with salt, and the Runn is an important source for the supply of salt. The present condition of the Runn is probably the result of some natural convulsion, but the exact method of its formation is disputed. The wild ass is very common on the borders of this lake, being seen in herds of 60 or 70 together.
CUTHBERT, SAINT (d. 687), bishop of Lindisfarne, was
probably a Northumbrian by birth. According to the extant
Lives he was led to take the monastic vows by a vision at the
death of bishop Aidan, and the date of his entry at Melrose
would be 651. At this time Eata was abbot there, and Boisel,
who is mentioned as his instructor, prior, in which office Cuthbert
succeeded him about 661, having previously spent some time
at the monastery of Ripon with Eata. Bede gives a glowing
picture of his missionary zeal at Melrose, but in 664 he was
transferred to act as prior at Lindisfarne. In 676 he became
an anchorite on the island of Farne, and it is said that he performed
miracles there. In 684 at the council of Twyford in
Northumberland, Ecgfrith, king of Northumbria, prevailed
upon him to give up his solitary life and become a bishop. He
was consecrated at York in the following year as bishop of
Hexham, but afterwards he exchanged his see with Eata for
that of Lindisfarne. In 687 he retired to Farne, and died on the
island on the 20th of March 687, the same day as his friend
Hereberht, the anchorite of Derwentwater. He was buried in
the island of Lindisfarne, but his remains were afterwards
deposited at Chester-le-Street, and then at Durham.
Another Cuthbert was bishop of Hereford from 736 to about 740, and archbishop of Canterbury from the latter date until his death in October 758.
There are several lives of St Cuthbert, the best of which is the prose life by Bede, which is published in Bede’s Opera, edited by J. Stevenson (1841). See also C. Eyre, The History of St Cuthbert (1887); and J. Raine, St Cuthbert (1828).
CUTLASS, the naval side-arm, a short cutting sword with a
slightly curved blade, and a solid basket-shaped guard (see
Sword). The word is derived from the Fr. coutelas, or coutelace,
a form of coutel, modern couteau, a knife, from Lat. cultellus,
diminutive of culter, a ploughshare, or cutting instrument. Two
variations appear in English: “curtelace,” where the r represents
probably the l of the original Latin word, or is a further variant
of the second variation; and “curtelaxe,” often spelled as two
words, “curtal axe,” where the prefix curtal is confused with
various English words such as “curtan,” “curtal” and “curtail,”
which all mean “shortened,” and are derived from the
Lat. curtus; the word thus wrongly derived has been supposed
to refer to some non-existent form of battle-axe. In every
case the weapon to which these various forms apply is a broad
cutting or slashing sword.
CUTLER, MANASSEH (1742–1823), American clergyman,
was born in Killingly, Connecticut, on the 13th of May 1742.
He graduated at Yale College in 1765, and after being a school
teacher and a merchant, and occasionally appearing in the
courts as a lawyer, he decided to enter the ministry, and from
1771 until his death was pastor of the Congregational church at
what is now Hamilton, but until 1793 was a parish of Ipswich,
Massachusetts. During the War of Independence he was for
several months in 1776 chaplain to the regiment of Colonel
Ebenezer Francis, raised for the defence of Boston; and in
1778, as chaplain to the brigade of General Jonathan Titcomb
(1728–1817), he took part in General John Sullivan’s expedition
to Rhode Island. Soon after his return from this expedition
he fitted himself for the practice of medicine, in order to supplement
the scanty income of a minister, and in 1782 he established
a private boarding school, which he conducted for about a
quarter of a century. In 1786 he became interested in the settlement
of western lands, and in the following year, as agent of the
Ohio Company (q.v.), which he had taken a prominent part in
organizing, he made a contract with Congress, whereby his
associates, former soldiers in the War of Independence, might
purchase, with the certificates of indebtedness issued to them
by the government for their services, 1,500,000 acres of land in
the region north of the Ohio at the mouth of the Muskingum
river. He also took a leading part in drafting the famous
Ordinance of 1787 for the government of the Northwest Territory,
the instrument as it was finally presented to Congress by Nathan
Dane (1752–1835), a Massachusetts delegate, probably being
largely Cutler’s work. From 1801 to 1805 he was a Federalist
representative in Congress. He died at Hamilton, Massachusetts,
on the 28th of July 1823. A versatile man, Cutler was one of
the early members of the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences, and besides being proficient in the theology, law and
medicine of his day, conducted painstaking astronomical and
meteorological investigations, and was one of the first Americans
to make researches of a real scientific value in botany. In 1789
the degree of doctor of laws was conferred upon him by Yale.
See William P. and Julia P. Cutler, The Life, Journals, and Correspondence of Manasseh Cutler (2 vols., Cincinnati, 1888); and an article, “The Ordinance of 1787 and Dr Manasseh Cutler,” by W. F. Poole, in vol. 122 of the North American Review.
CUTLERY (Fr. coutellerie, from the Lat. cultellus, a little knife),
a branch of industry which originally embraced the manufacture
of all cutting instruments of whatever form or material. The
progress of manufacturing industry has, however, detached
from it the fabrication of several kinds of edge-tools, saws and
similar implements, the manufacture of which is now regarded
as forming distinct branches of trade. On the other hand modern
cutlery includes a great number of articles which are not strictly
cutting instruments, but which, owing to their more or less
intimate relation to table or pocket cutlery, are classed with
such articles for convenience’ sake. A steel table or carving fork,
for example, is an important article of cutlery, although it is not
a cutting tool.
The original cutting instruments used by the human race consisted of fragments of flint, obsidian, or similar stones, rudely flaked or chipped to a cutting edge; and of these tools numerous remains yet exist. Stone knives and other tools must have been employed for a long period by the prehistoric races of mankind, as their later productions show great perfection of form and finish. In the Bronze period, which succeeded the Stone Age, the cutlery of our ancestors was fabricated of that alloy. The use of iron was introduced at a later but still remote period; and it now, in the form of steel, is the staple article from which cutlery is manufactured.
From the earliest period in English history the manufacture of cutlery has been peculiarly associated with the town of Sheffield, the prominence of which in this manufacture in his own age is attested by Chaucer, who says of the miller of Trumpington—
That town still retains a practical monopoly of the ordinary cutlery trade of Great Britain, and remains the chief centre of the industry for the whole world. Its influence on methods of production has also been widely extended; for instance, many Sheffield workmen emigrated to the United States of America to take part in the manufacture of pocket-knives when it was started in Connecticut towards the middle of the 19th century.
The thwitel or whittle of Chaucer’s time was a very poor rude implement, consisting of a blade of bar steel fastened into a wooden or horn handle. It was used for cutting food as well as for the numerous miscellaneous duties which now fall to the pocket-knife. To the whittle succeeded the Jack knife,—the Jacques-de-Liége, or Jock-te-leg of the Scottish James VI.,—which formed the prototype of the modern clasp-knife, inasmuch as the blade closed into a groove in the handle. About the beginning of the 17th century, the pocket-knife with spring back was introduced, and no marked improvement thereafter took place till the early part of the 19th century. In 1624, two centuries after the incorporation of the Cutlers’ Company of London, the cutlers of Hallamshire—the name of the district of which Sheffield is the centre—were formed into a body corporate for the protection of the “industry, labour, and reputation” of the trade, which was being disgraced by the “deceitful and unworkmanlike wares of various persons.” The act of incorporation specifies the manufacture of “knives, scissors, shears, sickles and
