OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Nadir

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​NADIR (Arabic naḍīr, “opposite to,” used elliptically for naḍīr-es-semt, “opposite to the zenith”), a term used in astronomy for the point in the heavens exactly opposite to the zenith, the zenith and nadir being the two poles of the horizon. It is thus used figuratively of the lowest depth of a person’s spirits or the lowest point in a career.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Nadia

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​NADIA, or Nuddea, a district of British India, in the Presidency division of Bengal. The administrative headquarters are at Krishnagar. Area, 2793 sq. m.; pop. (1901) 1,667,491. It is a district of great rivers. Standing at the head of the Gangetic delta, its alluvial surface, though still liable to periodical inundation, has been raised by ancient deposits of silt sufficiently high to be permanent dry land. Along the entire north-eastern boundary flows the main stream of the Ganges or Padmā, of which all the remaining rivers of the district are offshoots. The Bhāgirathī on the eastern border, and the Jalangi and the Matabhanga meandering through the centre of the district, are the chief of those offshoots, called distinctively the “Nadia rivers.” But the whole surface of the country is interlaced with a network of minor streams, communicating with one another by side channels. All the rivers are navigable in the rainy season for boats of the largest burthen, but during the rest of the year they dwindle down to shallow streams, with dangerous sandbanks and bars. In former times the Nadia rivers afforded the regular means of communication between the upper valley of the Ganges and the seaboard; and much of the trade of the district still comes down to Calcutta by this route during the height of the rainy season. But the railways, ​with the main stream of the Ganges and the Sundarbans route, now carry by far the larger portion of the traffic. Rice is the staple crop; but the district is not as a whole fertile, the soil being sandy and the methods of cultivation backward. It is traversed by the main line and also by several branches of the Eastern Bengal railway. The battlefield of Plassey was situated in this district, but the floods of the Bhagirathi have washed away some part of it.
Nadia or Nabadwip, an ancient capital of Bengal, was formerly situated on the east bank of the Bhāgirathī, which has since changed its course. Pop. (1901) 10,880. It is celebrated for the sanctity and learning of its pundits, and as the birthplace of Chaitanya, the Vaishnav reformer of the 16th century. Its Sanskrit schools, called tols, are well known and of ancient foundation.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Naestved

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​NAESTVED, a town of Denmark, in the amt (county) of Praestö, near the S.W. coast of Zealand, 59 m. by rail S.W. of Copenhagen. Pop. (1901) 7162. From 1140 to the Reformation it was one of the most important towns of the kingdom, though dependent upon the monastery of St Peter (founded here in 1135). North of the town (11/4 m.) lies Herlufsholm, where Admiral Herluf Trolle founded a Latin school in 1567, still extant.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Naevus

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​NAEVUS, a term in surgery signifying that form of tumour which is almost entirely composed of enlarged blood-vessels. There are three principal varieties: (1) the capillary naevus, consisting of enlarged capillaries, frequently of a purplish colour, hence the term “port-wine stain”; (2) the venous naevus, in which the veins are enlarged, of a bluish colour; (3) the arterial naevus, in which there is distinct pulsation, it being composed of enlarged and tortuous arteries. The naevus can be lessened in size by pressure. It generally occurs in the skin or immediately under it; sometimes it lies in the mouth in connexion with the mucous membrane. It is often congenital, hence the term “mother’s mark,” or it may appear in early childhood. It often grows rapidly, sometimes slowly, and sometimes growth is checked, and it may gradually diminish in size, losing its vascularity and becoming fibrous and non-vascular. This natural cure is followed by less deformity than a cure by artificial means. Various methods are used by surgeons when an operation is called for: (1) the tumour may be excised; (2) a ligature tightly tied may be applied to the base of the tumour; (3) inflammation may be set up in the growth by the injection of irritating agents,—in this way its vascularity may be checked and the formation of fibrous tissue encouraged; (4) the blood in the enlarged vessels may be coagulated by the injection of coagulating agents or by electrolysis.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Naga Hills

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​NAGA HILLS, a district of British India in the Hills division of Eastern Bengal and Assam. It forms part of the mountainous borderland lying between the Brahmaputra valley and Upper Burma. Area, 3070 sq. m.; pop. (1901) 102,402. Towards the N. lie the Patkoi hills, over which British jurisdiction has never been extended; but since 1904 the southern tract, formerly known as the “area of political control,” has been incorporated in the district, thus extending its E. boundary from the Dikho to the Tizic river. The whole country forms a wild expanse of forest, mountain and stream. The valleys are covered with dense jungle, dotted with small lakes and marshes. Coal is known to exist in many localities, as well as iron ore and petroleum. The administrative headquarters' of the district are at Kohima (pop. 3093), which is garrisoned by two companies of native infantry and a battalion of military police. The Dimapur-Manipur cart-road crosses the hills, connecting Kohima with the Assam-Bengal railway.
Naga means “naked,” and is the term applied by the Assamese to the wild tribes of the hills, of which the chief clans are called Angami, Ao, Shota, Sema and Rengma. These tribes have shown extraordinary obstinacy in their resistance to the British arms. Between 1832 and 1849 ten armed expeditions were despatched to chastise them, and from 1866 to 1887 there were eight more, a record which exceeds that of the most turbulent ​tribes on the North-West Frontier. Since 1892, however, little trouble has been experienced.
See Naga Hills District Gazetteer (Calcutta, 1905).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Rafn, Karl Christian

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​RAFN, KARL CHRISTIAN (1795–1864), Danish archaeologist, was born in Brahesborg, Fünen, on the 16th of January 1795, and died at Copenhagen on the 20th of October 1864. He is chiefly known in connexion with the controversy as to the question of the discovery of America by the Norsemen, his ​views being contained in his chief work, Antiquitates Americanae (Copenhagen, 1837). See Lief Ericsson.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ragusa (Sicily)

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​RAGUSA, a town of Sicily in the province of Syracuse, 70 m. S.W. of Syracuse by rail and 32 m. direct. It consists of an upper (Ragusa Superiore) and a lower town (Ragusa Inferiore), each of which forms a separate commune. Pop. (1906) of the former, 35,529; of the latter, 866. It has some churches with fine Gothic architecture, and is commercially of some importance, a stone impregnated with bitumen being quarried and prepared for use for paving slabs by being exposed to the action of fire. On the hill occupied by the castle of Ragusa Inferiore stood the ancient Hybla Heraea, a Sicel town, under the walls of which Hippocrates of Gela fell in 491 B.C. A Greek settlement seems to have arisen in the neighborhood close to the present railway station, about the middle of the 6th century B.C., and to have disappeared at the end of the 5th. Orsi points out that the remains (cuttings in the rock and a part of the castle wall), attributed by Freeman (History of Sicily, i. 163) to Sicel times, are in reality post-Roman.
See Orsi in Notizie degli scavi (1899), 402–418.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Raffle

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​RAFFLE, a special kind of lottery, in which a particular article is put up as the prize, the winner being drawn for by lot out of the number of those who have paid a fixed sum for admission to the drawing; the total amount realized by the sale of the tickets is supposed to approximate to the value of the object rallied for. The word appears in English as early as Chaucer (The Parson’s Tale) where it is used in its original sense of a game of dice, the winner being that one who threw three dice all alike, or, next, the highest pair. The Fr. rafle, Med. Lat. raffla, was also used in the sense of a “sweeping-off” of the stakes in a game; it has been connected with Ger. raffen, to carry off.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Rafter

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​RAFTER, a beam in a sloping roof to which is attached the framework for the slating, tiling or other external covering (see Roofs). The O.Eng. raefter is cognate with Icel. raftr, Dan. and Swed. rafte or raft, a beam, which, in the special sense of a floating collection of timbers, gives the English “raft.” The ultimate base of these words is the root raf-, to cover, seen in Gr. ὄροφος, roof.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Rag-stone

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​RAG-STONE (probably equivalent to “ragged” stone), a name given by some architectural writers to work done with stones which are quarried in thin pieces, such as the Horsham sandstone, Yorkshire stone, the slate stones, &c.; but this is more properly flag or slab work. By rag-stone, near London, is meant an excellent material from the neighbourhood of Maidstone. It is a very hard limestone of bluish-grey colour, and peculiarly suited for medieval work. It is often laid as uncoursed work, or random work (see Random), sometimes as random coursed work and sometimes as regular ashlar. The first method, however, is the more picturesque. (See Masonry.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ragatz

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​RAGATZ, a famous watering-place in the Swiss canton of St Gall, situated on the left bank of the Rhine, and by rail 13½ m. N. of Coire or 61½ m. S.E. of Zürich. It stands at a height of 1696 ft., at the entrance to the magnificent gorge of the Tamina, about 3 m. up which by carriage road are the extraordinarily placed Baths of Pfäfers (2247 ft.). Since 1840 the hot mineral waters of Pfäfers are conducted in pipes to Ragatz, which is in a more pleasant position. Consequently Ragatz has much increased in importance since that date. In 1900 its native population was 1866, mainly German-speaking, while there were 1472 Romanists to 392 Protestants. The annual number of visitors is reckoned at 30,000. In the churchyard is the grave of the philosopher Schelling (d. here in 1854). About 2 m. by road above Ragatz are the 17th-century buildings (now the cantonal lunatic asylum) of the great Benedictine abbey of Pfäfers (720–1838), to which all this region belonged till 1798; while midway between them and Ragatz are the ruins of the 14th-century castle of Wartenstein, now accessible from Ragatz by means of a funicular railway. (W. A. B. C.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ragman Rolls

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​RAGMAN ROLLS, the name given to the collection of instruments by which the nobility and gentry of Scotland were compelled to subscribe allegiance to Edward I. of England between the conference of Norham in May 1291 and the final award in favour of Baliol in November 1292, and again in 1296. Of the former of these records two copies were preserved in the chapter-house at Westminster (now in the Record Office, London), and it has been printed by Rymer (Foedera, ii. 542). Another copy, preserved originally in the Tower of London, is now also in the Record Office. The latter record, containing the various acts of homage and fealty extorted by Edward from Baliol and others in the course of his progress through Scotland in the summer of 1296 and in August at the parliament of Berwick, was published by Prynne from the copy in the Tower and now in the Record Office. Both records were printed by the Bannatyne Club in 1834. The derivation of the word “ragman” has never been satisfactorily explained, but various guesses as to its meaning and a list of examples of its use for legal instruments both in England and Scotland will be found in the preface to the Bannatyne Club’s volume, and in Jamieson’s Scottisk Dictionary, s.v. “Ragman.” The name “ragman roll” survives in the colloquial “rigmarole,” a rambling, incoherent statement.
The name of “Ragman” has been sometimes confined to the record of 1296, of which an account is given in Calendar of Documents relating to Scotland preserved in the Public Record Office, London (1884), vol. ii., Introd., p. xxiv; and as to the seals see p. lii and appendix.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Reichenau

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​REICHENAU, a picturesque island in the Untersee or western arm of the lake of Constance, 3 m. long by 1 broad, and connected with the east shore by a causeway three-quarters of a mile long. It belongs to the grand duchy of Baden. 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 1540 the abbey, which had previously been independent, was annexed 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 (d. 888), who retired to this island in 887, after losing the empire of Charlemagne. It now serves as the parish church of Mittelzell, while the churches of Oberzell and Unterzell are also interesting buildings of the Carolingian era.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Reichenhall

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​REICHENHALL, a town and watering-place in the kingdom of Bavaria, finely situated in an amphitheatre of lofty mountains, on the river Saalach, 1570 ft. above sea-level, 9 m. S.W. of Salzburg. Pop. (1900) 4927, excluding visitors. Reichenhall possesses several copious saline springs, producing about 8500 tons of salt per annum. The water of some of the springs, the sources of which are 50 ft. below the surface, is so strongly saturated with salt (up to 24%) 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 conduits having an aggregate length of 60 m. The surplus brine of Berchtesgaden is conducted to Reichenhall, and thence, in increased volume, to Traunstein and Rosenhelm, which possess larger supplies of timber for use as fuel in the process of boiling. Since 1846 Reichenhallhas become one of the most fashionable spas and climatic health resorts in Germany, and it is now visited annually by about ten thousand patients, besides many thousand passing tourists. The saline springs are used both for drinking and batliing, and are said to be emcacious in scrofula and incipient tuberculosis. 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 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.
See G. von Liebig, Reichenhall, sein Klima und seine Heilmittel (6th ed., Reichenhall, 1889); and Goldschmidt, Der Aura/rt Bad Reichenhall und seine Umgebung (Vienna, 1892).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Reichenbach (Silesia)

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​REICHENBACH, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Silesia, situated on the Peile, at the foot of the Eulengebirge, a spur of the Riesengebirge, 30 m. S.W. of Breslau by rail. Pop. (1905) 1 5,984. Among its industries are weaving, spinning, dyeing, brewing and machine building, and there is a considerable trade in grain and cattle. Reichenbach is memorable for the victory gained here on the 16th of August 1762 by the Prussians over the Austrians. Here was held the congress which resulted in the convention of Reichenbach—signed on the 27th of July 1790 between Great Britain, Prussia, Austria, Poland and Holland—guaranteeing the integrity of Turkey. Here, too, in June 1813, was signed the treaty of alliance between Austria and the Allies for the prosecution of the war against France.
See the Kurze Geschichte der Stadt Reichenbach (Reichenbach, 1874).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Reichenberg

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​REICHENBERG (Czech, Liberec), a town of Bohemia, 87 m. N.E. of Prague by rail. Pop. (1900) 34,099, chiefly German. The most prominent buildings are the new town-hall (1893); the castle of Count Clam Gallas, built in the 17th century, with additions dating from 1774 and 1850; the Erzdekanatskirche, of the 16th century; the Protestant church, a handsome modern Romanesque edifice (1864-68) and the hall of the cloth-workers. Reichenberg is one of the most important centres of trade and industry in Bohemia, its staple industry being the cloth manufacture. Next in importance comes the spinning and weaving of wool, cotton, linen and carpet manufactures, and dyeing.
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 has belonged to the Gallas and Clam Gallas families, though their jurisdiction over the town has long ceased. The cloth-making industry was introduced in 1579.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Rehearsal

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​REHEARSAL (from “rehearse,” to say over again, repeat, recount, O.Fr. rehercer, from re, again, and hercer, to harrow, cf. “hearse,” the original meaning being to rake or go over the same ground again as with a harrow), a recital of words or statements, particularly the trial performance in private of a play, musical composition, recitation, &c., for the purpose of practice preparatory to the performance in public. In the theatre a “full rehearsal” is one in which the whole performance is gone through with all the performers, a “dress rehearsal” one in which the performance is carried out with scenery, costumes, properties, &c., exactly as it is to be played in public.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Reichenbach (Saxony)

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​REICHENBACH, a town in the kingdom of Saxony, situated in a hilly district, known as the Vogtland, II m. S.W. of Zwickau, at the junction of the main lines of railway Dresden-Leipzig-Hof. Pop. (1905) 24,915. It contains a handsome town-hall rebuilt in 1833, and a natural history museum. The industries embrace the manufacture of cloth, machinery and carriages, also dyeing and bleaching. The earliest mention of the town 'occurs in a document of 1212, and it acquired municipal rights in 1367. The woollen manufacture was introduced in the 15th century, and took the place of the mining industry' which had been established earlier.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Reicha, Anton Joseph

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​REICHA, ANTON JOSEPH (1770–1836), French musical theorist and teacher of composition, was born at Prague on the 27th of February 1770, and educated chiefly by his uncle, Joseph Reicha (1746–1795), a clever violoncellist, who first received him into his house at Wallerstein in Bohemia, and afterwards carried him to Bonn. Here, about 1789, he was made flutist in the orchestra of the elector. In 1794 he went to Hamburg and gave 'music lessons there, also producing the opera Godefroid de Montfort. He was in Paris in 1799 and in Vienna from 1802 to 1808, during which period he saw much of Beethoven and Haydn. In the latter year he returned to Paris, where he produced three operas without much success. In 1817 he succeeded Méhul as professor of counterpoint at the Conservatoire. In 1829 he was naturalized as a Frenchman, and in 1835 he was admitted as a member of the Institute in the place of Boieldieu. He died in Paris on the 28th of May 1836. He produced a vast quantity of church music, five operas, a number of symphonies, oratorios and many miscellaneous works. Though clever and ingenious, his compositions are more remarkable for their novelty than for the beauty of the ideas upon which they are based. His fame is, indeed, more securely based upon his didactic works. His Traité de mélodie (Paris, 1814), Cours de composition musicale (Paris, 1818), Traité de haute composition musicale (Paris, 1824–26), and Art du compositeur dramatique (Paris, 1833), are valuable and instructive essays for the student, though many of the theories they set forth are now condemned as erroneous.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Reichenbach, Georg von

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​REICHENBACH, GEORG VON (1772-1826), German astronomical instrument maker, was born at Durlach in Baden on the 24th of August 1772. -From 1796 he was occupied with the construction of a dividing engine; in 1804, with Joseph, Liebherr and Joseph Utzschneider, he founded an instrument making business in Munich; and in 1809 he established, with Joseph Fraunhofer and Utzschneider, optical works at Benedictbeuem, which were moved to Munich in 1823. He withdrew from both enterprises in 1814, and founded with T. L. Ertel a new optical business, from which also he retired in 1821, on obtaining an engineering appointment under the Bavarian government. He died at Munich on the 21st of May 1826. Reichenbach's principal merit was that he introduced into observatories the meridian or transit circle, combining the transit instrument and the mural circle into one instrument. This had already been done by O. Romer about 1704, but the idea had not been adopted by any one else, except in the transit circle constructed by Edward Troughton for Stephen Groombridge in 1806. The transit circle in the form given it by Reichenbach had one finely divided circle attached to one end of the horizontal axis and read by four verniers on an " alidade circle, " the unaltered position of which was tested by a spirit level. The instrument came almost at once into universal use on the continent of Europe (the first one was made for F. W. Bessel in 1819), but in England the mural circle and transit instrument were not superseded for many years.