Britain. Rio Tinto was probably first exploited by the Carthaginians; vestiges of later Roman workings may still be seen. After the Moorish conquest, in 711, it was neglected until 1725, when the mines were leased to a Swede named Wolters. Their modern importance dates from 1872, when a syndicate of London and Bremen capitalists purchased them from the Spanish government for nearly £4,000,000.
RIOU, EDWARD (1758?–1801), British sailor, entered the navy at an early age. In 1780 he was promoted lieutenant, and nine years later he was in command of the “Guardian” when that vessel, crowded with convicts, struck a hidden rock of the African coast. Riou, after parting with as many of his men as the boats would hold, not only successfully navigated his half sinking ship 400 leagues to the Cape of Good Hope, but kept order amongst the panic-stricken convicts, an achievement which had few parallels in naval annals, and won Lieutenant Riou’s immediate promotion. He did not long remain a commander and in 1791 he was posted. Under Sir John Jervis he was present at the operations about Martinique and Guadeloupe in 1794, and in the “Amazon” he accompanied the expedition under Sir Hyde Parker to the Baltic in 1801. His frigate led the way through the Channel at Copenhagen, and in the battle he was attached as commodore of a light squadron to Nelson’s division. Through the grounding of three ships of the line, Riou and his frigates found themselves opposed to the full force of the great Trekroner battery. Early in the fight he was wounded, but refused to leave the deck, and, as he was sitting on a gun-carriage and directing his men’s fire, he was cut in two by a cannon ball. Nelson, who had not known him before this expedition, had conceived a great affection for Riou, and spoke of his loss as “irreparable.” Brenton, the naval historian, declared that he had all the qualities of a perfect officer. Parliament commemorated the memory of the “gallant good Riou” by a memorial in St Paul’s Cathedral.
RIOUW, Rhiouw or Bintang, an archipelago of the Dutch East Indies, E. of Sumatra, and separated from the Malay Peninsula by the Straits of Singapore. With the Lingga, Karimon, Tambelan, Anambas and Natuna Islands, to the N.E., E. and S., and the territory of Indragiri in Sumatra, it forms the Dutch residency of, Riouw and dependencies. The seat of government is at Tanjong Pinang, a small port of 4000 inhabitants (including 160 Europeans and about 2000 Chinese), on the S.W. coast of the chief island, Bintang or Riouw. The total area of the residency is about 17,550 sq. m., and its population (1905) 112,216, of whom considerably over a quarter are Chinese. These cultivate gambier and pepper successfully in Bintang, and there is a considerable trade in wood. Bintang has an area of about 440 sq m., and is surrounded by many rocks and small islands, making navigation dangerous. The soil is not fertile, and much of it is swampy. There is an assistant residency of Lingga, to which belongs the island of Singkep, where extensive tin-deposits are worked. Geologically the Riouw and Lingga Islands are appendages of the Malay Peninsula, not of Sumatra. Bintang is mentioned by Marco Polo under the name of Pentam, which is not far from the genuine Malay name Bentdn, said to mean a half-moon. After the Portuguese conquest of Malacca (1511), the expelled Mahommedan dynasty took up its residence on Bintang, where it long fostered piracy.
RIPLEY, GEORGE (1802–1889), American critic and man of letters, was born at Greenield, Massachusetts, on the 3rd of October 1802. He graduated first in his class at Harvard in 1823. From 1826 to 1840 he was pastor of a Unitarian church in Boston, subsequently retiring from the active ministry altogether. It was during those years that there grew up in New England that form of thought or philosophy known as Transcendentalism. Ripley was prominent, if not the leader, in all practical manifestations of the movement; and it was largely by his earnestness and practical energy that certain of its more tangible results were brought about. The first meeting of the Transcendental Club was held at his house in September 1836. He was a founder and a chief supporter of the magazine, the Dial, which was the organ of the school from 1841 to 1844. Most important of all, however, he was the originator of “The Brook Farm Institute of Education and Agriculture.” Until the abandonment of this experiment in 1847, Ripley was its leader, cheerfully taking upon himself all kinds of tasks, teaching mathematics and philosophy in the school, milking cows and attending to other bucolic duties, and after June 1845 editing the weekly Harbinger, an organ of “association,” which he continued to edit in New York from 1847 until it was discontinued in 1849. The failure of Brook Farm (q.v.) left Ripley poor and feeling keenly the defeat of his project; but the event forced him at last to devote himself to that career of literary labour in which the real success of his life was achieved. In 1849 he joined the staff of the New York Tribune, and in a short time became its literary editor. This position, which, through his steadiness, scholarly conservatism and freedom from Caprice as a critic, soon became one of great influence, he held until his death in New York City on the 4th of July 1880.
During the greater part of the time of his connexion with the Tribune, Ripley was also an adviser of a prominent publishing house, an occasional contributor to the magazines, and cooperator in several literary undertakings. The chief of these was the American Cyclopaedia, which as the New American Cyclopaedia—so named to distinguish it from Francis Lieber's Encyclopaedia Americana—was issued, under the editorship of Ripley and Charles A. Dana, in 1857–63, a revised edition, with the word “new” dropped from the title, being issued under the same editorship in 1873–76. He also issued, in translation, a series of Specimens of Foreign Standard Literature (14 vols., 1838–42). Ripley was twice married, first in 1827 to Miss Sophia Willard Dana (d. 1861), a daughter of Francis Dana and a conspicuous figure at Brook Farm; and second, in 1865, to a young German widow, Mrs Augusta Schlossberger, who survived him and subsequently married Alphonse Pinede.
A biography of Ripley (Boston, 1882), written by the Rev. O. B. Frothingham, forms one of the volumes of the “American Men of Letters” series. (E. L. B.)
RIPLEY, a market town in the Ilkeston parliamentary division of Derbyshire, England, 10 m. N. by E. of Derby, on a branch of the Midland railway. Pop. of urban district (1901) 10,111. It lies on high ground between the valleys of the Derwent and the Erewash. In the neighbourhood there are extensive collieries, and coke is largely manufactured. Besides iron foundries, blast furnaces and boiler works, the town possesses silk and cotton mills. The charter for the market was granted by Henry III. The district has a large industrial population. To the west of Ripley lies the township of Heage (pop. 2889).
RIPON, GEORGE FREDERICK SAMUEL ROBINSON, 1st Marquess of (1827–1909), British statesman, only son of the 1st earl of Ripon and his wife Lady Sarah, daughter of Robert Hobart, 4th earl of Buckinghamshire, was born in London on the 24th of October 1827. The Robinson family was descended from an eminent Hamburg merchant, William Robinson (1522–1616), who. represented York in parliament in Elizabeth’s reign. His great-grandson was in 1660 created at baronet. Thomas Robinson, 1st Baron Grantham (1695–1770), son of a later holder of the baronetcy, was created a peer in 1761, having been an indefatigable diplomatist plenipotentiary at the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, and secretary of state. The 2nd Baron Grantham (1758–1786), ambassador at Madrid, and foreign secretary under Lord Shelburne, had two sons. The elder of these, succeeding as 3rd Baron Grantham (1781–1859), became in 1833 2nd Earl de Grey, in right of his maternal aunt, and assumed the surname of de Grey; he was lord-lieutenant of Ireland (1841–44). The younger, Frederick John (1782–1859), created Viscount Goderich in 1827 and earl of Ripon in 1833, was the well-known “Prosperity Robinson” who was chancellor of the exchequer from 1823 to 1827; as Lord Goderich he became prime minister (and a peculiarly weak one) from August 1827 to January 1828, colonial secretary in 1831 and 1832, lord privy
