Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 02.djvu/390

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CAPE WBATH 336 CAPITAL Portugal, about 370 miles W. of Cape Verde, on the W. coast of Africa, which, as well as the islands, derives its name from the greenish tinge given to the ad- joining sea by the abundance of sea- weed. The group consists of 14 islands (of which 7 are inhabited), besides islets and rocks, having a united area of > « about 1,790 square miles. They are, in general, mountainous, rocky, and very ill supplied with water- all are evidently of volcanic origin, and, in Fogo, the most elevated of the group, an active volcano still exists. The climate is exceedingly unhealthy, and droughts are of frequent occurrence. The soil is, in general, poor, and vegetation, consequently, partial. Temperate and tropical fruits flourish luxuriantly. Wild animals are infre- quent, but the domestic kinds are well nourished. The chief exports are cotton, indigo, cattle, hides, cotton cloth, and rum. Santiago, the principal island, and most southerly of the group, contains the I town of Ribiera Grande, formerly the

capital, but, during the dry season, the

governor-genei'al now usually resides at Porto Praya, which has a good harbor, and is occasionally touched by vessels bound for India. Porto Grande is, how- ever, decidedly the best harbor in the group. In St. Nicolo, the island second in importance, very good cotton stuffs, stockings, etc., are made. The pop. (about 150,000) is a mixed race of Por- tuguese and negroes. These islands were discovered in 1450 by Antonio de Noli, a Genoese navigator, in the service of Prince Henry of Portugal, by which nation they were colonized. During the early part of the war between the United States and Spain (1898), the islands were made the rendezvous of the Spanish fleet under Cervera. CAPE WRATH, a pyramidal prom- ontory of unrivaled wildness and gran- deur, the N. W. extremity of Scotland and of Sutherland, and running out into the Atlantic; lat. 58° 38' N., Ion. 4° 58' 5" W. Cape Wrath is 600 feet high, and there is a lighthouse near it, 400 feet above the sea, visible 25 miles off. CAPIAS, a writ of several sorts: (1) capias ad resj}ondetidu'm, to answer the plaintiff in a plea of debt, trespass, or the like; (2) capias ad satisfaciendum, to satisfy the plaintiff after judgment in his favor; (3) capias on mesyie process, under which, on an affidavit of debt be- ing filed, a man's person could be ar- rested until payment was made or bail given. This last is now abolished ex- f cept in cases where the creditor has good reason to believe that the debtor is about to leave the state to defeat collection, or has secreted assets to the same end; or if the debt was made by virtue of false representations as to solvency of the debtor; or if fraud in any way has been practiced upon the creditor. The ele- ment of fraud is the essence of the pro- cedure. CAPILLARIES (from Lat. capillus, "a hair"), the tubes which convey the blood from the left side of the heart to the various parts of the body are called arteries, while those which return it to the right side of the heart, after it has discharged its various functions in the body, are known as veins. The name capillaries is given to the minute vessels which form the connection between the terminal branches of the arteries and the commencement of the trunks of the veins. These little vessels are of vari- ous sizes, some admitting only one blood corpuscle at once, while others are large enough to allow of the simultaneous pas- sage of 2, 3, or more corpuscles. In the muscular tissue their average diameter is 0.003 of a line; they are smallest in the brain, and largest in bone. Their arrangement varies in different parts. The circulation of blood through the capillaries may be readily seen in the web between the toes of the hind foot of the frog, in the tongue of that animal, in the tail or gills of the tadpole, in the wing of the bat. CAPILLARITY, in physics, that branch of the science which considers the properties of liquid surfaces. CAPILLARY ATTRACTION, the mo- lecular attraction or repulsion, special- ly the former, which takes place when one end of a tube of slender boi'e is im- mersed in a fluid. In the case supposed the fluid ascends it to a considerable height. Capillary attraction aids the passage upward of sap in the vessels of plants. It may be gravity acting at minute distances. CAPITAL, a stock of wealth existing at a given instant of time is called capi- tal; a floiv of benefits from wealth through a period of time is called in- come. Many authors restrict the name capital to a particular kind or species of wealth, or to wealth used for a par- ticular purpose, such as the production of new wealth; in short, to some specific part of wealth instead of any or all of it. Such a limitation, however, is not only difficult to make, but cripples the usefulness of the concept in economic analysis. When a given collection of capital is measured in terms of the quantities of the various goods of which it is com- posed, it is called capital goods; when it I