EASTPORT, a city and port of entry of Washington county, Maine, U.S.A., co-extensive with Moose Island in Passamaquoddy Bay, about 190 m. E.N.E. of Portland. Pop. (1890) 4908; (1900) 5311 (1554 foreign-born); (1910) 4961. It is served by the Washington County railway, and by steamboat lines to Boston, Portland and Calais. It is the most eastern city of the United States, and is separated from the mainland by a narrow channel, which is spanned by a bridge. The harbour is well protected from the winds, and the tide, which rises and falls here about 25 ft., prevents it from being obstructed with ice. The city is built on ground sloping gently to the water’s edge, and commands delightful views of the bay, in which there are several islands. Its principal industry is the canning of sardines; there are also clam canneries. Shoes, mustard, decorated tin, and shooks are manufactured, and fish and lobsters are shipped from here in the season. The city is the port of entry for the customs district of Passamaquoddy; in 1908 its imports were valued at $994,961, and its exports at $1,155,791. Eastport was first settled about 1782 by fishermen; it became a port of entry in 1790, was incorporated as a town in 1798, and was chartered as a city in 1893. It was a notorious place for smuggling under the Embargo Acts of 1807 and 1808. On the 11th of July 1814, during the war of 1812, it was taken by the British. As the British government claimed the islands of Passamaquoddy Bay under the treaty of 1783, the British forces retained possession of Eastport after the close of the war and held it under martial law until July 1818, when it was surrendered in accordance with the decision rendered in November 1817 by commissioners appointed under Article IV. of the treaty of Ghent (1814), this decision awarding Moose Island, Dudley Island and Frederick Island to the United States and the other islands, including the Island of Grand Manan in the Bay of Fundy, to Great Britain.
EAST PROVIDENCE, a township of Providence county, Rhode Island, U.S.A., on the E. side of Providence river, opposite Providence. Pop. (1890) 8422; (1900) 12,138, of whom 2067 were foreign-born; (1910 census) 15,808. Area, 12½ sq. m. It is served by the New York, New Haven & Hartford railway. It has a rolling surface and contains several villages, one of which, known as Rumford, has important manufactories of chemicals and electrical supplies. South of this village, along the river bank, are several attractive summer resorts, Hunt’s Mills, Silver Spring, Riverside, Vanity Fair, Kettle Point and Bullock’s Point being prominent among them. In 1905 the factory products of the township were valued at $5,035,288. The oyster trade is important. It was within the present limits of this township that Roger Williams established himself in the spring of 1636, until he learned that the place was within the jurisdiction of the Plymouth Colony. About 1644 it was settled by a company from Weymouth as a part of a town of Rehoboth. In 1812 Rehoboth was divided, and the west part was made the township of Seekonk. Finally, in 1861, it was decided that the west part of Seekonk belonged to Rhode Island, and in the following year that part was incorporated as the township of East Providence.
EAST PRUSSIA (Ost-Preussen), the easternmost province of the kingdom of Prussia, bounded on the N. by the Baltic, on the E. and S.W. by Russia and Russian Poland, and on the W. by the Prussian province of West Prussia. It has an area of 14,284 sq. m., and had, in 1905, a population of 2,025,741. It shares in the general characteristics of the great north German plain, but, though low, its surface is by no means absolutely flat, as the southern half is traversed by a low ridge or plateau, which attains a height of 1025 ft. at a point near the western boundary of the province. This plateau, here named the Prussian Seenplatte, is thickly sprinkled with small lakes, among which is the Spirding See, 46 sq. m. in extent and the largest inland lake in the Prussian monarchy. The coast is lined with low dunes or sandhills, in front of which lie the large littoral lakes or lagoons named the Frisches Haff and the Kurisches Haff. The first of these receives the waters of the Nogat and the Pregel, and the other those of the Memel or Niemen. East Prussia is the coldest part of Germany, its mean annual temperature being about 44° F., while the mean January temperature of Tilsit is only 25°. The rainfall is 24 in. per annum. About half the province is under tillage; 18% is occupied by forests, and about 23% by meadows and pastures. The most fertile soil is found in the valleys of the Pregel and the Memel, but the southern slopes of the Baltic plateau and the district to the north of the Memel consist in great part of sterile moor, sand and bog. The chief crops are rye, oats and potatoes, while flax is cultivated in the district of Ermeland, between the Passarge and the upper Alle. East Prussia is the headquarters of the horse-breeding of the country, and contains the principal government stud of Trakehnen; numerous cattle are also fattened on the rich pastures of the river-valleys. The extensive woods in the south part of the province harbour a few wolves and lynxes, and the elk is still preserved in the forest of Ibenhorst, near the Kurisches Haff. The fisheries in the lakes and haffs are of some importance; but the only mineral product of note is amber, which is found in the peninsula of Samland in greater abundance than in any other part of the world. Manufactures are almost confined to the principal towns, though linen-weaving is practised as a domestic industry. Commerce is facilitated by canals connecting the Memel and Pregel and also the principal lakes, but is somewhat hampered by the heavy dues exacted at the Russian frontier. A brisk foreign trade is carried on through the seaports of Königsberg, the capital of the province, and Memel, the exports consisting mainly of timber and grain.
The population of the province was in 1900 1,996,626, and included 1,698,465 Protestants, 269,196 Roman Catholics and 13,877 Jews. The Roman Catholics are mainly confined to the district of Ermeland, in which the ordinary proportions of the confessions are completely reversed. The bulk of the inhabitants are of German blood, but there are above 400,000 Protestant Poles (Masurians or Masovians) in the south part of the province, and 175,000 Lithuanians in the north. As in other provinces where the Polish element is strong, East Prussia is somewhat below the general average of the kingdom in education. There is a university at Königsberg.
See Lohmeyer, Geschichte von Ost- und West-Preussen (Gotha, 1884); Brünneck, Zur Geschichte des Kirchen-Patronats in Ost- und West-Preussen (Berlin, 1902), and Ost-Preussen, Land und Volk (Stuttgart, 1901-1902).
EASTWICK, EDWARD BACKHOUSE (1814-1883), British Orientalist, was born in 1814, a member of an Anglo-Indian family. Educated at Charterhouse and at Oxford, he joined the Bombay infantry in 1836, but, owing to his talent for languages, was soon given a political post. In 1843 he translated the Persian Kessahi Sanján, or History of the Arrival of the Parsees in India; and he wrote a Life of Zoroaster, a Sindhi vocabulary, and various papers in the transactions of the Bombay Asiatic Society. Compelled by ill-health to return to Europe, he went to Frankfort, where he learned German and translated Schiller’s Revolt of the Netherlands and Bopp’s Comparative Grammar. In 1845 he was appointed professor of Hindustani at Haileybury College. Two years later he published a Hindustani grammar, and, in subsequent years, a new edition of the Gulistán, with a translation in prose and verse, also an edition with vocabulary of the Hindi translation by Lallú Lál of Chatur Chuj Misr’s Prem Sagár, and translations of the Bagh-o-Bahar, and of the Anvár-i Suhaili of Bídpáí. In 1851 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1857-1858 he edited The Autobiography of Lútfullah. He also edited for the Bible Society the Book of Genesis in the Dakhani language. From 1860 to 1863 he was in Persia as secretary to the British Legation, publishing on his return The Journal of a Diplomate. In 1866 he became private secretary to the secretary of state for India, Lord Cranborne (afterwards marquess of Salisbury), and in 1867 went, as in 1864, on a government mission to Venezuela. On his return he wrote, at the request of Charles Dickens, for All the Year Round, “Sketches of Life in a South American Republic.” From 1868 to 1874 he was M.P. for Penryn and Falmouth. In 1875 he received the degree of M.A. with the franchise from the university of Oxford, “as a slight recognition of distinguished services.” At various times he wrote several of Murray’s Indian hand-books. His last work was the Kaisarnamah-i-Hind (“the lay of the empress”), in two volumes (1878-1882). He died at Ventnor, Isle of Wight, on the 16th of July 1883.