is narrowed by a spit which projects from opposite Oranienbaum on the mainland, and, lying close to Cronstadt, has been strongly guarded by batteries. The town of Cronstadt is built on level ground, and is. thus exposed to inundations, from one of which it suffered in 1824. Its streets are regular and well paved ; the houses, with the exception of those belonging to the Government, are chiefly of ona story. On the south side of the town there are three harbours the large western or merchant harbour, capable of containing 1000 ships, the western flank of which is formed by a great mole joining the fortifications which traverse the breadth of the island on this side, the middle harbour used chiefly for fitting out and repairing vessels, and the eastern or war harbour for vessels of the Russian navy. The Peter and Catherine Canals, communicating with the merchant and middle harbours, traverse the town. Between them stood the old Italian palace of Prince Menschikoff the site of which is now occupied by a large building used as a school for pilots. Among other public buildings may be mentioned the extensive naval hospital, the British seamen s hospital established in 1S67, the civic hospital, admiralty, arsenal, dockyards and foundries, custom-house, barracks, exchange, several Greek churches, a Lutheran church, and English and Roman Catholic chapels. Defending the navigable passages are Forts Alexander, Risbank, Constantino, Peter the Great, .Menschikoff, and Cronslott, all built of granite and armed with heavy guns. During the Russian war of 1854-55 Cronstadt was considered impregnable. Almost all vessels bound for St Petersburg touch at Cronstadt, and those drawing more than 8 to 10 feet of water load and unload here, the goods being conveyed to and from the capital in lighters. The port is ice-bound during the winter months from November till April ; but in other months about 3000 vessels enter and clear. There is regular steam communication with St Petersburg, Peterhof and Oranienbaum, Revel, Helsingfors, Stockholm, Stettin, Lubeck, and Havre. The exports consist chiefly of tallow, corn, hemp, and flax, brought from the surrounding districts of the mainland. A very large proportion of the inhabitants are sailors, and large numbers of artizans are employed in the dockyards. The ironclad turret ship "Peter the Great" (9600 tons) and the "Duke of Edinburgh " were built at Cronstadt in 1874-75. Cronstadt was founded in 1710 by Peter the Great, who took the island of Kotlin from the Swedes in 1703. The popula tion at the census of 1867 was 45,115, but this varies very considerably at different times of the year, the town being very full in summer and partially deserted in
winter.CRONSTADT, Kronstadt, or Krünen (Romanic, Brasiovu, Magyar, Brassó), a town of Transylvania, Austria, situated on the slope of the Transylvanian Alps, near the south-eastern corner of the principality, at an elevation of 1830 feet above the sea. It is the capital of a district of the same name, also known as Burzenland, from the stream of the Burze, a tributary of the Alt, which waters it, a rich agricultural and pastoral country, though high-lying and with a cold climate, inhabited by an industrious population of Germans, Hungarians, Wallachs, Armenians, and Greeks. The town stands in a narrow valley, shut in by mountains, and consists of a well-built inner town dating from the 13th century and surrounded by walls, with suburbs named Altstadt, Blumenau, and Bulgarei. Cronstadt is the most populous centre of Transylvania ; three-fiftks of the people of the inner town are Germans ; the suburbs are chiefly inhabited by Magyar Szeklers, and by Wallachs. Its principal buildings are the Gothic Protestant church, the finest -in the principality, other Lutheran churches, a Gothic Catholic church, the Rathhaus with high tower, .and a market-house built in 1545. On a height over the town rises a strong old castle of the German knights. After Hermannstadt this is the most important manufacturing and trading town of Transylvania. Iron and copper working, paper manu facture, and printing (Cronstadt was the first place in Transylvania at which a printing press was established), wax bleaching, turkey - red dyeing, wool spinning, linen weaving, leather and bottle making are its chief industries, and it possesses at least sixty large trading houses. Its communications are kept up by a railway Uniting it with the Hungarian system, and by passes over the mountains into Wallachia. The nearest of these passes are those of Tomosch, nine miles south, with a summit elevation of 3645 feet, and that which leads through the village of Torzburg, 20 miles south-west of the town. Population of commune (1869), 27,766.
CROQUET, Fr. from croc, a crook, or crooked stick (Du Cange, Glossarium). The game has been derived by some writers from paille-maille (mall), which was played in Languedoc at least as early as the 13th century. Mall was fashionable in England in the time of the Stuarts. It was played with a ball (pila), and a mallet very similar to the mallets now in use, and with two hoops, or a hoop and a peg, the game being won by the player who ran the hoop or hoops and touched the peg under certain conditions in the fewest number of strokes. Croquet certainly has some resemblance to paille-maille, played ith more hoops and more balls.
It is said that the game was brought to Ireland from the south of France by the eldest daughter of Sir Edward Macnaughten some twenty-five years ago ; but Mr Dickson, an ivory turner, of Gracechurch Street, London, remembers having made a set of croquet implements for Ireland over forty years ago. At all events, the re-introduction of the game by Miss Macnaughten, under whose auspices it was first played on the lawn of the late Lord Lonsdale, in 1852, marks the time when it became of sufficient im portance to find a regular maker of croquet implements in London. Shortly afterwards, in 1856, Mr Jaques of Hatton Garden, London, saw the game in Ireland, and commenced manufacturing it in England, where it soon became very popular.
One of the first symptoms that the game had taken root was the playing of a public match on the bowling green at Evesham in Worcestershire in 1867. In 1868 ths first all-comers meeting was held on the cricket ground at Moreton-in-Marsh. In the same year the All England Croquet Club was formed, and on the grounds of this club at Wimbledon the annual contest for the championship takes place. The laws of the game, which are used in all public matches, were settled by a conference of delegates from the principal croquet clubs in 1869, 1870, and 1873 (Conference Laivs, De la Rue and Co.). In addition to these, laws for the regulation of prize-meetings (Horace Cox) were issued by the A. E. C. C., which are tho authority for the management of such meetings. Accord ing to these laws, match games are played on a ground measuring 40 yards by 30, with four balls, two forming a side against the other two, one player owning two balls, or four players each taking one ball. In match play tho Loops and pegs are set and run as in the diagram (fig. 1).
are 4 inches in width (inside measurement) for handicaps, and for ladies and ordinary matches, and 3| inches wide, steel braced, with oak sockets, for championship matches fur gentlemen. They and the pegs are thus named in order i.e., in the order in which they are to be run or made.
First hoop, second, third ; three to peg, two to peg, ona to