The New Gresham Encyclopedia. Atrebates to Bedlis Vol. 1 Part 3

Transcriber's note: In the pronunciation guides [=e] signifies "e macron"; [)e] "e breve"; [a:] "a with diaeresis below"; [.a] "a with dot above"; [n.] "n with dot below"; [:a]...

ATTRAC'TION, the tendency of all material bodies, whether masses or particles, to approach each other, to unite, and to remain united. Newton was the first to adopt the theory o...

AU'GUSTINE (Aurelius Augustinus), ST., a renowned father of the Christian Church, was born at Tagaste, in Africa, in 354, his mother Monica being a Christian, his father Patrici...

AURO'RA BOREA'LIS, a luminous meteoric phenomenon appearing in the north, most frequently in high latitudes, the corresponding phenomenon in the southern hemisphere being called...

The five colonies, independently of each other, having declared their desire for a federal union, the Commonwealth of Australia was proclaimed. A Convention, which sat at Adelai...

The Emperor Leopold I, son and successor of Ferdinand III, was victorious through the talents of Prince Eugene in two wars with Turkey; and Vienna was delivered by Sobieski and...

AVERROES (a-ver'o-es; corrupted from IBN ROSHD), the most renowned Arabian philosopher, born at Cordova, in Spain, 1126, died at Morocco 1198. His ability procured him the succe...

AZERBAIJAN ([.a]-zer-b[=i]-jaen'), a province of North-Western Persia; area, 40,000 sq. miles; pop. estimated at 2,000,000. It consists generally of lofty mountain ranges, some...

BAB'YLON, the capital of Babylonia, on the left of the Euphrates, one of the largest and most splendid cities of the ancient world, now a scene of ruins, and earth-mounds contai...

The Hittites conquered Northern Syria and overran Mitannia when the Egyptian Asian empire went to pieces. Assyria then became powerful and independent again, the first great kin...

BACON, Francis, Baron Verulam, Viscount St. Albans, and Lord High Chancellor of England, was born at London in 1561, died at Highgate in 1626. His father, Nicholas Bacon, was Ke...

BAENA (b[.a]-[=a]'n[.a]), a town of Spain, in Andalusia, province of Cordova, and 24 miles S.S.E. of the city of that name. Pop. 14,730.

BAILLIE, Matthew, M.D., physician and anatomist, brother of the preceding, was born 1761 at Shotts, Lanarkshire, died at Cirencester, Gloucestershire, in 1823. In 1773 he was se...

BALAGUER (b[.a]-l[.a]-g[=a]r'), Victor, Spanish author and politician, important writer in the Catalonian dialect, born 1824, died 1901. Born at Barcelona, he studied law there,...

BALEAR'IC ISLANDS, an archipelago of four large and eleven small islands, south-east of Spain, including Majorca, Minorca, Iviza, and Formentera. The popular derivation of the a...

BALLARAT', or BALLAARAT, an Australian town in Victoria, chief centre of the gold-mining industry of the colony, and next in importance to Melbourne, from which it is distant W....

BALZAC (b[.a]l-z[.a]k), Honore de, a celebrated French novelist, was born at Tours in 1799, died 1850. Before completing his twenty-fourth year he had published a number of nove...

BA'NIM, John, an Irish novelist, dramatist, and poet, born in 1798, died 1842. His chief early work was a poem, _The Celt's Paradise_ (1821). Having settled in London, he made v...

_Scotland_.--In Scotland there are no private banks, the only banks in that portion of the United Kingdom being eight joint-stock banks of issue, and their branches (the Mercant...

BANNOCKBURN, a village of Scotland, in Stirlingshire, 2 miles S.E. Stirling, famous for the decisive battle in which King Robert Bruce of Scotland defeated Edward II of England,...

BARBER, one whose occupation is to shave or trim the beard, or to cut and dress hair. The practice of surgery was formerly a part of the craft, and by an Act of Henry VIII the C...

BARIL'LA, is the commercial name for impure sodium carbonate imported from Spain and the Levant. At one time all sodium carbonate required for industrial purposes was prepared f...

BAROM'ETER, an instrument for measuring the weight or pressure of the atmosphere and thus determining changes in the weather, the height of mountains, and other phenomena. It ha...

BAR'ROW-IN-FUR'NESS, a seaport, county and parliamentary borough of Lancashire, in the district of Furness, opposite the Island of Walney, a town that has increased from a fishi...

BASE, in chemistry, a term applied to those compound substances which unite with acids to form salts. The most important bases are oxides of metals, and when brought in contact...

BASRA, BASSORA, or BASRAH, a city in Lower Mesopotamia, on the west bank of the Shat-el-Arab (the united stream of the Tigris and Euphrates), about 50 miles from its mouth, and...

BATAVIANS, an old German nation which inhabited a part of the present Holland, especially the island called _Batavia_, formed by that branch of the Rhine which empties itself in...

BAT'TERSEA, a municipal and parliamentary borough of London, in Surrey, in a low situation on the south bank of the Thames, nearly opposite Chelsea, with a fine public park exte...

_History._--The Bavarians take their name from the Boii, a Celtic tribe whose territory was occupied by a confederation of Germanic tribes, called after their predecessors Boiar...

BDELLIUM (del'i-um), an aromatic gum resin brought chiefly from Africa and India, in pieces of different sizes and figures, externally of a dark reddish brown, internally clear,...

BEATTIE (b[=e]'ti), James, a Scottish poet and philosophical writer, born at Laurencekirk, Kincardineshire, in 1735, died at Aberdeen 1803. He studied at Marischal College, Aber...

BECHUANAS, or BETCHUANAS (bech-wan'az), a widely-spread race of people inhabiting the central region of South Africa north of Cape Province. They belong to the great Kaffir stem...