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.
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transit instrument were not superseded for many years.
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).
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.
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.
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).
REICHENSPERGER, AUGUST (1808-1895), German politician,
was born at Coblenz on the 22nd of March 1808, studied
law and entered government service, becoming counsellor to
the court of appeal (A ppellationsgefichtsrat) at Cologne in 1849.
He was a member of the German parliament at Frankfort in
1848, when he attached himself to the Right, and of the Erfurt
parliament in 18 50, when he voted against the Prussian Union.
From 1850 to 1863 he sat in the Prussian Lower House, from
1867 to 1884 in the Reichstag, .and from 1879 onwards also
in the Prussian Chamber of Deputies. Originally of Liberal
tendencies, he developed from 1837 onwards ultramontane
opinions, founded in 1852 the Catholic group which in 1861
took the name of the Centre party (Centrum) and became one
of its most conspicuous orators. He died on the 16th of July
1895 at Cologne. He published a considerable number of
works on art and (architecture, including Die christlich-ge#
manische Baukunst (Trier, 1852, 3rd ed., 1860); Fiugerzetge
auf dem Gebiete der christlicheu Kunst (Leipzig, 1854); Augustus
Pugin, der Neubegrunder der christlichen Kunst in England
(Freiburg, 1877).
See L. v. Pastor, August Reichensperger, 2 vols. (Freiburg-im-Brelsgau, 1899).
His brother, PETER REICHENSPERGER (1810-1892), counsellor to the appeal court at Cologne (1850) and until 1879 to the Obertribunal at Berlin, was elected to the Reichstag in 1867 as a member of the Liberal Opposition, but subsequently joined the Centre party. In the Kulturkampf he took an active part on the ultramontane side. He had been a member of the Prussian National Assembly in 1848, and in 1888 he published his Erlebuisse einer altcn Parlameutariers im Revolutionsjalzr 1848.
REICHSTADT, NAPOLEON FRANCIS JOSEPH CHARLES, DUKE or (1811-1832), known by the Bonapartists as Napoleon
II., was the son of the Emperor Napoleon I. and Marie
Louise, archduchess of Austria. He was born on the 20th of
