LE

LOCLE  , a town in the Swiss canton of Neuchatel, 24 M. by rail N. of Neuchatel, and 5 m . S.W. of La Chaux de Fonds . It is built (3035 ft. above the sea-level) on the Bied stream in a valley of the Jura, and is about 1 m. from the French frontier . In 1681 Daniel Jean Richard introduced watch-making here, which soon drove out all other industries . In 1900 the population was 12,J59, mainly Protestants and French-speaking . The church tower dates from 1521, but tfie old town was destroyed by fire in 1833 . The valley in which the town is situated used to be subject to inundations, but in 1805 a tunliel was constructed by means of which the surplus waters of the Bied are carried into the Doubs . About 1 m . W. of the town the Bied plunged into a deep chasm, on the steep rock face of which were formerly the subterranean mills of the Col des Roches, situated one above another; but the stream is now diverted by the above-mentioned tunnel, while another serves the railway line from Le Locle to Morteau in France (8 m.) . (W . A . B .