f were wheat-flour, fruit and superphosphates, were valued at
L40,000. Besides its sardine and mackerel fishing industry, the town has
flour-mills, breweries, foundries, forges, engineering works, and
manufactures of blocks, candles, chemicals (from sea-weed), boots, shoes
and linen. Brest communicates by submarine cable with America and French
West Africa. The roadstead consists of a deep indentation with a maximum
length of 14 m. and an average width of 4 m., the mouth being barred by the
peninsula of Quelern, leaving a passage from 1 to 2 m. broad, known as the
Goulet. The outline of the bay is broken by numerous smaller bays or arms,
formed by the embouchures of streams, the most important being the Anse de
Quelern, the Anse de Poulmie, and the mouths of the Chateaulin and the
Landerneau. Brest is a fortress of the first class. The fortifications of
the town and the harbour fall into four groups: (1) the very numerous forts
and batteries guarding the approaches to and the channel of the Goulet; (2)
the batteries and forts directed upon the roads; (3) a group of works
preventing access to the peninsula of Quelern and commanding the ground to
the south of the peninsula from which many of the works of group (2) could
be taken in reverse; (4) the defences of Brest itself, consisting of an
old-fashioned _enceinte_ possessing little military value and a chain of
detached forts to the west of the town.

Nothing definite is known of Brest till about 1240, when it was ceded by a
count of Leon to John I., duke of Brittany. In 1342 John of Montfort gave
it up to the English, and it did not finally leave their hands till 1397.
Its medieval importance was great enough to give rise to the saying, "He is
not duke of Brittany who is not lord of Brest." By the marriage of Francis
I. with Claude, daughter of Anne of Brittany, Brest with the rest of the
duchy definitely passed to the French crown. The advantages of the
situation for a seaport town were first recognized by Richelieu, who in
1631 constructed a harbour with wooden wharves, which soon became a station
of the French navy. Colbert changed the wooden wharves for masonry and
otherwise improved the post, and Vauban's fortifications followed in
1680-1688. During the 18th century the fortifications and the naval
importance of the town continued to develop. In 1694 an English squadron
under John, 3rd Lord Berkeley, was miserably defeated in attempting a
landing; but in 1794, during