CANKERWORM, a worm or larva destructive to trees or plants ; in America specifically applied to moths and larvae of the genus Anisopteryx.
CANNA, one of the Argyllshire Heb- rides, 12 miles S. W. of Syke, and 3 N. W. of Rum. It is 4½ miles long, 1 mile broad, and 4½ square miles in area. The surface, nowhere higher than 800 feet, consists of trap.
CANNA, a genus of plants belonging to the endogenous order Marantaceae. They have beautiful red or yellow flowers. Canna indica is the Indian shot or Indian bead, a native of Asia, Africa, and America ; it is common and in flower most of the year in Indian gardens. The seeds have been used as a substitute for coffee, and they moreover furnish a beautiful but not a durable purple. A kind of arrowroot is extracted in the West Indies from a species believed to be C. Achiras. The fleshy corms of some cannas are said to be eaten in Peru, and, according to Von Martius, those of C aurantiaca glauca and others are diuretic and diaphoretic, acting like orris-root.
CANNABINACEÆ, hempworts, an order of plants of the Urtical alliance. They have a solitary suspended ovule, and a hooked exalbuminous embryo with a superior radicle. They inhabit the temperate parts of the Eastern hemisphere. Only two genera are known. Cannabis, or Hemp, and Humulus, or Hop.
CANNÆ, a town of southern Italy, province of Bari, near the mouth of the Ofanto, formerly the Aufidus, famous as the scene of the great battle in which the Romans were defeated by Hannibal (216 B.C.) with immense slaughter.
CANNEL COAL, a variety of bituminous coal, which differs from the purer kinds of ordinary coal, and jet, in containing extraneous earthy matters, which render it specifically heavier than water. It varies much in appearance, but is generally of a brown or black color, with a dull earthy to a brilliant waxy luster. It is very dense and compact, and not easily frangible, breaking with an uneven or largely conchoidal fracture, and does not soil the fingers. When burning, it splits and crackles, without melting, and leaves 3 or 4 per cent, of ash.
CANNES (kän), a seaport of France, on the shore of the Mediterranean, in the department of Alpes-Maritimes; famous as a winter residence, and as the place where Napoleon landed when he returned from Elba, March 1, 1815. Pop. about 30,000.
CANNIBALISM, the act or practice of eating human flesh by mankind; anthropophagy.
CANNING, CHARLES JOHN, EARL, an English statesman, son of George Canning; born Dec. 14, 1812; educated at Eton and Oxford. In 1841 he was appointed Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in Peel's government, and in 1846 Commissioner of Woods and Forests. In the Aberdeen ministry of 1853, and under Palmerston in 1855, he held the postmaster-generalship, and in 1856 went out to India as Governor-General. Throughout the mutiny he showed a fine coolness and clear-headedness, and though his carefully pondered decisions were sometimes lacking in promptness, yet his admirable moderation did much to re-establish the British Empire in India. He was raised to the rank of Earl and made Viceroy, but returned to England with shattered health, and died in London, June 17, 1862.
CANNING, GEORGE, an English orator and statesman; born in London, April 11, 1770; educated at Eton and at Oxford. He was first brought into Parliament by Pitt in 1793, and in 1796 became Under-Secretary of State. In 1797 he projected, with some friends, the "Anti-Jacobin," of which Gifford was appointed editor, and to which Canning contributed the "Knife-grinder" and other poems and articles. In 1798 he supported Wilberforce's motion for the abolition of the slave-trade. In 1807 he was appointed Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in the Portland administration, and was slightly wounded in a duel with Lord Castlereagh, arising out of the dispute which occasioned the dissolution of the ministry. In 1814 he was appointed Minister to Portugal, and remained abroad about two years. He refused to take any part in the proceedings against the Queen, and in 1822, having been nominated Govenor-General of India, he was on the point of embarking when the death of Castlereagh called him to the Cabinet as foreign Secretary. One of his earliest acts in this situation was to check the French influence in Spain. He continued to support the propositions in favor of Catholic emancipation, arranged the triple alliance for the preservation of Greece, but opposed parliamentary reform and the Test and Corporation Acts. April 12, 1827, his appointment to be Prime Minister was announced. On all the leading political questions of his day, with two exceptions—the emancipation of the Catholics and the recognition of the South American republics—he took the high Tory side. He died in Chiswick, Aug. 8, 1827.
