Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/24

Rh the English army in America, he has contrived without in the least knowing it to make a pathetic subject supremely ludicrons. But he seems to have been a very well meaning and harmless person, and he had one moment of remarkable inspiration.

ROULERS, or, a town of Belgium, in the province of West Flanders, on the Mandelbeke, a tributary of the Lys, $22 1⁄2$ miles south of Ostend on the railway to Courtrai. From time immemorial it has been the seat of a great weaving industry, which now produces both cotton, union, and linen goods; and it also manufactures in various other departments. The principal buildings are the town-house, the college, and the church of St Michel with its conspicuous Gothic tower. The population was 16,345 in 1874, and 17,219 in 1884.

Roulers is mentioned in 822 as Roslar and in 847 as Rollare. Baldwin VIII., count of Flanders, died in a house in the principal square of the town in 1120 on hisreturn from the battle of Angers. In 1794 Roulers was the scene of a conflict between the Austrians and the French.  ROUM is the name by which the Arabs call the Romans, i.e., all subjects of the Roman power. Bilád al-Rúm, “the lands of the Romans,” accordingly means the Roman empire. The parts of the old empire conquered by the Arabs were regarded as having ceased to be Roman, but the Western Christian lands were still called lands of the Rúm, without reference to the fact that they had in great part ceased to pay any allegiance to the “king of the Rúm,” i.e., the Byzantine emperor. When Ibn Jobair takes a passage in a Genoese vessel he speaks of the crew as Romans; and in Spain a “Rúmíya” meant a “Christian slave-girl.” Sometimes all Europe is included in the lands of the Rúm; at other times the northern nations are excluded ; sometimes again the word means the Byzantine empire ; and, finally, the kingdom founded by the Seljuks, in lands won by them from Byzantium, is the kingdom of the Seljuks of Rúm, so that Rúm comes to take the restricted sense of Asia Minor. So Abulfeda uses the term. Roumelia and Roumania in like manner mean no more than the “Roman country” in a special limitation.

  ROUMANIA, a kingdom in the south-east of Europe between the Carpathians, the Pruth, the Black Sea, and the Danube. The Pruth and the Kilia mouth of the Danube now form the frontier with Russia. West of Silistria the Danube is the boundary between Roumania and Bulgaria, while to the east of that point the boundary is formed by an irregular line passing east by south to the coast about ten miles to the south of Mangalia. The territory thus shut off between the Danube and the Black Sea is known as the (q.v.), and differs in its physical features and products from the rest of the kingdom. It was given to Roumania at the close of the last Russo-Turkish War as a compensation for the territory of Bessarabia, east of the Pruth, which was then restored to Russia. The area of the kingdom is estimated at about 49,250 square miles, which is rather less than that of England without Wales. The greatest length of the kingdom is from east to west near the parallel of 45°, along which the length is about 350 miles. The line stretching from north-west to south-east between the extreme points of the kingdom is about fifteen miles shorter.

The crescent-shaped portion of the kingdom lying between the Danube and Pruth and the Carpathians is tolerably uniform in its physical features. The southern part of the area is a plain continuous with that of southern Russia. Towards the interior the surface rises gradually but slowly until we come to the spurs of the Carpathians, The Roumanian frontier on this side runs for the most part along the very crest of the mountains, which have peaks rising to from 6000 to 8000 feet and upwards. The lowest part of this plain is that which stretches along the left bank of the Danube, and this also is the dreariest and least productive. Large tracts of it are marshy and subject to inundation, and even beyond the marshy districts the aspect of the country remains extremely uninviting. Agriculture is neglected; coarse grasses occupy large areas; and the most conspicuous feature in the landscape is probably a rude well, such as is seen in the pusstas of Hungary and some parts of southern Russia, where the general aspect of the country is so like what we find here. Farther inland, however, the appearance of the surface improves: agriculture becomes more general, trees (willows, alders, and poplars) more abundant; on the still higher ground nearer the Carpathians the outward signs of comfort and prosperity become more and more apparent; the vine clothes the hill slopes; plums, peaches, and southern fruits are grown in profusion; large forests of oak, beech, and elm reach to the hill tops, and various minerals form an important addition to the present and prospective resources of the country. At elevations too high for the foliage trees just mentioned these are succeeded by pines and firs, birches and larches, which crown the mountains to a height of 5000 or 6000 feet. Extensive as the plains of Roumania are, 40 per cent. of the entire surface is more than a thousand feet above sea-level, while the greater part of the northern (or Moldavian) half of the crescent varies from 300 to 1000 feet, almost all the rest of Moldavia being still more elevated.

The superficial geology of Roumania, so far as it is known, is extremely simple, at least on the left bank of the Danube. Quaternary deposits are spread over all the plains. Among these the most important is the yellow loess, which covers such large areas in Hungary also, and which in Roumania attains in places a depth of 150 to 300 feet. In certain parts the black soil of southern Russia extends into Roumania, and is important on account of its richness, though its depth is nowhere above 3 feet. Advancing inland one meets next with Miocene and Eocene deposits, until, in ascending the slopes of the Carpathians, Secondary, Primary, and crystalline rocks are seen to crop out in succession, The desolate plateau of the Dobrudja contrasts with the region on the left of the Danube in its geology as in other respects. Its basis consists of crystalline rocks, but these are covered with sedimentary formations of various ages. On the north this plateau, which is hilly and even mountainous, sinks down rather abruptly to the delta of the Danube, a congeries of alluvial marshes occupied chiefly by aquatic and marsh-loving birds.

Of the rivers of Roumania by far the most important is the Danube, which is navigable for large vessels throughout its Roumanian reach, the first obstruction to navigation, the celebrated Iron Gates, occurring just where it enters Roumanian territory. The breadth of the river is of some consequence in view of the fact that it is a frontier stream, and the marshes on the left bank have at least this advantage that they enable it to serve all the more effectually as a natural boundary. The plains on the left are traversed by numerous winding tributaries of the Danube, but of these the only one of importance as a means of communication is the Pruth, which is navigable for small grain-carrying vessels. The others—the Sereth, Jalomitza, Dambovitza, Olta—are sluggish streams, often half-dry, but yet at certain seasons subject to inundations, which unfortunately occur at a time when the crops are so far advanced as to be liable to be much damaged. In consequence of this the Government has bestowed much pains on the regulation of these streams, and the works for this purpose are rendered further serviceable by the fact that the Roumanian rivers can be turned to account for irrigation.