re-entered the Illinois legislature and once more became speaker. In 1876 and again in 1880 he was governor of his state, but resigned in 1883 to become United States senator. He remained in the senate continuously after that date, being re-elected successively in 1889, 1895, 1901 and 1907. Senator Cullom nominated Grant for the presidency in 1872 and always took an active part in railroad legislation. In 1886 he was chairman of the Interstate Commerce Commission, later chairman of the committee on foreign relations; and in 1898 was appointed one of the commissioners to establish United States government in Hawaii. He died January 28, 1914.
SHELBY M. CULLOM
Culpeper or Colepeper, Thomas, Lord, colonial governor of Virginia (1680-83), was born in England in 1664 and died there in 1719. In 1669 he purchased lands in Virginia lying between the Potomac and the Rappanannock, and in 1673, with Lord Arlington, received from King Charles II a grant of the whole territory of Virginia. Later on he was appointed governor of the province, and personally ruled there between the years 1680-83, and acted despotically, annulling the privilege of appeal of the colonists to the local assembly. In 1683 he withdrew from his governorship, and in violation of orders returned to England, where he was deprived of his patent as governor and prosecuted. At his death his large estate in Virginia passed to Lady Fairfax, his daughter.
Cumberland, Md., the county-seat of Allegany County, on the north bank of the Potomac at the mouth of Wills Creek and the western terminus of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. It lies about equidistant from Pittsburg, Pa., and Baltimore, Md., and is the seat of an extensive coal-trade from the semi-bituminous coal-seams of the region. It also has many industries, including those for the manufacture of steel, iron, glassware, besides foundries, machine and repair shops, flour, cement, silk-mills, etc. It has a number of good public grammar-schools, a public high-school and an academy. Population, 21,839.
Cumberland Mountains are a part of the great Appalachian group, running along the southwest border of Virginia and the southeast border of Kentucky, crossing Tennessee into the northeastern part of Alabama, The ridges rarely are over 2,000 feet high, while the range is about 50 miles broad. It is the southwestern extension of the Alleghanies, and sometimes is called the Cumberland Mountain-plain.
Cumberland River rises in Kentucky, flows into Tennessee and, coming back to Kentucky, enters the Ohio after a course of about 650 miles. Nearly 600 miles to Burnside are navigable for steamboats. Near Williamsburg, Ky., there is a fall of 60 feet.
Cumberland, R. I., a town in Providence County, six miles from the city of Providence. It manufactures cotton-goods and iron-wares, and has the service of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad. Population, 10,107.
Cumberland Road, an early highway, constructed by the national government to connect Cumberland, Md., on the Potomac, with the Ohio River, an undertaking of much importance in opening up the west and southwest to the east before the era of railways. The project was begun about 1806, and was completed as far as Illinois about 1838, at a total cost to the federal government of close upon $7,000,000. Under the name of the Great National Pike the road was held under national control; but in 1856 it was turned over to the several states through which it passed. In his day Henry Clay was influential in obtaining the necessary sums from the nation to construct the road.
Cuneiform (kū-nē′ĭ-fôrm), a form of writing in which the parts comprising it are like a wedge or arrow-head. It was used by the ancient peoples of Akkad, Babylonia, Assyria, Armenia, Elam and Persia, and was cut upon stone, bronze, iron, glass and clay in the shape usually of columns, bricks or cylinders. It was used from about 3800 B. C. until after the era of the birth of Christ. The cuneiform signs were first pictures of objects, a circle, for example, standing for the sun; but little by little these signs became so changed that there was no resemblance to the object it stood for. For 1,600 years after the writing ceased to be used, its meaning was wholly lost sight of, nor for a long time was it known that it was writing at all. One so-called authority deemed the writings only the idle fancies of the architect, who had tried to see how many arrowheads and other strokes could be cut on a brick. Another supposed them the work of worms. A third thought them charms, which, if they could be read, would open huge vaults of gold and pearls. A fourth great scholar held that they were in the unknown language by which the Almighty had talked to Adam. The translating of these wedges is a triumph, by the side of which the reading of a modern cipher is child-play. Many scholars have gained name and fame by
