RHONE 27 RHYME She is chairman of the Sanatogen Com- pany and director of the Anglo-Argen- tine Coal Co., Ltd., Cambrian Collieries, Ltd., Globe Shipping Co., Ltd., Solutaris Water Co., Ltd., S. Wales Printing and Publishing Co., Ltd., and is connected with many other industrial undertakings.
RHONE, a department of France, part of the former Lyonnais; area 1,104 square miles. Pop. about 915,500. It lies almost wholly in the basin of the Rhone and the Saone, its E. boundary being formed by these rivers. The sur- face is almost entirely hilly, being brok- en up in all directions by low spurs of the Cevennes. Corn, potatoes, wine, and fruits are the principal products. Near- ly one-half the area is cultivated, one- eighth in vineyards, one-ninth under forest, and nearly one-sixth meadows. About 13,000,000 gallons of wine were made annually before the World War. The department is industrially one of the most important in France; all the branches are carried on at Lyons (q. v.), the capital of the department. RHONE (Latin, Rhodanus), a river in Europe which rises in Switzerland, near the E. frontiers of the canton of Valais, about 18 miles W. S. W. of the source of the Vorder-Rhein. Its precise origin is the Rhone Glacier, 5,581 feet above the level of the sea. It passes through the Lake of Geneva, and enters France, flowing first S. and then W. to the city of Lyons, where it turns almost due S., and so continues till (after pass- ing Avignon and Aries) it falls into the Gulf of Lyons by a greater and smaller mouth, forming here an extensive delta. Its principal affluent is the Saone, which enters it at the city of Lyons; other large tributaries are the Isere and Du- rance. Its whole course is about 500 miles; its drainage area is 38,000 miles; and it is navigable for 360 miles. The great obstacles to its navigation are the rapidity of its current, the shifting char- acter of its channel, and the variations that take place in the volume of its water; but these obstacles have to a great extent been removed by a scheme of regularization and canalization, in- tended to secure everywhere a depth of over five feet. By means of a series of magnificent canals the navigation of the Rhone has been continued, without in- terruption, to the Rhine (through the Saone), Seine, and Loire, and to the Meuse and the Belgian system. RHUS, in botany, a genus of Ana- cardiacese. Leaves simple or compound. Flowers in axillary or terminal pani- cles, bisexual or polygamous. Calyx small, persistent, five-partite ; petals five ; stamens five; ovary one-celled, sessile; fruit a dry drupe, with one exalbumi- nous seed. Nearly 100 species are known. Most are shrubs, from 6 to 10 feet high. They exist in all the continents. The leaves of R. coriaria, the hide or elm- leaved sumach of the S. of Europe, are used for tanning morocco leather. In the Himalayas those of R. cotinus are similarly employed. The fruit of the former was given in dysentery. In In- dia, R. parviflora, R. semialata, R. suc- cedanea, are used medicinally. Exuda- tions from incisions in the bark of R. succedanea and R. vernicifera yield the varnish used in Japanese and Chinese wickerwork. The former produces astrin- gent galls, and its seeds yield a kind of wax; as do also those of R. wallichii and the Japanese R. vernix. The juice of the latter species blisters the skin. The Turks used the acid fruits of R. coriaria to sharpen their vinegar. The plant yields sumach. The bark of R. glabrum is a febrifuge, and is employed as a mordant for red colors. R. metopium, a Jamaica plant, yields a medicinal gum. R. toxicodendron (used in pharmacy as a topical irritant) and^ R. venenata, American species, are poisonous, nor is any of the genus very safe. These two species are called indifferently poison oak, poison ivy, poison sumac, and more rarely mercury. The wood of R. collinus is employed for inlaid and cabinet work. RHYME, more correctly Rime, in poetry, a correspondence in sound of the terminating word or syllable of one line of poetry with the terminating word or syllable of another. To constitute this correspondence in single words or in syl- lables it is necessary that the vowel and the final consonantal sound (if any) should be the same, or have nearly the same sound, the initial consonants being different. If the rhyme is only in the last syllables, as in forgave and behave, it is called a single rhyme; if in the two last syllables, as bitter and glitter, it is called a double rhyme; if in the last three syllables, as callosity and reciproc- ity, it is called a triple rhyme. Rhymes which extend to more than three syl- lables are almost confined to the Ara- bians and Persians in their short odes (gazelles), in which the same rhyme, carried through the whole poem, extends sometimes to four and more syllables. The modern use of rhymes was not known to the Greeks and Romans; though some rhymed verses occur in Ovid. It has been used, on the other hand, from time immemorial among the Chinese, Hindus, Arabs, and other Ori- ental nations. Rhyme began to be de- veloped among the western nations in the
