(E. G.)
BIOLOGY(Gr.βίος, life). The biological sciences are those which deal with the phenomena manifested by living matter; and though it is customary and convenient to group apart such of these phenomena as are termed mental, and such of them as are exhibited by men in society, under the heads of psychology and sociology, yet it must be allowed that no natural boundary separates the subject matter of the latter sciences from that of biology. Psychology is inseparably linked with physiology; and the phases of social life exhibited by animals other than man, which sometimes curiously foreshadow human policy, fall strictly within the province of the biologist.
On the other hand, the biological sciences are sharply marked off from the abiological, or those which treat of the phenomena manifested by not-living matter, in so far as the properties of living matter distinguish it absolutely from all other kinds of things, and as the present state of knowledge furnishes us with no link between the living and the not-living.
These distinctive properties of living matter are—
1. Itschemical composition—containing, as it invariably does, one or more forms of a complex compound of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen, the so-called protein or albumin (which has never yet been obtained except as a productThe properties of living matter.of living bodies), united with a large proportion of water, and forming the chief constituent of a substance which, in its primary unmodified state, is known asprotoplasm.
2. Itsuniversal disintegration and waste by oxidation; and its concomitant reintegration by the intussusception of new matter.
A process of waste resulting from the decomposition of the molecules of the protoplasm, in virtue of which they break up into more highly oxidated products, which cease to form any part of the living body, is a constant concomitant of life. There is reason to believe that carbonic acid is always one of these waste products, while the others contain the remainder of the carbon, the nitrogen, the hydrogen and the other elements which may enter into the composition of the protoplasm.
The new matter taken in to make good this constant loss is either a ready-formed protoplasmic material, supplied by some other living being, or it consists of the elements of protoplasm, united together in simpler combinations, which consequently have to be built up into protoplasm by the agency of the living matter itself. In either case, the addition of molecules to those which already existed takes place, not at the surface of the living mass, but by interposition between the existing molecules of the latter. If the processes of disintegration and of reconstruction which characterize life balance one another, the size of the mass of living matter remains stationary, while, if the reconstructive process is the more rapid, the living bodygrows. But the increase of size which constitutes growth is the result of a process of molecular intussusception, and therefore differs altogether from the process of growth by accretion, which may be observed in crystals and is effected purely by the external addition of new matter—so that, in the well-known aphorism of Linnaeus, the word “grow” as applied to stones signifies a totally different process from what is called “growth” in plants and animals.
3. Itstendency to undergo cyclical changes.
In the ordinary course of nature, all living matter proceeds from pre-existing living matter, a portion of the latter being detached and acquiring an independent existence. The new form takes on the characters of that from which it arose; exhibits the same power of propagating itself by means of an offshoot; and, sooner or later, like its predecessor, ceases to live, and is resolved into more highly oxidated compounds of its elements.
Thus an individual living body is not only constantly changing its substance, but its size and form are undergoing continual modifications, the end of which is the death and decay of that individual; the continuation of the kind being secured by the detachment of portions which tend to run through the same cycle of forms as the parent. No forms of matter which are either not living, or have not been derived from living matter, exhibit these three properties, nor any approach to the remarkable phenomena defined under the second and third heads. But in addition to these distinctive characters, living matter has some other peculiarities, the chief of which are the dependence of all its activities upon moisture and upon heat, within a limited range of temperature, and the fact that it usually possesses a certain structure or organization.
As has been said, a large proportion of water enters into the composition of all living matter; a certain amount of drying arrests vital activity, and the complete abstraction of this water is absolutely incompatible with eitherLife conditioned by moisture.actual or potential life. But many of the simpler forms of life may undergo desiccation to such an extent as to arrest their vital manifestations and convert them into the semblance of not-living matter, and yet remain potentially alive. That is to say, on being duly moistened they return to life again. And this revivification may take place after months, or even years, of arrested life.
The properties of living matter are intimately related to temperature. Not only does exposure to heat sufficient to coagulate protein matter destroy life, by demolishing the molecular structure upon which life depends; butLife conditioned by temperature.all vital activity, all phenomena of nutritive growth, movement and reproduction are possible only between certain limits of temperature. These limits may be set down as from a little above the freezing point of water to a little below the boiling point It is to be noted, however, that these limits apply to the living matter itself, and many of the apparent exceptions are due to cases in which the living matter is enclosed in protective wrappings capable of resisting heat and cold. In many low organisms, such as the spores of bacteria, the thick, non-conducting wall may preserve the living protoplasm from subjection to external temperatures below freezing point, or above boiling point, but all the evidence goes to show that applications of such cold or heat, if prolonged or arranged so as to penetrate to the living matter, destroy life. In warm-blooded animals, such as birds and mammals, protective mechanisms for the regulation of temperature enable them to endure exposure to extreme heat or cold, but in such cases the actually living cells do not appreciably rise or fall in temperature. A variation of a very few degrees in the blood itself produces death.
Recent investigations point to the conclusion that the immediate cause of the arrest of vitality, in the first place, and of its destruction, in the second, is the coagulation of certain substances in the protoplasm, and that the latter contains various coagulable matters, which solidify at different temperatures. And it remains to be seen, how far the death of any form of living matter, at a given temperature, depends on the destruction of its fundamental substance at that heat, and how far death is brought about by the coagulation of merely accessory compounds.
It may be safely said of all those living things which are large enough to enable us to trust the evidence of microscopes, that they are heterogeneous optically, and that their different parts, and especially the surface layer, asLife and organization.contrasted with the interior, differ physically and chemically; while, in most living things, mere heterogeneity is exchanged for a definite structure, whereby the body is distinguished into visibly different parts, which possess different powers or functions. Living things which present this visible structure are said to beorganized; and so widely does organization obtain among living beings, thatorganizedandlivingare not unfrequently used as if they were terms of co-extensive applicability. This, however, is not exactly accurate, if it be thereby implied that all living things have a visible organization, as there are numerous forms of living matter of which it cannot properly be said that they possess either a definite structure or permanently specialized organs: though, doubtless, the simplest particle of living matter must possess a highly complex molecular structure, which is far beyond the reach of vision.
The broad distinctions which, as a matter of fact, exist between every known form of living substance and every other component of the material world, justify the separation of the biological sciences from all others. But it must not be supposed that the differences between living and not-living matter are such as to justify the assumption that the forces at work in the one are different from those which are to be met with in the other. Considered apart from the phenomena of consciousness, the phenomena of life are all dependent upon the working of the same physical and chemical forces as those which are active in the rest of the world. It may be convenient to use the terms “vitality” and “vital force” to denote the causes of certain great groups of natural operations, as we employ the names of “electricity” and “electrical force” to denote others; but it ceases to be proper to do so, if such a name implies the absurd assumption that “electricity” and “vitality” are entities playing the part of efficient causes of electrical or vital phenomena. A mass of living protoplasm is simply a molecular machine of great complexity, the total results of the working of which, or its vital phenomena, depend—on the one hand,upon its construction, and, on the other, upon the energy supplied to it; and to speak of “vitality” as anything but the name of a series of operations is as if one should talk of the “horologity” of a clock.
Living matter, or protoplasm and the products of its metamorphosis,Classification of the phenomena of life.may be regarded under four aspects:—
1. It has a certain external and internal form, the latter being more usually called structure;
2. It occupies a certain position in space and in time;
3. It is the subject of the operation of certain forces in virtue of which it undergoes internal changes, modifies external objects, and is modified by them; and
4. Its form, place and powers are the effects of certain causes.
In correspondence with these four aspects of its subject, biology is logically divisible into four chief subdivisions—I.Morphology; II.Distribution; III.Physiology; IV.Aetiology.
Various accidental circumstances, however, have brought it about that the actual distribution of scientific work does not correspond with the logical subdivisions of biology. The difference in technical methods and the historical evolution of teaching posts (for in all civilized countries the progress of biological knowledge has been very closely associated with the existence of institutions for the diffusion of knowledge and for professional education) have been the chief contributory causes to this practical confusion. Details of the morphology of plants will be found in the articles relating to the chief groups of plants, those of animals in the corresponding articles on groups of animals, while the classification of animals adopted in this work will be found in the articleZoology. Distribution is treated of underZoological Distribution,Plankton,PalaeontologyandPlants:Distribution.Physiologyand its allied articles deal with the subject generally and in relation to man, while the special physiology of plants is dealt with in a section of the articlePlants. Aetiology is treated of under the headingEvolution. But practical necessity has given rise to the existence of many other divisions; seeCytology, for the structure of cells;Embryology, for the development of individual organisms;HeredityandReproduction, for the relations between parents and offspring.
(T. H. H.; P. C. M.)
BION,Greek bucolic poet, was born at Phlossa near Smyrna, and flourished about 100B.C.The account formerly given of him, that he was the contemporary and imitator of Theocritus, the friend and tutor of Moschus, and lived about 280B.C., is now generally regarded as incorrect. W. Stein (De Moschi et Bionis aetate, Tübingen, 1893) puts Bion, chiefly on metrical grounds, in the first half of the 1st centuryB.C.Nothing is known of him except that he lived in Sicily. The story that he died of poison, administered to him by some jealous rivals, who afterwards suffered the penalty of their crime, is probably only an invention of the author of theἘπιτάφιος Βίωνος(seeMoschus). Although his poems are included in the general class of bucolic poetry, the remains show little of the vigour and truthfulness to nature characteristic of Theocritus. They breathe an exaggerated sentimentality, and show traces of the overstrained reflection frequently observable in later developments of pastoral poetry. The longest and best of them is theLament for Adonis(Ἐπιτάφιος Ἀδώνιδος). It refers to the first day of the festival of Adonis (q.v.), on which the death of the favourite of Aphrodite was lamented, thus forming an introduction to theAdoniazusaeof Theocritus, the subject of which is the second day, when the reunion of Adonis and Aphrodite was celebrated. Fragments of his other pieces are preserved in Stobaeus; the epithalamium of Achilles and Deidameia is not his.
Bion and Moschus have been edited separately by G. Hermann (1849) and C. Ziegler (Tübingen, 1869), theEpitaphios Adonidosby H.L. Ahrens (1854) and E. Hiller inBeiträge zur Textegeschichte der griechischen Bukoliker(1888). Bion’s poems are generally included in the editions of Theocritus. There are English translations by J. Banks (1853) in Bohn’sClassical Library, and by Andrew Long (1889), with Theocritus and Moschus; there is an edition of the text by U. Wilamowitz-Möllendorff in the OxfordScriptorum Classicorum Bibliotheca(1905). On the date of Bion see F. Bücheler inRheinisches Museum, xxx. (1875), pp. 33-41; also G. Knaack in Pauly-Wissowa’sRealencyclopädie, s.v.; and F. Susemihl,Geschichte der griechischen Litteratur in der Alexandrinerzeit, i. (1891), p. 233.
Bion and Moschus have been edited separately by G. Hermann (1849) and C. Ziegler (Tübingen, 1869), theEpitaphios Adonidosby H.L. Ahrens (1854) and E. Hiller inBeiträge zur Textegeschichte der griechischen Bukoliker(1888). Bion’s poems are generally included in the editions of Theocritus. There are English translations by J. Banks (1853) in Bohn’sClassical Library, and by Andrew Long (1889), with Theocritus and Moschus; there is an edition of the text by U. Wilamowitz-Möllendorff in the OxfordScriptorum Classicorum Bibliotheca(1905). On the date of Bion see F. Bücheler inRheinisches Museum, xxx. (1875), pp. 33-41; also G. Knaack in Pauly-Wissowa’sRealencyclopädie, s.v.; and F. Susemihl,Geschichte der griechischen Litteratur in der Alexandrinerzeit, i. (1891), p. 233.
BION,of Borysthenes (Olbia), in Sarmatia, Greek moralist and philosopher, flourished in the first half of the 3rd centuryB.C.He was of low origin, his mother being a courtesan and his father a dealer in salt fish, with which he combined the occupation of smuggling. Bion, when a young man, was sold as a slave to a rhetorician, who gave him his freedom and made him his heir. After the death of his patron, Bion went to Athens to study philosophy. Here he attached himself in succession to the Academy, the Cynics, the Cyrenaics and the Peripatetics. One of his teachers was the Cyrenaic Theodorus, called “the atheist,” whose influence is clearly shown in Bion’s attitude towards the gods. After the manner of the sophists of the period, Bion travelled through Greece and Macedonia, and was admitted to the literary circle at the court of Antigonus Gonatas. He subsequently taught philosophy at Rhodes and died at Chalcis in Euboea. His life was written by Diogenes Laertius. Bion was essentially a popular writer, and in hisDiatribaehe satirized the follies of mankind in a manner calculated to appeal to the sympathies of a low-class audience. While eulogizing poverty and philosophy, he attacked the gods, musicians, geometricians, astrologers, and the wealthy, and denied the efficacy of prayer. His influence is distinctly traceable in succeeding writers,e.g.in the satires of Menippus. Horace (Epistles, ii. 2. 60) alludes to his satires and caustic wit (sal nigrum). An idea of his writings can be gathered from the fragments of Teles, a cynic philosopher who lived towards the end of the 3rd century, and who made great use of them. Specimens of his apophthegms may be found in Diogenes Laertius and the florilegium of Stobaeus, while there are traces of his influence in Seneca.
See Hoogvliet,De Vita, Doctrina, et Scriptis Bionis(1821); Rossignol,Fragmenta Bionis Borysthenitae(1830); Heinze,De Horatio Bionis Imitatore(1889).
See Hoogvliet,De Vita, Doctrina, et Scriptis Bionis(1821); Rossignol,Fragmenta Bionis Borysthenitae(1830); Heinze,De Horatio Bionis Imitatore(1889).
BIOT, JEAN BAPTISTE(1774-1862), French physicist, was born at Paris on the 21st of April 1774. After serving for a short time in the artillery, he was appointed in 1797 professor of mathematics at Beauvais, and in 1800 he became professor of physics at the Collège de France, through the influence of Laplace, from whom he had sought and obtained the favour of reading the proof sheets of theMécanique céleste. Three years later, at an unusually early age, he was elected a member of the Academy of Sciences, and in 1804 he accompanied Gay Lussac on the first balloon ascent undertaken for scientific purposes. In 1806 he was associated with F.J.D. Arago, with whom he had already carried out investigations on the refractive properties of different gases, in the measurement of an arc of the meridian in Spain, and in subsequent years he was engaged in various other geodetic determinations. In 1814 he was made chevalier and in 1849 commander, of the Legion of Honour. He failed in his ambition of becoming perpetual secretary of the Academy of Sciences, but was somewhat consoled by his election as a member of the French Academy in 1856. He died in Paris on the 3rd of February 1862. His researches extended to almost every branch of physical science, but his most important work was of an optical character. He was especially interested in questions relating to the polarization of light, and his observations in this field, which gained him the Rumford medal of the Royal Society in 1840, laid the foundations of the polarimetric analysis of sugar.
Biot was an extremely prolific writer, and besides a great number of scientific memoirs, biographies, &c., his published works include:Analyse de la mécanique céleste de M. Laplace(1801);Traité analytique des courbes et des surfaces du second degré(1802);Recherches sur l’intégration des équations différentielles partielles et sur les vibrations des surfaces(1803);Traité de physique(1816);Recueil d’observations géodésiques, astronomiques et physiques exécutées en Espagne et Écosse, with Arago (1821);Mémoire sur la vraie constitution de l’atmosphère terrestre(1841);Traité élementaire d’astronomie physique(1805);Recherches surplusieurs points de l’astronomie égyptienne(1823);Recherches sur l’ancienne astronomie chinoise(1840);Études sur l’astronomie indienne et sur l’astronomie chinoise(1862);Essai sur l’histoire générale des sciences pendant la Révolution(1803);Discours sur Montaigne(1812);Lettres sur l’approvisionnement de Paris et sur le commerce des grains(1835);Mélanges scientifiques et littéraires(1858).
His son,Edouard Constant Biot(1803-1850), after amassing a competence from railway engineering, turned to the study of Chinese subjects, and publishedCauses de l’abolition de l’esclavage ancien en occident(1840);Dictionnaire des noms anciens et modernes des villes et des arrondissements compris dans l’empire chinois(1842);Essai sur l’histoire de l’instruction publique en Chine et de la corporation des lettres(1847);Mémoire sur les colonies militaires et agricoles des chinois(1850).
BIOTITE,an important rock-forming mineral belonging to the group of micas (q.v.). The name was given by J.F.L. Hausmann in 1847 in honour of the French physicist, J.B. Biot, who in 1816 found the magnesia-micas to be optically uniaxial or nearly so. The magnesia-micas are now referred to the species biotite and phlogopite, which differ in that the former contains a considerable but widely varying amount of iron. Biotite is an orthosilicate of aluminium, magnesium, ferrous and ferric iron, potassium and basic hydrogen, with small amounts of calcium, sodium, lithium, fluorine, titanium, &c., and ranges in composition between (H, K)2(Mg, Fe)4(Al, Fe)2(SiO4)4and (H, K)2(Mg, Fe)2Al2(SiO4)3.
Like the other micas, it is monoclinic with pseudo-hexagonal symmetry (figs. 1, 2) and possesses a perfect cleavage in one direction (c). Biotite is, however, readily distinguished by its darker colour, strong pleochroism, and small optic axial angle. The colour is usually dark-green or brown; thick crystals are often deep-black and opaque. The absorption of light-rays vibrating parallel to the cleavage is much greater than of rays vibrating in a direction perpendicular thereto, and in dark-coloured crystals the former are almost completely absorbed. The angle between the optic axes is usually very small, the crystals being often practically uniaxial; an axial angle of 50° has, however, been recorded in a dark-coloured biotite. The specific gravity of biotite is, as a rule, higher than that of other micas, varying from 2.7 to 3.1 according to the amount of iron present. The hardness is 2½ to 3.
Several varieties of biotite are distinguished. By G. Tschermak it is divided into two classes,meroxeneandanomite; in the former the plane of the optic axis coincides with the plane of symmetry, whilst in the latter it is perpendicular thereto. Meroxene includes nearly all ordinary biotite, and is the name given by A. Breithaupt in 1841 to the Vesuvian crystals; on the other hand, anomite (named fromἄνομος, “contrary to law”) is of rare occurrence. Haughtonite and siderophyllite are black varieties rich in ferrous iron, and lepidomelane (fromλεπίς, a scale, andμέλας, black) is a variety rich in ferric iron. In barytobiotite and manganophyllite the magnesia is partly replaced by baryta and manganous oxide respectively. Rubellane, hydrobiotite, pseudobiotite, and others are altered forms of biotite, which is a mineral particularly liable to decomposition with the production of chlorites and vermiculites.
Biotite is a common constituent of igneous and crystalline rocks; in granite, gneiss and mica-schist it is often associated with muscovite (white mica), the two kinds having sometimes grown in parallel position. In volcanic rocks, and in nearly all other kinds of igneous rocks with the exception of granite, biotite occurs to the exclusion of the muscovite. In the dyke-rocks known as mica-traps or mica-lamprophyres biotite is especially abundant. It is also one of the most characteristic products of contact-metamorphism, being developed in sedimentary and other rocks at their contact with granite masses. In the ejected blocks of crystalline limestone of Monte Somma, Vesuvius, the most perfectly developed crystals of biotite (figs. 1, 2), or indeed of any of the micas, are found in abundance, associated with brilliant crystals of augite, olivine, humite, &c.
Although biotite (black mica) is much more common and widely distributed than white mica, yet it is of far less economic importance. The small size of the sheets, their dark colour and want of transparency render the material of little value. Large, cleavable masses yielding fine smoky-black and green sheets, sufficiently elastic for industrial purposes, are, however, found in Renfrew county, Ontario.
(L. J. S.)
BIPARTITE(from the Lat.bi-, two, andpartire, to divide). In a general sense, the word means having two corresponding parts or in duplicate. In geometry, a bipartite curve consists of two distinct branches (seeParabola, figs. 3, 5). In botany, the word is applied to leaves divided into two parts near the base. Abipartient factoris a number whose square exactly divides another number. In zoology, theBipartitiwas a name given by P.A. Latreille to a group of carnivorousColeoptera.
BIPONT EDITIONS,the name of a famous series of editions, in 50 volumes, of Greek and Latin classical authors, so called from Bipontium, the modern Latin name of Zweibrücken or Deux-Ponts in Bavaria, where they were first issued in 1779. Their place of publication was afterwards transferred to Strassburg.
See Butters,Ûber die Editiones Bipontinae(1877).
See Butters,Ûber die Editiones Bipontinae(1877).
BIQUADRATIC(from the Lat.bi-, bis, twice, andquadratus, squared). In mathematics, the biquadratic power or root of a quantity is its fourth power or root (seeAlgebra); a biquadratic equation is an equation in which the highest power of the unknown is the fourth (seeEquation:Biquadratic).
BIQUINTILE(from Lat. prefixbi-, twice,quintilis, fifth), the aspect of two planets which are distant from each other twice the fifth part of a great circle,i.e.144°. It was one of the new aspects introduced by Kepler.
BIRBHUM,a district of British India in the Burdwan division of Bengal, situated in the Gangetic plain and partly on the hills, being bounded on the south by the river Ajai. The administrative headquarters are at Suri, which is the only town in the district. The area comprises 1752 sq. m. The eastern portion of the district is the ordinary alluvial plain of the Gangetic delta; the western part consists of undulating beds of laterite resting on a rock basis, and covered with small scrub jungle. The Ajai, Bakheswar and Mor or Maurakshi, are the principal rivers of the district, but they are merely hill streams and only navigable in the rains. In 1901 the population was 902,280, showing an increase of 13% in the decade. The principal industry is the spinning and weaving of silk, chiefly from tussur or jungle silkworms. There are also several lac factories. The loop-line of the East Indian railway runs through the district, with a junction at Nalhati for Murshidabad.
History.—Birbhum in the early part of the 13th century was a Hindu state, with its capital at Rajnagar or Nagar. In the course of the century it was conquered by the Pathans and formed part of the Pathan kingdom of Bengal. At the beginning of the 18th century it appears as a kind of military fief held under the nawab of Murshidabad by one Asadullah Pathan, whose family had probably been its chieftains since the fall of the Pathan dynasty of Bengal in 1600. It passed into British possession in 1765, but the East India Company did not assume its direct government until 1787, when that course became necessary. In the interval it had been a prey to armed bands from the highlands of Chota Nagpur, with whom the raja was unable to cope, and who practically brought the trade of the Company in the district to a standstill. The two border principalities of Birbhum and Bankura were accordingly united into a district under a British collector, being, however, separated again in 1793. By 1789, afterconsiderable trouble, the marauders were driven back into their mountains, and since that time (except during the Santal rising of 1855) the district has been one of the most peaceful and prosperous in India.
SeeImperial Gazetteer of India(Oxford, 1908), vol. viii.s.v.
SeeImperial Gazetteer of India(Oxford, 1908), vol. viii.s.v.
BIRCH, SAMUEL(1813-1885), English Egyptologist and antiquary, was born on the 3rd of November 1813, being the son of the rector of St Mary Woolnoth, London. From an early age he manifested a tendency to the study of out-of-the-way subjects, and after a brief employment in the Record Office obtained in 1836 an appointment in the antiquities department of the British Museum on account of his knowledge of Chinese. He soon extended his researches to Egyptian, and when the cumbrous department came to be divided he was appointed to the charge of the Egyptian and Assyrian branch. In the latter language he had assistance, but for many years there was only one other person in the institution—in a different department—who knew anything of ancient Egyptian, and the entire arrangement of the department devolved upon Birch. He found time nevertheless for Egyptological work of the highest value, including a hieroglyphical grammar and dictionary, translations ofThe Book of the Deadand the Harris papyrus, and numerous catalogues and guides. He further wrote what was long a standard history of pottery, investigated the Cypriote syllabary, and proved by various publications that he had not lost his old interest in Chinese. Paradoxical in many of his views on things in general, he was sound and cautious as a philologist; while learned and laborious, he possessed much of the instinctive divination of genius. He died on the 27th of December 1885.
BIRCH, THOMAS(1705-1766), English historian, son of Joseph Birch, a coffee-mill maker, was born at Clerkenwell on the 23rd of November 1705. He preferred study to business, but as his parents were Quakers he did not go to the university. Notwithstanding this circumstance, he was ordained deacon in the Church of England in 1730 and priest in 1731. As a strong supporter of the Whigs, he gained the favour of Philip Yorke, afterwards lord chancellor and first earl of Hardwicke, and his subsequent preferments were largely due to this friendship. He held successively a number of benefices in different counties, and finally in London. In 1735 he became a member of the Society of Antiquaries, and was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, of which he was secretary from 1752 to 1765. In 1728 he had married Hannah Cox, who died in the following year. Birch was killed on the 9th of January 1766 by a fall from his horse, and was buried in the church of St Margaret Pattens, London, of which he was then rector. He left his books and manuscripts to the British Museum, and a sum of about £500 to increase the salaries of the three assistant librarians.
Birch had an enormous capacity for work and was engaged in a large number of literary undertakings. In spite of their dulness many of his works are of considerable value, although Horace Walpole questioned his “parts, taste and judgment.” He carried on an extensive correspondence with some of the leading men of his time, and many of his letters appear inLiterary Anecdotes of the 18th Century(London, 1812-1815) andIllustrations of the Literary History of the 18th Century(London, 1817-1858) by J. Nichols, in theBibliotheca Topographica Britannica, vol. iii. (London, 1780-1790), and in Boswell’sLife of Johnson. Birch wrote most of the English lives in theGeneral Dictionary, Historical and Critical, 10 vols. (London, 1734-1741), assisted in the composition of theAthenian Letters(London, 1810), edited theState Papersof John Thurloe (London, 1742) and theState Papersof W. Murdin (London, 1759). He also wrote aLife of the Right Honourable Robert Boyle(London, 1744);Inquiry into the share which King Charles I. had in the transactions of the Earl of Glamorgan for bringing over a body of Irish rebels(London, 1756);Historical view of Negotiations between the Courts of England, France and Brussels 1592-1617(London, 1749);Life of Archbishop Tillotson(London, 1753);Memoirs of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth from 1581(London, 1754);History of the Royal Society of London(London, 1756-1757);Life of Henry, Prince of Wales(London, 1760), and many other works. Among the papers left at his death were some which were published in 1848 as theCourt and Times of James I. and theCourt and Times of Charles I.
See W.P. Courtney in theDictionary of National Biography, vol. v. (1886); A. Kippis,Biographia Britannica(London, 1778-1793); Horace Walpole,Letters(London, 1891).
See W.P. Courtney in theDictionary of National Biography, vol. v. (1886); A. Kippis,Biographia Britannica(London, 1778-1793); Horace Walpole,Letters(London, 1891).
BIRCH(Betula), a genus of plants allied to the alder (Alnus), and like it a member of the natural orderBetulaceae. The various species of birch are mostly trees of medium size, but several of them are merely shrubs. They are as a rule of a very hardy character, thriving best in northern latitudes—the trees having round, slender branches, and serrate, deciduous leaves, with barren and fertile catkins on the same tree, and winged fruits, the so-called seeds. The bark in most of the trees occurs in fine soft membranous layers, the outer cuticle of which peels off in thin, white, papery sheets.
The common white or silver birch (B. alba) (see fig.) grows throughout the greater part of Europe, and also in Asia Minor, Siberia and North America, reaching in the north to the extreme limits of forest vegetation, and stretching southward on the European continent as a forest tree to 45° N. lat., beyond which birches occur only in special situations or as isolated trees. It is well known in England for its graceful habit, the slender, grey—or white—barked stem, the delicate, drooping branches and the quivering leaves, a bright, clear green in spring, becoming duller in the summer, but often keeping their greenness rather late into the autumn. The male and female flowers are borne on separate catkins in April and May. It is a shortlived tree, generally from 40 to 50 ft. high with a trunk seldom more than 1 ft. in diameter. It flourishes in light soils and is one of the few trees that will grow amongst heather; owing to the large number of “winged seeds” which are readily scattered by the wind, it spreads rapidly, springing up where the soil is dry and covering clearings or waste places.
The birch is one of the most wide-spread and generally useful of forest trees of Russia, occurring in that empire in vast forests, in many instances alone, and in other cases mingled with pines, poplars and other forest trees. The wood is highly valued by carriage-builders, upholsterers and turners, on account of its toughness and tenacity, and in Russia it is prized as firewood and a source of charcoal. A very extensive domestic industry in Russia consists in the manufacture of wooden spoons, which are made to the extent of 30,000,000 annually, mostly of birch. Its pliant and flexible branches are made into brooms; and in ancient Rome the fasces of the lictors, with which they cleared the way for the magistrates, were made up of birch rods. A similar use of birch rods has continued among pedagogues to times so recent that the birch is yet, literally or metaphorically, the instrument of school-room discipline. The bark of the common birch is much more durable, and industrially of greatervalue, than the wood. It is impermeable to water, and is therefore used in northern countries for roofing, for domestic utensils, for boxes and jars to contain both solid and liquid substances, and for a kind of bark shoes, of which it is estimated 25 millions of pairs are annually worn by the Russian peasantry. The jars and boxes of birch bark made by Russian peasants are often stamped with very effective patterns. By dry distillation the bark yields an empyreumatic oil, calleddiogottin Russia, used in the preparation of Russia leather; to this oil the peculiar pleasant odour of the leather is due. The bark itself is used in tanning; and by the Samoiedes and Kamchatkans it is ground up and eaten on account of the starchy matter it contains. A sugary sap is drawn from the trunk in the spring before the opening of the leaf-buds, and is fermented into a kind of beer and vinegar. The whole tree, but especially the bark and leaves, has a very pleasant resinous odour, and from the young leaves and buds an essential oil is distilled with water. The leaves are used as fodder in northern latitudes.
The species which belong peculiarly to America (B. lenta, excelsa, nigra, papyracea, &c.) are generally similar in appearance and properties toB. alba, and have the same range of applications. The largest and most valuable is the black birch (B. lenta) found abundantly over an extensive area in British North America, growing 60 to 70 ft. high and 2 to 3 ft. in diameter. It is a wood most extensively used for furniture and for carriage-building, being tough in texture and bearing shocks well, while much of it has a handsome grain and it is susceptible of a fine polish. The bark, which is dark brown or reddish, and very durable, is used by Indians and backwoodsmen in the same way as the bark ofB. albais used in northern Europe.
The canoe or paper birch (B. papyracea) is found as far north as 70° N. on the American continent, but it becomes rare and stunted in the Arctic circle. Professor Charles Sprague Sargent says: “It is one of the most widely distributed trees of North America. From Labrador it ranges to the southern shores of Hudson’s Bay and to those of the Great Bear Lake, and to the valley of the Yukon and the coast of Alaska, forming with the aspen, the larch, the balsam poplar, the banksian pine, the black and white spruces and the balsam fir, the great subarctic transcontinental forest; and southward it ranges through all the forest region of the Dominion of Canada and the northern states.” It is a tree of the greatest value to the inhabitants of the Mackenzie river district in British North America. Its bark is used for the construction of canoes, and for drinking-cups, dishes and baskets. From the wood, platters, axe-handles, snow-shoe frames, and dog sledges are made, and it is worked into articles of furniture which are susceptible of a good polish. The sap which flows in the spring is drawn off and boiled down to an agreeable spirit, or fermented with a birch-wine of considerable alcoholic strength. The bark is also used as a substitute for paper. A species (B. Bhojputtra) growing on the Himalayan Mountains, as high up as 9000 ft., yields large quantities of fine thin papery bark, extensively sent down to the plains as a substitute for wrapping paper, for covering the “snakes” of hookahs and for umbrellas. It is also said to be used as writing paper by the mountaineers; and in Kashmir it is in general use for roofing houses.
BIRCH-PFEIFFER, CHARLOTTE(1800-1868), German actress and dramatic writer, was born at Stuttgart on the 23rd of June 1800, the daughter of an estate agent named Pfeiffer. She received her early training at the Munich court theatre, and in 1818 began to play leading tragic rôles at various theatres. In 1825 she married the historian Christian Birch of Copenhagen, but continued to act. From 1837 to 1843 she managed the theatre at Zürich. In 1844 she accepted an engagement at the royal theatre in Berlin, to which she remained attached until her death on the 24th of August 1868. Her intimate knowledge of the technical necessities of the stage fitted her for the successful dramatization of many popular novels, and her plays, adapted and original, make twenty-three volumes,Gesammelte dramatische Werke(Leip. 1863-1880). Many still retain the public favour. Her novels and tales,Gesammelte Novellen und Erzählungen, were collected in three volumes (Leip. 1863-1865).
Her daughter,Wilhelmine von Hillern(b. 1836), born at Munich, went on the stage, but retired upon her marriage in 1857. After 1889 she lived in Oberammergau and won a reputation as a novelist. Her most popular works areEin Arzt der Seele(1869, 4th ed. 1886); andDie Geier-Wally(1883), which was dramatized and translated into English asThe Vulture Maiden(Leip. 1876).
BIRD,the common English name for feathered vertebrates, members of the classAves. The word in Old Eng. isbridand in Mid. Eng.byrdorbryd, and in early uses meant the young or nestlings only. It is partly due to this early meaning that the derivation from the root of “brood” has been usually accepted; this theNew English Dictionaryregards as “inadmissible.” The word does not occur in any other Teutonic language. As a generic name for the feathered vertebrates “bird” has replaced the older “fowl,” a common Teutonic word, appearing in German asVogel. “Bird,” when it passed from its earliest meaning of “nestlings,” seems to have been applied to the smaller, and “fowl” to the larger species, a distinction which was retained by Johnson. In modern usage “fowl,” except in “wild-fowl” or “water-fowl,” is confined to domestic poultry.
The scope of the anatomical part of the following article is a general account of the structure of birds (Aves) in so far as they, as a class, differ from other vertebrates, notably reptiles and mammals, whilst features especially characteristic, peculiar or unique, have been dwelt upon at greater length so far as space permitted. References to original papers indicate further sources of information. For a comprehensive account the reader may be referred to Prof. M. Fürbringer’s enormous workUntersuchungen zur Morphologie und Systematik der Vögel, 4to., 2 vols. (1888); H.G. Bronn’sKlassen und Ordnungen des Thierreichs, vol. vi., “Aves,” Leipzig, completed 1893 by Gadow; and A. Newton’sDictionary of Birds, London, 1896. For the history of the classification of birds see the articleOrnithology, where also the more important ornithological works are mentioned.Egg,Feather(including Moult),Migration, &c., also form separate articles to which reference should be made. In this article (A) the general anatomy of birds is discussed, (B) fossil birds, (C) the geographical distribution of birds, (D) the latest classification of birds.
A. Anatomy of Birds
1.Skeleton.
Skull.—When W.K. Parker wrote the account of the skull in the articleBirdsfor the 9th edition of theEncyclopaedia Britannica, he had still to wrestle with the general problem of the composition and evolution of the skull. That chapter of comparative anatomy (together with other anatomical details, for which see the separate articles) is now dealt with in the articleSkull; here only the most avine features are alluded to, and since some of Parker’s original illustrations have been retained, the description has been shortened considerably.