Mechanical Stoking.—Most boilers are hand-fired, a system involving much labour and frequent openings of the furnace doors, whereby large quantities of cold air are admitted above the fires. Many systems of mechanical stoking have been tried, but none has been found free from objections. That most usually employed is known as the “chain-grate” stoker. In this system, which is illustrated in fig. 13 (Woodeson boiler), the grate consists of a wide endless chain formed of short cast-iron bars; this passes over suitable drums at the front and back of the boiler, by the slow rotation of which the grate travels very slowly from front to back. The coal, which is broken small, is fed from a hopper over the whole width of the grate, the thickness of the fire being regulated by a door which can be raised or lowered as desired. Thus the volatile portions of the coal are distilled at the front of the fire, and pass over the incandescent fuel at the back end. The speed of travel is so regulated that by the time the remaining parts of the fuel reach the back end the combustion is nearly complete. It will be seen that the fire becomes thinner towards the back, and too much air is prevented from entering the thin portion by means of vanes actuated from the front of the boiler.
Draught.—In most boilers the draught necessary for combustion is “natural,”i.e.produced by a chimney. For marine purposes, although “natural” draught is the more common, many boiler installations are fitted with “forced” draught arrangements. Two distinct systems are used. In that known as the “closed stokehold” the stokehold compartment of the vessel is so closed that the only exit for air from it is through the fires. Air is driven into the stokehold by means of fans which are made so that they can maintain an air pressure in the stokehold above that of the outside atmosphere. This is the system almost universally adopted in war vessels, and it is used also in some fast passenger ships. The air pressure usually adopted in large vessels is that corresponding to a height of from 1 to 1½ in. of water, whilst so much as 4 in. is sometimes used in torpedo-boats and similar craft. This is, of course, in addition to the chimney-draught due to the height of the funnel. In the closed ashpit or Howden system, the stokehold is open, and fans drive the air round a number of tubes, situated in the uptake, through which the products of combustion pass on their way to the chimney. The air thus becomes heated, and part of it is then delivered into the ashpit below the fire and part into a casing round the furnace front from which it enters the furnace above the fire. In locomotive boilers the draught is produced by the blast or the exhaust steam. With natural draught a combustion of about 15 to 20 ℔ of coal per sq. ft. of grate area per hour can be obtained. With forced draught much greater rates can be maintained, ranging from 20 ℔ to 35 ℔ in the larger vessels with a moderate air pressure, to as much as 70 and even 80 ℔ per sq. ft. in the express types of boiler used in torpedo boats and similar craft.
Performance of Boilers.—The makers of several types of boilers have published particulars regarding the efficiency of the boilers they construct, but naturally these results have been obtained under the most favourable circumstances which may not always represent the conditions of ordinary working. The following table of actual results of marine boiler trials, made at the instance of the British admiralty, is particularly useful because the trials were made with great care under working conditions, the whole of the coal being weighed and the feed-water measured throughout the trials by skilled observers. The various trials can be compared amongst themselves as South Welsh coal of excellent quality was used in all cases.
In experimental tests such as those above referred to, many conditions have to be taken into account, the principal being the duration of the trial. It is essential that the condition of the boiler at the conclusion of the test should be precisely the same as at the commencement, both as regards the quantity of unconsumed coals on the fire-grate and the quantity of water and the steam-pressure in the boiler. The longer the period over which the observations are taken the less is the influence of errorsin the estimation of these particulars. Further, in order properly to represent working conditions, the rate of combustion of the fuel throughout the trial must be the same as that intended to be used in ordinary working, and the duration of the test must be sufficient to include proportionately as much cleaning of fires as would occur under the normal working conditions. The tests should always be made with the kind of coal intended to be generally used, and the records should include a test of the calorific value of a sample of the fuel carefully selected so as fairly to represent the bulk of the coal used during the trial. The periodic records taken are the weights of the fuel used and of the ashes, &c., produced, the temperature and quantity of the feed-water, the steam pressure maintained, and the wetness of the steam produced. This last should be ascertained from samples taken from the steam pipe at a position where the full pressure is maintained. In order to reduce to a common standard observations taken under different conditions of feed temperatures and steam pressures, the results are calculated to an equivalent evaporation at the atmospheric pressure from a feed temperature of 212° F.
(J. T. Mi.)
Trials of Various Types of Marine Boilers
Boiler Making
The practice of the boiler, bridge and girder shops may here be conveniently treated together, because similar materials and methods are employed in each, notwithstanding that many points of divergence in practice generally relegate them to separate departments. The materials used are chiefly iron and steel. The methods mostly adopted are those involved in the working of plates and rolled sections, which vastly predominate over the bars and rods used chiefly in the smithy. But there are numerous differences in methods of construction. Flanging occupies a large place in boilermaking, for end-plates, tube-plates, furnace flues, &c., but is scarcely represented in bridge and girder work. Plates are bent to cylindrical shapes in boilermaking, for shells and furnaces, but not in girder work. Welding is much more common in the first than in the second, furnace flues being always welded and stand pipes frequently. In boiler work holes are generally drilled through the seams of adjacent plates. In bridge work each plate or bar is usually drilled or punched apart from its fellows. Boilers, again, being subject to high temperatures and pressures, must be constructed with provisions to ensure some elasticity and freedom of movement under varying temperatures to prevent fractures or grooving, and must be made of materials that combine high ductility with strength when heated to furnace temperatures. Flanging of certain parts, judicious staying, limitation of the length of the tubes,the forms of which are inherently weak, provide for the first; the selection of steel or iron of high percentage elongation, and the imposition of temper, or bending tests, both hot and cold, provide for the second.
The following are the leading features of present-day methods.
It might be hastily supposed that, because plates, angles, tees, channels and joist sections are rolled ready for use, little work could be left for the plater and boilermaker. But actually so much is involved that subdivisions of tasks are numerous; the operations of templet-making, rolling, planing, punching and shearing, bending, welding and forging, flanging, drilling, riveting, caulking, and tubing require the labours of several groups of machine attendants, and of gangs of unskilled labourers or helpers. Some operations also have to be done at a red or white heat, others cold. To the first belong flanging and welding, to the latter generally all the other operations. Heating is necessary for the rolling of tubes of small diameter; bending is done cold or hot according to circumstances.Fig.20.—Thornycroft-Schulz Water-tube Boiler.The fact that some kinds of treatment, as shearing and punching, flanging and bending, are of a very violent character explains why practice has changed radically in regard to the method of performing these operations in cases where safety is a cardinal matter. Shearing and punching are both severely detrusive operations performed on cold metal; both leave jagged edges and, as experience has proved, very minute cracks, the tendency of which is to extend under subsequent stress, with liability to produce fracture. But it has been found that, when a shorn edge is planed and a punched hole enlarged by reamering, no harm results, provided not less than about1⁄16in. is removed. A great advance was therefore made when specifications first insisted on the removal of the rough edges before the parts were united.In the work of riveting another evil long existed. When holes are punched it is practically impossible to ensure the exact coincidence of holes in different plates which have to be brought together for the purpose of riveting. From this followed the use of the drift,—a tapered rod driven forcibly by hammer blows through corresponding holes in adjacent plates, by which violent treatment the holes were forcibly drawn into alignment. This drifting stressed the plates, setting up permanent strains and enlarging incipient cracks, and many boiler explosions have been clearly traceable to the abuse of this tool. Then, next, specifications insisted that all holes should be enlarged by reameringafterthe plates were in place. But even that did not prove a safeguard, because it often happened that the metal reamered was nearly all removed from one side of a hole, so leaving the other side just as the punch had torn it. Ultimately came the era of drilling rivet-holes, to which there is no exception now in high-class boiler work. For average girder and bridge work the practice of punching and reamering is still in use, because the conditions of service are not so severe as are those in steam boilers.Flanging signifies the turning or bending over of the edges of aplate to afford a means of union to other plates. Examples occur in the back end-plates of Lancashire and Cornish boilers, the front and back plates of marine boilers, the fire-boxes of locomotive boilers, the crowns of vertical boilers, the ends of conical cross-tubes, and the Adamson seams of furnace flues. This practice has superseded the older system of effecting union by means of rings forming two sides of a rectangular section (angle iron rings). These were a fruitful source of grooving and explosions in steam boilers, because their sharp angular form lacked elasticity; hence the reason for the substitution of a flange turned with a large radius, which afforded the elasticity necessary to counteract the effects of changes in temperature. In girder work where such conditions do not exist, the method of union with angles is of course retained. In the early days of flanging the process was performed in detail by a skilled workman (the angle ironsmith), and it is still so done in small establishments. A length of edge of about 10 in. or a foot is heated, and bent by hammering around the edge of a block of iron of suitable shape. Then another “heat” is taken and flanged, and another, until the work is complete. But in modern boiler shops little hand work is ever done; instead, plates 4 ft., 6 ft., or 8 ft. in diameter, and fire-box plates for locomotive boilers, have their entire flanges bent at a single squeeze between massive dies in a hydraulic press. In the case of the ends of marine boilers which are too large for such treatment, a special form of press bends the edges over in successive heats. The flanges of Adamson seams are rolled over in a special machine. A length of flue is rotated on a table, while the flange is turned over within a minute between revolving rollers. There is another advantage in the adoption of machine-flanging, besides the enormous saving of time, namely, that the material suffers far less injury than it does in hand-flanging.These differences in practice would not have assumed such magnitude but for the introduction of mild steel in place of malleable iron. Iron suffers less from overheating and irregular heating than does steel. Steel possesses higher ductility, but it is also more liable to develop cracks if subjected to improper treatment. All this and much more is writ large in the early testing of steel, and is reflected in present-day practice.A feature peculiar to the boiler and plating shops is the enormous number of rivet holes which have to be made, and of rivets to be inserted. These requirements are reflected in machine design. To punch or drill holes singly is too slow a process in the best practice, and so machines are made for producing many holes simultaneously. Besides this, the different sections of boilers are drilled in machines of different types, some for shells, some for furnaces, some peculiar to the shells or furnaces of one type of boilers, others to those of another type only. And generally now these machines not only drill, but can also be adjusted to drill to exact pitch, the necessity thus being avoided of marking out the holes as guides to the drills.Hand-riveting has mostly been displaced by hydraulic and pneumatic machines, with resulting great saving in cost, and the advantage of more trustworthy and uniform results. For boiler work, machines are mostly of fixed type; for bridge and girder work they are portable, being slung from chains and provided with pressure water or compressed air by systems of flexible pipes.Welding fills a large place in boiler work, but it is that of the edges of plates chiefly, predominating over that of the bars and rods of the smithy. The edges to be united are thin and long, so that short lengths have to be done in succession at successive “heats.” Much of this is hand work, and “gluts” or insertion pieces are generally preferred to overlapping joints. But in large shops, steam-driven power hammers are used for closing the welds. Parts that are commonly welded are the furnace flues, the conical cross-tubes and angle rings.Another aspect of the work of these departments is the immense proportions of the modern machine tools used. This development is due in great degree to the substitution of steel for iron. The steel shell-plates of the largest boilers are 1½ in. thick, and these have to be bent into cylindrical forms. In the old days of iron boilers the capacity of rolls never exceeded about ¾ in. plate. Often, alternatively to rolling, these thick plates are bent by squeezing them in successive sections between huge blocks operated by hydraulic pressure acting on toggle levers. And other machines besides the rolls are made more massive than formerly to deal with the immense plates of modern marine boilers.The boiler and plating shops have been affected by the general tendency to specialize manufactures. Firms have fallen into the practice of restricting their range of product, with increase in volume. The time has gone past when a single shop could turn out several classes of boilers, and undertake any bridge and girder work as well. One reason is to be found in the diminution of hand work and the growth of the machine tool. Almost every distinct operation on every section of a boiler or bridge may now be accomplished by one of several highly specialized machines. Repetitive operations are provided for thus, and by a system of templeting. If twenty or fifty similar boilers are made in a year, each plate, hole, flange or stay will be exactly like every similar one in the set. Dimensions of plates will be marked from a sample or templet plate, and holes will be marked similarly; or in many cases they are not marked at all, but pitched and drilled at once by self-acting mechanism embodied in drilling machines specially designed for one set of operations on one kind of plate. Hundreds of bracing bars for bridges and girders will be cut off all alike, and drilled or punched from a templet bar, so that they are ready to take their place in bridge or girder without any adjustments or fitting.
It might be hastily supposed that, because plates, angles, tees, channels and joist sections are rolled ready for use, little work could be left for the plater and boilermaker. But actually so much is involved that subdivisions of tasks are numerous; the operations of templet-making, rolling, planing, punching and shearing, bending, welding and forging, flanging, drilling, riveting, caulking, and tubing require the labours of several groups of machine attendants, and of gangs of unskilled labourers or helpers. Some operations also have to be done at a red or white heat, others cold. To the first belong flanging and welding, to the latter generally all the other operations. Heating is necessary for the rolling of tubes of small diameter; bending is done cold or hot according to circumstances.
The fact that some kinds of treatment, as shearing and punching, flanging and bending, are of a very violent character explains why practice has changed radically in regard to the method of performing these operations in cases where safety is a cardinal matter. Shearing and punching are both severely detrusive operations performed on cold metal; both leave jagged edges and, as experience has proved, very minute cracks, the tendency of which is to extend under subsequent stress, with liability to produce fracture. But it has been found that, when a shorn edge is planed and a punched hole enlarged by reamering, no harm results, provided not less than about1⁄16in. is removed. A great advance was therefore made when specifications first insisted on the removal of the rough edges before the parts were united.
In the work of riveting another evil long existed. When holes are punched it is practically impossible to ensure the exact coincidence of holes in different plates which have to be brought together for the purpose of riveting. From this followed the use of the drift,—a tapered rod driven forcibly by hammer blows through corresponding holes in adjacent plates, by which violent treatment the holes were forcibly drawn into alignment. This drifting stressed the plates, setting up permanent strains and enlarging incipient cracks, and many boiler explosions have been clearly traceable to the abuse of this tool. Then, next, specifications insisted that all holes should be enlarged by reameringafterthe plates were in place. But even that did not prove a safeguard, because it often happened that the metal reamered was nearly all removed from one side of a hole, so leaving the other side just as the punch had torn it. Ultimately came the era of drilling rivet-holes, to which there is no exception now in high-class boiler work. For average girder and bridge work the practice of punching and reamering is still in use, because the conditions of service are not so severe as are those in steam boilers.
Flanging signifies the turning or bending over of the edges of aplate to afford a means of union to other plates. Examples occur in the back end-plates of Lancashire and Cornish boilers, the front and back plates of marine boilers, the fire-boxes of locomotive boilers, the crowns of vertical boilers, the ends of conical cross-tubes, and the Adamson seams of furnace flues. This practice has superseded the older system of effecting union by means of rings forming two sides of a rectangular section (angle iron rings). These were a fruitful source of grooving and explosions in steam boilers, because their sharp angular form lacked elasticity; hence the reason for the substitution of a flange turned with a large radius, which afforded the elasticity necessary to counteract the effects of changes in temperature. In girder work where such conditions do not exist, the method of union with angles is of course retained. In the early days of flanging the process was performed in detail by a skilled workman (the angle ironsmith), and it is still so done in small establishments. A length of edge of about 10 in. or a foot is heated, and bent by hammering around the edge of a block of iron of suitable shape. Then another “heat” is taken and flanged, and another, until the work is complete. But in modern boiler shops little hand work is ever done; instead, plates 4 ft., 6 ft., or 8 ft. in diameter, and fire-box plates for locomotive boilers, have their entire flanges bent at a single squeeze between massive dies in a hydraulic press. In the case of the ends of marine boilers which are too large for such treatment, a special form of press bends the edges over in successive heats. The flanges of Adamson seams are rolled over in a special machine. A length of flue is rotated on a table, while the flange is turned over within a minute between revolving rollers. There is another advantage in the adoption of machine-flanging, besides the enormous saving of time, namely, that the material suffers far less injury than it does in hand-flanging.
These differences in practice would not have assumed such magnitude but for the introduction of mild steel in place of malleable iron. Iron suffers less from overheating and irregular heating than does steel. Steel possesses higher ductility, but it is also more liable to develop cracks if subjected to improper treatment. All this and much more is writ large in the early testing of steel, and is reflected in present-day practice.
A feature peculiar to the boiler and plating shops is the enormous number of rivet holes which have to be made, and of rivets to be inserted. These requirements are reflected in machine design. To punch or drill holes singly is too slow a process in the best practice, and so machines are made for producing many holes simultaneously. Besides this, the different sections of boilers are drilled in machines of different types, some for shells, some for furnaces, some peculiar to the shells or furnaces of one type of boilers, others to those of another type only. And generally now these machines not only drill, but can also be adjusted to drill to exact pitch, the necessity thus being avoided of marking out the holes as guides to the drills.
Hand-riveting has mostly been displaced by hydraulic and pneumatic machines, with resulting great saving in cost, and the advantage of more trustworthy and uniform results. For boiler work, machines are mostly of fixed type; for bridge and girder work they are portable, being slung from chains and provided with pressure water or compressed air by systems of flexible pipes.
Welding fills a large place in boiler work, but it is that of the edges of plates chiefly, predominating over that of the bars and rods of the smithy. The edges to be united are thin and long, so that short lengths have to be done in succession at successive “heats.” Much of this is hand work, and “gluts” or insertion pieces are generally preferred to overlapping joints. But in large shops, steam-driven power hammers are used for closing the welds. Parts that are commonly welded are the furnace flues, the conical cross-tubes and angle rings.
Another aspect of the work of these departments is the immense proportions of the modern machine tools used. This development is due in great degree to the substitution of steel for iron. The steel shell-plates of the largest boilers are 1½ in. thick, and these have to be bent into cylindrical forms. In the old days of iron boilers the capacity of rolls never exceeded about ¾ in. plate. Often, alternatively to rolling, these thick plates are bent by squeezing them in successive sections between huge blocks operated by hydraulic pressure acting on toggle levers. And other machines besides the rolls are made more massive than formerly to deal with the immense plates of modern marine boilers.
The boiler and plating shops have been affected by the general tendency to specialize manufactures. Firms have fallen into the practice of restricting their range of product, with increase in volume. The time has gone past when a single shop could turn out several classes of boilers, and undertake any bridge and girder work as well. One reason is to be found in the diminution of hand work and the growth of the machine tool. Almost every distinct operation on every section of a boiler or bridge may now be accomplished by one of several highly specialized machines. Repetitive operations are provided for thus, and by a system of templeting. If twenty or fifty similar boilers are made in a year, each plate, hole, flange or stay will be exactly like every similar one in the set. Dimensions of plates will be marked from a sample or templet plate, and holes will be marked similarly; or in many cases they are not marked at all, but pitched and drilled at once by self-acting mechanism embodied in drilling machines specially designed for one set of operations on one kind of plate. Hundreds of bracing bars for bridges and girders will be cut off all alike, and drilled or punched from a templet bar, so that they are ready to take their place in bridge or girder without any adjustments or fitting.
(J. G. H.)
BOILING TO DEATH,a punishment once common both in England and on the continent. The only extant legislative notice of it in England occurs in an act passed in 1531 during the reign of Henry VIII., providing that convicted poisoners should be boiled to death; it is, however, frequently mentioned earlier as a punishment for coining. TheChronicles of the Grey Friars(published by the Camden Society, 1852) have an account of boiling for poisoning at Smithfield in the year 1522, the man being fastened to a chain and lowered into boiling water several times until he died. The preamble of the statute of Henry VIII. (which made poisoning treason) in 1531 recites that one Richard Roose (or Coke), a cook, by putting poison in some food intended for the household of the bishop of Rochester and for the poor of the parish of Lambeth, killed a man and woman. He was found guilty of treason and sentenced to be boiled to death without benefit of clergy. He was publicly boiled at Smithfield. In the same year a maid-servant for poisoning her mistress was boiled at King’s Lynn. In 1542 Margaret Davy, a servant, for poisoning her employer, was boiled at Smithfield. In the reign of Edward VI., in 1547, the act was repealed.
See also W. Andrews,Old Time Punishments(Hull, 1890);Notes and Queries, vol. i. (1862), vol. ix. (1867); Du Cange (s.v.Caldariis decoquere).
See also W. Andrews,Old Time Punishments(Hull, 1890);Notes and Queries, vol. i. (1862), vol. ix. (1867); Du Cange (s.v.Caldariis decoquere).
BOIS BRÛLÉS,orBrulés(a French translation of their Indian nameSichangu), a sub-tribe of North American Dakota Indians (Teton river division). The name is most frequently associated with the half-breeds in Manitoba, who in 1869 came into temporary prominence in connexion with Riel’s Rebellion (seeRed River); at that time they had lost all tribal purity, and were alternatively calledMetis(half-castes), the majority being descendants of French-Canadians.
BOISÉ,a city and the county-seat of Ada county, Idaho, U.S.A., and the capital of the state, situated on the N. side of the Boisé river, in the S.W. part of the state, at an altitude of about 2700 ft. Pop. (1890) 2311; (1900) 5957; (1910) 17,358. It is served by the Oregon Short Line railway, being the terminus of a branch connecting with the main line at Nampa, about 20 m. W.; and by electric lines connecting with Caldwell and Nampa. The principal buildings are the state capitol, the United States assay office, a Carnegie library, a natatorium, and the Federal building, containing the post office, the United States circuit and district court rooms, and a U.S. land office. Boisé is the seat of the state school for the deaf and blind (1906), and just outside the city limits are the state soldiers’ home and the state penitentiary. About 2 m. from the city are Federal barracks. Hot water (175° F.) from artesian wells near the city is utilized for the natatorium and to heat many residences and public buildings. The Boisé valley is an excellent country for raising apples, prunes and other fruits. The manufactured products of the city are such as are demanded by a mining country, principally lumber, flour and machine-shop products. Boisé is the trade centre of the surrounding fruit-growing, agricultural and mining country, and is an important wool market. The oldest settlement in the vicinity was made by the Hudson’s Bay Fur Company on the west side of the Boisé river, before 1860; the present city, chartered in 1864, dates from 1863. After 1900 the city grew very rapidly, principally owing to the great irrigation schemes in southern Idaho; the water for the immense Boisé-Payette irrigation system is taken from the Boisé, 8 m. above the city. (SeeIdaho.)
BOISGOBEY, FORTUNÉ DU(1824-1891), French writer of fiction, whose real surname was Castille, was born at Granville (Manche) on the 11th of September 1824. He served in the army pay department in Algeria from 1844 to 1848, and extended his travels to the East. He made his literary debut in thePetit journalwith a story entitledDeux comédiens(1868). WithLe Forçat colonel(1872) he became one of the most popular feuilleton writers. His police stories, though not so convincingas those of Émile Gaboriau, with whom his name is generally associated, had a great circulation, and many of them have been translated into English. Among his stories may be mentioned:Les Mystères du nouveau Paris(1876),Le Demi-Monde sous la Terreur(1877),Les Nuits de Constantinople(1882),Le Cri du sang(1885),La Main froide(1889). Boisgobey died on the 26th of February 1891.
BOISGUILBERT, PIERRE LE PESANT,Sieur de(1676-1714), French economist, was born at Rouen of an ancient noble family of Normandy, allied to that of Corneille. He received his classical education in Rouen, entered the magistracy and became judge at Montivilliers, near Havre. In 1690 he became president of thebailliageof Rouen, a post which he retained almost until his death, leaving it to his son. In these two situations he made a close study of local economic conditions, personally supervising the cultivation of his lands, and entering into relations with the principal merchants of Rouen. He was thus led to consider the misery of the people under the burden of taxation. In 1695 he published his principal work,Le Détail de la France; la cause de la diminution de ses biens, et la facilité du remède.... In it he drew a picture of the general ruin of all classes of Frenchmen, caused by the bad economic régime. In opposition to Colbert’s views he held that the wealth of a country consists, not in the abundance of money which it possesses but in what it produces and exchanges. The remedy for the evils of the time was not so much the reduction as the equalization of the imposts, which would allow the poor to consume more, raise the production and add to the general wealth. He demanded the reform of thetaille, the suppression of internal customs duties and greater freedom of trade. In hisFactum de la France, published in 1705 or 1706, he gave a more conciserésuméof his ideas. But his proposal to substitute for all aides and customs duties a single capitation tax of a tenth of the revenue of all property was naturally opposed by the farmers of taxes and found little support. Indeed his work, written in a diffuse and inelegant style, passed almost unnoticed. Saint Simon relates that he once asked a hearing of the comte de Pontchartrain, saying that he would at first believe him mad, then become interested, and then see he was right. Pontchartrain bluntly told him that he did think him mad, and turned his back on him. With Michel de Chamillart, whom he had known as intendant of Rouen (1689-1690), he had no better success. Upon the disgrace of Vauban, whoseDîme royalehad much in common with Boisguilbert’s plan, Boisguilbert violently attacked the controller in a pamphlet,Supplément au détail de la France. The book was seized and condemned, and its author exiled to Auvergne, though soon allowed to return. At last in 1710 the controller-general, Nicolas Desmarets, established a new impost, the “tenth” (dixième), which had some analogy with the project of Boisguilbert. Instead of replacing the former imposts, however, Desmarets simply added hisdixièmeto them; the experiment was naturally disastrous, and the idea was abandoned.
In 1712 appeared aTestament politique de M. de Vauban, which is simply Boisguilbert’sDétail de la France. Vauban’sDîme royalewas formerly wrongly attributed to him. Boisguilbert’s works were collected by Daire in the first volume of theCollection des grands économistes. His letters are in theCorrespondance des contrôleurs généraux, vol. i., published by M. de Boislisle.
In 1712 appeared aTestament politique de M. de Vauban, which is simply Boisguilbert’sDétail de la France. Vauban’sDîme royalewas formerly wrongly attributed to him. Boisguilbert’s works were collected by Daire in the first volume of theCollection des grands économistes. His letters are in theCorrespondance des contrôleurs généraux, vol. i., published by M. de Boislisle.
BOISROBERT, FRANÇOIS LE METEL DE(1592-1662), French poet, was born at Caen in 1592. He was trained for the law, and practised for some time at the bar at Rouen. About 1622 he went to Paris, and by the next year had established a footing at court, for he had a share in the ballet of theBacchanalesperformed at the Louvre in February. He accompanied an embassy to England in 1625, and in 1630 visited Rome, where he won the favour of Urban VIII. by his wit. He took orders, and was made a canon of Rouen. He had been introduced to Richelieu in 1623, and by his humour and his talent as a raconteur soon made himself indispensable to the cardinal. Boisrobert became one of the five poets who carried out Richelieu’s dramatic ideas. He had a passion for play, and was a friend of Ninon de l’Enclos; and his enemies found ready weapons against him in the undisguised looseness of his life. He was more than once disgraced, but never for long, although in his later years he was compelled to give more attention to his duties as a priest. It was Boisrobert who suggested to Richelieu the plan of the Academy, and he was one of its earliest and most active members. Rich as he was through the benefices conferred on him by his patron, he was liberal to men of letters. After the death of Richelieu, he attached himself to Mazarin, whom he served faithfully throughout the Fronde. He died on the 30th of March 1662. He wrote a number of comedies, to one of which,La Belle Plaideuse, Molière’sL’Avareis said to owe something; and also some volumes of verse. The licentiousContes, published under the name of his brother D’Ouville, are often attributed to him.
BOISSARD, JEAN JACQUES(1528-1602), French antiquary and Latin poet, was born at Besançon. He studied at Louvain; but, disgusted by the severity of his master, he secretly left that seminary, and after traversing a great part of Germany reached Italy, where he remained several years and was often reduced to great straits. His residence in Italy developed in his mind a taste for antiquities, and he soon formed a collection of the most curious monuments from Rome and its vicinity. He then visited the islands of the Archipelago, with the intention of travelling through Greece, but a severe illness obliged him to return to Rome. Here he resumed his favourite pursuits with great ardour, and having completed his collection, returned to his native country; but not being permitted to profess publicly the Protestant religion, which he had embraced some time before, he withdrew to Metz, where he died on the 30th of October 1602. His most important works are:Poemata(1574);Emblemata(1584);Icones Virorum Illustrium(1597);Vitae et Icones Sultanorum Turcicorum, &c. (1597);Theatrum Vitae Humanae(1596);Romanae Urbis Topographia(1597-1602), now very rare;De Divinatione et Magicis Praestigiis(1605);Habitus Variarum Orbis Gentium(1581), ornamented with seventy illuminated figures.
BOISSIER, MARIE LOUIS ANTOINE GASTON(1823-1908), French classical scholar, and secretary of the French Academy, was born at Nimes on the 15th of August 1823. The Roman monuments of his native town very early attracted Gaston Boissier to the study of ancient history. He made epigraphy his particular theme, and at the age of twenty-three became a professor of rhetoric at Angoulême, where he lived and worked for ten years without further ambition. A travelling inspector of the university, however, happened to hear him lecture, and Boissier was called to Paris to be professor at the Lycée Charlemagne. He began his literary career by a thesis on the poet Attius (1857) and a study on the life and work of M. Terentius Varro (1861). In 1861 he was made professor of Latin oratory at the Collège de France, and he became an active contributor to theRevue des deux mondes. In 1865 he publishedCicéron et ses amis(Eng. trans, by A.D. Jones, 1897), which has enjoyed a success such as rarely falls to the lot of a work of erudition. In studying the manners of ancient Rome, Boissier had learned to re-create its society and to reproduce its characteristics with exquisite vivacity. In 1874 he publishedLa Religion romaine d’Auguste aux Antonins(2 vols.), in which he analysed the great religious movement of antiquity that preceded the acceptance of Christianity. InL’Opposition sous les Césars(1875) he drew a remarkable picture of the political decadence of Rome under the early successors of Augustus. By this time Boissier had drawn to himself the universal respect of scholars and men of letters, and on the death of H.J.G. Patin, the author ofÉtudes sur les tragiques grecs, in 1876, he was elected a member of the French Academy, of which he was appointed perpetual secretary in 1895.
His later works includePromenades archéologiques: Rome et Pompéi(1880; second series, 1886);L’Afrique romaine, promenades archéologiques(1901);La Fin du paganisme(2 vols., 1891);Le Conjuration de Catilina(1905);Tacite(1903, Eng. trans, by W.G. Hutchison, 1906). He was a representative example of the French talent for lucidity and elegance appliedwith entire seriousness to weighty matters of literature. Though he devoted himself mainly to his great theme, the reconstruction of the elements of Roman society, he also wrote monographs onMadame de Sévigné(1887) andSaint-Simon(1892). He died in June 1908.
BOISSONADE DE FONTARABIE, JEAN FRANÇOIS(1774-1857), French classical scholar, was born at Paris on the 12th of August 1774. In 1792 he entered the public service during the administration of General Dumouriez. Driven from it in 1795, he was restored by Lucien Bonaparte, during whose time of office he served as secretary to the prefecture of the Upper Marne. He then definitely resigned public employment and devoted himself to the study of Greek. In 1809 he was appointed deputy professor of Greek at the faculty of letters at Paris, and titular professor in 1813 on the death of P.H. Larcher. In 1828 he succeeded J.B. Gail in the chair of Greek at the Collège de France. He also held the offices of librarian of the Bibliothèque du Roi, and of perpetual secretary of the Académie des Inscriptions. He died on the 8th of September 1857. Boissonade chiefly devoted his attention to later Greek literature: Philostratus,Heroica(1806) andEpistolae(1842); Marinus,Vita procli(1814); Tiberius Rhetor,De Figuris(1815); Nicetas Eugenianus,Drosilla et Charicles(1819); Herodian,Partitiones(1819); Aristaenetus,Epistolae(1822); Eunapius,Vitae Sophistarum(1822); Babrius,Fables(1844); Tzetzes,Allegoriae Iliados(1851); and aCollection of Greek Poetsin 24 vols. TheAnecdota Graeca(1829-1833) andAnecdota Nova(1844) are important for Byzantine history and the Greek grammarians.