BIRDS-BIRD'S FOOT. is attached to those of the gigantic Dinornis (q. v.) of | Sandpiper and Heron. In Eocene and Miocene beds New Zealand. See next article. BIRDS, FOSSIL. While the animal and vegetable kingdoms of the palæontologist extend to as wide, or rather a wider, range than those of the historian of modern life, yet several divisions are scantily represented in the petrified remains preserved in the stony records of the earth's crust. This was to be expected from the conditions under which these fossiliferous strata were deposited. As these rocks are aqueous, chiefly marine, the relics of plants and animals whose natural habitats were in or near the water, must be common in a fossil state, whilst the remains of others with different habits will be comparatively rare, if present at all. Birds belong to this latter class. Their power of flight would save them from numerous casualties which would prove fatal to quadrupeds; and even if they did perish in water, the lightness of their bodies, produced by their internal cavities and the quantity of their feathers, would keep them floating until they decomposed, or became the food of predaceous animals. The earliest traces of birds consist of bones found in the cretaceous beds of Europe and North America. They are rare in the former region; in the latter, six species have been found which are allied to the Goose, they are more abundant, and chiefly so in those of France. In both hemispheres remains of the Gannett occur, and in France a genus allied to the Flamingoes. The largest species of these birds is the Gastornis parisiensis, a wader, which stood 2 times as high as the European Heron. No true fossil remains of B. have been discovered in rocks older than the Eocene-gypseous deposits of Montmartre, where ten species have been found. Seven species have been described from strata of the Miocene period, the most important of which have been found in the Sewalik beds, associated with the remains of huge proboscidea. But the Pleistocene deposits have supplied more than half of the known fossil birds. The most remarkable of these are the bones of huge struthious B. of the genera Dinornis (q. v.), Palapteryx (q. v.), and Aptornis. Dr. Mantell mentions the fossil eggs and bones of a bird still larger, called the Æpyornis, from Madagascar. BIRD-TRACKS, footprints resembling those of birds are found on red argillaceous sandstones in the valley of Connecticut river, North America. These sandstones, though long considered of a much older date, were referred by the brothers Rogers to the oolitic period. They are, however, finally referred to the Trias by Cope, approximating the horizon of the Bristol conglomerate of England. The beds had formed an ancient sea-beach, and over it, during the recession of the tide, had marched the animals which have left on them their footsteps. The tracks were formerly supposed to be those of birds, but have been shown by Cope and Huxley to be those of a form of Reptilia which had been known as Dinosauria. This conclusion was in consequence of the discovery of the gigantic carnivorous Lælaps in the cretaceous of New Jersey, which was a biped or Kangaroo-like reptile whose footprints would have closely resembled those of a bird. The bones of only one of the species of the Connecticut valley has been found-viz., Megadactylus polyzelus (Hitchcock), but other genera have left remains in lower strata of the same series in Nova Scotia, Pennsylvania and North Carolina. Thus in Pennsylvania the Clepsysaurus of Lea, and in Prince Edward's Island Bathygnathus of Leidy, both Dinosauria, were probably 'bird-track' makers, while the more abundant Belodonts were more quadrupedal. Tracks of forty-three species have been found, and those of various other forms of reptiles and batrachians associated. In one species, the imprint of the foot measures fifteen inches in length and ten inches in breadth, excluding the hind claw, which is two inches long. The distance of the impressions from each other varies from four to six feet. The measurements indicate reptiles from a small size up to those exceeding the great Dinornis of New Zealand. BIRD'S-EYE LIMESTONE is a division of the Trenton group of the Lower Silurians of North America, apparently equivalent to the Llandeilo flags, and containing, besides the remains of brachiopods, many enormous orthoceratites. BIRD'S-EYE VIEW is a term applied generally to modes of perspective in which the eye is supposed to look down upon the objects from a considerable height. If the eye is considered as looking perpenthe scene in succession, we have an exact grounddicularly down while it sweeps over each point of plan; no object covers another, horizontal angles the other hand, no vertical angles or side-views and distances are exactly represented; while, on appear. In sketching or drawing a locality for military or economical purposes, this kind of perspective is always used. The great difficulty is to represent at the same time the relative heights of mountains and steepness of acclivities. But the more usual kind of bird's-eye views differ from common perspective only in the horizontal line being placed considerably above the picture. In the 16th c., the only kind of views known were of the nature of ground-plans, and the artists of the 17th c. tried to combine this method with side views. BIRD'S FOOT (Ornithopus), a genus of plants of the natural order Leguminosae, sub-order Papilion aceæ, deriving both its popular and its botanical name from the resemblance of the curved pods to BIRD'S FOOT TREFOIL-BIRDS OF PASSAGE. birds' claws; the leaves are pinnate, with a terminal | cultivation in every variety of soil and situation.leaflet. One species (O. perpusillus) is a native of Britain, growing on dry, sandy, or gravelly soils-a small plant of little importance, the flowers of which are white, striated with red. But O. sativus, an annual growing to the height of two or three feet, a native of Portugal, is cultivated in that country as green food for cattle, and is very succulent and nutritious. Like its British congener, it grows well on very poor soils. Its Portuguese name is Serradilla. A species called the Winged Pea (L. tetragonolobus), remarkable for four membranous wings which run along its pods, a native of the south of Europe, is frequently cultivated in gardens in Britain amongst other annual flowers; but in some parts of Europe it is cultivated for its seeds, which are used as a substitue for coffee. BIRD'S FOOT TRE FOIL (Lotus), a genus of plants of the natural order Leguminosa, sub-order Papilionacea. The pods are cylindrical, somewhat spongy within, and imperfectly divided into many cells. The name B. F. T. is derived from the resemblance of the clusters of pods to a bird's foot. It has received the name Lotus from botanists, because a species of this genus is supposed to have been one of the plants so named by the Greeks. See LOTUS. The species, which are pretty numerous, are natives of the temperate and colder regions of the old world. The COMMON B. F. T. (L. corniculatus) is very abundant everywhere in Britain in pastures. It has a stem 6-12 inches in length, Bird's Foot Trefoil (Lotus corniculatus). a, a stem with leaves, flowers, and pods; b, calyx; c, standard of flower; d, keel of flower; e, style; fg, stamens. decumbent, and bearing umbellate heads of 8-10 yellow flowers, which have a rich honey-like smell. The leaves have three obovate leaflets, like those of the true Trefoils or Clovers, but at the base of each leaf-stalk there are also two large leaf-like ovate stipules. The plant is by some regarded as the shamrock (q. v.) of Ireland. It is eaten with great avidity by cattle, and its deeply penetrating roots adapt it well for very dry situations.-A larger species, otherwise very similar, by many regarded as merely a more luxuriant variety of this, with stem nearly erect, more compact heads of smaller flowers, and much smaller seeds, is the GREATER or NARROWLEAVED B. F. T. (L. major), which also is a common native of Britain, generally found in moist, bushy places. The characteristic differences remain under BIRDS OF PASSAGE are those birds which Some spend one part of the year in one country or climate BIRDS OF PREY-BIRMINGHAM. BIRDS OF PREY, a common English appellation of the order of birds called Accipitres (q. v.) by Linnæus. Some birds, however, which do not belong to this order, frequently pursue and prey upon other birds. If those which make fishes, insects, and worms their food, were also reckoned, great part of the whole class of birds must be considered predaceous. B. of P. are very commonly divided into two sections--Diurnal and Nocturnal; the latter consisting exclusively of owls. merchants, are continually springing up. In St. Aidan's College, founded 1846, candidates are trained for the English Church. B. communicates with Chester (16 miles) by rail, and with Liverpool by small steamers, which leave each side at least every fifteen minutes, from an early hour in the morning up to a late hour at night. BI’RKIE, a simple game at cards usually played by two persons, between whom the cards are divided. Holding their cards with the backs upwards, the players lay down a card alternately, and when a card is played of the same suit as that which preB. is an old game in ceded it, it wins the trick. Scotland, but is now played only by children. BIʼRLEY-MAN, a person who acted as petty BIRIOU'TCHÉ, or BIRIU'TCH, a town in the government of Voronej, Russia, on the left bank of the Sosna, a tributary of the Don. It is surrounded with earthen ramparts and a ditch, and has four annual fairs. Pop. 5500. A stream of the same name in its immediate vicinity is noted for its pearl-officer on an estate, or in a village, in Scotland, and oysters; and the teeth of elephants are often found exposed on its banks. who was inferior in importance to a baron-bailie. The duty of the B. was to keep order, and attend to the interests of the proprietor. The office, at least in name, is now extinct or nearly so. Formerly, there were Birley Courts for determining petty cases. The term Birley, or Burlaw, is traced to byr, Icelandic, signifying a villager or husbandman. See Jameson's Scot. Dict. BI'RMAH. See BURMAH. Built on The BIRKBECK, GEORGE, M.D., distinguished for the leading part he took in founding mechanics' institutions, and for his general interest in the education of the working-classes, was born at Settie, in Yorkshire, January 10, 1776. He commenced his medical studies at Leeds, and afterwards pursued them at Edinburgh, where he made the acquaintance, among others, of Sidney Smith, Brougham, Jeffrey, BIRMINGHAM, the chief town in Britain for and Horner. Appointed to the chair of the metallic manufactures, and supplying much of the Andersonian Institution in Glasgow, he delivered world with hardwares, stands near the centre of his first course of lectures on Natural and Experi- England, in the north-west of Warwickshire, with mental Philosophy in the winter of 1799. There suburbs extending into Staffordshire and Worcesterbeing at that time_no philosophical instrument-shire, 112 miles north-west of London. maker in Glasgow, B. was forced to fall back on ordinary mechanics for the apparatus he needed for his illustrations; and their ignorance of the articles they constructed appears to have suggested to him the desirableness of a gratuitous series of scientific lectures, divested, as far as possible, of all technicality, for persons engaged in the practical exercise of the mechanical arts. He commenced these lectures in 1801; and though the first one was but thinly attended, when he had reached the fifth, the hall was filled to overflowing by an audience intensely interested in what they heard; and who, on the termination of the course, shewed their appreciation of B.'s thoughtful interest in them by presenting him with a silver cup. B. continued these gratuitous lectures through two other seasons, when he resigned his professorship; and in 1806, settled in London as a physician. What leisure an extensive practice in his profession left him, was devoted to the promotion of the spread of education among those who in youth had had few or no opportunites of acquiring knowledge. He took a leading and active part, along with Brougham, and others, in the formation of the London Mechanics' Institution--the first of its kind in the kingdom-and was chosen its president for life. He died in London, December 1, the east slope of three undulating hills, on the Rea and the Tame, on a gravelly foundation overlying clay and new red sandstone, and supplied with plenty of water, it is one of the best drained towns in England, but the smoke and dust of a thousand forges give it a grimy aspect. lower part of B. is old and crowded with workshops and warehouses, and the upper is new and regular. B. began very early to be the seat of iron manufactures, from its vicinity to a forest and extensive iron-mines; but its industry and trade were long small. Its high commercial importance dates from the 17th c., when the restoration of Charles II. brought from France a fashionable rage for metal ornaments, and B. supplied the demand with unexampled vigour. From being the 'toyshop of Europe' of Burke's time, B. now constructs steam-engines, hydraulic-presses, and Crystal Palaces, and its hardwares are unequalled for variety and value. Pop. 1801, 60,822; 1851, 232,841; 1861, 296,076; 1871, 343,696. B. returns two members to parliament. It produces upwards of £4,000,000 worth of goods yearly, chiefly of articles made of gold, silver, iron, brass, steel, mixed metal, plated metal, glass, papier-maché, japanned and electrotyped articles; including firearms, swords, metal ornaments, toys, jewellery, buttons, buckles, BIRKENHEAD, a seaport town in the north-lamps, pins, steel-pens, tools, locks, steam-engines, west of Cheshire, on the left bank and near the mouth of the Mersey, opposite Liverpool. B. owes its origin to a Benedictine priory founded here in the 12th c., of which some remains still exist, but it was for centuries nothing but a fishing-village, and its rapid growth as a town has been due to the important public works executed within the last few years. Pop. 1821, 236; 1841, 8223; 1851, 24,285; 1861, 51,649. Of the works the chief are the docks, begun in 1824, and greatly extended since 1844, the largest of which covers a space of The town is governed by twenty-one commissioners. It has wide streets, good sanitary regulations, respectable buildings, a fine public park of 226 acres, and an elevated cemetery near it. Handsome villas, built by Liverpool and B. 1841. 120 acres. and all sorts of machinery. In B. 1000 ounces of gold are made into chains weekly; at least 70 ounces of gold-leaf are used weekly; 30,000 gold rings are made yearly; 150,000 ounces of silver are used yearly; a billion of steel pens are made yearly, 90 tons of iron being used; above 80,000 copper coins are struck daily; 20,000,000 nails are made weekly at one work; 5,000,000 firearms were made between 1804 and 1818; and during the Crimean war the government were supplied with 3000 muskets weekly. The button manufacture of B. is very large. The steam-engines employed in B. in 1859 were equal to 9000 horse-power, or to the labour of 144,000 men, and they consumed 520 tons of coal daily. Most of the work is done not in factories, but in independent workshops, the owners BIRNAM-BIRTII. In being workmen themselves. In B. above 20,000, introduced vigour and power into every branch of families are engaged in trade, manufactures, and the public administration throughout Russia. handicraft. B. is well provided with religious, the year 1722, he married a Courland lady, and in educational, and charitable institutions. It has 100 1737, the Courlanders were compelled to choose him churches, 30 belonging to the Establishment; a as their ducal ruler. By his desire the empress, on grammar-school, founded in 1552, with a yearly her death-bed, appointed him guardian and regent revenue of £11,000; a Queen's College connected during the minority of her presumptive heir, Prince with the London University; a well-conducted Ivan. On the death of the empress (28th October literary and scientific institute (chiefly for the 1740), Biron assumed the regency, and acted with working-classes); a free public library; a Roman great prudence and moderation. A secret conspiracy Catholic college and cathedral; a botanic garden; was, however, soon formed against him, and on and several public parks. The town hall is seated the night of the 19th November he was arrested, for 4000 persons, and has a magnificent organ, by the orders of Field-marshal Münnich, and conand a musical festival is held in it once every veyed to the fortress of Schlüsselburg, where he was three years. Of the many ways of spelling the tried and sentenced to death. His sentence was name of this city, the oldest is that given in afterwards commuted to imprisonment for life, and Doomsday Book-namely, Bermingeham. This after- confiscation of his property. He was now, along wards became Brummagem, a term of reproach, with his family, conveyed to Pelim, in Siberia. implying pinchbeck, or hinting at fraudulent pro- When, in the following year, Elizabeth ascended the cesses to make things glitter like gold. B. took throne of Russia, B. was recalled, and Münnich sent the Parliament side in 1643, supplying swords, to occupy his prison in Siberia. The sledges met at and using them well against Prince Rupert and his Kasan; the two enemies looked at each other, but lancers. In 1791, a B. mob denounced the distin- continued their journeys without exchanging a word. guished Dr. Priestley as an atheist and Jacobin, During the remainder of Elizabeth's reign, B. conand destroyed his house, library, and apparatus, tinued to reside with his family at Jaroslaw. The besides much other property. Near Handsworth, a Empress Catharine II. restored to him the Duchy little to the south of B., are the famous Soho and of Courland, and he died 28th September 1772. Smethwick Works, founded by Watt and Boulton, BIRR. See PARSONSTOWN. where steam-engines were first made. Handsworth church has a statue of Watt by Chantrey, and one of Boulton by Flaxman. Darwin, author of Zoonomia, and Withering the botanist, lived in Birmingham. Thomas Attwood originated the Political Uniona here, which greatly hastened the passing of the Reform Act of 1832, and the enfranchisement of Birmingham. BI'RNAM, a hill 1580 feet high, in the east of Perthshire, near Dunkeld, and 12 miles west-northwest of Dunsinnan hill, one of the Sidlaws. It commands a fine view of the valley of the Tay. It was formerly covered by part of an ancient royal forest. Shakspeare has immortalised B. wood in his tragedy of Macbeth BI'RNEE, OLD and NEW, the name of two towns of Bornu, central Africa. Old B., which was formerly the chief city of the empire, walled and of vast extent, is situated on the banks of the Yeu, about 70 miles north-west of the modern capital Kuka, or Kukawa, and about 75 miles west of Lake Tsad, in lat. 13° N., and long. 13° 15' E. It is now greatly deserted and decayed, but it has still a population estimated at 10,000, and considerable markets. New B. is about 20 miles south of Kuka, is walled, and has a large mud palace. Pop. about the same as that of Old Birnee. It the rises' in the canton of Bern, Switzerland, near BIRR, a small but famous affluent of the Rhine. pass of the Jura called Pierre Pertuis, flows in north-easterly direction through the Münsterthal, and enters the Rhine near Basel. In a narrow gorge though which the stream breaks, at a little distance from that city, 500 confederate Swiss died heroically, on the 26th August 1444, in battlse against the French army under the Dauphin Louis. the same river, near the village of Dornbach, about a mile and a half south of Basel, 6000 confederate Swiss gained a splendid victory over 15,000 Austrians, under Fürstenberg, on the 22d of July 1499; in consequence of which, the Emperor Maximilian signed a peace at Basel on the 21st of September following. On BIRTH. The act of coming into life has an important legal bearing in regard to the evidence of its legitimacy or illegitimacy. These qualities are variously determined by the regulations of different systems of jurisprudence. The ancient Roman law, as well as the modern Prussian and French codes, in particular, contain anxious provisions on the subject. In England, no precise time appears to be prescribed for fixing legitimacy or illegitimacy of birth. Forty weeks is considered, in practice, the more usual time for legitimate births; but a discretion to allow a longer time is exercised, when, in the opinion of BI'RON, or BI'REN, ERNEST JOHN DE, Duke medical men, or under the peculiar circumstances of of Courland, born 1687, was the son of a landed the case, protracted gestation may be anticipated, or proprietor in Courland, of the name of Bühren. He is likely to occur. In Scotland, the law is more studied at Königsberg, and in 1714 visited St Peters- distinct. There, in order to fix bastardy on a child, burg, where his handsome person and cultivated the husband's absence must continue till within six mind soon gained him the favour of Anna Ivanovna, lunar months of the birth, and a child born after niece of Peter the Great. When Anna ascended the the tenth month is accounted a bastard. The fact throne of Russia in 1730, Biron repaired to court, of legitimacy or illegitimacy may be judicially and was loaded with honour. He assumed the determined by an Action of Declarator in the Court name and arms of the French dukes De Biron, and of Session, which concludes, according to the nature soon swayed all Russia through his royal mistress. of the case, for the legitimacy or illegitimacy of the Proud and despotic by nature, he hated every one party whose birth is the subject of the legal inquiry. who stood in the way of his ambition. The princes In England, legitimacy may be ascertained by proDolgorucki and their friends were his first victims. ceedings in the Court for Divorce and Matrimonial More than a thousand persons were executed by his Causes, under the 21 and 22 Vict. c. 93, called the orders, and a still greater number sent into banish-Legitimacy Declaration Act, 1858;' but there the ment. The empress is said to have often thrown remedy is not so complete as that afforded by the herself at his feet to induce him to relent, but her Scotch declarator, which may decree not only legiprayers and tears were of no avail. It is, however, timacy, but also illegitimacy. See BASTARDY, HEIR, undeniable, that by the strength of his character he | INHERITANCE. BIRTH-BISCAY. BIRTH, CONCEALMENT OF, is an offence against the public economy, and punishable as a misdemeanour. By the 9 Geo. IV. c. 31, s. 14, it is enacted, that any woman endeavouring to conceal the birth of a child, shall be liable to be imprisoned, with or without hard labour, for any term not more than two years; and it shall not be necessary to prove whether the child died before, at, or after its birth. It is also provided, that if any woman tried for the murder of her child shall be acquitted thereof, it shall be lawful for the jury, so acquitting her, to find her guilty (if the case be so) of concealing the birth: upon which the court may pass the same sentence as if she had been committed upon an indictment for the concealment. In Scotland, the law on this subject appears to be regulated by the 49 Geo. III. c. 14, by which it is enacted, that if a woman shall conceal her being with child during the whole period of her pregnancy, and shall not call for, or make use of help or assistance in the birth; and if the child shall be found dead, or be amissing, she shall be imprisoned for a period not exceeding two years. It has however, been decided, that disclosure by the mother to the putative father is a sufficient defence. The punishment usually awarded for this offence in Scotland, is imprisonment from three to six, and in aggravated cases, from nine to eighteen months. See PREGNANCY, CONCEALMENT OF. BIRTHRIGHT. GENITURE. or persons in charge of children after their birth, are required to give information of such births, and to sign the register; and after the expiration of three months following the day of birth, it shall not be lawful for the registrar to register the same, except as provided by the act. The act declares that the sheriff of the county shall have the care and superintendence of the parochial registrars; and, as in England, the registrar general is directed to furnish strong iron-boxes to hold the registers and other documents, such box to have a lock with two keys, one of which shall be kept by the registrar, and the other by the sheriff. The 36th section contains the noticeable provision, that in the case of children legitimated by subsequent marriage of the parents, but who were originally registered as illegitimate, such registration shall be corrected by an entry of the marriage on the margin. The act contains other provisions, more or less corresponding to the enactments of the above English statutes, and generally the practice in the two countries may be said to be assimilated. See Registration. BIRTHS, DEATHS, AND MARRIAGES. See VITAL SRATISTICS. BIRTHWORT. See ARISTOLOCHIA. BIRU' BEEROO', or BEROO', a kingdom of Sudan, Western Africa, in lat. 15°-16° N., long. 5° 30'-7° 15′ W. It is bounded on the N. by the See INHERITANCE, and PRIMO-Sahara, on the E. by the Niger, and has Bambarra on the S. Its western limits are not clearly defined. The capital town, Walet, is about 260 miles westsouth-west from Timbuctu. BIRTHS, REGISTRATION OF, as also that of Burials and Marriages (q. v.), is regulated by the 6 and 7 Will. IV. c. 86, amended by the 7 Will. IV. and 1 Vict. c. 82, by which a general registeroffice for the whole of England is established. The registrar-general shall, under the act, furnish a sufficient number of strong iron-boxes to hold the register-books, and every such box shall be furnished with a lock and two keys, one of which shall be kept by the registrar, and the other by the superintendent-registrar; and while the registerbooks are not in use, they are to be kept in the register-box, which shall always be left locked. The form for general registration of births, comprises the time of birth, name, and sex of the child; the name, surname, maiden surname, and profession of the parents; the signature, description, and residence of the informant (who must be the father or mother, or in case of their inability, the occupier of the house, s. 20); the date of registration and signature of the registrar; and also the child's baptismal name (if any be given after registration, within six months). Searches may be made, and certified copies obtained, at the general registrar office, or at the office of the superintendent-registrar of the district, or from the clergyman, or registrar, or any other person who shall for the time being have the keeping of the register-books. By 3 and 4 Vict. c. 92, provision is made for depositing with the registrar-general a number of non parochial registers and records of births, baptisms, deaths, burials, and marriages, which had been collected by a commission appointed for that purpose, and for rendering such registers and records available as evidence. For other regulations on the subject of this article, see 21 Vict. c. 25. The Scotch law relating to the registration of births, is contained in the 17 and 18 Vict. c. 80, by which a registrar-general, parochial registrars, and other officers are appointed with suitable machinery for carrying out the provisions of the act. It is the duty of the local registrar to ascertain and register all births within his parish or district, without fee or reward, save as provided by the act; but parents, BIS, in Music, denotes that the passage over which it is placed is to be played twice, or repeated. Such passages generally have a slur or bow over them, and the word 'bis' written below it thus Bis BISA'CCIA, a town of the Neapolitan province of Principato Ultra, situated on a hill about 30 miles east-north-east of Avellino, with a population of about 6000. Numerous ancient remains discovered here appear to fix B. as the site of the old Romulea, captured by the Romans in the third Samnite war. BISACQUINO, or BUSACCHI'NO, a town of Sicily, about 27 miles south of Palermo, with a population of 8000, who carry on an extensive trade in grain and oil. BISCAY, or VIZCAY'A, the most northerly of the Basque provinces (q. v.). is bounded N. by the Bay of Biscay; E. and S. by its sister-provinces, Guipuzcoa and Ala; and W. by Santander. has an area of about 1300 square miles, and a population, in 1864, of 177,355. It BISCAY, BAY OF, that portion of the Atlantic Ocean which sweeps in along the northern shores of the Spanish peninsula in an almost straight line from Cape Ortegal to St. Jean de Luz, at the western foot of the Pyrenees, and thence curves northward along the west shores of France to the island of Ouessant. Its extreme width is about 400 miles, and its length much about the same. The depth of water varies from 20 to 200 fathoms, being greatest along the north shores of Spain. The whole of the south coast is bold and rocky, in some places rising to a height of several hundred feet, and interspersed with short inlets, some of which form safe and commodious harbours. From the mouth of the Adour to the Gironde, the shore presents a totally different aspect, being low and sandy, with numerous lagoons, the embouchures of these two rivers forming the only harbours. For 200 miles north, the coast is still low, but marshy instead of sandy; and from the peninsula of Quiberon northward to Ouessant, it is moderately |