks, cottons and woollens, and indiarubber goods, and printing are carried on on a large scale, and there are factories for sugar, chocolate, and many others. The famous Eau de Cologne is produced in large quantities. Population (1885), 239,437 ; (1900), 370,685. Colomb, Philip Howard (1831-1899), British vice-admiral, historian, critic, and inventor, the son of General T. Colomb, was born in Scotland, on the 29 th of May 1831. He entered the Navy in 1846, and served first at sea off Portugal in 1847; afterwards he served, in 1848, in the Mediterranean, and from 1848-51 as midshipman of the Reynard in operations against piracy in Chinese waters; as midshipman and mate of the Serpent during the Burmese War of 1852-53 ; as mate of the Phoenix in the Arctic Expedition of 1854; as lieutenant of the Hastings in the Baltic during the Russian War, taking part in the attack on Sveaborg. He became what was known at that time as a “Gunner’s Lieutenant” in 1857, and from 1859 to 1863 he served as fiag-lieutenant to Rear-Admiral Sir Thomas Pasley at Devonport. Between 1858 and 1868 he was employed in home waters on a variety of special services, chiefly connected with gunnery, signalling, and the tactical characteristics and capacities of steam warships. From 1868 to 1870 he commanded the Dryad, and was engaged in the suppression of the slave trade. In 1874, while captain of the Audacious, he served for three years as flag-captain to Vice-Admiral Ryder in China; and finally he Avas appointed, in 1880, to command the Thunderer in the Mediterranean. Next year he was appointed captain of the Steam Reserve at Portsmouth; and after serving three years in that capacity, he remained at Portsmouth as flag-captain to the Commander-in-Chief until 1886, when he was retired by superannuation before he had attained flag rank. Subsequently he became Rear-Admiral, and finally Vice-Admiral on the retired list. Few men of his day had seen more active and more varied service than Colomb. But the real work for the Navy on which his title to fame and remembrance rests was done in another sphere. He was, in his day, essentially the thinker of the service. Many of his contemporaries Avere his equals, not a few were his superiors, in the practical gifts and aptitude of the naval officer. But perhaps no officer of his time has left a more indelible mark on
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the thought and practice of the Navy. His mind was at once inquiring, aspiring, logical, reflective, and inventive. He was one of the first to perceive the vast and momentous changes which must ensue from the introduction of steam into the Navy. He foresaw that it must eventually carry all before it, that it Avould immensely increase the tactical mobility of ships, and would for that reason entail a complete revolution in the methods he found in use for the direction, conduct, and control of their movements—in other words, that it required a new system of signals and a new method of tactics. These he set himself to devise as far back as 1858. For the purposes of signalling Colomb adapted to naval use the methods employed by the electric telegraph. It is well known that for purposes of electric transmission the letters are represented by symbols composed of two elements variously combined, according to the Morse system. The idea of varying form is thus replaced by that of varying duration ; and by suitable combinations of two intervals of different duration, one longer and one shorter, the whole alphabet and all numbers can be represented. If an electric current is continuous, its interruption for a longer or a shorter period can be made to represent the two intervals required, and the symbols thus transmitted to a distance can by suitable mechanism be recorded on paper in the form now universally known as “ dots and dashes.” Similarly, a beam of light can be made to transmit the same symbols to the eye by alternate periods, varying in duration, of occultation and display. Colomb invented a lantern for this purpose in 1861, but it was not adopted by the Navy until 1867. In some form or other it is now in use in every important navy in the world. In daytime a hand flagstaff, with flag attached, is made to transmit the required symbols by giving it a greater or less inclination from the perpendicular. In a fog, long and short blasts sounded on a fog-horn, steamwhistle, or steam-siren are employed for the same purpose. Before these methods were adapted by Colomb to naval use, the only signals employed were, in daytime, flags of different colours and shapes, and by night, lanterns variously disposed. In fog there was nothing, and at night the range of signalling was very restricted and its method very inefficient. Nowadays, thanks mainly to Colomb, and to others who have developed his methods on the same lines, it is almost as easy to manoeuvre a fleet at night, or even in a thick fog, as it is in broad and clear daylight. What he had done for signals Colomb next did for tactics. Having first determined by experiment—for which he was given special facilities by the Admiralty— what are the manoeuvring powers of ships propelled by steam under varying conditions of speed and helm, he proceeded to devise a system of tactics based on these data. In the sequel he prepared a new evolutionary signal-book, which was adopted by the Royal Navy, and still remains in substance the foundation of the existing system of tactical evolutions at sea. The same series of experimental studies led him to conclusions concerning the chief causes of collisions at sea; and these conclusions, though stoutly combated in many quarters at the outset, have since been generally accepted, and were ultimately embodied in the International Code of Regulations now adopted by the leading maritime nations on the recommendation of a Conference held at Washington in 1889. After his retirement Colomb devoted himself rather to the history of naval warfare, and to the large principles disclosed by its intelligent study, than to experimental inquiries having an immediate practical aim. As in his active career he had wrought organic changes in the ordering, direction, and control of fleets, so by his historic studies, pursued after his retirement, he helped greatly to effect, if he did not exclusively initiate, an equally moment-
