lava flows. The southern part is a desert. In the north, particularly in the Big Bend country, considerable wheat is raised. The mineral wealth is very limited.

COLUMBIA RIVER HIGHWAY, a 60mile scenic highway leading out of the city of Portland, Ore., to Hood River, and traversing the notably picturesque scenery along the Columbia River. The engineering work has been carried out with the most careful observance of artistic possibilities and effects, and the results are hailed as a model for similar enterprises. The roadway is 18 feet in width, of bitulithic pavement, and the steepest grade does not exceed 5 per cent. The highway joins the Lincoln Highway at Cheyenne and forms a link in the route through Yellowstone Park. COLUMBIA SALMON. See QUINNAT. COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, a seat of learning in New York. The idea of establishing a college in New York was more than 50 years in contemplation before it was carried into effect. In 1746 provision was made by law for raising money by public lotteries. Five years later the proceeds of these lotteries amounted to about $1,700 and were given to trustees. The fact that two-thirds of these trustees were in communion with the Church of England and that some of them were vestrymen of Trinity Church excited opposition to the proposal as a scheme to strengthen the Established Church and delayed the procurement of a royal charter. Friends of the enterprise proceeded, however, with the arrangement for opening the college and elected for their first president the Rev. Dr. Samuel Johnson of Stratford, Conn., who assumed the office 17 July 1754, in the schoolhouse belonging to Trinity Church. There was a class of eight

students.

The cosmopolitan character of the governing body of the college is due to its charter. To meet the objections that had been made, it was so drawn as to include in its board of governors, besides other ex officio representatives, not only the rector of Trinity Church, but the senior minister of the Reformed Protestant Dutch, Ancient Lutheran, French and Presbyterian churches. It is probably due to this circumstance that Columbia almost alone of all the pre-Revolutionary colleges in the United States has never had a theological faculty connected with it. The trustees, at present, are members of the Episcopal Church, and also of the Reformed, Presbyterian and Roman Catholic churches, showing that this cosmopolitan character has never been lost. A prominent Hebrew rabbi was at one time a member of its councils.

The charter of King's College, the original name of Columbia, was granted by George II, and finally passed the seals on 31 Oct. 1754, from which day the college dates its existence. It received from Trinity Church, according to a promise previously given, a portion of a grant of land known as "the King's Farm,” upon the site of which its first building was erected. It was stipulated in the royal charter that its president should be a communicant of the Episcopal Church and that proper selections from the liturgy of that church should be used in the religious services of the college. This caused much angry controversy, and after

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the Revolution it was stricken out of the charter, but remains as the condition of the deed of gift from Trinity Church. King's College played a conspicuous part in securing and confirming the independence of the United States. The Revolutionary War caused a suspension of the activities of the college, and in 1776 the college building was used as a military hospital. After eight years the college work was resumed by act of the legislature, 1 May 1784, under the name of Columbia College.

On 13 April 1787 the legislature revived the original charter with amendments, which abolished ex officio membership of its governing body, canceled the requirement that the president should hold a certain form of religious belief or that a certain form of prayer should be used in the services of the college, and named a body of 29 trustees, which, when reduced to 24 members, was made a self-perpetuating body, under which government the college has remained. The medical faculty was organized in 1792 and a professorship of law was established in 1793.

The original site of the college was in what became later the block bounded by College Place, Barclay, Church and Murray streets. In 1857 the college was moved to 49th and 50th streets and Madison avenue, where it remained until 1897. In 1892, for $2,000,000, purchase was made of 17% acres of land lying between 116th and 120th streets, Amsterdam avenue and the boulevard. Here in 1897 the college was reorganized on the basis of a university.

Columbia University, in a technical sense, consists of the faculty of law, the first professor of which (1792), James Kent, during the period of his second appointment in 1823 delivered the courses of lectures which developed into the first two volumes of his famous Commentaries'; the faculties of medicine; philosophy, political science; pure science and applied science. The College of Physicians and Surgeons, the outcome of the medical faculty, established in King's College in 1767, became in June 1860 the Medical College of Columbia. In 1891 it surrendered its separate charter and became an integral part of Columbia College. A peculiarity of the Columbia organization is the system by which seniors in Columbia College, who have entered the college not later than the beginning of the junior year, are allowed to select part or all of the courses necessary for the bachelor's degree from among those designated by the university faculties, professional or non-professional, as open to them. The object of this arrangement is to shorten the time necessary to the attainment of the higher, particularly of the professional, degrees. The degree of master of laws is conferred for advanced work in law done under the faculties of law and political science together. The faculties of law, medicine and applied science conduct respectively the schools of law, medicine and mines, chemistry, engineering and architecture, to which students are admitted as candidates for professional degrees on terms prescribed by the faculties concerned. The school of mines was due to the exertions of Thomas Egleston, who was made professor of mineralogy and metallurgy in 1864, and who opened the school of mines the same year in the basement of the old college building in 49th street. There is also the school of chemistry, engineering and architec

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ture, set off from the school of mines in 1896. Out of the school of mines grew the school of pure science, established in 1892. In 1912 a school of journalism was established and in 1916 a school of business. Under President Barnard's influence, in April 1889, the trustees gave their official approval to the plan for founding Barnard College for women studying for Columbia degrees. It is financially a separate corporation, but educationally it is part of the system of the university. Teachers' College, a professional school for teachers, is also financially a separate corporation and educationally a part of the university. It was founded in 1888, chartered in 1889 and included in the university in 1898. (See COLLEGES FOR TEACHERS). Some of these courses are accepted by Columbia University, and may be taken without extra charge, by students of the university in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degrees of Bachelor of Arts, Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy. In 191415 the university had a total of 11,876 resident students in all departments, 3,305 extension students and 1,833 special students in Teachers' College, and its library comprised 550,000 bound volumes. The library building is a gift from ex-President Low, and cost over $1,000,000.

The Presidents of the University have been: Samuel Johnson (1754-63); Myles Cooper (1763-75); the Rev. Benjamin Moore (177576); William S. Johnson (1787-1800); Charles H. Wharton (1801); the Rt. Rev. Benjamin M. Moore (1801-11); William Harris (1811-29); William A. Duer (1829-42); Nathaniel Moore (1842-49); Charles King (1849-64); Frederick A. P. Barnard (1864-89); Henry Drisler, acting (1889-90); Seth Low (1890-1901); and Nicholas Murray Butler (inaugurated 1902).

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MINES. See COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY. COLUMBIAN COLLEGE. WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY, THE

See GEORGE

series

COLUMBIAN FORMATION, a of gravels, sands and clays of Pleistocene Age covering the coastal plain of the Atlantic slope from New Jersey southward and typically developed in the District of Columbia. The formation in the north covers the plain up to elevations of 400 feet, and in the south up to 100 feet. It includes estuarine and delta deposits, and the fossils are recent marine and terrestrial species, indicating a very slight submergence and re-elevation of the coast. The formation may correspond to the Champlain stage of the glaciated portion of the_continent. CHAMPLAIN STAGE; GLACIAL PERIOD. COLUMBIAN UNIVERSITY. GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY, THE. COLUMBIAN WORLD'S FAIR. WORLD'S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION.

See

See

See

COLUMBIDÆ, kō-lum'bi-de, the family of true pigeons, the typical one of the order Columbæ, of which it embraces the bulk of the known species, more than 300 belonging to this family of true pigeons and doves. Over half of them are found in the Malayan and Austro-Malayan Archipelago, and 75 in South and Central America, while all other parts of the world, except the polar regions, have their representative species in

COLUMBIUM

smaller numbers. Although our native species give but a faint idea of the richness of color and other peculiarities of adornment of the tropical pigeons, the structural features are remarkably constant and well exemplified in the domestic pigeon. The bill is moderate and compressed, having at its base a soft skin in which the nostrils are placed. The feet have three divided toes before and one behind, all of which are on the same level; the tarsi scutellate. The wings are rather long and exceptionally powerful; the plumage generally compact and the feathers without aftershafts. One of the most variable features is the tail, which may be short and square or long and pointed, and its rectrices from 12 to 16. Although classed by Cuvier with the gallinaceous birds, the Columbida differ from them in structure and especially_in habits, being monogamous and good flyers. Besides they are unlike the domestic fowl which is the type of the Gallina, in that the males assist in nest-building and incubation and the young are not able to walk, and are nourished by the parent birds, which secrete in the double crop a milky fluid utilized to soften their food. Moreover the Columbide drink at a single draught. They eat seeds and berries, more rarely insects. See DOVE; PIGEON; etc.

COLUMBINE, a popular name for Aquilegia vulgaris or other species of the genus Aquilegia. The common columbine has drooping purplish-blue flowers with five flat sepals; five petals, with long spurs, often curved; five follicles; the root-leaves twice or thrice ternate, the others once ternate. Numerous species of the genus occur in North America. A. cærulea, the Rocky Mountain columbine, with very large, sky-blue flowers, the showiest plant of the genus, is the State flower of Colorado.

COLUMBITE, a mineral of variable composition, consisting of a compound niobate (columbate) and tantalate of iron and manganese. When niobium is present in large amount relatively to the tantalum, the mineral is called "columbite," and when the reverse is the case, it is called "tantalite"; the two minerals passing into each other, in nature, by insensible gradations. Typical columbite has a hardness of 6, and a specific gravity of from 5.4 to 5.8, the specific gravity increasing with the proportion of tantalum present. The crystals are short and prismatic, often tabular and belong to the orthorhombic system. The mineral is black or brownish-black in color and is often iridescent. In the United States columbite is known to occur in most of the States lying near the Appalachian Mountain system and also in Colorado, South Dakota and California. One crystalline mass of it, found in the Black Hills region, is said to have weighed about a ton. The existence of columbite in the United States was first made known through a specimen sent by Governor Winthrop of Connecticut to Sir Hans Sloane, president of the Royal Society of Great Britain.

COLUMBIUM, a metallic element, better known as niobium. It was discovered by Hatchett in 1801 and named columbium and rediscovered by H. Ross in 1846 who named it niobium. It is found in small quantities in various minerals; but principally in columbite and tantalite. Columbium has been found in various parts of the United States, Sweden,