a large town of the hundred of its name, in the county of Somerset, 144 miles from Bristol. It is finely situated in the rich and fertile valley of Taunton-Dean, which is watered by the river Tone. It has also water communication by a canal with the river Parrett and the sea at Bridgewater. It is a very well built town, with a fine market-place, in which stand both the county and the town hall. There are two churches, and that of St James is a fine and large building, with a magnificent tower. It has numerous places of worship for the several sects of Protestant dissenters, and a chapel for the Catholics, who have also lately established a female convent. This is an ancient borough, but it lost its corporate rights by suffering the numbers to become so low, and not to have a quorum left to fill up the vacancies. It is now under the jurisdiction of the county magistrates, and returns two members to parliament. It was formerly a place for manufacturing cloth goods, but that trade has greatly declined. In the mean time the trade of throwing silk has been introduced, and gives employment to some of the population. Taunton is chiefly inhabited by families of moderate incomes, who are induced to settle there from its being pleasant, cheap, and healthy. There are markets on Wednesday and on Saturday, well supplied. The inhabitants amounted in 1801 to 5794, in 1811 to 6997, in 1821 to 8534, and in 1831 to 11,139.

TAUNUS Mountains, a district of Germany, in the dominion of the prince of Nassau. In Germany this range of mountains was long denominated the Heights of Homburg, and belonged to the duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt before it came to the house of Nassau, as a portion of the duchy of Katzenellenbogen. It lies between the Rhine and the Maine, the former being its western, and the latter its southern boundary. The face of the country is very irregular; it consists almost wholly of hills and valleys, especially in the eastern part, where streams and wood present themselves to the traveller in great variety. The most lofty points of these hills are the Grosefeldberg, 2605 feet, and the Altkonigberge, 2450 feet, in height. In these mountains are the mineral springs which form the great source of the wealth of the duchy. The chief of them are at Ems, Schwalbach, Schlangenbad, and Soden. There is another spring at Selzors, whose water is not drunk at the well, but put into stone bottles, of which about 1,500,000 are annually distributed over Europe. These mountains contain abundance of iron ore, which is worked extensively by the charcoal made from the neighbouring hills. There are also some mines of lead and of silver, but not productive to any great extent. Except the making of stone bottles and ironware, the chief occupation is agriculture, and even on the table-land, lofty as it is, good crops of rye are produced.

The only river among these mountains is the Lahm, a romantic stream falling into the Rhine below the town of Ems, and navigable by boats in wet weather as high up the valley as Weilbourg. Over this stream, at Nassau, an iron suspension bridge has been constructed, being the first erection of that kind in Germany.