000. To the University of Chicago he has given $23,924,322. To the General Education Board, an organization formed by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and others and chartered by Congress, he gave $1,000,000 in 1903, $5,000,000 in 1905 and $32,000,000 in 1907; a total of $43,000,000. The board in thanking the donor said: “This is the largest sum ever given by a man in the history of the race for any social or philanthropic purpose.”
Rock′et. See Fireworks.
Rock′ford, Ill., a thriving city on both sides of Rock River, about 100 miles west of Chicago. It has four bridges, three of which are railroad-bridges, four railroads, flouring, paper, woolen and cotton mills; five factories of agricultural implements, 20 of furniture, 17 for machinery and three for pianos, one piano-action establishment and the largest leather-factory in the United States, besides manufacturing cutlery, pumps, carriages, watches, silver-plated ware, boots, shoes, wood-engravings and other products. The city is well-built, and is noted for the intelligence and enterprise of its citizens, having many fine churches, excellent schools and six banks. Population 45,401.
Rock′ing-Stones or Logans are large masses of rock so finely poised as to move backward and forward with the slightest impulse. Some rocking-stones occur near remains of ancient fortifications, which seems to confirm the statement, in one of the poems of Ossian, that the bards walked, as they sang, round the stone and made it move as an oracle of the fate of battle. In Greece rocking-stones occur as funeral monuments, and are generally found on conspicuous places near the sea. The rocking-stone of Tandil in the Argentine Republic, 250 miles south of Buenos Aires, weighs 700 tons, and yet is so nicely poised that it rocks in the wind and may be made to crack a walnut.
Rock Island, Ill., a city on the Mississippi, opposite Davenport, Ia. — the two towns being connected by a wrought-iron bridge which cost over $1,000,000 — is 180 miles from Chicago. The island in the Mississippi, from which the town is named, belongs to the United States government and is retained as an arsenal for the manufacture of soldiers' equipments, including small arms. Its area is about 1,000 acres; it is beautifully wooded and, with its winding drives, serves as a park for the citizens of Davenport, Moline and Rock Island. The channel south of the island has been dammed so as to furnish immense water-power for the arsenal's use, as also for private plants and public utilities. The city has saw-mills, besides foundries, machine-shops and factories which produce wagons buggies, plows and stoves. Population 24,335.
Rockland, Me., city and county-seat of Knox County, on an inlet of Penobscot Bay, 86 miles from Portland. Its harbor has natural protection against storms, except from the northeast, and against these by a breakwater. This was built by the federal government at a cost of $500,000. Among its important industries are the quarrying of granite, shipbuilding, the manufacture of lime, steam and gasoline engines, blacksmiths' and granite-workers' tools. Fishing is carried on to some extent; clams and sardines are canned; and more than 2,000,000 pounds of lobsters are shipped from here annually by rail. Rockland has the service of the Maine Central Railroad, and has steamboat connection with Portland, Boston, Bangor and all important coast and island towns of eastern Maine. It also is the center of an electrical railway system extending northward and westward, and the towns of this connected region attract many summer tourists. Population 8,174.
Rock River rises in the southeastern portion of Wisconsin, and flows south and southwest into Illinois, emptying into the Mississippi three miles below Rock Island. Its course of nearly 400 miles is through a region noted for beauty and fertility.
Rocks. See Geology.
Rock′y Mountains, a vast system of ranges in the western portion of the United States and the British possessions. They are a continuation of the Cordilleras of Mexico. The greatest breadth of this system in the United States is 1,000 miles, and their total area is nearly 1,000,000 square miles. From 32° N. to 40° N. the ranges bear nearly north and south; between 40° and 45° their course is northwest; then, after a more northerly bend, they keep a course nearly parallel with the Pacific, but have many detached ranges and peaks. Mt. St. Elias is 18,024 feet high, and marks the boundary line of longitude between Alaska and the British possessions. Mt. McKinley in Alaska is 20,464 feet and Mt. Wrangell (also in Alaska) 17,524 feet. Mount Shasta, in the coastal range in northern California, is 14,510 feet high; Mt. Whitney, also in California, 14,898 feet. Frémont's Peak, near the western boundary of Wyoming, is 13,576 feet high, and Mt. Rainier, in Washington, 14,444 feet. In British Columbia Mt. Brown rises 16,000 feet, Mt. Hooker 15,700 and Mt. Logan 19,500. The central range of the Rocky Mountains forms the ridge which divides the rivers falling into the Pacific from those falling into the Arctic Ocean, Hudson Bay and the Gulf of Mexico; but between the eastern and western ranges lie Utah and Nevada, in which are rivers having no outlets except such lakes as Great Salt Lake in Utah and Humboldt Lake in Nevada.
