Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/337

Rh R E D R E F 319 and eggs a good deal resemble those of the Blackbird, and have none of the especial characters which distinguish those of the Song-Thrush. (A. N.) RED WING, a city of the United States, capital of Goodhue county, Minnesota, occupies a commanding site on a plateau encircled by high bluffs (nearly 300 feet high), on the west bank of the Mississippi, 41 miles south of St Paul on the La Crosse division of the Chicago and St Paul Railroad ; it is also the eastern terminus of the Cannon Valley branch of the same railway. Red Wing has an opera-house and a music-hall ; it trades in lumber, manufactures earthenware, waggons and carriages, furni- ture, flour, leather, and boots and shoes, and exports large quantities of wheat. The population was 4260 in 1870 and 5876 in 1880; in 1885 it was estimated at 8000, including 1050 employes in manufactories. REDWOOD. See SEQUOIA. REED, a term applied to several distinct species of large, water-loving grasses. The common or water reed, Pkragmites communis, Trin. (Arundo phragmites, L.), oc- curs along the margins of lakes, fens, marshes, and placid streams, not only throughout Britain but over the Palse- arctic and Nearctic regions, and even in South Australia. Another very important species is Psamma arenaria, R. and S. (Ammophila or Arundo arundinacea, Host.), the sea-reed or marram grass, a native of the sandy shores of Europe and North Africa. Both species have been of notable geological importance, the former binding the soil and so impeding denudation, and actually converting swamp into dry land, largely by the aid of its tall (5 to 10 feet) close set stems, which not only break the currents of water around them, and so cause deposition of their sediment, but furnish in themselves an important annual contribution to the incipient soil. The latter species, of which the branching rootstocks may be traced 30 or even 40 feet, is of still greater importance in holding sand-dunes against the encroachments of the sea, and for this purpose has not only been long protected by law but has been extensively planted on the coasts of Norfolk, Holland, Gascony, &c. Other reeds are C alamagrostis (various species), Gynerium argenteum (pampas grass), Deyeuxia, &c., also Arundo Donax, the largest European grass (6 to 12 feet high), which is abundant in southern Europe. Reeds have been extensively used from the earliest times in thatching and in other branches of construction, and also for arrows, the pipes of musical instruments, &c. Reed pens are still used in the East (see PEN). Plants belonging to other orders occasionally share the name, especially the bur-reed (Sparganium) and the reed-mace (Typha), both belonging to the natural order Typhaceaz. The bulrushes (Scirpus), belonging to the natural order Cyperocex, are also to be distinguished. See GRASSES ; also Sowerby's British Grasses, &c. REED, in music. See OBOE, vol. xvii. p. 705 ; HAR- MONIUM, vol. xi. p. 483 ; and ORGAN, vol. xvii. p. 828 sq. REEVE, CLARA (1725-1803), one of the imitators of Horace Walpole in Gothic romance, was born at Ipswich in 1725. She was an industrious woman of letters, and produced many works in prose and verse, including an interesting sketch of the Progress of Romance ; but her only eminent success was the romance of The Old English Baron (1777). In her theory about the use of the super- natural, as in chronological position, she stands midway between Walpole and Mrs Radcliffe. Though she owned Walpole as a master, she declined to follow as far as he went in supernatural incident ; she admits a castle and a haunted wing and the ghost of a murdered man, but draws the line before statues dropping blood, pictures that groan and walk out of their frames, and suchlike improb- abilities. She was the daughter of a Suffolk clergyman, and died at Ipswich in 1803. REFEREE, in law, is a person to whom a matter is delegated by a superior for report or decision. The prin- cipal use of the word occurs in the practice of the House of Commons and of the High Court of Justice. The Court of Referees is a court to which the House of Commons commits the decision of all questions of locus standi, that is, the right of petitioners to be heard in opposition to private Bills. A referee is also associated with members of the House as a member of every committee on an opposed Bill, but may not vote. Under the Judicature Act, 1873, cases are submitted to either official or special referees for inquiry and report, or for trial. Inquiry and report may be directed in any case, trial only by consent of the parties, or in any matter requiring any prolonged examination of documents or accounts, or any scientific or local investiga- tion which cannot be tried in the ordinary way (36 and 37 Viet. c. 66, ss. 56, 57; Rules of the Supreme Court, 1883, Ord. xxxvi.). REFLEXION. See LIGHT, vol. xiv. p. 586 sq. REFORMATION THE period occupied by the great movement known as the Protestant Reformation stands identified, for the most part, with the period which marks the transition from the mediaeval to the modern era in European history. Taken within its narrowest limits, it may be looked upon as commencing with the year 1517 and as finding a certain consummation with the year 1545. In the former year Luther's theses, published at Wittenberg, 1 represent the commencement of that direct and open renunciation of mediaeval doctrine which he initiated ; in the latter year the assembling of the council of Trent mr.vks the renewed sanction and promulgation of that doctrine whereby an insuperable barrier was erected between the communion of Rome and the churches of Protestantism. From that time each communion possessed its distinctive organiza- tion and formulary of faith, and the struggles which subsequently took place between Romanism and Pro- testantism represent, not attempts to bring about or to 1 Most of the details of the main facts connected with the German Reformation during Luther's lifetime are given under LUTHER. resist reform (whether of discipline or of doctrine), but endeavours on the part of both communions to bring about, if possible, the extinction of the opposed form of faith. But, although the contest which Luther initiated had, long before his death, resulted in complete and irreparable rupture between the contending parties, it is certain that in order to understand the true nature and origin of that contest we must go back to events long anterior to 1517 ; while in order fully to estimate its effects we must follow the history of events long after 1545. In Germany, for example, the Reformation can hardly be regarded as find- ing even a formal consummation before the peace of Augs- burg (1555) ; in Switzerland the movement went on with important modifications down to the death of Calvin in 1564 ; in France the onward progress was not materially checked before the massacre on the eve of St Bartholomew (1572); in Bohemia its independent and peculiar fortunes found a final solution only with the battle of the White Hill in 1620 ; while in England and in Scotland, in the Netherlands, in Scandinavia, in Italy and in Spain, the