Page:1902 Encyclopædia Britannica - Volume 27 - CHI-ELD.pdf/603

 DUQUESNE—DUREN 551 Lorient, on 15th October 1816. He entered the Ecole for navigation, but for irrigation purposes it is of the Polytechnique in 1835, and in 1842 was sent to England highest importance. Formerly reckoned one of the three to study and report on iron shipbuilding. Acting on his great scourges of Provence, it is now a source of immense report, which was published in 1844, the Government benefit. In the departments of Vaucluse and Bouches du built their first iron vessels under his supervision. He Rhone it irrigates nearly 100,000 acres, and tracts in the planned and built the steam line-of-battle ship Napoleon Crau formerly sterile and almost worthless are now (1848 — 52), and devised the method of altering sailing amongst the best lands in France. Its virtue as a ships of the line into steamers, which was afterwards fertilizing agent is largely due to the immense quantity extensively practised in both France and England. He of rich mud which it brings down, containing, according also showed the practicability of armouring the sides of to M. Herve-Mignon, as quoted by Joanne, “as much a ship, and the frigate Gloire gave a very clear demon- assimilable nitrogen as 100,000 tons of excellent guano, stration of his views. It was the beginning of the great and as much carbon as would be supplied by a forest of change in the construction of ships of war which has 121,000 acres.” Amongst the principal irrigation canals been going on ever since. In 1857 Dupuy de L6me was which the Durance supplies are those of Peyrolles, appointed “chef de la direction du materiel,” at Paris; Marseille, Crapannes, Cabedan iSTeuf, Alpines, Chateauand in 1861 “ inspecteur general du materiel de la marine.” renard and Eyragues, and Rognonas. Barrage reservoirs in In 1866 he was elected a member of the Academic des the defile of the Upper Durance and of the Verdon augment Sciences. At the beginning of the war with Germany in and regulate the supply of water to the canals. The 1870 he was appointed a member of the Committee of Durance is classed as flotable from the bridge of St Defence, and during the siege of Paris occupied himself Clement (Hautes Alpes) to the Rhone, a length of 159 with planning a steerable balloon, for carrying out which miles, but the amount of traffic is small. It is believed he was given a credit of 40,000 fr.; but the balloon was that in a former geologic period the Durance flowed as an not ready till a few days before the capitulation. The independent river through the valley now traversed by the experiments that were afterwards made with it did not Canal des Alpines to the Gulf of Fos, though probably prove entirely satisfactory. In 1875 he was busy over a having a subsidiary connexion with the Rhone by one or scheme for embarking a railway train at Calais, and ex- more arms. hibited plans of the improved harbour and models of the Durango, a state of Mexico, bounded on the N. “bateaux porte - trains ” to the Academie des Sciences by that of Chihuahua, on the E. and S.E. by the state of in July. In 1877 he was elected a senator for life. Coahuila; Zacatecas and the Territory of Tepic on the S., He received the cross of the Legion of Honour in 1845, and Sinaloa on the W. It has an area of 38,020 square was made a commander in 1858, and grand officer miles. The population in 1879 was 190,846, and in 1900 in December 1863. He died at Paris on 1st February was 371,274. It is one of the richest states of the 1885. (j. k. l.) Republic as to agriculture, mining, and stock-raising, and Duquesne, a borough of Allegheny county, Penn., is divided into 13 partidos and 49 municipalities. The U.S.A., on the Monongahela river, and on a line of the capital, Durango, 574 miles from the city of Mexico, has a Pennsylvania Railway, a few miles south-east of Pittsburg. population of 26,425, and contains many fine buildings, It is an iron-manufacturing place of recent growth. Popu- notably the cathedral, one of the handsomest in the lation (1900), 9036, of whom 3451 were foreign-born and Republic, besides a mint, city and suburban railways, electric lights, cotton and woollen mills, foundries, flour 192 negroes. and sugar mills. .Amongst other cities are Villa Lerdo, Durance (ancient Druentia or Durentia, from Celtic Guanacevi (6859), San Juan de Guadalupe, Nombre de “dour,” water), a river of South-East France, .tributary to Dios, San Dimas, and El Oro. the Rhone. It rises in the department of Hautes Alpes, Durazzo, a Turkish seaport on the Adriatic, and near the Italian frontier, at the foot of the Gondran Pass, 3 or 4 miles in direct line east of Briangon. Here, in a the chief town of the sanjak of Durazzo, in Albania. The valley open to the north and dominated by lofty mountains, chief exports are olive oil—largely manufactured in the are deep ponds apparently with no outlet, but really district—wheat, oats, barley, pottery, and skins. The drained by a subterranean channel which issues 2 miles population is about 5000. to the north. The stream then flows south-west, passing DU rban, seaport town of Natal, South Africa. It has Mont Genevre, and at the hamlet of Alberts is joined by the a population within the township of 39,245 (1898), namely, Clairee, a mountain torrent from the north. The Durance 17,705 Europeans, 10,924 natives, and 10,616 Indians. It passes Briancon through a defile between that town and is well laid out, has many good public buildings, including the fortress of Trois-Tetes, and about 5 miles lower bends a very fine town hall, central railway station, and public to the south and flows for 1| miles through the deep baths. It has an extensive system of electric lighting gorge of Bessie or Baissee. Between Savine and Sisteron, and an efficient drainage scheme. A tram service connects in Basses Alpes, the river forms a wide western bend, the Point, the town proper, and the Berea, which is the separating the departments of Hautes and Basses Alpes. residential suburb. The rateable value of the borough in At Sisteron it is joined by an important tributary, the 1899 was .£5,626,695. The harbour, which used to be Beuch, and a little below Yolonnes is joined on the left impeded by a bar, has been much improved of late years, bank by the Bleone. It borders for 2^ miles the depart- and this change, besides leading to a large increase of ment of Yar, where it is joined by its most important shipping business, was of material service in connexion tributary, the Yerdon. It then flows west and north-west with the Boer war. between the departments of Yaucluse and Benches du Rhone, Duron, a town of Prussia, in the Rhine province, on and falls into the Rhone 3 miles below Avignon. Its length the river Roer, 19 miles by rail east from Aix-la-Chapelle. is 217 miles, and the area of its basin 5800 square miles. It is the seat of cloth, paper, carpet, flax-spinning, artificial The breadth is extremely variable—sometimes very small, wool, sugar, iron-wares, and other manufactures. Here are sometimes spreading to nearly 1^ miles. At its outfall in several new buildings and monuments—the former emthe Rhone the breadth is only about 130 yards. The bracing the provincial lunatic asylum and the church of Durance preserves throughout its whole course the St Joachim; the latter, monuments to the Emperors character of a torrent, and it is consequently quite useless J William I. and II., Bismarck, and the war of 1870-71.