Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/815

II J U R 781 league, she kept up the worship that had hallowed it. The Feriie Latinae were celebrated every year by the consuls on a day appointed by themselves before they went forth to war. Accompanied by representatives of the Latin cities, they offered a sacrifice of white oxen to Jupiter. Other festivals of Jupiter show his old character as patron of agriculture, especially the different feasts called Vinalia ; in this character Liber, who was once only a form of Jupiter, had almost entirely supplanted him. The word liber, originally an epithet of the chief god, gradually acquired distinct personality, and became the name of a god who was assimilated to the Greek Dionysus. The Romans had in themselves none of the anthropo morphic Greek spirit : while Greek gods were concrete personal beings, Roman gods were almost pure abstractions. The personal element was not wholly wanting, for the gods were conceived as distinguished by sex, and as possessing names which must be concealed lest enemies should know and use them. But to the Roman the gods were little more than spiritual principles of earthly things ; each man had his genius, the wood had its Silvanus. There was no mythology, no marriages and births of gods, no family relationships. But when Greek influence became powerful, j and the Italian deities Saturnus and Ops had been identified with Cronos and lihea, Jupiter like Zeus was called their | son, and the Greek tales about the conduct of Zeus to his parents were applied to the Latin god. On the Capitol Jupiter was enthroned between Juno on the left and Minerva on the right. The two goddesses now became his wife and his daughter. In like manner the Roman poets attributed to Jupiter all the legends about Zeus, and invented new tales and new amours on Italian soil after the analogy of the Greek. The artistic rendering of the conception of Jupiter is wholly borrowed from the Greek, and can be dealt with only in treating of the Greek deity. The first temple on the Capitol was built after the Etruscan model; but, when it was destroyed in 83 B.C., it was rebuilt in Greek style. (w. M. EA.) JURA. This range may be roughly described as the block of mountains rising between the Rhine and the Rhone, and forming the frontier between France and Switzerland. The gorges by which these two rivers force their way to the plains cut off the Jura from the Swabian and Franconian ranges to the north and those of Dauphine" to the south. But in very early days, before these gorges had been carved out, there were no openings in the Jura at all, and even now its three chief rivers the Doubs, the Loue, and the Ain flow down the western slope, which is both much longer and but half as steep as the eastern. Some geographers extend the name Jura to the Swabian and Franconian ranges between the Danube and the Neckar and the Main; but, though these are similar in point of composition and direction to the range to the south, it is most convenient to limit the name to the mountain ridges lying between France and Switzer land, and this narrower sense will be adopted here. The Jura has been aptly described as a huge plateau about 156 miles long and 38 miles broad, hewn into an oblong shape, and raised by internal forces to an average height of from 1950 to 2600 feet above the surrounding plains. The shock by which it was raised, and the vibra tion caused by the elevation of the great chain of the Alps, produced many transverse gorges or "cluses," while on the plateaus between these subaerial agencies have exer cised their ordinary influence. Geologically, the sedimentary rocks of the Jura belong to the Mesozoic age, and were deposited in a sea of variable depth, traces of which survive in the vast salt mines from which Salins and Lons-le Saunier derive their names. The special name of these fossiliferous strata is Oolitic ; they are also called Jurassic, from the fact that the Jura is entirely made up of such layers. They include sands, sandstones, marls, clays, and limestones; and the water that deposited these strata must have been highly charged with carbonate of lime, since calcareous rocks abound in the Jura. The action on these rocks of the carbonic acid gas discharged by all animals has been to transform them into bicarbonate of lime, a very soluble body, and hence the work of erosion has been much facilitated. The countless blocks of gneiss, granite, and other crystalline formations which are found in such numbers on the slopes of the Jura, and go by the name of " erratic blocks " (of which the best known instance the Pierre a Bot is 40 feet in diameter, and rests on the side of a hill 900 feet above the Lake of Neuchatel), have been transported thither from the Alps by ancient glaciers, which have left their mark on the Jura range itself in the shape of striations and moraines. The general direction of the chain is from north-east to south-west, but a careful study reveals the fact that there were in reality two main lines of upheaval, viz., north to south and east to west, the former best seen in the southern part of the range and the latter in the northern ; and it was by the union of these two forces that the lines north east to south-west (seen in the greater part of the chain), and north-west to south-east (seen in the Villebois range at the south-west extremity of the chain), were produced. This is best realized if we take Besancon as a centre ; to the north the ridges run east and west ; to the south, north and south, while to the east the direction is north-east to south-west. Before considering the topography of the interior of the Jura, it may be convenient to take a brief survey of its outer slopes. 1. The northern face dominates on one side the famous "Trouee " (or Trench) of Belfort, one of the great geographical centres of Europe, whence routes run north down the Rhine to the North Sea, south-east to the Danube basin and Black Sea, and south-west into France and so to the Mediterranean basin. It is now so strongly fortified that it becomes a question of great strategical im portance to prevent its being turned by means of the great central plateau of the Jura, which, as we shall see, is a network of roads and railways. On the other side it overhangs the "Trouee" of the Black Forest towns on the Rhine (Rheinfelden, Sackingen, Laufenburg, and Waldshut) through which the central plain of Switzerland is easily gained. On this north slope two openings offer routes into the interior of the chain, the valley of the Doubs belonging to France, and the valley of the Birs belonging to Swit zerland. Belfort is the military, Miihlhausen the industrial, and Basel the commercial centre of this slope. 2. The eastern and ivcstern faces offer many striking parallels. The plains through which flow the Aar and the Saone have each been the bed of an ancient lake, traces of which remain in the lake.s of Neuahatel, Bienne, and Morat. The west face runs mainly north and south like its great river, and for a similar reason the east face runs north-east to south-west. Again, both slopes are pierced by many transverse, gorges or "cluses" (due to fracture and not to erosion), by which access is gained to the great central plateau of Pontarlier, though these are seen more plainly on the east face than on the west; thus the gorges at the exit from which Lons le Saunier, 1 oligny, Arbois, and Salins are built balance those of the Suze, of the Val de Ruz, of the Val de Travers, and of the Val d Orbc, though on the east face there is but one city which commands all these important routes Neuchatel. This town is thus marked out by nature as a great military and industrial centre, just as Besanon on the west, which has besides to defend the route from Belfort down the Doubs. These easy means of communicating with the Free County of Burgundy or Franche Comte accounts for the fact that the dialect of Neuchatel is Burgundian, and that it was held generally by Burgundian nobles, though most of the country near it was in the hands of the house of Savoy until gradually annexed by Bern. The Chasscron (5286 feet) is the central point of the eastern face, commanding the two great railways which join Neu chatel and Pontarlier. It is in a certain sense parallel to the valley of the Loue on the west face, which flows into the Doubs a little to the south of Dole, the only important town of the central portion of the Sa&ne basin. South of the Val d Orbe the east face becomes a rocky wall crowned by all the highest summits of the chain the Mont Tcndre (5512 feet), the D6le (5507 feet), the Rccuht (5643 feet), the Cret de la Neige (5653 feet), and the Grand Credo (5276