Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/601

Rh MARSEILLES 573 -dates 600 patients, while at the opposite extremity of the town, near the Prado station, are the modern Hopital de la Conception (with SOO beds), the military hospital, and the lunatic asylum. The scientific institutions of the town are also numerous, includ ing a faculty of science, an astronomical observatory, a preparatory school of medicine and pharmacy, a musical conservatoire, a school of art, a lyceum, and many private institutions. The principal learned societies are the academy of science, letters, and art, the medical association, and the geographical, statistical, agricultural, and horticultural societies. The mean temperature of Marseilles is 58 Fahr. ; frost is rare, and snow almost unknown. The heat of summer is tempered during the day by the cooling sea breeze. The most disagreeable wind is the mistral, a violent and cold north-west wind, which blows on an average one hundred and thirty-eight times a year, but has at least the advantage of restoring salubrity to the frequently un healthy shores of the Mediterranean. The sirocco, a south-east wind, blows some sixty times a year ; though hot and parching in summer, it softens the winter climate. The east-south-east wind is cold and damp, and brings rain. The Canal de la Durance has grently modified the climate of Marseilles and its neighbour hood, for by restoring vegetation it has increased the fogs and rains ; there is now an annual rainfall of nearly 24 inches. Marseilles is at once the largest commercial port of France and a manufacturing town, working up the raw materials brought in by sea from every part of the world. The leading industry is that of soap-making, which occupies sixty factories with 1200 artisans, and annually produces 65,000 tons, valued at 2,000,000 sterling. With this manufacture are connected oil and chemical works ; in the former, which employ 2000 to 2500 workmen, 55,000 tons of different oils are produced yearly. The chemical works comprise a dozen mills, manufacturing chiefly the salts of soda and concen trated ncids. Two thousand operatives are there employed, and the value of their annual production is estimated at 320,000. There are also three sugar-refineries, producing 65,000 tons of loaf-sugar^ of which more than half is re-exported. Sulphur from Sicily too is refined and converted into sticks or flowers of sulphur, to the value of 80,000. Petroleum refining occupies 100 workmen. Metallurgy is another great industry ; a large quantity of ore, imported from Elba, Spain, and Algeria, is smelted in the blast furnaces of St Louis in the suburbs. The Mediterranean iron-works and yards, together with other private companies, have large workshops for the construction or repair of marine steam-engines and every branch of iron shipbuild ing, employing several thousand workmen. Marseilles is a great centre for the extraction of silver from lead ore ; 16,000 tons of lead and 25 tons of fine silver are separated annually. There are 64 flour-mills with 300 sets of stones, and 100 factories prepare semolina and other cereal pastes, while 34 tanyards dress 500,000 sheep skins and 335,000 goat skins. To this list of industries must be added the manufactories of matches, candles, and wax- lights, with brass foundries, glass-works, and manufactures of coral, and of Oriental hosiery. The port of Marseilles is the centre of numerous lines of steamers. The French company of mail steam packets (Mcssagcries Maritimes) despatch their boats regularly to Italy, Egypt, Reunion, India, China, and the far East, as well as to Greece, Turkey, the Black Sea, Smyrna, and Syria. The Transatlantic Company runs its vessels to Algiers, Tunis, Malta, and the coast of Italy, and has also a regular line between Marseilles and New York. Many private com panies have services to Corsica, Algiers, the coast of Languedoc and of Spain, and the Italian Riviera. Other lines connect Marseilles with Brazil and La Plata, Havre, and London. Landward there are two lines of railway to Aix, and a third to Toulon. A navigable canal is greatly needed to connect the port directly with the Rhone, in order to avoid the difficulties of egress from the river and to make Marseilles the natural outlet of the rich Rhone basin. The countries with which the greatest traffic is maintained are Algeria, Spain, Italy, Turkey, ani the Russian ports on the Black Sea ; next in order come England, Austria, the western coast of Africa, Reunion, the Cape, British India, Brazil, the Antilles, China, and Senegambia. From the Black Sea, Turkey, and Algeria come the cereals which form the chief imports in point of bulk ; from Italy, Spain, the Levant, China, and Japan the silk, which is the import of greatest value (4,000,000 yearly). Then follow ores and metals, iron, cast iron, lead, and copper; also wood, raw material for oil manufacture, raw sugar, cattle, wool and cotton, rice, and various dry vegetable foods, petroleum, cocoa, gums, pepper, and other spices, wines and brandies, coal, skins, cod-fish, cheese, and sponges. The principal exports in respect of value are silk, woollen, and cotton fabrics, refined sugars, wiiies and spirits ; those of greatest bulk are cereals in the form of grain or flour, coal, building materials, oil-cakes, iron and other manu factures in metal, wines and spirits, oils, glass and crystal, lead, and coffee. Of the seagoing tonnage, one-third is under the French flag, but the coasting trade, carried on by French sailors alone, is almost half as large as the ocean trade. The shipowners of the port pos sess almost seven hundred vessels, without counting the hundreds of fishing boats which ply along the coast. History. The Greek colony of Massalia (in Latin, Massilia) was founded by the enterprising mariners of Phocaea in Asia Minor, about 600 B.r. The settlement of the Greeks in waters which the Carthaginians jealously reserved for their own commerce was not effected without a naval conflict ; it is, indeed, not improbable that the Phoenicians were settled at Marseilles before the Greek period, and that the very name of the town is the Phoenician ^-fD, &quot;settle ment.&quot; Whether the judges (D^St?, &quot; suffetes&quot;) of the Phoenician sacrificial tablet of Marseilles were the rulers of a city older than the advent of the Phoenicians, or were a sort of consuls for Punic residents in the Greek period, is disputed. The fall of the Ionic cities before the Persians probably sent new settlers to the Ligurian coast and cut off the remote city of Massalia from close connexion with the mother country. Isolated amidst alien populations, the Massaliots made their way by great prudence in dealing with the inland tribes, by the vigilant administration of their oligarchical government, and by frugality and temperance united to remarkable commercial and naval enterprise. Their colonies spread east and west along the coast from Monaco to CapeSt Martin in Spain, carry ing with them the worship of Artemis ; the inland trade, in which wine was an important element, can be traced by finds of Massalian coins right across Gaul and through the Alps as far as Tyrol. The Massaliot Pythcas (330-320 B.C.) passed the pillars of Hercules and visited the coasts of Gaul, Britain, and Germany. The great rival of Massalian trade was Carthage, and in the Punic wars the city took the side of Rome,, and was rewarded by Roman assistance in the subjugation of the native tribes of the Ligurian mountains. In the war of Ca?sar and Pompey the aristocratic town took the side of the latter, and made a courageous but vain resistance to Cresar. In memory of its ancient services the city, &quot; without which,&quot; as Cicero says, &quot; Rome had never triumphed over the Transalpine nations,&quot; was still left as a civilas libcra, but her power was broken and most of her dependencies taken from her. From this time Massalia has little place in Roman history ; it became for a time an important school of letters and medicine, but its commercial and intellectual importance gradually declined into insignificance. The town appears to have been Christianized before the end of the 3d century, and its reputation partly revived through the names of Gennadius and Cassian, which give it prominence in the history of Semi-Pelagianism and the foundation of Western monachism. After the ravages of successive streams of invaders, Marseilles was repeopled in the 10th century under the protection of its viscounts. In 1112 the town bought up their rights, and was formed into a republic, governed by a podestat, who was appointed for life, and exercised Ids office in conjunction with 3 notables, and a munici pal council, composed of 80 citizens, 3 clerics, and 6 principal tradesmen. During the rest of the Middle Ages, however, the higher town was governed by the bishop, and had its harbour at the creek of La Joliette. The southern suburb was governed by the abbot of St Victor, and owned the Port des Catalans. Situated between the two, the lower town, the republic, retained the old harbour, and was the most powerful of the three divisions. The period of the crusades brought great prosperity to Marseilles. The activity of its shipbuilding,, the magnitude of its fleet, the import ance of its commerce and manufactures, all increased at once. The count of Provence, Raymond Berenger, Charles of Anjou, and after wards Alphonso of Aragon, successively attempted to make them selves masters of the town ; it suffered at different times from incendiarism, pillage, and massacre during the 13th and 14th cen turies, and in the beginning of the 15th. King Rene, who had made it his winter residence, however, caused trade, arts, and manu factures again to flourish. Under Francis I., the disaffected con stable de Bourbon vainly besieged the town with the imperial forces in 1524. During the wars of religion, Marseilles took an active part against the Protestants, and long refused to acknowledge Henry IV. The loss of the ancient liberties of the town brought on new disturbances under the Fronde, which Louis XIV. came in person to suppress. He took the town by storm, and had Fort St Nicolas constructed. Marseilles repeatedly suffered from the plague, and an epidemic raged from May 1720 to May 1721 with a severity for which it is almost impossible to find a parallel ; Bishop Belsunce, Chevalier Rose, and others immortalized themselves by their courage and devotion. During the Revolution the people rose against the aristocracy, who up to that time had governed the commune. In the Terror they rebelled against the convention, but were promptly subdued by General Carteaux. The wars of the empire, by dealing a severe blow to their maritime commerce, excited the hatred of the inhabit ants against Napoleon, who accordingly hailed with enthusiasm the return of the Bourbons and the defeat of Waterloo. The news of the latter provoked a bloody reaction in the town against those suspected of imperialism. Since 1815 the prosperity of the city