REICHENBACH a manufacturing town of Saxony, in the province of Zwickau, lies in the hilly district known as the Voigtland, 50 miles to the south of Leipsic. The chief industrial products are woollen cloth, merino, cashmere, flannel, and shawls. Its importance is of recent origin, and the population, amounting to 16,509 in 1880, has trebled itself within the last fifty years. The earliest notice of the town occurs in a document of 1212, and it acquired municipal rights in 1367.

REICHENBACH a cotton-manufacturing town of Prussian Silesia, with 7225 inhabitants (1880) and an old castle, lies 30 miles to the south-south-west of Breslau, and demands mention chiefly from its connexion with several important historical events. In 1762 Frederick the Great gained a victory here over the Austrians; by the Reichen-bach convention of 1790 England and the other powers guaranteed the subsistence of the Turkish empire; and in 1813 a treaty, afterwards ratified at Prague, was concluded here between Austria and the allies.

REICHENBACHGeorg von (1772-1826), astronomical instrument maker, was born at Durlach in Baden on August 24, 1772. He first served as an officer of artillery, and afterwards held several civil appointments in Bavaria. Already from 1796 he was occupied with the construction of a dividing engine; in 1804 he founded, with Liebherr and Utzschneider, an instrumentmaking business in Munich; and in 1809 he established, with Fraunhofer and Utzschneider, equally important optical works at Benedictbeuern, which were moved to Munich in 1823. He withdrew from both enterprises in 1814, and founded with Ertel a new optical business, from which also he retired in 1820. He died at Munich on May 21, 1826....