RENI 



RENNIE 



647 



well supplied with roads and railways, and has 

 two considerable ports Greenock and Port-Glas- 

 gow. It is divided for administrative purposes 

 into two wards, Upper and Lower, with gheritt'- 

 substitutes at Paisley and Greenock. There are 

 two parliamentary divisions, eastern and western, 

 ach returning one member. Till 1889 part of the 

 outhern suburbs of Glasgow was reckoned within 

 the county. The chief towns, besides those men- 

 tioned, are Renfrew, the county town and only 

 royal burgh, Pollokshaws, Johnstone, and Barr- 

 head. Renfrewshire, or at least the western por- 

 tion, was anciently called Strathgryfe, and it was 

 the chief patrimony of the house of Stewart. In 

 1404, not long after the accession of that family to 

 the crown, the title of Baron of Renfrew (still 

 borne by the Prince of Wales) was conferred by 

 Robert III. on his son James ; and about the same 

 time Renfrew was disjoined from the sheriffdom of 

 Lanark and made a separate county. 



See Crawford's History of the Shire of Renfrew (1716), 

 and Hiitorieal Collection* of the County (Paisley, 1885; 

 not completed ). 



Rent, a town of Bessarabia, at the confluence 

 of the Pruth and the Danube. Pop. 6000. 



Rent. GUIDO. See GUIDO. 



Reillliark, an irrigation settlement on the 

 Murray, 135 miles ENE. of Adelaide, engaged in 

 grape-growing and other fruit-culture. Pop. 800. 



Rennell. JAMES, geographer, was born near 

 Chudleigh, in Devonshire, 3d December 1742, and 

 served first in the navy and then as an officer 

 of engineers in the East India Company's army, 

 rising to be major. As surveyor-general of Bengal 

 lie prepared a Chart of the Banks and Currents at 

 the Lagulhas (1778) ; and, having retired (1782), he 

 wrote various works on India, including Memoirt 

 of a Map of Hindustan (1783). In 1788 lie was 

 elected an F.R.S., in 1792 published a Memoir of 

 the Geography of Africa, and in 1798 he aided 

 Mungo 1'ark in the arrangement of his travels, illus- 

 trating them by a map. Perhaps his most famous 

 work was his Geographical Si/stem of Herodotus 

 Examined and Explained ( 1800). In 1814 appeared 

 his Topography of the Plain of Troy, and in 1816 

 Illustrations of the Expedition of Cyrus. After his 

 death at London on the 29th March 1830 there 

 were published An Investigation of the Atlantic 

 Currents and those between the Atlantic, mid Indian 

 Ocean* (1832) and The Comparative Geography of 

 Western Asia (1831). See the monograph on him 

 ty Clements Markham (1895). 



Rcnnes (the Condate of the Redones), the 

 capital formerly of the province of llrittany, and 

 now of the department of Ille-et-Vilaine, is situ- 

 ated at the confluence of those two rivers, 234 

 miles WSW. of Paris and 51 SSE. of St Malo. 

 A seven days' fire in 1720 destroyed nearly 4000 

 houses, and the ancient walls have been superseded 

 by pleasant promenades, so that the place wears 

 a modern aspect. Four bridges connect the upper 

 nr new town and the lower or old town, and the 

 most noteworthy of the public buildings are the 

 cathedral, finished in 1844, and Italian in style ; 

 Notre Dame, with its dome surmounted by a huge 

 image of the Virgin ; the archbishop's |>;< 

 (1672); the stately Palais de Justice (1618-54); 

 the university buildings (1855), with a picture- 

 gallery; the theatre (1835); the H&tel de Ville, 

 with a public library ; and the Lycee. As the 

 focus of main and branch lines of railway between 

 Paris and the north-west of France, and command- 

 ing good river and canal navigation, Rennes is 

 favourably situated for commerce ; and, in addition 

 to the transport of the abundant farm-produce of 

 the neighlMMiring districts, it carries on a consider- 

 able trade in its own manufactures, which include 



sail-cloth, table-linen, <Src. Pop. (1872) 48,658; 

 ( 1886) 62,482 ; ( 1891 ) 65,102. There is a standard 

 history by Ducrest and Villeneuve. 



Rennet ( A.S. rinnan, rennan, ' to run ') consists 

 of the inner lining of the true stomach (see DIGES- 

 TION) of the sucking-calf. It contains a ferment 

 which causes milk to clot (see MILK), called the 

 inilk-curdling-ferment. The rennet is used in the 

 manufacture of clieese, and to a less extent in the 

 preparation of curds and whey or junket. It i* pre- 

 pared by removing the stomach from the calf as soon 

 as it has been killed, and separating oft' the lining 

 membrane of the stomach. It is then salted mid 

 dried, and will keep for some time in that condition. 

 When used, a small piece of the rennet, in which tlie 

 ferment is still quite active, is softened in water and 

 added to the milk which is to be curdled. For many 

 years past the milk-curdling-ferment has been 

 obtained from rennet in the form of an extract. 

 It is soluble in salt and water, and is extracted 

 from the fresh rennet of the calf, and kept from 

 putrefying by the addition of alcohol. Extracts 

 of rennet thus prepared are extensively used, and 

 may be had at the druggists' stores. 



Rennet. See APPLE. 



Rennie, JOHN, civil engineer, was born at 

 the farm of Phantassie, near East Lintou, East 

 Lothian, 7th June 1761. After being for some 

 time a workman in the employment of Andrew 

 Meikle, inventor of a Thrashing-mill (q.v. ), he 

 attended the lectures of Robison and Black at 

 Edinburgh University. He visited (1784) the 

 works of Messrs Boulton and Watt at Soho, near 

 Birmingham, and was immediately taken into em- 

 ployment by that eminent firm. Here his mechani- 

 cal genius soon displayed itself; and so highly did 

 Watt exteem Rennie that he gave him, in 1789, 

 the sole direction of the construction and fitting- 

 up of the machinery of the Albion Mills, London ; 

 and the ingenious improvements effected in the 

 connecting wheel- work were so striking that Rennie 

 at once rose into general notice, and abundance <jf 

 mill-work now flowed in upon him. To this branch 

 of engineering he added, about 1799, the construc- 

 tion of bridges, in which his pre-eminent talent and 

 ingenuity displayed themselves. The chief of his 

 bridges \\ere those of Kelso (1803), Leeds, Mussel- 

 burgh, Newton-Stewart, Boston, and New Gallo- 

 way, with the Waterloo Bridge over the Thames, 

 which was commenced in 1811, and finished in less 

 than six vears, at a cost of more than 1,050,000 

 (see Vol. II. pp. 437-8). Another of his works is 

 Suiithwark Bndge ; he also drew the plan for the 

 London Bridge, which, however, was not com- 

 menced till after his death. He superintended 

 the execution of the Grand Western Canal in 

 Somerset, the Polbrook Canal in Cornwall, the 

 canal between Arundel and Portsmouth, arid, chief 

 of all, the Kennet and Avon Canal between New- 

 bnry and Bath ; lie also drained a large tract of 

 marsh land in the Lincoln Fens. (The Bell Rock 

 1 ighthouse was al most wholly the work of Stevenson. ) 

 The London Docks, the East and West India 

 Docks at Blackwall, the Hull Docks, the Prince's 

 Dock at Liverpool, and those of Dublin, Greenock, 

 and Leith were all designed by him, and wholly or 

 partially executed under his superintendence. He 

 also planned many improvements on harbours and 

 on the dockyards of Portsmouth, Chatham, Sheer- 

 ness, and Plymouth ; executing at the last-men- 

 tioned port the most remarkable of all his naval 

 works, the celebrated Breakwater (q.v.). He 

 also made great improvements in the diving- 

 bell. He died October 4, 1821, and was buried m 

 St Paul's Cathedral. A striking characteristic of 

 his works is the remarkable combination in them 

 of beauty and durability ; and though they were 



