CUMNOCK AND HOLMHEAD, a police burgh of Ayrshire, Scotland, on the Lugar, 3334 m. S. of Glasgow by road, with two stations (Cumnock and Old Cumnock) on the Glasgow & South-Western railway. Pop. (1901) 3088. It lies in the parish of Old Cumnock (pop. 5144), and is a thriving town, with a town hall, cottage hospital, public library and an athenaeum. Coal and ironstone are extensively mined in the neighbourhood, and the manufactures include woollens, tweeds, agricultural implements and pottery. When Alexander Peden (1626–1686), the persecuted Covenanter, died, he was buried in the Boswell aisle of Auchinleck church; but his corpse was borne thence with every indignity by a company of dragoons to the foot of the gallows at Cumnock, where they intended to hang it in chains. This proving to be impracticable they buried it at the gallows-foot. After the Revolution the inhabitants out of respect for the “Prophet’s” memory abandoned their then burying-ground and turned the old place of execution into the present cemetery. Five miles S.E. lies the parish of New Cumnock (pop. 5367) at the confluence of Afton Water and the Nith. It is rich in minerals, iron, coal, limestone and freestone, and has a station on the Glasgow & South-Western railway. Two miles N.W. of Cumnock is Auchinleck (pronounced Affleck), with a station on the Glasgow & South-Western railway. Coal and iron mining and farming are important industries. It is the seat of the Boswell family, three generations of which achieved greatness—Lord Auchinleck, the judge (who dubbed Dr Johnson “Ursa Major”), his son James, the biographer, and his grandson Sir Alexander, the author of “Gude nicht and joy be wi’ you a’,” “Jenny’s Bawbee,” “Jenny dang the weaver,” and other songs and poems, who perished miserably in a duel. Pop. of Auchinleck parish (1901) 6605.
CUNARD, SIR SAMUEL, Bart. (1787–1865), British civil engineer, founder of the Cunard line of steam-ships, was born at Halifax, Nova Scotia, on the 21st of November 1787. He was the son of a merchant, and was himself trained for the pursuits of commerce, in which, by his abilities and enterprising spirit, he attained a conspicuous position. When, in the early years of steam navigation, the English government made known its desire to substitute steam vessels for the sailing ships then employed in the mail service between England and America, Cunard heartily entered into the scheme, came to England, and accepted the government tender for carrying it out. In conjunction with Messrs Burns of Glasgow and Messrs MacIver of Liverpool, proprietors of rival lines of coasting steamers between Glasgow and Liverpool, he formed a company, and the first voyage of a Cunard steamship was successfully made by the “Britannia” from Liverpool to Boston, U.S.A., between July 4 and 19, 1840 (see Steamship Lines). In acknowledgment of his energetic and successful services Cunard was, in 1859, created a baronet. He died in London on the 28th of April 1865.
CUNAS, a tribe of Central American Indians. Their home is the Isthmus of Panama, from the Chagres to the Atrato. They are sometimes called Darien or San Blas Indians. They are a small active people, with remarkably light complexions.
CUNDINAMARCA, till 1909 a department of the eastern plateau of Colombia, South America, having the departments of Quesada and Tundama on the N., Tolima on the W. and S., and the Meta territory on the S.E. and E. The territorial redistribution of 1905 deprived Cundinamarca of its territories on the eastern plains, and a part of its territory in the Eastern Cordillera out of which Quesada and the Federal district were created—its area being reduced from 79,691 to 5060 sq. m., and its estimated population from 500,000 to 225,000. A considerable part of its area consists of plateaus enjoying a temperate climate and producing the fruits and cereals of the temperate zone, and another important part lies in the valley of the Magdalena and is tropical in character. The district of Fusagasuga in the southern part of this region is celebrated for the excellence of its coffee. The capital of the department was Facatativá (est. population, 7500), situated on the western margin of the sabana of Bogotá, 25 m. N.W. from that capital by rail. Other important towns are Caqueza, Sibaté, La Meza and Tocaima.
CUNEIFORM (from Lat. cuneus, a wedge), a form of writing, extensively used in the ancient world, especially by the Babylonians and Assyrians. The word “cuneiform” was first applied in 1700 by Thomas Hyde, professor of Hebrew in the university of Oxford, in the expression “dactuli pyramidales seu cuneiformes,” and it has found general acceptance, though efforts have been made to introduce the expression “arrow-headed” writing. The name “cuneiform” is fitting, for each character or sign is composed of a wedge (𒁹 or 𒀸), or a combination of wedges (𒈗), written from left to right. The wedge is always pointed towards the right (𒀸) or downwards (𒁹) or aslant(𒀹), or two may be so combined as to form an angle (𒌋) called by German Assyriologists a Winkelhaken, a word now sometimes adopted by English writers on the subject. The word cuneiform has passed into most modern languages, but the Germans use Keilschrift (i.e. wedge-script) and the Arabs mismārī (مسمارى) or nail-writing.
In Persia, 40 m. N.E. of Shiraz, is a range of hills, Mount
Rachmet, in front of which, in a semicircular form, rises a vast
terrace-like platform. It is partly natural, but was
walled up in front, levelled off and used as the base
of great temples and palaces. The earliest European,
Discovery and decipherment.
at present known to us, who visited the site was a
wandering friar Odoricus (about A.D. 1320), who does not seem
to have noticed the inscriptions cut in the stone. These were
first observed by Josaphat Barbaro, a Venetian traveller, about
1472. In 1621 the ruins were visited by Pietro della Valle, who
was the first to copy a few of the signs, which he sent in a letter
to a friend in Naples. His copy was not well made, but it served
the useful purpose of directing attention to an unknown script
which was certain to attract scholars to the problem of its
decipherment. To this end it was necessary that complete
inscriptions and not merely separate signs should be made
accessible to European scholars. The first man to attempt to
satisfy this need was Sir John Chardin, in whose volumes of
travels published at Amsterdam in 1711 one of the small inscriptions
found at the ruins of Persepolis was carefully and accurately
reproduced. It was now plainly to be seen, as indeed others had
surmised, that these inscriptions at Persepolis had been written
in three languages, distinguished each from other by an increasing
complexity in the signs with which they were written. The three
languages have since been determined as Persian, Susian and
Babylonian. But before the decipherment could begin it was
necessary that all the available material should be copied and
published. The honour of performing this great task fell to
Carsten Niebuhr, who visited Persepolis in March 1765, and in
three weeks and a half copied all the texts, so well that little
improvement has been made in them since. When Niebuhr
returned to Denmark he studied carefully the little inscriptions
and convinced himself that the guesses of some of his predecessors
were correct, and that the inscriptions were to be read from left
to right. He observed that three systems of writing were
discernible, and that these were always kept distinct in the
inscriptions. He did not, however, draw the natural conclusion
that they represented three languages, but supposed that the
proud builders of Persepolis had written their inscriptions in
threefold form. He divided the little inscriptions into three
classes, according to the manner of their writing, calling them
classes I., II. and III. He then arranged all those he had
copied that belonged to class I., and by careful comparison
decided that in them there were employed altogether but
forty-two signs. These he copied out and set in order in one of
his plates. This list of signs was so nearly complete and accurate
that later study has made but slight changes in it. When
