Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 16.djvu/215

Rh M E U M E U 205 In 1877 the yield was 43,000 tons. Besides Llast-furnaces, forges, and rolling-mills, there are manufactories of files and boring tools, agricultural implements, and furniture. In the production of salt the department holds the first rank in France ; the salt-hearing tracts cover more than 150 square miles, the beds having a mean thicknessof 65 feet. The principal salt-working centres (St Nicolas, Yaraugeville, and Rosieres-aux-Salines) lie between Nancy and Luneville ; the annual value of rock-salt and refined salt produced exceeds 500,000; subsidiary to this production is an important manufacture of soda salts. The other chemical products are prussiate of potash, bone-black, wax-candles, soap, and matches. Stone quarrying and the manufacture of plaster and lime are also important branches of industry. The flint-glass manufactory of Baccarat, which employs nearly 1500 workmen, is well known ; that of plate-glass at Cirey (with 1000 workmen) produces plates of great size. The faience manufactories of Luneville, Toul, and Longwy are important. Mention may also be made of the manufacture of window-glass, watch-glasses, and drinkiug-glasses. The tobacco manufacture at Nancy employs 1000 workmen; tan ning, glove-making, hat-making in felt and straw, wool-spinning, and the manufacture of army clothing are also carried on. Nancy is renowned for its embroidery, which is, however, diminishing in importance. It also possesses factories for cotton spinning and cotton stuffs, and for hosiery. The starch manufactories and the breweries, especially that of Tantonville, the largest in France, are highly productive. Nancy also carries on distilleries, grain- mills, paper-mills, manufactories of pasteboard objects, and a large printing establishment. The commerce of the department is effec tively served by 300 miles of railway (the principal line being tha 1 -, from Paris to Strasburg through Nancy), by a number of good roads, and by several navigable rivers and canals. The main waterway is formed by the canal between the Marne and the Rhine, which runs by Toul and Nancy, and traverses the department from west to east. This canal communicates with the Moselle, which is navig able from Frouard downwards, and with the new eastern canal, which reascends the Moselle as far as Spinal, and which is intended to unite the Mouse and the Moselle with the Saone and the Rhone. The population of Meurthe-et-Moselle in 1881 was 419,317 in habitants. It constitutes the diocese of Nancy, has its court of appeal at Nancy, and forms a part of the district of the 6th army corps (Chalons-sur-Marne). There are 4 arrondissements (Nancy, Briey, Luneville, and Toul), 29 cantons, and 597 communes. The capital is Nancy, and the other principal towns are Pont a Mousson, formerly the seat of a university ; Longwy (5064), a fortified place ; and Baccarat (6013), celebrated for its glass-works. MEUSE, MAESE, or MAAS, a river of France, Belgium, and Holland, discharging into the North Sea or German Ocean, has a course (variously measured) of some 500 or 550 miles, about 300 miles Iyin within France. Rising in the department of Haute-Marne (1342 feet), at a point where the plateau of Langres borders on the Monts Faucilles, it follows a winding course, first from south to north, then to north-west, and afterwards to north, across the depart ments of Vosges, Meuse, and Ardennes, passing by Neufchateau, Vaucouleurs, Commercy, St Mihiel, Verdun, Sedan, Mezieres, and Givet. Naturally navigable below Verdun, it has been made so from Troussey, where it meets the canal which unites the Marne to the Rhine, and from this point to Lie ge it admits vessels of from 6 to 7 feet draught. After traversing a wide valley covered by green meadows, the Meuse, below Mezieres, flows through narrow gorges confined between rocky walls 200 or 300 feet high, formed by the plateau of the Ardennes. The hills of the Argonne, by which it is hemmed in on its upper course, prevent its receiving any important affluent before the Chiers and the Semoy, which both fall into it on the right in the Ardennes. At the point where it leaves France its ordinary volume is about 1000 cubic feet. In Belgium it runs picturesquely between the districts of Famenne and Condroz on the right, and those of Les Fagnes and Hesbaye on the left. Above Dinant it receives the Lesse, whose valley is celebrated for its wonderful grottoes, and at the foot of the citadel of Namur it is joined on the left by its principal affluent, the Sambre, whose north-easterly direction it takes. It then takes its course through the busy valley in which Huy, Seraing, and Liege are situated, receiving the Ourthe on its right. Resuming a northerly direction, then taking one to the north-west, and finally one to the west, the Meuse passes in front of the Dutch citadel of Maestricht to Roermonde, so called from its confluence there with the Roer, and to Venlo, where the canal between the Meuse and the Scheldt begins. Flowing thence through an absolutely unbroken plain, it finally joins the Rhine, to which it gives its own name, although the volume of its waters is twenty times less than that of the German river. It is at Gorcum that the Waal, the first separate arm of the Rhine, brings to the Meuse two-thirds of the waters of that river. The Meuse soon after divides into two branches. While the Merwede flows due west, the southern arm falls into the Biesbosch, an estuary of the sea, formed four hundred and fifty years ago by an irruption of the sea over a country then cultivated and thickly peopled, and now the subject of attempts at reclamation. On reaching Dordrecht, where the river navigation and sea navigation meet, and where the rafts which come down from the Black Forest are broken up, the Meuse again divides into two arms. The Old Meuse flows due west, while the northern arm joins the Lek, a second branch of the Rhine, and continues its course to Rotterdam. This is the most important branch of the estuary of the Meuse, and efforts are being made to regulate and deepen its channel by con structing one of those grand canals in which the Dutch are so skilful. Schiedam and Vlardingen, both on the right, are the last places of importance on the banks of the river. MEUSE, a department in the north-east of France, formed out of a part of Lorraine and portions of the Three Bishoprics, the Clermontais, and Champagne, derives its name from the river by which it is traversed from south to north. It lies between 4 52 and 5 50 E. long., and between 48 25 and 49 38 N. lat., and is bounded on the N. by Belgium and the department of Ardennes, on the E. by that of Meurthe-et-Moselle, on the S. by those of Vosges and Haute-Marne, and on the W. by those of Marne and Ardennes. Of its superficial area (2405 square miles), about one-half belongs to the basin of the Meuse, which is enclosed to the east and west by the eastern and western Argonnes. On the north-east it is watered by the Orne, a tributary of the Moselle, and the Chiers, which runs by Montmddy, and joins the Meuse a little beyond the northern limit of the department. The other half sends its waters to the Seine through the Aire, a tributary of the Aisne, both of which take their rise here, and by the Ornain, an affluent of the Saux, these two last being tributary to the Marne. The Meuse receives no important river in its course through this department. The highest elevation (1388 feet) occurs to the south-west, on the line of the ridge which separates the basin of the Meuse from that of the Seine. The heights gradually sink from south to north, but seldom fall below 1000 feet. The hills of the western Argonne similarly sink rapidly down to the valley of the Saux, where the lowest level of the department (377 feet) is reached. The climate of Meuse is transitional between the region of the Soine and that of the Vosges ; its winters are less severe than those of the latter, but it is not so temperate as the former. The mean annual temperature is 52 Fahr. As at Paris, the maximum cold is 9 Fahr.; the greatest heat rarely exceeds 95 Fahr. More than half the surface of the department consists of cultur- able lands, one-fourth of forest, one-tenth of meadow land. The proportion of horses is larger than in any other French depart ment, except La Manche. There are 53,800 horses, 90,000 cattle, 145, 000 sheep, 125,000 pigs, and nearly 30,000 beehives. Cereals, potatoes, and beet-root are the chief crops (in 1877 465,966 quarters of wheat, 104,660 quarters of barley, 585,355 quarters of oats, 7,677,374 bushels of potatoes, besides pulse, hernp, and colza). The vineyards produced more than 6,600,000 gallons of wine of good quality. The forests, which are principally of oak, are rich in game, as are the rivers in fish. The mineral wealth of the depart-