Ripon

4005

River

Ripon, cathedral city, England, in West
Riding, Yorkshire; 26 m. n. of Leeds. The
cathedral, chiefly i2th and i3th centuries, re-
placed a 7th-century church, the crypt of
which still remains. The celebrated ruins of
Fountains Abbey are in the vicinity; p.8,576.

Ripon, George Frederick Samuel Rob-
inson, First Marquis of (1827-1909), British
statesman, was born in London. In Glad-
stone's first government (1868-74) he filled
the office of Lord President of the Council,
and was chairman of the British Commission
appointed in 1871 to settle with the United
States regarding the Alabama and similar
claims, which resulted in the Treaty of Wash-
ington. For this he was created Marquis of
Ripon. He became viceroy of India (1880)
being the first Roman Catholic to hold vice-
regal office. In Gladstone's third adminis-
tration (January to July, 1886) the Marquis
of Ripon filled the post of First1 Lord of the
Admiralty, that of Secretary of State for the
Colonies (1892-5), and in Sir Henry Camp-
bell-Bannerman's ministry (1905-8) that of
Lord Privy Seal.

Rip Van Winkle, the title character of a
story in Irving's Sketch Book (1819). The
character was made famous by the actor
Joseph Jefferson.

Rise, the term for a submarine elevation
which rises gradually with an angle of only
a few minutes of arc, irrespective of whether
it is wide or narrow, or of its vertical devel-
opment.

Rishis, the seven (sometimes given as ten)
sons of Brahma, to whom the Vedas were
first communicated, and who became the mis-
sionaries to mankind.

Ritornello, in music, a short instrumental
composition which is sometimes introduced
to fill the interval between the scenes of an
opera. The name is also given to the instru-
mental symphonies performed between the
verses or phrases of songs or anthems.

Ritsthl, Albrecht (1822-89), German
theologian, was born in Berlin. In 1846 he
became a lecturer at Bonn, full professor in
1859, and was transferred in 1864 to Gottin-
gen, where he worked till his death. In 1870
he published Die ChristHche Lehre der Reckt-
fertignng und Versohnwig* In this work,
really a system of theology, Ritschl develops
the now famous distinction between theoretic
judgments and value judgments, and main-
tains that theology has erred in building
upon the former, which, while all-important
in science, arc inadequate to the expression
of spiritual truth.

Rittenhouse, David (1732-96)^American ,,!,
astronomer, born in Roxborougby^a. In ^
1769 he surveyed the boundaiy between ;N -
Y. and N, J. and a portion of Mason -jtad
Dixon's line. In the same year he made ob-
servations on the transit of Venus from
which the first approximate measurements
of the spheres were calculated. President
Washington appointed him director of the
U. S. Mint in 1792-5. He invented several
astronomical instruments, and acquired great
skill in clock-making.

Ritter, Frederic Louis (1834-91), Amer-
ican composer, teacher, and author, born in
Strassburg. In 1856 he settled in Cincinnati,
O., where he organized the Cecilia Society
and the Philharmonic Society. In 1861 he
became conductor of the Arion (New York)
Society's music, and in 1874 was appointed
professor of music at Vassar College. He
composed five symphonies and more than one
hundred songs.

Ritual, or Rituale, an ecclesiastical man-
ual in which are to be found the order and
rites of divine service. The ritual of the
Church of England is contained in the Book
of Common Prayer with its rubrics. The
Roman ritual is divided into the breviary,
the missal, the ritual, and the pontifical. The
ritual contains those offices which may be
administered by a priest, while the pontifical
deals with those which can only be per-
formed by a bishop.

Ritualists, a name adopted by those who,
at the commencement of the Oxford Move-
ment, devoted themselves to the task of pro-
curing an exact and intelligent following of
the rubrics of the Book of Common Prayer.
They were then led to study the whole ritual
system of the Catholic Church, and many of
them adopted rites and ceremonies for which
no direct authority could be found in the
Anglican prayer-book, and some of which
have been forbidden by decisions of ecclesi-
astical courts. In 1874 the General Conven-
tion of the Protestant Episcopal Church at-
tempted to legislate against alleged ritualistic
practices.

River, a mass of water moving down a def-
inite channel from a higher to a lower ele-
vation. The speed of a river increases with
its slope and volume. The average descent of
most great rivers is small—the Volga and the
lower Mississippi, 3 in. per m. (about one in
20,000). The Missouri has a comparatively
rapid descent for such a large river—about
28 in. per m. (about one in 2,250).

Some parts of a river's course are areas of