out from Havana. The electric telegraph was introduced in 1852, and its lines now extend between the principal cities and towns. The coast shipping has remarkably increased since 1840. Steamboats ply regularly from the various ports of the island to each other and to foreign ports. The circulating medium is chiefly metallic, and was exclusively so until Jan. 1857, when the first issue of paper currency was made by the Spanish bank, which was formally organized in Feb. 1856, having a capital of $3,000,000.-Education has made great progress since 1842. In Havana there are several institutions of a collegiate rank, with a number of seminaries, and in other cities there are advanced schools. The number of newspapers and periodicals published in Cuba in 1857 was: at Havana 21, Matanzas 3, Cardenas 1, Cienfuegos 2, Villa Clara 2, Remedios 1, Santo Espiritu 2, Trinidad 1, Puerto Principe 1, Santiago de Cuba 5, Bayamo 1; total 40.-In its government, Cuba is subject in all branches of the administration to one authority, the representative of the Spanish crown, who is appointed by and accountable only to the home government. He is president of the royal court of judicature (real audiencia), superior civil governor, captaingeneral, superior commandant of marine, superintendent of the treasury, viceregal patron and viceregal protector of public instruction. Of the 6 principal branches of administration, the political and military are particularly under his charge, and the judicial, financial, naval, and ecclesiastical branches are mainly directed by their respective chiefs of high rank. Each division has its determinate territorial subdivisions. The ecclesiastical administration is divided between 2 dioceses, the archbishopric of Santiago de Cuba and the bishopric of Havana, which are respectively superior one to the other in cases of appeal. The Roman Catholic is the only form of worship tolerated. The revenues are divided into maritime and inland, the first comprising customs and lighthouse dues, ship visits, &c., and the second various. The following is a synopsis of the receipts of the treasury for 2 years:

Sources.

Customs..

Taxes..... Lottery

Total......

Increase. $757,834 25

$9,789,524 12 $10,495,858 37 4,022,056 71 5,186,289 72 1,164,283 01 1,829,107 87 1,681,410 12 852,302 75 $15,090,688 20 $17,363,558 21| $2,273,870 01

The principal items composing the receipts from customs in 1857 were: duties on imports, $7,074,207; duties on exports, $1,777,868; tonnage dues, $931,869; registry fees (of cargoes, visits, &c.), $159,131. One-half of the revenue is absorbed in supporting the military department of the government. The regular armed force consists on an average of 20,000 men, and is kept in a high state of discipline, and in complete equipment. Nearly the whole of the troops are composed of soldiers from Spain, whose period of service in Cuba is generally

limited to 3 years. The organized Cuban militia numbers between 3,000 and 4,000. The squadron on service usually consists of 26 vessels, with 200 guns, and over 3,000 men.-Cuba was the first land of importance discovered by Columbus in his first voyage. After touching at the islands which he called San Salvador, St. Mary of the Conception, Fernandina, and Isabella, Lis ships entered the mouth of a large river into a country called by the natives Cuba, and which he named Juana, in honor of Prince John, the son of his royal patrons. After the death of Ferdinand it was called Fernandina, and still later Santiago, in honor of the patron saint of Spain, and again Ave Maria, in honor of the Virgin. The large river which Columbus entered is supposed to be the outlet of the harbor of Nuevitas, on the N. shore; at ebb tide a swift current flows out like that of a river; and the breadth of the island at this point is reconcilable with the statement of some of his people having penetrated 60 miles into the interior, and yet bringing back no account of discovering the sea on the other side. From this point he explored the coast to the E. extremity of the island, seeking for gold, and then passed around to Hayti. The discovery of Cuba was on Oct. 28, 1492, and his arrival at Hayti was on Dec. 6. The first settlement of Europeans in Cuba was made by an expedition of 300 men under Diego Velasquez, fitted out by Diego, the son of Columbus, in 1511. They founded Baracoa near the E. end of the island, and in 1514 Santiago, which was made the capital, and Trinidad on the S. coast. A place on the S. coast in the partido of Güines was settled in 1515, and called San Cristoval de la Havana. The name was transferred to the present capital in 1519. The Spaniards found the aborigines of the island an effeminate and inoffensive people, entirely unable to resist the invaders of their country, or endure the severities imposed upon them. Velasquez encouraged settlers by grants of lands and of Indian slaves, and engaged them in agricultural pursuits, and especially in the cultivation of the sugar crop, for which the soil and climate seemed to be admirably adapted, and which was also introduced into Hayti. As early as 1534 the officials, as cited by Sagra in the appendix to his Historia fisica, politica, y natural, applied to the emperor for 77,000 negroes, that they might become inured to labor before the Indians ceased to exist." Gomara, the historian, states that there was not one Indian left after 1553. They were destroyed by cruel treatment and unaccustomed labor, were swept off by small pox, committed suicide in great numbers, and many fled in their boats to Florida. With the extinction of the Indians the agriculture of the island declined, and it became mainly a pastoral country. extensive plains bordering the coast afforded a fine range for cattle, and their hides furnished the chief product for exportation, even to the 18th century. Bees were introduced from Florida, and wax and tobacco also became

The

at last of more importance than hides; and these are still important products, though now surpassed by sugar and coffee. The port of Havana soon came to be regarded as the principal stronghold of the island. The settlement there was twice destroyed by the French in the 16th century once in 1538, and again in 1554, after it had been reëstablished and fortified by Fernando de Soto. New forts were added in the same century, and these form a part of the defences now known as the Moro castle and the Punta. The wall around the city was commenced in 1665. In 1762 Havana fell into the hands of the English, who retained it about a year, when they gave it up in exchange for Florida. Up to this time the population of Cuba had increased but slowly, and the productions were very limited. According to an official document, published at Havana in 1811, and based on the records of the custom house, the total import of slaves prior to 1763 had amounted to but 60,000. In 1765 the island contained about half that number of negro slaves, with as many free colored persons, mostly mulattoes. Its trade, hitherto limited to Cadiz, was, except the import of slaves, now made free to all Spaniards from the 9 principal ports of Spain. But at this time it was so small as scarcely to employ 6 vessels. From 1763 to 1789 the import of slaves was about 1,000 a year, which hardly kept up the number. In 1789 the Spanish slave code was promulgated, and the slave trade, hitherto a monopoly, made free. Under the administration of Las Casas as captain-general, which commenced in 1790, Cuba made rapid progress in commercial prosperity, and in its public improvements. In the 31 years from 1789 to 1820, the import of slaves amounted to 225,000, an average of 7,500, and from 1810 to 1820 it was 11,500 a year. The decline of Hayti opened a market for Cuban sugars, the production of which rapidly increased. In 1809 and 1811 the island was partially opened to foreign vessels. With the reestablishment of peace in Europe the demands for Cuban products revived, and notwithstanding the treaty of 1820, by which Spain agreed with England to put a stop to the slave trade, the importation of slaves was continued on a larger scale than ever. In the 25 years from 1817 to 1842, it was estimated by the English commissioners to have reached the number of 335,000, or upward of 13,000 a year. This continued violation of treaty obligations led Great Britain to propose in 1841, as the only means of putting a stop to it, the establishment of a mixed tribunal in the island, with power to give liberty to all negroes who had been imported contrary to law. This proposition excited the greatest alarm among the Cuban proprietors, and the Spanish government, in consequence, began to take steps to stop the traffic. In 1845, for the first time, a law was enacted making the introduction of slaves a criminal offence. From these and other causes, during the 10 years from 1842 to 1852, the importation was considerably re

duced, amounting in the whole to about 55,000. In the years 1845 to 1847, by the energy of Governor-general Concha, it was brought almost to an end. But the increased consumption of sugar in Great Britain, in consequence of the reduction of duty, and the placing of foreign and British sugars on the same level, gave a new stimulus to the traffic. The efforts of the Spanish officials for its suppression were relaxed, and it still continues to be prosecuted, as already stated, mainly, as the British allege, in vessels purchased and fitted out in the United States, and which retain the American flag till they are ready to leave the African coast. With the renewal of the slave trade the British renewed their remonstrances, and their former proposition for liberating the illegally imported negroes. This subject was much pressed from 1850 to 1853, but seems since then to have been abandoned. Some remarkable changes were made in 1854 by the Spanish administration of the island, in relation to the free blacks, who form so considerable a part of the population. The ecclesiastical rule which forbids the celebration of marriages between blacks and whites was abrogated, and a militia composed of free blacks and mulattoes, to the exclusion of the whites, was directed to be organized throughout the island, and was put on an equal footing in regard to privileges with the regular army. At the same time the white inhabitants were disarmed. Both these measures, which are still maintained, were adopted, in part at least, as a means of strengthening the government against the discontent of the white planters, and the danger of fillibuster expeditions from the United States, of which at this time serious apprehensions existed. From the moment the United States acquired Florida, the government at Washington began to take a deep interest in the future of Cuba. Fears were entertained lest the island might fall into the hands of the English or French, and both Spain and those nations were informed that the United States would never consent to that arrangement. They were willing that Cuba should remain a colony of Spain, but would never allow it to pass into other hands. Spain was repeatedly urged by the American government to make peace with the Spanish American republics, lest they should invade Cuba, and bring about not merely a political revolution, but a change in its social system. The claim of the English to make the slave trade suppression treaty an occasion for interfering in the domestic concerns of the island became a new occasion of jealousy. But a proposition made in 1825 on the part of Spain, that in consideration of certain commercial concessions the United States should guarantee to her the possession of Cuba, was declined by Mr. Clay, then secretary of state, on the ground that entanglements of this sort were contrary to the established policy of the United States. In 1848 President Polk authorized the American minister at Madrid to offer to purchase Cuba, and to pay $100,000,000 for it; but this proposition was rejected by Spain in the most peremptory

manner. It was not till after this that the attention of the American people, as distinct from the government, was first attracted to this question of the annexation of Cuba. The occasion was the resort to the United States in 1849 of Lopez, and other Cubans, who, in consequence of some attempted revolutionary movements, had been obliged to fly the island. They represented the creole population as greatly dissatisfied with the Spanish rule, and ready for revolt, and annexation to the United States. Recruits were collected for a descent upon the island. The first attempt was defeated by the vigilance of the government of the United States; but in Aug. 1851, Lopez sailed from New Orleans in a steamer with 500 men on board, of whom a considerable part were Americans. They effected a landing, but made no impression, and were soon taken prisoners. Lopez was garroted at Havana, Aug. 16; some of his comrades were shot, but the majority were transported and afterward pardoned. The sympathy which these movements, and other subsequent projects of the same sort, had found in the United States, and the refusal of President Fillmore in 1852 to join with France and Great Britain in a treaty guaranteeing to Spain the possession of Cuba, made the Spanish government still more alert in guarding against revolution, and especially against the entrance into the island of revolutionists from the United States. This led to occasional collisions with American citizens; and the firing on the American steamer Black Warrior by a Spanish vessel of war, during the administration of President Pierce, seemed at one moment to threaten hostilities. The disposition on the part of the creole planters to throw off the Spanish rule, or at least any overt exhibition of it, subsided after the failure of Lopez, but the idea of the acquisition of Cuba is still entertained in the United States. In Aug. 1854, Messrs. Buchanan, Mason, and Soulé, U. S. ministers at London, Paris, and Madrid, held a conference on the subject of Cuba, at Ostend and Aix la Chapelle, and drew up a statement of their conclusions, popularly known as the Ostend manifesto. In this document they argued that the island ought to belong to the United States, and that Spain would find its sale to be highly advantageous; and finally, that in certain contingencies, such as the emancipation of the slaves by the Spanish government, the United States ought to possess themselves of the island by force. A proposition was strongly urged in the senate of the United States in the session of 1858-'9 to place $30,000,000 in the hands of the president with a view to the acquisition of the island; but after debate, it was withdrawn by its author, Mr. Slidell of Louisiana. CUBE (Gr. Kußos, a die), in geometry, a solid body terminated by 6 square equal faces, occupying among bodies a place analogous to that of the square among surfaces. The problem of the duplication of the cube, or of constructing a cube of twice the volume of a given cube, is celebrated in the history of science. It occuVOL. VI.-9

pied geometers in the time of Plato; and it was a Greek tradition that once during a pestilence the priestess at Delos had responded that in order to appease the gods her altar must be doubled. The altar was cubical, and a new one was therefore built whose sides were of twice the dimensions of the old one. The priestess responded that her command had been wrongly interpreted, and from that time the geometrical duplication of cubic figures was a constant problem, like the quadrature of the circle. The cubature of solids, or the reduction of any body to a cubic form of equal volume, is performed by first reducing the given volume to one of the geometrical figures the law of whose curvature is known, as the parallelopipedon, cylinder, cone, or sphere.-In arithmetic and algebra, a cube is a number formed by raising another number to its third power; thus, 27 is the cube of 3, being equal to 3X3X3. The number which is thus multiplied to make a cube is called the cube root.

CUBEBS, berries of the cubeba officinalis, a climbing perennial plant of the natural order piperaceae, which is found wild in Java and other parts of the East Indies. It is supposed they were first brought into Europe by the Arabians; and in former times it appears they served the purpose of black pepper, their aromatic, warming, and pungent properties rendering them an agreeable condiment. In India they have long been used as a medicine in disorders of the digestive organs, on account of their carminative properties, and in diseases of the urinary organs for their stimulating effect. It is imported in the dried berries, which are of the size of small peas, and of a dark brown color. The volatile oil they contain is thus better retained than if the berries were pulverized, as they require to be to prepare the medicine. Beside the volatile oil they also contain the peculiar principle cubebin, a white, inodorous, and tasteless substance, not volatilizable by heat, and almost insoluble in water. The oil, having the medicinal properties, is often used instead of the powdered cubebs. It is obtained sometimes to the amount of 7 per cent. by grinding the cubebs, and distilling with water.

CUBIÈRES, AMÉDÉE LOUIS DESPANS, a French general, born in Paris, March 4, 1786, died Aug. 6, 1853, took an active part in the wars of Napoleon, was commander of the French army at Ancona from 1832 to 1886, created a peer of France in 1839, appointed minister of war in 1839 and again in 1840. Afterward he was implicated in a charge of having bribed M. Teste, the minister of public works in 1842, for the purpose of obtaining a grant for the working of salt mines. Tried in 1847, he was found guilty, sentenced to civil degradation, and to pay a fine of 10,000 francs. In 1852, however, he was reinstated in his position.

CUBIT, an ancient measure, taken from the human arm as measured from the elbow to the end of the middle finger. Its length was in practice somewhat indefinite, and varied among