Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/367

Rh R E I E E I 349 set forth are now condemned as erroneous, they can scarcely be read without profit to the student. Eeicha first visited Paris in 1799. In 1802 he removed to Vienna, where he spent some happy years in close intercourse with Beethoven, and the veteran Haydn. His permanent settlement at Paris took place in 1808. In 1817 he succeeded Mehul as professor of counterpoint at the Conservatoire. In 1831 he was made a knight of the Legion of Honour; and in 1835 he was admitted as a member of the Institute in the place of Boieldieu. He died at Paris, May 28, 1836. REICHENAU, a picturesque island in the Untersee or western arm of the lake of Constance, is 3 miles in length by 1 in breadth, and is connected with the east bank by a causeway three quarters of a mile long. It belongs to the duchy of Baden, and comprises the three parishes of Ober- zell, Mittelzell, and Unterzell, with a joint population of 1463 in 1880. The soil is very fertile, and excellent wine is produced in sufficient quantity for exportation. The Benedictine abbey of Reichenau, founded in 724, was long celebrated for its wealth and for the services rendered by its monks to the cause of learning. In 1538 the abbey, which had previously been independent, was subordinated to the see of Constance, and in 1799 it was secularized. The abbey church, dating in part from the 9th century, contains the tomb of Charles the Fat, who retired to this island in 887, after losing the empire of Charlemagne. It now serves as the parish church of Mittelzell, and the churches of Oberzell and Unterzell are also interesting buildings of the Carlovingian era. REICHENBACH, a manufacturing town of Saxony, in the province of Zwickau, lies in the hilly district known as the Voigtland, 50 miles to the south of Leipsic. The chief industrial products are woollen cloth, merino, cashmere, flannel, and shawls. Its importance is of recent origin, and the population, amounting to 16,509 in 1880, has trebled itself within the last fifty years. The earliest notice of the town occurs in a document of 1212, and it acquired municipal rights in 1367. REICHENBACH, a cotton-manufacturing town of Prus- sian Silesia, with 7225 inhabitants (1880) and an old castle, lies 30 miles to the south-south-west of Breslau, and demands mention chiefly from its connexion with several important historical events. In 1762 Frederick the Great gained a victory here over the Austrians ; by the Reichen- bach convention of 1790 England and the other powers guaranteed the subsistence of the Turkish empire; and in 1813 a treaty, afterwards ratified at Prague, was con- cluded here between Austria and the allies. REICHENBACH, GEORG VON (1772-1826), astrono- mical instrument maker, was born at Durlach in Baden on August 24, 1772. He first served as an officer of artillery, and afterwards held several civil appointments in Bavaria. Already from 1796 he was occupied with the construction of a dividing engine; in 1804 he founded, with Liebherr and Utzschneider, an instrument- making business in Munich ; and in 1809 he established, with Fraunhofer and Utzschneider, equally important optical works at Benedictbeuern, which were moved to Munich in 1823. He withdrew from both enterprises in 1814, and founded with Ertel a new optical business, from which also he retired in 1820. He died at Munich on May 21, 1826. Reich enbach's principal merit is his having introduced into observatories the meridian or transit circle, combining the transit instrument and the mural circle into one instruinent. This had already been done by Roemer about 1704, but the idea had not 5een adoptnd by any one else, the only exception being the transit circle constructed by Trough ton for Groombridge in 1806. The transit circle in the form given it by Reiehenbach bad one fmely- divulcd circle attached to one end of the horizontal axis and read by four verniers on an "Alhidade Circle," the unaltered position of which was tested by a spirit level. The instrument carne almost at once into universal use on the Continent (the first one was made for Bessel in 1819), but in England the mural circle and transit instrument were not superseded for many years. REICHENBERG (Bohem. Liberec), a town of Bohemia, with an independent jurisdiction, lies on the Neisse, about 50 miles to the north-east of Prague and not far from the Saxon and Prussian frontiers. It is the centre of the important cloth manufacture of northern Bohemia, and is the third town of Bohemia in size and the second in industrial importance. Its cloth factories employ about 7000 workpeople and produce goods to the annual value of upwards of a million sterling, while weaving is also extensively prosecuted as a domestic industry. Other important manufactures are cotton, yarn, machinery, and liqueur. Trade is carried on in the raw materials and finished products of the various industries. The most prominent buildings are the town-house, of 1601; the chateau of Count Clam Gallas ; the Dekanalkirche, of the 16th century; the Protestant church, a handsome modern Romanesque edifice ; the hall of the cloth-workers ; the new law courts; the new theatre; and the weaving school. The population in 1880 was 28,090. Reichenberg is first mentioned in a document of 1348, and from 1622 to 1634 was among the possessions of the great Wallenstein, since whose death it lias belonged to the Gallas and Clam Gallas families. The woollen industry was introduced about the middle of the 16th century. In 1866 Reichenberg was the headquarters of Prince Charles Frederick of Prussia. REICHENHALL, a small town and watering-place of Upper Bavaria, is finely situated in an amphitheatre of lofty mountains, on the river Saale or Saalach, 1570 feet above the level of the sea and 9 miles to the south-west of Salzburg. As indicated by its name, in which the syllable kail corresponds, according to a well-known linguistic law, to the Latin sal, Reichenhall possesses several copious saline springs, producing upwards of 11,500 tons of salt per annum. The water of some of the springs, the sources of which are 50 feet below the surface of the soil, is so strongly saturated with salt (up to 24 per cent.) that it is at once conducted to the boiling houses, while that of the others is first submitted to a process of evaporation. Reichenhall is the centre of the four chief Bavarian salt- works, which are connected with each other by brine con- duits having an aggregate length of 60 miles. The surplus brine of Berchtesgaden is conducted to Reichenhall, and thence, in increased volume, to Traunstein and Rosenheim, which possess larger supplies of timber for use as fuel in the process of boiling. Since 1846 Reichenhall has become one of the most fashionable spas in Germany, and it is now visited annually by about five thousand patients, besides many thousand passing tourists. The resident population in 1880 was 3271, almost all Roman Catholics. The saline springs are used both for drinking and bathing, and are said to be efficacious in scrofula and incipient tuberculosis. In addition to numerous large hotels, the most prominent edifices are the Romanesque church, recently restored, and the handsome and extensive build- ings of the salt-works. The brine springs of Reichenhall are mentioned in a document of the 8th century, and were perhaps known to the Romans ; but almost all trace of the antiquity of the town was destroyed by a conflagration in 1834. The brine conduit to Traunstein dates from 1618. The environs abound in numerous charming Alpine excursions. REICHSTADT, DUKE OF. See NAPOLEOX II. (vol. xvii. p. 226). The title is derived from the little town of Reichstadt in northern Bohemia. REID, MAYNE (1818-1883), captain in the United States army, was in his generation one of the most popular of writers of stories of adventure. His own early life was