HINDENBURG 



2798 



HIPPARCHUS 



to the Assembly in 1841, and in the following 

 year was appointed inspector-general of finance, 

 a position which he held until 1843. He con- 

 tinued to sit in the Assembly, and from 1848 

 to 1851 was again inspector-general in the 

 Baldwin-Lafontaine ministry. On the resigna- 

 tion of Baldwin and Lafontaine, Hincks formed 

 a ministry with A. N. Morin as joint Premier. 

 While Premier he conducted the negotiations 

 for the construction of the Grand Trunk Rail- 

 way, and together with Lord Elgin negotiated 

 the reciprocity treaty of 1854 with the United 

 States (see ELGIN, JAMES BRUCE, EIGHTH EARL 

 OF). His failure to secularize the clergy re- 

 serves, however, led to the defeat of the min- 

 istry in the same year. 



From 1855 to 1861 he was governor of Bar- 

 bados and the Windward Islands, and then for 

 seven years was governor of British Guiana. 

 In 1869 he was knighted, and returning to 

 Canada, was, until 1873, Minister of Finance in 

 Sir John A. Macdonald's Cabinet. All his life 

 Hincks' reputation suffered from his inability 

 to get a calm view of opinions contrary to his, 

 but his services to Canada, particularly in 

 financial organization, make him one of the 

 foremost figures in Canada's history. G.H.L. 



HIN'DENBURG, PAUL VON BENECKENDORFF 

 UND VON (1847- ), a German field marshal 

 famous for leadership of his country's armies 

 in the War of the Nations. At the outbreak 

 of the conflict in 1914 he was a retired general, 

 living on a pen- 

 sion. He was not 

 tolerated at head- 

 quarters, because 

 he was believed 

 to be a man of 

 one idea, and that 

 an unsound one. 

 During his long; 

 career in the 

 army, which com- 

 menced just be- 

 fore the war with 

 Austria in 1866, 

 he had for a time 

 been a staff offi- 

 cer in East Prus- 

 sia and had planned some of the annual mili- 

 tary maneuvers there. Later, as a lecturer on 

 applied tactics in the War Academy, he located 

 many of his imaginary battles in the region 

 of the Masurian Lakes, in Northeastern Prus- 

 sia. For years he had been subjected to good- 

 natured ridicule because he had insisted upon 



VON HINDENBURG 

 Germany's military hero in 

 the War of the Nations. 



the military importance of that low, marshy 

 land. In this region on August 29, 1914, just 

 a week after the kaiser had recalled him from 

 retirement in the hope that, after all, he might 

 be right in his opinion regarding the Masurian 

 section, he overwhelmingly defeated two Rus- 

 sian armies, whose men he claims outnumbered 

 his own three to one. It is said that he took 

 120,000 prisoners, enough to have ended any 

 previous war. 



Much of his subsequent success is said to be 

 due to his extensive employment of railways 

 for troop movements. Von Hindenburg be- 

 came the military idol of the German people, 

 and a gigantic wooden statue of him was 

 erected in Berlin in 1915. Emperor William 

 raised him to the highest military rank, that of 

 field marshal, and made him chief of the gen- 

 eral staff. 



Marshal von Hindenburg was born in Posen, 

 of a family of soldiers. His messages to his 

 troops showed him a firm believer in the divine 

 mission of his emperor. After Germany's defeat 

 he refused to flee the country, but took no part 

 in the new government. See WAR OF THE NA- 

 TIONS. 



HINDU KUSH, hin'dookoosh, a range of 

 mountains in Central Asia, 500 miles in length. 

 It forms a great watershed between the Kabul 

 and the Oxus rivers, and for 200 miles is the 

 southern boundary of Afghanistan. The high- 

 est peak is Tirach Mir, a snow-clad giant rising 

 to a height of about 25,000 feet. This range 

 was called the Caucasus by historians of Alex- 

 ander the Great. It is said that Timur en- 

 deavored to cross these mountains and left a 

 record of his attempt engraved in a rock. 



HINDUSTAN, or HINDOSTAN, Hindoo 

 stahn' , meaning the land of the Indus, is a 

 name commonly applied to the whole peninsula 

 cf India, but more correctly confined to the 

 valleys of the Jumna and the Ganges rivers. It 

 does not include the Punjab, though the natives 

 of that territory speak the Hindostani language. 

 The name is of Persian origin, and in the Hin- 

 dostani tongue there are still many Persian 

 words and phrases. See INDIA. 



HIPPARCHUS, hipahr'kus, the founder of 

 scientific astronomy. Two great men stand out 

 among all the astronomers of antiquity, Hip- 

 parchus and Ptolemy. The former, a Greek, 

 was born in Nicaea, about 160 B. c., a time 

 when the Greeks were colonizing Southwestern 

 Asia. He lived for a time at Rhodes and then 

 went to Alexandria, in Egypt, the great center 

 of learning of that time. There he studied and 



