Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume X.djvu/58

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52 KOTAH Yaroslav ; area, 30,812 sq. m. ; pop. in 1867, 1,101,099. It is traversed by the Volga, which here receives the Kostroma and the Unzha. It consists of wide plains, little varied by gen- tle acclivities or river banks. There are nu- merous lakes, of which the largest, the Galitch and the Tchukhloma, measure about 5 m. across. The northern part is comparatively swampy and cold. Extensive woods abound. The soil is generally fertile. Agriculture, the rearing of cattle and sheep, hunting, and fishing are the chief pursuits of the inhabitants. Cloth, leather, and iron are manufactured to some extent. II. A city, capital of the government, on the Volga, 190 m. N. E. of Moscow ; pop. in 1867, 23,453. It is one of the most interesting cities of E. Russia, is the seat of a Greek bish- op, and has about 40 churches, a number of convents, a gymnasium, a seminary, and a monument of the czar Michael Fedorovitch, the founder of the Romanoff dynasty. KOTAH. ! A native state of India, in Raj- pootana, bordering on Boondee, Gwalior, and Indore, and bounded N. W. and W. by the Ohumbul ; area, about 5,000 sq. m*; pop. about 433,000. The surface is for the most part a plain, sloping gently northward from the high table land of Malwah. The soil is generally fertile and well cultivated, but the climate is very unfavorable, being intensely hot during the prevalence of the warm winds of summer, and extremely unhealthy during the rainy sea- son. The rajah of Kotah is in subsidiary alli- ance with the British, pays a tribute of 184,- 720 rupees, and maintains an irregular force commanded by British officers. These troops rose against the British, July 4, 1857, and two regiments of the rajah's native army did the same on Oct. 15. The rajah kept faith with his allies. II. A city, capital of the state, on the Chumbul, 195 m. S. W. of Agra. It is a town of considerable size, with several temples, mosques, and palaces, and carries on an im- portant domestic and transit trade. It was the scene of the murder of Major Burton and his two sons, and of the burning and plunder of the British residency, during the mutiny in 1857 ; The town was captured March 30, 1858. ROTHEN, a town of Germany, in the duchy of Anhalt, 33 m. N. W. of Leipsic ; pop. in 1871, 13,563. It has two Protestant churches, a Catholic church, a synagogue, a palace with a library and collection of natural history and coins, a gymnasium, a normal school, and a school of landscape gardening. The trade in grain, wool, and other products is active, but the principal branch of industry consists in sugar refineries, which surround the town in almost every direction. It is at the junction of the Berlin and Anhalt, Magdeburg and Leip- sic, and Kothen and Halberstadt railways. The gambling table which formerly existed at the depot has been abolished. Kothen was for- merly the capital of the duchy of Anhalt-Ko- then, long associated with German history as an important branch of the Anhalt dynasty. KOTZEBUE Duke Augustus Christian Frederick, who died in 1812, produced by his reckless administra- tion a great financial crisis, which under Duke Henry culminated in 1845 in bankruptcy ; and an arrangement had to be made with the cred- itors, whose claims amounted to upward of 4,000,000 thalers. In 1853 Kothen was uni- ted with Dessau, and in 1863 the Anhalt ter- ritories were united into one duchy. ROTSCHY, Theodor, a German botanist, born at Ustron, Austrian Silesia, in 1813, died in 1866. He accompanied Russegger to Africa, and subsequently explored Asia Minor, and made another journey to Egypt and Persia; and he was the first to give a complete account of the flora of the Nile. He edited the botan- ical department of Russegger's description of his travels (7 vols., Stuttgart, 1841 -'50), and among his numerous other botanical works are Die Sicken Europas und des Ostens (Olmiitz, 1858-'62), and the posthumous Plantce Tin- neance, a description of Miss Tinne's collection on the Upper Nile. ROTTBUS, or Cottbus, a town of Prussia, in the province of Brandenburg, on the Spree, 43 m. S. S. W. of Frankfort-on-the-Oder ; pop. in 1871, 18,916, including many Wends, who have a separate church. It contains two other churches, a gymnasium, and a quaint old royal palace. Cloth and wool are extensively manu- factured, besides other articles, and there is a considerable traffic. It is the capital of a large circle which formerly belonged to Lower Lu- satia as part of the territory acquired in 1445 by the elector Frederick II. of Brandenburg. The treaty of Tilsit allotted the circle in 1807 to Napoleon, who ceded it to Saxony. In 1813 it was reoccupied by Prussia. ROTZEBUE. I. August Friedrich Ferdinand yon, a German dramatist, born in Weimar, May 3, 1761, assassinated in Mannheim, March 23, 1819. He studied at the gymnasium of Wei- mar and the university of Jena, was admitted an advocate in 1780, made himself known by the publication of two books in 1781, and ac- companied the Prussian ambassador to St. Pe- tersburg. Here he was employed as secretary of the governor general, and after his marriage in 1785 with a daughter of Lieut. Gen. Von Es- sen, he was appointed to a high judicial office in the province of Esthonia, and was ennobled, which afterward led him to write a fulsome work on nobility. His literary reputation was established by several successful novels and dramas, but injured by the publication of Doc- tor BaJirdt mit der eisernen Stirn, in which he attacked the celebrated poets of Weimar (Goethe, Schiller, &c.), who had declined to admit him into their society. After the death of his wife he visited Paris, on which oc- casion he wrote another ill-mannered book, Meine Flucht nacJi Paris (1790). After his return to Russia, he devoted several years to writing a series of plays till 1798, when he succeeded Alxinger as poet to the court thea j tre at Vienna. In 1800 he returned to Russia,