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BELLUNO-BELSHAZZAR.

to a beam near the mizzen-mast. Sometimes, in foggy weather, as a warning to other ships, the bell is struck to denote that the ship is on a starboard-tack; leaving the larboard-tack to be denoted by the beat of a drum. See WATCH ON SHIPBOARD.

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BELLU'NO (the ancient Bellunum), a city of Venetia, Northern Italy, on the right bank of the Piave, and 51 miles north of the city of Venice. It is walled, is the seat of a bishop, has a handsome cathedral, hospital, public library, fine aqueduct, &c. It has a trade in timber, and manufactories of silks, bats, leather, and earthenware. Pop. 10,000. BEʼLOMANCY (Gr. belos, an arrow; manteia, prophecy), a mode of divination by arrows, praetised among the Arabs and other nations of the east. A number of arrows being shot off with sentences written on labels attached to them, an

indication of futurity is sought from the inscription on the first arrow found. This is only one of many ways of divining by arrows. See AXINOMANCY. DIVINING-ROD.

though perhaps more rugged route through Afghanistan into the Punjab-a preference strengthened by Alexander's direful experience in returning from the Indus along the coast. The surface is generally mountainous, more especially towards the north, the peak of Takkatu being said to be 11,000 feet high. Even the bottoms of some of the valleys have an elevation of 5700 feet: and the capital, Kelat, situated on the side of one of them, is 6000 feet above the level of the sea. The rivers are inconsiderable, unless after heavy rains: even the largest of them, the Dusti, after a course of about 1000 miles, has been found to be only 20 inches deep, and 20 yards wide at its mouth. The pastures, as may be and goats, however, are numerous. supposed, are poor, so that there are few cattle: sheep The dromedary is the ordinary beast of burden; and it is only in the north-west, towards Kerman, that horses are bred. Wherever there is a sufficiency of water, the soil cotton, indigo, and tobacco; and the higher grounds, is productive-the lowlands yielding rice, sugar, wheat, barley, madder, pulse, and European fruits. In the sandy waste of Mekran, where Alexander's army suffered its severest hardships and privations, the only valuable product is the date. The minerals are copper, lead, antimony, iron, sulphur, alum, and sal-ammoniac; and the manufactures are skins, woollens, carpets, and tent-covers of goat's and camel's hair, and rude fire-arms. B. has but one seaport, Sonmeanee, near the frontier of Sinde. The trade is insignificant, being, such as it is, chiefly monopolised by Hindus. Judæa, monopolised by Hindus. The inhabitants, however, are, as a body, Mohammedans, of the Sunnite sect, and consequently opposed to their neighbours of Persia, who are Shiites. Most of the east provinces, which alone come into contact with British India, are under the authority of the Khan of Kelat, who, with a revenue of about £30,000, maintains an army of 3000 men. This petty sovereign having acted treacherously towards the British during the Afghan campaign of 1839, his royal city was taken by storm in the same year. In 1840, it was abandoned; but, in 1841, it was again captured, for temporary occupation, by the British.

BELON, PIERRE, a celebrated French naturalist, was born in 1517 at Soulletière, in the department of Sarthe. He studied medicine at Paris, and subsequently travelled through Germany. In 1546 he left France, and visited Greece, Asia-Minor, Egypt, and Arabia. He returned in 1549, and in 1553 published the results of his travels, in a work entitled Observations on several Singular and Memorable Things discovered in Greece, Asia, Judæa, Egypt, Arabia, and other Foreign Countries. Charles IX. gave him apartments in the Château of Madrid, a sumptuous edifice which Francis I. had constructed in the Bois de Boulogne. Here he resided till his tragic death in April 1564. He was murdered by robbers when gathering herbs at a late hour of the evening in the Bois de Boulogne.

Besides the valuable work already mentioned, B. published in 1551, A Natural History of Strange Sea-fish, with a correct Representation and Account of the Dolphin, and several others of that Species, which contains, among other things, an exact description of the dolphin, and the earliest picture of a hippoBELSHAM, THOMAS, one of the ablest expotamus in any European book; in 1555, A Natural History of Birds, which is often quoted by Buffon, pounders of the Unitarian system of theology, was and acknowledged to be the most important treatise | on ornithology of the 16th c.; in 1558, an elaborate and interesting work on Arboriculture, in which he gave a list of the exotic trees which it would be useful to introduce into France. Besides these, B. wrote several other treatises of trees, herbs, birds, and fishes.

BE'LONE. See GARFISH.

born

at Bedford in 1750. He was educated in the principles of Calvinism, and for some years officiated as pastor of the dissenting congregation and head of the theological academy at Daventry. These offices he resigned in 1789, on embracing Unitarian views, and shortly after received the charge of a new theological academy at Hackney, which in a few years collapsed for want of funds. Before its extinction, he succeeded Dr. Priestley in BELOOCHISTA'N, a country of southern Asia, his pastoral charge, and in 1805 removed to London bounded on the north by Afghanistan, on the E. by as the successor of Dr. Disney, where he continued Moultan and Sinde, on the S by the Arabian Sea, till his death in 1829. Most of his works are and on the W. by a maritime dependency of Muscat controversial: his doctrine regarding the person in Arabia, and by the Persian province of Kerman. of Christ represents the purely 'humanitarian ’ B. corresponds in general with the ancient Gedrosia, view, as distinguished from the more nearly Arian excepting that the latter name appears to have extended to the Indus, while the former nowhere sentiments of men like Channing. He published reaches that river. B. stretches in N. lat. between also a work on mental and moral philosophy, fol24° 50′ and 30° 20′, and in E. long. between 57° 40′lowing Hartley, and a memoir of his predecessor, Theophilus Lindsey. His brother, His brother, William and 69° 18', giving, with a population of half a (b. 1752; d. 1827), was an active and voluminous million, an area of nearly 200,000 square miles, or writer of history and political tracts on the side fully double that of Great Britain. Though it was of the Whigs. anciently a part of Persia, yet its modern relations connect it rather with India, more particularly since Sinde and Moultan have fallen under the dominion of the English. In the bygone ages of the overland invasions of Hindustan, the Gedrosian or Beloochee Desert formed, as it were, a barrier for the Lower Indus, constraining every assailant, from Alexander downwards, to prefer the less barren,

BELSHAZ'ZAR, or BELSA'ZAR, was the last king of the Chaldean dynasty in Babylon. The name occurs only in the Old Testament, where it indicates either the person who is called by HeroFor an account of dotus Labynetos, or his son. the circumstances attending his overthrow, see the Book of Daniel, Herodotus, &c.

BELT-BELTEIN.

BELT (signifying Girdle), the name given to two straits, the GREAT and the LITTLE B., which, with the Sound, connect the Baltic with the Cattegat. The GREAT B., about 70 miles in length, and varying in breadth from 4 to more than 20 miles, divides the Danish islands, Seeland and Laaland, from Fünen and Langeland. The LITTLE B. divides the island of Fünen from Jütland. It is equal in length to the Great B., but much narrower. Its greatest breadth is about 10 miles, but it gradually narrows towards the north, until at the fort of Frederica it is less than a mile wide; thus the passage from the Cattegat into the Baltic is here easily commanded. Both the Belts are dangerous to navigation, on account of numerous sandbanks and strong currents; and therefore, for large vessels, the passage by the Sound (q. v.) is preferred.

BE'LTEIN, BE'LTANE, BEI'LTINE, or BEA'LTAINN, the name of a heathen festival once common to all the Celtic nations, and traces of which have survived to the present day. The name is derived from tin or teine, fire, and Beal or Beil, the Celtic god of light or Sun-god, a deity mentioned by Ausonius (309-392 A.D.) and Tertullian (who flourished during the first half of the 3d c.), as well as on several ancient inscriptions, as Belenus or Belinus. B. thus means 'Beal's fire,' and belongs to that sun and fire worship which has always been one of the most prominent forms of polytheism. The great festival of this worship among the Celtic nations was held in the beginning of May, but there seems to have been a somewhat similar observance in the beginning of November (the beginning, and the ene of summer). On such occasions, all the fires in the district were extinguished (while the system was in full force, even death was the penalty of neglect); the needfire (q. v.) was then kindled with great solemnity, and sacrifices were offered-latterly, perhaps, of animals, but originally, there can be little doubt, of human beings. From this sacrificial fire the domestic hearths were rekindled.

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The earliest mention of B. is found by Cormac, Archbishop of Cashel in the beginning of the 10th c. A relic of this festival, as practised in some parts of the Highlands of Scotland about the beginning of the 19th c., is thus described: The young folks of a hamlet meet in the moors on the 1st of May. They cut a table in the green sod, of a round figure, by cutting a trench in the ground of such circumference as to hold the whole company. They then kindle a fire, and dress a repast of eggs and milk in the consistence of a custard. They knead a cake of oatmeal, which is toasted at the embers against a stone. After the custard is eaten up, they divide the cake in so many portions, as similar as possible to one another in size and shape, as there are persons in the company. They daub one of these portions with charcoal until it is perfectly black. They then put all the bits of the cake into a bonnet, and every one, blindfold, draws out a portion. The bonnet-holder is entitled to the last bit. Whoever draws the black bit is the devoted person, who is to be sacrificed to Baal, whose favour they mean to implore in rendering the year productice. The devoted person is compelled to leap three times over the flames.' The leaping three times through the fire is clearly a symbolical sacrifice, and there was doubtless a time when the victim was bound on the pile, and burned. See SACRIFICE, HUMAN.

It has been usual to identify the worship of the Celtic Beal with that of the Baal (q. v.) or Bel of the Phoenicians and other Semitic nations. It is unnecessary, however, to go beyond the family of nations to which the Celts belong (see ARYANS), in order to find analogies either for the name or the

thing. J. Grimm (Deutsche Mythologie, i. 208, 581) identifies the Celtic Beal not only with the Slavonic Belbog or Bjelbog (in which name the syllable bel or bjel means white, and bog, god), but also with the Scandinavian and Teutonic Balder (q. v.) or Paltar, whose names appears under the form of Baldag (the white or bright day), and who appears to have been also extensively worshipped under the name of Phol or Pol. The universality all over Europe in heathen. times of the worship of these personifications of the sun and of light through the kindling of fires and other rites, is testified by the yet surviving practice of periodically lighting bonfires (q. v.). The more marked turning-points of the seasons would naturally determine the times of these festivals. The two solstices at midwinter (see YULE) and midsummer, and the beginning and end of summer, would be among the chief seasons. The periods of observance, which varied, no doubt, originally, more or less in different places, were still further disturbed by the introduction of Christianity. Unable to extirpate these rites, the church sought to Christianise them by associating them with rites. of her own, and for this purpose either appointed a church-festival at the time of the heathen one, or endeavoured to shift the time of the heathen observance to that of an already fixed churchfestival. All over the south of Germany, the great bonfire celebration was held at midsummer (Johannisfeuer), [see JOHN'S (ST) EVE]-a relic, probably, of the sun-festival of the summer solstice: throughout the north of Germany, it was held at Easter. It is probable that this fire-festival (Osterfeuer) of Ostara-a principal deity among the Saxons and Angles-had been originally held on the 1st of May, and was shifted so as to coincide with the church-festival now known as Easter (q. v.; see also WALPURGIS NACHT). The seriousness and enthusiasm with which these observances continued to be celebrated in the 16th and 17th centuries began afterwards to decline, and the kindling of bonfires has been mostly put down by the governments; the earlier interdicts alleging the unchristian nature of the rites; the later, the danger occasioned to the forests.

sun

In Great Britain, St John's Eve was celebrated with bonfires; and Easter had its fire-rites, which, although incorporated in the service of the Roman Catholic Church, were clearly of heathen origin. But the great day for bonfires in the British islands was the 1st of November. Fewer traces of this are found in other countries, and therefore we must look upon it as more peculiarly Celtic. While the May festival of B. was in honour of the god, in his character of god of war-who had just put to flight the forces of cold and darkness-the November festival was to celebrate his beneficent influence in producing the fruits which had just been gathered in. Hence it was called Samhtheine (peace-fire). If we may judge from the traces that still remain or have been recorded, the November observances were more of a private nature, every house having its bonfire and its offerings, probably of fruits, concluding with a domectic feast. The B. festival, again, was public, and attended by bloody sacrifices. Although the November bonfires, like B., were probably of Celtic origin, they seem to have been adopted by the inhabitants of the British islands generally. About the end of last century they were still kindled in various parts of England, and to this day (1860), over whole districts of Aberdeenshire, every rural dwelling has its Hallowe'en bonfire lighted at nightfall in an adjoining stubble-field.

The Anglo-Saxon population of England had their own characteristic May-day rites; but there

BELUGA-BELZONI.

BE'LUS. See BAAL.

on the top of a house, for the purpose of looking BELVEDE'RE (It.) was originally an erection out on the surrounding country, and enjoying the air, in which sense it is still understood in Italy. A part of the Vatican (q. v.) in Rome is known as the B., and gives name to the famous statue of Apollo. In France, and with us, the word has come to signify any kind of summer-house or place of

refreshment.

exist traces also of the observance among them | Rhinodon are two species found by Kane and Hayes on that day of rites similar to the Celtic Beltane. in the Greenland Seas, and B. Kingii is said to be An Old Holne Curate,' writing to Notes and found in the Southern hemisphere. Queries in 1853, says: 'At the village of Holne, situated on one of the one of the spurs of Dartmoor, is a field of about two acres, the property of the parish, and called the Ploy (play) Field. In the centre of this stands a granite pillar (Menhir) 6 or 7 feet high. On May morning, before daybreak, the young men of the village assemble there, and then proceed to the moor, where they select a ram lamb (doubtless with the consent of the owner), and after running it down, bring it in triumph to the Ploy Field, fasten it to the pillar, cut its throat, and then roast it whole, skin, wool, &c. At midday, a struggle takes place, at the risk of cut hands, for a slice, it being supposed to confer luck for the ensuing year on the fortunate devourer. As an act of gallantry, in high esteem among the females, the young men sometimes fight their way through the crowd to get a slice for their chosen among the young women, all of whom, in their best dresses, attend the Ram Feast, as it is called. Dancing, wrestling, and other games, assisted by copious libations of cider during the afternoon, prolong the festivity till midnight.

The time, the place (looking east), the mystic pillar, and the ram, surely bear some evidence in favour of the Ram Feast being a sacrifice to Baal.'

Additional notices of this sun and fire worship will be found under YULE, CANDLEMAS, LAMMAS, and the other heads referred to in this article.

BELU'GA, a genus of Cetacea (q. v.), of the family of Delphinide or Dolphins (q. v.), differing from the rest of that family in the blunt and broad head, which has no produced snout; the smaller number of teeth, the greater part of which often fall out before the animal is far advanced in age; and

Beluga.

the want of a dorsal fin. A common species found in the northern parts of the world is B. arctica (for which name there are unhappily many synonyms, as B. leucas, &c.), the White Whale and White Fish of whalers, often called by English writers the B., and the Round-headed Cachalot. The form of the B. is remarkably characterised by the softness of all its curves, and adapts it for rapid and graceful movements; its skin is usually of a clear white colour, and not very strong, so that it often fails to retain a harpoon. The B. attains a length of more than thirteen feet. The female brings forth two young ones at a birth, and displays the greatest solicitude for them. The food of the B. consists of fish, in pursuit of which it often ascends rivers to some distance. It is gregarious, and may be seen in herds of forty or fifty, which often gambol around boats; it abounds in most parts of the arctic seas, and sometimes, but not very frequently, visits the British shores. One was killed in the Firth of Forth in 1815, and one in the Medway in 1846. The Greenlanders take the B. with harpoons or with strong nets. Its flesh affords them a valuable supply of food, and is eaten by most of the inhabitants of arctic coasts; it affords also a considerable quantity of the very finest oil, and the skin is made into leather. Some of the B. Declivis and B.

BELVEDE'RE (Kochia scoparia, Chenopodium scoparium, or Salsola scoparia), an annual plant of the natural order Chenopodiaceae (q. v.), a native of the middle and south of Europe, and of great part of Asia, which has long been very familiar in British gardens as an ornamental annual, not upon account of its flowers, which have no beauty, but of its close, pyramidal, rigid form, and numerous narrow leaves, which make it appear like a miniature cypress-tree. It is sometimes called SUMMER CYPRESS.

BELVI'SIA (also called NAPOLEO'NA), a genus of exogenous plants, the type of the natural order Belvisiaceæ, of which order only a very few species have yet been discovered, natives of the tropical parts of Africa. They are large shrubs, with smooth, simple, leathery leaves. The flowers grow in threes, sessile in the axils of the leaves, and are beautiful and extremely curious. The calyx is a thick, leathery cup, divided into five ovate segments. The corolla consists of three distinct rings; the outer one 5-lobed, and furnished with ribs, by means of which it is strongly plaited, turning back over and hiding the calyx when full blown; the second, a narrow membrane, divided into numerous regular segments like a fringe; the third, an erect cupshaped membrane. The stamens are erect like another cup; the ovary 5-celled, with two ovules in each cell; the style short, thick, and 5-angled, with a broad, flat, 5-angled stigma. The fruit is a soft berry, crowned with the calyx, with large kidneyshaped seeds. The wood is soft, and contains numerous dotted vessels.-The pulp of the fruit of the best known species is mucilaginous and eatable, the rind very full of tannin; the fruit is as large as a pomegranate, and the seeds 1 inch long.-The position of this remarkable order in the botanical system is not yet well determined. Lindley regards it as most nearly allied to Rhizophoraceœ (Mangroves, q. v.). It is supposed by some that the two inner rings of the corolla should be regarded as sterile stamens, and the place of the order is thus fixed near Barringtoniaceæ (q. v.).

BELZO'NI, GIOVANNI BATTISTA, the son of a poor barber, was born at Padua in 1778, and was educated at Rome, for the priesthood, but soon displayed a preference for mechanical science, especially hydraulics; and when the French republican troops took possession of the pontifical city, he quited his religious studies altogether. About the year 1800, he visited Holland, and in 1803 came to England. For a time he gained a living by exhibiting feats of strength in theatres. At Astley's, he played the part of Hercules, but he also continued his mechanical studies, and even gave numerous hydraulic representations in the most populous towns of the kingdom. After a sojourn of nine years in England, he went to Spain and Portugal, in his capacity of theatrical athlete. From the peninsula, he passed to Malta, and thence to Egypt in 1815, on the invitation of Mehemet Ali, who wished him to construct a hydraulic machine. After succeeding in

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BEM-BEMBRIDGE BEDS.

this undertaking, he was induced, by the travellers, and then made his escape into Turkey, where he Burckhardt and Salt, to direct his attention to embraced, from political motives, the profession of

Islam, was raised to the dignity of a pasha, and obtained He obtained a command in the Turkish army. In February 1850, he was sent to Aleppo, where, after suppressing the sanguinary insurrection of the Arabs against the Christian population, he died of fever, December 10, 1850. B. was in private life characterised by the benevolence of his disposition, and, as a military leader, was distinguished by courage, presence of mind when in extreme danger, and remarkable rapidity of movement.

the exploration of Egyptian antiquities. He threw himself with ardour into his new vocation. He removed the colossal bust of the so-called 'Young Memnon' from the neighbourhood of Thebes to Alexandria, and was the first who opened the temple of Ipsambul. In the valley of the royal graves' -Biban-el-Moluk-near Thebes, he discovered several important catacombs containing mummies, and among others, opened, in 1817, the celebrated tomb of Psammetichus, from which he removed the splendid sarcophagus, now, along with the 'Young Memnon,' and other results of B.'s labours, in the British Museum. But B.'s greatest undertaking was his opening of the pyramid of Cephren. An attempt made on his life caused his departure from Egypt, but previously he made a journey along the coast of the Red Sea, and another to the Oasis of Siwah, hoping there to find ruins of the temple of Jupiter-Ammon. In the course of his explorations, he discovered the emerald mines of Zubara and the ruins of Berenice, the ancient commercial entrepôt between Europe and India. In September 1819, he returned to Europe, visited his native town, Padua, and enriched it with two Egyptian statues of granite. He also published in London his Narrative of the Operations and Recent Discoveries within the Pyramids, Temples, Tombs, and Excavations in Egypt and Nubia; and of a Journey to the Coast of the Red Sea in search of the ancient Berenice, and another to the Oasis of JupiterAmmon (1821, with an atlas of 44 coloured engravings). In 1821, he opened in London an exhibition of his Egyptian antiquities, but soon afterwards undertook a journey to Timbuktu, in Central Africa. At Benin, he was attacked by dysentery, which compelled him to return to Gato, where he died, December 3, 1823. His original drawings of the royal tombs he had opened in Egypt were published by his widow (London, 1829).

men.

BEM, JOSEPH, Commander of the army in Transylvania during the Hungarian revolution, 1848—9, was born at Tarnov, in Galicia, 1795. After a course of military adventure in Poland, he went to France, where he resided for a considerable time, earning a livelihood by teaching mechanics and mnemonics. In 1848, after failing in an attempt to organise an insurrection in Vienna, he joined the Hungarians, and was intrusted with the command of the army of Transylvania, amounting to 8000—10,000 He at first experienced some checks from the Austrian army, but afterwards defeated them at Hermannstadt and the bridge of Piski; and finally succeeded, in March 1849, in driving both them and their allies, the Russians, back into Wallachia. Having thus made himself master of Transylvania, he proposed, by amnesties and general mild rule, to gain the adherence of the German and Slavonian population, especially in Wallachia; but his propositions were not entertained by Kossuth and the Hungarian commissariat. After expelling the troops under Puchner from the Banat, B. returned into Transylvania, where the Russians had defeated the Hungarians. Here he reorganised his forces, and did all that was possible in his circumstances to prevent the union of the Russians with the Austrians, but his efforts were unsuccessful. After failing in an attempt to excite an insurrection in Moldavia, he was defeated in battle Schäszburg, where he was opposed to three times the number of his own troops. At Kossuth's request, he now hastened into Hungary, where he took part in the unfortunate battle near Temesvar. Retreating into Transylvania, he here defended himself for some days against a vastly superior force,

a

near

BEMBATOO'KA, BAY OF, a safe and commodious bay on the north-west coast of Madagascar, in lat. 16° S., and long. 46° E. Prime bullocks are sold here for less than 10s. each, and are bought exten sively by agents of the French government, who have them driven to Fort Dauphin, on Antongil Bay, on the opposite side of the island, where they are killed and cured for the use of the French navy, and for colonial consumption. Rice is also sold very cheap at Bembatooka. Majunga, on the north side of the bay, is an important town, Bembatooka being but a village.

BEMBE'CIDÆ, a family of Hymenopterous insects of the division in which the females are furnished with stings. Along with Sphegidæ (q. v.), and other nearly allied families, they receive the They very much popular name of Sand-wasps. resemble bees or wasps in general appearance. They are natives of the warmer parts of the world. Some of them are remarkable for the odour of roses which they emit. The females make burrows in sandy banks, in each of which they deposit an egg, and along with it the bodies of a few flies as food for the larva. The B. fly very rapidly, and with a loud buzzing noise. Bembex Rostrata is common in the south of Europe.

BEMBO, PIETRO, one of the most celebrated Italian scholars of the 16th c., was born in Venice, May 20, 1470; having studied at Padua and Ferrara, He he early devoted himself to polite literature. edited the Italian poems of Petrarch, printed by Aldus, in 1501, and the Terzerime of Dante, 1502. In 1506, he proceeded to the Court of Urbino, where he resided until 1512, when he went to Rome, where he was made secretary to Pope Leo X. On the death of that pope, B. returned to Padua, where he became a liberal patron of literature and the arts, as well as a fertile writer himself. In 1529, he accepted the office of historiographer to the republic of Venice, and was also appointed keeper of St Mark's Library. In 1539, B., who had only taken the minor ecclesiastical orders, was unexpectedly presented with a cardinal's hat by Pope Paul III., who afterwards appointed him to the dioceses of Gubbio and Bergamo. He died January 18, 1547. B. united in his character all that is amiable. He was the restorer of good style in both Latin and Italian literature. to have been so fastidious with regard to style, that he subjected each of his own writings to forty revisions previous to publication. Some of his writings are marred by the licentiousness of the time. Among his works may be mentioned the Rerum Veneticarum Libri XII. (Venice, 1551), of which he published an Italian edition (Venice, 1552); his Prose, dialogues in which are given the rules of the Tuscan dialect; Gli Asolani, a series of disputations on love, &c.; Rime, a collection of sonnets and canzonets; his Letters, Italian and Latin; and the work, De Virgilii Culice et Terentii Fabulis. His collected works were published at Venice, in 4 vols., 1729.

His taste is said

BE'MBRIDGE BEDS are a division of the Upper

BEN-BENARES.

Eocene strata, resting on the St Helen's, and capped 50 and 92 feet in depth, and in width between 600 by the Hempstead series. They are principally yards and a little more than half a mile. It is in developed in the Isle of Wight. Ed. Forbes, who lat. 25° 17′ N., and long. 83° 4′ E., being 421 miles carefully examined them there, has arranged them to the north-west of Calcutta, and 466 and 74 in four subdivisions: 1. The upper marls and lami-respectively to the south-east of Delhi and Allonated gray clays, which form the basement bed of habad. Without reckoning Secrole, which, at the the 'black band,' the lowest member of the Hemp- distance of 2 or 3 miles to the westward, contains stead series. They are distinguished by the abun- the official establishments, B. covers, as it were, an dance of Melania turretissima. 2. Unfossiliferous amphitheatre of 3 miles in front, and 1 mile in mottled clays, alternating with fossiliferous marls depth, the immediate margin of the river, which and clays, whose characteristic organisms are Ceri- is comparatively steep, being chiefly occupied by thium mutabile and Cyrena pulchra. 3. The oyster- flights of steps, or ghats, as they are called, where bed, consisting of greenish marl, and containing crowds of all classes spend the day in business, immense quantities of a species of oysters (Ostrea amusement, or devotion. This lively scene, backed Vectensis), accompanied with Cerithia, Mytili, and by the minarets of about 300 mosques, and the other marine mollusca. 4. The Bembridge lime- pinnacles of about 1000 pagodas, presents a truly stone, generally a compact, pale-yellow, or cream- picturesque appearance to spectators on the oppocoloured limestone, but sometimes vesicular and site shore of the Ganges. On closer inspection, concretionary, and containing occasionally siliceous however, the city, as a whole, disappoints a visitor. or cherty bands. This is interstratified with shales The streets, or rather alleys, altogether impractiand friable marls. All the beds are fossiliferous, cable for wheeled-carriages, barely afford a passage containing numerous land and fresh-water shells. to individual horsemen or single beasts of burden; One bed is composed almost entirely of the remains and these thoroughfares, besides being shut out of a little globular Paludina. Shells of Lymnea from sun and air by buildings of several stories, are and Planorbis are abundant, and are accompanied said to be shared with the numerous passengers by with the spirally striated nucules of two species of sacred bulls that roam about at will. The estimates Chara, water-plants which have been well preserved of the population vary from 200,000 to 1,000,000. because of the large quantity of lime which enters In the traditions of the country, B. is believed to into their composition. In this division have been have been coeval with creation; and tolerably authenfound the mammalian remains of the species of tic history does assign to it a really high antiquity. Palæotherium (q. v.) and Anoplotherium (q. v.) In its actual condition, however, B. is a modern city. which characterise the gypseous deposits of Mont- Both in extent and in embellishment, it owes much martre; it is consequently considered the British to the influence of Mahratta ascendency, which equivalent of these Parisian beds. dates from the close of the 17th c.; and it possesses, perhaps, not a single structure that reaches back to the close of the 16th. As the central seat of Hinduism, B., on high occasions, attracts immense crowds of pilgrims-sometimes as many as 100,000; and a few years ago, during an eclipse of the moon, forty persons were trampled to death in the streets. been remarkable for bigotry. Now, however, BrahNaturally enough, the Brahmins of B. have always minism appears to be on the decline; and a result, which Mohammedan persecution vainly tried to produce, would seem to be gradually achieved, ature and science. On the Sanscrit College, instichiefly through the introduction of European literature and science. On the Sanscrit College, instituted in 1792, there was at a later date ingrafted an English department, comprising poetry, history, mathematics, and political economy. In 1850, the pupils numbered 230-6 converts to Christianity, 16 Mussulmans, and 208 Hindus. B., as Heber has observed, is very industrious and wealthy, as well as very holy. Besides having extensive manufactures of its own in cotton, wool, and silk, its commanding position on the grand line of communication-road, river, and rail alike-renders it the principal emporium of the neighbouring regions. It is the great ́mart for the shawls of the north, the diamonds of the south, and the muslins of the east; while it circulates the varied productions of Europe and America over Bundelcund, Goruck pore, Nepal, &c. For the general history of the city, see the following article on the district of the same name. The details of the mutiny of 1857 will be found under the head of SECROLE. At the same time, B. proper added its share to the fearful interest of the emergency through the proverbially fanatical character of its inhabitants, who, during the second siege of Bhurtpore, had got 30,000 sabres sharpened in anticipation of a second repulse of the British.

No marked line of distinction separates this series from the St Helen's beds on which it rests. The contained organisms indicate that both had the same fluvio-marine origin. The maximum thickness of the Bembridge series is 115 feet.

BEN, a term of Gaelic origin, prefixed to the names of the principal mountains of Scotland-as Ben Ledi, Ben Lomond, Ben Nevis, &c. It is essentially the same word as the Welsh Pen, the primary signification of which is 'head,' and hence it may be considered as equivalent to mountain summit' or 'mountain head.' The term Pennine, applied to a division of the Alps, is doubtless derived from the Celtic Pen or Ben; and even the name Apennines is in all probability from the same root.

BEN, a Hebrew word signifying 'son,' and forming the first syllable of many names ancient and modern-as Benhadad, Benjamin, Ben Israel, &c. The corresponding Arabic word, Ibn or Ebn, in like manner enters into the composition of a great number of names-as Ibn Sina (Avicenna), Ibnal-Faradhi, Ibn-al-Khatib, &c. Ibn in some of its construct forms, drops the initial vowel, thus nearly corresponding to the Hebrew—as Jusuf-benYakub (Joseph the son of Jacob). The plural (in the construct form), Beni, is found in the names of many Arab tribes both in Asia and Africa-as Beni Temeem (or Temîm), Beni Selim, Beni Sala, &c.; and sometimes it occurs in the names of places -as Beni Hassan.

BEN, OIL OF, a fluid fixed oil, obtained from the seeds of a tree found in India and Arabia, and known as the HORSERADISH TREE (Moringa pterygosperma). The seeds are called BEN NUTS, and are roundish, with three membranous wings. The oil is used by watchmakers, because it does not readily freeze; also by perfumers, as the basis of various scents; and other oils are often adulterated with it. See HORSERADISH TREE.

BENA RES, a city on the left side of the Ganges, which here varies, according to the season, between

BENA'RES, the district mentioned in the immediately preceding article. It is under the lieutenantgovernorship of the North-west Provinces, being bounded on the W. and N. by Jounpur; on the E. by Ghazcepore and Shahabad; and on the S. and W.

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