DAR  , a

town of south-western France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Landes, 92 M . S.S.W. of Bordeaux, on the Southern railway between that city and Bayonne . Pop . (rgo6) 8585 . The town lies on the left bank of the Adour, a stone bridge uniting it to its suburb of Le Sablar on the right bank . It has remains of ancient Gallo-Roman fortifications, now converted into a promenade . The most remarkable building in the town is the church of Notre-Dame, once a cathedral; it was rebuilt from . 1656 to 1719, but still preserves a sacristy, a porch and a fine sculptured doorway of the 13th century . The church of St Vincent, to the south-west of the town, derives its name from the first bishop, whose tomb it contains . The church of St Paul-les-Dax, a suburb on the right bank of the Adour, belongs mainly to the 15th century, and has a Romanesque apse adorned with curious bas-reliefs . On a hill to the west of Dax stands a tower built in memory of the sailor and scientist Jean Charles Borda, born there in 1733; a statue was erected to him in the town in 1891 . Dax, which is well known as a winter resort, owes much of its importance to its thermal waters and mud-baths (the deposit of the Adour), which are efficacious in cases of rheumatism, neuralgia and other disorders .

The best-known

spring is the Fontaine Chaude, which issues into a basin 16o ft. wide in the centre of the town . The principal of numerous bathing establishments are the Grands Thermes, the Bains Sales, adjoining a casino, and the Baignots, which fringe the Adour and are surrounded by gardens . Dax has a sub-prefecture, tribunals of first instance and of commerce, a communal college, a training college and a library . It has salt workings, tanneries, saw-mills, manufactures of soap and corks; commerce is chiefly in the pine wood, resin and cork of the Landes, in mules, cattle, horses and poultry . Dax (Aquae Tarbellicae, Aquae Augustae, later D'Acqs) was the capital of the Tarbelli under the Roman domination, when its waters were already famous . Later it was the seat of a viscounty, which in the 11th century passed to the viscounts of Beam, and in 1177 was annexed by Richard Coeur de Lion to Gascony . The bishopric, founded in the 3rd century, was in 18or attached to that of Aire .