BONN, a t. of Rhenish Prussia. beautifully situated on the left bank of the Rhine. 15 in. above Cologne. Pop. '75, inclusive of the military. 28.114. B. is connected with the right tank of the Rhine only by a ferry, and with Cologne by the railway as well as the river. The cathedral church is a tine specimen of the last period of the Romanesque style, and exhilfim the- :transition to the Gothic already has considerable manufactures of cotton goods, earthenware, vitriol, and soap. The neighborhood is very romantic. 13. is the seat of a number of learned associations and institutions. The Leopoltine academy of physical science. founded at Vicuna in 1612, was transferred to B. in 1818. It obtained a university in 1786, which, however, was suppressed during the sway of France; and the present uuiversity was founded in 1818, receiving from government the former electoral palace and other buildings, with an annual revenue of nearly 1:15,000 sterling. There are two theological faculties, the one Protestant, iind the other Homan Catholic, The university had, m 1875, 102 professors and lecturers, and 724 students; and its professors have been numbered sonic wen of high distinc tion, as Niebuhr and A°. W. Schlegel. Albert, the late prince consort, wes a student
here. Its clinical establishments are of unusual extent, and admirably arranged. It has a library of above 200,000 volumes, archwological and other collections, a botanie-eur den, an observatory, an agricultural school, a riding-sehool, etc. B. derives its origin from L'unne, one of the castles erected by the Romans in Germauy. It was long the residence of the electors- of Cologne; it was taken front the French in 1689. after a severe bombardment by the elector Frederic III. of Brandeuburg; and in 1703, it surrendered, aft r a siege, to the English and Dutch army under Marlborough. It returned ugaiu into the possession of the elector of Cologne in 1715, and in 1717 its fortifications were razed. It was acquired by France in 1802, uud assigned to Prussia in 181•. Beethoven was a native of Bonn.