[Rockall], a remarkable peak of granite rock, rising some 70 ft. above the sea-level from the bed of an extensive sandbank in the Atlantic, 184 m. W. of St. Kilda; a home and haunt for sea-birds.
[Rock-butter], a soft mineral substance found oozing from alum slates, and consisting of alum, alumina, and oxide of iron.
[Rockford] (24), a busy manufacturing town, capital of Winnebago County, Illinois, on the Rock River, 86 m. NW. of Chicago.
[Rockhampton] (12), the chief port of Central Queensland, Australia, on the Fitzroy, 35 m. from its mouth; in the vicinity are rich gold-fields, also copper and silver; engaged in tanning, meat-preserving, &c.; is connected by a handsome bridge with its suburb North Rockhampton.
[Rocking Stones] or Logans, large stones, numerous in Cornwall, Wales, Yorkshire, &c., so finely poised as to rock to and fro under the slightest force.
[Rockingham, Charles Watson Wentworth, Marquis of], statesman, of no great ability; succeeded to the title in 1750; opposed the policy of Bute, and headed the Whig opposition; in 1762 became Prime Minister, and acted leniently with the American colonies, repealing the Stamp Act; was a bitter opponent of North's American policy of repression; held the Premiership again for a few months in 1782 (1730-1782).
[Rocky Mountains], an extensive and lofty chain of mountains in North America, belonging to the Cordillera system, and forming the eastern buttress of the great Pacific Highlands, of which the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Mountains form the western buttress, stretching in rugged lines of almost naked rock, interspersed with fertile valleys, from New Mexico through Canada to the Arctic Ocean, broken only by a wonderfully beautiful tract of elevated plateau in southern Wyoming, over which passes the Union Pacific Railroad; reaches its greatest height in Colorado (Gray's Peak, 14,341 ft.); gold, silver, &c., are found abundantly.
[Rococo], name given to a debased style of architecture, overlaid with a tasteless, senseless profusion of fantastic ornamentation, without unity of design or purpose, which prevailed in France and elsewhere in the 18th century.
[Rocroi] (2), a small fortified town of France, about 3 m. from the Belgian frontier, in the dep. of Ardennes; memorable for a great victory of the French under Condé over the Spaniards in 1643.
[Rodbertus, Johann Karl], Socialist, born in Greifswald; believed in a Socialism that would in course of time realise itself with the gradual elevation of the people up to the Socialistic ideal (1815-1875).