and one Roman Catholic. Besides the modern school (Realprogymnasium), there are a technical school for viniculture and fruit-growing and a dairy school. There are manufactories of copper and brass ware, cloth, &c., while in the surrounding country the chief industries are fruit and grape growing. There is a brisk shipping trade, mainly in wine, fruit and fish. Crossen was founded in 1005 and was important during the middle ages as a point of passage across the Oder. It attained civic rights in 1232, was for a time the capital of a Silesian duchy, which, on the death of Barbara of Brandenburg, widow of the last duke, passed to Brandenburg (1482). In May 1886 the town was devastated by a whirlwind.
CROSSING, in architecture, the term given to the intersection of the nave and transept, frequently surmounted by a tower or by a dome on pendentives.
CROSSKEY, HENRY WILLIAM (1826–1893), English geologist
and Unitarian minister, was born at Lewes in Sussex, on the
7th of December 1826. After being trained for the ministry at
Manchester New College (1843–1848), he became pastor of
Friargate chapel, Derby, until 1852, when he accepted charge
of a Unitarian congregation in Glasgow. In 1869 he removed
to Birmingham, where until the close of his life he was pastor
of the Church of the Messiah. While in Glasgow his interest
was awakened in geology by the perusal of A. C. Ramsay’s
Geology of the Isle of Arran, and from 1855 onwards he devoted
his leisure to the pursuit of this science. He became an authority
on glacial geology, and wrote much, especially in conjunction
with David Robertson, on the post-tertiary fossiliferous beds
of Scotland (Trans. Geol. Soc. Glasgow). He also prepared for
the British Association a valuable series of Reports (1873–1892)
on the erratic Blocks of England, Wales and Ireland. In conjunction
with David Robertson and G. S. Brady he wrote the
Monograph of the Post Tertiary Entomostraca of Scotland, &c.
for the Palaeontographical Society (1874); and he edited H.
Carvill Lewis’ Papers and Notes on the Glacial Geology of Great
Britain and Ireland, issued posthumously (1894). He died at
Edgbaston, Birmingham, on the 1st of October 1893.
See H. W. Crosskey: his Life and Work, by R. A. Armstrong (with chapter on his geological work by Prof. C. Lapworth, 1895).
CROSS RIVER, a river of West Africa, over 500 m. long.
It rises in 6° N, 10° 30′ E. in the mountains of Cameroon, and
flows at first N.W. In 8° 48′ E., 5° 50′ N. are a series of rapids;
below this point the river is navigable for shallow-draught boats.
At 8° 20′ E., 6° 10′ N., its most northern point, the river turns
S.W. and then S., entering the Gulf of Guinea through the Calabar
estuary. The Calabar river, which rises about 5° 30′ N., 8° 30′ E.,
has a course parallel to, and 10 to 20 m. east of, the Cross river.
Near its mouth, on its east bank, is the town of Calabar (q.v.).
It enters the estuary in 4° 45′ N. The Cross, Calabar, Kwa and
other streams farther east, which rise on the flanks of the
Cameroon Mountains, form a large delta. The Calabar and
Kwa rivers are wholly within the British protectorate of Southern
Nigeria, as is the Cross river from its mouth to the rapids
mentioned. The upper course of the river is in German
territory.
CROSS-ROADS, BURIAL AT, in former times the method of disposing of executed criminals and suicides. At the cross-roads a rude cross usually stood, and this gave rise to the belief that these spots were selected as the next best burying-places to consecrated ground. The real explanation is that the ancient Teutonic peoples often built their altars at the cross-roads, and as human sacrifices, especially of criminals, formed part of the
ritual, these spots came to be regarded as execution grounds. Hence after the introduction of Christianity, criminals and suicides were buried at the cross-roads during the night, in order to assimilate as far as possible their funeral to that of the pagans. An example of a cross-road execution-ground was the famous Tyburn in London, which stood on the spot where the Oxford, Edgware and London roads met.
CROSS SPRINGER, in architecture, the block from which the diagonal ribs of a vault spring or start: the top of the springer is known as the skewback (see Arch).
CROTCH, WILLIAM (1775–1847), English musician, was born in Green’s Lane, Norwich, on the 5th of July 1775. His father
was a master carpenter. The child was extraordinarily precocious,
and when scarcely more than two years of age he played
upon an organ of his parent’s construction something like the
tune of “God save the King.” At the age of four he came to
London and gave daily recitals on the organ in the rooms of a
milliner in Piccadilly. The precocity of his musical intuition
was almost equalled by a singularly early aptitude for drawing.
In 1786 he went to Cambridge as assistant to Dr Randall the
organist. His oratorio The Captivity of Judah was played at
Trinity Hall, Cambridge, on the 4th of June 1789. He was
then only fourteen years of age. His intention of entering the
church carried him to Oxford in 1788, but the superior attractions
of a musical career acquired an increasing influence over
him, and in 1790 he was appointed organist of Christ Church.
At the early age of twenty-two he was appointed professor of
music in the university of Oxford, and there in 1799 he took his
degree of doctor in that art. In 1800 and the four following
years he read lectures on music at Oxford. Next he was
appointed lecturer on music to the Royal Institution, and
subsequently, in 1822, principal of the London Royal Academy
of Music. His last years were passed at Taunton in the house of
his son, the Rev. W. R. Crotch, where he died suddenly on the
29th of December 1847. He published a number of vocal and
instrumental compositions, of which the best is his oratorio
Palestine, produced in 1812. In 1831 appeared an 8vo volume
containing the substance of his lectures on music, delivered at
Oxford and in London. Previously, he had published three
volumes of Specimens of Various Styles of Music. Among his
didactic works is Elements of Musical Composition and Thorough-Bass
(London, 1812). The oratorio bearing the title The
Captivity of Judah, and produced on the occasion of the installation
of the duke of Wellington as chancellor of the university
of Oxford in 1834, is a totally different work from that which
he wrote upon the same subject as a boy of fourteen. He
arranged for the pianoforte a number of Handel’s oratorios and
operas, besides symphonies and quartetts of Haydn, Mozart
and Beethoven. The great expectations excited by his infant
precocity were not fulfilled; for he manifested no extraordinary
genius for musical composition. But he was an industrious
student and a sound artist, and his name remains familiar in
English musical history.
CROTCHET (from the Fr. croche, a hook; whence also the
Anglicized “crochet,” pronounced as in French, for the knitting-work
done with a hook instead of on pins), properly a small
hook, and so used of the hook-like setae or bristles found in
certain worms which burrow in sand. In music, a “crotchet”
is a note of half the value of a minim and double that of a quaver;
it is marked by a round black head and a line without a tail or
hook; the French croche is used of a “quaver” which has a tail,
but in ancient music the semiminima, the modern crotchet,
is marked by an open note with a hook. Derived either from
an old French proverbial phrase, il a des crochues en teste, or from
a meaning of twist or turn, as in the similar expression “crank,”
comes the sense of a whim, fancy or perverse idea, seen also in
the adjective “crotchety” of a fussy unreasonable person.
CROTONA, Croto or Croton (Gr. Κρότων, mod. Cotrone)
a Greek town on the E. coast of the territory of the Bruttii
(mod. Calabria), on a promontory 7 m. N.W. of the Lacinian
promontory. It was founded by a colony of Achaeans led by
Myscellus in 710 B.C. Its name was, according to the legend,
that of a local prince who afforded hospitality to Heracles, but
was accidentally killed by him and buried on the spot. Like
Sybaris, it soon became a city of power and wealth. It was
especially celebrated for its successes in the Olympic games from
588 B.C. onwards, Milo being the most famous of its athletes.
Pythagoras established himself here between 540 and 530 B.C.
and formed a society of 300 disciples (among whom was Milo),
who acquired considerable influence with the supreme council
of 1000 by which the city was ruled. In 510 B.C. Crotona
was strong enough to defeat the Sybarites, with whom it had
