umbered with ice and blocks of rock and the rock face a
literally vertical cliff "much riven, its fracture planes outlining
sharp angular masses in all stages of displacement and dislodgment."
Judging from these facts, he interprets the deep valleys with cirques at
their head in formerly glaciated regions where at the head there is a
"reversed grade" of slope, as due to ice-erosion at valley-heads where
scour is impossible at the sides of the mountain but strongest under the
glacier head where the ice is deepest. The opponents of ice-erosion
nevertheless recognize the very frequent occurrence of glacial cirques
often containing small lakes such as that under Cader Idris in Wales, or
at the head of Little Timber Creek, Montana, and numerous examples in
Alpine districts.

CIRTA (mod. _Constantine_, q.v.), an ancient city of Numidia, in Africa,
in the country of the Massyli. It was regarded by the Romans as the
strongest position in Numidia, and was made by them the converging point
of all their great military roads in that country. By the early emperors
it was allowed to fall into decay, but was afterwards restored by
Constantine, from whom it took its modern name.

CISSEY, ERNEST LOUIS OCTAVE COURTOT DE (1810-1882), French general, was
born at Paris on the 23rd of September 1810, and after passing through
St Cyr, entered the army in 1832, becoming captain in 1839. He saw
active service in Algeria, and became _chef d'escadron_ in 1849 and
lieutenant-colonel in 1850. He took part as a colonel in the Crimean
War, and after the battle of Inkerman received the rank of general of
brigade. In 1863 he was promoted general of division. When the
Franco-German War broke out in 1870, de Cissey was given a divisional
command in the Army of the Rhine, and he was included in the surrender
of Bazaine's army at Metz. He was released from captivity only at the
end of the war, and on his return was at once appointed by the
Versailles government to a command in the army engaged in the
suppression of the Commune, a task in the execution of which he
displayed great rigour. From July 1871 de Cissey sat as a deputy, and he
had already become minister of war. He occupied this post several times
during the critical period of the reorganization of the French army. In
1880, whilst holding the command of the XI. corps at Nantes, he was
accused of having relations with a certain Baroness Kaula, who was said
to be a spy in the pay of Germ