EOTHSCHILD 127 ROTTERDAM rrftture and the Vere Harmsworth Chair of Naval History at Cambridge Uni- versity. The success of the Union Jack Club is largely due to his assistance and support. In 1916-17 during the World War he was director-general of the Royal Army Clothing Department. In 1917-18 he was Air Minister, being cre- ated viscount in 1919. ROTHSCHILD (red shield), the name of a Jewish family of European bankers and capitalists, the enormousness of whose aggregate wealth has passed into a proverb. The founder of this race of financiers, Meyer Anselm Rothschild, born at Frankfort-on-the-Main in 1743, died there in 1812, after having accumu- lated the most gigantic fortune ever possessed by a single individual up to his day. Commencing as a small trader, he, by his probity, frugality, and supe- rior business qualifications, eventually became the banker of monarchs and the creditor of states. Of the five sons who succeeded to the vast inheritance he bequeathed them, the eldest, Anselm fborn 1773, died 1855), was his father's ^ artner and successor at Frankfort. The second, Solomon (born 1774, died 1855), became established as the representative of the house of Rothschild at Vienna. The third, Nathan Meyer (born 1777, died 1836), settled as the London part- ner, and became the leading member and ablest financier of the family. The fourth, Charles (born 1788, died 1855), filled the representation of the firm at Naples. Lastly, James (born 1792, died 1868), eventually took up his residence in Paris, where he died, leaving a for- tune estimated at $200,000,000. Within a period of less than 12 years the Roth- schilds advanced in leans as follows: to England, $200,000,000; Austria, $50,000,- 000; Prussia, $40,000,000; France, $80,- 000,000; Naples, $50,000,000; Russia, $25,000,000; Brazil, $12,000,000; besides some $5,000,000 to smaller states; or, altogether, the then almost incredible amount of $462,000,000. The colossal financiering operations of the house are now conducted by the descendants of the above-mentioned brothers, and the firm has banking houses and representatives in all the leading cities of the civilized world. ROTIFERA, in zoology, wheel-animal- cules; a group of Metazoa which have been variously classified. Ehrenberg ar- ranged them according to the peculiari- ties of their trochal disks, and Dujardin according to their methods of locomotion. They are now often made a class of Vermes, with four families, Philodinidse, Brachionidse, Hydatinese, and Floscida- ridx. They are microscopic animals, con- tractile, crowned with vibratile cilia at the anterior part of the body, which, by their motion, often resemble a wheel re- volving rapidly. Intestine distinct, ter- minated at one extremity by a mouth, at the other by an anus; generation oviparous, sometimes viviparous. The nervous system is represented by a rela- tively large single ganglion, with one or two eye-spots, on one side of the body, near the mouth, and there are organs which appear to be sensory. They are free or adherent, but never absolutely fixed animals. ROTTERDAM, the chief port and second city of Holland; on the Nieuwe Maas or Meuse, at its junction with the Rotte; about 14 miles from the North Sea, with which it is also directly con- nected by a ship canal (Nieuwe Water- weg^ admitting the largest vessels and not interrupted by a single lock. The town is intersected by numerous canals, which permit large vessels to moor alongside the warehouses in the very center of the city. These canals, which are crossed by innumerable drawbridges and swing bridges, are in many cases lined with rows of trees; and the hand- some quay on the river front, 1*4 miles long, is known as the Boompjes ("little trees"), from a row of elms planted in 1615 and now of great size. Many of the houses are quaint edifices, having their gables to the street, with over- hanging upper stories. The principal buildings are the town ball, court houses, exchange, old East India House, Boy- mans' Museum, containing chiefly Dutch and modern paintings, and the govern- ment dockyards and arsenal, besides the numerous churches, of which the mos*., conspicuous is the Groote Kerk, or Church of St. Lawrence (15th century). The Groote Markt has a statue of Eras- mus, a native of the town; and there are fine parks and a large zoological garden. Rotterdam contains shipbuild- ing yards, sugar refineries, distilleries, tobacco factories, and large machine works; but its mainstay is commerce. It not only carries on a very extensive and active trade with Great Britain, the Dutch East and West Indies, and other transoceanic countries, but, as the nat- ural outlet for the entire basin of the Rhine and Meuse, it has developed an important commerce with Germany, ' Switzerland, and Central Europe. The Maas is crossed by a great railway bridge and another for carriages and foot-passengers. Rotterdam received town rights in 1340, and in 1573 it obtained a vote in the Estates of the Netherlands; but its modern prosperity
