When the lining membrane of the air-tubes is exposed to any irritating cause, suppose, for example, to intensely cold currents of air, the first effect of this irritation is to occasion a sudden rush of blood to its capillary vessels. These vessels, with which every point of the membrane is thickly crowded, become preternaturally distended with blood. By this distension the membrane becomes thick and swollen, and this thickening and tumefaction may go on to such an extent as materially to narrow the calibre of the tubes, and of course proportionally to obstruct the passage of the air to the lungs. Hence the simple dilatation of the arterial capillaries of the air-tubes with blood, and still more the like dilatation of the venous capillaries, a state which constitutes the disease termed congestion [CONGESTION], may produce a high degree of irritation. This irritation induces the act of coughing, and the cough relieves the congestion in the following mode. It may be shown that with every act of expiration a current of blood, that blood which has been acted upon by the air and converted from venous into arterial, issues from the lung, and is carried out to the system; that inspiration is the action during which venous blood flows to the lung; and expiration the action during which arterial blood flows from the lung consequently, in any state of the system, transient or permanent in which the inspirations preponderate over the expirations, the blood of the system partakes of a venous character; and on the contrary, when the expirations preponderate over the inspirations, the blood becomes of an arterial character. Cough, it has been stated, is a forcible expiration, during the effort of which a greater quantity of air is expelled from the lung than is returned by the corresponding act of inspiration; but during the same action à proportionate quantity of arterial blood is sent out to the system. Now the stimulating properties of this blood (for arterial blood is the proper stimulus of the capillary arteries of the system) excite those capillaries which, from any cause, have been thrown into a state of congestion, to increased action; and by this increased action the load of blood with which they were distended is forced onwards, and the exonerated vessels are restored to their natural state. In this manner the mere act of coughing oftentimes relieves a congested state of many organs of the system, and of the air passages and lungs in particular. But whatever cause induces a sufficient degree of irritation in the lining membrane of the air passages to distend its capillaries with blood, is apt to increase the activity of its secretion. In the natural and healthy state of the membrane, the action between its secreting and absorbing vessels is so balanced, that only a certain quantity of mucus is allowed to remain in contact with the membrane; no more than is just sufficient to defend it from the irritating agent to which it is exposed. But under the influence of any unusual irritating agent, more mucus is poured out upon the surface of the membrane in a given time than the absorbents can remove, in consequence of which the mucus accumulates, and in the exact proportion to such accumulation must necessarily be the obstruction to the free passage of the air to the lungs. Further, whatever increases the quantity has also a tendency to change the quality of the secretion, rendering the mucus thin and acrid, or thick and sticky, and thus converting it from a bland and defending fluid, into a highly irritating substance. In order to remove this irritating substance cough is excited; that is, a column of air is violently expelled from the lung, and directed through all the air-tubes, carrying away by the force of the current whatever it meets with in its course. The creation of this current is the necessary effect of the action of coughing, and the removal of some irritation or obstruction is its ultimate object. Disagreeable, then, as a cough always is, it is a salutary action, not only conducive to the safety of the system, but often indispensable to the preservation of life. Death is sometimes the actual and the immediate consequence of its absence, or of its want of violence. Cough is not a cause, but an effect; not a disease, but a symptom of disease. Without doubt there are states of the system in which it re-acts upon the malady of which it is the consequence, and greatly increases its severity and danger: it constantly requires regulation and control; but even if it were in the power of any remedies completely and suddenly to stop it, the result of their application would often be fatal. Considered in relation to its causes, and as a sign of inNo. 480, ternal disease, cough presents a subject of inquiry of great practical interest and importance. While it is readily excited by trifling and transient causes of irritation, it is the invariable attendant of some of the most frequent and fatal diseases to which the human body is subject. It is also sometimes among the very first symptoms produced by those diseases; hence the early discrimination of its true character may give invaluable information of the danger which threatens, and lead to the adoption of preventive means, at the only time when such measures can be of the least avail. From what has been stated, it is plain that cough may be induced by disease, or by any irritating cause affecting either the air-passages or the lungs. It is most frequently induced by irritation of the mucous membrane of the airpassages, and more especially by congestion or inflammation of this membrane, in any degree, and in any part of its course. There are few diseases of the lungs of which it is not an attendant: such as inflammation of their investing membrane, the pleura; inflammation of the cellular tissue which enters into their structure; effusion into their substance, &c. But the most important malady with which it is related is the deposition and action of that tubercular substance which lays the foundation of consumption. [PHTHISIS.] But though the most frequent and important diseases of which cough is an early and obvious sign, are maladies which have their seat in the air-passages or in the lungs, yet it is very frequently excited by diseases of distant organs, which have only a remote and indirect relation with the respiratory functions. Thus it is sometimes produced by diseases of the stomach, but far more often by diseases of the liver; by the suppression of the secretion of bile, or by the secretion of bile of bad quality; by the over-distension of the gall-bladder with bile; by the irritation of worms in any part of the alimentary canal; by a disordered state of the organic nerves supplying the viscera which assist the stomach in carrying on the great process of nutrition; and by nervous irritation produced in any part of the body, as in dentition and some affections of the spinal cord. It is also readily induced, and is sometimes of very long continuance, in the nervous temperament, affecting especially hysterical and other irritable persons; and by the repulsion of cutaneous eruptions and the suppression of discharges to which the system has been long accustomed. When it is the result of hepatic disorder, the indications of disease of the liver may be so slight as to escape notice, unless the malady be carefully sought for; yet the cough all the time may be extremely violent, often presenting a spasmodic character, and very obstinate. observant practitioner will detect its connexion with the liver partly by that very spasmodic character, and still more by the accompanying sense of fullness about the epigastric region, the loaded tongue, the loss of appetite, the constipated bowels, and other signs of indigestion. A short, dry, irritating, and very obstinate cough is often remotely connected with a disordered state of the digestive organs, immediately indicated by a relaxation and enlargement of the uvula, the elongated uvula producing considerable irritation about the root of the tongue and the epiglottis. In other cases, when the uvula is not particularly affected, the same troublesome cough equally accompanies a disordered condition of the soft palate and of the fauces. Local stimulants and other remedies may be applied to these parts without end and without avail; but their unhealthy condition, and the cough which accompanies it, completely disappear the moment the stomach, the liver, and the bowels are restored to a sound state. The The treatment of cough must of course be modified in every different case according to the causes on which it depends. If it be induced by cold congesting the air-passages, the remedies of catarrh [CATARRH] constitute the appropriate means of cure; if by inflammation of the lining membrane of the air-tubes, the remedies and the principles of their administration have been already described under BRONCHITIS. If it depend on diseases of the lung, the precise nature of the malady should be carefully and anxiously investigated; and the removal of the cough attempted only by the removal or prevention of the threatening or the actually existing disease. In like manner, if cough be induced by nervous irritation, by undue excitement in a nervous temperament, or by a disordered state of the stomach, liver, or bowels, it is absurd to attempt the [THE PENNY CYCLOPÆDIA.] VOL. VIII.-P removal of the cough in any other mode than by the cure of the disease of which it is the sign, and to the discrimination of which it should be the guide. COUGUAR. [FELIS.] COUI. [TESTUDINATA.] COUIA. [CoYPOU.] COULOMB, CHARLES AUGUSTIN DE, was born at Augoulême in 1736, studied at Paris, and entered at an early age into the army. After serving with distinction for three years in the West Indies, he returned to Paris, where he became known by a treatise on the equilibrium of vaults (1776). In 1779 he was employed at Rochefort, where he wrote his Théorie des Machines Simples,' a treatise on the effects of friction and resistances, which gained the prize of the academy, and was subsequently printed separately in 1809. A project of navigable canals had been offered to the Etats of Bretagne, and Coulomb was appointed by the minister of marine to examine the ground. His report was unfavourable, which so displeased some influential persons that he was placed in confinement: the pretext was, that he had no order from the minister of war. The Etats afterwards saw their error, and offered Coulomb a large recompense, but he would accept nothing but a seconds' watch, which afterward served him in all his experiments. In 1784 he was intendant des eaux et fontaines; in 1786 he obtained the reversion of the place of conservateur des plans et reliefs, and was sent to England as a commissioner to obtain information on the hospitals. At the revolution he lost his public employments, and devoted himself to his domestic affairs. He was one of the first members of the Institute, and an inspector-general of public instruction. He died August 3, 1806, having supported a high moral and social character through life. There are many men into whose biographies we are obliged to insert more account of their labours than will be necessary in the case of Coulomb. All his researches are of such permanent character, that it would be repetition to describe them in a work which must treat separately of mechanics and electricity. We have no prominent acts of mind to record which individualize his discoveries, though they were marked by a union of patient industry and experimental sagacity of no common order, accompanied by a strong sense of the necessity of mathematical experiment, or numerical determination of mechanical phenomena. He was, we may say, the founder of the school of experimental physics in France, a country which, till his time, had been by no means pre-eminent in that branch of discovery. His researches on friction, and resistances in general, were the first in which the subject had been pursued manually by one with the knowledge of mathematics necessary to combine or separate the results according to the subject and the method. In electricity he was the first who invented the method of measuring the quantity of action, and from it he deduced the fact of electrical attractions and repulsions, following the Newtonian law. He ascertained the non-penetration of these agents into the interior of solid bodies, and on these two conclusions the mathematical theory of electricity is now based. He even deduced the second phenomenon from the first. He extended in a great degree to magnetism his conclusions on electricity. The instrument by which these brilliant results were obtained was of his own invention, the TORSION BALANCE, the principle of which is a needle hanging from a flexible thread, in which the force of torsion necessary to produce a given effect in producing oscillations of the needle being first ascertained, the instrument remains a determinate measurer of any small forces; or, if the absolute force of torsion be unknown, it may be made to give comparative determinations. This construction, in the hands of Cavendish [ArTRACTION], determined the mean density of the earth, and is now as much of primary use in delicate measurements of force, as the common balance in analytical chemistry. There is, perhaps, no one to whom either the determination of resistances in mechanics, or the theory of electricity, are so much indebted as to Coulomb. The account of his life is from the article in the Biog. Univ.,' by M. Biot. See also ELECTRICITY, FRICTION, &c. COUMAROUNA ODORATA, also called DI'PTERIX ODORATA, is the plant which yields the sweet-scented Tonga bean of the perfumers. It is a native of French Guiana, where it forms a large forest tree, called by the natives Coumarou; the trunk is said to be 60 or 80 feet high, with a diameter of three feet and a half, and to bear a large head of tortuous stout limbs and branches. The leaves are pinnated, of two or three pair of leaflets, without an odd one at the extremity. The flowers appear in axillary branches, and consist of a calyx with two spreading sepals, and five purple petals washed with violet, of which the three upper are the largest and most veiny. The stamens are eight, and monadelphous. The fruit is an oblong hard dry fibrous drupe, containing a single seed; the odour of its kernel is extremely agreeable. The natives string the seeds into necklaces; and the Creoles place them among their linen, both for the sake of their scent and to keep away insects. The genus belongs to the tribe Caesalpinia, of the natural order Fabacea, or Leguminosa. 1. A ripe drupe. 2. The same cut open. 3. A complete flower. 4. The calyx with a young drupe projecting from it. COUNCILLORS. [BOROUGHS OF ENGLAND AND WALES, p. 210.] COUNSEL, an abbreviation of counsellor. In England a counsellor is a barrister [BARRISTER], or one who has kept twelve terms at one of the four inns of court, and obtained a certificate under the 9 Geo. IV. c. 49. The word has no plural number, and is used to denote either one or more counsel. The duty of counsel is to give advice in questions of law, and to manage causes for clients. They are styled common law, equity, or chamber counsel, according to the nature of the business they transact. They are supposed to plead gratuitously. [ADVOCATE.] In the words of Mr. Justice Bayley, 1 Chit. R. 351,-they are to be paid beforehand, because they are not to be left to the chance whether they shall ultimately get their fees or not, and it is for the purpose of promoting the honour and integrity of the bar that it is expected all their fees should be paid when their briefs are delivered. That is the reason why they are not permitted to maintain an action for their fees.' Counsel may be retained generally, that is, to advocate any cause in which the retaining party may be engaged, or specially with reference to a pending cause; and generally speaking, it is not optional for counsel to refuse a retainer; there are certain rules however by which their practice is regulated. Counsel in a cause have the privilege of enforcing anything which is contained in their instructions and is pertinent to the matter in question, and are not bound to inquire whether it be true or false: they are also at liberty to make fair comments on the evidence adduced. Formerly, in cases of felony, counsel for the prisoner were not allowed to address the jury on his behalf; they might however examine and cross-examine the witnesses, and argue points of law; but now by stat. 6 & 7 Wm. IV. c. 114, all persons tried for felony may make full answer and defence by counsel. Counsel are punishable by stat. West. 1. 3 Ed. I., c. 28, for deceit or collusion, and are so far under the jurisdiction of the judges, that in the event of malpractice they may be prohibited from addressing the court; there are also certain rules established by each court for the regulation of its own practice, to which counsel are subject. COUNT, through the French word comte, from the Latin comes, comitis, meaning companion. Considered in its original acceptation, this word might be translated by assessor, an officer who, during the Roman republic, was given as an assistant to the proconsuls or the proprætors sent out to govern the provinces. Cicero speaks of these comites in several passages of his works. Dion Cassius states that Augustus Caesar called by that name all the officers of his imperial household. These comites pronounced judgment on all matters referred to them by the emperor, and their judgments had the same authority as the Senatus Consulta. The council of state instituted by Napoleon gives a very exact idea of the constitution of that court tribunal. Like the council of state, the latter was invested with judicial, legislative, and executive power. The emperors of the East followed the example of those of the West, with this difference only, that the comites created by Augustus and his successors were the counsellors of the emperor, and the title belonged to the office and not to the person; whilst at the court of Constantinople it was quite the contrary. The nomenclature of these counts fills a considerable place in the Glossary of Ducange. The monarchies of modern Europe have inherited the tributary spoils of the lower empire. By substituting the word grand for that of count, which was a title common to all the officers or ministers of the emperors of the East, it is easy to show the analogy of the titles of modern court dignities to the antient. Thus, the comes sacrarum largitionum has been called grand almoner; the comes curiæ, grand master of ceremonies; the comes vestiarius, grand master of the wardrobe; the comes domesticorum, grand master of the royal household; the comes equorum regiorum, grand equery, &c. The comes marcarum, counts of the frontiers, which were formerly called murches (a denomination still in use in the papal states), took subsequently the title of marquis; an innovation which raised long and serious discussions among the learned in feudal right and court etiquette. heri-zoghe, graven, rakhen-burghe* (Lat. duces, comites, judices), were also elected. But when the feudal system attained its perfection, when men were no longer ruled by men, but lands by lands, and men by lands or by the legitimate heir of the lands, then no kind of election remained. One demesne made a king, as another made a duke, a count, a viscount, &c.; and thus the son of a count became a count, the son of a duke became duke, and the son of a king became king. Finally, to form a just idea of the formidable power of the feudal counts, we must refer to the period of the erection of the towns of the northern provinces of France into commonalties or republics, when their heroic population had to sustain a most deadly struggle, from the eleventh century to the middle of the fourteenth, before they could shake off the iron yoke of the counts and the bishops. The term 'count' is now become in France a mere title, conferring no political importance. In the papal states, as well as in those of Austria, it may be bought with sums of money not at all considerable; and in the other monarchical states of the continent, it is granted as a mark of imperial or royal favour. The title of earl, or, as it was often rendered in Latin, comes, companion, is of very high antiquity in England, being well known to the Saxons under the name of ealdorman, that is to say, elder-man, and also shireman, because each of them had the government of a distinct shire, or, as it is now generally called, county. The sheriff, under his latinized name, is called vice-comes, or viscount, which term [VISCOUNT] is now one of the titles of rank in the British peerage. The term count seems not to have been used in England as a title of honour, though the wives of earls from a very early period have been addressed by the title of countess. The king, in mentioning an earl in any writ or commission, usually styles him trusty and well-beloved cousin,' a peculiarity at least as antient as the reign of Edward III. COUNTER-APPROACH, a trench leading from the covered way of a besieged fortress, at some point on either flank of the ground upon which the works of the besiegers are formed, and extending to any convenient distance towards the country: it is frequently terminated by a small redoubt or battery, from whence a fire of light artillery is directed into the trenches of the enemy. These trenches being always, if possible, disposed so that they cannot be enfiladed by the guns of the fortress, a counter-approach becomes necessary in order that the garrison may be enabled to silence the fire from them, or to impede the communications along them. If counter-approaches are intended for more than a momentary purpose, the parapets of the redoubts should be strong enough to resist the fire of artillery, and those works should be secured against an attack at their gorges by lines of palisades COUNTER-FORTS, in military architecture, are buttresses of brick or stone built against the revetment walls by which the outward pressure of the rampart, or of the natural ground on the opposite side of the ditch, is resisted. The rectangular portions at N and M fig. 2, BASTION, are counter-forts so situated. They are intended to increase the strength of such walls, and are formed between them and the earth which the walls retain. Their depth is usually equal to the mean thickness of the revetment, and they are placed at intervals of about 18 feet from each other, along the walls. They are sometimes connected together by counter-arches. [REVETMENT]. COUNTER-GUARDS are outworks occasionally constructed on the exterior of the bastions or ravelins of a fortress in order to retard the formation of a breach in either of those works. Under the first two races of the Frank kings, the counts were, as under the lower empire, officers of various degrees. The count of the palace was the first dignity in the state, after the maire of the palace. He presided in the court royal when the prince was absent, and possessed sovereign jurisdiction. He also exercised a great influence in the nomination of the king's delegates, who, under the title of counts, administered the provinces. A count had the government of a small district, often limited to a town and its dependencies. He was at the same time a judge, a civil administrator, and a military commander. In case of war, he led in person the contingent of his county to the army. The learned Dutillet, in his Recueil des Rois de France, de leur Couronne et Maison,' &c., expatiates on the functions of antient counts. With the progress of time, the counts, as well as the other officers appointed to govern the provinces, the towns, and the frontiers, succeeded in rendering their places hereditary, and in making themselves sovereign masters of the districts of which they had only been created removable and revocable administrators. At first they contented themselves with securing the reversion to their sons, then to their collateral heirs, and finally they declared those places hereditary for ever, under Hugh Capet, the son of Robert, count of Paris, who himself only obtained the throne partly in consequence of that concession. It was feudalism that introduced inheritance instead of Heri-zoghe, in its proper acceptation, means leader of an army, from the election as a permanent rule in political successions. The word heer, army, and the verb ziehen, to lead. Grave, graf gheref, means, in all the Germanic dialects, the authority of a secondary magistrate. Raken-burghe supreme chief of the antient Franks, koning (Lat. rex), means notable persons; they were employed as judges and guardians of was a magistrate, and as a magistrate he was elected, al- public order. + Chron. apud Script. Rer. Francic, tom, xil, v. 539, 541, 950, and tom. xiii., tnough always from the same family. The inferior chiefs,p. 476 and 534. P 2 The counter-guard is in general merely a line of rampart surmounted by a parapet, and broken in direction so as to form two faces parallel to those of the work which it covers: it has less relief than the interior work, in order that the fire from the latter may have some superiority over that of the enemy in any lodgment which he may form in the counter-guard when he has taken it. Its breadth, in rear of the parapet, should not exceed about 18 feet, that, while there may be room for the defenders, the enemy may not have sufficient space for the establishment of a battery on its terreplein; and consequently, that he may not be able to breach the bastion or ravelin till, by mining or otherwise, he has destroyed the counter-guard. When counter-guards are constructed in front both of a bastion and of the collateral ravelin, the interval between their extremities unavoidably leaves a face of one of these works exposed; and, as a breach in the former would be more fatal to the defenders than one in the latter work, the lengths of the counter-guards must be determined by the condition that the exposed face be that of the ravelin. What are called counter-guards in the second and third systems of Vauban are, properly, bastions detached from the line of rampart called the enceinte. [See the work marked V, in fig. 3. BASTION.] COUNTERMINE. [MINES, MILITARY.] COUNTERPOINT, in music (contrapunctum), is a term now synonymous with harmony [HARMONY], and nearly so with composition; but the latter implies more of invention, of imagination, particularly as relates to melody, than counterpoint imports. Counterpoint in its literal and strict sense signifies point against point. In the infancy of harmony, musical notes or signs were simple points, or dots, and in compositions in two or more parts were placed on staves, over, or against, each other. Subsequently the term was applied to the parts added to a given melody, such melody taking the name of cantus-firmus, canto-fermo, or plain-song. [PLAIN-SONG.] Viewing it in this sense, the Padre Martini wrote his very elaborate and justly-celebrated Saggio di Contrappunto sopra il Canto-Fermo (1774), a work to which we refer every student who wishes to enter deeply into the subject. But Zarlino, in his Institutione Harmoniche (1589), ranks counterpoint as the principal part (soggetto principale') in airs, &c., written in two parts. And many writers consider the word as applying generally to composition in parts, among whom are the learned Dr. Pepusch, the acute Spanish jesuit Eximeno, Counterpoint. the industrious Dr. Lichtenthal, &c.; so unstable is musi cal language, so ill defined musical terms! Counterpoint is divided into Simple, Florid or Figurate, and Double. Simple Counterpoint is a composition in two or more parts, the notes of each part being equal in value to those of the corresponding part, or parts, and concords. Johann Fux*, in his Gradus ad Parnassum (1725), furnishes us with the following examples of this species, calling one part cantus firmus or the canto fermo, the other contrapunctum, or counterpoint, and taking each in turn as the me lody. We have here substituted the treble for the c clefs. Counterpoint. Canto fermo. Canto fermo. Counterpoint. examples we have quoted, 'is a species of composition in which any of the parts may be transposed into the tenth above or below, omitting some notes, the subject remaining stationary. Or, in other words, it is an inversion of the parts, so that the base may become the subject, the subject the base, &c., thus producing new melodies and new harmonies, in an artificial and wonderful manner,' adds Pedro Cerone, who seems to have been quite delighted with the contrivance; at a period, however, (1613) when subtleties of all kinds were more valued than in the present day. Fux Ex. 1. gives the subjoined examples of double counterpoint, from which it will be seen that this is little more than an extension of florid counterpoint. In the first example the canto fermo is the base, the counterpoint the treble. In the se cond the canto fermo is the upper part, while the counterpoint is transposed a tenth lower, and becomes the base. In the third the canto fermo and counterpoint remain as in the first example, while the latter, transposed a tenth lower, is adopted as a base, as in Ex. 2; and thus is formed a composition in three parts. The study of Counterpoint is necessary as part of the education of a good musician, though now much neglected; it has, nevertheless, been sometimes carried to such a length as to become pure pedantry. For the principal rules of Counterpoint, and also for some brief remarks on the question, whether the art of writing in parts,' was understood by the antients-see HARMONY. COUNTERSCARP, is that side of the ditch, about a fortress, which is opposite to the ramparts. The part which is in front of the salient angle of a work is in the form (on the plan) of a circular are having the vertex of that angle as a centre; and, if the ditch be that of an outwork, the direction of the counterscarp is generally parallel to the rampart; the counterscarp of the main ditch is in the direction of a line which is a tangent drawn to the arc from the shoulder of the collateral bastion. [See the lines above FG, GE, fig. 1. BASTION.] This is intended, since the length of the flank is greater than the breadth of the ditch at the said angle, to allow the whole fire of the flank to be directed along the main ditch; and Cormontaingne suggests that the tangent should be drawn from the interior side of the parapet at the shoulder angle, in order that the fire of the man stationed there may more accurately graze the wall of the counterscarp. A deep ditch, having the earth retained on the side of the country by a nearly vertical wall, is generally considered indispensable for a fortress, because the descent of the enemy into the ditch is thereby rendered difficult the defence of the covered way is also thereby prolonged, since the enemy who may have entered it at one place is unable to advance on account of the traverses which are constructed across it. Carnot, however, recommends that the counterscarp side of the ditch should be formed in a gentle slope rising from the bottom to the level of the natural ground, in order that the garrison may with facility make those great sorties which he considers as one of the most powerful means of defence. COUNTERVALLATION, a chain of redoubts executed about a fortress in order to prevent the sorties of the garrison: the works are generally unconnected with each other, but sometimes they are united by a continuous line of parapet. It has happened, during the continuance of a siege or blockade, that the investing corps has been menaced by an army coming up to relieve the fortress; in which case, when it is intended to act on the defensive without abandoning the siege, a chain of redoubts is constructed to strengthen that corps on the exterior: this is called a circumvallation; and originally, like the interior chain, it entirely surrounded the fortress. According to Thucydides, the town of Platea, when besieged by the Lacedæmonians, was surrounded by a line of palisades to prevent the egress of the garrison; and subsequently a circumvallation was added. At the siege of Alesia, the countervallation executed by Caesar con sisted of a rampart of earth, 12 feet high, which was surmounted by a parapet, probably of stakes, and by turrets, at the distance of 80 feet from each other. A triple ditch was formed between this line and the town. The Roman army was encamped beyond the line, and enclosed by a circumvallation of similar form; the latter was 14 miles in circumference. It is related in the continuation of the history written by William of Tyre, that, at the siege, of Acre by Richard I. of England, the defenders made a sortie, and having forced the agger, began to plunder the camp; and it is added, that Saladin, being in the neighbourhood with an army, made a night attack on the lines: these circumstances sufficiently indicate that both countervallations and circumvallations were then in use. The long duration of antient sieges rendered such works indispensable; but the use of artillery having greatly abridged the time to which the defence of a fortified place can be extended, they have become of less importance, and, in fact, it is only when the garrison is strong and the quarters of the besieging army are separated by the obstacles of the ground, that any works are considered necessary; and, in this case, instead of continuous lines of palisades and high towers of wood, a few simple redoubts and breast-works of earth are constructed at intervals. In general the besiegers are protected by an army of observation in the field when any effort on the part of the enemy to raise the siege is apprehended. COUNTY. [SHIRE.] COURANTE, or CORANTO, a quick dance in triple time. In Handel's, Mattheson's, and other lessons for the harpsichord, composed towards the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth centuries, a Courante is generally introduced as one of the movements. COURCELLES. [HAINAULT.] COURIER, from the French courir, to run; a messenger sent in haste, or express; a bearer of despatches. The advantage of receiving the earliest intelligence, and of conveying orders with celerity, must have given rise to the employment of couriers at a very early period. Herodotus (viii. 98) gives a particular description of the speed of the Persian royal messengers who proceeded by relays. He says this mode of conveying intelligence was called by the Persians ayyapïov (Angareïon); and the couriers themselves ayyapot, (angaroi). Another description of couriers among the Greeks were called pepodpópot, who appear to have been armed with a light spear or dart, &c. (Suidas in voce.) Herodotus (vi. 105) says that a little before the battle of Marathon, Pheidippides (an uepodpóμoç, a runner by profession) being sent by the Athenian generals, arrived at Sparta on the second day after leaving Athens, a distance not less than 140 or 150 miles. (See also Suidas, v. 'Innias.) The mode of employing couriers by Cyrus, as described by Xenophon (Cyri Instit. viii., 6), appears to be nothing more than the system already referred to as described by Herodotus. He |