FACTFINDER’S CROSSWORD

ACROSS

1 Irvine-born novelist (1779 - 1839) who wrote The Annals of the Parish (1821) (4,4) 5 Large city in Texas (pop about 1.7 million), incorporated in 1856 (6) 10 Battle in Lombardy (1859) where a French army defeated an Austrian one (9) 11 Old spelling for a female ruler in India (5) 12 Emit a feeling or sensation , etc (7) 13 A corroding substance (7) 14 A lamentation or a doleful story (8) 17 Intend something to happen (5) 19 A badger-like genus of Africa and India (5) 21 The 51st psalm in which mercy is sought (8) 24 The currency unit of Malaysia (7) 25 Cornelius __ (c55 -120), a Roman historian (7) 27 A violin or cello made by a family of makers

from Cremona (c1550 - 1700) (5) 28 A fictitious land of historical romance in

south-east Europe (9) 29 Venus as the evening star (6) 30 A drug used to relieve constipation (8)

DOWN

1 Fine hard porcelain (6) 2 A board game of 256 squares (5) 3 A cold north-east wind in the Mediterranean (7) 4 River rising in the Massif Central and flowing 629 miles into the Bay of Biscay (5) 6 Lanarkshire town (pop about 37,000), once a cotton mill centre (7) 7 Heavy four-engined bomber manufactured by Avro (9) 8 Shetland ponies and sheepdogs (8) 9 Dishes of meat and spiced rice wrapped in vine or cabbage leaves (8) 15 Citizens of country in eastern Europe (17,410 sq miles; pop 1.3 million), independent since 1991 ( 9) 16 Come before the natural time (8) 18 Sea port and resort on the east coast (pop about 24,000), created a royal burgh in 1599 (8) 20 A soft brownish coal (7) 22 Scale measuring the strength of earthquakes (7) 23 Small island (6 sq miles; pop about 1,000), off north-west France (6) 25 Erroneous term for a minute black insect,

common in flowers (5) 26 A metric unit of mass (5)