Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/551

Rh R I A R I B 531 rolling mills, are among the largest of the kind in England. The town consists chiefly of plain houses inhabited by workpeople, the principal building being the church, a handsome structure in the Doric style erected in 1842. The population of the urban sanitary district (area 2890 acres) in 1871 was 8138, and in 1881 it was 8663. RIAZAN. See RYAZAN. RIBAULT, or RIBAUT, JEAN (c. 1520-1565), a French navigator rendered famous by his connexion with the early settlement of FLORIDA (q.v.), was born at Dieppe, probably about 1520. Appointed by Coligny to the com- mand of a colonizing expedition (from which the admiral was not deterred by the failure of Nicolas Durand de Villegagnon on a similar mission), Ribault sailed on 18th February 1562 with two vessels, and on 1st May landed at St John's river, or, as he called it, Riviere de Mai. Having settled his colonists at Port Royal Harbour and built Fort Charles for their protection, he returned to France to find the country in the throes of the civil war. In 1563 he appears to have been in England and to have issued The whole and true discoverie of Terra Florida. In April 1564 Coligny was in a position to despatch another expedition under Laudonniere; but meanwhile Ribault's colony had come to an untimely end, the unfortunate adventurers, destitute of supplies from home, having revolted against their governor and attempted to make their way back to Europe in a boat which was happily picked up, when they were in the last extremities, by an English vessel. In 1565 Ribault was again sent out to satisfy the admiral as to Laudonniere's management of his new settlement, Fort Caroline, on the Riviere de Mai. While he was still there the Spaniards under Menendez de Avila, though their country was at peace with France, attacked the French ships at the mouth of the river. Ribault set out to retaliate on the Spanish fleet, but his vessels were wrecked by a storm near Cape Canaveral and he had to attempt to return to Fort Caroline by land. The fort had by this time fallen into the hands of the Spaniards, who had slaughtered all the colonists except a few who got off with two ships under Ribault's son. Induced to sur- render by false assurances of safeguard, Ribault and his men were also put to the sword in October 1565. The massacre was avenged in kind by Dominique de Gourgues two years later. See Haag, La France Protcstantc, s.v. ; French, Hist. Collections of Louisiana and Florida ; Parkman, Pioneers of France in the New World. RIBBON-FISHES (Trachypteridx), a family of marine fishes readily recognized by their long, compressed tape- like body, short head, narrow mouth, and feeble denti- deviates in its direction from the longitudinal axis of the body. The pectoral fins are small, the ventrals composed of several rays, or of one long ray only. Ribbon-fishes possess all the characteristics of fishes living at very great depths. They are extremely fragile when found floating on the surface or thrown ashore, and rarely in an uninjured condition ; the rays of their fins especially, and the mem- brane connecting them, are of a very delicate and brittle structure. In young ribbon-fishes some of the fin-rays are prolonged in an extraordinary degree, and sometimes provided with appendages (see fig. 2). The largest of FIG. 1. Trachypterus tsenia. tion. A high dorsal fin occupies the whole length of the back ; an anal is absent, and the caudal, if present, FIG. 2. Young Trachypterus. ribbon-fishes are the species of Regahcus (see OAR-FISH), of which specimens some 20 feet long by 12 inches in depth of body and 2 inches in thickness have been found. Like all deep sea fishes they occur in all seas. The most common of the British seas is the Vagmaer or Deal-Fish (Trachypterus arcticus) from 3 to 5 feet long, of which almost every year after the equinoctial gales specimens are picked up on the coasts of North Britain, of the Orkneys, Scandinavia, and Iceland (see also ICHTHYOLOGY, voL xii. pp. 684, 691). RIBBONS. By this name are designated narrow webs, properly of silk, not exceeding nine inches in width, used primarily for binding and tying in connexion with dress, but also now applied for innumerable useful, ornamental, and symbolical purposes. Along with that of tapes, fringes, and other smallwares, the manufacture of ribbons forms a special department of the textile industries. It is obvious that the weaving of very narrow fabrics, piece by piece, on separate looms would be a tedious and expensive process ; yet for ages such was the only method of making ribbons. The essential feature of a ribbon loom is the simultaneous weaving in one loom frame of two or more webs, going up to as many as forty narrow fabrics in modern looms. To effect the conjoined throwing of all the shuttles and the various other movements of the loom the automatic action of the power-loom is necessary ; and it is a remarkable fact that the self-acting ribbon loom was known and extensively used more than a century before the famous invention of Cartwright. A loom in which several narrow webs could be woven at one time is men- tioned as having been working in Dantzic towards the end of the 16th century. Similar looms were at work in Leyden in 1620, where their use gave rise to so much dis- content and rioting on the part of the weavers that the states general had to prohibit their use. The prohibition was renewed at various intervals throughout the century, and in the same interval the use of the ribbon loom was interdicted in most of the principal industrial centres of Europe. About 1676, under the name of the Dutch loom or engine loom, it was brought to London ; and, although its introduction there caused some disturbance, it does not appear to have been prohibited. In 1745 the celebrated John Kay, the inventor of the fly-shuttle, obtained, con-