BLUCHER-BLUE.

1

is the only really good and serviceable blue in the colouring of glass and porcelain, and is essentially the oxide of cobalt (COO), the colouring power of which is so great, that the addition of part to white glass is sufficient to render it blue. Several of the compounds named above owe their blue colour to this substance. See COBALT.-DEEP BLUE is employed in porcelain colouring, and is made from 1 part of oxide of cobalt, 4 glass of lead (2 minium, 1 white sand), 1 lead glass (2 minium, 1 sand, 1 calcined borax), and 1 oxide of zinc, all of which are placed together in a porcelain crucible, fused for 2 or 3 hours; the residue washed, dried, and ground to a fine powder.-KING'S BLUE is made from 29 parts carbonate of cobalt, 29 sand, and 42 carbonate of potash, by fusing these ingredients in a crucible. The residue is intense deep blue, bordering on a black blue, and is generally reduced to powder, and re-fused with about half its weight of pebble flux (3 minium or litharge, and 1 sand).—MINERAL BLUE and PARIS BLUE. See PRUSSIAN BLUE.

and the style of his attacks gained him the nickname of 'Marshal Forward' from the Russians; it soon became his title of honour throughout Germany. His tactics were always much the same: to attack the enemy impetuously, then to retreat when the resistance offered was too great for his troops to overcome; to form again at a little distance, and watch narrowly the movements of the enemy, and whenever an advantage offered itself, to charge with lightning speed, and throw him into disorder, make a few hundred prisoners, and retire ere the opposing force had recovered from its surprise. Such were his usual manœuvres. B., as a man and as a soldier, was rough and uncultivated, but energetic, open, and decided in character. His ardent enthusiasm for the liberation of Prussia and Germany from a foreign yoke, and his uncompromising pursuit of this noble aim, have justly rendered him a hero in the eyes of the German people. The old red uniform, and the old name of ‘Blücher's Hussars" were restored to the 5th Regiment of Hussars by Frederick William IV., on occasion of the centenary PRUSSIAN BLUE is the deep blue colour which is celebration of B.'s birthday. so frequently seen on cotton, muslin, and woollen BLUE, a colour of which there are several varie-handkerchiefs and dresses. It was discovered in the ties used in the arts, noted below. See also COLOUR. year 1710 by Diesbach, a colour-maker in Berlin, Blue, or, as it is sometimes termed, True Blue, was and hence called Berlin Blue. The mode of its the favourite colour of the Scottish Covenanters in manufacture was published in Britain, by Dr. Woodthe 17th century. When their army entered Aber-ward, in 1724. It may be prepared in several ways: deen, says Spalding, there were few of them without 1. By the addition of a solution of yellow prussiate a blue ribbon; this colour being probably adopted in of potash (ferrocyanide of potassium) to a solution contradistinction to the red of the royal forces. At of sulphate of iron (green vitriol). The blue comthe battle of Bothwell Bridge, the flag of the Cove- pound thus produced deepens in tint when exposed nanting army was edged with blue. From these to the air; and where it is required of greater conusages, blue seems to have become the partisan sistence or more body, some alum and carbonate of colour of the Whigs, but commonly in association potash are added to the prussiate solution before with orange or yellow, in memory of the House of mixing with the iron solution. 2. By mixing soluOrange and the revolution settlement. This com- tions of yellow prussiate of potash and perchloride bination of blue and yellow is seen in the liveries of of iron, which yields the variety known as Paris certain Whig families of distinction, and also in the Blue. 3. By adding a solution of the red prussiate cover of the Edinburgh Review. Blue is the colour of potash (ferrocyanide of potassium) to a solution of the uniform of the Royal Navy of England; it is of sulphate of iron, and this mode of preparation of a dark tint, and is known as Navy Blue. gives Turnbull's Blue. The Prussian blue settles to the bottom of the mixing vessels, and may be collected and dried by exposure to the air, when it is obtained as a blue powder. If heat be applied during the drying, the material cakes, and when cut, exhibits a lustre and hue like copper. When alum has been used in its manufacture, the product has a dull earthy fracture. The composition of Prussian blue is that of a ferrocyanide of iron. See CYANOGEN. It is employed by washerwomen, under the name of Blue, for neutralising the yellow tint of cotton and linen clothes; by paper-makers, to colour paper: and is very largely employed as a pigment in CALICO-PRINTING (q. v.) and Dyeing (q. v.). Mineral Blue is formed when the Prussian blue is precipitated along with a solution of zine or magnesia, or moist carbonates of zinc or magnesia are added during the precipitation of the colour. In the formation of Royal Blue, a solution of tin is added, and Steam Blue is produced on the addition of solutions of tartaric acid and yellow prussiate of potash. The impurities liable to be present in Prussian blue are starch, chalk, and stucco, either of which necessarily decreases the intensity of the blue colour, and the utility of the substance.

AZURE BLUE is a pigment prepared by mixing 2 parts of deep blue, 1 of oxide of zinc, and 4 of lead glass; the latter consisting of 4 parts of minium and 1 of sand. The above azure blue is for skies, but a pigment for more general use is prepared from 11 fused borax and 67 gray flux; the latter being itself made from 89 pebble flux, 75 minium, and 25 sand.-BERLIN BLUE. See PRUSSIAN BLUE. -BRUNSWICK BLUE, or Celestial, is made by precipitating the alumina from a solution of alum by carbonate of soda, washing the precipitate, and adding sulphate of baryta, sulphate of iron, yellow prussiate of potash, and some bichromate of potash. When dried, this mixture is known as Brunswick blue, but when the sulphate of baryta is left out, and the material not dried, it is called Damp Blue.-CERULEAN BLUE is a colour used in pottery, and consists of 79 parts of gray flux, 7 carbonate of cobalt, 14 hydrated carbonate.-BLUE COLOUR OF FLOWERS, or Anthocyan, may be obtained from those petals of flowers which are blue by digesting them in spirits of wine in the dark. The colour is soluble in alcohol, but is precipitated from its alcoholic solution by water. It is changed to red by acids, and to green by alkalies.-BLUE COPPERAS, or the Sulphate of Copper. See COPPER.-BLUE DYES. See INDIGO, LITMUS, PRUSSIAN BLUE, and DYEING. IRON EARTH BLUE occurs native amongst bog iron ore and in mossy districts in Europe and New Zealand. It mainly consists of a phosphate of iron with a little alumina, silica, and water. It is called Native Prussian Blue.-INDIGO BLUE, in pottery ware, consists of 13 parts of carbonate of cobalt, 26 hydrated carbonate of zinc, and 61 gray flux.-COBALT BLUE

SAXONY BLUE is prepared by dissolving indigo (q. v.) in Nordhausen sulphuric acid, and was first manufactured in Saxony in the year 1810, by taking the very finely powdered indigo and incorporating it with the acid cautiously heated, when the indigo dissolves, and yields a blue colour of great depth of tint. It is largely used in dyeing (q. v.).-OLD SEVRES BLUE is a cobalt blue used in pottery, and is made up of 19 parts of oxide of cobalt, 39 dry carbonate of soda, 3 dry borax, and 39 sand.

BLUEBEARD-BLUE BOOKS.

THENARD'S BLUE is the blue formed by heating alum with a solution of cobalt, or it may be formed by igniting a mixture of phosphate or arseniate of cobalt with eight times its weight of alumina in the hydrated state procured by precipitation from alum by ammonia. Used in pottery.-TURQUOISE BLUE is composed of 3 of oxide of cobalt, 4 of alumina, and 1 oxide of zinc. It is manufactured by dissolving the oxides of zinc and cobalt in dilute sulphuric acid, adding the liquid to a solution of 40 parts of ammonia alum, drying up and igniting at a red heat for several hours. The addition of a little chromate of mercury gives it a green shade. Various shades of purple, blue and violet have recently been made from Aniline, which is itself derived from the benzene of coal-tar. These are known as Azuline, Blue de Paris and Paris Violet, and promise to prove valuable.

BLUE STONE, or BLUE VITRIOL, is sulphate of copper. See COPPER.

BLUE BEARD, the name given to the hero of a well-known tale of fiction, which is of French origin. According to this romance, the chevalier Raoul has a blue beard, from which he gets his designation. This personage tests his wife's curiosity by intrusting her, during his absence on a journey, with the key of a chamber, which she is forbidden to enter. She is unable to stand the test, and he puts her to death. Several wives share the same fate, but at length the seventh is rescued at the last moment by her brothers, and B. is slain. The tale appears in innumerable collections, under various forms. Tieck, in his Phantasus, has worked up this material into a clever drama, with numerous romantic and satirical additions, and Grétry has made use of it in his opera of Raoul.

The historic original of Chevalier Raoul would appear to be one Giles de Laval, Lord of Raiz, who was made marshal of France in 1429, and fought valiantly in defence of his country when invaded by the English; but his cruelty and wickedness seem to have eclipsed even his bravery, as he is remembered chiefly for his crimes, which credulous tradition has painted in the blackest and most fearful colours. He is said to have taken a pleasure, among other atrocities, in corrupting young persons of both sexes, and afterwards in murdering them for the sake of their blood, which he used in his diabolical incantations. Out of this fact, in itself probably half-mythical, the main feature of the tale of B. has probably grown. Laval was burnt alive in a field near Nantes, in 1440, on account of some state-crime against the Duke of Brittany.

BLUE-BELL. See HYACINTH.

books.'

the reports and other papers printed by parliament, BLUE'-BOOKS, the name popularly applied to because they are usually covered with blue paper. The term was, for like reasons, long applied to the reports sent annually by the governors of colonies to the colonial secretary; and even in technical official phraseology, these are called 'blueextent publishing, the proceedings of the House of The practice of printing, and to some Commons, began in the year 1681, when disputes ran high on the question of excluding the Duke of York from the succession to the throne. The proIt was stated that especially after parliaments were ceedings on the occasion are extremely interesting. dissolved, false accounts of their proceedings were circulated, and, as a remedy, Sir John Hotham moved that the votes and proceedings of the house be printed. Mr. Secretary Jenkins opposed the motion, saying: 'Consider the gravity of this assemBLUE BIRD, BLUE WAR'BLER, BLUE bly; there is no great assembly in Christendom that RE'DBREAST, or BLUE RO'BIN (Sylvia sialis, does it; it is against the gravity of this assembly, or, according to the most recent ornithological sys- and is a sort of appeal to the people.' He was tems, Erythaca or Sialia sialis; see SYLVIADE), an answered by Mr. Boscawen: 'If you had been a American bird, which, from the confidence and fami- privy council, then it were fit what you do should liarity it displays in approaching the habitations of be kept secret, but your journal-books are open, and men, and from its general manners, is much the same copies of your votes in every coffee-house, and if you sort of favourite with all classes of people in the print them not, half votes will be distributed to your United States that the redbreast is in Britain. prejudice. prejudice. This printing is like plain Englishmen, Except in the southern states, it is chiefly known who are not ashamed of what they do, and the as a summer bird of passage, appearing early, how- people you represent will have a full account of what ever, as a harbinger of spring, and visiting again you do.' Colonel Mildmay said: 'If our actions be 'the box in the garden, or the hole in the old apple- nought, let the world judge of them; if they be tree, the cradle of some generations of ancestors.' good, let them have their virtue. It is fit that all Few American farmers fail to provide a box for the Christendom should have notice of what you do, B. B.'s nest. In size, the B. B. rather exceeds the and posterity of what you have done-and I hope redbreast, which, however, it much resembles in they will do as you do, therefore I am for printing general appearance. Its food is also similar. The the votes.' The motion was carried. See Parl. upper parts of the B. B. are of a rich sky-blue colour, Hist, iv. 1307; Kennet, iii. 396. The documents the throat and breast are reddish chestnut, and the printed by the House of Commons accumulated belly white. The female is duller in colours than gradually in bulk and variety, until they reached the male. The B. B. lays five or six pale-blue eggs, | their present extent. In 1836, the House adopted

BLUE-BOTTLE FLY-BLUE PILL.

the practice of selling their papers at a cheap rate. | elegant and graceful movements. Numbers are often

A curious legal and constitutional question immediately arose out of this practice, a publisher having taken proceedings for libel against the officers concerned in circulating the papers, because it was stated in a report concerning prisons that the prisoners read indecent books printed by him. The chief contents of these papers at present are the votes and proceedings of the House; the bills read in their several stages; the estimates for the public services of each year; the accounts of the expenditure of the moneys voted in the previous year; any correspondence or other documents which the ministry may voluntarily, or at the demand of the House produce, as connected with a question under discussion; reports of committees of inquiry appointed by the House; reports of commissions of inquiry

appointed by the crown; and annual reports by the permanent commissions and other departments of the government, stating their proceedings during the year. The B. of a session, when collected and bound up, now often fill fifty or sixty thick folio volumes. Nothing can seem more hopelessly chaotic than those of few sessions huddled together unarranged. It deserves to be known, however, that they are all printed according to a peculiar sequence, which enables the whole papers of a session to be bound up in such an order that any paper can be found by consulting an ample index in the last volume. In any library where the B. are preserved and properly bound up, the most trifling paper of any session may thus be found with ease; and it need hardly be said that with much that is useless or unimportant, there is an enormous mass of valuable matter hidden in the blue-books.

There is no doubt, however, that although the means are thus provided for finding what the B. contain, their contents are heterogeneous, and to a great extent cumbersome and valueless. They are not prepared on any uniform system, or subjected to general revision, or what may be called editing. Each officer prepares his own report in his own way, sometimes lauding his own services, or arguing in favour of his own peculiar principles on some public question, so that it has been remarked that the B. contain a large number of articles like those in the periodical press, but too cumbersome and dull to get admission there. It has been matter of complaint that the public are burdened with the expense of widely distributing such documents. It is stated in a treasury minute, circulated among the government departments in May 1858, with the view of in some measure remedying the abuse, that the cost of printing the report of the commissioners appointed to inquire into the endowed schools of Ireland, and the three volumes of evidence and appendices (including the cost of the paper), was £5200, and that the weight of the paper used in printing them was about 34 tons.'

seen together clinging and hanging in every variety of position, frequently at the extreme ends of the small thickly-flowered branches, bending them. down with their weight.

BLUE FIELDS, a river of the Mosquito Territory, in Central America, which, after a course of several hundred miles to the east, enters the Caribbean Sea in lat. 12° N., and long. 83° W. Its lower stream is navigable to a distance of 80 miles from the sea. At its mouth is a good harbour, above which stands a town of the same name, the residence of the king of the Mosquito Territory.

BLUE'-GOWNS, the name commonly given to a class of privileged mendicants in Scotland. The proper designation of these paupers was the King's Bedesmen, or Beadsmen. In ancient times, a beadsman was a person employed to pray for another. See BEAD. From practices of this kind, there sprang up a custom in Scotland of appointing beadsdegenerated into a class of authorised mendicants. men with a small royal bounty, who ultimately Each of the beadsmen on his majesty's birthday received a gown or cloak of blue cloth, with a loaf of bread, a bottle of ale, and a leathern purse containing a penny for every year of the king's life. Every birthday, another beadsman was added to the number, as a penny was added to each man's purse. The most important part of the privilege the gown, which, besides the name of the bearer, had was a large pewter badge, attached to the breast of the inscription, Pass and Repass. This inferred the privilege of begging, and bespoke the kindly consideration of all to whom the beadsman appealed for an alms or a night's lodging. The fictitious character of Edie Ochiltree, in Sir Walter Scott's tale of the Antiquary, is a fair sample of this ancient and beadsmen was discontinued in 1833, at which time picturesque fraternity. The practice of appointing there were sixty on the roll. The whole have since died out but one, who still annually calls at the accustomed alms. (1860.) Exchequer Office, Edinburgh, and receives his

BLUE'-MANTLE, the title of an English pursuiSee PURSUIVANT. vant-at-arms.

BLUE MOUNTAINS, the name of two mountain-chains, the one in New South Wales, the other in Jamaica.-1. The B. M. of New South Wales run very nearly parallel with the coast, and being impassable by nature, long threatened to cut off the maritime part of the colony from the interior. To cross this apparently insurmountable barrier was the grand aim of the colony during the first 24 years of its existence, Surgeon Bass, the discoverer of the strait that bears his name, standing pre-eminent among the adventurous and patient explorers. It was not till 1813 that a practicable passage was found, or rather made, for it terminated towards the west in a zigzag road down a nearly perpendicular height of 670 feet; but it was not before 25th April 1815-a day ever memorable in the local annals-that Governor Macquarie, with a numerous retinue, actually opened a route into the Bathurst Plains, then yielding the richest pasturage in the colony, and now forming its goldBLUE'-EYE (Entomyza cyanotis), a beautiful little field. The B. M. are the dividing-ridge between the bird, abundant and very generally dispersed in New rivers of the coast and those of the interior. They South Wales, although not found in the more south-are of very considerable height, for some parts of the ern Australian colonies. It is a species of Honey-road which crosses them are about 3400 feet above sucker (q. v.) or Honey-cater, and is sometimes the sea-an elevation nearly equal to that of any called the Blue-cheeked Honey-eater. The B. seeks its food almost exclusively among the blossoms and small leafy branches of Eucalypti. Its food consists partly of insects and partly of honey; perhaps also of berries. It is a bold and spirited bird, of most

BLUE'-BOTTLE FLY. See FLESH-FLY. BLUE CAR'DINAL. See LOBELIA. BLUE'-COAT SCHOOL, the name ordinarily given to Christ's Hospital, London, in which the boys wear blue coats or gowns, according to an old costume. See CHRIST'S HOSPITAL.

point in England or Wales. 2. The still loftier range of the same name in Jamaica traverses the whole length of the island from east to west. These B. M. in some places attain an altitude of 6000 feet:

BLUE PILL (Pilula hydrargyri) is the most

BLUE RIDGE-BLUM.

simple form in which mercury can be administered internally. It consists merely of two parts of mercury rubbed up with three parts of conserve of roses, till globules of mercury can no longer be detected; to this is added powdered liquorice-root, so that a pill of five grains contains one grain of mercury.

In cases of torpid condition of the liver or inflammation of that organ, B. P. is much used as a purgative, either alone or combined with some other drug, such as rhubarb. When it is given with the view of bringing the system under the influence of mercury (Salivation, q. v.), small doses of opium should be added to counteract its purgative tendency, and the state of the gums watched carefully from day to day, so that the first symptoms of salivation may be noticed, and the medicine omitted. As a purgative, the common dose of B. P. is one or two pills of five grains each, followed by a purgative draught. When the system is to be saturated with it, or salivated, one pill may be given morning and evening, or one every night combined with of a grain of opium, repeated till the gums become sore. But the sensibility to the action of mercury varies with the individual; some may take large quantities before it exhibits its physiological symptoms, and on the other hand, three blue pills, one taken on three successive nights, have brought on a fatal salivation. When taking blue pills, all sudden changes of temperature should be avoided; and, indeed, though they are found in every domestic medicine-chest, neither they nor any other form of mercury should be given without good cause and without the greatest caution.

BLUE' WING, according to some naturalists, a genus of Anatidae, which has been named Cyanopterus (by a sort of Greek translation of the English name), but more generally regarded as a mere section or subsection of the restricted but still large genus Anas. See DUCK. The tail-feathers are only 14 in number, instead of 16, as in the common duck, teal, &c.; but the character from which the name is derived is, after all, that which chiefly distinguishes the bluewings, and never fails to arrest attention. The best known species, the Cominon or Lunate B. (Anas or Cyanopterus discors), is generally called the Blue-winged Teal in the United States of America, where it is very abundant. Vast numbers spend the winter in the extensive marshes near the mouths of the Mississippi, to which they congregate both from the north and from the coast regions of the east; but the summer migrations of the species extend as far north as the 57th parallel, and it is plentiful on the Saskatchewan in the breeding-season. It breeds, however, also in the marshes of the south, even in Texas; and is common in Jamaica, where it is supposed to be not a mere bird of passage, but a permanent resident. some may take large permanent resident. None of the duck tribe is in higher esteem for the table, and it has therefore been suggested that the B. is particularly worthy of domestication, of which it seems to be very easily susceptible. In size it is rather larger than the common teal; in the summer plumage of the male, the upper part of the head is black, the other parts of the head are of a deep purplish blue, except a half-moon shaped patch of pure white before each eye; the prevalent colour of the rest of the plumage on the upper parts is brown mixed and glossed with green, except that the wings exhibit various shades of blue, the lesser wing-coverts being of a rich ultramarine blue, with an almost metallic lustre ; black; the tail is brown, its feathers short and the lower parts are reddish orange spotted with pointed.-The B. is a bird of extremely rapid and The flocks of the B. are well-sustained fight. and so closely crowded sometimes so numerous together on the muddy marshes near New Orleans, that Audubon mentions having seen 84 killed by the simultaneous discharge of the two barrels of a double-barrelled gun.—There are other species of B., also American; but this alone seems to visit the more northern regions.

BLUE RIDGE, the most easterly range of the Alleghanies, in the United States. It forms an almost continuous chain from West Point in New York to Northern Alabama, and is known as the South Mt. in Penna., Blue Ridge in Virginia, and the Alleghany Mt. in N. C. It divides Virginia into Eastern and Western. Mount Mitchell, in North Carolina, the loftiest point of the B. R., is 6470 feet above the sea; while the Otter Peaks in Virginia, next in elevation, have an altitude of 4200 feet.

BLUE STOCKING, a name given to learned and literary ladies, who display their acquirements in a vain and pedantic manner, to the neglect of womanly duties and virtues. The name is derived from a literary society formed in London about the year 1780, which included both men and women. A gentleman of the name of Stillingfleet, who was in the habit of wearing blue stockings, was a distinguished member of this society; hence the name, which has been adopted both in Germany and France.

BLUE THROAT, or BLUE BREAST, also called Bluethroated Warbler and Bluethroated Robin (Phoenicura Suecica, or Sylvia Suecica, see SYLVIADE), a beautiful bird, a very little larger than a redbreast, and much resembling it, but having the throat and upper part of the neck of a brilliant skyblue, with a spot in the centre, which in some specimens is pure white, and in very old males is red. Below the blue colour is a black bar, then a line of white, and again a broad band of bright chestnut. The B. is well known as a summer bird of passage in many parts of Europe, from the Mediterranean Sea to the Arctic Ocean, but is very rare in Britain, only a few instances of its occurrence having been recorded. It is supposed to spend the winter in Africa. Great numbers are caught for the table in Lorraine and Alsace. The bird is one of those known by the names of Becfin (q. v.) and Beccafico (q. v.), and esteemed a delicacy. It is a bird of very sweet song. It imitates, to an unusual degree, the notes of other birds, so that the Laplanders give it a name which signifies the bird of a hundred tongues.

а

BLUM, ROBERT, was born in very humble circumstances at Cologne, 10th November 1807. After a brief military service in 1830, he became scene-shifter, afterwards secretary and treasurer, to Ringelhardt, director of a theatre at Cologne, and subsequently at Leipsic, in which situation he remained, devoting his leisure time to literature and politics until 1847, when he established himself as bookseller and publisher. In 1840, he founded at Leipsic the Schillers-Verein, i. e., Schiller's Society, which celebrated the poet's anniversary, as festival in honour of political liberty. In 1845 he acquired, in connection with the German Catholic movement and the political outbreaks in Leipsic, great reputation as a popular orator; and in 1848, was elected vice-president of the provisional parliament at Frankfort, and as such he ruled that turbulent assembly by presence of mind and a stentorian voice. In the National Assembly he became leader of the Left; and was one of the bearers of a congratulatory address from the Left to the people of Vienna, when they rose in October. At Vienna he joined the insurgents, was arrested, and shot on the 9th November. B. was a man of strong character, of great natural intelligence, and a speaker of stirring eloquence. For heading a party, he possessed cleverness and ambition enough, but he had not that passion and fanaticism which scorns to consider

BLUMENBACH-BO TREE.

BLUMENBACH, JOHANN FRIEDRICH, a Very eminent naturalist, was born at Gotha, 11th May 1752. He studied at Jena and Göttingen, in

the latter of which universities he became extra

the consequences likely to flow from unbridled, understood: it is simply like the case of distending popular licence. The news of his execution caused the hose of the fire-engine by working the pump, The counteracting an indignant outcry among the democrats in Ger- and driving the water along. many, who, besides instituting commemorations for force of the nerve-centres is proved by the following the dead, made an ample subscription for his widow experiments: When the sympathetic nerve proand children. ceeding to the vessels of the head and face of an animal is cut, there follows congestion of the bloodvessels with augmented heat over the whole surface supplied by the nerve. The ear is seen to become redder; a thermometer inserted in the nostril shews an increase of temperature, the sign of a greater quantity of blood flowing into the capillaries. The inference from the experiment is, that, from the withdrawal of a counterpoise, the force that distends the small blood-vessels-that is to say, the heart's action has an unusual predominance. It is further proved that this nervous influence, acting upon the minute muscular fibres of the small vessels, proceeds from the nerve-centres lodged in the head, for, by cutting the connection between the brain and the ganglion in the neck, from which the above-mentioned nerve is derived, the same restraining influence is arrested, and the congestion takes place. By stimulating the divided nerve galvanically, the suffusion disappears, the vessels shrinking by the galvanic contraction of

ordinary professor in 1776, and ordinary professor in 1778. Here he lectured for fifty years on natural history, comparative anatomy, physiology, and the history of medicine. In 1785, consequently before Cuvier, he made natural history dependent on comparative anatomy. His Manual of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology has been translated into almost all the principal languages of Europe. The natural history of man was always his favourite study; and his Collectio Craniorum Diversarum Gentium, commenced in 1791, and completed in 1808, gave to the learned world the result of his observations on the skulls of different races, of which he had an extensive collection (see ETHNOLOGY). He published many other works on natural history, all of which were favourably received; for, both as a writer and a lecturer, he was eminently successful. His Manual of Natural History, indeed, has gone through 12 editions. Towards the end of the 18th c., he visited England, where he met with a distinguished reception from the most famous naturalists. On the 19th September 1825, his friends celebrated the jubilee of his doctorate, presented him on the occasion with a medal struck on purpose, and founded an exhibition in his name, the proceeds of which were to assist young physicians and naturalists in the prosecution of their researches by travel. In 1835, the increasing infirmities of age compelled him to resign his academical functions. He died on the 22d Janu

ary 1840.

BLU'NDERBUSS is a kind of short musket with a very wide bore, sufficient to take in several shot or bullets at once. It has a limited range, but is very destructive at close quarters. As a military weapon, it is chiefly of service in defending passages, door-ways, staircases, &c. Some of the English and Gernian troopers in the 17th c. were armed with the B.; but the carbine has since nearly superseded this

weapon.

BLUSHING, a sudden reddening of the face, neck, and breast, owing to some mental shock, most commonly of the character of humiliation or shame. The nature and cause of this effect have been recently elucidated by physiological researches. It is produced by an increased flow of blood into the capillary vessels over the parts where the blush extends. Besides reddening the complexion, it creates a sensible augmentation of heat in those parts. The feeling that accompanies the state is of a distressing kind.

The phenomenon of B. is part of a general influence exerted on the capillary circulation by mental causes operating through the brain. The experiments whereby the existence of this influence has been established, may be described as follows: The small blood-vessels, by which the blood is brought into proximity with the various tissues of the body, are kept in a state of balanced distension between two forces: the one the propulsive power of the heart's action, which fills and distends them; the other, an influence derived from the nervous centres, and acting upon the muscular fibres so as to contract the vessels. The first of the two forces the agency of the heart-is quite well

their muscular coats.

The agency now described is of a piece with the action of the brain upon involuntary muscles generally, as the heart and the intestinal canal, and by it many organic functions-digestion, nutrition, absorption, &c.—are affected by those changes in the cerebral substance that accompany mental states. It is known that mental excitement has an immediate influence in all those functions; one

set of passions, such as fear, tend to derange them, while joy and exhilaration operate favourably upon

them.

To apply these operations to the case in hand. Supposing a person in the average mental condition, and something to arise which gives a painful shock to the feelings-a piece of ill news, a reproach from some one whose good opinion is much valued, an open shame, or the fear of it, a fit of remorse, an occasion of grief-the pain is accompanied with a sudden loss, or waste, or decrease of cerebral power; none of the functions that the brain aids in maintaining is so strongly stimulated as before; and in particular, that stream of nervous energy which balances the heart's action in regulating the distension of the small blood-vessels, is abated, the abatement being made apparent in the redness and heat over the face and neck. In a great stroke of mental depression, the influence is of a much more extensive kind, though still of the same nature essentially as regards the enfeeblement of the nervous energy, and may lower the action of the heart itself: in which case there will be a wideIn all spread pallor, perhaps without a blush. probability, it is when the loss of cerebral influence extends only to the relaxation of the muscular fibres of the small vessels, leaving the heart in its usual vigour, that the state of B. is most fully manifested. Hence it is more apt to arise out of the smaller modes of painful apprehension, than from the more serious calamities that prostrate the system throughout.

It is said that, in the Circassian slave-market, a young woman that blushes fetches a higher price. Some complexions do not shew the increased flow of blood in this way, and all persons are not equally sensitive to the cerebral shock that causes it.

BO TREE, the name given in Ceylon to the PEEPUL (q. v.) of India (Ficus religiosa). It is held sacred by the Buddhists, and planted close by every temple, attracting almost as much veneration as the statue of Buddha itself.-The B. T. of the

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