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ower. All the disabilities pronounced by one pair of censors might be removed by their successors.

CENSUS , a term used to denote a periodical enumeration restricted, in modern times, to population, and occasionally to industries and agricultural resources, but formerly extending to property of all kinds, for the purpose of assessment.

Operations of this character have been conducted with different objects from very ancient times. The fighting strength of the children of Israel at the Exodus was ascertained by a count of all males of twenty years old and upwards, made by enumerators appointed for each clan. The Levites, who were exempted from military duties, were separately enumerated from the age of thirty upwards, and a similar process was ordained subsequently by Solomon, in order to distribute amongst them the functions assigned to the priestly body in connexion with the temple. The census unwillingly carried out by Joab at the behest of David related exclusively to the fighting men of the community, and the dire consequences ascribed to it were quoted in reprobation of such inquiries as late as the middle of the 18th century. It appears, too, that a register of the population of each clan was kept during the Babylonian captivity and its totals were published on their return to Jerusalem. In the Persian empire there was apparently some method in force by which the resources of each province were ascertained for the purpose of fixing the tribute. In China, moreover, an enumeration of somewhat the same nature was an ancient institution in connexion with the provincial revenues and military liabilities. In Egypt, Amasis had the occupation of each individual annually registered, nominally to aid the official supervision of morals by discouraging disreputable means of subsistence; and this ordinance, according to Herodotus, was introduced by Solon into the Athenian scheme of administration, where it developed later into an electoral record.

The foundations of the census on the modern system were laid in Europe towards the middle or end of the 17th century. Sweden led the way, by making compulsory the parish record of births, deaths and marriages, kept by the clergy, and extending it to include the whole of the domiciled population of the parish. In France, Colbert, in 1670, ordered the extension to the rural communes of the system which had for many years been in force in Paris of registering and periodically publishing the domestic occurrences of the locality. Five years before this, however, a periodical enumeration by families and individuals had been established in the colony of New France, and was continued in Quebec from 1665 till 1754. This, therefore, may be considered to be the earliest of modern censuses.

Efforts have been almost unceasingly made since 1872 by statistical experts in periodical conference to bring about a general understanding, first, as to the subjects which may be considered most likely to be ascertained with approximate accuracy at a census, and secondly--a point of scarcely less importance--as to the form in which the results of the inquiry should be compiled in order to render comparison possible between the facts recorded in the different areas. In regard to the scope of the inquiry, it is recognized that much is practicable in a country where the agency of trained officials is employed throughout the operation which cannot be expected to be adequately recorded where the responsibility for the correctness of the replies is thrown upon the householder. The standard set up by eminent statisticians, therefore, may be taken to represent an ideal, not likely to be attained anywhere under present conditions, but towards which each successive census may be expected to advance. The subjects to which most importance is attached from the international standpoint are age, sex, civil condition, birthplace, illiteracy and certain infirmities. Occupation, too, should be included, but the record of so detailed a subject is usually considered to be better obtained by a special inquiry, rather than by the rough and ready methods of a synchronous enumeration. This course has been adopted in Germany, Belgium and France, and an approach to it is made in the decennial census of Canada and the United States. Religious denomination, another of the general subjects suggested, is of considerably more importance in some countries than in others, and the same may be said of nationality, which is often usefully supplemented by the return of mother-tongue. Nor should it be forgotten that the internal classification and the combinations of the above subjects are also matters to be treated upon some uniform plan, if the full value of the statistics is to be extracted from the raw material. On the whole, the progress towards a general understanding on many, if not most, of the questions here mentioned which has been made in the present generation, is a gratifying tribute to those who have long laboured in the cause of efficient enumeration.

THE BRITISH EMPIRE

With some modification in detail, the system then inaugurated has been since maintained. In 1851 the relationship to the head of the family, civil condition, and the blind and deaf-mute were included in the inquiry. On this occasion, the act providing for the census was interpreted to authorize the collection of details regarding accommodation in places of public worship and the attendance thereat, as well as corresponding information about educational establishments. A separate report was published on the former subject which proved something of a storm centre. The census of 1871 obtained for the first time a return of persons of unsound mind not confined in asylums. During the next ten years, the separate areas for which population returns had to be prepared were seriously multiplied by the creation of sanitary districts, to the number of 966. The necessity, for administrative or other purposes, of tabulating separately the returns for so many cross-divisions of the country constitutes one of the main difficulties of the English census operations, more particularly as the boundaries of these areas are frequently altered. In anticipation of the census of 1891, a treasury committee was appointed to consider the various suggestions made in regard to the form and scope of the inquiry. Its proposals were adopted as to the subdivision of the occupation column into employer, employed and independent worker, and as to the record upon the schedule of the number of rooms occupied by the family, where not more than five. Separate entry was also made of the persons living upon property or resources, but not following any occupation. No action was taken, however, upon the more important recommendation that midway between two censuses a simple enumeration by sex and age should be effected. A return was also prepared in 1891, for Wales, of those who could speak only Welsh, only English, and both languages, but, owing to the inclusion of infants, the results were of little value. In 1901 the same information was called for, excluding all under three years of age. The term tenement, too, was substituted for that of storey, as the subdivision of a house, whilst in addition to inhabited and uninhabited houses, those occupied by day, but not by night, were separately recorded. The nationality of those born abroad, which used to be returned only for British subjects, was called for from all not born within the kingdom.

FOREIGN COUNTRIES

Inquiries by local officials in connexion with measures of taxation, such as the hearth-tax in France, were instituted in continental Europe as early as the 14th century; but as the basis of an estimate of population they were intrinsically untrustworthy. Going outside Europe, an extreme instance of the results of combining a census with more definite administrative objects may be found in the census of China in 1711, when the population enumerated in connexion with a poll-tax and liability to military service, was returned as 28 millions; but forty years later, when the question was that of the measures for the relief of widespread distress, the corresponding total rose to 103 millions! The notion of obtaining a periodical record of population and its movement, dissociated from fiscal or other liabilities, originated, as stated above, in Sweden, where, in 1686, the birth and death registers, till then kept voluntarily by the parish clergy, were made compulsory and general, the results for each year being communicated to a central office. A census, as a special undertaking, was not, however, carried out in that country until 1749. The example of Sweden was followed in the next year by Finland, and twenty years later, by Norway, where the parish register was an existing institution, as in the neighbouring state. Several other countries followed suit in the course of the 18th century, though the results were either partial or inaccurate. Amongst them was Spain, though here a trustworthy census was not obtained until 1857, or perhaps 1887. Some of the small states of Italy, too, recorded their population in the middle of the above century, but the first general census of that country took place in 1861, after its unification. In Austria, a census was taken in 1754 by the parish clergy, concurrently with the civil authorities and the military commandants. Hungary was in part enumerated thirty years later. The starting-point of the modern census, however, in either part of the dual monarchy, was not until 1857. Speaking generally, most of the principal countries began the current series of their censuses between 1825 and 1860. The German empire has taken its census quinquennially since its foundation, but long before 1871 a census at short intervals used to be taken in all the states of the Zollverein, for the purpose of ascertaining the contribution to the federal revenue, the amount of which was revisable every three years. The last great country to enter the census field was Russia. From 1721, what are known as revisions of the population were periodically carried out, for military, fiscal and police purposes; but these were conducted by local officials without central direction or systematic organization. In 1897 a general census was taken as synchronously throughout the empire as was found possible. It embraced a population second to that of India alone, as China, probably the most populous country in the world, has not yet been subjected to this test. The inquiry was made in great detail, under central control, and on a plan sufficiently elastic to suit the requirements of so varied a country and population. As in India, the schedules had to be issued in an unusual number of languages, and were dealt with locally in the earlier stages of tabulation. The principal regions of which the population is still a matter of mere conjecture are the Turkish empire, Persia, Afghanistan, China and the Indo-Chinese peninsula, in Asia, nearly nine-tenths of Africa, and a considerable portion of South America.

UNITED STATES

Modern census-taking seems to have originated in the United States. Professor von Mayr declares in a recent and authoritative work, "It was no European state, but the United States of America that made a beginning of census-taking in the large and true sense of that word," and Professor H. Wagner, writing of the censuses of Sweden, said to have been taken in the 18th century, uses these words, "Since 1749 careful parish registers have been kept by the clergy and have in general the value of censuses." The same authority, although mentioning a reported census of Norway in 1769, indicates his conviction that the first real census of that country was in 1815. Sweden, Norway and the United States are the only countries with any claim to have taken the first modern census, as distinguished from a register of tax-payers, &c., the lineal descendant of the old Roman census, and the innovation seems to be due to the United States. If so, the first modern census was the American census of 1790. At the present date more than three-fifths of the estimated population of the world has been enumerated in this way. It is of interest accordingly to note how and why the device originated.

The Federal census, which began in 1790 and has been taken every ten years since under a mandate contained in the Constitution of the United States, was the outgrowth of a controversy in the convention which prepared the document. Representatives of the smaller states as a rule claimed that the vote, and so the influence, of the states in the proposed government should be equal. Representatives of the larger states as a rule claimed that their greater population and wealth were entitled to recognition. The controversy ended in the creation of a bicameral legislature in the lower branch of which the claim of the larger states found recognition, while in the upper, the Senate, each state had two votes. In the House of Representatives seats were to be distributed in proportion to the population, and the convention, foreseeing rapid changes of population, ordained an enumeration of the inhabitants and a redistribution or reapportionment of seats in the House of Representatives every ten years.

The provision of the Constitution on the subject is as follows:--"Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several states which may be included within this Union according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other persons. The actual enumeration shall be made within three years after the first meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent term of ten years, in such manner as they shall by law direct."

In 1790 the population was reported classed as slaves and free, the free classed as white and others, the free whites as males and females, and the free white males as under or above sixteen years of age. In 1800 and 1810 the same classification was preserved, except that five age-groups instead of two were given for free white males and the same five were applied also to free white females. In connexion with the census of 1810 an attempt, perhaps the earliest in any country, was made to gather certain industrial statistics showing "the number, nature, extent, situation and value of the arts and manufactures of the United States." In 1820 a sixth age class was introduced for free white males, an age classification of four periods was applied to the free coloured and the slaves of each sex, and the number of aliens and of persons engaged in agriculture, in manufactures and in commerce was called for. The inquiry into industrial statistics begun in 1810 was also repeated and extended.

In 1830 thirteen age classes were employed for free whites of each sex, and six for the free coloured and the slaves of each sex. The number of aliens, of the deaf and dumb and the blind were also gathered.

"The reservation by the states of all rights not granted to the general government makes it fairly a matter of question whether purely statistical inquiries, other than for the single purpose of apportioning representation, could be initiated by any other authority than that of the states themselves. That large party which advocates a strict and jealous construction of the constitution would certainly oppose any independent legislation by the national Congress for providing a registration of births, marriages and deaths, or for obtaining social and industrial statistics, whether for the satisfaction of the publicist or for the guidance of the legislature. Even though the supreme court should decide such legislation to be within the grant of powers to the general government, the distrust and opposition, on constitutional grounds, of so large a portion of the people, could not but go far to defeat the object sought."

The difficulty stated in the foregoing quotation, although now mainly of historic importance, exerted great influence upon the development of the American census prior to 1900.

The pioneer work of the census of 1840 in the fields of educational statistics, statistics of occupations, of defective classes and of causes of death, suffered from numerous errors and defects. Public discussion of them contributed to secure radical modifications of scope and method at the census of 1850. Before the census law was passed, a census board, consisting of three members of the president's cabinet, was appointed to draft plans for the inquiry, and the essential features of its report prepared after consultation with a number of leading statisticians were embodied in the law.

The census of 1850 was taken on six schedules, one for free inhabitants, one for slaves, one for deaths during the preceding year, one for agriculture, one for manufactures and one for social statistics. The last asked for returns regarding valuation, taxation, educational and religious statistics, pauperism, crime and the prevailing rates of wages in each municipal division. It was also the first American census to give a line of the schedule to each person, death or establishment enumerated, and thus to make the returns in the individual form indispensable for a detailed classification and compilation. The results of this census were tabulated with care and skill, and a preliminary analysis gave the salient results and in some cases compared them with European figures.

The census of 1860 followed the model of its predecessor with slight changes. When the time for the next census approached it was felt that new legislation was needed, and a committee of the House of Representatives, with James A. Garfield, afterwards president of the United States, at its head, made a careful and thorough study of the situation and reported an excellent bill, which passed the House, but was defeated by untoward influences in the Senate. In consequence the census of 1870 was taken with the outgrown machinery established twenty years earlier, a law characterized by Francis A. Walker, the superintendent of the census, who administered it, as "clumsy, antiquated and barbarous." It suffered also from the fact that large parts of the country had not recovered from the ruin wrought by four years of civil war. In consequence this census marks the lowest ebb of American census work. Tie accuracy of the results is generally denied by competent experts. The serious errors were errors of omission, were probably confined in the main to the Southern states, and were especially frequent among the negroes.

With the disappearance of direct taxation as a source of federal revenue, the motive mentioned for understating the population disappeared. On the other hand, the desire for many representatives in Congress has been reinforced by the more influential feelings of local pride and of rivalry with other cities of somewhat similar size. Hence a complaint that the population is overstated is seldom heard, and hence, also, popular charges of an under-count afford little evidence that the population was really larger than stated by the census.

After the detailed tabulation had been completed, it was shown that the number of persons under ten years of age in 1890 was surprisingly small, and that this deficiency in children was a leading cause of the slow growth in population. Before the tabulation had been made Francis A. Walker wrote:--"If the birth-rate among the previously existing population did not suffer a sharp decline ... the census of 1890 cannot be vindicated. To ascertain the facts we must await the tabulation of the population by periods of life, and ascertain how many of the inhabitants of the United States of 1890 were under ten years of age." These results thus confirmed the accuracy of the count of 1890. Efforts to invalidate the census returns by comparison with the registration records of Massachusetts cannot be deemed conclusive, since in the United States, as in Great Britain, the census must be deemed more accurate and less subject to error than registration records. A strong argument in favour of the eleventh census, apart from its self-consistency, is that its results as a whole fit in with the subsequent state enumerations. In eleven cases such enumerations have been taken; and on computing from them and the results of the federal census of 1880 what the population at the date of the eleventh census should have been, if the annual rate of increase had been uniform, it appears that in no case, except New York City and Oregon, was the difference between the enumerations and these estimates over 4%. In Oregon about 30,000 more people were found in 1890 than the estimate would lead one to expect; in New York city, about 100,000 less. It seems not improbable that in the latter, where the difficulties incident to a count during the summer are almost insurmountable, serious omissions occurred. Still, such a comparison confirms the accuracy of the eleventh census as a whole.

The results of the twelfth census further refute the argument that would maintain the eleventh census to be inaccurate because it showed a smaller rate of increase in population during the preceding decade than had been recorded by other censuses during earlier decades. The rate of increase during the decade ending in 1900 was even less than that for the preceding decade; and it is impossible that a falling off so marked could in two successive enumerations be the result of sheer inaccuracy. The rate of increase from 1890 to 1900, eliminating from the computation the population of Alaska, Hawaii, Indian Territory and Indian reservations, was 20.7; the rate of increase if these places are included--in which case the figures of the population of Hawaii in 1890 must be taken from the census of the Hawaiian government in that year--was 21%.

Under the federal form of government, with its delegation of all residuary powers to the several states, the United States have no system of recording deaths, births and marriages. Hence there is no such basis as exists in nearly every other civilized state for a national system of registration, and the country depends upon the crude method of enumerators' returns for its information on vital statistics, except in the states and cities which have established a trustworthy registration system of their own. These are the New England states and a few others in their vicinity or influenced by their example. Enumerators' returns in this field are so incomplete that hardly two-thirds of the deaths which have occurred in any community during the preceding year are obtained by an enumerator visiting the families, no satisfactory basis for the computation of death-rates is afforded, and the returns have comparatively little scientific value. In the regions where census tables and interpretations are derived from registration records kept by the several states or cities they are often made more complete than those in the state or municipal documents. The census of agriculture is also liable to a wide margin of error, owing to defects in farm accounts and the inability of many farmers to state the amount or the value even of the leading crops. The census figures relate to the calendar year preceding 1st June 1900, and hurried and careless answers about the preceding year's crop are almost sure to have been given by many farmers in the midst of the summer's work.

The difficulties facing the manufacturing census were of a different character. A large proportion of the industries of the country keep satisfactory accounts, and can answer the questions with some correctness. But manufacturers are likely to suspect the objects of the census, and to fear that the information given will be open to the public or betrayed to competitors. Furthermore, the manufacturing schedule presupposes some uniformity in the method of accounting among different companies or lines of business, and this is often lacking. Another source of error in the manufacturing census of the United States is that the words of the census law are construed as requiring an enumeration of the various trades and handicrafts, such as carpentering. The deficiencies in such returns are gross and notorious, but the census office feels obliged to seek for them and to report what it finds, however incomplete or incorrect the results may be. Even on the population returns certain answers, such as the number of the divorced or the number unable to read and write, may be open to question.

The wide range of the American census, and the publication of uncertain figures, find a justification in the fact that the development of accurate census work requires a long educational process in the office, and, above all, in the community. Rough approximations must always precede accurate measurements; and these returns, while often inaccurate, are better than nothing, and probably improve with each decade.

Besides, the breadth of its scope, in which the American census stands unrivalled, the most important American contribution to census work has been the application of electricity to the tabulation of the results, as was first done in 1890. The main difficulties which this method reduced were two. The production of tables for so enormous a population as that of the United States through the method of tallying by hand requires a great number of clerks and a long period of time, and when complete cannot be verified except by a repetition of the process. The new method abbreviates the time, since an electric current can tally almost simultaneously the data, the tallying of which by hand would be separated by appreciable intervals. The method also renders comparatively easy the verification of the results of certain selected parts.

Judged by European standards the cost of the American census is very great. The following table gives the total and the per capita cost of each enumeration.

For the sake of comparison it may be stated that the per capita cost of the English census of 1901 was 2.24 cents, or little more than one-tenth that of the American census. This difference is due in part to the greater scope and complexity of the American census, and in part to the fact that in the United States the field work is done by well-paid enumerators, while in England it is done in most cases by the heads of families, who are not paid.

The course of events has clearly established the fact that the authority of the Federal government in this field is greater than the strict constructionists of a previous generation as represented by General Walker in the passage already quoted believed it to be. Decision after decision of individual instances has made it a settled practice for the Federal government to co-operate with or to supplement the state governments in the gathering of statistics that may furnish a basis for state or Federal legislation. The law has allowed the Federal census office in its discretion to compile and publish the birth statistics of divisions in which they are accurately kept; one Federal report on the statistics of marriages and divorces throughout the country from 1867 to 1886 inclusive was published in 1889, and a second for the succeeding twenty-year period was published in 1908-1909; an annual volume gives the statistics of deaths for about half the population of the country, including all the states and cities which have approximately complete records of deaths; Federal agencies like the bureau of labour and the bureau of corporations have been created for the purpose of gathering certain social and industrial statistics, and the bureau of the census has been made a permanent statistical office.

The Federal census office has been engaged in the compilation and publication of statistics of many sorts. Among its important lines of work may be mentioned frequent reports during the cotton ginning season upon the amount of cotton ginned, supplemental census reports upon occupations, on employees and wages, and on further interpretation of various population tables, reports on street and electric railways, on mines and quarries, on electric light and power plants, on deaths in the registration area 1900-1904, on benevolent institutions, on the insane, on paupers in almshouses, on the social statistics of cities and on the census of manufactures in 1905. Congress has recently entrusted it with still further duties, and it has developed into the main statistical office of the Federal government, finding its nearest analogue probably in the Imperial Statistical Office in Berlin.

CENTAURS, in Greek mythology, a race of beings part horse part man, dwelling in the mountains of Thessaly and Arcadia. The name has been derived from and , implying a people who were primarily herdsmen, from and the common termination or i.e. "spearmen." The former is unsatisfactory partly from the philological standpoint, and the latter, though not certain, is preferable. The centaurs were the offspring of Ixion and Nephele , or of Kentauros and some Magnesian mares or of Apollo and Hebe. They are best known for their fight with the Lapithae, caused by their attempt to carry off Deidameia on the day of her marriage to Peirithous, king of the Lapithae, himself the son of Ixion. Theseus, who happened to be present, assisted Peirithous, and the Centaurs were driven off . In later times they are often represented drawing the car of Dionysus, or bound and ridden by Eros, in allusion to their drunken and amorous habits. Their general character is that of wild, lawless and inhospitable beings, the slaves of their animal passions, with the exception of Pholus and Chiron. They are variously explained by a fancied resemblance to the shapes of clouds, or as spirits of the rushing mountain torrents or winds. As children of Apollo, they are taken to signify the rays of the sun. It is suggested as the origin of the legend, that the Greeks in early times, to whom riding was unfamiliar, regarded the horsemen of the northern hordes as one and the same with their horses; hence the idea of the Centaur as half-man, half-animal. Like the defeat of the Titans by Zeus, the contests with the Centaurs typified the struggle between civilization and barbarism.

In early art they were represented as human beings in front, with the body and hind legs of a horse attached to the back: later, they were men only as far as the waist. The battle with the Lapithae, and the adventure of Heracles with Pholus are favourite subjects of Greek art . Fig. 34 in article GREEK ART represents the attempt of the Centaurs to carry off the bride of Peirithous.

CENTAURY , an annual herb with erect, smooth stem, usually branched above, and a terminal inflorescence with numerous small red or pink regular flowers with a funnel-shaped corolla. The plant occurs in dry pastures and on sandy coasts in Britain, and presents many varieties, differing in length of stem, degree of branching, width and shape of leaves, and laxity or closeness of the inflorescence. Several other species of the genus are grown as rock-plants.

CENTENARY , a space of a hundred years, and particularly the celebration of an event on the lapse of a hundred years, a centennial anniversary. The word "centennial" , though usually an adjective as in "the Centennial State," the name given to Colorado on its admission to statehood in 1876, is also used as a synonym of centenary.

CENTERVILLE, a city and the county-seat of Appanoose county, Iowa, U.S.A., in the south part of the state, about 90 m. N.W. of Keokuk. Pop. 3668; 5256; 5967 ; 6936. Centerville is served by the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific and the Iowa Central railways. Among the principal buildings are the county court-house and the Federal building, and the city has a public library and a hospital. It is in one of the most productive coal regions of the state; it ships coal, limestone and livestock, has large bottling works, and manufactures iron, brick and tile, machine-shop products, woollen goods, shirts, cigars and flour. The place was platted in 1846, was called Chaldea until 1849, when the present name was adopted, was incorporated as a town in 1855, and in 1870 was chartered as a city of the second class. The city limits were extended in 1906-1907.

The alimentary canal is a simple tube running without convolutions from the mouth to the anus. Its anterior portion or pharynx, which arises from the stomodaeal invagination in the embryo, is short; a pair of large, so-called salivary glands open into it. The mesenteric part of the canal is relatively wide and receives at its junction with the hind-gut the excretory products of a pair of very long and slender malpighian tubes of proctodaeal origin. The posterior end of the canal, arising from the proctodaeum, is relatively short and narrow.

Existing Chilopoda may be classified as follows, into five orders referable to two subclasses--

SUBCLASS I, PLEUROSTIGMA.--Chilopods furnished with a rich system of branching tracheal tubes, the spiracles of which are paired and open upon the pleural area of more or fewer of the somites. Each leg-bearing somite contains a distinct tergum and sternum, the number of sterna never exceeding that of the terga. Eyes are either preserved or lost; when preserved they are represented either by a single one-lensed ocellus or by an aggregation of such ocelli on each side of the head. The anterior portion of the head, bearing the labrum, is bent sharply downwards and backwards beneath the larger posterior portion lying behind the antennae, so that these appendages, approximated in the middle line, project directly forwards from the margin of the head formed by this retroversion of the labral area. The maxillae are short and have no sensory organ; the palpognaths consist of four segments, and the toxicognaths have their basal segments fused to form a single coxal plate.

When pairing takes place the female fertilizes herself by taking up a spermatophore which a male has left upon a sheet of web for that purpose. The female lays a cluster of eggs in some sheltered spot, sometimes in a specially prepared nest, and encircling them with her body, keeps guard until the young disperse and shift for themselves.

SUBCLASS 2, NOTOSTIGMA.--Chilopods with a series of median dorsal tracheal sacs furnished with tubes dipping into the pericardial blood space, and opening each by an unpaired spiracle upon the 1st, 3rd, 5th, 8th, 10th, 12th and 14th leg-bearing somites. This characteristic is accompanied by the complete disappearance of the tergum of the 7th, either by fusion with that of the 8th or by excalation, and by the evanescence of the terga of the 2nd, 4th, 6th, 9th, 11th and 13th pedigerous somites. The preantennal area of the head is not strongly reflexed inferiorly, and the eyes are large and compound. The maxillae are long and have a sensory organ, the palpognaths are long, spiny and composed of five segments, like the primitive Chilopod leg, and the toxicognaths have their basal segments disunited and independently movable. Gonopods duplicated in the male.

CENTO, a town of Emilia, Italy, in the province of Ferrara, 18 m. S.E. direct from the town of Ferrara; 50 ft. above sea-level; it is reached by road from the station of S. Pietro in Casale, 15 m. S.W. by W. of Ferrara, and also by a steam tramway from Bologna to Pieve di Cento, on the opposite bank of the Reno. Pop. 4307 , 19,078 . It is connected by a navigable canal with Ferrara. It was the birthplace of the painter Giovanni Francesco Barbieri . The communal picture-gallery and several churches contain works by him, but none of first-rate importance. A statue of him stands in front of the 16th century Palazzo Governativo. The town was surrounded by walls, the gates of which are preserved. The origin of the name is uncertain.

CENTRAL AMERICA, that portion of the American continent which lies between Mexico and Colombia, comprising the British crown colony of British Honduras, and the six independent republics of Guatemala, Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama. These seven divisions are described in separate articles. Central America is bounded towards the N. by the Caribbean Sea, and towards the S. by the Pacific Ocean, and extends between 7? 12' and 18? 3' N. and between 77? 12' and 92? 17' W. It has an area of about 208,500 sq. m., and stretches for some 1300 m. from N.W. to S.E., in a succession of three serpentine curves, reaching its greatest breadth, 450 m., between the Peninsula of Nicoya and the north coast of Honduras, and diminishing to 35 m. in the Isthmus of Panama. The eastern boundary of Central America was usually regarded as identical with that of Costa Rica until 1903, when the republic of Panama was formed out of the northern territories of Colombia; and the more modern definition given above does not command the universal assent of geographers, because it fails to include the whole region up to the natural frontier on the north-west, i.e. the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in Mexico. It has, however, the support of political and historical considerations, as well as of common usage; and it may therefore be regarded as adequate, although, in respect of climate and natural products, it would be more accurate to define Central America as lying between Tehuantepec and Darien.

The Mesozoic series begins with sands and red or yellow clays containing plant remains and possibly of Triassic age; but the occurrence of these deposits is limited to a few small isolated outcrops. Jurassic beds have been found in Mexico but not in Central America. The Cretaceous system, consisting of a lower series of clays, sandstones and conglomerates, followed conformably by an upper series of limestones, covers a considerable area in Chiapas, Guatemala and Honduras, and is found also in Costa Rica. The upper series contains hippurites. The greater part of the eastern half of the Mexican plateau is also formed of Cretaceous beds.

The Tertiary system may be conveniently divided into two divisions. The lower, of Eocene and Oligocene age, consists generally of sand and clays which were evidently laid down near a shore line. The upper division also, including the Pliocene and Pleistocene , is usually of shallow water origin; but in the northern part of Yucatan it includes beds of chalky limestone, like those of the Antilles, which may have been deposited in a deeper sea.

It is probable that folding took place at more than one geological epoch, and the whole series of beds up to the Oligocene is involved in the folds. The Pliocene, on the other hand, is usually undisturbed, and the final effort must, therefore, have occurred during the Miocene period, which appears to have been a period of great earth movement throughout the Caribbean region. From the southern extremity of the Mexican plateau to the Colombian border, the strike of the folds--of the Mesozoic and early Tertiary deposits, as well as of the older rocks--is in general from east to west; but there is one considerable exception. On both sides of the deep depression which crosses Honduras from Puerto Cortez to the Gulf of Fonseca, the strike is commonly from north to south. The depression is probably a "Graben" or trough formed by faulting.

The great volcanoes of Mexico and Central America stand upon the Pacific side of the continent, and it is only where the land contracts to a narrow neck that their products spread over to the Caribbean shore. The extent of the volcanic deposits is very great, and over a wide area they entirely conceal the original structural features of the country. The eruptions began towards the close of the Cretaceous period and continue to the present day. The rocks are lavas and ashes, chiefly of andesitic or basaltic composition, but rhyolites and trachytes also occur, and phonolite has been met with in one or two places.

According to R.T. Hill, there is but little geological evidence of any Tertiary or later connexion between the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific, excepting, perhaps, a shallow opening during the Eocene period. It should, however, be stated that all authorities are not agreed upon this point, and K. Sapper found marls and sandstones which he believes to belong to the Upper Tertiary, lying horizontally at a height of about 7500 ft. in the Mexican state of Chiapas. Unfortunately the fossils obtained from these beds were lost.

"New Granada" attained its independence in 1819; and in 1821 "Guatemala" declared itself free. That the subsequent history of the Central American republics has been largely a record of civil war, maladministration and financial dishonesty, is perhaps due in part to racial inferiority. In part, however, it may be explained by the absence of any tradition of good government; perhaps also by the brevity and artificiality of the evolution which converted a debased slave-population into the citizens of modern democratic states. The five divisions of "Guatemala" were temporarily incorporated in the Mexican empire during 1822, but regained their autonomy on the declaration of a Mexican republic, and in July 1823 combined to form the Republic of the United States of Central America. The Liberal or Federalist party, which was supreme in Honduras, found itself opposed by the Conservatives, including the clergy and former Spanish officials, who were very influential in Guatemala. A bitter and protracted struggle ensued. In 1837-1839 a Conservative rising, under Rafael Carrera, president of Guatemala, resulted in the overthrow of the Liberals, under General Francisco Morazan of Honduras; and in 1842, after a vain attempt to restore the Federal republic, Morazan was captured and shot. A fresh union of the republics was concluded in 1842, and dissolved in 1845. The year 1850 was signalized by the conclusion, on the 19th of April, of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty between Great Britain and the United States, which was designed to facilitate the construction of an interoceanic canal. The history of this project is given in detail under PANAMA CANAL. One important result of the treaty was the abandonment, in 1860, of the British protectorate over the Mosquito Coast. This event had been preceded by a decade of political disturbances. In 1850 Honduras, Salvador and Nicaragua had combined to restore federal unity; but their allied armies were defeated by the Guatemalans under Carrera. In 1856 the American adventurer, William Walker, endeavoured to usurp the government of Nicaragua; in 1860 he invaded Honduras and was captured and shot. His object was to assist the slave-holders of the United States by adding new slave-states to the Union. A further attempt to restore federal unity failed in 1885, and its promoter, Justo Rufino Barrios, president of Guatemala, lost his life. In 1895 the Greater Republic of Central America was formed by the union of Nicaragua, Salvador and Honduras; and a constitution was framed providing for the admission of Guatemala and Costa Rica; in December 1898 it was dissolved, as unsatisfactory to Salvador. On the 4th of November 1903 Panama, which had since 1863 formed part of Colombia, declared itself an autonomous republic. Its independence was immediately recognized by the United States, and shortly afterwards by the European powers. The United States also forbade the landing of any Colombian force on the territories of Panama, and thus guaranteed the security of the new state.

ARCHAEOLOGY OF CENTRAL AMERICA

Discoveries and investigations carried on during the 19th century have thrown much light on the splendid past of Central America. The still extant ruins of great buildings, unlike anything which is known in the old world, testify to the high culture attained in pre-Columbian days by several native peoples differing greatly from one another in speech and racial affinities. As a science the archaeology of Central America has scarcely yet emerged from its infancy. Entire branches are still wholly uninvestigated. Amongst the numerous problems which await solution must still be reckoned the decipherment of the inscriptions, which hitherto has not progressed beyond the discovery of calendar systems and the relative datings involved in such systems.

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