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BOCKLAND-BODLEYAN.

the Pythagorean, his edition of the Antigone of Sophocles, and a Dissertation on the Silver Mines of Laurion in Attica. B. has also the honour of having commenced, in 1824, the great work entitled Corpus Inscriptionum Græcarum, published at the expense of the Royal Academy of Berlin, and which, in 1867, of the Royal Academy of Berlin, and which, in 1867,

had reached its fourth volume. It is intended to contain every known Greek inscription, whether printed or in manuscript. In 1852, appeared his Researches on the Cosmical System of Plato; and in 1855, The Lunar Cycles of the Greeks.

BO'CKLAND, BOCLAND, or BOOKLAND, one of the original modes of tenure of manor-land, also called charter-land or deed-land, which was held by a short and simple deed under certain rents and free services. It was land that had been severed by an act of government from the Folcland (q. v.), and converted into an estate of perpetual inheritance. It might belong to the church, to the king, or to a subject; it might be alienable and divisible at the will of the proprietor; it might be limited in its descent, without any power of alienation in the possessor. It was often granted for a single life or for more lives than one, with remainder in perpetuity to the church. It was forfeited for various delinquencies to the state.

The estate of the higher nobility consisted chiefly of bockland. Bishops and abbots might have B. of their own, in addition to what they held in right of the church. The Anglo-Saxon kings had private estates of B., and these estates did not merge in the crown, but were devisable by will, gift, or sale, and transmissible by inheritance, in the same manner as B. by a subject. (Kerr's Blackstone, vol. ii., p. 88; and see An Inquiry into the Rise and Growth of the Royal Prerogative in England, by John Allen, 1830, pp. 143-151; and Wharton's Law Dictionary, 2d ed., under Bockland.)

BO'DEN-SEE. See CONSTANCE, LAKE OF.

BODE'S LAW, an arithmetical relation subsisting between the distances of the planets from the sun. It may be thus stated: Write, in the first instance, a row of fours, and under these place a geometrical series beginning with 3, and increasing by the ratio 2, putting the 3 under the second 4; and by addition we have the series 4, 7, 10, &c., which gives nearly the relative distances of the planets

from the sun.

4

4

4

3

6

4 4 4 4 4 4 12 24 48 96 192 384

numbers, are found to subsist in the distances of the satellites of Jupiter and Saturn from their primaries.

BO'DKIN, an instrument used by women of antimethod commonly adopted by the priests of Cybele, quity to fasten up their hair behind. It was the as well as by the female characters in Greek Silver tragedy, the B. being highly ornamented. bodkins are still worn in a similar way by the peasant girls of Naples. The term B. is also applied to a sharp-pointed instrument for piercing holes in cloth, and it was at one time a very common name for a dagger.

BO'DLE, an ancient copper coin in Scotland, in value the sixth of a penny sterling. Jamieson, the B. is said to have been so called from value the sixth of a penny sterling. According to

a

a mint-master of the name of Bothwell.
restorer of the
BODLEY, SIR THOMAS, the
library originally established at Oxford by Hum-
phrey, Duke of Gloucester, was born at Exeter,
March 2, 1544. His family being forced to flee
from England during the persecutions of Mary,
settled at Geneva, where B. studied languages
and divinity under the most distinguished professors
of that city. On the accession of Elizabeth, he
returned to England, and completed his studies
at Oxford, where he took the degree of M. A.,
After
proctor.
and was afterwards elected
travelling some time abroad, he was employed
by the queen in diplomatic missions to Denmark,
France, and Holland, and returned to his favourite
city, Oxford, in 1597, where he devoted himself to
literature, especially to the extension of the univer-
sity library, now called the BODLEYAN (q. v.),
in B.'s honour. In collecting rare and valuable
books from many parts of Europe, B. expended a
very large sum, and also left an estate for salaries
to officers, repair of the library, and purchase of
books. He was knighted by King James, and died
at Oxford, January 28, 1612. B.'s autobiography,
extending to the year 1609, together with a collec-
tion of his letters, has been published under the
title Reliquiæ Bodleiance (Lond. 1703).

BODLEY AN or or BODLEI'AN LIBRARY, the public library of Oxford university, restored by Sir Thomas Bodley (q. v.) in 1597, his first act being the presentation of a large collection of valuable books, purchased on the continent at an expense of £10,000. Through his influence and noble example, the library was speedily enriched by numerous other important contributions. Among 7 10 16 28 52 100 196 388 the earliest subsequent benefactors of the B. L., Thus, if 10 be taken as the distance of the earth which was opened in 1602, with a well-assorted from the sun, 4 will give that of Mercury, 7 that of collection of about 3000 volumes, were the Earl of Venus, and so forth. The actual relative distances Pembroke, who presented it with 250 volumes of are as follow, making 10 the distance of the earth- valuable Greek MSS.; Sir Thomas Roe; Sir Kenelm Mercury. Venus. Earth. Mars. Asteroids. Jupiter. Saturn. Uranus. Neptune.nificent donation of 1300 MSS. in more than twenty Digby; and Archbishop Laud, who made it a mag3.9 7.2 10 15.2 27.4 52 95.4 192 300

4

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different languages. Upwards of 8000 volumes of Close as is the correspondence between the law and the library of the famous John Selden (q. v.) went the actual distances, no physical reason has been to the Bodleyan Library. General Fairfax pregiven to account for it, although there is little sented the library with many MSS., among which room for doubt that such exists. B. L., therefore, in was Roger Dodsworth's collection of 160 volumes on the present state of science, is termed empirical. English history. During the present century, the Kepler was the first to perceive the law, and Bode most important bequests have been the collections argued from it that a planet might be found between of Richard Gough, on British Topography and Saxon Mars and Jupiter, to fill up the gap that existed and Northern Literature; of Edmund Malone, the at the time in the series. The discovery of the editor of Shakspeare; and of Francis Douce; also Asteroids has proved the correctness of this predic-a sum of £10,000, by the Rev. Robert Mason, the tion. The greatest deviation from the law is seen in the case of Neptune; but if we were acquainted with the principles from which the law proceeds, we might also be able to account for the discrepancy. Similar relations, though expressed in different

interest to be expended on books. By purchase, the library acquired some magnificent collections of Oriental, Greek, Latin, and Hebrew books and MSS. The B. L. is particularly rich in biblical codices, rabbinical literature, and materials for

BODMANN-BOECE.

British history. By the Copyright Act, it is entitled to a copy of every book printed in the United Kingdom. The number of volumes it possessed in 1859 is estimated at 260,000, in addition to 22,000 in manuscript. The first catalogue of the printed books was published by the first librarian, Dr. James, in 1600; the last in 1843, in three volumes, by Dr. Bandinel, the eleventh who has held the office since the institution of the library, and who still (1860) continues to hold it. In the interval, several catalogues of various departments of the library were published; and a supplemental volume was added by Dr. Bandinel in 1850. By statutes drawn up for the government of the library by Sir Thomas Bodley, it was decreed that the vice-chancellor, the proctors, and the regius professors of divinity, law, medicine, Hebrew, and Greek, should be visitors and curators; a statute passed in 1856 added 'five more residents to be elected by congregation for ten years, if continuing to reside, and to be re-eligible.' Members of the university who have taken a degree are admitted to the use of the library—a small addition on the matriculation fees, and an annual payment, being charged for the privilege. Literary men, properly recommended, are allowed to make extracts from the works in the library, which is open between Lady-Day and Michaelmas from nine o'clock in the morning till four in the afternoon, and during the other half of the year from ten to three. It is shut during certain holidays, and for visitation purposes, in the aggregate about 34 days in the year, besides Sundays. Since 1856, a reading-room, open throughout the year from ten o'clock in the morning to ten in the evening, has been attached to the library.

BO'DMANN (ancient Bodami Castrum), a village of Baden at the mouth of the Stockach, on Lake Constance, with ruins of a castle, formerly the residence of the lieutenants (Botemann or Bodmanno, messenger or legatus) of the Carlovingian kings; hence the German name of the lake, Bodman-see, or Boden-see. Pop. 900.

BODMER, JOH. JAK., a German poet and littérateur, was born at Greifensee, near Zurich, 19th July 1698. The study of the Greek and Latin writers, together with the English, French, and Italian masters, having convinced him of the poverty and tastelessness of existing German literature, he resolved to attempt a reformation. Accordingly, in 1721, along with a few other young scholars, he commenced a critical periodical, entitled Discurse der Maler, in which the living poets were sharply handled. After 1740, when B. published a treatise on The Wonderful in Poetry, a literary war broke out between him and Gottsched, which was long waged with great bitterness; yet it was not without fruits, inasmuch as it partly prepared the way for the Augustan epoch of German literature. B. died at Zurich (in the university of which he had held the chair of history for 50 years), 2d January 1783. As an author he was marked by inexhaustible activity, but his poems, dramas, and translations have no vigour or originality. His best known production is the Noachide (Zurich, 1752). He did greater service to literature by republishing the old German poets, the Minnesingers, and a part of the Nibelungen, as also by his numerous critical writings.

BO ́DMIN, a town in the middle of Cornwall, 26 miles north-north-west of Plymouth. It is situated partly in a valley and partly on the side of a hill, and consists principally of one street a mile long. Its chief trade is in wool. It arose in a priory founded in the 10th c., and was long an important place, having, besides the priory, a cathedral and 13 churches. Of the latter, only one now exists, built in the 15th century. The priory was once the pro

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BODO'NI, GIAMBATTISTA, a distinguished typecutter and printer, born at Saluzzo, in Sardinia, 1740; went to Rome in 1758, where he secured an engagement as compositor in the printing-office of the Propaganda, and where he remained till the death of his patron, Abbate Ruggieri, in 1762, or, according to others, 1766. In 1768, he went to Parma, where he published several specimens of his workmanship; among others-on occasion of the marriage of the Prince of Piedmont with the Princess Clotilde of France-the Epithalamia Exoticis Linguibus Reddita, which exhibited the alphabets of twenty-five languages. In 1789 the Duke of Parma made him superintendent of his private printing establishment, and from this press he sent forth his edition of the Iliad (3 vols. 1808), dedicated to Napoleon. It is a splendid specimen of typography ; but the correctness of the text is by no means equal to the beauty of the printing. His editions of Virgil (2 vols. 1793), and several Greek, Latin, Italian, and French classics, as also his Lord's Prayer in 155 languages, are admired for their elegance. He died at Parma, 1813.

of the several organs and functions. For BODYBODY, HUMAN, will be treated of under the names SNATCHING, see RESURRECTIONIST and ANATOMY ACT. BODY COLOUR, a term which, in oil-painting, is applied to the opaque colouring produced by certain modes of combining and mixing the pigments. When, in water-colour painting, pigments are laid on thickly, and mixed with white, to render them opaque, instead of in tints and washes, the works are said to be executed in body colour.

BODY OF A CHURCH, more frequently called the Nave (q. v.), though this latter term is sometimes employed to include the Aisles (q. v.), is also known as the main or middle aisle.

About the be

distinguished Scottish historian, was born of an old BOECE, or, more properly, BOYCE, HECTOR, a He completed his family, about 1465, at Dundee. education at Montague College, in the university of Paris, and in 1497, was appointed a professor of philosophy. Among other learned men whose friendship he here acquired was Erasmus. ginning of the 16th c., he was invited by Bishop founded by him at Aberdeen. B. accepted the office Elphinstone to preside over the university newly after some natural hesitation, the yearly salary being 40 merks, or about £2, 4s. 6d. sterling. The value of money, however, it has to be remembered, was immensely greater then than now, and the learned principal was at the same time made a canon of the cathedral, and chaplain of St. Ninian. There is every reason to suppose that he discharged his duties with Latin, of the Bishops of Mortlach and Aberdeen. high success. In 1522, he published his lives, in This work, a great part of which is occupied with the life of his excellent patron, Bishop Elphinstone, was reprinted by the Bannatyne Club in 1825. Five years later, B. published the History of Scotland, on which his fame chiefly rests, a work which, though proved to contain a large amount of fiction, is worthy of the commendation it has received even on the score of style. The author was rewarded by the king with a pension of £50 Scots, until he should be promoted to a benefice of 100 merks, which appears to have occurred in 1534. B. died two years later.

BEHMERIA-BOERHAAVE.

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BOEHMERIA, a genus of plants of the natural | a surface estimated at 1120 square miles. order Urticea, included, until recently, in the genus Urtica or Nettle (q. v.). The fibres of a number of species are used for making ropes, twine, nets, sewingthread, and cloth; and some of them appear likely to acquire much economical and commercial importance. B. nivea (formerly, Urtica nivea) has been recently ascertained to yield great part of the fibre employed in China in the manufacture of the beautiful fabric known as China-grass (q. v.) cloth. It is a perennial herbaceous plant, with broad ovate leaves, which are white and downy beneath, and is destitute of the stinging powers of the nettles. It is carefully cultivated by the Chinese, by whom it is called Tchou Ma. It is propagated either by seeds or by parting the roots. It loves shade and moisture. Three crops are obtained in the season, new shoots springing up after it has been cut. Great attention is bestowed upon the preparation of the fibre; the stems are sometimes tied in little sheaves, and instead of being steeped, are placed on the roof of a house, to be moistened by dew, and dried by the sun, but are carefully preserved from rain, which would blacken them; and in rainy weather, they are placed under cover in a current of air. Another plan is to steep the separated fibres for a night in a pan of water, and sometimes they are steeped in water containing the ashes of mulberrywood. A patent was obtained in Britain, in 1849, for the preparation of this fibre, by boiling the stems in an alkaline solution, after previously teeping them for 24 hours in water of the temperature of 90° F., then thoroughly washing with pure water, and drying in a current of high-pressure steam.-It seems now to be ascertained that this is the same plant which Dr. Roxburgh strongly recommended to attention about the beginning of the 19th c., under the name of Urtica tenacissima, and of which the Court of Directors of the East India Company, in 1816, declared the fibre to be 'stronger than Russian hemp of the best description,' and to have been 'brought to a thread, preferable to the best material in Europe for Brussels lace.' It may well be regarded as curious that, after this, it was lost sight of for a considerable time, although the commendation bestowed upon it is found not to have been exaggerated. The plant grows naturally, and is cultivated not only in China, but in Sumatra, Siam, Burmah, Assam, and other parts of the East. The fibre is called Caloee in Sumatra, Ramee by the Malays, and Rheea in Assam.-B. candicans and B. utilis, from which a fine silky fibre is obtained in Java, are either varieties of this or nearly allied species.-B. frutescens is another important species, common in Nepaul, Sikkim, and other parts of the Himalaya, to an elevation of 3000 feet above the sea. It is not cultivated, but often overruns abandoned fields. It grows to a height of 6 or 8 feet, and varies from the thickness of a quill to that of the thumb. The leaves are serrated, dark-green above, silvery-white below, not stinging, The plant is cut down for use when the seed is formed, the bark is then peeled off, dried in the sun for a few days, boiled with wood-ashes for four or five hours, and beaten with a mallet to separate the fibres, which are called Pooah or Poee, and also Kienki or Yenki. When properly prepared, the fibre is quite equal to the best European flax.B. cylindrica and Urtica gracilis of the Middle States might prove substitutes for the tropical B. See Rep. of Com. of A. 1865–67..

plains enclosed on the south by Mounts Citharen and Parnes, on the west by Mount Helicon, on the north by the slopes of Mount Parnassus and the Opuntian Mountains, fall naturally into three divisions-the basin of the lake Copais, now called Topolias, that of the Asopus, and the coast-district on the Crissaan Sea. The principal stream was anciently called the Cephissus. It entered the country from Phocis at Chæronea; and in the spring, when it was swollen by innumerable torrents, almost converted the Copaic plain into a lake. There were several natural channels for the outlet of the waters that congregated in this plain, but they were not sufficient to carry off the whole surplus, and the surrounding country was in consequence frequently deluged. In order to guard against this inundation, two tunnels had been cut in the rock for the discharge of the water. One of these tunnels, which carried the water to Upper Larymna-where it emerged in a natural outlet after a subterraneous course of nearly four miles, whence it flowed above ground a mile and a half to the sea-was no less than four miles in length, with about twenty vertical shafts let down into it, some of which were from 100 to 150 feet deep. The other tunnel, which united the Copais Lake with that of Hylica, was much shorter, but still an extensive and striking work. The date of these gigantic engineering undertakings is not precisely known, but they are generally attributed to the Minyæ of Orchomenus. B. was in ancient times very productive of marble, potters' earth, and iron, besides abounding in corn and fruits; and it was also particularly celebrated for flute-reeds. The earliest inhabitants belonged to different races, the two most powerful of which were the Minyæ and Cadmeans Cadmeones; but were at an early date (about 60 years after the Trojan war, according to Thucydides) in part dislodged by the Boeotians, an Aolian people who were driven from Thessaly, and in part incorporated with them. The Boeotians excelled as cultivators of the soil, and were gallant soldiers both on foot and horseback; but they were rude, unsociable, and took little part in the gradual refinement of manners and intellectual development of the rest of Greece, so that the name became proverbial for illiterate dulness. This was usually ascribed to their thick damp atmosphere. Yet there have not been wanting amongst them eminent generals, as Epaminondas; and poets and historians, as Hesiod, Pindar, Corinna, Plutarch, &c. The greater cities, of which the number was about fourteen, Thebes, Haliartus, Thespiæ, &c., with their territories, formed the Boeotian League. At the head of this was an archon, and next to him a council, which was composed of four persons, and had its head-quarters in Thebes. The executive authority was intrusted to Bootarchs, who were elected in popular assemblies of the separate states, and could only hold office for one year. Of this League, a shadow still remained down to the times of the empire; but after the battle of Chæronea, in which Philip established the Macedonian throne on the ruins of Grecian liberty, the political importance of the country declined so rapidly, that about 30 B. C. only two cities, Tanagra and Thespiæ, were of any consideration.-Along with Attica, B. now forms one of the 'nomarchies' of the kingdom of Greece.

BOOT'IA, one of the ancient political divisions of Greece, was bounded on the N. and N. W. by Locris and Phocis, on the E. by the Euboean Channel, on the S. by Attica and Megaris, and on the W by the Corinthian Gulf. B. had

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BOERHAAVE, HERMANN, the most celebrated physician of the 18th c., was born at Voorhout, near Leyden, December 13, 1668. In 1682, he went to Leyden, with the intention of becoming a clergyman, and there studied Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Chaldee, history, ecclesiastical and secular, and mathematics.

BOERHAAVIA-BOETHIUS.

In 1689, B. was made doctor of philosophy, and in 1690 began the study of medicine, reading carefully Hippocrates among the ancients, and Sydenham among the moderns. Though mainly self-educated in medicine—as in chemistry and botany-he gained his doctor's degree at Harderwyck, 1693, and returned to Leyden, where, in 1701, having abandoned theology, he was appointed lecturer on the theory of medicine, and in his inaugural lecture recommended to the students the ancient method of Hippocrates in medicine; but in 1703 his views had become greatly enlarged. He saw the necessity of a-priori speculations, as well as of the Hippocratic method of simple observation, and elaborated various mechanical and chemical hypotheses to explain the diseases of the body, especially in the case of the fluids. In 1709, he was elected professor of medicine and botany in the place of Hotton. About this time, he published the two works on which his great fame chiefly rests: Institutiones Medica in Usus Annuæ Exercitationis Domesticos (Leyd. 1708), and Aphorismi de Cognoscendis et Curandis Morbis, in Usum Doctrinæ Medicina (Leyd. 1709), both of which went through numerous editions, and were translated into various European languages, and also into Arabic. In the first work -a model of comprehensive and methodical learning he gives a complete outline of his system, including a history of the art of medicine, an account of the preliminary knowledge necessary to a physician, and a description of the parts and functions of the body, the signs of health and disease, &c.; in the second, he gives a classification of diseases, with their causes, modes of treatment, &c. B. also rendered important services to botany. One of his best lectures is that delivered on his resignation of the office of rector of the university, De Comparando Certo in Physicis. To combine practice with theory, he caused a hospital to be opened, where he gave clinical instructions to his pupils. Though so industrious in his own profession, he undertook, in 1718, after Lemort's death, the professorship of chemistry, and published in 1724 his Elementa Chemiæ, a work which did much to render this science clear and intelligible; and although now entirely superseded by more advanced researches, one that will always occupy a high place in the history of chemistry. His fame had meanwhile rapidly increased. Patients from all parts of Europe came to consult him. Peter the Great of Russia visited him; and it is even said that a Chinese mandarin sent him a letter, addressed HERR BOERHAAVE, celebrated physician, Europe.' He was a member of most of the learned academies of the day. He died September 23, 1738, having realised from his profession a fortune of two millions of florins.-Burton, Account of the Life and Writings of B. (2 vols., Lond. 1743); Johnson, Life of B. (Lond. 1834).

BOERHAA'VIA. See NYCTAGINACEÆ.

most friendly towards them to perform all kinds of field-labour for nothing; and not only this, but they also compel them to find their own implements of labour and their own food. They steal domestic servants from the more hostile tribes in the most cowardly and cold-blooded way imaginable. The plan of operation is thus described by Dr. Livingstone: 'One or two friendly tribes are forced to accompany a party of mounted Boers, and these expeditions can be got up only in the winter, when horses may be used without danger of being lost by disease. When they reach the tribe to be attacked, the friendly natives are ranged in front, to form, as they say, "a shield;" the Boers then coolly fire over their heads, till the devoted people flee, and leave cattle, wives, and children to the captors. This was done in nine cases during my residence in the interior, and on no occasion was a drop of Boer's blood shed.' And yet these B. proudly boast themselves Christian!' They have an immense contempt for the ignorance of the natives, and told Dr. Livingstone that he might as well teach baboons as Africans. They, however, declined a test which the missionary proposed-viz., to be examined whether they or his native attendants could read best. In his opinion, they are quite as degraded as the blacks whom they despise.

BOE THIUS, ANICIUS MANLIUS SEVERINUS (to which a few MSS. add Torquatus), a Roman statesman and philosopher, was born between 470 and 475 A. D. The family to which he belonged had been distinguished both for its wealth and dignity for two centuries. His own father held the office of consul, but dying while B. was still a boy, the latter was brought up under the care of Festus, Symmachus, and other honourable Romans. He studied with sincere enthusiasm philosophy, mathematics, and poetry, translated and elucidated with laborious care the writings of Aristotle, and of the old mathematicians Euclid, Archimedes, Ptolemæus, and others; but the story of his eighteen years' stay at Athens is entirely unhistorical. B. soon attracted notice; he became a patrician before the usual age, a consul in 510, and also princeps senatus. Having, moreover, gained the esteem and confidence of Theodoric, king of the Goths, who had fixed the seat of his government at Rome in the year 500, he was appointed by that monarch magister officiorum in his court. His influence was invariably exercised for the good of Italy, and his countrymen owed it to him that the Gothic rule was so little oppressive. His good-fortune culminated in the prosperity of his two sons, who were made consuls in 522. But his bold uprightness of conduct, springing from what seem to have been the essential characteristics of the manviz., a strong faith in the truth of his philosophic ethics, and a courage to regulate his official conduct by them-at last brought down upon his head the unscrupulous vengeance of those whom he had checked in their oppressions, and provoked by his virtues. He was accused of treasonable designs against Theodoric; and the king, having become despondent and mistrustful in his old age, was

BO'ERS (Ger. agriculturists, farmers), the name applied to the Dutch colonists of the Cape of Good Hope who are engaged in agriculture and the care of cattle. The B., generally, according to Dr. Living-induced to listen to the charges. B. was stripped of stone, ‘are a sober, industrious, and most hospitable body of peasantry.' Very different, however, are certain of their numbers who have fled from English law, on various pretexts, and formed themselves into a kind of republic in the Cashan Mountains. Coming 'with the prestige of white men and deliverers from the cruelty of Kaffir chiefs, they were received by the Betjuans gladly, who, however, soon found out that their new friends were much less desirable as neighbours than their old enemies. The B. force even those tribes of the Betjuans who are

his dignities, his property was confiscated, and he himself, after having been imprisoned for some time at Pavia, was executed in 524 or 526; according to one account, with circumstances of horrible cruelty. During his imprisonment, B. wrote his famous De Consolatione Philosophice, divided into 5 books, and composed in the form of dialogue, in which B. himself holds a conversation with Philosophy, who shews him the mutability of all earthly fortune, and the insecurity of everything save virtue. The work is composed in a style which happily imitates the best

BOETHIUS-BOG.

models of the Augustan age, and the frequent fragments of poetry which are interspersed throughout the dialogue are distinguished by their truthfulness of feeling and metrical accuracy. The Consolatio is piously theistic in its language, but affords no indication that B. was a Christian; and if the doctrinal treatises ascribed to him are, as the acutest criticism maintains, not genuine, we must class him in religion rather with Marcus Aurelius than with his alleged friend, St. Benedict. He was the last Roman writer of any mark who understood the Greek language and literature. During the middle ages, he was regarded with profound reverence, as the Augustine of philosophy, but on the introduction of the Aristotelian metaphysics in the 13th c., his reputation gradually sank. The first edition of B.'s entire works appeared at Venice, 1491-1492; a more correct one at Basel, 1570. The oldest edition of the Consolatio is that published at Nürnberg, 1473, but many manuscript translations into various languages had appeared long before the invention of printing. Among these may be mentioned that by King Alfred into Anglo-Saxon.

BOG, land covered with peat, the spongy texture of which containing water, converts it into a kind of quagmire. The term PEAT-BOG is sometimes employed as more perfectly distinctive of the true bog from every other kind of swamp or morass; the term PEAT-MOSs is also sometimes employed, particularly in Scotland, and even simply Moss. The word Bog is of Irish origin, being from a Gael. root, signifying a bobbing, quaking motion.

Bogs of great extent exist in some of the northern parts of the world. A very considerable part of the surface of Ireland is occupied with them. The Bog of Allen (see ALLEN, BOG OF) is the most extensive in the British Islands, although its continuity is not altogether unbroken, strips of arable land intersecting it here and there. The Solway Moss (q. v.), on the western borders of England and Scotland, is about seven miles in circumference. Chatmoss (q. v.), in Lancashire, famous for the engineering difficulties which it presented to the formation of the first great English railway, is twelve square miles in extent. The swamps of the east of England are in general not peat-bogs, but consist chiefly of soft mud or silt.

upon its surface. It was not the least remarkable triumph of the genius of Stephenson, to extend the same principle to the support of the railway. Tradition reports that at the battle of Solway, in 1542, a fugitive troop of horse plunged into the moss, which instantly closed upon them; and in the end of the 18th c., this tradition was confirmed by the discovery, made in peat-digging, of a man and horse in complete armour.

One of the remarkable phenomena of peat-bogs is the frequent presence of roots and fallen trunks of trees, in a good state of preservation, many feet below the surface. From the black bog-oak of Ireland, various small fancy articles are manufactured. The circumstance of trees being found imbedded in bogs, leads to the conclusion that in many instances these morasses originated in the decay or partial destruction of ancient forests. This subject, however, along with all that relates to the origin and nature of bogs, will be treated in the article PEAT. It It may be proper here to mention that there is a popular division of bogs into two classes-Red Bogs and Black Bogs; the decomposition of the vegetable matter in the former being less perfect, and the substance, consequently, more fibrous and light than in the latter. There is indeed no precise line of distinction, and all intermediate conditions occur. The most extensive bogs are red bogs, and they are said to cover 1,500,000 acres in Ireland. Black bogs, although comparatively of small extent, are more numerous, particularly in elevated districts, for which reason they are sometimes called mountain bogs. The depth of red bogs is usually much greater than that of black bogs.

The conversion of bogs into good pasture or arable land, is a subject of national importance. There can be no doubt that much of the land now occupied by bog is capable of being rendered very productive, whilst the effects of extensive bogs upon the climate are always injurious. The reclaiming of shallow mountain bogs is comparatively easy, and in some cases it is effected by a very simple and inexpensive drainage, and by throwing them at once under cultivation in a manner analogous to that known in Ireland as the lazy-bed method of planting potatoes-the soil upon which the bog The general surface of a bog is always nearly level, rests being partially digged up and thrown over but it is usually varied with rushy tussocks rising its surface. Great difficulties, however, attend the above the rest, and having a rather firmer soil. By reclaiming of red bogs. It has unfortunately the continued growth of peat, the surface of a bog happened, particularly in Ireland, that the tenures is gradually elevated; that of Chatmoss, for example, of land, and the want of capital on the part of the rises above the level of the surrounding country, owners of estates, have formed the most insuperable having a gradual slope of thirty or forty feet from of all obstacles to improvements of this kind, which, the centre to the solid land on all sides. In rainy however, have been carried on to no inconsiderable weather, it sensibly swells, the spongy mass imbibing extent since the middle of the 18th c., and have water, whilst the mosses and other growing plants in general proved highly remunerative. A chief on the surface prevent evaporation. Occasionally, difficulty, in some cases, is caused by the low situathe quantity of water becoming excessive, a bog tion of the bog, and the want of fall for drainage. bursts, and pours a terrible deluge down the course Another great difficulty is presented by the spongy of a stream, causing great devastation, not only substance of red bogs being extremely retentive of by the force of its torrent, but by the enormous water, so that a deep ditch only drains a very narrow quantities of peat which it deposits upon meadows strip on each side of it. A difficulty has been also and cultivated fields, as has recently happened in found in disposing of the peat, where a good soil some memorable instances in Ireland. The depth being known to exist below, it has been attempted of a bog is sometimes more than forty feet. The to reclaim land by removing the peat instead of spongy mass of which it is formed shakes on the draining it and converting its own surface into soil. least pressure. Sometimes it is impossible to tra- To some extent, in such cases, the peat is advantageverse it; in other cases, it is possible only for those ously disposed of for fuel, or to be used as a species who are well accustomed to it, a false step being a of manure for other soils; but the demand for these plunge into a quagmire, in which a man sinks as purposes is often insufficient for any other than a in a quicksand. Safety is sometimes insured by very slow process of improvement in an extensive 'pattens-boards fastened upon the soles of the bog. The peat is therefore, sometimes, by various feet-a method which Mr. Roscoe of Liverpool, in means, floated off, as in the long-continued operahis extensive operations for reclaiming land from tions at Blair-Drummond, on the banks of the Forth, Chatmoss, employed also to enable horses to work the results of which have for many years formed a

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