ROTTI 



ROUEN 



823 



metals, grain (wheat, rye, oats, maize), coal, oil 

 (petroleum chiefly ), seeds, tallow and similar greasy 

 substances, sugar, rice, tobacco, hides, indigo, &c. ; 

 whilst the more important exports are linen, flax, 

 butter, cheese, cattle, and spirits (gin, &c.). From 

 this port there sail every year between 5200 (1885) 

 and 15,200 (1889) emigrants from various parts of 

 Europe, most of whom go to the United States. 

 There are flourishing industries, as iron and other 

 metal works, shipbuilding, distilling, sugar-refining, 

 and the manufacture of tobacco, chemicals, &c. 



The town is intersected by canals, which com- 

 municate with the Maas, whilst their banks serve 

 as wharves. On the south side of the river, oppo- 

 site the city proper, are the busy ironworks and 

 shipbuilding-yards of the island of Fijenoord, be- 

 sides some of the largest docks. This island is 

 connected with the other bank by two lofty bridges 

 ( one a railway bridge ). In the city the more import- 

 ant buildings are the Gothic church of St Lawrence 

 (15th century), with a very large organ, the monu- 

 mental tombs of the Dutch admirals Witt, Cor- 

 tenaer, Van Brakel, Van Liefde, and others, and a 

 lofty tower (295 feet high) ; the Boymans Museum 

 ( 1847 ), with a fine collection of paintings by Dutch 

 masters ; the yacht club-house, containing an eth- 

 nological collection ; the town-house, exchange, 

 and similar public buildings. The public institu- 

 tions include an academy of art and science ( nearly 

 1100 pupils), schools of music, navigation, and the 

 technical arts, and an excellent zoological garden 

 Pop. ( 1890)203,472, with which compare the figures 

 for earlier years 72,300 in 1830, and 104,724 in 

 1858. Rotterdam counts as her most illustrious 

 sons Erasmus and the poet Tollens ; James, Duke 

 of Momnouth, and Grinling Gibbons, the English 

 wood-carver, were also born here. The history of 

 the place is marked by very few notable events, 

 except its capture by Francis of Brederode in 1488, 

 who lost it to the Austrians in the following year, 

 and the occupation by the Spaniards in 1572. 



Rotti, an island in the Indian Archipelago, 

 belonging to the Dutch, lies to the south-west of 

 Timor. It is 36 miles in length (655 sq. m.), and 

 has a pop. of 60,000. The surface, though hilly, is 

 nowhere more than 800 feet above the sea, and 

 the fertile soil produces a rich vegetation. 



Rottlera, a genus of trees of the natural order 

 Euphorbiacere, found in India and other parts of 

 tropical Asia. The most important species is 

 Rottlera tiiictoria (Roxburgh), subsequently called 

 by Miiller Mallotus philippinensis. It is a small 

 tree, the wood of which is only fit for fuel, but its 

 bark is employed for tanning, and the crimson 

 powder which covers the ripe fruit is used for dye- 

 ing silk, and also as a purgative and anthelmintic. 

 The R. tetracocca and R. peltata of Roxburgh have 

 also been included in the genus Mallotus by Miiller 

 under the names M. albus and M. roxburghianus. 



Rottweil, a town of Wiirtemberg, on the 

 Neckar, 68 miles by rail S. by W. of Stuttgart, 

 has manufactures of gunpowder and silk and cotton 

 fabrics, and railway workshops. Near by, on the 

 site of an ancient Roman colony, a number of 

 antiquities, including a valuable piece of mosaic 

 work, have been discovered. Pop 6052. 



Rotnmah, an island in the south Pacific, 

 annexed to the Fiji Islands by Great Britain in 

 1881, is distant about 300 miles NNW. from the 

 nearest island of that group, of which it is a 

 dependency. Area, 14 sq. m. ; pop. 2300, all 

 Christians. 



Rotlirier (according to Littr6 from ruptura, 

 Low Latin for ground broken by the plough ), under 

 feudalism, when the feudal theory of knight's- 

 service was recognised as the only principle of 

 gontle tenure, one who continued to hold by the 



older or allodial tenure, and was accordingly re- 

 garded as ignoble. See FEUDALISM, ALLODIUM. 



Roubaix, a town in the north of France (dent 

 Nord), 6 miles by rail NE. of Lille. It rose into 

 importance during the 19th century. Here cloth 

 for men's clothing, shawls, stutts for furniture and 

 ladies dresses, velvet and similar textiles, chiefly 

 of wool, cotton, and silk, are manufactured to the 

 annual value of 16,000,000. Besides these things, 

 thread, sugar, beer, spirits, machinery, &c. are 

 produced, and there is a very active trade in these 

 manufactured goods. Pop. (1810) 9000* (1876) 

 74,946; (1891) 105,191. 



Roubillac, LOUIS-FRANCOIS, sculptor was 

 born at Lyons in 1695, studied mainly at Paris 

 where m 1730 he obtained the second Grand Prix, 

 and shortly thereafter settled in London. In Eng- 

 land he spelt his name Roubiliac. He visited 

 Rome m 1745. His statue of Handel for Vauxhall 

 Gardens in 1738 first made him popular. His other 

 most famous statues are those of Shakespeare 

 (executed for Garrick, and now in the British 

 Museum ), of Sir Isaac Newton at Cambridge, and 

 another of Handel in Westminster Abbey. The 

 monuments of the Duke of Argyll and of General 

 \V ade in the Abbey are also well known. He con- 

 tributed greatly to the improvement of British 

 taste in sculpture, though his own work is by no 

 means so perfect as his contemporaries imagined ; 

 he has been called ' an exquisite executant but poor 

 designer.' He died in London, llth January 1762. 

 See the Life by Le Roy de Sainte Croix ( Paris, 1882 ) ; 

 A. Dobson in Eighteenth Century Vignettes (1894). 

 Rouble, the unit of the Russian money system, 

 first cut from silver bars in 1321, and coined in 1655. 

 There are now gold imperials and half-imperials 

 of 10 and 5 roubles. But most of the currency 

 is paper, and the ratio of the gold rouble to the 

 paper rouble was in 1896 fixed at 14 to 1. In '1897 

 imperials and half-imperials were coined of 15 and 

 74 roubles (i.e. paper roubles). The silver rouble 

 is nominally worth 3s. 2d. But when silver is at 

 26d. per oz., it is really worth Is. 4Jd. ; at 30d. per 

 oz. Is. 6}d. In 1888 silver was 42jd. ; in 1890 

 47jd. ; in 1894, 29d. ; in 1898, 26|d. The rouble is 

 divided into 100 kopeks. 



Rouen (Lat. Rotomagus), formerly the capital 

 of Normandy, and now the chief town of the 

 department of Seine-Inferieure, and after Lyons 

 perhaps the principal manufacturing city of 

 France, is situated on the right bank of the 

 Seine, 87 miles NW. of Paris by railway. The 

 ramparts have been converted into spacious 

 boulevards, little inferior to those of Paris. The 

 modern streets are well and regularly built, with 

 good stone houses ; but a considerable part of old 

 Rouen still remains, consisting of ill-built pictur- 

 esque streets and squares, with tall, narrow, 

 quaintly carved, wood-framed and gabled houses. 

 The Seine, upwards of 300 yards broad, makes 

 Rouen, although 80 miles from the sea, the fourth 

 shipping port of France ; and extensive operations, 

 in the way of deepening the river and building 

 quays, are yearly adding to its capacity and 

 importance, no less than 710,000 having been 

 expended on the port between 1831 and 1887. 



por 



A stone bridge and a suspension bridge lead 

 to the Faubourg St Sever on the left bank. 

 Rouen possesses several remarkably beautiful 

 Gothic churches in particular the cathedral (13th 

 century onwards), St Ouen (14th-15th century; 

 perhaps the best specimen of Gothic in existence), 

 and St Maclou (florid style of the end of the 15th 

 century). The cathedra], the seat of an arch- 

 bishop, begun by Philippe Auguste, has a very 

 rich west facade, and two fine though unfinished 

 1 west towers the south one (Tour de Beurre) 



