CORPUS CHRISTI  , a

city and the county-seat of Nueces county, Texas, U.S.A., situated on Corpus Christi Bay opposite the mouth of the Nueces river, 192 M . W.S.W. of Galveston and about 150 M . S.S.E. of San Antonio . Pop . (189o) 4387; (1900) 4703, including 963 foreign-born and 46o negroes; (191o) 8299 . It is served by the National of Mexico, the St Louis, Brownsville & Mexico, and the San Antonio & Aransas Pass railways . In 1908 the Federal government began work on a project to connect Corpus Christi harbour with Aransas Pass by a channel 82 ft. deep at low water and 75 ft. wide at the bottom, following a natural depression between the two bays . Corpus Christi is a summer and winter resort, with a very dry equable climate (average annual mean, 70.2° F.) and good bathing on the horse-shoe beach of Corpus Christi Bay . The city has an extensive coasting trade, and exports fruit, early vegetables, fish and oysters . There was a small Spanish settlement here at an early date, but no American settlement was made until after the Mexican War . Corpus Christi was the base from which General Zachary Taylor made his forward movement to the Rio Grande in 1846 . It was chartered as a city in 1876 .