PRZEMYSL  , a

town of Austria, in Galicia, 6o m . W. of Lemberg by rail . Pop . (1900), 46,295, mostly Polish . It is situated on the river San and is one of the strongest fortresses in Galicia . Przemysl is the seat of a Roman Catholic and of a Greek uniat bishop, and has a Roman Catholic cathedral, begun in 146o . The industries comprise the manufacture of machinery, liqueurs and spodium or tutty, the refining of naphtha, corn-milling and the sawing of timber . The trade is chiefly in timber, corn, leather and linen . On the hill above the town are the ruins of an old castle, said to have been founded by Casimir the Great . Przemysl, one of the oldest towns in Galicia, claims to have been founded in the 8th century, and was at one time capital of a large independent, principality . Casimir the Great and other Polish princes endowed it with privileges similar to those of Cracow, and it attained a high degree of prosperity . In the 17th century its importance was destroyed by inroads of Tatars, Cossacks and Swedes .