BITHOOR-BITTERN. the Vosges, about 16 miles east-south-east of Sarreguemines. Its citadel, which is built on a precipitous and isolated rock, in the middle of the town, is well supplied with water, defended by 80 cannons, has accommodation for a garrison of 1000 men, and is considered all but impregnable. The Prussians under the Duke of Brunswick attempted to surprise it in 1793, but failed. Pop. of town, 2456, who are engaged in the manufacture of paper, glass, and porcelain. BITO'NTO (ancient Butuntum), a town of Naples, in the province of Bari, and 10 miles west-southwest of the city of Bari. It is situated in a fruitful plain about 5 miles from the sea, is well built, is, conjointly with Ruvo, the see of a bishop, and has a fine cathedral, monasteries, and a nunnery. Pop. 16,000, who carry on an extensive trade in a wine called Zagarello, which is largely cultivated in the environs. B. is the birthplace of Giordani, the mathematician. In its vicinity, the Spaniards, under Count BITHOO'R, a town in India in the district of de Montemar, gained a splendid victory over the BITHOO'R, a town in India in the district of Cawnpore and sub-presidency of North-west Pro-Austrians on the 25th of May 1734, the result of vinces, stands on the right bank of the Ganges, about which was that Spain re-obtained possession of the kingdom of Naples. 12 miles to the north-west of Cawnpore itself. B., particularly devoted to the worship of Brahma, has numerous pagodas. It is, of course, a favourite resort for pilgrims, who here, as at Benares and Bindraban, have access to the sacred stream for purposes of ablution, by means of elaborately constructed ghauts. During the mutiny of 1857, B. acquired an unenviable notoriety as the stronghold of Nena Sahib. Here also Havelock more than once exacted retribution, however inadequate, defeating the Nena in the field, and burning his fort. B. is said to contain 8217 inhabitants. BITHY'NIA, an ancient division of Asia Minor, was separated from Europe by the Propontis (Sea of Marmora) and the Thracian Bosporus (Strait of Constantinople), and was bounded N. by the Euxine, and S. by Galatia, Phrygia, and Mysia. Its eastern limits were not very clearly defined, but they at least extended as far as Paphlagonia. It contained the famous Greek cities or colonies of Chalcedon, Heraclea, &c.; and at later periods, Nicomedia, Nicæa, and Prusa, were flourishing cities of Bithynia. The inhabitants of B. were supposed to be of Thracian origin. The country was subdued (560 B. C.) by Croesus of Lydia, and five years later, fell under the Persian dominion. But about 440 or 430 B. C., it became an independent kingdom under a dynasty of native princes, who made Nicomedia their capital. The last king, Nicomedes III., made the Romans his heirs, and with a large addition from the Pontic kingdom, B. became a province of the empire (74 B. C.). Under Trajan, B. was governed by Pliny the Younger, whose letters to the emperor on the administration and condition of the province contain the well-known passage respecting the Christians. The Emperor Diocletian made Nicomedia his habitual residence. In 1298, Osman the Turk broke into the country; and in 1328, Prusa, or Brusa, then the chief town of B., became the capital of the kingdom of the Osmanli. BITTER CRESS. See CRESS. BITTER KING (Soulaurea ama'ra), a shrub or small tree of the natural order Polygalaceae (q. v.), a native of the Indian Archipelago, which has received its name from its intense bitterness. The genus differs from the usual structure of the order, in its regular flowers. The B. K. has large oval leaves and axillary racemes of flowers. It is used medicinally in fevers and other diseases. BITTER SPAR, a name given to Dolomite (q. v.), from the magnesia contained in it, which the Germans call Bitter Šalt. BITTER VETCH. See ОROBUS. ornithologists, a genus of the Heron (q. v.) family BITTERN (Botaurus), according to some modern (Ardeidae); but regarded by others as a mere subgenus of Heron (Ardea), and not a very well defined herons by the long, loose plumage of the neck, one. Bitterns are indeed chiefly distinguished from which they have the power of erecting at pleasure, along with the rest of their clothing feathers, so as the neck, however, is merely downy, or almost bare, greatly to increase their apparent size. The back of the long feathers being on the front and sides. Bitterns also differ from herons on the greater length of their toes, the middle toe being as long as the shank. They are almost all solitary birds, inhabiting reedy and marshy places, where they lie hid during the day, and will almost allow themselves to be trodden upon ere they take wing; they feed during the height into the air, and emit loud resounding cries. night, and then, also, often rise spirally to a great Their food consists chiefly of frogs, and partly, also, of fish, lizards, water-insects, &c., and even of small is serrated on the inner edge, probab'y to aid in birds and quadrupeds. The claw of the middle toe securing slippery prey.-The COMMON B. (B. steldiffused over the old world, being found in almost laris, or Ardea stellaris) is a bird very widely all, at least of the temperate, parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa, which are sufficiently marshy for its manner of life. It is now rare in Britain, owing to drainage; but was formerly more common, and in the days of falconry, was carefully protected by law in England, on account of the sport which it afforded. Its flesh also was in high esteem, and is not rank and fishy, like that of the Herons generally. In size, it is rather less than the common heron; the bill is about four inches long, the feathers on the crown of the head are greenish black, and the plumage in general of a dull yellow colour, beautifully and irregularly marked and mottled with black. The B. makes a rude nest of sticks, reeds, &c., in its marshy haunts, and lays four or five greenish-brown eggs. It has a peculiar bellowing cry, which has obtained for it such English provincial names as Mire-drum, Bull of the Bog, &c., and many of its appellations in other languages, perhaps even its name B. (Bitour, Botur, Botaurus). Some natu BITLI'S, a town of Asiatic Turkey, in the pashalic of West Van, in lat. 38° 24′ N., and long. 42° 5′ E., about 120 miles south-east from Erzrum. It is situated at an elevation of 5156 feet above the level of the sea, in a deep ravine traversed by the river Bitlis, one of the head streams of the Tigris. B. is a straggling, irregular place, covering a large surface of ground, and surrounded by bare limestone mountains, rising to a height of about 2000 feet above the valley, which is filled with orchards and gardens, and watered by numerous streams and springs. It has 3 mosques, about 12 convents belonging to the howling dervishes, who appear to have made B. their head-quarters, several well-stocked bazaars, and extensive manufactures of cotton cloths, which are celebrated for their bright red dye. It has also a very extensive trade. The import of British goods is small. The population consists of about 2000 Mohammedan, and 1000 Armenian families. The Persians defeated Solyman | ralists used to assert that the booming cry of the B. the Magnificent near B. in 1554. was produced by the bird inserting its bill into a reed; that notion, however, has long since been exploded. When assailed, it fights desperately with bill and claws; and it is dangerous to approach incautiously when wounded, as it strikes with BITTERS are prepared from an infusion of herbs containing bitter principles. The plant generally used for the purpose is Archangelica officinalis, or the Garden Angelica. See ANGELICA. The roots or seeds, or both, are placed in water, and the whole is left to simmer for several days, when the infusion will be strong enough. The B. from Angelica are not much used by physicians, having been superseded very much by infusions of gentian, &c. ; but they are still used as a household medicine in town and country by elderly people. The chemical composition of the root is: Common bittern (Botaurus stellaris). The its long sharp bill, if possible, at the eye. The The medicinal properties of B. are mainly those of a mild tonic and pungent aromatic stimulant, and hence they are serviceable as a stomachic, in cases of weakness of the digestive organs. The taste is at first sweetish, rapidly becoming hot, aromatic, and bitter, and the odour is rather pleasant. The Angelica root yields a larger amount of the bitter principle than Angelica seeds. Camomile flowers, coriander-seeds, and other vegetable tonics and stimulants, are occasionally employed in the preparation of bitters. BITTERSWEET, or WOODY NIGHTSHADE (Solanum Dulcamara), a plant found in hedges and thickets in Britain, and in most parts of Europe, The root is also in Asia and in North America. perennial; the animal stems climbing and shrubby, BITTERN, BITTER LIQUID, or SALT OIL, is an oily liquid obtained during the preparation of common salt (q. v.). When the mother-liquor of the evaporating pans ceases to deposit crystals of common salt, there is left behind in the boilers the material called bittern. It consists principally of a strong solution of common salt, along with Epsoma, branchlet with flowers and fruit, reduced ; b, a flower, reduced. salts, and other compounds of magnesia. The B. at our salt-works is generally run into tanks, and during winter, it is employed as a source of Epsom salts. The B. is treated with a little sulphuric acid, which converts the chloride of magnesium (MgCl) into sulphate of magnesia (MgOSO.), and on the liquid being allowed to cool, the crystals of Epsom salts (or sulphate of magnesia) separate. Bittersweet (Solanum Dulcamara): many feet in length; the leaves ovate-heart-shaped, the upper ones spear-shaped; the flowers purple, in drooping corymbs, much resembling those of its congener, the potato, but much smaller, followed by ovate red berries of tempting appearance, which, being poisonous, are not unfrequently the cause of serious accidents, particularly to children. The BITTERWOOD—BIVALVE SHELLS. twigs, collected in autumn after the leaves are fallen, are used in medicine as a diaphoretic and diuretic, and as a remedy for leprosy and other cutaneous disorders. See SOLANUM. BITTERWOOD, a name given to certain species of the genus Xylopia, trees and shrubs remarkable for the bitterness of the wood, particularly the West Indian X. glabra. Furniture made of this wood is safe from the attacks of insects. The genus Xylopia belongs to the natural order Anonacea (q. v.). The fruit of some of the species, particularly X. sericea, is highly aromatic and pungent like pepper. X. sericea is a large tree, a native of Brazil; its bark is used for making cordage, which is excellent. B. is also the name of Pierana excelsa (formerly Quassia excelsa), a tree of the natural order Simarubaceae (q. v.), a native of Jamaica, the wood of which is used in medicine for the same purposes as Quassia (q. v.), and often under that name; indeed, it is probable that all the present quassia of the shops is really this wood. It is, botanically, very nearly allied to the true quassia, and possesses very similar properties, containing the crystallisable bitter principle called Quassite or Quassin. The wood, which is intensely bitter, is a very useful stomachic and tonic; an infusion of it is a well-known and useful fly-poison; and it appears to act as a powerful narcotic on many quadrupeds. knife. Its colour is blackish, reddish, or yellowishbrown; and its specific gravity is sometimes a little less, and sometimes a little more than that of water. It has a strong bituminous odour, and burns with a sooty flame. BITU'MINOUS COAL, is a term applied to the varieties of coal which contain a large percentage of volatile matter. They yield, on their destructive distillation, a considerable quantity of gas, remarkably pure, and with good illuminating qualities, and are consequently largely used for that purpose. See COAL. BITU'MINOUS LIMESTONES are limestones impregnated and sometimes deeply coloured with bituminous matter, obtained from decaying vegetables, or, more probably, from the decomposed remains of those animals, the hard parts of which form so large an amount of the rock. BITU'MINOUS SHALES are indurated beds of clay occurring in the coal-measures, and containing such an amount of carbon and volatile matter that they are able to keep up combustion when mixed with but little coal. They are indeed impure coal, with a large percentage of ash or earthy matter, which after burning retains the original form. See COAL. October 1797. BITZIUS, ALBERT, better known under the nom de plume of Jeremias Gotthelf, a swiss author, BITU'MEN, a mineral substance, remarkable for was born at Morat, in the canton of Freiburg, 4th its inflammability and its strong peculiar odour; He was educated for the church; generally, however, supposed to be of vegetable and after holding several cures, was appointed, in origin. The name, which was in use among the 1832, pastor of Lützelflüh, in Emmenthal, canton of ancient Romans, is variously employed, sometimes Bern, which office he retained till his death. His to include a number of the substances called Mineral first work was entitled The Mirror of Peasants Resins (see RESINS, MINERAL), particularly the liquid (Burgsdorf, 1836). It is the touching history of a mineral substances called Naphtha (q. v.) and Petro- poor villager, Jeremias Gotthelf, which pseudonym leum (q. v.) or Mineral Oil, and the solid ones called B. ever after retained. In 1838 appeared his Sorrows Mineral Pitch, Asphalt (q. v.) Mineral Caoutchouc, &c. and Joys of a Schoolmaster; in 1839, Dursli, the -sometimes in a more restricted sense it is applied Brandy-drinker, and How Five Maidens miserably by mineralogists only to some of these, and by some perished in Brandy; in 1841-1846, Scenes and Tradimineralogists to the solid, by others to the liquid tions of the Swiss, in six vols., in which B. narrates, ones. All these substances are, however, closely with great art, the old national legends, among allied to each other. Naphtha and petroleum consist which the most remarkable is the Reconciliation. essentially of carbon and hydrogen alone, 84-88 The best and most popular of his stories, however, per cent. being carbon; the others contain also are Grandmother Katy (Berlin, 1848); Uli, the Farma little oxygen, which is particularly the case in servant (Berlin, 2 edition, 1850); its continuation, asphalt, the degree of their solidity appearing to Uli, the Farmer (2d edition, Berlin, 1850); and depend upon the proportion of oxygen which they Stories and Pictures of Popular Life in Switzerland contain, which amounts in amounts in some specimens of (Berlin, 1851). Subsequently, he wrote several asphalt to 10 per cent. Asphalt also contains a pamphlets against the German democrats, without, little nitrogen. Bituminous substances are generally however, violating those popular sympathies and found in connection with carboniferous rocks, in dis- liberal convictions which pervade his writings, and tricts where there is, or evidently has been, volcanic which at an earlier period led him vehemently to agency. See the articles already referred to. oppose the family government of the Bernese arisIndeed, most kinds of coal contain B., and a sub-tocracy. His last work was The Clergyman's Wife, stance essentially the same is produced from all kinds of coal by distillation; and whether before existing actually formed in the coal, or produced at the time by the action of heat, B. may often be seen bubbling from pieces of coal after they have begun to burn on an ordinary fire. Some of the shales of the coal-measures are very bituminous, as is also a kind of marl-slate abundant in some part of the continent of Europe. See SHALE and MARL.-One of the most interesting of the bituminous minerals is that called Mineral Caoutchouc or Elastic B., and for which the new name of Elaterite has been devised, as if to support the dignity of its exaltation to the rank of a distinct mineral species. It is a very rare mineral, only three localities being known for it in the world -the Odin lead-mine in Derbyshire; a coal-mine at Montrelais, near Angers, in France; and a coal-mine near Southbury, in Massachusetts. It is elastic and flexible like caoutchouc, and may be used, like it, for effacing pencil-marks. It is easily cut with a which appeared in 1854. Its author died on the 22d October of the same year. B.'s writings are greatly relished in Switzerland. They are characterised by simplicity, inventiveness, a wonderful fidelity in the delineation of manners and habits, great vigour of description, and raciness of humour, while their tone is strictly moral and Christian. BIVALVE SHELLS, or BIVALVES, are those testaceous coverings of mollusks which consist of two concave plates or valves, united by a hinge. So long as molluscous animals, provided with shells, were considered by naturalists almost exclusively with respect to these, the order of B. S., originally established by Aristotle, retained its place (see CoxCHOLOGY); and indeed the external character upon which it is founded is closely connected with some of the important structural characters according to which mollusks are now classified. See MOLLUSCA. A vast majority of recent B. S. belong to Cuvier's Testaceous order of Acephalous Mollusca, the Lamel BIVOUAC-BLACK. libranchiate (q. v.) Mollusca of Owen, although with, was afterwards imitated by the other armies of them are classed some which were placed among Multivalves (q. v.) by conchologists, on account of accessory valves which they possess, and some which have a calcareous tube superadded to the true valves, or even taking their place as the chief covering of the animal. There are also mollusks of the class Brachiopoda (q. v.), or Palliobranchiata, which possess B. S., as the Terebratulæ, or Lamp-shells (q. v.), &c. The structure of the shell, however, when closely examined, is found to be different in these two classes (see SHELL), although its general appearance is much the same. A very large propor tion of the B. S. of the older fossiliferous rocks. belong to the class Brachiopoda. In the Brachiopoda, one valve is ventral, and the other dorsal; in the Lamellibranchiata, the one is applied to the right side, and the other to the left side of the animal. The valves of ordinary B. S. consist of layers, of which the outermost is always the smallest; and each inner one extends a little beyond it, so that the shell becomes thicker and stronger as it increases in length and breadth. The valves are connected at the hinge by an elastic ligament; and in general this consists of two parts, more or less distinct-one on the outside, to which the name ligament is sometimes restricted, and which is stretched by the closing of the valves; another, sometimes called the spring, more internal, which is compressed by the closing of the valves, and tends to open them when the compressing force of the adductor muscle or muscles is removed, the effect of which is to be seen in the gaping of the shell when the animal is dead. The hinge is often furnished with teeth which lock into each other; sometimes it is quite destitute of them; sometimes the hinge-line is curved, sometimes straight. Conchological classification has been much founded upon characters taken from this part. The valves of some B. S. are equal and symmetrical, in others they are different from one another, particularly in those mollusks which, like the oyster, attach themselves permanently by one valve to some fixed substance, as a rock. Sometimes the valves of B. S. close completely at the pleasure of the animal; those of others always gape somewhere. Pecten. A bivalve shell. Europe, though less by the English. Soldiers in B., light fires, and improvise, where it is possible, huts of straw, branches, &c. But this mode of encampment, though favourable to celerity of movement, is purchased at the expense of the soldiers' health, besides being destructive of discipline, by leading to plundering and destroying of houses, fruit-trees, &c., in the vicinity. Accordingly, the tent is again coming into use, and for permanent encampments, regularly constructed wooden huts have been introduced. There are still, however, many cases where the B. is the only resource. BIXA. See ARNOTTO. BIZE'RTA, or BENZE'RTA (ancient Hippo Diarrhytus, or Zaritus), a seaport town of Tunis, at the bottom of a deep gulf or bay of the Mediterranean, and at the mouth of a lagoon, united to the It is the most northerly town in Africa, being about 38 miles north-west of gulf by a narrow channel. Tunis, in lat. 37° 17′ N., and long. 9° 51′ E. It is surrounded by walls, and defended by two castles; which, however, as they are commanded by the land-attack. Its port, formerly one of the best in neighbouring heights, are quite useless against a the Mediterranean, has been suffered to fill up, until little labour is required to give a uniform depth of now only small vessels can be admitted, though very 5 or 6 fathoms to the channel leading to the inner harbour or lagoon, which has a depth varying from 10 to 50 fathoms, and is extensive enough to afford accommodation to the largest navies. The adjacent country is remarkably fertile, but its cultivation is neglected. Pop. variously estimated at from 8,000 to 14,000. Agathocles, between the years 310 and 307 B. C., fortified and provided B. with a new harbour; and under the Romans, it was a free city. BIZIU'RA. See MUSK DUCK. BJÖRNSTJERNA, MAGNUS FRIEDRICH FERDINAND, COUNT, a Swedish statesman and author, was born 10th October 1779 at Dresden, where his father then resided as secretary to the Swedish legation. He received his education in Germany, and entered Sweden for the first time in 1793 to join the army. In 1813 he was appointed lieutenant in the Swedish army that went to aid the allies in Germany; took part in the conflicts at Grossbeeren and Dennewitz; was present at Leipsic, and concluded the formularies of capitulation with the French at Lübeck and Maestricht. Subsequently, he fought in Holstein, and in Norway, where he concluded the treaty that united that country with Sweden. In 1826, he received the title of count; The point at the hinge, from which the formation and in 1828 was appointed ambassador to the of each valve has proceeded, is called the umbo. On court of Great Britain, which office he held till the side of the umbo opposite to the ligament there 1846, when he returned to Stockholm, where he is usually a small depression called the lunule. The died, 6th October 1847. As a politician, B.'s opinions marks, familiar to every one, upon the inside of a were liberal. In addition to some political writings, bivalve shell, are the impressions of the mantle of he published a work on the Theogony, Philosophy, the (lamellibranchiate) mollusk, and of the adductor and Cosmogony of the Hindus in 1843. muscle or muscles. BIVOUAC (from the German beiwacht, or bewachen, to watch over) is the encampment of soldiers in the open air, without tents, where every one remains dressed, and with his weapons by him. Even during the Seven Years' War it was no uncommon thing for the whole army, when in the vicinity of the enemy, to pass the night in their ranks, each lying down in his place, in order to be ready to stand to their arms at a moment's notice. But the French revolutionary armies introduced the practice of dispensing with tents altogether, and regularly passing the night en bivouac. Hence in a great measure that rapidity in their motions which long made them uniformly successful; and the practice BLACK may be considered as the negation of colour, resulting from the absorption of the Painters prorays of light by certain substances. duce it by an unequal combination of the three primary colours. In medieval art, B. was symbolical of evil, error, and woe; thus we find Christ, when the old illuminators wished to represent him as wrestling against the Spirit of Evil, arrayed in black drapery; and Byzantine painters, to express the sorrow of the Virgin Mary, gave her a black complexion. All faces shall gather blackness,' is the expression of Joel, when he wishes to convey the idea of the trouble of the people when the calamities which, with prophetic eye, he sees brooding over Jerusalem, should come to pass. B. clothing BLACK-BLACK-BAND IRONSTONE. among some oriental nations was regarded as a Watt. In 1766, Cullen was appointed to the chair badge of servitude, slavery, or low birth: among of theoretical medicine in Edinburgh, and B. sucthe Moors, it has several significations-obscurity, ceeded him in the chair of chemistry. Thencegrief, despair, constancy. B. in blazonry, under the forth he devoted himself chiefly to the elaboration name of sable, denotes constancy, wisdom, and pru- of his lectures, in which he aimed at the utmost dence. For B. as a funeral colour, see FUNERALS, and degree of perspicuity, and with perfect success. MOURNING. His class became one of the most popular in the university; it occasioned, however, some disappoint ment that one so capable of enlarging its territory made no further contributions to chemistry. Though of an extremely delicate constitution, he prolonged his life, by care and temperance, to the age of 71. He died on the 26th November 1799. His lectures were published in 1803 (Edin. 2 vols. 4to), edited, with a biogrophical and critical preface, by Professor Robinson. BLACK PIGMENTS, used in painting, are derived principally from animal and vegetable substances. They are very numerous, and of different hues and degrees of transparency; but the most important are vegetable blue-black-obtained from beech-wood burned in close vessels-ivory-black, cork-black, and lamp-black, the principal constituent of all being charcoal or carbon. A fine-toned B. pigment is obtained by burning German or French Prussian blue. Combined with white, B. P., which are slow driers, yield grays of several tints. BLACK ACTS are the acts of the Scottish parlia ment of the first five Jameses, those of Queen Mary's reign, and of James VI., down to 1586 or 1587. They were called the B. A. because they were all printed in the black or Saxon characters. Several of these acts were afterwards left out in the later additions, most of them because they were private acts, and a few from reasons of state. In English law-books, the expression 'black act' is applied to the 9 Geo. I. c. 22, because it was occa sioned by the outrages committed by persons with their faces blackened or otherwise disguised, and associated, as we are told in the preamble of the act, under the name of Blacks, who appeared in Epping Forest, near Waltham in Essex, and destroyed the deer there, and committed other enormities. This act was, however, along with numerous other statutes, repealed, in 1827, by the 7 and 8 Geo. IV. c. 27. BLACK ART. See MAGIC. BLACK, JOHN, an eminent newspaper editor, and classical scholar of some reputation, was a native of Berwickshire, his father being a shepherd, or farm-laborer, in the Lammermoors, near Dunse. Born in 1783, and left an orphan at twelve years of age, B. commenced life in the office of a Dunse writer, but he soon left that place for Edinburgh, where he was engaged for several years as a writer's clerk. While in this capacity, B. was assiduous in the work of self-education; and besides considerable progress made in classical studies at this time, he acquired German from a German musician in an Edinburgh band, and Italian from a refugee. Finding Edinburgh too limited a sphere for his energies, he went to London about the year 1810, and was immediately engaged as a parliamentary reporter for the Morning Chronicle, of which paper he afterwards became editor. Under his management the BLACK ASSI'ZE, the popular name commemoMorning Chronicle was celebrated for its independ-rative of an extraordinary and fatal pestilence which ence and fearless advocacy of progress, and that at a broke out at Oxford at the close of the assizes, time when subserviency was so common that it was July 6, 1577. regarded as little or no disgrace. He retired from it as having broken out in the court-house, immeThe contemporary accounts describe the editorship in 1843, and continued to reside, until diately after the passing of sentence on Richard his death, which took place June 25, 1855, in a Jencks, a bookbinder, condemned for alleged sedition pleasant cottage on the Kentish estate of one of his to lose his ears. friends. Among those who acted on the Morning divine judgment on the cruelty of the sentence, but It was popularly interpreted as a Chronicle under Mr. Black was Mr. Charles Dickens, the phenomenon is satisfactorily explained by the the eminent novelist. B. was author of a Life of pestilential atmosphere of the adjoining jail, then, as Tasso, with a Historical and Critical Account of his it was until long after, a seat of misery, filth, and Writings, 2 vols. (Edin. 1810), and the translator of disease. From the 6th of July to the 12th of August, the lectures of the brothers Schlegel on Dramatic Art 510 persons are said to have died in Oxford and the and Literature (since republished by Bohn), and on neighbourhood of this terrible malady, among whom the History of Literature Ancient and Modern, as well were the chief officials who sat on the assize, most as of one or two works from the French and Italian. of the jury, and many members of the university. BLACK, JOSEPH, an eminent chemist, was born Women, poor people, physicians, visitors, and childin 1728, at Bordeaux, where his father was engaged ren are said to have escaped the infection. A similar in the wine-trade. Both his parents were of Scotch event is recorded as having taken place at Camdescent, but natives of Belfast, to which their son bridge at the Lent Assizes in 1521 (Holinshed's was sent for his education in 1740. In 1746 he Chron., Stow's Annals, Wood's Athen. Oxon. &c.). entered the university of Glasgow, and studied chemistry under Dr. Cullen. In 1751 he went to Edinburgh to complete his medical course, and in 1754 took his degree. His thesis, on the nature of the causticity of lime and the alkalis, which he shewed to be owing to the absence of the carbonic acid (called by him fixed air) present in limestone and in what are now called the carbonates of the alkalis, contained his first contribution to chemical science, and excited considerable attention. In 1756, on the removal of Cullen to Edinburgh, B. succeeded him as a professor of anatomy (which branch he afterwards exchanged for medicine) and lecturer on chemistry in Glasgow. Between 1759 and 1763, he evolved that theory of latent heat' on which his scientific fame chiefly rests, and which formed the immediate preliminary to the next great stride in discovery by his pupil and assistant James BLACK-BAND I'RONSTONE is an ore of iron found very extensively in Scotland and elsewhere. It occurs in the carboniferous system of geologists, in regular bands, layers, or strata, and generally associated with coal and limestone. It is mainly a carbonate of iron accompanied by much coaly matter. The following is the composition of several samples: Carbonate of Iron,* nesia, Alumina, Silica, Metallic Iron, per cent. F. 63.80 A. B. C. D. E. 51:59 50 40 40 62 29 14 53.38 3.76 3.12 1.68 1.52 1:44 1.64 0.11 0'09 0.06 0.04 0.03 0:05 0.74 0.82 trace trace trace trace 20-96 26.56 2.76 8.48 19.84 4:48 22.64 18.64 49·16 49-46 42.39 30.03 0.21 0.37 100.00 100.00 100.00 10000 10000 100·00 25.20 25.79 19·61 14·06 2577 30,00 |