ROTIFKKA 



ROTTERDAM 



SOLOMON (1774-1850) established a branch at 

 Vienna; NATHAN MEYER (1777-1838), a branch 

 in 1798 at London ; CHARLES ( 1788-1855), a branch 

 at Naples (discontinued about 1861); and JAMES 

 (1703-1868), a branch at Paris. Apart from their 

 rery extensive private banking; DMteM these 

 houses have been deeply concerned in negotiating 

 many of the large government loans of the 19th 

 century. The cleverest man of thr live was Nathan. 

 who really lifted the house into ito position u- 

 amongst the banking-houses of the world. Ho 

 pinned his faith and staked his fortunes on the 

 success of Britain in her great duel with Napoleon, 

 and is said to have been present himself at the 

 battle of Waterloo, from which he hastened home 

 to London, where, before the result of the battle 

 became known, he had sold and bought stock that 

 brought him one million sterling clear profit. He 

 was succeeded by his son LIONEL (1808-79), who 

 distinguished himself by his efforts to effect the 

 rivil and political emancipation of the Jews in 

 Great Britain. The present head of the London 

 branch is Lionel's son, SIR NATHAN (born 1840), 

 who succeeded to the baronetcy conferred in 1847 

 on his uncle Anthony. He was raised to the 

 peerage as Baron Rothschild in 1885. His niece 

 Hannah ( 1851-90) was in 1878 married to the Karl 

 of Roseberv. See Reeves, The Rotttscfiiids (1887), 

 and Das Units Ruthschtid ( Prague, 1857 ). 



Rotifera. See ROTATORIA. 

 Rotomahana. See NEW ZEALAND, p. 487. 



Idit roil. JEAN DE, a French tragic poet, second 

 only to his friend and contemijorary 

 Corneille, was born at Dreux, August 

 21, 1609, went early to Paris, and 

 became a busy playwright, as well aa 

 one of the five pocte the others 

 were Corneille, Colfetet, Bois- Robert, 

 and L'Etoile who worked up into 

 dramatic form the ideas of Richelieu. 

 His first piece, L'Hypocondriaque, 

 was followed by La Hague del'Oiibli, 

 imitated from Lope de Vega, and 

 that by Cleagtnor et Doristee, Diane, 

 Let Occasions Perdue*, L'lleurciise 

 Constance, all in the Spanish roman- 

 tic style. Next followed a busy 

 period of classical influence, culmin- 

 ating in his la-t years with three 

 masterpieces, Le Vtrtiable Saint 

 Genest, a tragedy of Christian martyr- 

 dom under Diocletian ; Don Bert- 

 rand, a capital comedy ; and I'rnret- 

 las, which kept the* stage almost down to our 

 own day. Tradition tells that Rotrou led a 

 dissipated life in Paris, and further was inordin- 

 ately addicted to gambling ; more honourable is 

 the 'authentic history of his death. He held an 

 official post at Dreux, and when he heard that the 



Qne had broken out there, and that the max or 

 fled like Montaigne in the same cironmstant .- 

 from Bordeaux, he hastened to the town to preserve 

 order, caught the pestilence, and died a few hours 

 after, June 28, 1650. 



A* many u thirty-five of his ply are still extant, hut 

 many more are l<Mt. A complete edition was edited by 

 Viollet-le-Duo (5 roll. 1820-22) ; six of the playm, by M. 

 de Konohaud (2 volm. 1882). See Jarr/i Kaai (18W), 

 the work* by Perron on Sainl-Otnest (1882) and Vtncttlat 

 .lK*2i, and O. Steffcnn, Rotrou-Studien (i. 1891). 



Kol t <!! hurt;, an episcopal town in Wurtem- 

 idle, S\V. of Tubingen, on the Neckar, has 

 .in old castle, now a prison, and a cathedral, and 

 trade in ho|w and timW. Pop. 7310. 



INil tciistoilr. a soft and earthy stone, consist 

 ing chiefly of alumina, with almut 10 per cent, of 

 carbonaceous matter and a little silica. It is sup- 



posed to be formed by decomposition of shale or 



siliceous limestone. It is found in Derbyshire, 

 England, in Wales, and near Albany, in the state .ii 

 New York. It is brown either grayish, reddish, or 

 blackish. It i- soft and easily scraped to powder, 

 and is well known to housewives, l>eing much used 

 for cleaning and polishing brass and other metals. 



Rotterdam, the busiest [Mir! of Holland, 

 stands on lioth sides of the Maas, 19 miles from its 

 mouth, and 16 miles by rail SK. of the Hague and 

 4.") S\V. of Amsterdam. Since Holland was separ- 

 ated from Btifhun, the trade of Rotterdam has 

 grown at an extraordinarily rapid rate, especially 

 since the middle of the century. New wlmi 

 ami quays and new docks have been built almost 

 every vear since 1847. In isss the quays measured 

 15 miles in length and the docks covered an area 

 of 190 acres ; and since then two new docks have 

 been made and the (separate) petroleum wharves 

 have been extended. Since 187'-J sea-going vessels 

 have ceased to approach Rotterdam by the old 

 channel of Brill ( llrielle) : tliev have used instead 

 the New Waterway i.e. the Maas and the Scheur, 

 the latter of which has been connected with the 

 sea by a canal cut through the Point (Hock) of 

 Holland. Every effort has been made to render 

 this new waterway available for large ocean-going 

 steamers, ami the work of improvement has been 

 constantly going on ever since it was opened, until 

 in 1890 it had a depth never less than 22 feet at low 

 tide, and big ships were able to reach the sea in t wo 

 hours from Rotterdam. Taking all the vessels that 

 enter all the ports of Holland from abroad, more 



than 53 per cent, (estimating by tonnage) enter at 

 Rotterdam. The net tonnage of the ve--e]s ( which 

 numbered 4535 in 1890) so entering doubled 

 between 1875 and 1890, and was in the latter 

 quoted year eight times what it was in 1S50 -viz. 

 2,918,425 tons in 1890 as against 1,411,828 in 1875, 

 and 346,186 in 1850. To this foreign trade must 

 lie added 84 per cent, of the total trade Ix-tween 

 ( lei-many and Holland by way of the river Rhine, 

 or (in 1890) some 2,582,800 tons, and a trallic of 

 6,850,000 tons carried on on the inland canals ami 

 streams. If all these items IK- put together the total 

 tonnage of vessels entering Rotterdam amounts to 

 nearly I2| million tons, a figure that is only ex- 

 ceeded by London amongst European ports, lint, 

 on the other hand, it must be remembered that the 

 hulk of the inland trallic would in other countries be 

 counted amongst the statistics of goods brought by 

 railway. The figures quoted do not include the 

 returns of the fishing fleet, which sells in liotterdam 

 fish (chiefly herring, rod, &c. ) to the value of 20, (XK) 

 per annum. The merchant fleet of Rotterdam itself 

 numliered, in 1H99, 1.50 vessels of about :tli<i,iKHi tons. 

 The import* consist principally of mineral ores and 



