ROQUEFORT 



6699 



RORQUAL 



Rorke's Drift. The Defence of Rorke's Driit. From the painting by Lady Elizabeth Butler, depicting the heroic stand 

 of the small British garrison against the attack of about 4,000 Zulus, Jan. 22, 1879 



By courtesy of the Fine Art Society 



2,177 ft. Ropeway cables are kept 

 lubricated by passing through 

 tanks of oil at the stations ; or, if 

 fixed, by means of travelling cars 

 which distribute oil automatically. 

 Roquefort. Village of France, in 

 the dept. of Aveyron. It stands on 

 a height, 1,970 ft., among the lime- 

 stone Causses,44 m. N. W. of Beziers. 

 It is famous for its cheeses of sheep 

 and goats' milk, about 9,000 tons 

 of which are produced annually. 

 Roquefort cheese has been con- 

 sidered a delicacy since the days 

 of Pliny. Pop. 1,200. 



Roques, PIERRE AUGUSTE (1857- 

 1920). French soldier. He entered 

 the Ecole Polytechnique in 1875, 

 and spent 

 many years 

 on active 

 service in 

 Algeria, Tong- 

 king, and Da- 

 home. From 

 1897 to 1906 

 he was en- 

 gaged in ex- 

 tensive en- 

 gineering work 

 in Madagascar, then succeeded 

 J off re in the direction of the 

 Engineers, and in 1909 became 

 director of aeronautics. During 

 the first years of the Great War 

 he held a command in the East, 

 was for a brief period minister of 

 war, and later was in charge of 

 important military missions. He 

 died at Saint Cloud, Feb. 26, 1920. 

 Roraima. ' Mountain in the 

 S.E. of Venezuela, on the borders 

 of British Guiana and Brazil. Of 

 tabular form, the upper part rises 

 in precipices from 1,600 ft. to 

 3,000 ft. alt. There are numerous 



waterfalls, some descending nearly 

 2,000 ft. Of its several peaks the 

 loftiest reaches an elevation of 

 8,625 ft. Several rivers tributary 

 to the Essequibo, Amazon, and 

 Orinoco flow from it. 



Roraima. 



nountain of British Guiana 



Rorke, KATE (b. 1866). British 

 actress. Born in London, Feb. 22, 

 1866, of an old theatrical family, 

 she first ap- 

 peared at the 

 Court Theatre, 

 London, 1878, 

 and after her 

 performance in 

 T. W. Robert- 

 son's School, 

 1880, became a 

 popular player 

 of comedy 

 parts, being 

 frequently associated with Sir 

 Charles Wyndham. From 1889 she 

 played leading parts with Sir John 

 Hare, and in 1904 appeared in the 

 title-role of G. B. Shaw's Candida. 

 In 1906 she became professor of 

 dramatic art at the Guildhall 

 School of Music. 



Rorke's Drift. Place on the 

 Tugela river, Natal, S. Africa. It 

 is 23 m. from Dundee and is famous 

 for the stand made by a few British 

 soldiers against a Zulu army, Jan. 

 22, 1879. After the disaster at 

 Isandhlwana, the 

 , small garrison 

 here was attacked 

 by about 4,000 

 Zulus. Under 

 Lieuts. Chard and 

 Bromhead, 80 men 

 of the S. Wales 

 Borderers, of 

 whom about one- 

 half were in hos- 

 pital, beat back re- 

 peated attacks of 

 the enemy, who 

 finally withdrew. 

 The British loss 

 was 17 killed and 

 See Isandhlwana ; 



Kate Rorke, 

 British actress 



10 wounded. 

 Zulu Wars. 



Rorqual (Balaenoptera). Small 

 genus of toothless whales. In them 

 the teeth of the cachalots and 

 dolphins are replaced by fringed 

 plates of baleen or " whale-bone," 

 for straining off the small fish, 

 crustaceans, and molluscs, upon 

 which they feed. Of these plates 

 there are more than 300 on each 

 side of the upper jaw. Rorquals are 

 of more slender form than some of 

 the whales ; the head is small 

 compared with that of the sperm 

 whales, and there is a dorsal fin. 



The floor of the mouth and the 

 throat are thrown into longitudinal 

 folds, allowing of considerable 

 distension when feeding. The 

 females exceed the males in size. 

 Four species are found around the 

 British Isles, of which the common 



