Catskill Mountains Mountain group of the Appalachian mountain system, southeastern New York, U.S.
It is bounded by the Mohawk and Hudson rivers. Many of its peaks reach 3,000 ft (900 m); the highest. Slide Mountain, reaches 4,204 ft (1,281 m). The area has many resorts, and its lakes supply New York City with water. The mountains were made famous through Washington Irv¬ ing’s stories of Rip Van Winkle, who supposedly took his long nap near the town of Catskill.
Chrysoberyl cat's-eye with yellow banding on a brown stone
JOHN H. GERARD
Catt, Carrie Chapman orig. Carrie Lane (b. Jan. 9, 1859, Ripon, Wis., U.S.—d. March 9, 1947, New Rochelle, N.Y.) U.S. advocate of woman suffrage. A graduate of Iowa State College (1880), she became a high-school principal in Mason City, Iowa, in 1881 and superintendent of schools two years later; she was one of the first U.S. women to hold such a post. She married Leo Chapman in 1884. After his untimely death in
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354 I cattail ► caudillo
1886 she devoted herself to organiz¬ ing the Iowa Woman Suffrage Asso¬ ciation (1887-90). Her marriage to George W. Catt, an engineer, in 1890, was unusual in its prenuptial legal contract providing her with four months of free time each year to work exclusively for woman suf¬ frage. In 1900 she was elected to suc¬ ceed Susan B. Anthony as president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA).
Between 1905 and 1915 Catt reorga¬ nized the NAWSA along political district lines. By then an accom¬ plished public speaker, she served as the group’s president from 1915 until her death. After ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, which granted voting rights to women, she reorganized the NAWSA as the League of Women Voters to work for progressive legislation, including the cause of world peace. See also woman suffrage movement.
cattail Any of the tall reedy marsh plants (see reed) that bear brown, furry fruiting spikes and make up the genus Typha (family Typhaceae), particularly T. latifolia, the long flat leaves of which are used especially for making mats and chair seats. Cattails are found mainly in temperate and cold regions of the Northern and Southern hemispheres. Important to wildlife, they are also often cultivated ornamentally as pond plants and for dried-flower arrangements. The leaves, which swell when wet, are used for caulking cracks in barrels and boats.
Cattell \k3-'tel\, James McKeen (b. May 25, 1860, Easton, Pa., U.S.—d. Jan. 20, 1944, Lancaster, Pa.) U.S. psychologist. He studied with Wilhelm Wundt in Leipzig and later assisted Francis Galton in London. Teaching at the University of Pennsylvania (1888-91) and Columbia Uni¬ versity (1891-1917), where Edward L. Thorndike was his student, he ori¬ ented U.S. psychology toward use of objective experimental methods, mental testing, and applied psychology. Much of his career was devoted to editing and publishing scientific periodicals; he was a founder of Psy¬ chological Review (1894), edited Science for 50 years (from 1894), and founded the directory American Men of Science (1906).
cattle Domesticated bovids that are raised for meat, milk, or hides or for draft purposes. Depending on the breed, mature bulls (fertile males) weigh 1,000-4,000 lbs (450-1,800 kg); cows (fertile females) weigh 800-2,400 lbs (360-1,080 kg). All modern cattle are believed to belong to either of two species (Bos indicus or B. taurus) or to be crosses of the two. About 277 identifiable breeds include those prominent in beef production (e.g., Angus, Hereford, and shorthorn) and dairy farming. Cattle feed primarily by grazing on pasture, but in modem farming their diet is ordinarily supplemented with prepared animal feeds. See also aurochs, Brahman, ox.
Cattle Raid of Cooley, The \'tan y - l b6- , ku-3l y -n y 9, 'tany-'bo-'ku-PeV Irish Tain Bo Cuailgne Irish narrative, the longest of the Ulster cycle. It was composed in prose with verse passages in the 7th-8th century, probably by an author acquainted with such epics as the Aeneid. Its hero is Cu Chulainn, who singlehandedly held off the Connaught army that invaded Ulster to capture a famous and valuable brown bull. After three days of battle, Cu Chulainn gained victory, yet the Connaughts success¬ fully captured the bull. Madb, the warrior-queen of Connaught, secured her superiority over her husband Ailill when the brown bull defeated Ail- ill’s white-horned bull.
Catullus \k3-'t9l-9s\, Gaius Valerius (b. c. 84, Verona, Cisalpine Gaul—d. c. 54 bc, Rome) Roman poet. Few facts about his life are cer¬ tain. Of 116 extant poems, 25 portray an intense and unhappy affair with a married woman (“Lesbia”); others reflect an affair with the youth Juven- tius; still others are outbursts of contempt for Julius Caesar and other per¬ sonages. He displayed remarkable versatility in assorted poetic forms, and his conversational rhythms carry an immediacy unrivaled by any other classical poet. His expressions of love and hatred represent perhaps the finest lyric poetry of ancient Rome.
Cauca \'kau-ka\ River River, western Colombia. It rises in the Andes Mountains and flows northward, between the Cordillera Occidental and
the Cordillera Oriental, 838 mi (1,348 km) to join the Magdalena River north of Mompos. In its middle reaches, its valley is important for agri¬ culture and cattle raising. Two-thirds of Colombia’s coffee is produced in the adjacent uplands.
Caucasian \k6-'ka-zhon\ languages Group of languages spoken in the Caucasus region that are not members of any language families spo¬ ken elsewhere in the world. Caucasian languages, spoken by some nine million people, are divided into three subgroups: the South Caucasian, or Kartvelian family; the Northwest Caucasian, or Abkhaz-Adyghe lan¬ guages; and the Northeast Caucasian, or Nakh-Dagestanian languages. Kartvelian, with more than 4.5 million speakers, comprises four relatively closely related languages, including Georgian. Northwest Caucasian lan¬ guages include Abkhaz and a chain of dialects called collectively Circas¬ sian. The Northeast Caucasian languages are further divided into two groups, Nakh and Dagestanian. The Nakh languages include Chechen and Ingush, spoken by more than a million people mainly in Chechnya and Ingushetia. Dagestanian is an extraordinarily diversified group of 25-30 languages spoken by some 1.7 million people mainly in northern Azer¬ baijan and the Republic of Dagestan. Several Dagestanian languages, including Avar, Lak, Dargva, and Lezgi, number their speakers in the hundreds of thousands; others are spoken in only a few villages. In spite of their great diversity, most Caucasian languages have in common large consonant inventories; in some languages the number of consonants dis¬ tinguished approaches 80. Those Caucasian languages with standard writ¬ ten forms employ the Cyrillic alphabet, with the prominent exception of Georgian. An effort is being made to introduce the Latin alphabet for Chechen in Chechnya.
Caucasoid See race
Caucasus Vko-ko-sosV or Caucasia \k6-'ka-zho\ Mountainous region, between the Black and Caspian seas. Occupying roughly 170,000 sq mi (440,000 sq km), it is divided among Russia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia and forms part of the traditional dividing line between Europe and Asia. It is bisected by the Caucasus Mountains; the area north of the Greater Caucasus range is called Ciscaucasia and the region to the south Transcaucasia. Inhabited from ancient times, it was under nominal Per¬ sian and Turkish suzerainty until conquered by Russia in the 18th-19th centuries.
Caucasus Vko-ko-sosN Mountains Russian Kavkazsky Khrebet
\k3f-'ka-ske-kryi-'byet\ Mountain range between the Black and Caspian seas. It is sometimes considered the southeastern limit of Europe. Of vol¬ canic origin, it forms two distinct chains—the Greater Caucasus in the north and the Lesser Caucasus in the south—that extend about 750 mi (1,200 km) across southern Russia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia. Many peaks rise above 15,000 ft (4,600 m); the highest is Mount Elbrus. The range is crossed by several high passes, including the Daryal and Mamison. It possesses considerable waterpower resources, including those in the Kura-Aras Lowland, and valuable petroleum and natural gas reserves. Caucasus Nature Reserve and other areas in the western part of the range were designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1999.