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Rh see G. F. Herbert Smith, ''Mineralog. Mag.'', 1908, 15, p. 153; and J. Boyer, La Synthèse des pierres précieuses (Paris, 1909).

 RUBY MINES, a district in the Mandalay division of Upper Burma, lying along the Irrawaddy river between the Bhamo district on the N., the Shan States on the E., Mandalay district on the S. and Katha on the W. Including the Shan state of Mongmit, which is temporarily administered as part of the district, the total area is 5476 sq. m.; pop. (1901) 87,694. The district geographically forms part of the Shan plateau, and is to a great extent a mass of hills with a general N. and S. direction. It contains considerable numbers of Kachins (13,300) and Palaungs (16,400). The annual rainfall at Mogok averages 98 in. The administrative headquarters are at Mogok, which is also the centre of the ruby-mining industry. It stands in the centre of a valley 4000 ft. above sea-level, and is reached by a cart-road from Thabeikkyin, 61 m. distant, on the Irrawaddy. The Ruby Mines Company employs about 44 Europeans and Eurasians in its works, which are 'situated at the north end of the town. The company has constructed a dam across the Yeni stream and set up an electric installation of about 450 horse-power, which works pumps and the washing machinery. The mines were worked under Burmese rule, but were discontinued on account of the small profit. Now they seem to be established on a sound financial basis. The system adopted is to excavate large open pits, from which the ruby earth or byon is removed en masse and washed and crushed by machinery. Spinels and sapphires are found with the rubies. In 1904, the produce of rubies alone was 200,000 carats, valued at £80,000, most of which were sent to London for sale. In addition, some mining is carried on by natives, working under a licence which does not permit the use of machinery. The district contains 994 sq. m. of reserved forests.

RÜCKERT, JOHANN MICHAEL FRIEDRICH (1788-1866), German poet, was born at Schweinfurt on the 16th of May 1788, the eldest son of a lawyer. He was educated at the gymnasium of his native place and at the universities of Würzburg and Heidelberg. For some time (1816-17) he worked on the editorial staff of the Morgenblatt at Stuttgart. Nearly the whole of the year 1818 he spent in Rome, and afterwards he lived for several years at Coburg. He was appointed a professor of Oriental languages at the university of Erlangen in 1826, and in 1841 he was called to a similar position in Berlin, where he was also made a privy councillor. In 1849 he resigned his professorship at Berlin, and Went to live on his estate Neuses near Coburg. He died on the 31st of January 1866. When Rtickert began his literary career, Germany was engaged in her life-and-death struggle with Napoleon; and in his first volume, Deutsche Gedichte, published in 1814 under the pseudonym “ Freimund Raimar, " he gave, particularly in the powerful “Geharnischte Sonette, " vigorous expression to the prevailing sentiment of his countrymen. In 1815-18 appeared Napoleon, eine politische Komddie in drei Sliic/zen (only two parts were published), and in 1817 Der Kranz der Zeit. He issued a collection of poems, Ostliche Rosen, in 1822; and in 1834-38 his Gesammelte Gedichte were published in six volumes, a selection from which has passed through many editions. Riickert, who was master of thirty languages, made his mark chiefly as a translator of Oriental poetry and as a writer of poems conceived in the spirit of Oriental masters. Much attention was attracted by a translation of Hariri's M akamen (1826), Nal and Damajanti, an Indian tale (1828), Rostern und Suhrab, eine fieldengeschichte (1838), and Hamasa, oder die altesten arabischen Volkslieder (1846). Among his original writings dealing with Oriental subjects are Morgenliindische Sagen und Geschichten (1837), Erbauliches und Beschauliches aus dem M orgenland (1836-38), and Brahmanische Erzdhlungen (1839). The most elaborate of his works is Die Weisheit des Brahmanen, published in six volumes in 1836-39. This last and the Liebesfrithling (1844), a cycle of love-songs, are the best known of all Riickertfs productions. In 1843-45 he issued the dramas Saul und Da:/1191 (1843). Herodes der Grosse (1844), Kaiser Heinrich IV. (1845) and Christofero Colombo (1845), all of which are greatly inferior to the work to which he owes his place in German literature. At the time of the Danish war in 1864 he wrote Ein Dutzend Karnpjlieder fair Schleswig-Holstein, which, - although published anonymously, produced a considerable impression. After his death many poetical translations and original poems were found among his papers, and several collections of them were published. Riickert had a splendour of imagination which made Oriental poetry congenial to him, and he has seldom been surpassed in rhythmic skill and metrical ingenuity. There are hardly any lyrical forms which are not represented among his works, and in all of them he Wrote with equal ease and grace.

A complete edition of Riickert's poetical works appeared in I2 vols. in 1868-69. Subsequent editions have been edited by L. Laistner (1896), C. Beyer (1896), G. Ellinger (1897). See B. Fortlage, F. Riickert und seine Werke (1867); C. Beyer, Friedrich Riickert, ein biographisches Denkrnal (1868), Neue Mitteilungen iiber Riickert (1373), and Nachgelassene Gedichte Riickerts und neue Beitrage zu dessen Leben und Schriften (1877); R. Boxberger, Rilckert-Studien (1878); P. de Lagarde, Erinnerungen an F. Rilckert (1886); F. Muncker, Friedrich Riickert (1890); G. Voigt, Riickerts Gedankenlyrik (1891).

RUDAGI (d. 954). Farid-eddin Mahommed 'Abdallah, the first great literary genius of modern Persia, was born in Rildag, a village in Transoxiana, about 870-900. Most of his biographers assert that he was totally blind, but the accurate knowledge of colours shown in his poems makes this very doubtful. The fame of his accomplishments reached the ear of the Samanid Nasr II. bin Ahmad, the ruler of Khorasan and Transoxiana (913-42), who invited the poet to his court. Rudagi became his daily companion, rose to the highest honours and amassed great wealth. In spite of various predecessors, he well deserves the title of “father of Persian literature, ” “the Adam or Su.ltan of poets, ” since he was the first who impressed upon every form of epic, lyric and didactic poetry its peculiar stamp and its individual character. He is also said to have been the founder of the “ diwan ”~that is, the typical form of the complete collection of a poet's lyrical compositions in a more or less alphabetical order which prevails to the present day among all Mahommedan writers. Of the 1,300,000 verses attributed to him, there remain only 52 kasidas, ghazals and ruba'is; of his epic masterpieces We have nothing beyond a few stray lines in native dictionaries. But the most serious loss is that of his translation of Ibn Mokaffa's Arabic version of the old Indian fable book Kalilah and Dirnnah, which he put into Persian verse at the request of his royal patron. Numerous fragments, however, are preserved in the Persian lexicon of Asadi of Tus (ed. P. Horn, Gottingen, 1897). In his kasidas, all devoted to the praise of his sovereign and friend, Rudagi has left us unequalled models of a refined and delicate taste, very different from the often bombastic compositions of later Persian encomiasts. His didactic odes and epigrams express in well-measured lines a sort of Epicurean philosophy of human life and human happiness; more charming still are the purely lyrical pieces in glorification of love and wine. Rudagi survived his royal friend, and died poor and forgotten by the world.

There is a complete edition of all the extant poems of Rudagi, in Persian text and metrical German translation, together with a biographical account, based on forty-six Persian MSS., in Dr H. Ethé's “' Rfidagi der S§ .manidendichter" (Géttinger Nachrichten, 1873, pp. 663-742); see also his “ Neupersische Literatur" in Geiger's Grundriss der iranischen Philologie (ii.); P. Horn, Gesch. der persisehen Literatur (1901), p. 73; E. G. Browne, Literary History of Persia, i. (1902); C. J. Pickering, “A Persian Chaucer" in National Review (May 1890).

RUDD, or (Leuciscus erythrophthalmus), a fish of the Cyprinid family, spread over Europe, N. and S. of the Alps, also found in Asia Minor, and common in localities where there are still waters with muddy bottom. The rudd and the roach are very similar and frequently confused by anglers; the former differs principally in the more posterior dorsal fin, which is situated exactly opposite the space between the ventral and anal fins. It is a fine fish, but little esteemed for food,