Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume V.djvu/392

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388 CORUNNA CORWIN buildings, and the finest of the churches. The lower quarter, once a mere collection of fish- ers' huts, is now better built. In this are the theatre, captain general's palace, custom house, arsenal, barracks, and court house. The town also contains a number of convents, two hos- pitals, a prison, a house of correction, schools of design, mathematics, and navigation, and several literary and charitable institutions. On the N. shore of the peninsula is a lighthouse 92 ft. high, called the tower of Hercules, and supposed to be of Roman construction. It is visible in clear weather from a distance of 60 m. The harbor, formed by Corunna bay, and protected by Fort St. Anthony on an insulated rock at its entrance, and Fort St. Diego on the mainland, is deep, spacious, and safe. The sea wall, begun in 1862, embracing the whole front of the new town, was completed in 1870, and the former beach has been converted into Corunua. a public garden. A new dock and a wharf nearly 1,100 ft. long have been built, and other wharves are in course of construction. Hand- some private dwellings and public edifices have been erected since 1868, the latter including barracks for 3,500 soldiers, with a military hos- pital. About 5,000 emigrants embark annually from the port for Havana, Montevideo, and Buenos Ayres. The imports for the year end- ing Sept. 30, 1871, chiefly tobacco, hides, sugar, cocoa, and codfish, amounted to $2,492,814, and the exports, chiefly cattle and eggs, to $2,654,655. The chief branches of industry are ship building, fisheries, particularly for sar- dines, the salting of provisions, and the manu- facture of glass, soap, starch, cotton, cigars, iron, oil cloth, and hats. The famous Spanish armada was refitted in the bay of Corunna in June, 1588, prior to setting sail for England. On Jan. 16, 1809, a British army under Sir John Moore, after repulsing in an obstinate encounter a numerically superior French force commanded by Marshal Soult, succeeded in embarking here. The British general was killed in battle by a cannon shot and interred in the citadel, where an inscription to his memory was placed by Soult, to whom the city surrendered three days later. A monu- ment was afterward erected to Sir John Moore by the English government. CORVINUS, Matthias. See MATTHIAS COB- VINU8. CORVIX-WIERSBITZKI, Otto Julins Bernhard, a German revolutionist, born at Gumbinnen, East Prussia, in 1812. He was a lieutenant in the Prussian army from 1830 to 1835, partici- pated in the Baden insurrections of 1848 and 1849, and was sentenced to death by court martial; but in consideration of his having prompted the surrender of Rastadt to the au- thorities, the punishment was commuted to 10 years' imprisonment in the penitentiary, from which he was released in 1855. During the American civil war he was correspondent of the Augsburg A llgt- meine Zeitung, residing in Washington, and he acted in the same capa- city during the Franco- German war. With Hell he published the Illus- trirte WeltgeschicJite in numbers (Leipsic, 1844- '51). His other princi- pal work is Aus dem Leben eines Volkskamp- fers (4 vols., Amster- dam, 1861), which has also appeared in English. CORVISART - DESMA- RETS, Jean Nicolas, baron, a French physician, born near Vouziers, in Cham- pagne, Feb. 15, 1755, died at Courbevoie, near Paris, Sept. 18, 1821. At the age of 33 he became physician at the hospital of La Charite. In 1800 he was made physician to Napoleon, who in 1802 gave him the title of baron. His principal works are a treatise on disease of the heart, and a transla- tion of Auenbrugger's method of ascertaining diseases of the chest by percussion, to which he added valuable notes. CORWIN, Thomas, an American statesman, born in Bourbon co., Ky., July 29, 1794, died in Washington, Dec. 18, 1865. His immediate ancestors went from New Jersey to Pennsyl- vania, from thence to Kentucky, and from thence to Ohio. His father, Matthias Corwin, for many years a member of the Ohio legisla- ture, removed with his family to what was then the Northwestern territory in 1798, and settled near where the town of Lebanon, War- ren co., Ohio, now is. Thomas Corwin was reared on a farm, where he was kept at hard labor except in the winter months, when he