Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume IV.djvu/787

COBOURG 771 logne ,- pop. in 1871, exclusive of the garrison, 24,528. A Gothic freestone bridge of 14 arches, erected in the 14th century, crosses the Moselle; and one of boats, across the Rhine, leads to the fortress of Ehrenbreitstein, on the E. bank. There is also an iron railway bridge across the Rhine, built in 1866. The fortifications are constructed partly on the system of Vauban, partly on that of Montalembert, and are ca- pable of accommodating 100,000 men, and the magazine will hold provisions for 8,000 men for ten years. Among the public buildings, the church of St. Castor is notable as the place where in 843 the grandsons of Charlemagne met to apportion the empire. An active trade is carried on in colonial produce, corn, iron, potters' clay, mineral waters, bark, and chiefly sparkling Rhine and Moselle wines. Manu- factures also flourish to some extent. The city consists of the old and the new town, the latter being the more pleasant. The palace in the new town, a royal summer residence, is a Railway Bridge between Coblentz and Ehrenbreitstein. fine structure, erected about 1780 by the last elector of Treves ; it was for some time used by the French as a barrack. The Protestant church has some fine specimens of early paint- ed glass. The casino contains an elegant ball room and good reading rooms. There is a hos- pital conducted by the sisters of charity, and a town library, with valuable collections of coins, paintings, and antiquities. The environs of Coblentz embrace some of the finest scenery of the Rhine valley. During the French revo- lution the emigres made their headquarters at Coblentz ; many of them settled permanent- ly in the town, which consequently contains more infusion of French blood than perhaps any other Rhenish town. Prince Metternich, Prof. Gorres, and Henrietta Sontag were born in Coblentz. COBOURG, Canada. See COBURG. COBRA DE CAPELLO (hooded snake), the Portu- guese name of the naja tripudians (Merr.), a venomous serpent of the East Indies, so called from its habit of dilating the neck into a kind of hood, covering in part the head ; it has also received the name of spectacle snake, from the peculiar coloration on the back of the dilated hood. The family to which this serpent be- longs seems to establish the transition between the genus coluber and the true venomous ser- pents; for, though armed with poisonous fangs, they have not the external characters of tri- gonocephalus, crotalus, and vipera, such as heavy forms, large triangular heads, and cari- nated scales ; on the contrary, the form is slight and graceful, the head small and rounded, and the scales smooth ; like coluber, they have the top of the head covered with nine plates. The poison apparatus is less developed than in the rattlesnake, and its excretory duct is shorter and unfolded ; the long processes of the ver- tebrae are smaller and indicate less muscular strength than in the true venomous serpents ; the bones of the head are less movable; the fangs are fixed in the jaws, which are capable of only moderate extension ; and the whole aspect indicates a gen- tleness and do- cility which it is well known they possess. The co- bra de capello has been known for centuries as possessing the power of dilating its neck, which is marked in a pe- culiar manner, and as being the dangerous play- mate of the In- dian jugglers. The dilatation of the neck depends on the length and straight- ness of the ribs of this part ; at rest, they are directed backward, but when drawn for- ward they assume a horizontal direction, and thus spread laterally the integuments of the neck ; this dilatation extends from the head to about the 10th vertebra, gradually dimin- Cobra de Capello.