Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XVI.djvu/678

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G54. WIMPFFEN WINCHESTER portions. The northern division is flat and composed of rich and fertile lands ; the south- ern is undulating and elevated, having some valleys and the considerable unenclosed plateau of Salisbury plain. The county is drained by the Thames and the Upper and the Lower Avon. The greater part of the surface is in pasturage, sheep being raised in the south and cattle in the north. The manufactures include cutlery, steel goods, carpets, woollen goods, and silks. Wiltshire is remarkable for its druidi- cal remains, including Stonehenge and Ave- bury, ancient earthworks and dikes, Roman roads and encampments, and mediaeval ruins. The principal towns are Salisbury, the capital, Trowbridge, Wilton, Devizes, Bradford, Chip- penham, Warminster, Malmesbury, Westbury, Calne, and Marlborough. WIMPFFEN, Emmanuel Felix de, a French sol- dier, born in Laon, Sept. 13, 1811. He belongs to a distinguished Swabian family. Count Franz (1797-1870) was an Austrian field marshal ; Franz Ludwig von Wimpffen-Berne- burg (1732-1800) served in the French and Wurtemberg armies ; and Baron Felix von Wimpffen-Berneburg(1745-1814) was a French general. Emmanuel Felix, son of the latter, was educated at St. Cyr, and served in Alge- ria, in the Crimea, and in the Italian war of 1859, when he became general of division. He was afterward governor of Algiers and Oran. In July, 1870, he carried the declara- tion of war to Berlin. In August Palikao placed him in command of the 12th corps, and, after Failly's removal, of the 6th corps. On Aug. 30 he reached Sedan with an order of Palikao to rank second in command. As he found the army in a critical condition, he withheld it until the morning of Sept. 1, and for several hours after MacMahon had been wounded and replaced by Ducrot, when, ex- pecting a victory, he superseded the latter, and at once countermanded the retreat which might have saved a part of the army. He had allowed himself to be deceived by a Prus- sian brigade falling back and by a momen- tary cessation of firing, without perceiving the flank movement which enabled the Germans to surround the French, who in the after- noon were everywhere beaten. Wimpffen in vain proposed to the emperor to escape, and offered his resignation, which was declined. He concluded the capitulation with Moltke, and Stuttgart was assigned to him as a resi- dence. In 1871 he was summoned before the parliamentary commission at Versailles, which made him responsible for a great part of the catastrophe. To vindicate himself he pub- lished Sedan and Reponse an general Ducrot, par un officier tuperieur (1871). Subsequent- ly he attacked the ex-emperor in Edmond About's Le XIX*"" Siecle, which caused Gra- nier de Cassagnac to denounce him in the Pays as a traitor who had lost the army by his vanity and incapacity. Wimpffen arraigned him before the civil tribunal, but Cassagnac denied the jurisdiction of this court, in which no proof of justification is allowed. In 1876 Wimpffen brought before the court of assizes in Paris a criminal suit for defamation, and employed Jules Favre as his advocate ; Cas- sagnac was defended by Lachaud. At the trial, which took place in February, Wimpffen was unable to get a single general officer on his side, some colonels and civilians constitu- ting all his witnesses. Cassagnac was acquit- ted, and Wimpffen was sentenced to pay the cost of the trial. In April, 1876, he was an unsuccessful candidate for the legislative body. WINCHELL, Alexander, an American geologist, born in Northeast, Dutchess co., N. Y., Dec. 31, 1824. He graduated at Wesleyan univer- sity in 1847, taught natural sciences in New York and Alabama, became professor of phy- sics and civil engineering in the university of Michigan in 1863, and in 1865 was transferred to the chair of geology, zoology, and botany, which he occupied for the next 18 years; and from 1866 to 1869 he held at the same time the chair of geology, zoology, and botany in Kentucky university. He was state geologist and naturalist of Michigan from 1859 to 1862. In 1860 he submitted the "First Biennial Re- port of the Progress of the Geological Sur- vey," and in 1865 published a "Geological Map of Michigan." In 1866 he made the survey of the Grand Traverse region of Michigan, and furnished a report thereon. In 1869 he was appointed director of the geological survey of Michigan. In 1870 he published " Winchell's Geological Chart and Key," and "Report of the Progress of the Geological Survey." He made an official geological survey of salt lands in Minnesota in 1870, and published "Ge- ology of the Stars " and " Topographical Data of Michigan." He was elected chancellor of Syracuse (N. Y.) university in 1872, resigned in 1874, and is now (1876) professor of ge- ology and zodlogy in that institution, and a special lecturer in Vanderbilt university. He has also published about 200 papers, mostly on scientific subjects, " Genealogy of the Winchell Family" (1869), and "Sketches of Creation" (New York, 1870), and has in press (1876) a work entitled " Lay Theology." WINCHESTER, a city and the county scat of Frederick co., Virginia, in the lower She- nandoah valley, 67 m. W. N. W. of Washing- ton, and 82 m. W. S. W. of Harper's Ferry by the Winchester, Potomac, and Strasburg divi- sion of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad ; pop. in 1860, 4,392; in 1870, 4,477, of whom 1,377 were colored; in 1875, about 5,000. It is about 1J m. long by -fr m. wide. The streets are well paved or macadamized. The court house and jail are of brick, and most of the houses are of brick or limestone. The princi- pal manufactories are one of shoes, three of furniture, four of gloves, one of soap, one of agricultural implements, a sumach and bark mill, a flour mill, two iron founderies, and five tanneries. There are two banks, six free pub-