idea of a commercial life and resolved to devote himself entirely | and Demosthenes on the affair of Ctesiphon. After this he began to literature. His repudiation of the political poetry of 1841 the study of medicine, and having proved his scientific attainand its revolutionary ideals attracted the attention of the king ments by various treatises was appointed a lecturer on chemistry of Prussia, Frederick William IV., who, in 1842, granted him at Oxford in 1704. In the following year he accompanied the a pension of 300 talers a year. He married, and, to be near his English army, under the earl of Peterborough, into Spain, and friend Emanuel Geibel, settled at St Goar. Before long, however, on returning home in 1707, wrote an account of the expedition, Freiligrath was himself carried away by the rising tide of liberal- which attained great popularity. Two years later he published .ism. In the poem Ein Glaubensbekenntnis (1844) he openly his Prelectiones chimicae, which he dedicated to Sir Isaac Newton. avowed his sympathy with the political movement led by his old Shortly after his return in 1713 from Flanders, whither he had adversary, Georg Herwegh; the day, he declared, of his own accompanied the British troops, he took up his residence in poetic trifling with Romantic themes was over; Romanticism London, where he soon obtained a great reputation as a physician. itself was dead. He laid down his pension, and, to avoid the In 1716 he became fellow of the college of physicians, of which inevitable political persecution, took refuge in Switzerland. he was chosen one of the censors in 1718, and Harveian orator As a sequel to the Glaubensbekenntnis he published Ça ira! (1846), in 1720. In 1722 he entered parliament as member for Launceston which strained still further his relations with the German | in Cornwall, but, being suspected of favouring the cause of the authorities. He fled to London, where he resumed the com- exiled Stuarts, he spent half of that year in the Tower. During mercial life he had broken off seven years before. When the his imprisonment he conceived the plan of his most important Revolution of 1848 broke out, it seemed to Freiligrath, as to all work, The History of Physic, of which the first part appeared the liberal thinkers of the time, the dawn of an era of political in 1725, and the second in the following year. In the latter year freedom; and, as may be seen from the poems in his collection of he was appointed physician to Queen Caroline, an office which he Politische und soziale Gedichte (1849-1851), he welcomed it with held till his death on the 26th of July 1728. unbounded enthusiasm. He returned to Germany and settled in Düsseldorf; but it was not long before he had again called down upon himself the ill-will of the ruling powers by a poem, Die Toten an die Lebenden (1848). He was arrested on a charge of lèse-majesté, but the prosecution ended in his acquittal. New difficulties arose; his association with the democratic movement rendered him an object of constant suspicion, and in 1851 he judged it more prudent to go back to London, where he remained until 1868. In that year he returned to Germany, settling first in Stuttgart and in 1875 in the neighbouring town of Cannstatt, where he died on the 18th of March 1876.

As a poet, Freiligrath was the most gifted member of the German revolutionary group. Coming at the very close of the Romantic age, his own purely lyric poetry re-echoes for the most part the familiar thoughts and imagery of his Romantic predecessors; but at an early age he had been attracted by the work of French contemporary poets, and he reinvigorated the German lyric by grafting upon it the orientalism of Victor Hugo. In this reconciliation of French and German romanticismlay Freiligrath's significance for the development of the lyric in Germany. His remarkable power of assimilating foreign literatures is alsó to be seen in his translations of English and Scottish ballads, of the poetry of Burns, Mrs Hemans, Longfellow and Tennyson (Englische Gedichte aus neuerer Zeit, 1846; The Rose, Thistle and Shamrock, 1853, 6th ed. 1887); he also translated Shakespeare's Cymbeline, Winter's Tale and Venus and Adonis, as well as Longfellow's Hiawatha (1857). Freiligrath is most original in his revolutionary poetry. His poems of this class suffer, it is true, under the disadvantage of all political poetry-purely temporary interest and the unavoidable admixture of much that has no claim to be called poetry at all-but the agitator Freiligrath, when he is at his best, displays a vigour and strength, a power of direct and cogent poetic expression, not to be found in any other political singer of the age.

Freiligrath's Gedichte have passed through some fifty editions, and bis Gesammelte Dichtungen, first published in 1870, have reached a sixth edition (1898). Nachgelassenes (including a translation of Byron's Maseppa) was published in 1883. A selection of Freiligrath's best-known poems in English translation was edited by his daughter, Mrs Freiligrath-Kroeker, in 1869; also Songs of a Revoluhonary Epoch were translated by J. L. Joynes in 1888. Cp. E. Schmidt-Weissenfels, F. Freiligrath, eine Biographie (1876); W. Buchner, F. Freiligrath, ein Dichterleben in Briefen (2 vols., 1881); G. Freiligrath, Erinnerungen an F. Freiligrath (1889); P. Besson, Fredigrah (Paris, 1899); K. Richter, Freiligrath als Übersetzer (1899). (J. G. R.) FREIND, JOHN (1675-1728), English physician, younger brother of Robert Freind (1667-1751), headmaster of Westminster school, was born in 1675 at Croton in Northamptonshire. He made great progress in classical knowledge under Richard Busby at Westminster, and at Christ Church, Oxford, under Dean Aldrich, and while still very young, produced, along with Peter Foulkes, an excellent edition of the speeches of Aeschines

A complete edition of his Latin works, with a Latin translation of the History of Physic, edited by Dr John Wigan, was published in London in 1732.

FREINSHEIM (FREINSHEMIUS], JOHANN (1608–1660), German classical scholar and critic, was born at Ulm on the 16th of November 1608. After studying at the universities of Marburg, Giessen and Strassburg, he visited France, where he remained for three years. He returned to Strassburg in 1637, and in 1642 was appointed professor of eloquence at Upsala. In 1647 he was summoned by Queen Christina to Stockholm as court librarian and historiographer. In 1650 he resumed his professorship at Upsala, but early in the following year he was obliged to resign on account of ill-health. In 1656 he became honorary professor at Heidelberg, and died on the 31st of August 1660. Freinsheim's literary activity was chiefly devoted to the Roman historians. He first introduced the division into chapters and paragraphs, and by means of carefully compiled indexes illustrated the lexical peculiarities of each author. He is best known for his famous supplements to Quintus Curtius and Livy, containing the missing books written by himself. He also published critical editions of Curtius and Florus.

FREIRE, FRANCISCO JOSÉ (1719–1773), Portuguese historian and philologist, was born at Lisbon on the 3rd of January 1719. He belonged to the monastic society of St Philip Neri, and was a zealous member of the literary association known as the Academy of Arcadians, in connexion with which he adopted the pseudonym of Candido Lusitano. He contributed much to the improvement of the style of Portuguese prose literature, but his endeavour to effect a reformation in the national poetry by a translation of Horace's Ars poëtica was less successful. The work in which he set forth his opinions regarding the vicious taste pervading the current Portuguese prose literature is entitled Maximas sobre a Arte Oratoria (1745) and is preceded by a chronological table forming almost a social and physical history of Portugal. His best known work, however, is his Vida do Infante D. Henrique (1758), which has given him a place in the first rank of Portuguese historians, and has been translated into French (Paris, 1781). He also wrote a poetical dictionary (Diccionario poetico) and a translation of Racine's Athalie (1762), and his Réflexions sur la langue portugaise was published in 1842 by the Lisbon society for the promotion of useful knowledge. He died at Mafra on the 5th of July 1773.

FREISCHÜTZ, in German folklore, a marksman who by a compact with the devil has obtained a certain number of bullets destined to hit without fail whatever object he wishes. As the legend is usually told, six of the Freikugeln or "free bullets" are thus subservient to the marksman's will, but the seventh is at the absolute disposal of the devil himself. Various methods were adopted in order to procure possession of the marvellous missiles. According to one the marksman, instead of swallowing the sacramental host, kept it and fixed it on a tree, shot at it

and caused it to bleed great drops of blood, gathered the drops | on a piece of cloth and reduced the whole to ashes, and then with these ashes added the requisite virtue to the lead of which his bullets were made. Various vegetable or animal substances had the reputation of serving the same purpose. Stories about the Freischütz were especially common in Germany during the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries; but the first time that the legend was turned to literary profit is said to have been by Apel in the Gespensterbuch or "Book of Ghosts." It formed the subject of Weber's opera Der Freischütz (1821), the libretto of which was written by Friedrich Kind, who had suggested Apel's story as an excellent theme for the composer. The name by which the Freischütz is known in French is Robin des Bois.

who constructed many of their dwellings out of the ruined Roman buildings. The ancient harbour (really but a portion of the lagoons, which had been deepened) is now completely silted up. Even in early times a canal had to be kept open by perpetual digging, while about 1700 this was closed, and now a sandy and partly cultivated waste extends between the town and the seashore.

See J. A. Aubenas, Histoire de Fréjus (Fréjus, 1881); Ch. Lenthéric, La Provence Maritime ancienne et moderne (Paris, 1880), chap. vii. (W. A. B. C.)

FRELINGHUYSEN, FREDERICK THEODORE (1817-1885), American lawyer and statesman, of Dutch descent, was born at Millstone, New Jersey, on the 4th of August 1817. His grandSee Kind, Freyschützbuch (Leipzig, 1843): Revue des deux mondes father, Frederick Frelinghuysen (1753-1804), was an eminent (February 1855); Grässe, Die Quelle des Freischütz (Dresden, 1875). lawyer, one of the framers of the first New Jersey constitution, FREISING, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Bavaria, a soldier in the War of Independence, and a member (1778-1779 on the Isar, 16 m. by rail N.N.E. of Munich. Pop. (1905) 13,538. and 1782-1783) of the Continental Congress from New Jersey, Among its eight Roman Catholic churches the most remarkable and in 1793-1796 of the United States senate; and his uncle, is the cathedral, which dates from about 1160 and is famous for Theodore (1787-1862), was attorney-general of New Jersey its curious crypt. Noteworthy also are the old palace of the from 1817 to 1829, was a United States senator from New bishops, now a clerical seminary, the theological lyceum and the Jersey in 1829-1835, was the Whig candidate for vice-president town-hall. There are several schools in the town, and there is a on the Clay ticket in 1844, and was chancellor of the university statue to the chronicler, Otto of Freising, who was bishop here of New York in 1839-1850 and president of Rutgers College from 1138 to 1158. Freising has manufactures of agricultural in 1850-1862. Frederick Theodore, left an orphan at the age of machinery and of porcelain, while printing and brewing are carried three, was adopted by his uncle, graduated at Rutgers in 1836, on. Near the town is the site of the Benedictine abbey of and studied law in Newark with his uncle, to whose practice Weihenstephan, which existed from 725 to 1803. This is now he succeeded in 1839, soon after his admission to the bar. He a model farm and brewery. Freising is a very ancient town and became attorney for the Central Railroad of New Jersey, the is said to have been founded by the Romans. After being Morris Canal and Banking Company, and other corporations, destroyed by the Hungarians in 955 it was fortified by the emperor and from 1861 to 1867 was attorney-general of New Jersey. Otto II. in 976 and by Duke Welf of Bavaria in 1082. A bishopric In 1861 he was a delegate to the peace congress at Washington, was established here in 724 by St Corbinianus, whose brother and in 1866 was appointed by the governor of New Jersey, as Erimbert was consecrated second bishop by St Boniface in 739. a Republican, to fill a vacancy in the United States senate. Later on the bishops acquired considerable territorial power In the winter of 1867 he was elected to fill the unexpired term, and in the 17th century became princes of the Empire. In but a Democratic majority in the legislature prevented his 1802 the see was secularized, the bulk of its territories being re-election in 1869. In 1870 he was nominated by President assigned to Bavaria and the rest to Salzburg, of which Freising Grant, and confirmed by the senate, as United States minister had been a suffragan bishopric. In 1817 an archbishopric to England to succeed John Lothrop Motley, but declined the was established at Freising, but in the following year it was mission. From 1871 to 1877 he was again a member of the United transferred to Munich. The occupant of the see is now called States senate, in which he was prominent in debate and in comarchbishop of Munich and Freising. mittee work, and was chairman of the committee on foreign affairs during the Alabama Claims negotiations. He was a strong opponent of the reconstruction measures of President Johnson, for whose conviction he voted (on most of the specific charges) in the impeachment trial. He was a member of the joint committee which drew up and reported (1877) the Electoral Commission Bill, and subsequently served as a member of the commission. On the 12th of December 1881 he was appointed secretary of state by President Arthur to succeed James G. Blaine, and served until the inauguration of President Cleveland in 1885. Retiring, with his health impaired by overwork, to his home in Newark, he died there on the 20th of May, less than three months after relinquishing the cares of office.

See C. Meichelbeck, Historiae Frisingensis (Augsburg, 1724-1729, new and enlarged edition 1854).

FRÉJUS, a town in the department of the Var in S.E. France. Pop. (1906) 3430. It is 28 m. S.E. of Draguignan (the chief town of the department), and 22 m. S. W. of Cannes by rail. It is only important on account of the fine Roman remains that it contains, for it is now a mile from the sea, its harbour having been silted up by the deposits of the Argens river. Since the 4th century it has been a bishop's see, which is in the ecclesiastical province of Aix en Provence. In modern times the neighbouring fishing village at St Raphaël (2) m. by rail S.E., and on the seashore) has become a town of 4865 inhabitants (in 1901); in 1799 Napoleon disembarked there on his return from Egypt, and reembarked for Elba in 1814, while nowadays it is much frequented as a health resort, as is also Valescure (2 m. N.W. on the heights above). The cathedral church in part dates from the 12th century, but only small portions of the old medieval episcopal palace are now visible, as it was rebuilt about 1823. The ramparts of the old town can still be traced for a long distance, and there are fragments of two moles, of the theatre and of a gate. The amphitheatre, which seated 12,000 spectators, is in a better state of preservation. The ruins of the great aqueduct which brought the waters of the Siagnole, an affluent of the Siagne, to the town, can still be traced for a distance of nearly 19 m. The original hamlet was the capital of the tribe of the Oxybii, while the town of Forum Julii was founded on its site by Julius Caesar in order to secure to the Romans a harbour independent of that of Marseilles. The buildings of which ruins exist were mostly built by Caesar or by Augustus, and show that it was an important naval station and arsenal. But the town suffered much at the hands of the Arabs, of Barbary pirates, and of its inhabitants,

FREMANTLE, a seaport of Swan county, Western Australia, at the mouth of the Swan river, 12 m. by rail S.W. of Perth. It is the terminus of the Eastern railway, and is a town of some industrial activity, shipbuilding, soap-boiling, saw-milling, smelting, iron-founding, furniture-making, flour-milling, brewing and tanning being its chief industries. The harbour, by the construction of two long moles and the blasting away of the rocks at the bar, has been rendered secure. The English, French and German mail steamers call at the port. Fremantle became a municipality in 1871; but there are now three separate municipalities-Fremantle, with a population in 1901 of 14,704; Fremantle East (2494); and Fremantle North (3246). At Rottnest Island, off the harbour, there are government salt-works and a residence of the governor, also penal and reformatory establishments.

FRÉMIET, EMMANUEL (1824- ), French sculptor, born in Paris, was a nephew and pupil of Rude; he chiefly devoted himself to animal sculpture and to equestrian statues in armour. His earliest work was in scientific lithography (osteology), and

cutlery, bricks, agricultural implements, stoves and ranges, safety razors, carriage irons, sash, doors, blinds, furniture, beet sugar, canned vegetables, malt extract, garters and suspenders. The total factory product was valued at $2,833,385 in 1905, an increase of 23.4% over that of 1900. Fremont is on the site of a favourite abode of the Indians, and a trading post was at times maintained here; but the place is best known in history as the site of Fort Stephenson, erected during the War of 1812, and on the 2nd of August 1813 gallantly and successfully defended by Major George Croghan (1791-1849), with 160 men, against about 1000 British and Indians under Brigadier-General Henry A. Proctor. In 1906 Croghan's remains were re-interred on the site of the old fort. Until 1849, when the present name was adopted in honour of J. C. Frémont, the place was known as Lower Sandusky; it was incorporated as a village in 1829 and was first chartered as a city in 1867.

with headquarters at St Louis, but his lack of judgment and of administrative ability soon became apparent, the affairs of his department fell into disorder, and Frémont seems to have been easily duped by dishonest contractors whom he trusted. On the 30th of August 1861 he issued a proclamation in which he declared the property of Missourians in rebellion confiscated and their slaves emancipated. For this he was applauded by the radical Republicans, but his action was contrary to an act of congress of the 6th of August and to the policy of the Administration. On the 11th of September President Lincoln, who regarded the action as premature and who saw that it might alienate Kentucky and other border states, whose adherence he was trying to secure, annulled these declarations. Impelled by serious charges against Frémont, the president sent Montgomery Blair, the postmaster-general, and Montgomery C. Meigs, the quartermaster-general, to investigate the department; they reported that Frémont's management was extravagant and FRÉMY, EDMOND (1814-1894), French chemist, was born inefficient; and in November he was removed. Out of con- at Versailles on the 29th of February 1814. Entering Gaysideration for the "Radicals," however, Frémont was placed in Lussac's laboratory in 1831, he became préparateur at the Ecole command of the Mountain Department of Virginia, Kentucky Polytechnique in 1834 and at the Collège de France in 1837. and Tennessee. In the spring and summer of 1862 he co-operated His next post was that of répétiteur at the Ecole Polytechnique, with General N. P. Banks against "Stonewall " Jackson in the where in 1846 he was appointed professor, and in 1850 he sucShenandoah Valley, but showed little ability as a commander, was ceeded Gay-Lussac in the chair of chemistry at the Muséum defeated by General Ewell at Cross Keys, and when his troops d'Histoire Naturelle, of which he was director, in succession to were united with those of Generals Banks and McDowell to form M. E. Chevreul, from 1879 to 1891. He died at Paris on the 3rd the Army of Virginia, of which General John Pope was placed of February 1894. His work included investigations of osmic in command, Frémont declined to serve under Pope, whom he acid, of the ferrates, stannates, plumbates, &c., and of ozone, outranked, and retired from active service. On the 31st of May attempts to obtain free fluorine by the electrolysis of fused 1864 he was nominated for the presidency by a radical faction | fluorides, and the discovery of anhydrous hydrofluoric acid and of the Republican party, opposed to President Lincoln, but of a series of acides sulphazoles, the precise nature of which long his following was so small that on the 21st of September he with- remained a matter of discussion. He also studied the colouring drew from the contest. From 1878 to 1881 he was governor of matters of leaves and flowers, the composition of bone, cerebral the territory of Arizona, and in the last year of his life he was matter and other animal substances, and the processes of ferappointed by act of congress a major-general and placed on the mentation, in regard to the nature of which he was an opponent of retired list. He died in New York on the 13th of July 1890. Pasteur's views. Keenly alive to the importance of the technical See J. C. Frémont, Report of the Exploring Expedition to the Rocky applications of chemistry, he devoted special attention as a Mountains, 1842, and to Oregon and North California, 1843-1844 teacher to the training of industrial chemists. In this field he (Washington, 1845); Frémont's Memoirs of my Life (New York, 1887); and J, Bigelow, Memoirs of the Life and Public Services contributed to our knowledge of the manufacture of iron and steel, of John C. Frémont (New York, 1856). sulphuric acid, glass and paper, and in particular worked at the FREMONT, a city and the county-seat of Dodge county, saponification of fats with sulphuric acid and the utilization of Nebraska, U.S.A., about 37 m. N.W. of Omaha, on the N. bank palmitic acid for candle-making. In the later years of his life of the Platte river, which here abounds in picturesque bluffs he applied himself to the problem of obtaining alumina in the and wooded islands. Pop. (1890) 6747; (1900) 7241 (1303 crystalline form, and succeeded in making rubies identical with foreign-born); (1910) 8718. It is on the main line of the Union the natural gem not merely in chemical composition but also in Pacific railway, on a branch of the Chicago, Burlington & physical properties. Quincy system, and on the main western line of the Chicago & North-Western railway, several branches of which (including the formerly independent Fremont, Elkhorn & Missouri Valley and the Sioux City & Pacific) converge here. The city has an attractive situation and is beautifully shaded. It has a public library and is the seat of the Fremont College, Commercial Institute and School of Pharmacy (1875), a private institution. There is considerable local trade with the rich farming country of the Platte and Elkhorn valleys; and the wholesale grain interests are especially important. Among the manufactures are flour, carriages, saddlery, canned vegetables, furniture, incubators and beer. The city owns and operates its electric-lighting plant and water-works. Fremont was founded in 1856, and became the county-seat in 1860. It was chartered as a city (second-class) in 1871, and became a city of the first class in 1901.

FREMONT, a city and the county-seat of Sandusky county, Ohio, U.S.A., on the Sandusky river, 30 m. S.E. of Toledo. Pop. (1890) 7141; (1900) 8439, of whom 1074 were foreign-born; (1910 census) 9939. Fremont is served by the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern, the Lake Shore Electric, the Lake Erie & Western, and the Wheeling & Lake Erie railways. The river is navigable to this point. Spiegel Grove, the former residence of Rutherford B. Hayes, is of interest, and the city has a public library (1873) and parks, in large measure the gifts of his uncle, Sardis Birchard. Fremont is situated in a good agricultural region; oil and natural gas abound in the vicinity; and the city has various manufactures, including boilers, electro-carbons,

FRENCH, DANIEL CHESTER (1850- ), American sculptor, was born at Exeter, New Hampshire, on the 20th of April 1850, the son of Henry Flagg French, a lawyer, who for a time was assistant-secretary of the United States treasury. After a year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, French spent a month in the studio of John Q. A. Ward, then began to work on commissions, and at the age of twenty-three received from the town of Concord, Massachusetts, an order for his well-known statue "The Minute Man," which was unveiled (April 19, 1875) on the centenary of the battle of Concord. Previously French had gone to Florence, Italy, where he spent a year with Thomas Ball. French's best-known work is " Death Staying the Hand of the Sculptor," a memorial for the tomb of the sculptor Martin Milmore, in the Forest Hills cemetery, Boston; this received a medal of honour at Paris, in 1900. Among his other works are: a monument to John Boyle O'Reilly, Boston; “Gen. Cass,” National Hall of Statuary, Washington; "Dr Gallaudet and his First Deaf-Mute Pupil," Washington; the colossal "Statue of the Republic," for the Columbian Exposition at Chicago; statues of Rufus Choate (Boston), John Harvard (Cambridge, Mass.), and Thomas Starr King (San Francisco, California), a memorial to the architect Richard M. Hunt, in Fifth Avenue, opposite the Lenox library, New York, and a large "Alma Mater," near the approach to Columbia University, New York. In collaboration with Edward C. Potter he modelled the "Washington," presented to France by the Daughters of the American Revolution; the "General Grant" in Fairmount Park,

Lopez projects N.W.. From this point the coast trends uniformly Mayumba, the roadstead of Loango, and the Pointe Noire may be S.E. without presenting any striking features, though the Bay of mentioned. A large proportion of the coast region is occupied by primeval forest, with trees rising to a height of 150 and 200 ft., but there is a considerable variety of scenery-open lagoons, mangrove swamps, scattered clusters of trees, park-like reaches, dense walls of tangled underwood along the rivers, prairies of tall grass and patches of cultivation. Behind the coast region is a ridge which rises from 3000 to 4500 ft., called the Crystal Mountains, then a plateau with an elevation varying from 1500 to 2800 ft., cleft with deep riverB

Philadelphia, and the "General Joseph Hooker" in Boston. | straight line until the delta of the Ogowé is reached, where Cape French became a member of the National Academy of Design (1901), the National Sculpture Society, the Architectural League, and the Accademia di San Luca, of Rome. FRENCH, NICHOLAS (1604-1678), bishop of Ferns, was an Irish political pamphleteer, who was born at Wexford. He was educated at Louvain, and returning to Ireland became a priest at Wexford, and before 1646 was appointed bishop of Ferns. Having taken a prominent part in the political disturbances of this period, French deemed it prudent to leave Ireland in 1651, and the remainder of his life was passed on the continent of Europe. He acted as coadjutor to the archbishops of Santiago de Compostella and Paris, and to the bishop of Ghent, and died at Ghent on the 23rd of August 1678. In 1676 he published his attack on James Butler, marquess of Ormonde, 1 entitled "The Unkinde Desertor of Loyall Men and True Frinds," and shortly afterwards "The Bleeding Iphigenia." The most important of his other pamphlets is the "Narrative of the Earl of Clarendon's Settlement and Sale & of Ireland" (Louvain, 1668).

The Historical Works of Bishop French, comprising the three pamphlets already mentioned and some letters, were published by S. H. Bindon at Dublin in 1846. See T. D. McGee, Irish Writers of the 17th Century (Dublin, 1846); Sir J. T. Gilbert, Contemporary History of Affairs in 2 Ireland, 1641-1652 (Dublin, 1879-1880); and T. Carte, Life of James, Duke of Ormond (new ed., Oxford, 1851).

FRENCH CONGO, the general name of the French possessions in equatorial Africa. They have an area estimated at 700,000 sq. m., with a population, also estimated, of 6,000,000 to 10,000,000. The whites numbered (1906) 1278, of whom 502 were officials. French Congo, officially renamed FRENCH EQUATORIAL AFRICA in 1910, comprises-(1) the Gabun Colony, 3 (2) the Middle Congo Colony, (3) the UbangiShari Circumscription, (4) the Chad Circumscription. The two last-named divisions form the Ubangi-Shari-Chad Colony.

valleys, the walls of which are friable, almost vertical, and in some places 760 ft. high.

The coast rivers flowing into the Atlantic cross four terraces. On the higher portion of the plateau their course is over bare sand; on the second terrace, from 1200 to 2000 ft. high, it is over wide grassy tracts; then, for some 100 m., the rivers pass through virgin forest, and, lastly, they cross the shore region, which is about 10 m. broad. The rivers which fall directly into the Atlantic are generally unnavigable. The most important, the Ogowé (q.v.), is, however, navigable from its mouth to N'Jole, a distance of 235 m. Rivers to the south of the Ogowé are the Nyanga, 120 m. long, and the Kwilu. The latter, 320 m. in length, is formed by the Kiasi and the Luété; from east to west, from south to north-west and from north to southit has a very winding course, flowing by turns from north to south, west. It is encumbered with rocks and eddies, and is navigable only over 38 m., and for five months in the year. The mouth is 1100 ft. wide. The Muni river, the northernmost in the colony, is obstructed by cataracts in its passage through the escarpment to the coast. bank of the lower river is within French Congo. The greater part Nearly all the upper basin of the Shari (q.v.) as well as the right of the country belongs, however, to the drainage area of the Congo river. In addition to the northern banks of the Mbomu and Ubangi, 330 m. of the north shore of the Congo itself are in the French prohowever, the right bank of the Sanga, the most important of these tectorate as well as numerous subsidiary streams. For some 100 m. subsidiary streams, is in German territory (see CONGO).

The present article treats of French Congol as a unit. It is of highly irregular shape. It is bounded W. by the Atlantic, N. by the (Spanish) Muni River Settlements, the German colony of Cameroon and the Sahara, E. by the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, and S. by Belgian Congo and the Portuguese territory of Kabinda. In the greater part of its length the southern frontier is the middle course of the Congo and the Ubangi and Mbomu, the chief northern affluents of that stream, but in the south-west the frontier keeps north of the Congo river, whose navigable lower course is partitioned between Belgium and Portugal. The coast line, some 600 m. long, extends from 5° S. to 1° N. The northern frontier, starting inland from the Muni estuary, after skirting the Spanish settlements follows a line drawn a little north of 2° N. and extending east to 16° E. North of this line the country is part of Cameroon, German territory extending so far inland from the Gulf of Guinea as to approach within 130 m. of the Ubangi. From the intersection of the lines named, at which point French Congo is at its narrowest, the frontier runs north and then east until the Shari is reached in 10° 40' N. The Shari then forms the frontier up to Lake Chad, where French Congo joins the Saharan regions of French West Africa. The eastern frontier, separating the colony from the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, is the water-parting between the Nile and the Congo. The Mahommedan sultanates of Wadai and Bagirmi occupy much of the northern part of French Congo (see WADAI and BAGIRMI).

Physical Features.-The coast line, beginning in the north at Carisco Bay, is shortly afterwards somewhat deeply indented by the estuary of the Gabun, south of which the shore runs in a nearly

Geology. Three main divisions are recognized in the French Congo:-(1) the littoral zone, covered with alluvium and superficial deposits and underlain by Tertiary and Cretaceous rocks; (2) the mountain zone of the Crystal Mountains, composed of granite, metamorphic and ancient sediments; (3) the plateau of the northern portion of the Congo basin, occupied by Karroo sandstones. The core of the Crystal Mountains consists of granite and schists.