Lunar rainbows. The moon can produce rainbows in the same manner as the sun. The colours are much fainter, and according to Aristotle, who claims to be the first observer of this phenomenon, the lunar bows are only seen when the moon is full.
Marine rainbow is the name given to the chromatic displays formed by the sun's rays falling on the spray drawn up by the wind playing on the surface of an agitated sea.
Intersecting rainbows are sometimes observed. They are formed by parallel rays of light emanating from two sources, as, for example, the sun and its image in a sheet of water, which is situated between the observer and the sun. In this case the second bow is much fainter, and has its centre as much above the horizon as that of the direct system is below it.
References.—For the history of the theory of the rainbow, see G. B. Venturi, Commentari sopra la storia de la teoria del Ottica (Bologna, 1814); F. Rosenberger, Geschichte der Physik (1882–90). The geometrical and physical theory is treated in T. Preston’s Theory of Light; E. Mascart’s Traité d'optique (1899–1903); and most completely by J. Pernter in various contributions to scientific journals and in his Meteorologische Optik (1905–9).
RAINOLDS (or Reynolds), JOHN (1549–1607), English divine, was born about Michaelmas 1549 at Pinhoe, near Exeter, and was educated at Merton and Corpus Christi Colleges, Oxford, becoming a fellow of the latter in 1568. In 1572–73 he was appointed reader in Greek, and his lectures on Aristotle’ s Rhetoric laid the sure basis of his fame. He resigned the office in 1578 and his fellowship in 1586, through inability to agree with the president William Cole, and became a tutor at Queen’s College. By this time he had acquired a considerable reputation as a disputant on the Puritan side, and the story goes that Elizabeth visiting the university in 1592 "schooled him for his obstinate preciseness, willing him to follow her laws, and not run before them." In 1593 he was made dean of Lincoln. The fellows of Corpus were anxious to replace Cole by Rainolds, and exchange was effected, Rainolds being elected president in December 1598. The chief events of his subsequent career were his share in the Hampton Court Conference, where he was the most prominent representative of the Puritan party and received a good deal of favour from the king, and in the Authorized Version of the Bible. Of this project he was initiator, and himself worked with the company who undertook the translation of the Prophets. He died of consumption on the 21st of May 1607, leaving a great reputation for scholarship and high character.
RAINY, ROBERT (1826–1906), Scotch Presbyterian divine, was born on the 1st of January 1826; his father, Dr Harry Rainy, professor of forensic medicine in Glasgow University, was the son of a Sutherlandshire minister. Young Rainy was intended for his father’s profession, but he was caught by the evangelical fervour of the Disruption movement, and after studying for the Free Church he became a minister, first in Aberdeenshire and then in Edinburgh, till in 1862 he was elected professor of Church history in the theological seminary, New College, a post he only resigned in 1900. In 1874 he was made principal of the college and was subsequently known as Principal Rainy. He had come to the front as a champion of the liberal party in the Union controversy within the Free Church, and in combating Dean Stanley’s Broad Church views in the interests of Scotch evangelic ism; and about 1875 he became the undisputed leader of the Free Church. He guided it through the controversies as to Robertson Smith’s heresies, as to the use of hymns and instrumental music, and as to the Declaratory Act, brought to a successful issue the union of the Free and United Presbyterian Churches, and threw the weight of the united church on the side of freedom of Biblical criticism. He was the first moderator of the General Assembly of the United Free Church of Scotland, having previously been moderator of the Free General Assembly. Though not a great scholar, he was eminent as an ecclesiastical statesman, and his influence was far-reaching. After the strain of the fight with the so-called “Wee Frees” in 1904–5 his health broke down, and he went to Australia for recovery, but died at Melbourne on the 22nd of December 1906.
See Lives by P. Carnegie Simpson (1909) and R. Mackintosh (1907).
RAIPUR, a town and district of British India, in the Chhattisgarh division of the Central Provinces. The town is 994 ft. above sea-level, 188 m. E. of Nagpur; and has a station on the Bengal-Nagpur railway. Pop. (1901) 32,114. There are ruins of an immense fort, with many tanks and old temples. It has a German mission and a government high school. The Rajkumar college, for the education of the sons of the chiefs of Chhattisgarh, was transferred here from Jubbulpore in 1894.
The District of Raipur has an area of 9831 sq. m. It spreads over a vast plateau closed in by ranges of hills branching from the great Vindhyan chain. It is drained by the Seonath and the Mahanadi rivers. Geologically the country consists in the hilly tracts of gneiss and quartzite; the sandstone rocks in the west are intersected with trap dykes. Iron ore is abundant, and red ochre of high repute is found. In the interior the principal strata are a soft sandstone slate (covered generally by a layer of laterite gravel) and blue limestone, which crops out in numerous places on the surface and is invariably found in the beds of the rivers. Throughout the plains the soil is generally fertile. The climate is generally good; the mean temperature is 78° F., and the annual rainfall averages 55 in. The population on the present area in 1901 was 1,096,858, showing a decrease of 2.5% in the decade. The principal crop is rice. There are manufactures of cotton goods and brass ware. The north-west corner of the district is crossed by the main line of the Bengal-Nagpur railway, and a narrow-gauge branch runs from Raipur town due south. The district suffered severely from famine in 1896–97, and again in 1899–1900. Raipur was governed by a branch of the Haihaivansi dynasty of Ratanpur for many centuries until their deposition by the Mahrattas in 1750. The country was then already in a condition of decay, and soon afterwards it relapsed into absolute anarchy. In 1818 it was taken under British superintendence and made rapid progress. It fell with the rest of the Nagpur dominions to the British government in 1854. In 1906 its area was reduced by the formation of the new district of Drug.
RAIS (or Retz), GILLES DE (1404–1440), marshal of France and the central figure of a 15th-century cause célébre, whose name is associated with the story of Bluebeard, was the son of Guy de Montmorency-Laval, the adopted son and heir of Jeanne de Rais and of Marie de Craon. He was born at Macbecoul in September or October 1404, and, being early left an orphan, was educated by his maternal grandfather, Jean de Craon. Chief among his great possessions was the barony of Rais (erected in the 16th century into the peerage-duchy of Retz), south of the Loire, on the marches of Brittany. He joined the party of the Montforts, supporting Jean V. of Brittany against the rival house of Penthiévre. He helped to release Duke John from Olivier de Blois, count of Penthiévre, who had taken him prisoner by craft, and was rewarded by extensive grants of land, which were subsequently commuted by the Breton parliament for money payments. In 1420, after other projects of marriage had fallen through, in two cases by the death of the bride, he married Katherine of Thouars, a great heiress in Brittany, La Vendée and Poitou. In 1426 he raised seven companies of men-at-arms, and began active warfare against the English under Artus de Richemont, the newly made constable of France. He had already built up a military reputation when he was chosen to accompany Joan of Arc to Orleans. He continued to be her special protector, fighting by her side at Orleans, and afterwards at Targeau and Patay. He had advocated further measures against the English on the Loire before carrying out the coronation of Charles VII. at Reims. On the 17th of July he was made marshal of France at Reims, and after the assault on Paris he was granted the right to bear the arms of France as a border to his shield, a privilege that was, however, never ratified. In the winter he was in Normandy, at Louviers, whether with a view to the release of Joan, then a prisoner at Rouen, cannot be stated. Meanwhile his fortune was disappearing, although he had been one of the richest men in France. He had expended great sums in the king’s service, and he maintained a court of
