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crinus, and Eucalyptocrinus. In the Devonian system some localities have yielded good material. The Lower Carboniferous rocks of the upper Mississippi Valley are the most renowned sources of fossil crinoids. The shaly limestone beds at Burlington, Iowa, and Crawfordsville, Ind., have furnished hosts of finely preserved specimens, which are to be seen in geological collections all over the world. The Mesozoic rocks of Europe, especially the Liassic and Jurassic, have furnished some fine examples of Encrinus, Apiocrinus, and the pentacrinids, but the rocks of this era in America hold only rare occurrences of members of this class. The only find of note-and that was one of great importance-was that of Uintacrinus in the Cretaceous chalk of western Kansas. The Tertiary rocks seem to be poor in fossil remains of this group.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. General descriptions of the class, and notes on the habits of the animals, can be found in: Agassiz, Three Cruises of the Blake, vol. ii. (Boston and New York, 1888); Walther, Einleitung in die Geologie als historische Wissenschaft (Jena, 1893-94); Neumayr, Die Stämme des Thierreiches, vol. i. (Vienna and Prague, 1889); Parker and Haswell, Textbook of Zoology, vol. i. (London and New York, 1897); Carpenter, "Report on the Crinoidea," in Challenger Reports, Zoology, vol. xi., No. 26, and vol. xxvi., No. 60 (London, 1884-88). For description of the fossil forms, consult: Zittel and Eastman, Textbook of Paleontology, vol. i. (London and New York, 1900); Bather, "The Crinoidea," in Lankester's Treatise on Zoology, part ii. (London, 1900); Wachsmuth and Springer, "Revision of the Palæocrinoidea," Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences at Philadelphia, for 1879, 1881, 1885, and 1886; "North American Crinoidea Camerata,' Memoirs of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College, vols. xx. and xxi. (Boston, 1897); Bather, "The Crinoidea of Gotland," Kong liga Svenska Vetenskap Akademiens Handlingar, vol. xxv. (Stockholm, 1892); Lang and Bernard, Textbook of Comparative Anatomy, part ii. (London and New York, 1896); Weller, "The Paleontology of the Niagaran Limestone in the Chicago Area, The Crinoidea," Bulletin No. iv. of the Natural History Survey, Chicago Academy of Sciences (Chicago, 1900); Bather, "On Uintacrinus: A Morphological Study," Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, vol. 1895 (London, 1896). See also articles on ECHINODERMATA; CYSTOIDEA; PENTREMITES.

CRINOLINE (Fr., from Lat. crinis, hair + linum, flax). A name originally given by French dressmakers to a fabric made of horsehair, capable of great stiffness, and employed to distend women's attire; it is also applied in a general way to those structures of steel wire or hoops by means of which women some years ago were able to wear skirts of extraordinary size at the bottom. The first device for producing an expansion of the dress-skirt is the fardingale, introduced by Queen Elizabeth. Walpole, in his fancy descriptions of her, speaks of her 'enormous ruff and vaster fardingale.' The upper part of the body was incased in a cuirass of whalebone, which was united at the waist with the equally stiff fardingale of the same material, descending to the feet, without a single fold, in the form of a great bell. In the end of the reign of James I. this fashion gradually declined, and, as a result of the Puritan feeling in the time of Charles I.

and Cromwell, it quite disappeared. It is next heard of in 1711 as 'that startling novelty the hoop petticoat,' which differed from the fardingale in being gathered in at the waist. About the year 1796 hoops were discarded in private life, but were still the mode at Court, where they flourished until the time of George IV., when they were abolished by royal command.

The next development of this fashion, about the middle of the nineteenth century, began with crinoline in its original and proper sense, first in the form of the 'bustle' in the upper part of the skirt, then the whole petticoat. The hoops were sometimes made with a circumference of four and even five yards. At last, after indignation and ridicule had for years assailed the monstrosity in vain, and when people had ceased speaking about it, the inflation began, about 1866, without any apparent cause, to collapse; and, rushing to the opposite extreme, ladies might be seen walking about as slim as if merely wrapped in a morning gown. At the close of the nineteenth century the name crinoline was applied to a cotton gauze stiffened with a dressing of glue and sold by the yard for use by milliners and dressmakers.

lily). A genus of bulbous-rooted plants of the CRI'NUM (Neo-Lat., from Gk. κpívov, krinon, natural order Amaryllidaceæ, having long tubular flowers. It contains a considerable number of cal countries, generally with umbels of large and species, natives of different tropical and subtropibeautiful flowers, some of them among the most admired ornaments of our hot-houses. Crinum amabile, an Indian species, is much esteemed. The plants are mostly cultivated in greenhouses, although Crinum longifolium is semi-hardy and, with slight protection, will endure ous hybrids have been produced, some of them of the winters as far north as Washington. Numerexceeding beauty and possessing exquisite perfume. Crinum Americanum is a native of Florida.

CRIP/PLE CREEK. A town and county-seat of Teller County, Col., about 20 miles (direct) west-southwest of Colorado Springs; on the Midland Terminal Railroad, connecting with the Colorado Midland Railroad, and on the Florence and Cripple Creek and the Colorado Springs and Cripple Creek District railroads (Map: Colorado, E 2). It was founded in 1890 as a mining town, developed rapidly after 1893, and was nearly destroyed by fire in 1896. The district in which it is situated is a complete network of gold-bearing veins, and mining gave rise to the subsequent founding of Victor, Altman, Goldfield, and other near-by towns. The mining district covers an area of about six miles, of which only gold output of this section up to 1906 was over about one-tenth has been developed. The total $200,000,000. The mines have attracted attention from metallurgists, owing to the peculiar nature of the ores, which has necessitated new methods of treatment. Cripple Creek, at an elevation of 9800 feet, is known also for its scenery and healthful climate. Population, in 1900, 10,147; in 1906 (local est.), 10,000; though the whole district contains about 50,000.

CRIP/PLEGATE. An ancient London gate probably dating from the restoration of the walls by King Alfred in 886. It is said to have taken its name from the lame beggars who congregated there, in A.D. 1010, to touch the body of Edmund the Martyr, as it was passing through. It was

twice rebuilt, and was pulled down in 1760. The name was also applied to the district round it. CRISFIELD. A town in Somerset County, Md., about 100 miles (direct) south-southeast of Baltimore, on the New York, Philadelphia and Norfolk Railroad, and on Chesapeake Bay (Map: Maryland, O 9). Oyster-packing is the leading industry. Population, 1900, 3165.

CRISIS (Lat., from Gk. κpíos, krisis, decision, from Kpive, krinein, Lat. cernere, to decide). A name used by the older physicians to denote the rapid or sudden determination of an acute disease in the direction of convalescence or of death. It is opposed in signification to lysis (luo, I relax), which denotes the gradual subsidence of the symptoms and improvement in condition in most chronic and in some acute diseases. The doctrine of crises was closely bound up with that of a materies morbi, or material of disease, in the blood, which was presumed to be undergoing changes, during the whole course of the malady, tending to an evacuation of some kind from the system in the form of a critical discharge (apostasis or abscess), which, when observed, was supposed to contain the matter of disease in a state of coction, and to be the direct cause of the sudden relief of the patient. Thus, according to the character and seat of the critical discharge, it was common to speak of a crisis by sweating, by diarrhoea, by expectoration, by urine, by parotid swellings, etc.; and no crisis was considered regular that was not attended by some symptom

of this kind. Another curious doctrine associated

with that of crises was the belief in certain days as ruling the beneficent or injurious, the complete or incomplete character of a crisis. The seventh, fourteenth, and twentieth (according to some, the twenty-first) days of the disease were regarded as eminently critical; less so, but still favorably critical, were the third, fifth, eleventh, and seventeenth; the fourth day was the indicator of a complete crisis on the seventh; the sixth day was the tyrant, notorious for unfavorable crises; the second, eighth, tenth, thirteenth, and the rest were non-critical. Few physicians now use the term, except in periodic diseases such as malaria, or in diseases which run a certain course, such as typhoid fever.

CRISIS. A series of patriotic writings, fourteen in number, published by Thomas Paine at Philadelphia during the Revolution. They appeared at intervals from 1775 to 1783.

CRISIS, ECONOMIC. A term employed by economic writers somewhat loosely to designate either the acute phase or the whole course of the disturbances in economic life which have characterized the last century, and which have recurred with such frequency as to make them appear inevitable results of the modern industrial order. The phenomena involved are so complex that they must be described rather than defined.

The salient fact in the economic history of recent times is the alternation of prosperity and depression, of good times and bad. A period of prosperity with expanding business, great activity in production and commerce, is brought suddenly to a close, generally by the failure of a prominent banking house, bringing with it the fall of other financial and mercantile concerns. Business is paralyzed, creditors demand the payment of claims, and debtors find it next to impossible to secure the means of payment. Panic rules, and

for a time the whole mercantile structure threatens to collapse. From such a shock business recovers but slowly, its activity is reduced to the lowest ebb, and some time elapses before the restoration of confidence takes place. This period of depression is much more prolonged than the business revives and begins to expand. Prices acuter phase which precedes it. After a time rise and activity becomes greater. A wave of prosperity again appears which seems to carry everything before it until it, in turn, is checked suddenly, and a new crisis is at hand. Lord Overstone, in an oft-quoted passage, describes these successive phases as follows: "State of quiescence, improvement, growing confidence, prosperity, excitement, overtrading, convulsions, pressure, stagnation, distress ending again in quiescence."

In the absence of any general term to designate crisis has frequently been used to embrace them this related sequence of phenomena, the term all. Strictly speaking, it should doubtless be confined to the acute stage when the collapse which has been slowly preparing actually takes place. In like manner, the term panic applies to the ively, emphasizing how men feel and act rather same movement, but expresses it more subjectings and actions. But as we cannot well break than the conditions which give birth to those feelthe sequence and discuss in isolated fashion one of its members, it will not be deemed inappropriate to discuss in this article crises, their antecedents, and their consequences.

and industrial. These qualifying phrases mark Crises are designated as financial, commercial, the places in the economic organism where the disturbance is felt. In a purely financial crisis the stock market is the storm-centre, the disturbance affecting but slightly commercial or productive enterprises.

A commercial crisis is ct wider area, and embraces the trading classes, while an industrial crisis extends its baneful influence to producers in all lines of agriculture, These expressions manufactures, and the like. do not designate so much different classes of crises as crises of different degrees of intensity, inasmuch as an industrial disturbance will always imply disturbance in trade and the money market, while trade upheavals imply commotion in the money market, though a financial panic does not necessarily imply the others.

While crisis and depression are usually associated, this is not always the case. Panic and crises may occur, and after a brief interval affairs may prosper as before. This is particularly true of the purely financial crises, which are not deep-rooted enough to affect wider areas. The crisis in its larger sense, however, is invariably followed by hard times. On the other hand, depression may occur without a panic. It is hardly correct to say that it is ushered in without a crisis, for the phenomena of such a period can usually be observed even if they lack the spectacular elements which so frequently accompany them. It should be observed, moreover, that crises may be local or general, and while they have many points in common, it is particu larly the latter with which we have to deal.

General crises affecting the economic situation of an entire country, and extending themselves to other countries which have trade relations with the former, are peculiarly a mark of the modern organization of business. A century ago

bad harvest or other calamities might cause local distress, or speculation such as was exhibited in the days of the South Sea Bubble and the Mississippi Scheme might cause a panic, but such occurrences did not show the pertinacity and wide-reaching effects which characterize the modern industrial disturbances. That such crises are inevitable consequences of modern methods of doing business and inseparable from the economic activities of our times, seems to be well established by their frequent recurrence and by their greater severity in the most advanced nations.

Crises more or less pronounced occurred in England in the years 1815, 1825-26, 1836-37, 1847, 1857, 1866, 1873, and 1890, while in the United States like disturbances were felt in 1814, 181819, 1837, 1857, 1873, 1884, and 1893. The periodicity of these occurrences is marked, and certain writers have gone so far as to establish a normal interval of ten or twelve years between crises. The facts as far as we know them do not warrant us in fixing any absolute rule, though the history of these crises reveals many common features.

It will further be observed that the dates given for Great Britain and our own country coincide in several instances, and if space permitted us to draw upon the history of Belgium, Holland, France, and Germany, further coincidences would be obvious. Certain crises, notably that of 1873, were felt quite generally. The actual crash did not occur in the same month, or even in the same year, in all the countries involved, but it is a frequent occurrence that local circumstances may hasten or postpone an event for which the general conditions are preparing.

The concrete manifestations of a crisis can best

be studied in an historical instance, and none is better adapted for this purpose than the crisis of 1873 in the United States. With the close of the Civil War an extraordinary activity in all lines of enterprise was manifested. The public lands had been thrown open to settlement, and large tracts had been granted to the Pacific railroads. This, together with the return of the army to the pursuits of peace, and an enormous increase in immigration, was the condition for an era of speculative development in the Western States. The impulse which had been given to manufactures, not only by the highly protective duties which marked the war tariffs, but also by the depreciation of the currency, which acted as a check upon foreign competition, caused a similar activity in the manufacturing States of the East. Business prospered; prices and profits were high. The census of 1870 showed in every branch of industry a great advance over that of 1860, and the greater part of this advance was in the latter half of the decade. Nowhere was this confidence in the future shown more than in railroad-building and in the iron industry. In 1867 there were 2249 miles of railway constructed; in 1869, 4615; in 1871, 7379. A like expansion of railways had marked the approach of the panic of 1857. In like manner, the outlay for constructing railways rose from $271,310,000 in 1864-68 to $841,260.000 in 1869-73. The consumption of pig-iron, which had been 1,416,000 tons in 1868, rose to 2.810,000 tons in 1873. High prices ruled. The maximum prices in the period following 1860 were, it is true, attained in 1866, but if they fell in the years 1867 and 1868 it was only to rise again to a point nearly equal to that of 1866 in 1871 and 1872. The activity in the commercial

centres is reflected in the rise of clearings in the New York Clearing House from twenty-eight billions of dollars in 1868 to thirty-five billions in 1873. The foreign trade of the United States showed a like activity, the aggregate of exports and imports rising from $609,000,000 in the fiscal year 1868 to $1,164,000,000 in 1873. But even more significant of the expansion of activity in the United States was the fact of increased importations from abroad. In 1870 the imports exceeded the exports by $43,000,000, but in 1872 this excess had become $182,000,000, and in 1873 $119,000,000.

The crisis of 1873 is usually dated from the failure of Jay Cooke & Co., September 18. The Stock Exchange of New York was closed on the 20th and was not reopened until the end of the month. Clearing House loan certificates were issued in large quantities. There had been certain premonitory symptoms of the approaching collapse. Railroad-building reached its highest point in 1871, pig-iron its highest price in September, 1872. The crisis lasted a few months only, the last Clearing House loan certificates being redeemed January 14, 1874. But there followed a long period of depression, which reached its lowest point three years later. The activities which had marked the previous era were not entirely stopped, enterprises begun had to be finished to save what was already invested, the daily needs of the people must be met, but all enterprise was timid and cautious. The buoyancy of the previous years was gone, and new enterprises were not undertaken. Railroad construction fell off, and in 1875 reached a minimum of 1711 miles, while in the period 1874-78 the outlay for construction was only $357,000,000. Prices

fell until 1879, to rise thereafter until 1882. The consumption of pig-iron declined until it reached 1,900,000 tons in 1876. Clearings in New York City fell off from $35,000,000,000 in 1873 to $23,000,000,000 in 1874, and reached their lowest point since 1863 at $22,000,000,000 in 1876. In foreign trade the excess of imports disappeared in 1874.

As the year 1873 marks the outbreak of the crisis, so the year 1876 serves to mark the lowest point in the subsequent depression. The whole story of the crisis, its antecedents and results, is succinctly told in the statistics of business failures, as reported by R. G. Dun & Co., as follows:

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of conditions, but before the crisis of 1837 similar activity was shown in canal construction. Before the panic of 1825, in England, there were large investments in manufacturing establishments, while the panic of 1893 was preceded by reckless investments in foreign countries.

A period of depression cuts down the existing stock of goods, and the retrenchment of production, coupled with the constant increase of population, creates a void in the market. To fill this there is a renewed activity; as prices begin to rise, existing plants find it difficult to meet the demand. Plants are remodeled and extended. Preparation for future production on a large scale takes place. Large investments of fixed capital are made in buildings, machinery and the like, and those branches of industry which chiefly serve the purposes of construction, such as the iron industry, make extraordinary advances. Mills and railroads are built to supply an anticipated demand. This is usually overdone, and the facilities of production increase more rapidly than the effective demand for products. Credit is unduly expanded, and it is natural that the money markets feel the first shock when the inevitable readjustment takes place.

While the phenomena of a crisis and its attendant consequences are generally recognized, the widest variety of opinion exists as to the

In

causes of such economic disturbances. Writers are prone to lay stress upon local or temporary conditions, and to generalize from them. truth, the phenomena of a crisis are so complex, and the conditions which may aggravate it so numerous, that it is not surprising to see the latter considered as primary causes. Thus, speculation, the currency, the tariff, bad harvests, have all been made responsible for crises. These are frequently concomitant forces impelling a crisis, but crises are so numerous that there must be some deeper underlying cause. It has already been noted that panics are most severe in the most advanced and most rapidly developing countries. They are apparently an incident of a changing economic organization. Stationary nations do not feel them. A change in the economic organization of a nation is not the result of plan, but the resultant of individual initiation in trade and industry. The adoption of new machinery, of new motive power, and new means of communication displaces the old, and renders some portions of capital useless. This waste of capital, and its absorption in enterprises not immediately remunerative, disturbs the normal relations of capital to employment and causes crises. We come, in short, to the conclusion that crises are caused by a lack of coincidence in the laws of growth, of production, and consumption. Changes in the former are rapid, those of the latter slow and gradual. Production is always prone to advance more rapidly than consumption. This proposition seems at variance with accepted theories of political economy, but in reality it harmonizes with them. The struggle for existence which lies at the root of economic life is a contest between Nature's limitations and potential consumption, which is unlimited. But concrete consumption and potential consumption are two different things. Indeed, we seem to be drawing near the familiar proposition that crises are caused by overproduction. This proposition has been vigorously opposed by those who have taken it in an absolute sense, and have revolted at the

idea that production could ever outstrip man's needs, as implying man's incapacity for further development. But if we understand overproduction as a false distribution of products over a series of years in comparison with man's actual consumption, and a false choice of objects of production in comparison with man's potential consumption, we need not revolt at the statement that overproduction-along certain lines is the cause of crises. Such a statement of the causes of crises seems to lack the precision which characterizes the attribution of crises to definite phenomena, but it must be remembered that the more complex the phenomena to be accounted for, the more general must, of necessity, be the cause to which they are ascribed.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. Consult the First Annual Report of the United States Commissioner of Labor, on "Industrial Depressions" (1886); Jones, Economic Crises (New York, 1900); Burton, Financial Crises and Periods of Industrial and Commercial Depression (New York, 1902). The two works last named contain bibliographies of the subject.

An

CRISP, CHARLES FREDERIC (1845-96). American jurist and politician. He was born States when a child. He served in the Confedin Sheffield, England, but came to the United erate Army from 1861 to 1864, when he was made and served as Solicitor-General of Mississippi a prisoner. He was admitted to the bar in 1866, Court from 1877 to 1882. From this time until from 1872 to 1877, and as judge of the Superior his death he was a Democratic member of Conthe House. gress, and from 1891 until 1895 was Speaker of

CRISPI, kre'spê, FRANCESCO (1819-1901). An Italian statesman, born at Ribera, in Sicily, October 4, 1819. He studied law at Palermo and was admitted to the bar there, and in 1846 at Naples. He took an active part in the Sicilian uprising of 1848, and after its disastrous issue engaged in journalism in Piedmont. In 1860 he aided Garibaldi in his expedition for the deliverance of the Two Sicilies. He became the first representative of Palermo in the Italian Parliament, began immediately to play a prominent rôle, and after having been the leader of the radical Left, became an exponent of monarchical constitutionalism. In 1876 he was elected president of the Chamber of Deputies. To promote the interests of his country, he visited the European courts in the following year, and soon after was made Minister of the Interior. Denounced by his opponents on a charge of bigamy, he was obliged to resign in 1878, and, although acquitted, did not take office again until 1887, in the Cabinet of Depretis, after whose death, in the same year, he became head of the Cabinet and Minister of Foreign Affairs. He was an earnest advocate of the Triple Alliance (q.v.) between Germany, Italy, and Austria, and in his endeavor to strengthen it visited Bismarck at Friedrichsruhe in 1887, and accompanied King Humbert to Berlin in 1889, conferring also with Caprivi at Milan in the following year. His policy was approved by an overwhelming majority of the electors in 1890, but his Ministry was overthrown on a matter of financial policy in Febru ary, 1891. He now resumed his law practice in Rome, and, in the Chamber of Deputies, led the Opposition against his successor in office, the Marquis di Rudini. In 1893 he resumed the

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