FACTFINDER’S CROSSWORD

ACROSS

1 Large settlement in the Inner Hebrides, with a community hospital (9) 6 James __ (1870 - 1950), Fife-born golfer who won the Open championship five times (1901, 05, 06, 08 and 10) (5) 9 Large island in southern Japan (466 sq miles; pop about 1.3 million) (7) 10 A wild verbena, thought to have medicinal powers (7) 11 River rising in Ethiopia and flowing 270 miles into the Pibor River (5) 12 Any of prized edible subterranean fungi (5-4) 13 Daniel __ (1734 - 1820), US pioneer, frontiersman and guide (5) 14 The pins or rods on which wheels turn

(4-5) 17 Of a yellowish colour (9) 19 The main character in C S Lewis’s Narnia

series (5) 21 Looper caterpillars (4-5) 24 Ezra __ (1885 - 1972), US poet and critic (5) 26 A pipe or hole through which water or gas can escape (7) 27 Bertrand __ (1872 - 1970), Welsh-born philosopher who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1950 (7) 28 Industrial city in the Ruhr with a 9th century cathedral (5) 29 A religious movement founded in the US in

1875 (9)

DOWN

1 Small town in the Highlands (pop 1,200), the site of what used to be the most northerly coalmine in the UK (5) 2 River rising in Venezuela and flowing about 1,600 miles into the Atlantic (7) 3 Small marine fish of the Callionymidae family (9) 4 Just about, or in the ballpark (2,7) 5 Slang term for a pickpocket (5) 6 A hardy forest tree (Betula) (5) 7 A mineral consisting of titanium oxide (7) 8 Julia __ (b 1948), writer who was the Children’s Laureate (2011 -2013) (9) 13 Large US city (pop about 600,000), founded in 1729 (9) 15 A large African plant (possibly the jujube), referred to in Homer’s Odyssey (5.4) 16 Members of a Cistercian order founded in 1892 (9) 18 Roman senator and historian (c55 - 120 AD), the son-in-law of Agricola (7) 20 Make a mess of (coll) (5,20 22 A good many, or a few (5) 23 Archaic term for the harbouring of a proscribed person (5) 25 Town in Ayrshire (pop about 4,000), once an important weaving centre (5)