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executing repairs. Injuries received in action, which might otherwise disable a ship during a campaign, may thus be remedied. During the hostilities dary bas°s between France and China in 1884 the French ship La Galissonniere was struck by a shell from one of the Min forts, which, though failing to burst, inflicted serious damage. As, by a technical fiction, a state of war was not considered to exist, the La Galissonniere was repaired at Hong Kong and enabled again to take the sea. Local stores of reserve ammunition and of spare armaments confer evident advantages. Thus, independently of the question of coal supply, modern fleets employed at great distances from their bases require the assistance of ports furnished with special resources, and a Power like Japan with well-equipped naval bases in the China Sea, and possessing large sources of coal, occupies, for that reason, a favoured position in regard to naval operations in the Far East. As the term “ coaling station ” refers only to a naval need which can often be satisfied without a visit to any port, it appears less suitable to modern conditions than “ secondary base.” Secondary bases, or coaling stations, when associated with a powerful mobile navy, are sources of maritime strength in proportion to the services they can render, and to their convenience of geographical position. In the hands of an inferior naval Power, they may be used, as was Mauritius in 1809-10, as points from which to carry on operations against commerce ; but unless situated near to trade routes, which must be followed in war, they are probably less useful for this purpose than in sailing days, since convoys can now be more effectively protected, and steamers have considerable latitude of courses. Isolated ports dependent on sea-borne resources, and without strong bodies of organized fighting men at their backs are now, as always, hostages offered to the Power which obtains command of the sea. (g. s. c.) Coatbridge, a municipal burgh (since 1885) of Lanarkshire, Scotland, about 9 miles east of Glasgow by rail. The surrounding coal and iron field is the most important in the country. There are some 20 active collieries, and the iron and steel industry of the town is very important. Modern erections are a theatre, three churches, a technical school and mining college (1891, under parish school board), and municipal buildings (at a cost of £40,000). There are two public parks, one opened in 1887. Population (1881), 24,812; (1891), 30,034; (1901), 36,981. The parish of Old Monkland contains ten villages in addition to Coatbridge. CoateSViBle, a borough of Chester county, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., on Brandywine Creek, 40 miles west of Philadelphia. It contains rolling-mills and boiler-works. Population (1890), 3680; (1900), 5721. Coban, a city of Guatemala, Central America, has greatly increased in prosperity, owing partly to the fertility of the district, but chiefly to the amazing industry of the Quecchi Indians, who are its main inhabitants. The chief trade is in coffee and Peruvian bark. An exceptionally large number of foreigners, especially Germans, have settled in the city, but it consists mainly of native cottages embosomed in gardens of flowering shrubs. It is divided into eleven “barrios” or wards, each named after a particular saint. In the plaza is the great church, with the convento. The population is about 18,000. Co bar, a town in Hew South Wales, Australia, 459 miles west of Sydney, in the county of Robinson, with a terminal station on the railway line from Nyngan. Large quantities of copper ore are raised in the district, and goldbearing reefs have been discovered and worked successfully
of late years. The Great Cobar copper mine is the most important in the state. Population (1881), 1859 ; (1901), about 5500. Cobet, Caret Gabriel (1813-1889), one of the most famous classical scholars of the 19th century, was born at Paris on 28th November 1813, of a Dutch father and French mother. It has often been said that the twofold origin is apparent in his work, which shows traces of Gallic brilliancy along with Dutch erudition. Cobet was educated in Holland at the Hague Gymnasium, where he was fortunate enough to have as his master a man of remarkable teaching power and genuine love of learning, Kappeyne van de Capello. In 1832 Cobet entered the University of Leyden, and devoted himself exclusively to classical scholarship. In 1836 he won a gold medal for an essay entitled “ Prosopographia Xenophontea,” a brilliant characterization of all the persons introduced into the “ Memorabilia,” “ Symposium,” and “ GSconomicus ” of Xenophon. In 1840 he published and defended a thesis entitled Observationes criticce in Platonis comici reliquias, which first revealed his remarkable critical faculty. The university now conferred on him an honorary degree, since he had declined to follow the course that led to the ordinary one, and recommended him to the Government for a travelling pension, to enable him to study manuscripts in foreign libraries. The ostensible, purpose of his journey was to collate the texts of Simplicius, but the Aristotelian commentator seems to have engaged but little of Cobet’s time, and he never even published an edition of Simplicius. Instead, he contrived to make a careful study of almost every Greek manuscript in the Italian libraries, and returned after five years with an intimate knowledge of the peculiarities of copyists and the history of manuscripts. In 1846 he married, and in the same year he was appointed to a professorship at Leyden. His inaugural address, De arte interpretandi grammatices et critices fundamentis innixa, has been called the most perfect piece of Latin prose written in the century. The rest of his life was passed uneventfully at Leyden in study and work. In 1856 he became joint editor of Mnemosyne, a philological review, which he soon raised to a leading position among classical journals. In it appeared from time to time critical notes and suggested emendations from Cobet’s pen, dealing with a great variety of Greek authors. These were afterwards collected in book form under the titles Novae Lectiones, Varice Lectiones, and Miscellanea Critica. In 1875 he took a prominent part at the Leyden Tercentenary, and impressed all hearers by his wonderful facility in Latin improvisation. In 1884, when his health was failing, he retired as emeritus professor. He died on 26th October 1889. Cobet’s special weapon as a critic was his consummate knowledge of palaeography, but he was no less distinguished for his rare acumen and the extensive command of classical literature with which he illustrated and defended his criticisms. He has been sometimes blamed for rashness in attempting to emend difficult passages, and for neglecting the comments of other scholars. He had little sympathy for the German school of criticism, and maintained that the best combination for a scholar was English good sense with French taste. He always expressed his obligation to the English, saying that his masters were three Richards—Bentley, Person, and Dawes. (a. z.) Coblenz, or Coblentz, a town of Prussia, capital of the Rhine province, on the left bank of the Rhine, 57 miles south-south-east from Cologne by rail, headquarters of the Eighth German Army Corps. About a mile above the town the river is crossed by an iron bridge of double span (completed in 1879), carrying the Berlin-Metz Railway.
