FACTFINDER’S CROSSWORD

ACROSS

1 The Northern Lights (6,8) 9 A cowardly fellow (7) 10 A hydrocarbon gas, third member of the

methane series (7) 11 The insertion of a sound within a word (10) 12 Historic Irish county (945 sq miles; pop

530,000) (4) 14 A grave crime (6) 15 Very strong or urgent (8) 17 Not implied merely, but distinctly stated (8) 19 A safety device in motor cars (3,3) 22 University and port city in southern Ireland

(pop 125,000) (4) 23 West African country (397,850 sq miles;

independent since 1958 (10) 25 The shoulders of bastions (7) 26 Highly infectious, deadly disease (7) 27 A gigantic South American insect (8,6)

DOWN

1 The leader of the anti-union Country Party (1653 - 1716) (6,8) 2 Bertrand __ (1872 - 1970), mathematician, philosopher, etc, awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1950 (7) 3 Racket sport played with a solid ball in an enclosed court (4-6) 4 A burrowing animal of the otter and weasel family (6) 5 Strong currents flowing outwards from the shore (3,5) 6 River rising in North Lanarkshire, flowing 19 miles into the Firth of Forth (4) 7 An academic introduction to a subject (7) 8 Edinburgh-born author of The Wind in the

Willows (1908) (7,7) 13 A plant of the borage family with purple or

blue flowers (10) 16 Port city in southern Cyprus (pop about

185,000) (8) 18 The carriage of a boat or its cargo between

two navigable waters (7) 20 Tony__ (b 1926), US singer who has won 19

Grammy Awards (7) 21 A genus of flowering plants in the iris family

(6) 24 French slang word for a police officer (4)