Alma Mater, and, after successively filling the chairs of
history, poetry and oratory, was appointed ordinary professor of
theology in 1741. Finally he died, as chancellor of Tubingen University,
on the 31st of December 1779. His learning was at once wide and
accurate; his theological views were orthodox, although he did not
believe in strict verbal inspiration. He was a voluminous writer. His
chief works are his edition of Johann Gerhard's _Loci Theologici_
(1762-1777), and the _Kirchenhistorie des Neuen Testaments_ (1768-1773).

COTTA, BERNHARD VON (1808-1879), German geologist, was born in a
forester's lodge near Eisenach, on the 24th of October 1808. He was
educated at Freiberg and Heidelberg and from 1842 to 1874 he held the
professorship of geology in the Bergakademie of Freiberg. Botany at
first attracted him, and he was one of the earliest to use the
microscope in determining the structure of fossil plants. Later on he
gave his attention to practical geology, to the study of ore-deposits,
of rocks and metamorphism; and he was regarded as an excellent teacher.
His _Rocks classified and described: a Treatise on Lithology_
(translated by P. H. Lawrence, 1866) was the first comprehensive work on
the subject issued in the English language, and it gave great impetus to
the study of rocks in Britain. He died at Freiberg on the 14th of
September 1879.

PUBLICATIONS.--_Geognostische Wanderungen_ (1836-1838); _Grundriss der
Geognosie und Geologie_ (1846); _Geologische Briefe aus den Alpen_
(1850); _Praktische Geologie_ (1852); _Geologische Bilder_ (1852, ed.
4, 1861); _Die Gesteinslehre_ (1855, ed. 2, 1862).

COTTA, GAIUS AURELIUS (c. 124-73 B.C.), Roman statesman and orator. In
92 he defended his uncle P. Rutilius Rufus, who had been unjustly
accused of extortion in Asia. He was on intimate terms with the tribune
M. Livius Drusus, who was murdered in 91, and in the same year was an
unsuccessful candidate for the tribunate. Shortly afterwards he was
prosecuted under the _lex Varia_, directed against all who had in any
way supported the Italians against Rome, and, in order to avoid
condemnation, went into voluntary exile. He did not return till 82,
during the dictatorship of Sulla. In 75 he was consul, and excited the
hostility of the optimates by carrying a law that abolished the Sullan
disqualification of the tribunes from holding higher magistracies;
another law _de judiciis privatis_, of which not