Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/323

Rh V O S V O S 299 the S. The Vosges Mountains form a natural boundary on the E. The highest point is the Hohneck (4482 feet) near the Schlucht. The south of the department is traversed by the Monts Faucilles (2000 feet), which form part of the European watershed, separating the basins of the Rhine and the Ehone. The Moselle and the Meuse, tributaries of the Rhine, have the largest drainage areas in the department ; a small district in the north-west belongs to the basin of the Seine (Ornain and Marne), the rest to that of the Rhone. The Moselle rises in the Col de Bussang, and in a N.W. course of 75 miles receives the Moselotte and Vologne on the right ; the Mortagne and the Meurthe on the right and the Madon on the left bank also belong to Vosges, though they join the Moselle outside the department. The source of the Saone is on the south-east slope of the Monts Faucilles, and the Canal de 1 Est follows the course of the Coney, a tributary of the left bank. The height above the sea, the northward exposure of the valleys, and the impervious subsoil com bine to make the climate severe ; the average temperature at Epinal (1070 feet) is 49 F. The annual rainfall is 24 inches at Epinal, 31 at St Die, and more in the mountains. Of a total area of 1,452,181 acres, arable land occupies 603,201 acres, grass 199,839, wood 361, 526, heath, pasture, and uncultivated land 81,486, and vineyards 12,054. The live stock in 1881 included 31,811 horses (of a small but strong breed), 357 asses and mules, 143,827 cattle, 45,634 sheep, 81,488 pigs, 19,615 goats, more than 17,000 dogs, 500,000 head of poultry; 17,952 beehives yielded 43 tons 7 cwts. of honey and 18 tons 11 cwts. of wax. 872 tons of cheese were made at Geiardmer. The crops in 1884 were wheat 1,911,470 bushels, meslin 494,483, rye 710,627, barley 103,262, oats 3,225,755, buckwheat 63,409, potatoes 17,787,404, dry vege tables 45,974, fodder beetroot 25,060 tons, tobacco 33 tons, hops 79 tons, hemp seed 138 tons, hemp 99 tons, linseed 39 tons, flax 22 tons, hemp, flax, and poppy oils 94 tons, colza seed 206 tons, fodder 457,383 tons, wine 2,869,000 gallons (average of preceding ten years 3,964,441). The department stands first in France for the extent and importance of the woods under forest rule, though only third for the actual area of forest land. The state owns one- third of the forests, private individuals one-fifth, and the communes the rest. Oaks, beeches, hornbeams, birches, aspens, and maples thrive on the plains, beeches and oaks on the higher grounds, and firs, beeches, and pines on the mountains. The annual value of timber produced is 280,000, and 9,000,000 fir planks, besides other kinds, are annually cut in 300 sawmills. Traces of gold are found, and the department contains silver and lead mines, copper ore, iron ore (4530 tons of iron annually), zinc, manganese, cobalt, and antimony. In 1884, 681 tons of coal were mined, and in 1882 1595 tons of peat were dug; 1336 persons are employed in 432 quarries of marble, sandstone, granite, and building and lithographic stones. The department is rich in hot, cold, sulphate, sodic, calcium, iron, bicarbonate, and gaseous mineral springs. Those at Piombieres were known to the Romans. 37,000 hands are employed in the manufacture of pig and cast iron (for all which wood is the chief fuel) and wares of iron and steel. The cotton industry (135,000 looms and 423.724 spindles) has been largely developed since 1871 ; canvas and linen are woven at Gerardmer (3000 looms). The manufacture of cloth employs 500 workmen, of lace 1000, embroidery by the hand and loom 40,000 workwomen, silk spin ning 1000 spindles. Wool is spun and hosiery manufactured. (, oopers work (over 300 tons) is exported, as are also sabots. At Epinal several hundred workmen are engaged in the manufacture of images; and musical instruments are made at Mirecourt. 1000 workmen are employed in glass-works, and 1937 in paper-mills (10,000 tons of paper and cardboard). The department contains in all 409 industrial establishments; 200,000 tons of coal are imported. There are 281 miles of railway, 177 of national roads, and 3096 of other roads. The Eastern Canal connects the Saone with the Moselle and Meuse. The population in 1881 was 408,862, of whom 189,176 were engaged in agriculture and 131,253 in manu factures ; the population in 1S86 was 413,707. The department forms the diocese of St Die, has its court of appeal and academy at Nancy, belongs to the district of the corps d armee of Chalons- sur-Marne, and is divided for administrative purposes into 5 arron- dissements (Epinal, Mirecourt, Neufchateau, Kemircmont, St Die), 29 cantons, and 530 communes. The chef-lieu is Epinal. VOSS, JOHANN HEINRICII (1751-1826), German poet, archaeologist, and translator, was born at Sommersdorf in Mecklenburg on the 20th February 1751. In the same year his father, a farmer, removed from Sommersdorf to Penzlin. From 1766 to 1769 Voss attended school at Neubrandenburg. In the latter year, in consequence of misfortunes which had overtaken his father, he was obliged to accept a tutorship in the family of a private gentleman near Penzlin. He went to Gottingen in 1772, in response to the invitation of Boie, whose attention he had attracted by poems contributed to the Gottingen Musenalmanach. At Gottingen he studied with enthusiasm ancient and modern literature, and became one of the leading members of the famous &quot; Dichterbund.&quot; In 1775 Boie made over to him the editing of the Musenalmanach, which he con tinued to issue for many years. He married Boie s sister, Ernestine, in 1777, and in the following year he accepted the position of rector at Ottendorf in Hanover. As the climate of Ottendorf did not suit his health, he resigned this office in 1782, and went as rector to Eutin, where he remained until 1802. He then lived for some time in Jena, but in 1805 he accepted a call to a professorship at Heidelberg. He died at Heidelberg on March 29, 1826. Voss was a man of a remarkably independent and vigorous character, and lie achieved distinction in several kinds of literary activity. In 1785-95 he published in two volumes a collection of original poems, to which he afterwards made many additions. The best of these works is his idyllic poem &quot; Luise,&quot; in which lie sought, with much success, to apply the style and methods of classical poetry to the expression of modern German thought and sentiment. In his Mylholoyische Briefe (2 vols., 1794), in which he attacked the ideas of Heyne, in his Antisymbolik (2 vols., 1824-26), written in opposition to Creuzer, and in other writings he made im portant contributions to the study of mythology. He was also prominent as an advocate of the right of free judgment in religion, and at the time when some members of the Romantic school were being converted to the Roman Church lie produced a strong im pression by a powerful article, in Sophronizon, on his friend Friedrich von Stolberg s repudiation of Protestantism. It is, however, to his work as a translator that Voss chiefly owes his place in German literature. All his renderings of the works of ancient writers indi cate not only sound scholarship but a thorough mastery of the laws of German diction and rhythm. The most famous of his translations are those of Homer, which were published together, in 4 volumes, in 1793. Of these the one generally preferred is the translation of the Odyssey, as originally issued in 1781. He also translated Hesiod, Theocritus, Bion and Moschus, Virgil, Horace, Tibullus, Propertius, and other classical poets, and he prepared a critical edition of Tibullus. In 1818-29 was published, in 9 volumes, a translation of Shakespeare s plays, which he com pleted with the help of his sons Heinrich and Abraham, both of whom were scholars and writers of considerable ability. See Puulus, Lebens- u. Todeskunden iiuer J. H. Voss (1820), and Herbst, /. //. Voss (2 vols., 1872-76). VOSSIUS, GERARDUS JOHANNES (1577-1649), classical scholar and theologian, was born near Heidelberg in 1577. His father Johannes Vos, a native of the Netherlands, had fled as a Protestant from the persecutions in his own country into the Palatinate, and became pastor in the village near Heidelberg where Gerard was born ; but, as he was a Calvinist, the strict Lutherans of the Palatinate caused him once more to become a wanderer. In 1578 he settled at Leyden as student of theology in the university, and finally as pastor at Dort, where he died in 158G, leaving Gerard an orphan. Here the boy received his education, until he entered the theological college and then the university of Leyden. He there became the lifelong bosom friend of Hugo Grotius, and pursued with great zest the study of the classics, Hebrew, ecclesiastical history, and theology. In 1600 he was made rector of the high school at Dort, where he devoted himself, to philology and historical theology. From 1614 to 1619 he filled the office of director of the theological college at Leyden. The moderation of his theological views and his abstention from controversy brought him under the suspicion of heresy, in consequence of which he escaped expulsion from his office only by resignation (1619). The year before he had published his valuable work the Ilistoria Pdayiana, which his enemies considered favoured the views of the Arminians or Remonstrants. But in the year 1622 he