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Le Locle

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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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 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 12,559, mainly Protestants and French-speaking. The church tower dates from 1521, but the 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 tunnel was constructed by means of which the surplus waters of the Bied are carried into the Doubs. About I 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. C.)