Rudolf

Rudolf, Lake, an equatorial sea in British East Africa, near the edge of the Kaffa or South Ethiopian highlands, is long and narrow, stretching 160 miles NE. and SW. by 20 broad, with an area of 3000 sq. m., at a height of 1300 feet above the sea. It is crossed by 4° N. lat. and 35° E. long. It has no visible outlet, and its waters are very brackish. It was discovered by Count Teleki in 1888. See his Discovery of Lakes Rudolf and Stephanie (Eng. trans. 1894).

Rudolstadt

Rudolstadt, capital of Schwarzburg-Rudol-stadt in Germany, lies in a hill-girt valley on the Saale, 18 miles S. of Weimar. There are two royal castles, and factories of porcelain, chemicals, and wool. Pop. 12,570.

Rufiji

Rufiji (Roo-fee-jee), or Lufiji, the chief river of German East Africa, which rising far in the interior enters the sea through a delta with shoals and bars opposite the island of Mafia.

Rugeley

Rugeley (Roof ley), a market-town of Staffordshire, on the Trent, 10 miles ESE. of Stafford. It has good public buildings (1879), a grammar-school, ironworks, and neighbouring collieries. Pop. (1851) 3054; (1901) 4450.

Rugen

Rugen (g hard), a Prussian island in the Baltic, a mile from the coast of Pomerania. Greatest length, 33 miles; greatest breadth, 25 miles; area, 374 sq. m.; pop. 50,000. Chief town, Bergen (pop. 3761), in the middle of the island.

Ruhr

Ruhr (Roor), a right-hand affluent of the Rhine at Ruhrort, flowing 144 miles westward.

Ruhrort

Ruhrort (Roor-ort), a town of Rhenish Prussia, 26 miles by rail N. of Dusseldorf, is one of the busiest river-ports on the Rhine. In the vicinity are ironworks and coal-mines. Pop. 12,500.

Rullion Green

Rullion Green. See Pentland Hills.

Rum

Rum, a mountainous island of Inverness-shire,15 miles N. by W. of Ardnamurchan Point. It is 8 1/2 miles long, 8 miles broad, and 42 sq. m. in area, only 300 acres being arable, and the rest deer-forest and moorland. The surface presents a mass of high sharp-peaked mountains, rising in Halival and Haiskeval to 2368 and 2659 feet. In 1826 the crofters, numbering fully 400, were, all but one family, cleared off to America, and Rum was converted into a single sheep-farm; but in 1845 it was sold (as again in 1888) for a deer-forest. Pop. (1851) 162; (1891) 53; (1901) 149.

Rumania. See Roumania.

Runcorn

Runcorn, a thriving market and manufacturing town and river-port of Cheshire, on the left bank of the tidal Mersey, 12 miles ESE. of Liverpool and 28 WSW. of Manchester. The river is crossed here by a railway viaduct, which, erected in 1864-69 at a cost of over £300,000, is 1500 feet long and 95 feet above high-water mark. An ancient place, where a castle was founded by the Princess Ethelfreda in 916, and a priory in 1133, it yet dates all its prosperity from the construction of the Bridgewater Canal (1762-72), which at Runcorn descends to the Mersey by a succession of locks. More canal-boats plied to and from Runcorn than from anywhere else in the kingdom even before the opening of the Manchester Ship-canal (1887-94); there are spacious docks, Runcorn having been made a head-port in 1847. The industries include shipbuilding, iron-founding, rope-making, the manufacture of chemicals, quarrying, etc. Hall Caine was born here. Pop. (1851) 8049; (1871) 12,443; (1901) 16,491.