, and the highest
points, some 400 ft. in altitude, are to be found at and near Mont St
Jean. The province is well cultivated, and the people are well known for
their industry. There are valuable stone quarries, and many manufactures
flourish in the smaller towns, such as Ottignies, as well as in the
larger cities of Brussels and Louvain. Brabant contains 820,740 acres or
1268 sq. m. Its principal towns are Brussels, Louvain, Nivelles, Hal,
Ottignies, and its three administrative divisions are named after the
first three of those towns. They are subdivided into 50 cantons and 344
communes. In 1904 the population of the province was 1,366,389 or a
proportion of 1077 per sq. m.

BRABANT, NORTH, the largest province in Holland, bounded S. by Belgium,
W. and N.W. by the Scheldt, the Eendracht, the Volkerak and the
Hollandsch Diep, which separate it from Zealand and South Holland, N.
and N. E. by the Merwede and Maas, which separate it from South Holland
and Gelderland, and E. by the province of Limburg. It has an area of 231
sq. m. and a pop. (1900) of 553,842. The surface of the province is a
gentle slope from the south-east (where it ranges between 80 and 160 ft.
in height) towards the north and north-west, and the soil is composed of
diluvial sand, here and there mixed with gravel, but giving place to
sea-clay along the western boundary and river-clay along the banks of
the Maas and smaller rivers. The watershed is formed by the
north-eastern edge of the Belgian plateau of Campine, and follows a
curved line drawn through Bergen-op-Zoom, Turnhout and Maastricht. The
landscape consists for the most part of waste stretches of heath,
occasionally slightly overlaid with high fen. Between the valleys of the
Aa and the Maas lies the long stretch of heavy high-fen called the Peel
("marshy land"). Deurne, a few miles east of Helmond, the site of a
prehistoric burial-ground, was an early fen colony. The work of
reclamation was removed farther eastwards to Helenaveen in the second
half of the 19th century. Agriculture (potatoes, buckwheat, rye) is the
main industry, generally combined with cattle-raising. On the clay lands
wheat and barley are the principal products, and in the western corner
of the province beetroot is largely cultivated for the beet sugar
industry, factories being found at Bergen-op-Zoom, Steenbergen and
Oudenbosch. There is a special cultivation of hops in the district
north-west of 's Hertogenbosch. The l