LA CHAUX DE FONDS  , a large

industrial town in the Swiss canton of Neuchatel . It is about 19 M. by rail N.W. of Neuchatel, and stands at a height of about 3255 ft. in a valley (5 m. long) of the same name in the Jura . Pop . (woo) 35,968 (only 13,659 in 1850); (1905) 38,700, mainly French-speaking and Protestants; of the 6114 " Catholics " the majority are " Old Catholics." It is a centre of the watch-making industry, especially of gold watch cases; about 70% of those manufactured in Switzerland are turned out here . In 1900 it exported watches to the value of nearly £3,000,000 sterling . There is a school of industrial art (engraving and enamelling watch cases) and a school of watch-making (including instruction in the manufacture of chronometers and other scientific instruments of precision) . It boasts of being le plus gros village de l'Europe, and certainly has preserved some of the features of a big village . Leopold Robert (1794-1835), the painter, was born here . (W . A . B . C.) .