RONDEBOSCH 



6692 



RONTGEN RAYS 



Rondebosch. Suburb of Cape 

 Town, S. Africa. It is 5 m. to the S. 

 of the city proper and ia a resi- 

 dential area. The buildings include 

 the town hall, and here ia Groote 

 Schuur (q.v.) See Cape Town. 



Rondel. Form of verse. Like 

 the rondeau, it originated in the 

 native French dance-song, and is 

 distinguished by the recurring 

 refrain. It consists of three groups 

 of lines, usually octosyllabic, with 

 but two rhymes. The first group 

 has four lines ; the second has 

 four, the last two of which are the 

 first two of the first group ; and 

 the third group has six lines, the 

 last two being the first two of the 

 first group. The formula is : ABba, 

 abAB, abbaAB (see Rhyme), 

 the capital letters representing the 

 lines which are repeated. The 

 rondel was largely superseded by 

 the rondeau. Andrew Lang and 

 Austin Dobson are successful ex- 

 ponents of this measure, as of many 

 other verse forms from old French 

 sources. See Poetry ; Verse. 



Rondo. Form of musical com- 

 position. In it the principal sub- 

 ject occurs not less than three 

 times and always in the tonic key. 

 Rondos are of two kinds : " old," 

 in which the appearances of the 

 subject are separated by episodes 

 in related keys ; " modern," in 

 which the place of the first and 

 third episodes is taken by a second 

 subject treated according to the 

 rules of Sonata form (q.v.). The 

 second episode may be retained, 

 or instead of it there may be a 

 development section. The term is 

 often given, loosely, to movements 

 of a light and gay character. 



Ronne. Seaport of Denmark, 

 capital of the island of Bornholm 

 (q.v.). It stands on the W. coast, 

 and is connected by cable with 

 Moen in Zealand, and by rly. with 

 Naxo on the E. coast. It has a 

 harbour, which has been artificially 

 deepened, and shipbuilding yards, 

 and manufactures pottery from the 

 kaolin found here. Pop. 10,000. 



Ronner, HENRIETTE (1821- 

 1909). Dutch painter. Born at 

 Amsterdam, May 31, 1821, the 

 daughter and 

 pupil of Jose- 

 phus Augustus 

 Knip, she was 

 a member of 

 the Rotterdam 

 Academy, but 

 resided mainly 

 at Brussels. 

 Her subjects 

 were domes- 

 tic animals, 

 principally 

 cats, which she painted with much 

 skill and humour. She died in 

 Brussels, March 3, 1909. 



Ronsard, PIERRE DE (1524-85). 

 French poet. Born at La Poisson- 

 niere, Vend6me, Sept, 11, 1524, 

 ugmt.~J hi 8 father was 

 Loys de Ron- 

 sard, who held 

 a position in 

 the household 

 of Francis I. 

 Pierre passed 

 a little time at 

 the college of 

 Navarre, in 

 Paris, before 

 he became a 

 page at court. He went to Scot- 

 land in the retinue of Mary of 

 Guise, 1538, remaining in that 

 country, and in England, three 

 years. After returning to France 

 he lived in court circles, but de- 

 voted much of his time to poetry. 

 Successive kings patronised him, 

 and he was on friendly terms with 

 Elizabeth of England, Mary Queen 

 of Scots, and other royal ladies. 

 About 1572, however, he retired to 

 the country, and Dec. 27, 1585, he 

 died at Tours. 



About 1549 Ronsard became 

 leader of La Pleiade (q.v.), the 

 object of which, as set forth in Du 

 Bellay's Deffense et Illustration de 

 la Langue Francoyse, was to enrich 

 the language of literature and to 

 revolutionise French poetry by 

 the imitation of the masterpieces 

 of classical antiquity. In accord- 

 ance with this programme, Ron- 

 Sard wrote Hymnes on the Homeric 

 model, Pindaric odes, and an un- 

 finished epic, La Franciade. These 

 experiments, however, have only 

 an historical interest. His real 

 qualities as a poet must be sought 

 in his sonnets and minor lyrics. 

 Unduly depreciated by the classi- 

 cal school, his poetic reputation 

 was championed by the Romantics. 

 See Works, with notes, by P. 

 Blanchemain, 1857-67 ; Songs and 

 Sonnets of Pierre de Ronsard, C. H. 



W. K. Rontgen, 

 German physicist 



Henrietta Ronnei. A Merry Party, one of the Dutch 

 painter's characteristic studies of cats 



By courtety of the Borough of Blackburn 



Page, 1903; Literature of the 

 French Renaissance, A. Tilley, 

 1904; Ronsard and the Pleiade, 

 George Wyndham, 1906; The 

 French Renaissance in England, 

 Sir Sidney Lee, 1910. 



Ronsdorf. Town of Germany, 

 in the Prussian Rhine prov. It 

 stands on the Morsbach, about 20 

 m. E. of Diisseldorf, and has iron 

 and steel works. Pop. 15,000. 



Ronssoy. Village of France, in 

 the dept. of Somme. It is 4 m. 

 N.E. of Roisel (q.v.). A key 

 position, situated on high ground, 

 it was taken from the British by 

 the Germans in March, 1918, but 

 recaptured by the British 18th div., 

 Sept. 18-19, 1918. There is a war 

 cemetery here. See Somme, 

 Battles of the. 



Rontgen, WILHELM KONRAD 

 (1845-1923). German physicist. B. 

 at Lennep, in the Prussian Rhine 

 prov., March 

 27, 1845, and 

 educated at 

 Zurich Uni- 

 versity, he be- 

 came professor 

 successively at 

 Hohenheim, 

 1875; Stras- 

 bourg, 1876; 

 Giessen, 1879; 

 and W ii r z- 

 burg, 1885. In Nov., 1895, he an- 

 nounced the discovery of the rays 

 which bear his name, in 1899 he 

 was appointed professor of experi- 

 mental physics at Munich, and in 

 1901 he received the Nobel prize 

 for physics. Rontgen was awarded 

 the Rumford medal of the Royal 

 Society and the Barnard medal of 

 Columbia University for his dis- 

 covery of the Rontgen or X-rays, 

 He wrote numerous scientific 

 papers on them, as well as on other 

 branches of physics, and carried 

 out valuable research work on 

 the conductivity of heat of crystals, 

 magnetic rotation 

 of polarised light, 

 absorption of 

 j&'~\ heat of gases, 

 etc. He died 

 >''- on Feb. 10, 1923. 

 ! See X - R a y s. 

 Pron. Runtghen. 

 RontgenRays. 

 Phenomena 

 which occur when 

 an electric charge 

 passes through a 

 highly rarefied 

 vacuum, e.g. a 

 Crookes tube. In 

 such circu in- 

 stances emana- 

 tions pass from 

 the negative elec- 

 trode or across 

 the vacuum to 



