MEUSE, Maese, or Maas, a river of France, Belgium, and Holland, discharging into the North Sea or German Ocean, has a course (variously measured) of some 500 or 550 miles, about 300 miles lying within France. Rising in the department of Haute-Marne (1342 feet), at a point where the plateau of Langres borders on the Monts Faucilles, it follows a winding course, first from south to north, then to north-west, and afterwards to north, across the departments of Vosges, Meuse, and Ardennes, passing by Neuf chateau, Vaucouleurs, Commercy, St Mihiel, Verdun, Sedan, Mézières, and Givet. Naturally navigable below Verdun, it has been made so from Troussey, where it meets the canal which unites the Marne to the Rhine, and from this point to Liège it admits vessels of from 6 to 7 feet draught. After traversing a wide valley covered by green meadows, the Meuse, below Mézières, flows through narrow gorges confined between rocky walls 200 or 300 feet high, formed by the plateau of the Ardennes. The hills of the Argonne, by which it is hemmed in on its upper course, prevent its receiving any important affluent before the Chiers and the Semoy, which both fall into it on the right in the Ardennes. At the point where it leaves France its ordinary volume is about 1000 cubic feet. In Belgium it runs picturesquely between the districts of Famenne and Condroz on the right, and those of Les Fagnes and Hesbaye on the left. Above Dinant it receives the Lesse, whose valley is celebrated for its wonderful grottoes, and at the foot of the citadel of Namur it is joined on the left by its principal affluent, the Sambre, whose north-easterly direction it takes. It then takes its course through the busy valley in which Huy, Seraing, and Liege are situated, receiving the Ourthe on its right. ...Resuming a northerly direction, then taking one to the north-west, and finally one to the west, the Meuse passes in front of the Dutch citadel of Maestricht to Roermonde, so called from its confluence there with the Roer, and to Venlo, where the canal between the Meuse and the Scheldt begins. Flowing thence through an absolutely unbroken plain, it finally joins the Rhine, to which it gives its own name, although the volume of its waters is twenty times less than that of the German river. It is at Gorcum that the Waal, the first separate arm of the Rhine, brings to the Meuse two-thirds of the waters of that river. The Meuse soon after divides into two branches. While the Merwede flows due west, the southern arm falls into the Biesbosch, an estuary of the sea, formed four hundred and fifty years ago by an irruption of the sea over a country then cultivated and thickly peopled, and now the subject of attempts at reclamation. On reaching Dordrecht, where the river navigation and sea navigation meet, and where the rafts which come down from the Black Forest are broken up, the Meuse again divides into two arms. The Old Meuse flows due west, while the northern arm joins the Lek, a second branch of the Rhine, and continues its course to Rotterdam. This is the most important branch of the estuary of the Meuse, and efforts are being made to regulate and deepen its channel by constructing one of those grand canals in which the Dutch are so skilful. Schiedam and Vlardingen, both on the right, are the last places of importance on the banks of the river.
MEUSE, a department in the north-east of France, formed out of a part of Lorraine and portions of the Three Bishoprics, the Clermontais, and Champagne, derives its name from the river by which it is traversed from south to north. It lies between 4° 52' and 5° 50' E. long., and between 48° 25' and 49° 38' N. lat., and is bounded on the N. by Belgium and the department of Ardennes, on the E. by that of Meurthe-et-Moselle, on the S. by those of Vosges and Haute-Marne, and on the W. by those of Marne and Ardennes. Of its superficial area (2405 square miles), about one-half belongs to the basin of the Meuse, which is enclosed to the east and west by the eastern and western Argonnes. On the north-east it is watered by the Orne, a tributary of the Moselle, and the Chiers, which runs by Montmédy, and joins the Meuse a little beyond the northern limit of the department. The other half sends its waters to the Seine through the Aire, a tributary of the Aisne, both of which take their rise here, and by the Ornain, an affluent of the Saux, these two last being tributary to the Marne. The Meuse receives no important river in its course through this department. The highest elevation (1388 feet) occurs to the south-west, on the line of the ridge which separates the basin of the Meuse from that of the Seine. The heights gradually sink from south to north, but seldom fall below 1000 feet. The hills of the western Argonne similarly sink rapidly down to the valley of the Saux, where the lowest level of the department (377 feet) is reached. The climate of Meuse is transitional between the region of the Soine and that of the Vosges; its winters are less severe than those of the latter, but it is not so temperate as the former. The mean annual temperature is 52° Fahr. As at Paris, the maximum cold is 9° Fahr.; the greatest heat rarely exceeds 95° Fahr.
More than half the surface of the department consists of culturable lands, one-fourth of forest, one-tenth of meadow land. The proportion of horses is larger than in any other French department, except La Manche. There are 53,800 horses, 90,000 cattle, 145,000 sheep, 125,000 pigs, and nearly 30,000 beehives. Cereals, potatoes, and beet-root are the chief crops (in 1877 465,966 quarters of wheat, 104,660 quarters of barley, 585,355 quarters of oats, 7,677,374 bushels of potatoes, besides pulse, hemp, and colza). The vineyards produced more than 6,600,000 gallons of wine of good quality. The forests, which are principally of oak, are rich in game, as are the rivers in fish. The mineral wealth of the department includes iron ore, good freestone, and fossil phosphates of lime. There are blast-furnaces, iron, copper, and bell foundries, wireworks, and manufactories of files, hardware, and edge tools. The cotton-spinning factories employ 15,000 spindles and 32,000 frames; the woollen manufacture employs 5000 spindles, and some hundreds of persons are employed in the spinning and weaving of hemp, flax, and jute. The glass-works (particularly the manufactory of painted window-glass, transferred after the war of 1870 from Metz to Bar-le-Duc), paper-mills, saw-mills, and flour-mills, as well as the manufactures of lime, tiles, and fire-bricks, are worthy of mention. Hosiery and embroidery also give occupation to a great number of workshops, and the department is celebrated for its confectionery. Meuse contains more than 300 miles of railway,—the principal lines being that from Paris to Strasburg through Bar-le-Duc and Commercy, that from Paris to Metz through Verdun, and the branch line to the Meuse. The chief waterways are the canal connecting the Marne with the Rhine, and the canal of the Meuse; the two together have a length of 146 miles. The population of the department in 1881 was 289,861,—a small number in proportion to its extent, and with a tendency to decrease. Ecclesiastically it forms the diocese of Verdun; it has its court of appeal at Nancy, and constitutes part of the district of the army corps of Châlons-sur-Marne. There are 4 arrondissements,—Bar-le-Duc, Commercy, Montmédy, and Verdun,—28 cantons, and 586 communes. Bar-le-Duc (population in 1881, 17,485) is the capital; Commercy has 5260 inhabitants and Montmédy 3000; St Mihiel (5915), on the Meuse, has good churches and some remarkable rocks, and is the seat of the departmental assize court.
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