HUNTSVILLE, a city of Alabama, U.S.A., 18m. from the northern boundary of the State; the county seat of Madison county. It is on Federal highway 72, and is served by the Nash ville, Chattanooga and St. Louis and the Southern railways. The population was 8,018 in 1920; in 193o, Huntsville is sur rounded by the beautiful scenery of the Cumberland plateau. The public square is on a high bluff (7 5of t. above sea-level) . From its base issues a large spring, which furnishes water for the city and forms a stream once used for floating cargoes of cotton to the Tennessee river, tom. south. The city has large cotton mills, with an aggregate of 332,776 spindles in 1928, and other manu facturing industries. It is one of the principal nursery centres south of the Ohio, and near by is the largest water-cress farm in the country. At Normal, 31m. N.E., is the State Agricultural and Mechanical Institute for negroes. Huntsville was founded in 18o5 by John Hunt of Virginia, who had fought in the Revolution, and in 1811 it was incorporated by the Territorial Government, the first settlement in Alabama to receive a charter. Among the first residents were some relatives of Alexander Pope, and for a short time (1809-1 1) the town was called Twickenham in memory of his home. It was the meeting-place of the convention that framed the first State Constitution (1819) and of the first legislature (1820). In 1844 it was chartered as a city. During the Civil War it was in possession of Federal troops from April 11 to Sept. 1862, and from July 1863 to the end of the war.