ENTREPÔT (a French word, from the Lat. interpositum, that which is placed between), a storehouse or magazine for the temporary storage of goods, provisions, &c.; also a place where goods, which are not allowed to pass into a country duty free, are stored under the superintendence of the custom house authorities till they are re-exported. In a looser sense, any town which has a considerable distributive trade is called an entrepôt. The word is also used attributively to indicate the kind of trade carried on in such towns.
ENTRE RIOS (Span. “between rivers”), a province of the
eastern Argentine Republic, forming the southern part of a
region sometimes described as the Argentine Mesopotamia,
bounded N. by Corrientes, E. by Uruguay with the Uruguay
river as the boundary line, S. by Buenos Aires and W. by Santa
Fé, the Paraná river forming the boundary line with these two
provinces. Pop. (1895) 292,019; (1905, est.) 376,600. The
province has an area of 28,784 sq. m., consisting for the most part
of an undulating, well-watered and partly-wooded plain, terminating
in a low, swampy district of limited extent in the angle
between the two great rivers. The great forest of Monteil
occupies an extensive region in the N., estimated at nearly one-fifth
the area of the province. Its soil is exceptionally fertile
and its climate is mild and healthy. The province is sometimes
called the “garden of Argentina,” which would probably be
sufficiently correct had its population devoted as much energy
to agriculture as they have to political conflict and civil war.
Its principal industry is that of stock-raising, exporting live
cattle, horses, hides, jerked beef, tinned and salted meats,
beef extract, mutton and wool. Its agricultural products are
also important, including wheat, Indian corn, barley and fruits.
Lime, gypsum and firewood are also profitable items in its export
trade. The Paraná and Uruguay rivers provide exceptional
facilities for the shipment of produce and the Entre Rios railways,
consisting of a trunk line running E. and W. across the province
from Paraná to Concepción del Uruguay and several tributary
branches, afford ample transportation facilities to the ports.
Another railway line follows the Uruguay from Concordia northward
into Corrientes. Entre Rios has been one of the most
turbulent of the Argentine provinces, and has suffered severely
from political disorder and civil war. Comparative quiet
reigned from 1842 to 1870 under the autocratic rule of Gen.
J. J. Urquiza. After his assassination in 1870 these partizan
conflicts were renewed for two or three years, and then the
province settled down to a life of comparative peace, followed
by an extraordinary development in her pastoral and agricultural
industries. Among these is the slaughtering and packing of
beef, the exportation of which has reached large proportions.
The capital is Paraná, though the seat of government was
originally located at Concepción del Uruguay, and was again
transferred to that town during Urquiza’s domination. Concepción
del Uruguay, or Concepción (founded 1778), is a flourishing
town and port on the Uruguay, connected by railway with
an extensive producing region which gives it an important export
trade, and is the seat of a national college and normal school.
Its population was estimated at 9000 in 1905. Other large towns
are Gualeguay and Gualeguaychú.
ENVOY (Fr. envoyé, “sent”), a diplomatic agent of the
second rank. The word envoyé comes first into general use in
this connexion in the 17th century, as a translation of the Lat.
ablegatus or missus (see Diplomacy). Hence the word envoy is
commonly used of any one sent on a mission of any sort.
ENZIO (c. 1220–1272), king of Sardinia, was a natural son of
the emperor Frederick II. His mother was probably a German,
and his name, Enzio, is a diminutive form of the German Heinrich.
His father had a great affection for him, and he was
probably present at the battle of Cortenuova in 1237. In 1238
he was married, in defiance of the wishes of Pope Gregory IX.,
to Adelasia, widow of Ubaldo Visconti and heiress of Torres and
Gallura in Sardinia. Enzio took at once the title of king of
Torres and Gallura, and in 1243 that of king of Sardinia, but he
only spent a few months in the island, and his sovereignty
existed in name alone. In July 1239 he was appointed imperial
vicegerent in Italy, and sharing in his father’s excommunication
in the same year, took a prominent part in the war which broke
out between the emperor and the pope. He commenced his
campaign by subduing the march of Ancona, and in May 1241
was in command of the forces which defeated the Genoese fleet
at Meloria, where he seized a large amount of booty and captured
a number of ecclesiastics who were proceeding to a council
summoned by Gregory to Rome. Later he fought in Lombardy.
In 1248 he assisted Frederick in his vain attempt to take
Parma, but was wounded and taken prisoner by the Bolognese
at Fossalta on the 26th of May 1249. His captivity was a severe
blow to the Hohenstaufen cause in Italy, and was soon followed
by the death of the emperor. He seems to have been well
treated by the people of Bologna, where he remained a captive
until his death on the 14th of March 1272. He was apparently
granted a magnificent funeral, and was buried in the church of
St Dominic at Bologna. During his imprisonment Enzio is said
to have been loved by Lucia da Viadagola, a well-born lady of
Bologna, who shared his captivity and attempted to procure his
release. Some doubt has, however, been cast upon this story,
and the same remark applies to another which tells how two
friends had almost succeeded in freeing him from prison concealed
in a wine-cask, when he was recognized by a lock of his golden
hair. His marriage with Adelasia had been declared void by the
pope in 1243, and he left one legitimate, and probably two
illegitimate daughters. Enzio forms the subject of a drama by
E. B. S. Raupach and of an opera by A. F. B. Dulk.
See F. W. Grossman, König Enzio (Göttingen, 1883); and H. Blasius, König Enzio (Breslau, 1884).
ENZYME (Gr. ἔνζυμος, leavened, from ἐν, in, and ζύμη,
leaven), a term, first suggested by Kühne, for an unorganized
ferment (see Fermentation), a group of substances, in the
constitution of plants and animals, which decompose certain
carbon compounds occurring in association with them. See also
Plants: Physiology; Nutrition, &c.
EOCENE (Gr. ἠώς, dawn, καινός, recent), in geology, the name
suggested by Sir C. Lyell in 1833 for the lower subdivision of the
rocks of the Tertiary Era. The term was intended to convey the
idea that this was the period which saw the dawn of the recent or
existing forms of life, because it was estimated that among
the fossils of this period only 312% of the species are still living.
Since Lyell’s time much has been learned about the fauna and
flora of the period, and many palaeontologists doubt if any of
the Eocene species are still extant, unless it be some of the lowest
forms of life. Nevertheless the name is a convenient one and is
in general use. The Eocene as originally defined was not long
left intact, for E. Beyrich in 1854 proposed the term “Oligocene”
for the upper portion, and later, in 1874, K. Schimper suggested
“Paleocene” as a separate appellation for the lower portion.
The Oligocene division has been generally accepted as a distinct
period, but “Paleocene” is not so widely used.
In north-western Europe the close of the Cretaceous period was marked by an extensive emergence of the land, accompanied, in many places, by considerable erosion of the Mesozoic rocks; a prolonged interval elapsed before a relative depression of the land set in and the first Eocene deposits were formed. The early Eocene formations of the London-Paris-Belgian basin were of fresh-water and brackish origin; towards the middle of the period they had become marine, while later they reverted to the original type. In southern and eastern Europe changes of sea-level were less pronounced in character; here the late Cretaceous seas were followed without much modification by those of the Eocene period, so rich in foraminiferal life. In many other regions, the great gap which separates the Tertiary from the Mesozoic rocks in the neighbourhood of London and Paris does not exist, and the boundary line is difficult to draw. Eocene strata succeed Cretaceous rocks without serious unconformity in the Libyan area, parts of Denmark, S.E. Alps, India, New Zealand and central N. America. The unconformity is marked in England, parts of Egypt, on the Atlantic coastal plain and in the eastern gulf region of N. America, as well as in the marine Eocene of western Oregon. The clastic Flysch formation of the
