of Belvedere, in the gardens of which the open-air theatre, used in
Goethe's day, still exists. To the north-east, at about the same
distance from the town, are the tiny chateau and park of Tiefurt,
on the banks of the Ilm, the scene of many pastoral court revels in
the past. To the north-west is the Ettersberg, with the Ettersburg,
a château which was another favourite resort of Charles Augustus
and his friends.
The history of Weimar, apart from its association with Charles Augustus and his court, is of little general interest. The town is said to have existed so early as the oth century. Till 1140 it belonged to the counts of Orlamünde; it then fell to Albert the Bear and the descendants of his second son. In 1247 Otto III. founded a separate Weimar line of counts. In 1345 it became a fief of the land graves of Thuringia, to whom it escheated in 1385 with the extinction of the line of Otto III. At the partition of Saxony in 1485 Weimar, with. Thuringia, fell to the elder, Ernestine, branch of the Saxon house of Wettin, and has been the continuous residence of the senior branch of the dukes of this line since 1572. Under Charles Augustus Weimar became a centre of Liberalism as well as of art. It had previously narrowly escaped absorption by Napoleon, who passed through the town during the pursuit of the Prussians after the battle of Jena in 1806, and was only dissuaded from abolishing the duchy by the tact and courage of the duchess Louisa.
The traditions of Charles Augustus were well maintained by his grandson, the grand-duke Charles Alexander (1818–1901), whose statue now stands in the Karlsplatz. The grand-duke's connexion with the courts of Russia and Holland—his mother was a Russian grand-duchess and his wife, Sophia Louisa (1824–1897), a princess of the Netherlands—tended to give the Weimar society a cosmopolitan character, and the grand-duke devoted himself largely to encouraging men of intellect, whether Germans or foreigners, who came to visit or to settle in the town. The art school, founded by him in 1848, has had a notable series of eminent painters among its professors, including Preller, Böcklin, Kalckreuth, Max Schmidt, Pauwels, Heumann, Verlat and Thédy. Under the patronage of Charles Alexander, also, Weimar became a famous musical centre, principally owing to the presence of Franz Liszt, who from 1848 to 1886 made Weimar his principal place of residence. Other notable conductors of the Weimar theatre orchestra were Eduard Lassen and Richard Strauss.
See Scholl, Weimar's Merkwürdigkeiten einst und jetzt (Weimar; 857); Springer, Weimar's klassische Stätten (Berlin, 1868); Ruland, Die Schätze des Goethe National-Museums in Weimar (Weimar and Leipzig, 1887); Francke, Weimar und Umgebungen (3rd ed., Weimar, 1900); Kuhn, Weimar in Wort und Bild (4th,ed., Jena, 1905).
WEINHEIM, a town of Germany, in the grand-duchy of Baden, pleasantly situated on the Bergstrasse at the foot of the Odenwald, 11 m. N. of Heidelberg by the railway to Frankfort-on-Main. Pop. (1905) 12,560. It is still in part surrounded by the ruins of its ancient walls. The Gothic town hall; the ruins of the Castle of Windeck and the modern castle of the counts of Berckheim; the house of the Teutonic Order; and three churches are the principal buildings. The town has various manufactures, notably leather, machinery and soap, and cultivates fruit and wine. It is a favourite climatic health resort and a great tourist centre for excursions in the Odenwald range. Weinheim is mentioned in chronicles as early as the 8th century, when it was a fief of the abbey of Lorsch, and it was fortified in the 14th century. In the Thirty Years' War it was several times taken and plundered, and its fortifications dismantled.
See Hegewald, Der Luftkurort Weinheim an der Bergstrasse (Weinheim, 1895); Ackermann, Führer durch Weinheim und Umgebung (Weinheim, 1895); and Zinkgräf, Bilder aus der Geschichte der Stadt Weinheim (Weinheim, 1904).
WEINSBERG, a small town of Germany, in the kingdom of Württemberg, pleasantly situated on the Sulm, 5 m. E. from Heilbronn by the railway to Crailsheim. Pop. (1905) 3097. It has an ancient Romanesque church, a monument, to the reformer Oecolampadius (q.v), and a school of viticulture, which is the chief occupation of the inhabitants. On the Schlossberg above the town lie the ruins of the castle of Weibertreu, and at its foot is the house once inhabited by Justinus Kerner (q.v.), with a public garden and a monument to the poet.
The German king Conrad III. defeated Count Welf VI. of Bavaria near Weinsberg in December 1140, and took the town, which later became a free imperial city. In 1331 it joined the league of the Swabian cities, but was taken by the nobles in 1440 and sold to the elector palatine, thus losing its liberties. It was burnt in 1525 as a punishment for the atrocities committed by the revolted peasants. The famous legend of Weibertreu (“women’s faithfulness”), immortalized in a ballad by Chamisso, is connected with the siege of 1140, although the story is told of other places. It is said that Conrad III. allowed the women to leave the town with whatever they could carry, whereupon they came out with their husbands on their backs.
See Bernheim, “Die Sage von den treuen Weibern zu Heinsberg” (in the Forschungen zur deutschen Geschichte, vol. xv., Göttingen, 1875); Merk, Geschichte der Stadt Weinsberg und ihrer Burg Weibertreu (Heilbronn, 1880).
WEIR, ROBERT WALTER (1803–1889), American portrait and historical painter, was born at New Rochelle, New York, on the 18th of June 1803. He was a pupil of Jarvis, was elected to the National Academy of Design in 1829, and was teacher of drawing at the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1834–1846, and professor of drawing there in 1846–1876. He died in New York City on the 1st of May 1889. Among his better-known works are: “The Embarkation of the Pilgrims” (in the rotunda of the United States Capitol at Washington, D.C.); “Landing of Hendrik Hudson”; “Evening of the Crucifixion”; “Columbus before the Council of Salamanca”; “Our Lord on the Mount of Olives”; “Virgil and Dante crossing the Styx,” and several portraits, now at West Point, and “Peace and War” in the Chapel there.
His son, John Ferguson Weir (b. 1841), painter and sculptor, became a Member of the National Academy of Design in 1866, and was made director of the Yale University Art School in 1868. Another son, Julian Alden Weir (b. 1852), studied under his father, and under J. L. Gérôme, and became a distinguished portrait, figure and landscape painter. He was one of the founders of the Society of American Artists in 1877, and became a member of the National Academy of Design (1886) and of the Ten American Painters, New York.
WEIR (from O. Eng. wer, a dam; cognate with werian, to defend, guard; cf. Ger. Wehr, defence), a barrier placed across
rivers to raise the water-level for catching fish, for mills, for
navigation or for irrigation, the discharge of the river taking
place over the crest or through openings made for the purpose.
Rough weirs, formed of stakes and twigs, were erected across
English rivers in Saxon times for holding up the water and
catching fish, and fish-traps, with iron-wire meshes and eel
baskets, are still used sometimes at weirs.
Weirs are essential for raising the head of water for water-wheels at mills, and for
diverting some of the flow of a river into irrigation canals;
but they have received their greatest and most varied extension
in the canalization of rivers for navigation.
There are three distinct classes of weirs, namely, solid weirs, draw-door weirs, including regulating sluices for irrigation, and movable weirs, which retain the water above them for navigation during the low stage of the river, and can be lowered or removed so as to leave the channel quite open in flood-time.
Solid Weirs.—The simplest form of weir is a solid, watertight dam of firm earthwork or rubble stone, faced with stone pitching, with cribs filled with rubble, with fascine mattresses weighted with stone, or with masonry, and protected from undermining by sheet piling or one or more rows of well foundations. These weirs, if solidly constructed, possess the advantages of simplicity, strength and durability, and Require no superintendence. They, however, block up the river channel to the extent of their height, and consequently raise the flood-level above them. This serious defect of solid weirs, where the riparian lands are liable to be injured by inundations, can be slightly mitigated by keeping down the crest of the weir somewhat below the required level, and then raising the water-level at the low stage of the river by placing a row of planks along the top of the weir.
Waste weirs resemble ordinary solid weirs in providing for the surplus discharge from a reservoir of an impounded river or mountain stream over their crest; but in reality they form part of a masonry