CHER, a department of central France, embracing the eastern part of the ancient province of Berry, and parts of Bourbonnais, Nivernais and Orléanais, bounded N. by the department of Loiret, W. by Loir-et-Cher and Indre, S. by Allier and Creuse, and E. by Nièvre. Pop. (1906) 343,484. Area 2819 sq. m. The territory of the department is elevated in the south, where one point reaches 1654 ft., and in the east. The centre is occupied by a wide calcareous table-land, to the north of which stretches the plain of Sologne. The principal rivers, besides the Cher and its tributaries, are the Grande Sauldre and the Petite Sauldre on the north, but the Loire and Allier, though not falling within the department, drain the eastern districts, and are available for navigation. The Cher itself becomes navigable when it receives the Arnon and Yèvre, and the communications of the department are greatly facilitated by the Canal du Berry, which traverses it from east to west, the lateral canal of the Loire, which follows the left bank of that river, and the canal of the Sauldre. The climate is temperate, and the rainfall moderate. Except in the Sologne, the soil is generally fertile, but varies considerably in different localities. The most productive region is that on the east, which belongs to the valley of the Loire; the central districts are tolerably fertile but marshy, being often flooded by the Cher; while in the south and south-west there is a considerable extent of dry and fertile land. Wheat and oats are largely cultivated, while hemp, vegetables and various fruits are also produced. The vine flourishes chiefly in the east of the arrondissement of Sancerre. The department contains a comparatively large extent of pasturage, which has given rise to a considerable trade in horses, cattle, sheep and wool for the northern markets. Nearly one-fifth of the whole area consists of forest. Mines of iron are worked, and various sorts of stone are quarried. Brick, porcelain and glassworks employ large numbers of the inhabitants. There are also flour-mills, distilleries, oil-works, saw-mills and tanneries. Bourges and Vierzon are metallurgical and engineering centres. Coal and wine are leading imports, while cereals, timber, wool, fruit and industrial products are exported. The department is served by the Orléans railway, and possesses in all more than 300 m. of navigable waterways. It is divided into three arrondissements (29 cantons, 292 communes) cognominal with the towns of Bourges, Saint-Amand-Mont-Rond, and Sancerre, of which the first is the capital, the seat of an archbishop and of a court of appeal and headquarters of the VIII. army-corps. The department belongs to the académie (educational division) of Paris. Bourges, Saint-Amand-Mont-Rond, Vierzon and Sancerre (q.v.) are the principal towns. Méhun-sur-Yèvre (pop. 5227), a town with an active manufacture of porcelain, has a Romanesque church and a château of the 14th century. Among the other interesting churches of the department, that at St Satur has a fine choir of the 14th and 15th centuries; those of Dun-sur-Auron, Plaimpied, Aix d’Angillon and Jeanvrin are Romanesque in style, while Aubigny-Ville has a church of the 12th, 13th and 15th centuries and a château of later date. Drevant, built on the site of a Roman town, preserves ruins of a large theatre and other remains. Among the megalithic monuments of Cher, the most notable is that at Villeneuve-sur-Cher, known as the Pierre-de-la-Roche.
CHERAT, a hill cantonment and sanatorium in the Peshawar district of the North-West Frontier Province, India, 34 m. S.E. of Peshawar. It is situated at an elevation of 4500 ft, on the west of the Khattak range, which divides the Peshawar from the Kohat district. It was first used in 1861, and since then has been employed during the hot weather as a health station for the British troops quartered in the hot and malarious vale of Peshawar.
CHERBOURG, a naval station, fortified town and seaport of north-western France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Manche, on the English Channel, 232 m. W.N.W. of Paris on the Ouest-État railway. Pop. (1906) town, 35,710; commune, 43,827. Cherbourg is situated at the mouth of the Divette, on a small bay at the apex of the indentation formed by the northern shore of the peninsula of Cotentin. Apart from a fine hospital and the church of La Trinité dating from the 15th century, the town has no buildings of special interest. A rich collection of paintings is housed in the hôtel de ville. A statue of the painter J.F. Millet, born near Cherbourg, stands in the public garden, and there is an equestrian statue of Napoleon I. in the square named after him. Cherbourg is a fortified place of the first class, headquarters of one of the five naval arrondissements of France, and the seat of a sub-prefect. It has tribunals of first instance and of commerce, a chamber of commerce, a lycée and a naval school. The chief industries of the town proper are fishing, saw-milling, tanning, leather-dressing, ship-building, iron and copper-founding, rope-making and the manufacture of agricultural implements. There are stone quarries in the environs, and the town has trade in farm produce.
Cherbourg derives its chief importance from its naval and commercial harbours, which are distant from each other about half a mile. The former consists of three main basins cut out of the rock, and has an area of 55 acres. The minimum depth of water is 30 ft. Connected with the harbour are dry docks, the yards where the largest ships in the French navy are constructed, magazines, rope walks, and the various workshops requisite for a naval arsenal of the first class. The works and town are carefully guarded on every side by redoubts and fortifications, and are commanded by batteries on the surrounding hills. There is a large naval hospital close to the harbour. The commerical harbour at the mouth of the Divette communicates with the sea by a channel 650 yds. long. It consists of two parts, an outer and tidal harbour 17½ acres in extent, and an inner basin 15 acres in extent, with a depth on sill at ordinary spring tide of 25 ft. Outside these harbours is the triangular bay, which forms the roadstead of Cherbourg. The bay is admirably sheltered by the land on every side but the north. On that side it is sheltered by a huge breakwater, over 2 m. in length, with a width of 650 ft. at its base and 30 ft. at its summit, which is protected by forts, and leaves passages for vessels to the east and west. These passages are guarded by forts placed on islands intervening between the breakwater and the mainland, and themselves united to the land by breakwaters. The surface within these barriers amounts to about 3700 acres. Cherbourg is a port of call for the American, North German Lloyd and other important lines of transatlantic steamers. The chief exports are stone for road-making, butter, eggs and vegetables; the chief imports are coal, timber, superphosphates and wine from Algeria. Great Britain is the principal customer.
Cherbourg is supposed by some investigators to occupy the site of the Roman station of Coriallum, but nothing definite is known about its origin. The name was long regarded as a corruption of Caesaris Burgus (Caesar’s Borough). William the Conqueror, under whom it appears as Carusbur, provided it with a hospital and a church; and Henry II. of England on several occasions chose it as his residence. In 1295 it was pillaged by an English fleet from Yarmouth; and in the 14th century it frequently suffered during the wars against the English. Captured by the English in 1418 after a four months’ siege, it was recovered by Charles VII. of France in 1450. An attempt was made under Louis XIV. to construct a military port; but the fortifications were dismantled in 1688, and further damage was inflicted by the English in 1758. In 1686 Vauban planned harbour-works which were begun under Louis XVI. and continued by Napoleon I. It was left, however, to Louis Philippe, and particularly to Napoleon III., to complete them, and their successful realization was celebrated in 1858, in the presence of the queen of England, against whose dominions they had at one time been mainly directed. At the close of 1857, £8,000,000, of which the breakwater cost over £2,500,000, had been expended on the works; in 1889 a further sum of £680,000 was voted by the Chamber of Deputies for the improvement of the port.
CHERBULIEZ, CHARLES VICTOR (1829-1899), French novelist and miscellaneous writer, was born on the 19th of July 1829, at Geneva, where his father, André Cherbuliez (1795-1874), was a classical professor at the university. He was descended from a family of Protestant refugees, and many years later Victor Cherbuliez resumed his French nationality, taking advantage of an act passed in the early days of the Revolution. Geneva was the scene of his early education; thence he proceeded to Paris, and afterwards to the universities of Bonn and Berlin. He returned to his native town and engaged in the profession of teaching. After his resumption of French citizenship he was elected a member of the Academy (1881), and having received the Legion of Honour in 1870, he was promoted to be officer of the order in 1892. He died on the 1st of July 1899. Cherbuliez was a voluminous and successful writer of fiction. His first book, originally published in 1860, reappeared in 1864 under the title of Un Cheval de Phidias: it is a romantic study of art in the golden age of Athens. He went on to produce a series of novels, of which the following are the best known:—Le Comte Kostia (1863), Le Prince Vitale (1864), Le Roman d’une honnête femme (1866), L’Aventure de Ladislas Bolski (1869), Miss Ravel (1875), Samuel Brohl et Cie (1877), L’Idée de Jean Teterol (1878), Noirs et rouges (1881), La Vocation du Comte Ghislain (1888), Une Gageure (1890), Le Secret du précepteur (1893), Jacquine Vanesse (1898), &c. Most of these novels first appeared in the Revue des deux mondes, to which Cherbuliez also contributed a number of political and learned articles, usually printed with the pseudonym G. Valbert. Many of these have been published in collected form under the titles L’Allemagne politique (1870), L’Espagne politique (1874), Profils étrangers (1889), L’Art et la nature (1892), &c. The volume Études de littérature et d’art (1873) includes articles for the most part reprinted from Le Temps. The earlier novels of Cherbuliez have been said with truth to show marked traces of the influence of George Sand; and in spite of modification, his method was that of an older school. He did not possess the sombre power or the intensely analytical skill of some of his later contemporaries, but his books are distinguished by a freshness and honesty, fortified by cosmopolitan knowledge and lightened by unobtrusive humour, which fully account for their wide popularity in many countries besides his own. His genius was the reverse of dramatic, and attempts to present two of his stories on the stage have not succeeded. His essays have all the merits due to liberal observation and thoroughness of treatment; their style, like that of the novels, is admirably lucid and correct.