Chapter 15
Summary (part 1)
Canada.
Indians—Brown
100,000
The only coloured native races of Canada are the Red Indians, many in tribal variety, but few in number.
Native Populations:
India
294,191,379
Ceylon and Eastern Colonies
5,144,954
West Indies
1,912,655
South Africa
5,211,329
British Central Africa
2,000,000
East Africa
7,425,000
West Africa
18,863,000
Australasia and Islands
824,000
Canada
100,000
——————
335,672,317
White populations
53,040,468
Total
388,712,785
This is without taking into account the population of the lesser crown colonies or allowing for the increase likely to be shown by later censuses. Throughout the empire, and notably in the United Kingdom, there is among the white races a considerable sprinkling of Jewish blood.
The latest calculation of the entire population of the world, including a liberal estimate of 650,000,000 for peoples not brought under any census, gives a total of something over 1,500,000,000. The population of the empire may therefore be calculated as amounting to something more than one-fourth of the population of the world.
It is a matter of first importance in the geographical distribution of the empire that the five principal divisions, the United Kingdom, South Africa, India, Australia and Canada are separated from each other by the three great oceans of the world. The distance as usually calculated in nautical miles: from an English port to the Cape of Good Hope is 5840 m.; from the Cape of Good Hope to Bombay is 4610; from Bombay to Melbourne is 5630; from Melbourne to Auckland is 1830; from Auckland to Vancouver is 6210; from Halifax to Liverpool is 2744. From a British port direct to Bombay by way of the Mediterranean it is 6272; from a British port by the same route to Sydney 11,548 m. These great distances have necessitated the acquisition of intermediate ports suitable for coaling stations on the trade routes, and have determined the position of many of the lesser crown colonies which are held simply for military and commercial purposes. Such are the Bermudas, Gibraltar, Malta, Aden, Ceylon, the Straits Settlements, Labuan, Hong-Kong, which complete the chain of connexion on the eastern route, and such on other routes are the lesser West African stations, Ascension, St. Helena, the Mauritius and Seychelles, the Falklands, Tristan da Cunha, and the groups of the western Pacific. Other annexations of the British empire have been rocky islets of the northern Pacific required for the purpose of telegraph stations in connexion with an all-British cable.
For purposes of political administration the empire falls into the three sections of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, with the dependencies of the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man; the Indian empire, consisting of British India and the feudatory native states; and the colonial empire, comprising all other colonies and dependencies.
In the modern sense of extension beyond the limits of the United Kingdom the growth of the empire is of comparatively recent date. The Channel Islands became British as a part of the Norman inheritance of William the Conqueror. The Isle of Man, which was for a short time held in conquest by Edward I. and restored, was sold by its titular sovereign to Sir William Scrope, earl of Wiltshire, in 1393, and by his subsequent attainder for high treason and the confiscation of his estates, became a fief of the English crown. It was granted by Henry IV. in 1406 to Sir John Stanley, K.C., ancestor of the earls of Derby, by whom it was held till 1736, when it passed to James Murray, 2nd duke of Atholl, as heir-general of the 10th earl. It was inherited by his daughter Charlotte, wife of the 3rd duke of Atholl, who sold it to the crown for £70,000 and an annuity of £2000. With these exceptions and the nominal possession taken of Newfoundland by Sir Humphrey Gilbert in 1583, all the territorial acquisitions of the empire have been made in the 17th and subsequent centuries.
The following is a list of the British colonies and dependencies (other than those belonging to the Indian empire) together with a summary statement of the date and method of their acquisition. Arranged in chronological order they give some idea of the rate of growth of the empire. The dates are not, however, in all cases those in which British sovereignty was established. They indicate in some instances only the first definite step, such as the building of a fort, the opening of a trading station, or other act, which led later to the incorporation in the empire of the country indicated. In the case of Australian states or Canadian provinces originally part of other states or provinces the date is that, approximately, of the first settlement of British in the district named; e.g. there were British colonists in Saskatchewan in the last half of the 18th century, but the province was not constituted until 1905. Save where otherwise stated, British authority has been continuous from the first date mentioned in the table. Reference should be made to the articles on the various colonies.
Name.
Date.
Method of Acquisition.
Newfoundland
1583
Possession taken by Sir H. Gilbert for the crown.
17th Century.
Barbados
1605-1625
Settlement.
Bermudas
1609
Gambia
c. 1618
" A second time in 1816.
St Christopher
1623
" Did not become wholly British until 1713.
Novia Scotia
1628
" Ceded to France 1632; recovered 1713.
Nevis
1628
Montserrat
1632
Antigua
1632
Honduras
1638
St Lucia
1638
" Finally passed to Great Britain in 1803.
Gold Coast
c. 1650
Settlement. Danish forts bought 1850, Dutch forts 1871. Northern Territories added 1897.
St Helena
1651
Settled by East India Co. Government vested in British crown 1833.
Jamaica
1655
Conquest.
Bahamas
1666
Settlement.
Virgin Islands
1666-1672
Settlement and conquest.
N.W. Territories of Canada
1669
Settlement under royal charter of Hudson's Bay Co. Purchased from imp. gov. 1869, and transferred to Canada 1870.
Turks and Caicos Is.
1678
Settlement.
18th Century.
Gibraltar
1704
Capitulation.
New Brunswick
1713
Cession.
Prince Edward Is.
1758
Conquest.
Ontario
1759-1790
With New Brunswick and Nova
Quebec
1759-1790
Scotia constituted Dominion of Canada 1867. Prince Edward Is. enters the confederation 1873. In 1880 all British possessions (other than Newfoundland) in North America annexed to the Dominion.
Dominica
1761
Conquest.
St Vincent
1762
Capitulation.
Grenada
1762
Tobago
1763
Cession. Afterwards in French possession. Reconquered 1803.
Falkland Is.
1765
Settlement. Reoccupied 1832.
Saskatchewan
1766
Settlement. Separation from N.W. Territories of Canada 1905.
Pitcairn I.
1780
Settlement.
Straits Settlements
1786 to 1824
Settlement and cession. Vested (1858) in crown by E.I. Co. Transferred from Indian to colonial possessions 1867. Malacca in British occupation 1795-1818.
Sierra Leone
1787
Settlement.
Alberta
c. 1788
Separated from N. W. Territories of Canada 1905.
New South Wales
1788
Settlement.
Ceylon
1795
Capitulation.
Trinidad
1797
Malta
1800
19th Century.
British Guiana
1803
Capitulation.
Tasmania
1803
Settlement.
Cape of Good Hope
1806
Capitulation. Present limits not attained until 1895. First British occupation 1795-1803.
Seychelles
1806
Capitulation.
Mauritius
1810
Manitoba
1811
Settlement by Red River or Selkirk colony. Created province of Canada 1870.
Ascension and Tristan da Cunha
1815
Military occupation.
B. Columbia and Vancouver Island
1821
Settlement under Hudson's Bay Co. Entered Canadian confederation 1871.
Natal
1824
Settlement. Natal Boers submit 1843.
Queensland
1824
Separated from New South Wales 1859.
West Australia
1826
Settlement.
Victoria
1834
Separated from New South Wales 1851.
South Australia
1836
Settlement.
New Zealand
1840
Settlement and treaty.
Hong-Kong
1841
Treaties. Kowloon on the mainland added in 1860; additional area leased 1898.
Labuan
1846
Cession. Incorporated in Straits Settlements 1906.
Lagos
1861
Cession. South Nigeria amalgamated with Lagos, under style of Colony and Protectorate of Southern Nigeria 1906.
Basutoland
1868
Annexation.
Fiji
1874
Cession.
W. Pacific Islands, including including Union, Ellice, Gilbert, Southern Solomon, and other groups
1877
High commission created by order in council, giving jurisdiction over islands not included in other colonial governments, nor within jurisdiction of other civilized powers. Protectorates declared over all these islands by 1900.
Federated Malay States
1874-1895
Treaty.
Cyprus
1878
Occupied by treaty.
North Borneo
1881
Treaty and settlement under royal charter. Protectorate assumed 1888.
Papua
1884
Protectorate declared.
Nigeria
1884-1886
Treaty, conquest and settlement under royal charter. Chartered Co.'s territory transferred to crown, and whole divided into North and South Nigeria 1900.
Somaliland
1884-1886
Occupation and cession. Protectorate declared 1887.
Bechuanaland
1885-1891
Protectorate declared. Southern portion annexed to Cape Colony 1895.
Zululand
1887
Annexation. Incorporated in Natal 1897.
Sarawak
1888
Protectorate declared.
Brunei
1888
British East Africa
1888
Treaty, conquest and settlement under royal charter. Transferred to crown 1895.
Rhodesia
1888-1893
Treaty, conquest and settlement under royal charter.
Zanzibar
1890
Protectorate declared.
Uganda
1890-1896
Treaty and protectorate.
Nyasaland
1891
Protectorate declared.
Ashanti
1896
Military occupation.
Wei-hai-wei
1898
Lease from China.
Pacific Islands—
—Christmas, Fanning, Penrhyn, Suvarov
1898
Annexed for purposes of projected Pacific cable.
—Choiseul and Isabel Is. (Solomon Group)
1899
Cession.
—Tonga and Niué
1900
Protectorate declared.
Orange Free State
1900
Annexation. Formerly British 1848-1854.
Transvaal and Swaziland
1900
Annexation. Formerly British 1877-1881.
20th Century.
Kelantan, Trengganu, &c.
1909
Cession from Siam.
In the Pacific are also Bird Island, Bramble Cay, Cato Island, Cook Islands, Danger Islands, Ducie Island, Dudosa, Howland Island, Jarvis Island, Kermadec Islands, Macquarie Island, Manihiki Islands, Nassau Island, Palmerston Island, Palmyra Island, Phoenix Group, Purdy Group, Raine Island, Rakaanga Island, Rotumah Island, Surprise Island, Washington or New York Island, Willis Group and Wreck Reef.
In the Indian Ocean there are, besides the colonies already mentioned, Rodriguez, the Chagos Islands, St Brandon Islands, Amirante Islands, Aldabra, Kuria Muria Islands, Maldive Islands and some other small groups.
In certain dependencies the sovereignty of Great Britain is not absolute. The island of Cyprus is nominally still part of the Turkish empire, but in 1878 was handed over to Great Britain for occupation and administration; Great Britain now making to the Porte on account of the island an annual payment of £5000. The administration is in the hands of an official styled high commissioner, who is invested with the powers usually conferred on a colonial governor. In Zanzibar and other regions of equatorial Africa the native rulers retain considerable powers; in the Far East certain areas are held on lease from China.
Egypt, without forming part of the British empire, came under the military occupation of Great Britain in 1882. "By right of conquest" Great Britain subsequently claimed a share in the administration of the former Sudan provinces of Egypt, and an agreement of the 19th of January 1899 established the joint sovereignty of Great Britain and Egypt over what is now known as the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan.
The Indian section of the empire was acquired during the 17th-19th centuries under a royal charter granted to the East India Company by Queen Elizabeth in 1600. It was transferred to the imperial government in 1858, and Queen Victoria was proclaimed empress under the Royal Titles Act in 1877. The following list gives the dates and method of acquisition of the centres of the main divisions of the Indian empire. They have, in most instances, grown by general process of extension to their present dimensions.
Name.
Date.
Method of Acquisition.
Madras
1639 to 1748
By treaty and subsequent conquest. Fort St George, the foundation of Madras was the first territorial possession of the E.I. Co. in India. It was acquired by treaty with its Indian ruler. Madras was raised into a presidency in 1683; ceded to France 1746; recovered 1748.
Bombay
1608 to 1685
Treaty and cession. Trade first established 1608. Ceded to British crown by Portugal 1661. Transferred to E.I. Co. 1668. Presidency removed from Surat 1687.
Bengal
1633 to 1765
Treaty and subsequent conquests. First trade settlement established by treaty at Pipli in Orissa 1633. Erected into presidency by separation from Madras 1681. Virtual sovereignty announced by E.I. Co., as result of conquests of Clive, 1765.
United Provinces of Agra and Oudh
1764 to 1856
By conquests and treaty through successive stages, of which the principal dates were 1801-3-14-15. In 1832 the nominal sovereignty of Delhi, till then retained by the Great Mogul, was resigned into the hands of the E.I. Co. Oudh, of which the conquest may be said to have begun with the battle of Baxar in 1764, was finally annexed in 1856.
Central Provinces
1802-1817
By conquest and treaty.
Eastern Bengal and Assam
1825-1826
Conquest and cession. The Bengal portion of the province by separation from Bengal in 1905.
Burma
1824-1852
Conquest and cession.
Punjab
1849
Conquest and annexation. Made into distinct province 1859.
N.-W. Frontier Province
1901
Subdivision.
Ajmere and Merwara
1818
By conquest and cession.
Coorg
1834
Conquest and annexation.
British Baluchistan
1854-1876
Conquest and treaty.
Andaman Islands
1858
Annexation.
The following is a list of some of the principal Indian states which are more or less under the control of the British government:—
1. In direct political relations with the governor-general in council.
Hyderabad.
Baroda.
Mysote.
Kashmir.
2. Under the Rajputana agency.
Udaipur.
Jodhpur.
Bikanir.
Jaipur (and feudatories).
Bharatpur.
Dholpur.
Alwar.
Tonk.
3. Under the Central Indian agency.
Indore.
Rewa.
Bhopal.
Gwalior.
4. Under the Bombay government.
Cutch.
Kolhapur (and dependencies).
Khairpur (Sind).
Bhaunagar.
5. Under the Madras government.
Travancore.
Cochin.
6. Under the Central Provinces government.
Bastar.
7. Under the Bengal government.
Kuch Behar.
Sikkim.
8. Under United Provinces government.
Rampur.
Garhwal.
9. Under the Punjab government.
Patiala.
Bahawalpur.
Jind.
Nabha.
Kapurthala.
Mandi.
Sirmur (Nahan).
Faridkot.
Chamba.
10. Under the government of Burma.
Shan states.
Karen states.
In addition to these there are British tracts known as the Upper Burma frontier and the Burma frontier. There is also a sphere of British influence in the border of Afghanistan. The state of Nepal, though independent as regards its internal administration, has been since the campaign of 1814-15 in close relations with Great Britain. It is bound to receive a British resident, and its political relations with other states are controlled by the government of India. All these native states have come into relative dependency upon Great Britain as a result of conquest or of treaty consequent upon the annexation of the neighbouring provinces. The settlement of Aden, with its dependencies of Perim and Sokotra Island, forms part of the government of Bombay.
This vast congeries of states, widely different in character, and acquired by many different methods, holds together under the supreme headship of the crown on a generally acknowledged triple principle of self-government, self-support and self-defence. The principle is more fully applied in some parts of the empire than in others; there are some parts which have not yet completed their political evolution; some others in which the principle is temporarily or for special reasons in abeyance; others, again—chiefly those of very small extent, which are held for purposes of the defence or advantage of the whole—to which it is not applicable; but the principle is generally acknowledged as the structural basis upon which the constitution of the empire exists.
In its relation to the empire the home section of the British Isles is distinguished from the others as the place of origin of the British race and the residence of the crown. The history and constitutional development of this portion of the empire will be found fully treated under separate headings. (See England; Wales; Ireland; Scotland; United Kingdom; English History; India; Africa; Australia; Canada; &c.)
It is enough to say that for purposes of administration the Indian empire is divided into nine great provinces and four minor commissionerships. The nine great provinces are presided over by two governors (Bombay and Madras), five lieut.-governors (Bengal, Eastern Bengal and Assam, United Provinces [Agra and Oudh], the Punjab and Burma), a chief commissioner (the Central Provinces) and an agent to the governor-general (the N.-W. Frontier Province). The four minor commissionerships are presided over each by a chief commissioner. Above these the supreme executive authority in India is vested in the viceroy in council. The council consists of six ordinary members besides the existing commander-in-chief. For legislative purposes the governor-general's council is increased by the addition of fifteen members nominated by the crown, and has power under certain restrictions to make laws for British India, for British subjects in the native states, and for native Indian subjects of the crown in any part of the world. The administration of the Indian empire in England is carried on by a secretary of state for India assisted by a council of not less than ten members. The expenditure of the revenues is under the control of the secretary in council.
The colonial empire comprises over fifty distinct governments. It is divided into colonies of three classes and dependencies; these, again, are in some instances associated for administrative purposes in federated groups. The three classes of colonies are crown colonies, colonies possessing representative institutions but not responsible government, and colonies possessing representative institutions and responsible government. In crown colonies the crown has entire control of legislation, and the public officers are under the control of the home government. In representative colonies the crown has only a veto on legislation, but the home government retains control of the public officers. In responsible colonies the crown retains a veto upon legislation, but the home government has no control of any public officer except the governor.
In crown colonies—with the exception of Gibraltar and St Helena, where laws may be made by the governor alone—laws are made by the governor with the concurrence of a council nominated by the crown. In some crown colonies, chiefly those acquired by conquest or cession, the authority of this council rests wholly on the crown; in others, chiefly those acquired by settlement, the council is created by the crown under the authority of local or imperial laws. The crown council of Ceylon may be cited as an example of the first kind, and the crown council of Jamaica of the second.
In colonies possessing representative institutions without responsible government, the crown cannot (generally) legislate by order in council, and laws are made by the governor with the concurrence of the legislative body or bodies, one at least of these bodies in cases where a second chamber exists possessing a preponderance of elected representatives. The Bahamas, Barbados, and Bermuda have two legislative bodies—one elected and one nominated by the crown; Malta and the Leeward Islands have but one, which is partly elected and partly nominated.
Under responsible government legislation is carried on by parliamentary means exactly as at home, with a cabinet responsible to parliament, the crown reserving only a right of veto, which is exercised at the discretion of the governor in the case of certain bills. The executive councils in those colonies, designated as at home by parliamentary choice, are appointed by the governor alone, and the other public officers only nominally by the governor on the advice of his executive council.
Colonial governors are classed as governors-general; governors; lieut.-governors; administrators; high commissioners; and commissioners, according to the status of the colony and dependency, or group of colonies and dependencies, over which they preside. Their powers vary according to the position which they occupy. In all cases they represent the crown.
As a consequence of this organization the finance of crown colonies is under the direct control of the imperial government; the finance of representative colonies, though not directly controlled, is usually influenced in important departures by the opinion of the imperial government. In responsible colonies the finance is entirely under local control, and the imperial government is dissociated from either moral or material responsibility for colonial debts.
In federated groups of colonies and dependencies matters which are of common interest to a given number of separate governments are by mutual consent of the federating communities adjudged to the authority of a common government, which, in the case of self-governing colonies, is voluntarily created for the purpose. The associated states form under the federal government one federal body, but the parts retain control of local matters, and exercise all their original rights of government in regard to these. The two great self-governing groups of federated colonies within the empire are the Dominion of Canada and the Commonwealth of Australia. In South Africa unification was preferred to federation, the then self-governing colonies being united in 1910 into one state—the Union of South Africa. India, of which the associated provinces are under the control of the central government, may be given as an example of the practical federation of dependencies. Examples of federated crown colonies and lesser dependencies are to be found in the Leeward Island group of the West Indies and the federated Malay States.
This rough system of self-government for the empire has been evolved not without some strain and friction, by the recognition through the vicissitudes of three hundred years of the value of independent initiative in the development of young countries. Queen Elizabeth's first patent to Sir Walter Raleigh permitted British subjects to accompany him to America, "with guarantee of a continuance of the enjoyment of all the rights which her subjects enjoyed at home."
This guarantee may presumably have been intended at the time only to assure the intending settlers that they should lose no rights of British citizenship at home by taking up their residence in America. Its mutual interpretation in a wider sense, serving at once to establish in the colony rights of citizenship equivalent to those enjoyed in England, and to preserve for the colonist the status of British subject at home and abroad, has formed in application to all succeeding systems of British colonization the unconscious charter of union of the empire.
The first American colonies were settled under royal grants, each with its own constitution. The immense distance in time which in those days separated America from Great Britain secured them from interference by the home authorities. They paid their own most moderate governing expenses, and they contributed largely to their own defence. From the middle of the 17th century their trade was not free, but this was the only restriction from which they suffered. The great war with France in the middle of the 18th century temporarily destroyed this system. That war, which resulted in the conquest of Canada and the delivery of the North American colonies from French antagonism, cost the imperial exchequer £90,000,000. The attempt to avert the repetition of such expenditure by the assertion of a right to tax the colonies through the British parliament led to the one great rupture which has marked the history of the empire. It has to be noted that at home during the latter half of the 17th century and the earlier part of the 18th century parliamentary power had to a great extent taken the place of the divine right of kings. But parliamentary power meant the power of the English people and taxpayers. The struggle which developed itself between the American colonies and the British parliament was in fact a struggle on the part of the people and taxpayers of one portion of the empire to resist the domination of the people and taxpayers of another portion. In this light it may be accepted as having historically established the fundamental axiom of the constitution of the empire, that the crown is the supreme head from which the parts take equal dependence.
The crown requiring advice in the ordinary and constitutional manner receives it in matters of colonial administration from the secretaries of state for the colonies and for India. After the great rupture separate provision in the home government for the administration of colonial affairs was at first judged to be unnecessary, and the "Council of Trade and Plantations," which up to that date had supplied the place now taken by the two offices of the colonies and India, was suppressed in 1782. There was a reaction from the liberal system of colonial self-government, and an attempt was made to govern the colonies simply as dependencies.
In 1791, not long after the extension of the range of parliamentary authority in another portion of the empire, by the creation in 1784 of the Board of Control for India, Pitt made the step forward of granting to Canada representative institutions, of which the home government kept the responsible control. Similar institutions were also given at a later period to Australia and South Africa. But the long peace of the early part of the 19th century was marked by great colonial developments; Australia, Canada and South Africa became important communities. Representative institutions controlled by the home government were insufficient, and they reasserted the claim for liberty to manage their own affairs.
Fully responsible government was granted to Canada in 1840, and gradually extended to the other colonies. In 1854 a separate secretary of state for the colonies was appointed at home, and the colonial office was established on its present footing. In India, as in the colonies, there came with the growing needs of empire a recognition of the true relations of the parts to each other and of the whole to the crown. In 1858, on the complete transference of the territories of the East India Company to the crown, the board of control was abolished, and the India Council, under the presidency of a secretary of state for India, was created. It was especially provided that the members of the council may not sit in parliament.
Thus, although it has not been found practicable in the working of the British constitution to carry out the full theory of the direct and exclusive dependence of colonial possessions on the crown, the theory is recognized as far as possible. It is understood that the principal sections of the empire enjoy equal rights under the crown, and that none is subordinate to another. The intervention of the imperial parliament in colonial affairs is only admitted theoretically in so far as the support of parliament is required by the constitutional advisers of the crown. To bring the practice of the empire into complete harmony with the theory it would be necessary to constitute, for the purpose of advising the crown on imperial affairs, a council in which all important parts of the empire should be represented.
The gradual recognition of the constitutional theory of the British empire, and the assumption by the principal colonies of full self-governing responsibilities, has cleared the way for a movement in favour of a further development which should bring the supreme headship of the empire more into accord with modern ideas.
It was during the period of domination of the "Manchester school," of which the most effective influence in public affairs was exerted for about thirty years, extending from 1845 to 1875, that the fullest development of colonial self-government was attained, the view being generally accepted at that time that self-governing institutions were to be regarded as the preliminary to inevitable separation. A general inclination to withdraw from the acceptance of imperial responsibilities throughout the world gave to foreign nations at the same time an opportunity by which they were not slow to profit, and contributed to the force of a reaction of which the part played by Great Britain in the scramble for Africa marked the culmination. Under the increasing pressure of foreign enterprise, the value of a federation of the empire for purposes of common interest began to be discussed. Imperial federation was openly spoken of in New Zealand as early as 1852. A similar suggestion was officially put forward by the general association of the Australian colonies in London in 1857. The Royal Colonial Institution, of which the motto "United Empire" illustrates its aims, was founded in 1868. First among leading British statesmen to repudiate the old interpretation of colonial self-government as a preliminary to separation, Lord Beaconsfield, in 1872, spoke of the constitutions accorded to the colonies as "part of a great policy of imperial consolidation." In 1875 W. E. Forster, afterwards a member of the Liberal government, made a speech in which he advocated imperial federation as a means by which it might become practicable to "replace dependence by association." The foundation of the Imperial Federation League—in 1884, with Forster for its first president, shortly to be succeeded by Lord Rosebery—marked a distinct step forward. The Colonial Conferences of 1887 and subsequent years (the title being changed to Imperial Conference in 1907), in which colonial opinion was sought and accepted in respect of important questions of imperial organization and defence, and the enthusiastic loyalty displayed by the colonies towards the crown on the occasion of the jubilee manifestations of Queen Victoria's reign, were further indications of progress in the same direction. Coincidently with this development, the achievements of Sir George Goldie and Cecil Rhodes, who, the one in West Africa and the other in South Africa, added between them to the empire in a space of less than twenty years a dominion of greater extent than the whole of British India, followed by the action of a host of distinguished disciples in other parts of the world, effectually stemmed the movement initiated by Cobden and Bright. A tendency which had seemed temporarily to point towards a complacent dissolution of the empire was arrested, and the closing years of the 19th century were marked by a growing disposition to appreciate the value and importance of the unique position which the British empire has created for itself in the world. No stronger demonstration of the reality of imperial union could be needed than that which was afforded by the support given to the imperial forces by the colonies and India in the South African War. It remained only to be seen by what process of evolution the further consolidation of the empire would find expression in the machinery of government. A step in this direction was taken in 1907, when at the Colonial Conference held in London that year it was decided to form a permanent secretariat to deal with the common interests of the self-governing colonies and the mother-country. It was further decided that conferences, to be called in future Imperial Conferences, between the home government and the governments of the self-governing dominions, should be held every four years, and that the prime minister of Great Britain should be ex officio president of the conference. No executive power was, however, conferred upon the conference.
The movement in favour of tariff reform initiated by Mr Chamberlain (q.v.) in 1903 with the double object of giving a preference to colonial goods and of protecting imperial trade by the imposition in certain cases of retaliative duties on foreign goods, was a natural evolution of the imperialist idea, and of the fact that by this time the trade-statistics of the United Kingdom had proved that trade with the colonies was forming an increasingly large proportion of the whole. In spite of the defeat of the Unionist party in England in 1906, and the accession to power of a Liberal government opposed to anything which appeared to be inconsistent with free trade, the movement for colonial preference, based on tariff reform, continued to make headway in the United Kingdom, and was definitely adopted by the Unionist party. And at the Imperial Conference of 1907 it was advocated by all the colonial premiers, who could point to the progress made in their own states towards giving a tariff preference to British goods and to those of one another.
The question of self-government is closely associated with the question of self-support. Plenty of good land and the liberty to manage their own affairs were the causes assigned by Adam Smith for the marked prosperity of the British colonies towards the end of the 18th century. The same causes are still observed to produce the same effects, and it may be pointed out that, since the date of the latest of Adam Smith's writings, upwards of 6,000,000 sq. m. of virgin soil, rich with possibilities of agricultural, pastoral and mineral wealth, have been added to the empire. In the same period the white population has grown from about 12,000,000 to 53,000,000, and the developments of agricultural and industrial machinery have multiplied, almost beyond computation, the powers of productive labour.
It is scarcely possible within this article to deal with so widely varied a subject as that of the productions and industry of the empire. For the purposes of a general statement, it is interesting to observe that concurrently with the acquisition of the vast continental areas during the 19th century, the progress of industrial science in application to means of transport and communication brought about a revolution of the most radical character in the accepted laws of economic development. Railways did away with the old law that the spread of civilization is necessarily governed by facilities for water carriage and is consequently confined to river valleys and sea-shores. Steam and electricity opened to industry the interior of continents previously regarded as unapproachable. The resources of these vast inland spaces which have lain untouched since history began became available to individual enterprise, and over a great portion of the earth's surface were brought within the possessions of the British empire. The production of raw material within the empire increased at a rate which can only be appreciated by a careful study of figures, and by a comparison of the total of these figures with the total figures of the world. The tropical and temperate possessions of the empire include every field of production which can be required for the use of man. There is no main staple of human food which is not grown; there is no material of textile industry which is not produced. The British empire gives occupation to more than one-third of the persons employed in mining and quarrying in the world. It may be interesting, as an indication of the relative position in this respect of the British empire to the world, to state that at present it produces one-third of the coal supply of the world, one-sixth of the wheat supply, and very nearly two-thirds of the gold supply. But while these figures may be taken as in themselves satisfactory, it is far more important to remember that as yet the potential resources of the new lands opened to enterprise have been barely conceived, and their wealth has been little more than scratched. Population as yet has been only very sparsely sprinkled over the surface of many of the areas most suitable for white settlement. In the wheat lands of Canada, the pastoral country of Australasia, and the mineral fields of South Africa and western Canada alone, the undeveloped resources are such as to ensure employment to the labour and satisfaction to the needs of at least as many millions as they now contain thousands of the British race. In respect of this promise of the future the position of the British empire is unique.
It is not too much to say that trade has been at once the most active cause of expansion and the most potent bond of union in the development of the empire. Trade with the tropical and settlement in the temperate regions of the world formed the basis upon which the foundations of the empire were laid. Trading companies founded most of the American and West Indian colonies; a trading company won India; a trading company colonized the north-western districts of Canada; commercial wars during the greater part of the 18th century established the British command of the sea, which rendered the settlement of Australasia possible. The same wars gave Great Britain South Africa, and chartered companies in the 19th century carried the British flag into the interior of the African continent from south and east and west. Trading companies developed Borneo and Fiji. The bonds of prosperous trade have kept the Australasian colonies within the empire. The protection of colonial commerce by the imperial navy is one of the strongest of material links which connect the crown with the outlying possessions of the empire.
The trade of the empire, like the other developments of imperial public life, has been profoundly influenced by the variety of local conditions under which it has flourished. In the early settlement of the North American colonies their trade was left practically free; but by the famous Navigation Act of 1660 the importation and exportation of goods from British colonies were restricted to British ships, of which the master and three-fourths of the mariners were English. This act, of which the intention was to encourage British shipping and to keep the monopoly of British colonial trade for the benefit of British merchants, was followed by many others of a similar nature up to the time of the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 and the introduction of free trade into Great Britain. The Navigation Acts were repealed in 1849. Thus for very nearly two hundred years British trade was subject to restrictions, of which the avowed intention was to curtail the commercial intercourse of the empire with the world. During this period the commercial or mercantile system, of which the fallacies were exposed by the economists of the latter half of the 18th century, continued to govern the principles of British trade. Under this system monopolies were common, and among them few were more important than that of the East India Company. In 1813 the trade of India was, however, thrown open to competition, and in 1846, after the introduction of free trade at home, the principal British colonies which had not yet at that date received the grant of responsible government were specially empowered to abolish differential duties upon foreign trade. A first result of the commercial emancipation of the colonies was the not altogether unnatural rise in the manufacturing centres of the political school known as the Manchester school, which was disposed to question the value to Great Britain of the retention of colonies which were no longer bound to give her the monopoly of their commercial markets. An equally natural desire on the part of the larger colonies to profit by the opportunity which was opened to them of establishing local manufactures of their own, combined with the convenience in new countries of using the customs as an instrument of taxation, led to something like a reciprocal feeling of resentment, and there followed a period during which the policy of Great Britain was to show no consideration for colonial trade, and the policy of the principal colonies was to impose heavy duties upon British trade. By a gradual process of better understanding, largely helped by the development of means of communication, the antagonistic extreme was abandoned, and a tendency towards a system of preferential duties within the empire displayed itself.
At the Colonial Conference held in London in 1887 a proposal was formally submitted by the South African delegate for the establishment within the empire of a preferential system, imposing a duty of 2% upon all foreign goods, the proceeds to be directed to the maintenance of the imperial navy. To this end it was requested that certain treaties with foreign nations which imposed restrictions on the trade of various parts of the empire with each other should be denounced. Some years later, a strong feeling having been manifested in England against any foreign engagement standing in the way of new domestic trade arrangements between a colony and the mother-country, the German and Belgian treaties in question were denounced (1897). Meanwhile, simultaneously with the movement in favour of reciprocal fiscal advantages to be granted within the empire by the many local governments to each other, there was a growth of the perception that an increase of the foreign trade of Great Britain, carried on chiefly in manufactured goods, was accompanied by a corresponding enlargement of the home markets for colonial raw material, and consequently that injury to the foreign trade of Great Britain, while as yet it so largely outweighed the trade between the United Kingdom and the colonies, must necessarily react upon the colonies. This view was definitely expressed at the Colonial Conference at Ottawa in 1894, and was one of the factors which led to the relinquishment of the demand that in return for colonial concessions there should be an imposition on the part of Great Britain of a differential duty upon foreign goods. Canada was the first important British colony to give substantial expression to the new imperial sentiment in commercial matters by the introduction in 1897 of an imperial tariff, granting without any reciprocal advantage a deduction of 25% upon customs duties imposed upon British goods. The same advantage was offered to all British colonies trading with her upon equal terms. In later years the South African states, Australia and New Zealand also granted preferential treatment to British goods. Meanwhile in Great Britain the system of free imports, regarded as "free trade" (though only one-sided free trade), had become the established policy, customs duties being only imposed for purposes of revenue on a few selected articles, and about half the national income was derived from customs and excise. In most of the colonies customs form of necessity one of the important sources of revenue. It is, however, worthy of remark that in the self-governing colonies, even those which are avowedly protectionist, a smaller proportion of the public revenue was derived from customs and excise than was derived from these sources in the United Kingdom. The proportion in Australasia before federation was about one quarter. In Canada it is more difficult to estimate it, as customs and excise form the principal provision made for federal finance, and note must therefore be taken of the separate sources of revenue in the provinces. With these reservations it will still be seen that customs, or, in other words, a tax upon the movements of trade, forms one of the chief sources of imperial revenue.
The development of steam shipping and electricity gave to the movements of trade a stimulus no less remarkable than that given by the introduction of railroads and industrial machinery to production and manufactures. Whereas at the beginning of the 19th century the journey to Australia occupied eight months, and business communications between Sydney and London could not receive answers within the year, at the beginning of the 20th century the journey could be accomplished in thirty-one days, and telegraphic despatches enabled the most important business to be transacted within twenty-four hours. For one cargo carried in the year at the beginning of the 19th century at least six could now be carried by the same ship, and from the point of view of trade the difference of a venture which realizes its profits in two months, as compared with one which occupied a whole year, does not need to be insisted on. The increased rapidity of the voyage and the power of daily communication by telegraph with the most distant markets have introduced a wholly new element into the national trade of the empire, and commercial intercourse between the southern and the northern hemispheres has received a development from the natural alternation of the seasons, of which until quite recent years the value was not even conceived. Fruit, eggs, butter, meat, poultry and other perishable commodities pass in daily increasing quantities between the northern and the southern hemispheres with an alternate flow which contributes to raise in no inconsiderable degree the volume of profitable trade. Thus the butter season of Australasia is from October to March, while the butter season of Ireland and northern Europe is from March to October. In three years after the introduction of ice-chambers into the steamers of the great shipping lines, Victoria and New South Wales built up a yearly butter trade of £1,000,000 with Great Britain without seriously affecting the Irish and Danish markets whence the summer supply is drawn. These facilities, combined with the enormous additions made to the public stock of land and labour, contributed to raise the volume of trade of the empire from a total of less than £100,000,000 in the year 1800 to a total of nearly £1,500,000,000 in 1900. The declared volume of British exports to all parts of the world in 1800 was £38,120,120, and the value of British imports from all parts of the world was £30,570,605; total, £68,690,725. As in those days the colonies were not allowed to trade with any other country this must be taken as representing imperial trade. The exact figures of the trade of India, the colonies, and the United Kingdom for 1900 were: imports, £809,178,209; exports, £657,899,363; total, £1,467,077,572.
A question of sovereign importance to the continued existence of the empire is the question of defence. A country of which the main thoroughfares are the oceans of the world demands in the first instance a strong navy. It has of late years been accepted as a fundamental axiom of defence that the British navy should exceed in strength any reasonable combination of foreign navies which could be brought against it, the accepted formula being the "two-power standard," i.e. a 10% margin over the joint strength of the two next powers. The expense of maintaining such a floating armament must be colossal, and until within the decade 1890-1900 it was borne exclusively by the taxpayers of the United Kingdom. As the benefits of united empire have become more consciously appreciated in the colonies, and the value of the fleet as an insurance for British commerce has been recognized, a desire has manifested itself on the part of the self-governing colonies to contribute towards the formation of a truly imperial navy. In 1895 the Australasian colonies voted a subsidy of £126,000 per annum for the maintenance of an Australasian squadron, and in 1897 the Cape Colony also offered a contribution of £30,000 a year to be used at the discretion of the imperial government for naval purposes. The Australian contribution was in 1902 increased to £240,000, and that of the Cape to £50,000, while Natal voted £35,000 a year and Newfoundland £3000. But apart from these comparatively slight contributions, and the local up-keep of colonial fortifications,—and the beginning in 1908-1909 of an Australian torpedo-boat flotilla provided by the Commonwealth,—the whole cost of the imperial navy, on which ultimately the security of the empire rested, remained to be borne by the taxpayers in the British islands. The extent of this burden was emphasized in 1909 by the revelations as to the increase of the German (and the allied Austrian) fleet. At this crisis in the history of the two-power standard a wave of enthusiasm started in the colonies, resulting in the offer of "Dreadnoughts" from New Zealand and elsewhere; and the British government called an Imperial Conference to consider the whole question afresh.
Land defence, though a secondary branch of the great question of imperial defence, has been intimately connected with the development and internal growth of the empire. In the case of the first settlement of the American colonies they were expected to provide for their own land defence. To some extent in the early part of their career they carried out this expectation, and even on occasion, as in the taking of Louisburg, which was subsequently given back at the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle as the price of the French evacuation of Madras, rendered public service to the empire at large. In India the principle of local self-defence was from the beginning carried into practice by the East India Company. But in America the claim of the French wars proved too heavy for local resources. In 1755 Great Britain intervened with troops sent from home under General Braddock, and up to the outbreak of the American War the cost of the defence of the North American colonies was borne by the imperial exchequer. To meet this expense the imperial parliament took upon itself the right to tax the American colonies. In 1765 a Quartering Act was passed by which 10,000 imperial troops were quartered in the colonies. As a result of the American War which followed and led to the loss of the colonies affected, the imperial authorities accepted the charge of the land defences of the empire, and with the exception of India and the Hudson Bay territories, where the trading companies determined to pay their own expenses, the whole cost of imperial defence was borne, like the cost of the navy, by the taxpayers of the United Kingdom. This condition of affairs lasted till the end of the Napoleonic Wars. During the thirty years' peace which followed there came time for consideration. The fiscal changes which towards the middle of the 19th century gave to the self-governing colonies the command of their own resources very naturally carried with them the consequence that a call should be made on colonial exchequers to provide for their own governing expenses. Of these defence is obviously one of the most essential. Coincidently, therefore, with the movements of free trade at home, the renunciation of what was known as the mercantile system and the accompanying grants of constitutional freedom to the colonies, a movement for the reorganization of imperial defence was set on foot. In the decade which elapsed between 1846 and 1856 the movement as regards the colonies was confined chiefly to calls made upon them to contribute to their own defence by providing barracks, fortifications, &c., for the accommodation of imperial troops, and in some cases paying for the use of troops not strictly required for imperial purposes. In 1857 the Australian colonies agreed to pay the expenses of the imperial garrison quartered in Australia. This was a very wide step from the imperial attempt to tax the American colonies for a similar purpose in the preceding century. Nevertheless, in evidence given before a departmental committee in 1859, it was shown that at that time the colonies of Great Britain were free from almost every obligation of contributing either by personal service or money payment towards their own defence, and that the cost of military expenditure in the colonies in the preceding year had amounted in round figures to £4,000,000. A committee of the House of Commons sat in 1861 to consider the question, and in 1862 it was resolved, without a division, that "colonies exercising the right of self-government ought to undertake the main responsibility of providing for their own internal order and security, and ought to assist in their own external defence." The decision was accepted as the basis of imperial policy. The first effect was the gradual withdrawing of imperial troops from the self-governing colonies, together with the encouragement of the development of local military systems by the loan, when desired, of imperial military experts. A call was also made for larger military contributions from some of the crown colonies. The committee of 1859 had emphasized in its report the fact that the principal dependence of the colonies for defence is necessarily upon the British navy, and in 1865, exactly 100 years after the Quartering Act, which had been the cause of the troubles that led to the independence of the United States, a Colonial Naval Defence Act was passed which gave power to the colonies to provide ships of war, steamers, and volunteers for their own defence, and in case of necessity to place them at the disposal of the crown. In 1868 the Canadian Militia Act gave the fully organized nucleus of a local army to Canada. In the same year the imperial troops were withdrawn from New Zealand, leaving the colonial militia to deal with the native war still in progress. In 1870 the last imperial troops were withdrawn from Australia, and in 1873 it was officially announced that military expenditure in the colonies was almost "wholly for imperial purposes." In 1875 an imperial officer went to Australia to report for the Australian government upon Australian defence. The appointment in 1879 of a royal commission to consider the question of imperial defence, which presented its report in 1882, led to a considerable development and reorganization of the system of imperial fortifications. Coaling stations were also selected with reference to the trade routes. In 1885 rumours of war roused a very strong feeling in connexion with the still unfinished and in many cases unarmed condition of the fortifications recommended by the commission of 1879. Military activity was stimulated throughout the empire, and the Colonial Defence Committee was created to supply a much-felt need for organized direction and advice to colonial administrations acting necessarily in independence of each other. The question of colonial defence was among the most important of the subjects discussed at the colonial conference held in London in 1887, and it was at this conference that the Australasian colonies first agreed to contribute to the expense of their own naval defence. From this date the principle of local responsibility for self-defence has been fully accepted. India has its own native army, and pays for the maintenance within its frontiers of an imperial garrison. Early in the summer of 1899, when hostilities in South Africa appeared to be imminent, the governments of the principal colonies took occasion to express their approval of the South African policy pursued by the imperial government, and offers were made by the governments of India, the Australasian colonies, Canada, Hong-Kong, the Federal Malay states, some of the West African and other colonies, to send contingents for active service in the event of war. On the outbreak of hostilities these offers, on the part of the self-governing colonies, were accepted, and colonial contingents upwards of 30,000 strong were among the most efficient sections of the British fighting force. The manner in which these colonial contingents were raised, their admirable fighting qualities, and the service rendered by them in the field, disclosed altogether new possibilities of military organization within the empire, and in subsequent years the subject continued to engage the attention of the statesmen of the empire. Progress in this field lay chiefly in the increased support given in the colonial states to the separate local movements for self-defence; but in 1909 a scheme was arranged by Mr Haldane, by which the British War Office should co-operate with the colonial governments in providing for the training of officers and an interchange of views on a common military policy.
The important questions of justice, religion and instruction will be found dealt with in detail under the headings of separate sections of the empire. Systems of justice throughout the empire have a close resemblance to each other, and the judicial committee of the privy council, on which the self-governing colonies and India are represented, constitutes a supreme court of appeal (q.v.) for the entire empire. In the matter of religion, while no imperial organization in the strict sense is possible, the progress made by the Lambeth Conferences and otherwise (see Anglican Communion) has done much to bring the work of the Church of England in different parts of the world into a co-operative system. Religion, of which the forms are infinitely varied, is however everywhere free, except in cases where the exercise of religious rites leads to practices foreign to accepted laws of humanity. It is perhaps interesting to state that the number of persons in the empire nominally professing the Christian religion is 58,000,000, of Mahommedans 94,000,000, of Buddhists 12,000,000, of Hindus 208,000,000, of pagans and others 25,000,000. Systems of instruction, of which the aim is generally similar in the white portions of the empire and is directed towards giving to every individual the basis of a liberal education, are governed wholly by local requirements. Native schools are established in all settled communities under British rule.
Literature.—In recent years the subject of British imperialism has inspired a growing literature, and it is only possible here to name a selected number of the more important works which may usefully be consulted on different topics: Sir C.P. Lucas, Historical Geography of the British Colonies (1888, et seq.); H.E. Egerton, Short History of British Colonial Policy (1897); H.J. Mackinder, Britain and the British Seas (1902); Sir J.R. Seeley, Expansion of England (1883); Growth of British Policy (1895); Sir Charles Dilke, Greater Britain (1869), Problems of Greater Britain (1890), The British Empire (1899); G.R. Parkin, Imperial Federation (1892); Sir John Colomb, Imperial Federation, Naval and Military (1886); Sir G.S. Clarke, Imperial Defence (1897); Sidney Goldmann and others, The Empire and the Century (1905); J.L. Garvin, Imperial Reciprocity (1903); J.W. Welsford, The Strength of a Nation (1907); Compatriots Club Essays (1906); Sir H. Jenkyns, British Rule and Jurisdiction beyond the Seas (1902); Bernard Holland, Imperium et libertas (1901); (for an anti-imperialist view) J.A. Hobson, Imperialism (1902). See also the Reports of the various colonial conferences, especially that of the Imperial Conference of 1907; and for trade statistics, J. Holt Schooling's British Trade Book. For the tariff reform movement in England see the articles Free Trade and Protection.
(F. L. L.)
The census returns for 1901 from the various parts of the empire were condensed for the first time in 1906 into a blue-book under the title of Census of the British Empire, Report with Summary.
The white population of British South Africa according to the census of 1904 was 1,132,226.
Or "Board," as it became in 1605.
BRITISH HONDURAS, formerly called Balize, or Belize, a British crown colony in Central America; bounded on the N. and N.W. by the Mexican province of Yucatan, N.E. and E. by the Bay of Honduras, an inlet of the Caribbean Sea, and S. and W. by Guatemala. (For map, see Central America.) Pop. (1905) 40,372; area, 7562 sq. m. The frontier of British Honduras, as defined by the conventions of 1859 and 1893 between Great Britain and Guatemala, begins at the mouth of the river Sarstoon or Sarstun, in the Bay of Honduras; ascends that river as far as the rapids of Gracias à Dios; and thence, turning to the right, runs in a straight line to Garbutt's Rapids, on the Belize river. From this point it proceeds due north to the Mexican frontier, where it follows the river Hondo to its mouth in Chetumal Bay.
British Honduras differs little from the rest of the Yucatan peninsula. The approach to the coast is through the islets known as cays, and through coral reefs. It is both difficult and dangerous. For some miles inland the ground is low and swampy, thickly covered with mangroves and tropical jungle. Next succeeds a narrow belt of rich alluvial land, not exceeding a mile in width, beyond which, and parallel to the rivers, are vast tracts of sandy, arid land, called "pine ridges," from the red pines with which they are covered. Farther inland these give place, first, to the less elevated "broken ridges," and then to what are called "cahoon ridges," with a deep rich soil covered with myriads of palm trees. Next come broad savannas, studded with clumps of, trees, through which the streams descending from the mountains wind in every direction. The mountains themselves rise in a succession of ridges parallel to the coast. The first are the Manatee Hills, from 800 to 1000 ft. high; and beyond these are the Cockscomb Mountains, which are about 4000 ft. high. No less than sixteen streams, large enough to be called rivers, descend from these mountains to the sea, between the Hondo and Sarstoon. The uninhabited country between Garbutt's Rapids and the coast south of Deep river was first explored in 1879, by Henry Fowler, the colonial secretary of British Honduras; it was then found to consist of open and undulating grasslands, affording fine pasturage in the west and of forests full of valuable timber in the east. Its elevation varies from 1200 to 3300 ft. Auriferous quartz and traces of other minerals have been discovered, but not in sufficient quantity to repay the cost of mining. The geology, fauna and flora of British Honduras do not materially differ from those of the neighbouring regions (see Central America).
Although the colony is in the tropics, its climate is subtropical. The highest shade temperature recorded is 98° F., the lowest 50°. Easterly sea-winds prevail during the greater part of the year. The dry season lasts from the middle of February to the middle of May; rain occurs at intervals during the other months, and almost continuously in October, November and December. The annual rainfall averages about 81½ in., but rises in some districts to 150 in. or more. Cholera, yellow fever and other tropical diseases occur sporadically, but, on the whole, the country is not unhealthy by comparison with the West Indies or Central American states.
Inhabitants.—British Honduras is a little larger than Wales, and has a population smaller than that of Chester (England). In 1904 the inhabitants of European descent numbered 1500, the Europeans 253, and the white Americans 118. The majority belong to the hybrid race descended from negro slaves, aboriginal Indians and white settlers. At least six distinct racial groups can be traced. These consist of (1) native Indians, to be found chiefly in forest villages in the west and north of the colony away from the sea coast; (2) descendants of the English buccaneers, mixed with Scottish and German traders; (3) the woodcutting class known as "Belize Creoles," of more or less pure descent from African negroes imported, as slaves or as labourers, from the West Indies; (4) the Caribs of the southern districts, descendants of the population deported in 1796 from St Vincent, who were of mixed African and Carib origin; (5) a mixed population in the south, of Spanish-Indian origin, from Guatemala and Honduras; and (6) in the north another Spanish-Indian group which came from Yucatan in 1848. The population tends slowly to increase; about 45% of the births are illegitimate, and males are more numerous than females. Many tracts of fallow land and forest were once thickly populated, for British Honduras has its ruined cities, and other traces of a lost Indian civilization, in common with the rest of Central America.
Natural Products.—-For more than two centuries British Honduras has been supported by its trade in timber, especially in mahogany, logwood, cedar and other dye-woods and cabinet-woods, such as lignum-vitae, fustic, bullet-wood, santa-maria, ironwood, rosewood, &c. The coloured inhabitants are unsurpassed as woodmen, and averse from agriculture; so that there are only about 90 sq. m. of tilled land. Sugar-cane, bananas, cocoanut-palms, plantains, and various other fruits are cultivated; vanilla, sarsaparilla, sapodilla or chewing-gum, rubber, and the cahoon or coyol palm, valuable for its oil, grow wild in large quantities. In September 1903 all the pine trees on crown lands were sold to Mr B. Chipley, a citizen of the United States, at one cent (½ d.) per tree; the object of the sale being to secure the opening up of undeveloped territory. Unsuccessful attempts have been made to establish sponge fisheries on a large scale.
Chief Towns and Communications.—Belize (pop. in 1904, 9969), the capital and principal seaport, is described in a separate article. Other towns are Stann Creek (2459), Corosal (1696), Orange Walk (1244), Punta Gorda (706), the Cayo (421), Monkey River (384) and Mullins River (243). All these are administered by local boards, whose aggregate revenue amounts to some £7000. Telegraph and telephone lines connect the capital with Corosal in the north, and Punta Gorda in the south; but there are no railways, and few good roads beyond municipal limits. Thus the principal means of communication are the steamers which ply along the coast. Mail steamers from New Orleans, Liverpool, Colon and Puerto Cortes in Honduras, regularly visit Belize.
Commerce and Finance.—Between 1901 and 1905 the tonnage of vessels accommodated at the ports of British Honduras rose from 300,000 to 496,465; the imports rose from £252,500 to £386,123; the exports from £285,500 to £377,623. The exports consist of the timber, fruit and other vegetable products already mentioned, besides rum, deerskins, tortoiseshell, turtles and sponges, while the principal imports are cotton goods, hardware, beer, wine, spirits, groceries and specie. The sea-borne trade is mainly shared by Great Britain and the United States. On the 14th of October 1894, the American gold dollar was adopted as the standard coin, in place of the Guatemalan dollar; and the silver of North, South and Central America ceased to be legal tender. Government notes are issued to the value of 1, 2, 5, 10, 50 and 100 dollars, and there is a local currency of one cent bronze pieces, and of 5, 10, 25 and 50 cent silver pieces. The British sovereign and half sovereign are legal tender. In 1846 the government savings bank was founded in Belize; branches were afterwards opened in the principal towns; and in 1903 the British Bank of Honduras was established at Belize. The revenue, chiefly derived from customs, rose from £60,150 in 1901 to £68,335 in 1905. The expenditure, in which the cost of police and education are important items, rose, during the same period, from £51,210 to £61,800. The public debt, amounting in 1905 to £34,736, represents the balance due on three loans which were raised in 1885, 1887, and 1891, for public works in Belize. The loans are repayable between 1916 and 1923.
Constitution and Administration.—From 1638 to 1786 the colonists were completely independent, and elected their own magistrates, who performed all judicial and executive functions. The customs and precedents thus established were codified and published under the name of "Burnaby's Laws," after the visit of Admiral Sir W. Burnaby, in 1756, and were recognized as valid by the crown. In 1786 a superintendent was appointed by the home government, and although this office was vacant from 1790 to 1797, it was revived until 1862. An executive council was established in 1839, and a legislative assembly, of three nominated and eighteen elected members, in 1853. British Honduras was declared a colony in 1862, with a lieutenant governor, subject to the governor of Jamaica, as its chief magistrate. In 1870 the legislative assembly was abolished, and a legislative council substituted—the constitution of this body being fixed, in 1892, at three official and five unofficial members. In 1884 the lieutenant governor was created governor and commander-in-chief, and rendered independent of Jamaica. He is assisted by an executive council of three official and three unofficial members. For administrative purposes the colony is divided into six districts—Belize, Corosal, Orange Walk, the Cayo, Stann Creek and Toledo. The capital of the last named is Punta Gorda; the other districts take the names of their chief towns. English common law is valid throughout British Honduras, subject to modification by local enactments, and to the operation of the Consolidated Laws of British Honduras. This collection of ordinances, customs, &c., was officially revised and published between 1884 and 1888. Appeals may be carried before the privy council or the supreme court of Jamaica,
Religion and Education.—The churches represented are Roman Catholic, Anglican, Wesleyan, Baptist and Presbyterian; but none of them receives assistance from public funds. The bishopric of British Honduras is part of the West Indian province of the Church of England. Almost all the schools, secondary as well as primary, are denominational. School fees are charged, and grants-in-aid are made to elementary schools. Most of these, since 1894, have been under the control of a board, on which the religious bodies managing the schools are represented.
Defence.—The Belize volunteer light infantry corps, raised in 1897, consists of about 200 officers and men; a mounted section, numbering about 40, was created in 1904. For the whole colony, the police Dumber about 120. There is also a volunteer fire brigade of 335 officers and men.
History.—"His Majesty's Settlement in the Bay of Honduras," as the territory was formerly styled in official documents, owes, its origin, in 1638, to log-wood cutters who had formerly been buccaneers. These were afterwards joined by agents of the Chartered Company which exploited the pearl fisheries of the Mosquito coast. Although thus industriously occupied, the settlers so far retained their old habits as to make frequent descents on the logwood establishments of the Spaniards, whose attempts to expel them were generally successfully resisted. The most formidable of these was made by the Spaniards in April 1754, when, in consequence of the difficulty of approaching the position from the sea, an expedition, consisting of 1500 men, was organized inland at the town of Peten. As it neared the coast, it was met by 250 British, and completely routed. The log-wood cutters were not again disturbed for a number of years, and their position had become so well established that, in the treaty of 1763 with Spain, Great Britain, while agreeing to demolish "all fortifications which English subjects had erected in the Bay of Honduras," insisted on a clause in favour of the cutters of logwood, that "they or their Workmen were not to be disturbed or molested, under any pretext whatever, in their said places of cutting and loading logwood." Strengthened by the recognition of the crown, the British settlers made fresh encroachments on Spanish territory. The Spaniards, asserting that they were engaged in smuggling and other illicit practices, organized a large force, and on the 15th of September 1779, suddenly attacked and destroyed the establishment at Belize, taking the inhabitants prisoners to Mérida in Yucatan, and afterwards to Havana, where most of them died, The survivors were liberated in 1782, and allowed to go to Jamaica. In 1783 they returned with many new adventurers, and were soon engaged in cutting woods. On the 3rd of September in that year a new treaty was signed between Great Britain and Spain, in which it was expressly agreed that his Britannic Majesty's subjects should have "the right of cutting, loading, and carrying away logwood in the district lying between the river Wallis or Belize and Rio Hondo, taking the course of these two rivers for unalterable boundaries." These concessions "were not to be considered as derogating from the rights of sovereignty of the king of Spain" over the district in question, where all the English dispersed in the Spanish territories were to concentrate themselves within eighteen months. This did not prove a satisfactory arrangement; for in 1786 a new treaty was concluded, in which the king of Spain made an additional grant of territory, embracing the area between the rivers Sibun or Jabon and Belize. But these extended limits were coupled with still more rigid restrictions. It is not to be supposed that a population composed of so lawless a set of men was remarkably exact in its observance of the treaty. They seem to have greatly annoyed their Spanish neighbours, who eagerly availed themselves of the breaking out of war between the two countries in 1796 to concert a formidable attack on Belize. They concentrated a force of 2000 men at Campeachy, which, under the command of General O'Neill, set sail in thirteen vessels for Belize, and arrived on the 10th of July, 1798. The settlers, aided by the British sloop of war "Merlin," had strongly fortified a small island in the harbour, called St George's Cay. They maintained a determined resistance against the Spanish forces, which were obliged to retire to Campeachy. This was the last attempt to dislodge the British.
The defeat of the Spanish attempt of 1798 has been adduced as an act of conquest, thereby permanently establishing British sovereignty. But those who take this view overlook the important fact that, in 1814, by a new treaty with Spain, the provisions of the earlier treaty were revived. They forget also that for many years the British government never laid claim to any rights acquired in virtue of the successful defence; for so late as 1817-1819 the acts of parliament relating to Belize always refer to it as "a settlement, for certain purposes, under the protection of His Majesty." After Central America had attained its independence (1819-1822) Great Britain secured its position by incorporating the provisions of the treaty of 1786 in a new treaty with Mexico (1826), and in the drafts of treaties with New Granada (1825) and the United States of Central America (1831). The territories between the Belize and Sarstoon rivers were claimed by the British in 1836. The subsequent peaceful progress of the country under British rule; the exception of Belize from that provision of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty (q.v.) of 1850 which forbade Great Britain and the United States to fortify or colonize any point on the Central American mainland; and the settlement of the boundary disputes with Guatemala in 1859, finally confirmed the legal sovereignty of Great Britain over the whole colony, including the territories claimed in 1836. The Bay Islands were recognized as part of the republic of Honduras in 1859. Between 1849, when the Indians beyond the Hondo rose against their Mexican rulers, and 1901, when they were finally subjugated, rebel bands occasionally attacked the northern and north-western marches of the colony. The last serious raid was foiled in 1872.
Bibliography.—For all statistical matter relating to the colony, see the annual reports to the British Colonial Office (London). For the progress of exploration, see A Narrative of a Journey across the unexplored Portion of British Honduras, by H. Fowler (Belize, 1879); and "An Expedition to the Cockscomb Mountains," by J. Bellamy, in Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, vol. xi. (London, 1889). A good general description is given in the Handbook of British Honduras, by L.W. Bristowe and P.B. Wright (Edinburgh, 1892); and the local history is recounted in the History of British Honduras, by A.R. Gibbs (London, 1883); in Notes on Central America, by E.J. Squier (New York, 1855); and in Belize or British Honduras, a paper read before the Society of Arts by Chief Justice Temple (London, 1847).
(K. G. J.)
BRITOMARTIS ("sweet maiden"), an old Cretan goddess, later identified with Artemis. According to Callimachus (Hymn to Diana, 190), she was a nymph, the daughter of Zeus and Carme, and a favourite companion of Artemis. Being pursued by Minos, king of Crete, who was enamoured of her, she sprang from a rock into the sea, but was saved from drowning by falling into some fishermen's nets. She was afterwards made a goddess by Artemis under the name of Dictynna (δίκτυον, "a net"). She was the patroness of hunters, fishermen and sailors, and also a goddess of birth and health. The centre of her worship was Cydonia, whence it extended to Sparta and Aegina (where she was known as Aphaea) and the islands of the Mediterranean. By some she is considered to have been a moon-goddess, her flight from Minos and her leap into the sea signifying the revolution and disappearance of the moon (Pausanias ii. 30, iii. 14; Antoninus Liberalis 40).
BRITON-FERRY, a seaport in the mid-parliamentary division of Glamorganshire, Wales, on the eastern bank of the estuary of the Neath river in Swansea Bay, with stations on the Great Western and the Rhondda & Swansea Bay railways, being 174 m. by rail from London. Pop. of urban district (1901) 6973. A tram-line connects it with Neath, 2 m. distant, and the Vale of Neath Canal (made in 1797) has its terminus here. The district was formerly celebrated for its scenery, but this has been considerably marred by industrial development which received its chief impetus from the construction in 1861 of a dock of 13 acres, the property of the Great Western Railway Company, and the opening up about the same time of the mining districts of Glyncorrwg and Maesteg by means of the South Wales mineral railway, which connects them with the dock and supplies it with its chief export, coal. Steel and tinplates are manufactured here on a large scale. There are also iron-works and a foundry.
The name La Brittone was given by the Norman settlers of the 12th century to its ferry across the estuary of the Neath (where Archbishop Baldwin and Giraldus crossed in 1188, and which is still used), but the Welsh name of the town from at least the 16th century has been Llansawel.
BRITTANY, or Britanny (Fr. Bretagne), known as Armorica (q.v.) until the influx of Celts from Britain, an ancient province and duchy of France, consisting of the north-west peninsula, and nearly corresponding to the departments of Finistère, Côtes-du-Nord, Morbihan, Ille-et-Vilaine and Lower Loire. It is popularly divided into Upper or Western, and Lower or Eastern Brittany. Its greatest length between the English Channel and the Atlantic Ocean is 250 kilometres (about 155 English miles), and its superficial extent is 30,000 sq. kilometres (about 18,630 English sq. m.). It comprises two distinct zones, a maritime zone and an inland zone. In the centre there are two plateaus, partly covered with landes, unproductive moorland: the southern plateau is continued by the Montagnes Noires, and the northern is dominated by the Monts d'Arrée. These ranges nowhere exceed 1150 ft. in height, but from their wild nature they recall the aspect of high mountains. The waterways of Brittany are for the most part of little value owing to their torrent-like character. The only river basin of any importance is that of the Vilaine, which flows through Rennes. The coast is very much indented, especially along the English Channel, and is rocky and lined with reefs and islets. The mouths of the rivers form deep estuaries. Thus nature itself condemned Brittany to remain for a long time shut out from civilization. But in the 19th century the development of railways and other means of communication drew Brittany from its isolation. In the 19th century also agriculture developed in a remarkable manner. Many of the landes were cleared and converted into excellent pasturage, and on the coast market-gardening made great progress. In the fertile districts cereals too are cultivated. Industrial pursuits, except in a few seaport towns, which are rather French than Breton, have hitherto received but little attention.
The Bretons are by nature conservative. They cling with almost equal attachment to their local customs and their religious superstitions. It was not till the 17th century that paganism was even nominally abolished in some parts, and there is probably no district in Europe where the popular Christianity has assimilated more from earlier creeds. Witchcraft and the influence of fairies are still often believed in. The costume of both sexes is very peculiar both in cut and colour, but varies considerably in different districts. Bright red, violet and blue are much used, not only by the women, but in the coats and waistcoats of the men. The reader will find full illustrations of the different styles in Bouet's Breiz-izel, ou vie des Breions de l'Armorique (1844). The Celtic language is still spoken in lower Brittany. Four dialects are pretty clearly marked (see the article Celt: Language, "Breton," p. 328). Nowhere has the taste for marvellous legends been kept so green as in Brittany; and an entire folk-literature still flourishes there, as is manifested by the large number of folk-tales and folk-songs which have been collected of late years.
The whole duchy was formerly divided into nine bishoprics:—Rennes, Dol, Nantes, St Malo and St Brieuc, in Upper Brittany and Tréguier, Vannes, Quimper and St Pol de Léon in Lower.
History.—Of Brittany before the coming of the Romans we have no exact knowledge. The only traces left by the primitive populations are the megalithic monuments (dolmens, menhirs and cromlechs), which remain to this day in great numbers (see Stone Monuments). In 56 B.C. the Romans destroyed the fleet of the Veneti, and in 52 the inhabitants of Armorica took part in the great insurrection of the Gauls against Caesar, but were subdued finally by him in 51. Roman civilization was then established for several centuries in Brittany.
In the 5th century numbers of the Celtic inhabitants of Britain, flying from the Angles and Saxons, emigrated to Armorica, and populated a great part of the peninsula. Converted to Christianity, the new-comers founded monasteries which helped to clear the land, the greater part of which was barren and wild. The Celtic immigrants formed the counties of Vannes, Cornouaille, Léon and Domnonée. A powerful aristocracy was constituted, which owned estates and had them cultivated by serfs or villeins. The Celts sustained a long struggle against the Frankish kings, who only nominally occupied Brittany. Louis the Pious placed a native chief Nomenoë at the head of Brittany. There was then a fairly long period of peace; but Nomenoë rebelled against Charles the Bald, defeated him, and forced him, in 846, to recognize the independence of Brittany. The end of the 9th century and the beginning of the 10th were remarkable for the invasions of the Northmen. On several occasions they were driven back—by Salomon (d. 874) and afterwards by Alain, count of Vannes (d. 907)—but it was Alain Barbetorte (d. 952) who gained the decisive victory over them.
In the second half of the 10th century and in the 11th century the counts of Rennes were predominant in Brittany. Geoffrey, son of Conan, took the title of duke of Brittany in 992. Conan II., Geoffrey's grandson, threatened by the revolts of the nobles, was attacked also by the duke of Normandy (afterwards William I. of England). Alain Fergent, one of his successors, defeated William in 1085, and forced him to make peace. But in the following century the Plantagenets succeeded in establishing themselves in Brittany. Conan IV., defeated by the revolted Breton nobles, appealed to Henry II. of England, who, in reward for his help, forced Conan to give his daughter in marriage to his son Geoffrey. Thus Henry II. became master of Brittany, and Geoffrey was recognized as duke of Brittany. But this new dynasty was not destined to last long. Geoffrey's posthumous son, Arthur, was assassinated by John of England in 1203, and Arthur's sister Alix, who succeeded to his rights, was married in 1212 to Pierre de Dreux, who became duke. This was the beginning of a ducal dynasty of French origin, which lasted till the end of the 15th century.
From that moment the ducal power gained strength in Brittany and succeeded in curbing the feudal nobles. Under French influence civilization made notable progress. For more than a century peace reigned undisturbed in Brittany. But in 1341 the death of John III., without direct heir, provoked a war of succession between the houses of Blois and Montfort, which lasted till 1364. This war of succession was, in reality, an incident of the Hundred Years' War, the partisans of Blois and Montfort supporting respectively the kings of France and England. In 1364 John of Montfort (d. 1399) was recognized as duke of Brittany under the style of John IV., but his reign was constantly troubled, notably by his struggle with Olivier de Clisson (1336-1407). John V. (d. 1442), on the other hand, distinguished himself by his able and pacific policy. During his reign and the reigns of his successors, Francis I., Peter II. and Arthur III., the ducal authority developed in a remarkable manner. The dukes formed a standing army, and succeeded in levying hearth taxes (fouages) throughout Brittany. Francis II. (1435-1488) fought against Louis XI., notably during the War of the Public Weal, and afterwards engaged in the struggle against Charles VIII., known as "The Mad War" (La Guerre Folle). After the death of Francis II. the king of France invaded Brittany, and forced Francis's daughter, Anne of Brittany, to marry him in 1491. Thus the reunion of Brittany and France was prepared. After the death of Charles VIII. Anne married Louis XII. Francis I., who married Claude, the daughter of Louis XII. and Anne, settled the definitive annexation of the duchy by the contract of 1532, by which the maintenance of the privileges and liberties of Brittany was guaranteed. Until the Revolution Brittany retained its own estates. The royal power, however, was exerted to reduce the privileges of the province as much as possible. It often met with vigorous resistance, notably in the 18th century. The struggle was particularly keen between 1760 and 1769, when E. A. de V. du Plessis Richelieu, duc d'Aiguillon, had to fight simultaneously the estates and the parliament, and had a formidable adversary in L. R. de C. de la Chalotais. But under the monarchy the only civil war in Brittany in which blood was shed was the revolt of the duc de Mercœur (d. 1602) against the crown at the time of the troubles of the League, a revolt which lasted from 1589 to 1598. Mention, however, must also be made of a serious popular revolt which broke out in 1675—"the revolt of the stamped paper."
See Bertrand d'Argentré, Histoire de Bretagne (Paris, 1586); Dom Lobineau, Histoire de Bretagne (Paris, 1702); Dom Morice, Histoire de Bretagne (1742-1756); T. A. Trollope, A Summer in Brittany (1840); A. du Chatellier, L'Agriculture et les classes agricoles de la Bretagne (1862); F. M. Luzel, Légendes chrétiennes de la Basse-Bretagne (Paris, 1881), and Veillées bretonnes (Paris, 1879); A. Dupuy, La Réunion de la Bretagne à la France (Paris, 1880), and Études sur l'administration municipale en Bretagne au XVIIIe siècle (1891); J. Loth, L'Émigration bretonne en Armorique du Ve au VIIe siècle (Rennes, 1883); H. du Cleuziou, Bretagne artistique et pittoresque (Paris, 1886); Arthur de la Borderie, Histoire de Bretagne (Rennes, 1896 seq.); J. Lemoine, La Révolte du papier timbré ou des bonnets rouges en Bretagne en 1675 (1898); M. Marion, La Bretagne et le duc d'Aiguillon (Paris, 1898); B. Pocquet, Le Duc d'Aiguillon et la Chalotais (Paris, 1900-1902); Anatole le Braz, Vieilles Histoires du pays breton (1897), and La Légende de la mort (Paris, 1902); Ernest Lavisse, Histoire de France, vol. i. (Paris, 1903); Henri Sée, Étude sur les classes rurales en Bretagne au moyen âge (1896), and Les Classes rurales en Bretagne du XVIe siècle à la Revolution (1906).
Certain authorities count the father of this duke, another John of Montfort (d. 1345), among the dukes of Brittany, and according to this enumeration the younger John becomes John V., not John IV., and his successor John VI. and not John V.
BRITTON, JOHN (1771-1857), English antiquary, was born on the 7th of July 1771 at Kington-St-Michael, near Chippenham. His parents were in humble circumstances, and he was left an orphan at an early age. At sixteen he went to London and was apprenticed to a wine merchant. Prevented by ill-health from serving his full term, he found himself adrift in the world, without money or friends. In his fight with poverty he was put to strange shifts, becoming cellarman at a tavern and clerk to a lawyer, reciting and singing at a small theatre, and compiling a collection of common songs. After some slight successes as a writer, a Salisbury publisher commissioned him to compile an account of Wiltshire and, in conjunction with his friend Edward Wedlake Brayley, Britton produced The Beauties of Wiltshire (1801; 2 vols., a third added in 1825), the first of the series The Beauties of England and Wales, nine volumes of which Britton and his friend wrote. Britton was the originator of a new class of literary works. "Before his time," says Digby Wyatt, "popular topography was unknown." In 1805 Britton published the first part of his Architectural Antiquities of Great Britain (9 vols., 1805-1814); and this was followed by Cathedral Antiquities of England (14 vols., 1814-1835). In 1845 a Britton Club was formed, and a sum of £1000 was subscribed and given to Britton, who was subsequently granted a civil list pension by Disraeli, then chancellor of the exchequer. Britton was an earnest advocate of the preservation of national monuments, proposing in 1837 the formation of a society such as the modern Society for the Preservation of Ancient Monuments. Britton himself supervised the reparation of Waltham Cross and Stratford-on-Avon church. He died in London on the 1st of January 1857.
Among other works with which Britton was associated either as author or editor are Historical Account of Redcliffe Church, Bristol (1813); Illustrations of Fonthill Abbey (1823); Architectural Antiquities of Normandy, with illustrations by Pugin (1825-1827); Picturesque Antiquities of English Cities (1830); and History of the Palace and Houses of Parliament at Westminster (1834-1836), the joint work of Britton and Brayley. He contributed much to the Gentleman's Magazine and other periodicals.
His Autobiography was published in 1850. A Descriptive Account of his Literary Works was published by his assistant T.E. Jones.
BRITTON, the title of the earliest summary of the law of England in the French tongue, which purports to have been written by command of King Edward I. The origin and authorship of the work have been much disputed. It has been attributed to John le Breton, bishop of Hereford, on the authority of a passage found in some MSS. of the history of Matthew of Westminster; there are difficulties, however, involved in this theory, inasmuch as the bishop of Hereford died in 1275, whereas allusions are made in Britton to several statutes passed after that time, and more particularly to the well-known statute Quia emptores terrarum, which was passed in 1290. It was the opinion of Selden that the book derived its title from Henry de Bracton, the last of the chief justiciaries, whose name is sometimes spelled in the fine Rolls "Bratton" and "Bretton", and that it was a royal abridgment of Bracton's great work on the customs and laws of England, with the addition of certain subsequent statutes. The arrangement, however, of the two works is different, and but a small proportion of Bracton's work is incorporated in Britton. The work is entitled in an early MS. of the 14th century, which was once in the possession of Selden, and is now in the Cambridge university library, Summa de legibus Anglie que vocatur Bretone; and it is described as "a book called Bretoun" in the will of Andrew Horn, the learned chamberlain of the city of London, who bequeathed it to the chamber of the Guildhall in 1329, together with another book called Mirroir des Justices.
Britton was first printed in London by Robert Redman, without a date, probably about the year 1530. Another edition of it was printed in 1640, corrected by E. Wingate. A third edition of it, with an English translation, was published at the University Press, Oxford, 1865, by F. M. Nichol. An English translation of the work without the Latin text had been previously published by R. Kelham in 1762.
BRITZSKA, or Britska (from the Polish bryczka; a diminutive of bryka, a goods-wagon), a form of carriage, copied in England from Austria early in the 19th century; as used in Poland and Russia it had four wheels, with a long wicker-work body constructed for reclining and a calash (hooded) top.
BRIVE, or Brives-la-Gaillarde, a town of south-central France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Corrèze, 62 m. S.S.E. of Limoges on the main line of the Orléans railway from Paris to Montauban. Pop. (1906) town 14,954; commune 20,636. It lies on the left bank of the Corrèze in an ample and fertile plain, which is the meeting-place of important roads and railways. The enceinte which formerly surrounded the town has been replaced by shady boulevards, and a few wide thoroughfares have been made, but many narrow winding streets and ancient houses still remain. Outside the boulevards lie the modern quarters, also the fine promenade planted with plane trees which stretches to the Corrèze and contains the chief restaurants and the theatre. Here also is the statue of Marshal Guillaume Marie Anne Brune, who was a native of Brive. A fine bridge leads over the river to suburbs on its right bank. The public buildings are of little interest apart from the church of St Martin, which stands in the heart of the old town. It is a building of the 12th century in the Romanesque style of Limousin, with three narrow naves of almost equal height. The ecclesiastical seminary occupies a graceful mansion of the 16th century, with a façade, a staircase and fireplaces of fine Renaissance workmanship. Brive is the seat of a sub-prefect and has a tribunal of first instance, a tribunal of commerce, a communal college and a school of industry. Its position makes it a market of importance, and it has a very large trade in the early vegetables and fruit of the valley of the Corrèze, and in grain, live-stock and truffles. Table-delicacies, paper, wooden shoes, hats, wax and earthenware are manufactured, and there are slate and millstone workings and dye-works.
In the vicinity are numerous rock caves, many of them having been used as dwellings in prehistoric times. The best known are those of Lamouroux, excavated in stages in a vertical wall of rock, and four grotto-chapels resorted to by pilgrims in memory of St Anthony of Padua, who founded a Franciscan monastery at Brive in 1226. Under the Romans Brive was known as Briva Curretiae (bridge of the Corrèze). In the middle ages it was the capital of lower Limousin.
BRIXEN (Ital. Bressanone), a small city in the Austrian province of Tirol, and the chief town of the administrative district of Brixen. Pop. (1900) 5767. It is situated in the valley of the Eisack, at the confluence of that stream with the Rienz, and is a station on the Brenner railway, being 34 m. south-east of that pass, and 24 m. north-east of Botzen. The aspect of the city is very ecclesiastical; it is still the see of a bishop, and contains an 18th-century cathedral church, an episcopal palace and seminary, twelve churches and five monasteries. The see was founded at the end of the 8th century (possibly of the 6th century) at Säben on the rocky heights above the town of Klausen (some way to the south of Brixen), but in 992 was transferred to Brixen, which, perhaps a Roman station, became later a royal estate, under the name of Prichsna, and in 901 was given by Louis the Child to the bishop. In 1027 the bishop received from the emperor Conrad II. very extensive temporal powers, which he only lost to Austria in 1803. The town was surrounded in 1030 by walls. In 1525 it was the scene of the first outbreak of the great peasants' revolt. About 5½ m. north of Brixen is the great fortress of Franzensfeste, built 1833-1838, to guard the route over the Brenner and the way to the east up the Pusterthal.
(W. A. B. C.)
BRIXHAM, a seaport and market town in the Torquay parliamentary division of Devonshire, England, 33 m. S. of Exeter, on a branch of the Great Western railway. Pop. of urban district (1901) 8092. The town is irregularly built on the cliffs to the south of Torbay, and its harbour is sheltered by a breakwater. Early in the 19th century it was an important military post, with fortified barracks on Berry Head. It is the headquarters of the Devonshire sea-fisheries, having also a large coasting trade. Shipbuilding and the manufacture of ropes, paint and sails are industries. There is excellent bathing, and Brixham is in favour as a seaside resort. St Mary's, the ancient parish church, has an elaborate 14th-century font and some monuments of interest. At the British Seamen's Orphans' home boys are fed, clothed and trained as apprentices for the merchant service. A statue commemorates the landing, in 1688, of William of Orange.
Brixham Cave, called also Windmill Hill Cavern, is a well-known ossiferous cave situated near Brixham, on the brow of a hill composed of Devonian limestone. It was discovered by chance in 1858, having been until then hermetically sealed by a mass of limestone breccia. Dr Hugh Falconer with the assistance of a committee of geologists excavated it. The succession of beds in descending order is as follows:—(1) Shingle consisting of pebbles of limestone, slate and other local rocks, with fragments of stalagmite and containing a few bones and worked flints. The thickness varies from five to sixteen feet. (2) Red cave earth with angular fragments of limestone, bones and worked flints, and having a thickness of 3 to 4 ft. (3) Remnants (in situ) of an old stalagmitic floor about nine inches thick. (4) Black peaty soil varying in thickness, the maximum being about a foot. (5) Angular debris fallen from above varying in thickness from one to ten feet. (6) Stalagmite with a few bones and antlers of reindeer, the thickness varying from one to fifteen inches. Of particular interest is the presence of patches or ledges of an old stalagmitic floor, three to four feet above the present floor. On the under-side, there are found attached fragments of limestone and quartz, showing that the shingle bed once extended up to it, and that it then formed the original floor. The shingle therefore stood some feet higher than it does now, and it is supposed that a shock or jar, such as that of an earthquake, broke up the stalagmite, and the pebbles and sand composing the shingle sunk deeper into the fissures in the limestone. This addition to the size of the cave was partially filled up by the cave earth. At a later period the fall of angular fragments at the entrance finally closed the cave, and it ceased to be accessible except to a few burrowing animals, whose remains are found above the second and newer stalagmite floor.
The fauna of Brixham cavern closely resembles that of Kent's Hole. The bones of the bear, horse, rhinoceros, lion, elephant, hyena and of many birds and small rodents were unearthed. Altogether 1621 bones, nearly all broken and gnawed, were found; of these 691 belonged to birds and small rodents of more recent times. The implements are of a roughly-chipped type resembling those of the Mousterian period. From these structural and palaeontological evidences, geologists suppose that the formation of the cave was carried on simultaneously with the excavation of the valley; that the small streams, flowing down the upper ramifications of the valley, entered the western opening of the cave, and traversing the fissures in the limestone, escaped by the lower openings in the chief valley; and that the rounded pebbles found in the shingle bed were carried in by these streams. It would be only at times of drought that the cave was frequented by animals, a theory which explains the small quantity of animal remains in the shingle. The implements of man are relatively more common, seventeen chipped flints having been found. As the excavation of the valley proceeded, the level of the stream was lowered and its course diverted; the cave consequently became drier and was far more frequently inhabited by predatory animals. It was now essentially an animal den, the occasional visits of man being indicated by the rare occurrence of flint-implements. Finally, the cave became a resort of bears; the remains of 334 specimens, in all stages of growth, including even sucking cubs, being discovered.
See Sir Joseph Prestwich, Geology (1888); Sir John Evans, Ancient Stone Implements of Great Britain, p. 512; Report on the Cave, Phil. Trans. (Royal Society, 1873).
BRIXTON, a district in the south of London, England, included in the metropolitan borough of Lambeth (q.v.).
BRIZEUX, JULIEN AUGUSTE PÉLAGE (1803-1858), French poet, was born at Lorient (Morbihan) on the 12th of September 1803. He belonged to a family of Irish origin, long settled in Brittany, and was educated for the law, but in 1827 he produced at the Théâtre Français a one-act verse comedy, Racine, in collaboration with Philippe Busoni. A journey to Italy in company with Auguste Barbier made a great impression on him, and a second visit (1834) resulted in 1841 in the publication of a complete translation of the Divina Commedia in terza rima. With Primel el Nola (1852) he included poems written under Italian influence, entitled Les Ternaires (1841), but in the rustic idyl of Marie (1836) turned to Breton country life; in Les Bretons (1845) he found his inspiration in the folklore and legends of his native province, and in Telen-Aroor (1844) he used the Breton dialect. His Histoires poétiques (1855) was crowned by the French Academy. His work is small in bulk, but is characterized by simplicity and sincerity. Brizeux was an ardent student of the philology and archaeology of Brittany, and had collected materials for a dictionary of Breton place-names He died at Montpellier on the 3rd of May 1858.
His Œuvres complètes (2 vols., 1860) were edited with a notice of the author by Saint-René Taillandier. Another edition appeared in 1880-1884 (4 vols.). A long list of articles on his work may be consulted in an exhaustive monograph, Brizeux; sa vie et ses œuvres (1898), by the abbé C. Lecigne.
BRIZO, an ancient goddess worshipped in Delos. She delivered oracles in dreams to those who consulted her about fishery and seafaring. The women of Delos offered her presents consisting of little boats filled with all kinds of eatables (with the exception of fish) in order to obtain her protection for those engaged on the sea (Athenaeus viii. p. 335).
BROACH, or Bharuch, an ancient city and modern district of British India, in the northern division of Bombay. The city is on the right bank of the Nerbudda, about 30 m. from the sea, and 203 m. N. of Bombay. The area, including suburbs, occupies 2-1/6 sq. m. Pop. (1901) 42,896. The sea-borne trade is confined to a few coasting vessels. Handloom-weaving is almost extinct, but several cotton mills have been opened. There are also large flour-mills. Broach is the Barakacheva of the Chinese traveller Hsüan Tsang and the Barygaza of Ptolemy and Arrian. Upon the conquest of Gujarat by the Mahommedans, and the formation of the state of that name, Broach formed part of the new kingdom. On its overthrow by Akbar in 1572, it was annexed to the Mogul empire and governed by a Nawab. The Mahrattas became its masters in 1685, from which period it was held in subordination to the peshwa until 1772, when it was captured by a force under General Wedderburn (brother to Lord Loughborough), who was killed in the assault. In 1783 it was ceded by the British to Sindhia in acknowledgment of certain services. It was stormed in 1803 by a detachment commanded by Colonel Woodington, and was finally ceded to the East India Company by Sindhia under the treaty of Sarji Anjangaom.
The District of Broach contains an area of 1467 sq. m. Consisting chiefly of the alluvial plain at the mouth of the river Nerbudda, the land is rich and highly cultivated, and though it is without forests it is not wanting in trees. The district is well supplied with rivers, having in addition to the Nerbudda the Mahi in the north and the Kim in the south. The population comprises several distinct races or castes, who, while speaking a common dialect, Gujarati, inhabit separate villages. Thus there are Koli, Kunbi or Voro (Bora) villages, and others whose lands are almost entirely held and cultivated by high castes, such as Rajputs, Brahmans or Parsees. In 1901 the population was 291,763, showing a decrease of 15%, compared with an increase of 5% in the preceding decade. The principal crops are cotton, millet, wheat and pulse. Dealing in cotton is the chief industry, the dealers being organized in a gild. Besides the cotton mills in Broach city there are several factories for ginning and pressing cotton, some of them on a very large scale. The district is traversed throughout its length by the Bombay & Baroda railway, which crosses the Nerbudda opposite Broach city on an iron-girder bridge of 67 spans. The district suffered severely from the famine of 1899-1900.
BROACH (Fr. broche, a pointed instrument, Med. Lat. brocca, cf. the Latin adjective brochus or broccus, projecting, used of teeth), a word, of which the doublet "brooch" (q.v.) has a special meaning, for many forms of pointed instruments, such as a bodkin, a wooden needle used in tapestry-making, a spit for roasting meat, and a tool, also called a "rimer," used with a wrench for enlarging or smoothing holes (see Tool). From the use of a similar instrument to tap casks, comes "to broach" or "tap" a cask. A particular use in architecture is that of "broach-spire," a term employed to designate a particular form of spire, found only in England, which takes its name from the stone roof of the lower portion. The stone spire being octagonal and the tower square on plan, there remained four angles to be covered over. This was done with a stone roof of slight pitch, compared with that of the spire, and it is the intersection of this roof with the octagonal faces of the spire which forms the broach.
BROADSIDE, sometimes termed Broadsheet, a single sheet of paper containing printed matter on one side only. The broadside seems to have been employed from the very beginning of printing for royal proclamations, papal indulgences and similar documents. England appears to have been its chief home, where it was used chiefly for ballads, particularly in the 16th century, but also as a means of political agitation and for personal statements of all kinds, especially for the dissemination of the dying speeches and confessions of criminals. It is prominent in the history of literature because, particularly during the later part of the 17th century, several important poems, by Dryden, Butler and others, originally appeared printed on the "broad side" of a sheet. The term is also used of the simultaneous discharge of the guns on one side of a ship of war.
BROADSTAIRS, a watering-place, in the Isle of Thanet parliamentary division of Kent, England, 3 m. S.E. of Margate, on the South-Eastern & Chatham railway. Pop. of urban district, Broadstairs and St Peter's (1901) 6466. From 1837 to 1851 Broadstairs was a favourite summer resort of Charles Dickens, who, in a sketch called "Our English Watering-Place," described it as a place "left high and dry by the tide of years." This seaside village, with its "semicircular sweep of houses," grew into a considerable town owing to the influx of summer visitors, for whose entertainment there are, besides the "Albion" mentioned by Dickens, numerous hotels and boarding-houses, libraries, a bathing establishment and a fine promenade. Dickens' residence was called Fort House, but it became known as Bleak House, through association with his novel of that name, though this was written after his last visit to Broadstairs in 1851. Broadstairs has a small pier for fishing-boats, first built in the reign of Henry VIII. An archway leading down to the shore bears an inscription showing that it was erected by George Culmer in 1540, and not far off is the site of a chapel of the Virgin, to which ships were accustomed to lower their top-sails as they passed. St Peter's parish, lying on the landward side of Broadstairs, and included in the urban district, has a church dating from the 12th to the end of the 16th century. Kingsgate, on the North Foreland, north of Broadstairs on the coast, changed its name from St Bartholomew's Gate in honour of Charles II.'s landing here with the duke of York in 1683 on his way from London to Dover. Stonehouse, close by, now a preparatory school for boys, was the residence of Archbishop Tait, whose wife established the orphanage here.
BROCA, PAUL (1824-1880), French surgeon and anthropologist, was born at Sainte-Foy la Grande, Gironde, on the 28th of June 1824. He early developed a taste for higher mathematics, but circumstances decided him in adopting medicine as his profession. Beginning his studies at Paris in 1841, he made rapid progress, becoming house-surgeon in 1844, assistant anatomical lecturer in 1846, and three years later professor of surgical anatomy. He had already gained a reputation by his pathological researches. In 1853 he was named fellow of the Faculty of Medicine, and in 1867 became member of the Academy of Medicine and professor of surgical pathology to the Faculty. During the years occupied in winning his way to the head of his profession he had published treatises of much value on cancer, aneurism and other subjects. It was in 1861 that he announced his discovery of the seat of articulate speech in the left side of the frontal region of the brain, since known as the convolution of Broca. But famous as he was as a surgeon, his name is associated most closely with the modern school of anthropology. Establishing the Anthropological Society of Paris in 1859, of which he was secretary till his death, he was practically the inventor of the modern science of craniology. He rendered distinguished service in the Franco-German War, and during the Commune by his organization and administration of the public hospitals. He founded La Revue d'Anthropologie in 1872, and it was in its pages that the larger portion of his writings appeared. In his last years Broca turned from his labours in the region of craniology to the exclusive study of the brain, in which his greatest triumphs were achieved (see Aphasia). He was decorated with the Legion of Honour in 1868, and was honorary fellow of the leading anatomical, biological and anthropological societies of the world. He died on the 9th of July 1880. A statue of him by Choppin was erected in 1887 in front of the Faculty of Medicine in Paris.
BROCADE, the name usually given to a class of richly decorative shuttle-woven fabrics, often made in coloured silks and with or without gold and silver threads. Ornamental features in brocade are emphasized and wrought as additions to the main fabric, sometimes stiffening it, though more frequently producing on its face the effect of low relief. These additions present a distinctive appearance on the back of the stuff where the weft or floating threads of the brocaded or broached parts hang in loose groups or are clipped away.
The Latin word broccus is related equally to the Italian brocato, the Spanish brocar and the French brocarts and brocher, and implies a form of stitching or broaching, so that textile fabrics woven with an appearance of stitching or broaching have consequently come to be termed "brocades." A Spanish document dated 1375 distinguishes between los draps d'or é d'argent o de seda and brocats d'or é d'argent, a difference which is readily perceived, upon comparing for instance cloths of gold, Indian kincobs, with Lyons silks that are brochés with threads of gold, silk or other material. Notwithstanding this, many Indian kincobs and dainty gold and coloured silk-weavings of Persian workmanship, both without floating threads, are often called brocades, although in neither is the ornamentation really broché or brocaded. Contemporary in use with the Spanish brocats is the word brocado. In addition to brocarts the French now use the word brocher in connexion with certain silk stuffs which however are not brocades in the same sense as the brocarts. A wardrobe account of King Edward IV. (1480) has an entry of "satyn broched with gold"—a description that fairly applies to such an enriched satin as that for instance shown in fig. 4. But some three centuries earlier than the date of that specimen, decorative stuffs were partly brochés with gold threads by oriental weavers, especially those of Persia, Syria and parts of southern Europe and northern Africa under the domination of the Saracens, to whom the earlier germs, so to speak, of brocading may be traced. Of such is the 11th or 12th century Siculo-Saracenic specimen in fig. 1, in which the heads only of the pairs of animals and birds are broched with gold thread. Another sort of brocaded material is indicated in fig. 2, taken from a part of a sumptuous Siculo-Saracenic weaving produced in coloured silks and gold threads at the famous Hotel des Tiraz in Palermo for an official robe of Henry IV. (1165-1197) as emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, and still preserved in the cathedral of Regensburg. Fig. 3 is a further variety of textile that would be classed as brocat. This is of the 12th or 13th century manufacture, possibly by German or Rhenish-Byzantine weavers, or even by Spanish weavers, many of whom at Almeria, Malaga, Grenada and Seville rivalled those at Palermo. In the 14th century the making of satins heavily brocaded with gold threads was associated conspicuously with such Italian towns as Lucca, Genoa, Venice and Florence. Fig. 4 is from a piece of 14th-century dark-blue satin broached in relief with gold thread in a design the like of which appears in the background of Orcagna's "Coronation of the Virgin," now in the National Gallery, London. During the 17th century Genoa, Florence and Lyons vied with each other in making brocades in which the enrichments were as frequently of coloured silks as of gold intermixed with silken threads. Fig. 5 is from a piece of crimson silk damask flatly brocaded with flowers, scroll forms, fruit and birds in gold. This is probably of Florentine workmanship. Rather more closely allied to modern brocades is the Lyons specimen given in fig. 6, in which the brocading is done not only with silver but also with coloured silks. Early in the 18th century Spitalfields was busy as a competitor with Lyons in manufacturing many sorts of brocades, specified in a collection of designs preserved in the national art library of the Victoria and Albert Museum, under such trade titles as "brocade lutstring, brocade tabby, brocade tissue, brocade damask, brocade satin, Venetian brocade, and India figured brocade." Brocading in China seems to be of considerable antiquity, and Dr Bushell in his valuable handbook on Chinese art cites a notice of five rolls of brocade with dragons woven upon a crimson ground, presented by the emperor Ming Ti of the Wei dynasty, in the year A.D. 238, to the reigning empress of Japan; and varieties of brocade patterns are recorded as being in use during the Sung dynasty (960-1279). The first edition of an illustrated work upon tillage and weaving was published in China in 1210, and contains an engraving of a loom constructed to weave flowered-silk brocades such as are woven at the present time at Suchow and Hangchow and elsewhere. On the other hand, although they are described usually as brocades, certain specimens of imperial Chinese robes sumptuous in ornament, sheen of coloured silks and the glisten of golden threads, are woven in the tapestry-weaving manner and without any floating threads. It seems reasonable to infer that Persians and Syrians derived the art of weaving brocades from the Chinese, and as has been indicated, passed it on to Saracens as well as Europeans.
(A. S. C.)
BROCCHI, GIOVANNI BATTISTA (1772-1826), Italian mineralogist and geologist, was born at Bassano on the 18th of February 1772. He studied at the university of Pisa, where his attention was turned to mineralogy and botany. In 1802 he was appointed professor of botany in the new lyceum of Brescia; but he more especially devoted himself to geological researches in the adjacent districts. The fruits of these labours appeared in different publications, particularly in his Trattato mineralogico e chemico sulle miniere di ferro del dipartimento del Mella (1808)—treatise on the iron mines of Mella. These researches procured him the office of inspector of mines in the recently established kingdom of Italy, and enabled him to extend his investigations over great part of the country. In 1811 he produced a valuable essay entitled Memoria mineralogica sulla Valle di Fassa in Tirolo; but his most important work is the Conchiologia fossile subapennina con osservazioni geologiche sugli Apennini, e sul suolo adiacente (2 vols., 4to, Milan, 1814), containing accurate details of the structure of the Apennine range, and an account of the fossils of the Italian Tertiary strata compared with existing species. These subjects were further illustrated by his geognostic map, and his Catalogo ragionato di una raccolta di rocce, disposto con ordine geografico, per servire alla geognosia dell' Italia (Milan, 1817). His work Dello stato fisico del suolo di Roma (1820), with its accompanying map, is likewise noteworthy. In it he corrected the erroneous views of Breislak, who conceived that Rome occupies the site of a volcano, to which he ascribed the volcanic materials that cover the seven hills. Brocchi pointed out that these materials were derived either from Mont Albano, an extinct volcano, 12 m. from the city, or from Mont Cimini, still farther to the north. Several papers by him, on mineralogical subjects, appeared in the Biblioteca Italiana from 1816 to 1823. In the latter year Brocchi sailed for Egypt, in order to explore the geology of that country and report on its mineral resources. Every facility was granted by Mehemet Ali, who in 1823 appointed him one of a commission to examine the district of Sennaar; but Brocchi, unfortunately for science, fell a victim to the climate, and died at Khartum on the 25th of September 1826.
BROCHANT DE VILLIERS, ANDRÉ JEAN FRANÇOIS MARIE (1772-1840), French mineralogist and geologist, was born at Villiers, near Nantes, on the 6th of August 1772. After studying at the École Polytechnique, he was in 1794 the first pupil admitted to the École des Mines. In 1804 he was appointed professor of geology and mineralogy in the École des Mines, which had been temporarily transferred to Pezay in Savoy, and he returned with the school to Paris in 1815. Later on he became inspector general of mines and a member of the Academy of Sciences. He investigated the transition strata of the Tarantaise, wrote on the position of the granite rocks of Mont Blanc, and on the lead minerals of Derbyshire and Cumberland. He was charged with the superintendence of the construction of the geological map of France, undertaken by his pupils Dufrénoy and Elie de Beaumont. He died in Paris on the 16th of May 1840. His publications include Traité élémentaire de minéralogie (2 vols., 1801-1802; 2nd ed., 1808), and Traité abrégé de cristallographie (Paris, 1818).
BROCHANTITE, a mineral species consisting of a basic copper sulphate Cu4(OH)6SO4, crystallizing in the orthorhombic system. The crystals are usually small and are prismatic or acicular in habit; they have a perfect cleavage parallel to the face lettered a in the adjoining figure. They are transparent to translucent, with a vitreous lustre, and are of an emerald-green to blackish-green colour. Specific gravity 3.907; hardness 3½-4. The mineral was first found associated with malachite and native copper in the copper mines of the Urals, and was named by A. Lévy in 1824 after A.J.M. Brochant de Villiers. Several varieties, differing somewhat in crystalline form, have been distinguished, some of them having originally been described as distinct species, but afterwards proved to be essentially identical with brochantite; these are königine from the Urals, brongniartine from Mexico, krisuvigite from Iceland, and warringtonite from Cornwall. Of other localities, mention may be made of Roughten Gill, Caldbeck Fells, Cumberland, where small brilliant crystals are associated with malachite and chrysocolla in a quartzose rock; Rézbánya in the Bihar Mountains, Hungary; Atacama in Chile, with atacamite, which closely resembles brochantite in general appearance; the Tintic district in Utah. A microscopical examination of the green copper ores of secondary origin in the Clifton and Morenci district of Arizona proves brochantite to be of extremely common occurrence mostly intergrown with malachite which effectually masks its presence: it is not unlikely that the malachite of other localities will on examination be found to be intergrown with brochantite.
Mention may be here made of another orthorhombic basic copper sulphate not unlike brochantite in general characters, but differing from it in containing water of crystallization and in its fine blue colour; this is the Cornish mineral langite, which has the composition CuSO4·3Cu(OH)2+H2O.
(L. J. S.)
BROCK, SIR ISAAC (1769-1812), British soldier and administrator, was born at St Peter Port, Guernsey, on the 6th of October 1769. Joining the army at the age of fifteen as an ensign of the 8th regiment, he became a lieutenant-colonel in 1797, after less than thirteen years' service. He commanded the 49th regiment in the expedition to North Holland in 1799, was wounded at the battle of Egmont-op-Zee, and subsequently served on board the British fleet at the battle of Copenhagen. From 1802 to 1805 he was with his regiment in Canada, returning thither in 1806 in view of the imminence of war between Great Britain and the United States. From September 1806 till August 1810 he was in charge of the garrison at Quebec; in the latter year he assumed the command of the troops in Upper Canada, and soon afterwards took over the civil administration of that province as provisional lieutenant-governor. On the outbreak of the war of 1812 Brock had to defend Upper Canada against invasion by the United States. In the face of many difficulties and not a little disaffection, he organized the militia of the province, drove back the invaders, and on the 16th of August 1812, with about 730 men and 600 Indians commanded by their chief Tecumseh, compelled the American force of 2500 men under General William Hull (1753-1825) to surrender at Detroit, an achievement which gained him a knighthood of the Bath and the popular title of "the hero of Upper Canada" From Detroit he hurried to the Niagara frontier, but on the 13th of October in the same year was killed at the battle of Queenston Heights. The House of Commons voted a public monument to his memory, which was erected in Saint Paul's cathedral, London. On the 13th of October 1824, the twelfth anniversary of his death, his remains were removed from the bastions of Fort George, where they had been originally interred, and placed beneath a monument on Queenston Heights, erected by the provincial legislature. This was blown up by a fanatic in 1840, but as the result of a mass-meeting of over 8000 citizens held on the spot, a new and more stately monument was erected.
His Life and Correspondence by his nephew, Ferdinand Brock Tupper (2nd edition, London, 1847), still remains the best; later lives are by D.R. Read (Toronto, 1894), and by Lady Edgar (Toronto and London,1905).
(W. L. G.)
BROCK, THOMAS (1847- ), English sculptor, was the chief pupil of Foley, and later became influenced by the new romantic movement. His group "The Moment of Peril" was followed by "The Genius of Poetry," "Eve," and other ideal works that mark his development. His busts, such as those of Lord Leighton and Queen Victoria; his statues, such as "Sir Richard Owen" and "Dr Philpott, bishop of Worcester"; his sepulchral monuments, such as that to Lord Leighton in St Paul's cathedral, a work of singular significance, refinement and beauty; and his memorial statues of Queen Victoria, at Hove and elsewhere, are examples of his power as a portraitist, sympathetic in feeling, sound and restrained in execution, and dignified and decorative in arrangement. The colossal equestrian statue of "Edward the Black Prince" was set up in the City Square in Leeds in 1901, the year in which the sculptor was awarded the commission to execute the vast Imperial Memorial to Queen Victoria in front of Buckingham Palace. Brock was elected an associate of the Royal Academy in 1883 and full member in 1891.
BROCKEN, a mountain of Germany, in Prussian Saxony, the highest point (3733 ft.) of the Harz. It is a huge, bare, granite-strewn, dome-shaped mass and, owing to its being the greatest elevation in north Germany, commands magnificent views in all directions. From it Magdeburg and the Elbe, the towers of Leipzig and the Thuringian forest are distinctly visible in clear weather. Access to the summit is attained by a mountain railway (12 m.) from Dreiannen-Hohne, a station on the normal gauge line Wernigerode-Nordhausen, and by two carriage roads from the Bodetal and Ilsenburg respectively. In the folklore of north Germany the Brocken holds an important place, and to it cling many legends. Long after Christianity had penetrated to these regions, the Brocken remained a place of heathen worship. Annually, on Walpurgis night (1st of May), curious rites were here enacted, which, condemned by the priests of the Christian church, led to the belief that the devil and witches here held their orgies. Even to this day, this superstition possesses the minds of many country people around, who believe the mountain to be haunted on this night. In literature it is represented by the famous "Brocken scene" in Goethe's Faust.
See Jacobs, Der Brocken in Geschichte und Sage (Halle, 1878); and Pröhle, Brockensagen (Magdeburg, 1888).
BROCKEN, SPECTRE OF THE (so named from having been first observed in 1780 on the Brocken), an enormously magnified shadow of an observer cast upon a bank of cloud when the sun is low in high mountain regions, reproducing every motion of the observer in the form of a gigantic but misty image of himself.
BROCKES, BARTHOLD HEINRICH (1680-1747), German poet, was born at Hamburg on the 22nd of September 1680. He studied jurisprudence at Halle, and after extensive travels in Italy, France and Holland, settled in his native town in 1704. In 1720 he was appointed a member of the Hamburg senate, and entrusted with several important offices. Six years (from 1735 to 1741) he spent as Amtmann (magistrate) at Ritzebtütel. He died in Hamburg on the 16th of January 1747. Brockes' poetic works were published in a series of nine volumes under the fantastic title Irdisches Vergnügen in Gott (1721-1748); he also translated Marini's La Strage degli innocenti (1715), Pope's Essay on Man (1740) and Thomson's Seasons (1745). His poetry has small intrinsic value, but it is symptomatic of the change which came over German literature at the beginning of the 18th century. He was one of the first German poets to substitute for the bombastic imitations of Marini, to which he himself had begun by contributing, a clear and simple diction. He was also a pioneer in directing the attention of his countrymen to the new poetry of nature which originated in England. His verses, artificial and crude as they often are, express a reverential attitude towards nature and a religious interpretation of natural phenomena which was new to German poetry and prepared the way for Klopstock.
Brockes' autobiography was published by J.M. Lappenberg in the Zeitschrift des Vereins für Hamburger Geschichte, ii. pp. 167 ff. (1847). See also A. Brandl, B. H. Brockes (1878), and D.F. Strauss, Brockes und H.S. Reimarus (Gesammelte Schriften, ii.). A short selection of his poetry will be found in vol. 39 (1883) of Kürschner's Deutsche Nationalliteratur.
BROCKHAUS, FRIEDRICH ARNOLD (1772-1823), German publisher, was born at Dortmund, on the 4th of May 1772. He was educated at the gymnasium of his native place, and from 1788 to 1793 served an apprenticeship in a mercantile house at Düsseldorf. He then devoted two years at Leipzig to the study of modern languages and literature, after which he set up at Dortmund an emporium for English goods. In 1801 he transferred this business to Arnheim, and in the following year to Amsterdam. In 1805, having given up his first line of trade, he began business as a publisher. Two journals projected by him were not allowed by the government to survive for any length of time, and in 1810 the complications in the affairs of Holland induced him to return homewards. In 1811 he settled at Altenburg. About three years previously he had purchased the copyright of the Konversations-Lexikon, started in 1796, and in 1810-1811 he completed the first edition of this celebrated work (14th ed. 1901-4). A second edition under his own editorship was begun in 1812, and was received with universal favour. His business extended rapidly, and in 1818 Brockhaus removed to Leipzig, where he established a large printing-house. Among the more extensive of his many literary undertakings were the critical periodicals—Hermes, the Literarisches Konversationsblatt (afterwards the Blätter für literarische Unterhaltung), and the Zeitgenossen, and some large historical and bibliographical works, such as Raumer's Geschichte der Hohenstaufen, and Ebert's Allgemeines bibliographisches Lexikon. F.A. Brockhaus died at Leipzig on the 20th of August 1823. The business was carried on by his sons, Friedrich Brockhaus (1800-1865) who retired in 1850, and Heinrich Brockhaus (1804-1874), under whom it was considerably extended. The latter especially rendered great services to literature and science, which the university of Jena recognized by making him, in 1858, honorary doctor of philosophy. In the years 1842-1848, Heinrich Brockhaus was member of the Saxon second chamber, as representative for Leipzig, was made honorary citizen of that city in 1872, and died there on the 15th of November 1874.
See H. E. Brockhaus, Friedrich A. Brockhaus, sein Leben und Wirken nach Briefen und andern Aufzeichnungen (3 vols., Leipzig, 1872-1881); also by the same author, Die Firma F. A. Brockhaus von der Begrundung bis zum hundertjahrigen Jubilaum (1805-1905, Leipzig, 1905).
Another of Friedrich's sons, Hermann Brockhaus (1806-1877), German Orientalist, was born at Amsterdam on the 28th of January 1806. While his two brothers carried on the business he devoted himself to an academic career. He was appointed extraordinary professor in Jena in 1838, and in 1841 received a call in a similar capacity to Leipzig, where in 1848 he was made ordinary professor of ancient Semitic. He died at Leipzig on the 5th of January 1877. Brockhaus was an Oriental scholar in the old sense of the word, devoting his attention, not to one language only, but to acquiring a familiarity with the principal languages and literature of the East. He studied Hebrew, Arabic and Persian, and was able to lecture on Sanskrit, afterwards his specialty, Pali, Zend and even on Chinese. His most important work was the editio princeps of the Katha-sarit-sagara, "The Ocean of the Streams of Story," the large collection of Sanskrit stories made by Soma Deva in the 12th century. By this publication he gave the first impetus to a really scientific study of the origin and spreading of popular tales, and enabled Prof. Benfey and others to trace the great bulk of Eastern and Western stories to an Indian, and more especially to a Buddhistic source. Among Prof. Brockhaus's other publications were his edition of the curious philosophical play Prabodhachandrodaya, "The Rise of the Moon of Intelligence," his critical edition of the "Songs of Hafiz," and his publication in Latin letters of the text of the "Zend-Avesta."
BROCKLESBY, RICHARD (1722-1797), English physician, was born at Minehead, Somersetshire, on the 11th of August 1722. He was educated at Ballitore, in Ireland, where Edmund Burke was one of his schoolfellows, studied medicine at Edinburgh, and finally graduated at Leiden in 1745. Appointed physician to the army in 1758, he served in Germany during part of the Seven Years' War, and on his return settled down to practise in London. In 1764 he published Economical and Medical Observations, which contained suggestions for improving the hygiene of army hospitals. In his latter years he withdrew altogether into private life. The circle of his friends included some of the most distinguished literary men of the age. He was warmly attached to Dr Johnson, to whom about 1784 he offered an annuity of £100 for life, and whom he attended on his death-bed, while in 1788 he presented Burke, of whom he was an intimate friend, with £1000, and offered to repeat the gift "every year until your merit is rewarded as it ought to be at court." He died on the 11th of December 1797, leaving his house and part of his fortune to his grand-nephew, Dr Thomas Young.
BROCKTON, a city of Plymouth county, Massachusetts, U.S.A., about 20 m. S. of Boston, and containing an area of 21 sq. m. of rolling surface. Pop. (1870) 8007; (1880)13,608; (1890) 27,294; (1900) 40,063, of whom 9484 were foreign-born, including 2667 Irish, 2199 English Canadians and 1973 Swedes; (1910, census) 56,878. It is served by the New York, New Haven & Hartford railway. Brockton has a public library, with 54,000 volumes, in 1908. By popular vote, beginning in 1886 (except in 1898), the liquor traffic was prohibited annually. The death-rate, 13.18 in 1907, is very low for a manufacturing city of its size. Brockton is the industrial centre of a large population surrounding it (East and West Bridgewater, North Easton, Avon, Randolph, Holbrook and Whitman), and is an important manufacturing place. Both in 1900 and in 1905 it ranked first among the cities of the United States in the manufacture of boots and shoes. The city's total factory product in 1900 was valued at $24,855,362, and in 1905 at $37,790,982, an increase during the five years of 52%. The boot and shoe product in 1905 was valued at $30,073,014 (9.4% of the value of the total boot and shoe product of the United States), the boot and shoe cut stock at $1,344,977, and the boot and shoe findings at $2,435,137—the three combined representing 89.6% of the city's total manufactured product. In 1908 there were 35 shoe factories, including the W.L. Douglas, the Ralston, the Walkover, the Eaton, the Keith and the Packard establishments, and, in 1905, 14,000,000 (in 1907 about 17,000,000) pairs of shoes were produced in the city. Among the other products are lasts, blacking, paper and wooden packing boxes, nails and spikes, and shoe fittings and tools. The assessed valuation of the city rose from $6,876,427 in 1881 to $37,408,332 in 1907. Brockton was a part of Bridgewater until 1821, when it was incorporated as the township of North Bridgewater. Its present name was adopted in 1874, and it was chartered as a city in 1881. Brockton was the first city in Massachusetts to abolish all grade crossings (1896) within its limits.
BROCKVILLE, a town and port of entry of Ontario, Canada, and capital of Leeds county, named after General Sir Isaac Brock, situated 119 m. S.W. of Montreal, on the left bank of the St Lawrence, and on the Grand Trunk, and Brockville & Westport railways. A branch line connects it with the Canadian Pacific. It has steamer communication with the St Lawrence and Lake Ontario ports, and is a summer resort. The principal manufactures are hardware, furnaces, agricultural implements, carriages and chemicals. It is the centre of one of the chief dairy districts of Canada, and ships large quantities of cheese and butter. Pop. (1881) 7609; (1901) 8940.
BROD, a town of Croatia-Slavonia, in the county of Pozega, on the left bank of the river Save, 124 m. by rail S.E. by E. of Agram. Pop. (1900) 7310. The principal Bosnian railway here crosses the river, to meet the Hungarian system. Brod has thus a considerable transit trade, especially in cereals, wine, spirits, prunes and wood. It is sometimes called Slavonisch-Brod, to distinguish it from Bosna-Brod, or Bosnisch-Brod, across the river. The town owes its name to a ford (Servian brod) of the Save, and dates at least from the 15th century. Brod was frequently captured and recaptured in the wars between Turkey and Austria; and it was here that the Austrian army mustered, in 1879, for the occupation of Bosnia.
BRODERIP, WILLIAM JOHN (1789-1859), English naturalist, was born in Bristol on the 21st of November 1789. After graduating at Oxford he was called to the bar in 1817, and for some years was engaged in law-reporting. In 1822 he was appointed a metropolitan police magistrate, and filled that office until 1856, first at the Thames police court and then at Westminster. His leisure was devoted to natural history, and his writings did much to further the study of zoology in England. The zoological articles in the Penny Cyclopaedia were written by him, and a series of articles contributed to Fraser's Magazine were reprinted in 1848 as Zoological Recreations, and were followed in 1852 by Leaves from the Note-book of a Naturalist. He was one of the founders of the Zoological Society of London, and a large collection of shells which he formed was ultimately bought by the British Museum. He died in London on the 27th of February 1859.
BRODHEAD, JOHN ROMEYN (1814-1873), American historical scholar, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on the 2nd of January 1814, the son of Jacob Brodhead (1782-1855), a prominent clergyman of the Dutch Reformed Church. He graduated at Rutgers College in 1831, and in 1835 was admitted to the bar in New York City. After 1837, however, he devoted himself principally to the study of American colonial history, and in order to have access to the records of the early Dutch settlements in America he obtained in 1839 an appointment as attaché of the American legation at the Hague. His investigations here soon proved that the Dutch archives were rich in material on the early history of New York, and led the state legislature to appropriate funds for the systematic gathering from various European archives of transcripts of documents relating to New York. Brodhead was appointed (1841) by Governor William H. Seward to undertake the work, and within several years gathered from England, France and Holland some eighty manuscript volumes of transcriptions, largely of documents which had not hitherto been used by historians. These transcriptions were subsequently edited by Edward O'Callaghan (vols. i.-xi. incl.) and by Berthold Fernow (vols. xii.-xv., incl.), and published by the state under the title Documents relating to the Colonial History of New York (15 vols., 1853-1883). From 1846 to 1849, while George Bancroft was minister to Great Britain, Brodhead held under him the post of secretary of legation. In 1853-1857 he was naval officer of the port of New York. He published several addresses and a scholarly History of the State of New York (2 vols., 1853-1871), generally considered the best for the brief period covered (1609-1690). He died in New York City on the 6th of May 1873.
BRODIE, SIR BENJAMIN COLLINS, 1st Bart. (1783-1862), English physiologist and surgeon, was born in 1783 at Winterslow, Wiltshire. He received his early education from his father; then choosing medicine as his profession he went to London in 1801, and attended the lectures of John Abernethy. Two years later he became a pupil of Sir Everard Home at St George's hospital, and in 1808 was appointed assistant surgeon at that institution, on the staff of which he served for over thirty years. In 1810 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, to which in the next four or five years he contributed several papers describing original investigations in physiology. At this period also he rapidly obtained a large and lucrative practice, and from time to time he wrote on surgical questions, contributing numerous papers to the Medical and Chirurgical Society, and to the medical journals. Probably his most important work is that entitled Pathological and Surgical Observations on the Diseases of the Joints, in which he attempts to trace the beginnings of disease in the different tissues that form a joint, and to give an exact value to the symptom of pain as evidence of organic disease. This volume led to the adoption by surgeons of measures of a conservative nature in the treatment of diseases of the joints, with consequent reduction in the number of amputations and the saving of many limbs and lives. He also wrote on diseases of the urinary organs, and on local nervous affections of a surgical character. In 1854 he published anonymously a volume of Psychological Inquiries; to a second volume which appeared in 1862 his name was attached. He received many honours during his career. He attended George IV., was sergeant-surgeon to William IV. and Queen Victoria, and was made a baronet in 1834. He became a corresponding member of the French Institute in 1844, D.C.L. of Oxford in 1855, and president of the Royal Society in 1858, and he was the first president of the general medical council. He died at Broome Park, Surrey, on the 21st of October 1862. His collected works, with autobiography, were published in 1865 under the editorship of Charles Hawkins.
His eldest son, Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie, 2nd Bart. (1817-1880), was appointed professor of chemistry at Oxford in 1865, and is chiefly known for his investigations on the allotropic states of carbon and for his discovery of graphitic acid.
BRODIE, PETER BELLINGER (1815-1897), English geologist, son of P.B. Brodie, barrister, and nephew of Sir Benjamin C. Brodie, was born in London in 1815. While still residing with his father at Lincoln's Inn Fields, he gained some knowledge of natural history and an interest in fossils from visits to the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, at a time when W. Clift was curator. Through the influence of Clift he was elected a fellow of the Geological Society early in 1834. Proceeding afterwards to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, he came under the spell of Sedgwick, and henceforth devoted all his leisure time to geology. Entering the church in 1838, he was curate at Wylye in Wiltshire, and for a short time at Steeple Claydon in Buckinghamshire, becoming later rector of Down Hatherley in Gloucestershire, and finally (1855) vicar of Rowington in Warwickshire, and rural dean. Records of geological observations in all these districts were published by him. At Cambridge he obtained fossil shells from the Pleistocene deposit at Barn well; in the Vale of Wardour he discovered in Purbeck Beds the isopod named by Milne-Edwards Archaeoniscus Brodiei; in Buckinghamshire he described the outliers of Purbeck and Portland Beds; and in the Vale of Gloucester the Lias and Oolites claimed his attention. Fossil insects, however, formed the subject of his special studies (History of the Fossil Insects of the Secondary Rocks of England, 1845), and many of his published papers relate to them. He was an active member of the Cotteswold Naturalists' Club and of the Warwickshire Natural History and Archaeological Society, and in 1854 he was chief founder of the Warwickshire Naturalists' and Archaeologists' Field Club. In 1887 the Murchison medal was awarded to him by the Geological Society of London. He died at Rowington, on the 1st of November 1897.
See Memoir by H. B. Woodward in Geological Magazine, 1897, p. 481 (with portrait).
BRODY, a town of Austria, in Galicia, 62 m. E. of Lemberg by rail. Pop. (1900) 17,360, of which about two-thirds are Jews. It is situated near the Russian frontier, and has been one of the most important commercial centres in Galicia, especially for the trade with Russia. But since 1879, when its charter as a free commercial city was withdrawn, its trade has also greatly diminished. Brody was created a town in 1684, and was raised to the rank of a free commercial city in 1779.
BROEKHUIZEN, JAN VAN [Janus Broukhusius], (1649-1707), Dutch classical scholar and poet, was born on the 20th of November 1649, at Amsterdam. Having lost his father when very young, he was placed with an apothecary, with whom he lived several years. Not liking this employment, he entered the army, and in 1674 was sent with his regiment to America, in the fleet under Admiral de Ruyter, but returned to Holland the same year. In 1678 he was sent to the garrison at Utrecht, where he contracted a friendship with the celebrated Graevius; here he had the misfortune to be so deeply implicated in a duel that, according to the laws of Holland, his life was forfeited. Graevius, however, wrote immediately to Nicholas Heinsius, who obtained his pardon. Not long afterwards he became a captain of one of the companies then at Amsterdam. After the peace of Ryswick, 1697, his company was disbanded, and he retired on a pension to a country house near Amsterdam and pursued his classical and literary studies at leisure. His Dutch poems, in which he followed the model of Pieter Hooft, were first published in 1677; a later edition, with a biography by D. van Hoogstraten, appeared in 1712, the last edition, 1883, was edited by R.A. Kollewijn. His classical reputation rests on his editions of Propertius (1702) and Tibullus (1707). His Latin poems (Carmina) appeared in 1684; a later edition(Poemata) by D. van Hoogstraten appeared in 1711. The Select Letters (Jani Browkhusii Epistolae Selectae, 1889 and 1893) were edited by J.A. Worp, who also wrote his biography, 1891. Broekhuizen died on the 15th of December 1707.
BRÖGGER, WALDEMAR CHRISTOFER (1851- ), Norwegian geologist, was born in Christiania on the 10th of November 1851, and educated in that city. In 1876 he was appointed curator of the geological museum in his native city, and assistant on the Geological Survey. He was professor of mineralogy and geology from 1881 to 1890 in the university of Stockholm, and from 1890 in the university of Christiania. He also became rector and president of the senate of the royal university of Christiania. His observations on the igneous rocks of south Tirol compared with those of Christiania afford much information on the relations of the granitic and basic rocks. The subject of the differentiation of rock-types in the process of solidification as plutonic or volcanic rocks from a particular magma received much attention from him. He dealt also with the Palaeozoic rocks of Norway, and with the late glacial and post-glacial changes of level in the Christiania region. The honorary degree of Ph.D. was conferred upon him by the university of Heidelberg and that of LL.D. by the university of Glasgow. The Murchison medal of the Geological Society of London was awarded to him in 1891.
BROGLIE, DE, the name of a noble French family which, originally Piedmontese, emigrated to France in the year 1643. The head of the family, François Marie (1611-1656), then took the title of comte de Broglie. He had already distinguished himself as a soldier, and died, as a lieutenant-general, at the siege of Valenza on the 2nd of July 1656. His son, Victor Maurice, Comte de Broglie (1647-1727), served under Condé, Turenne and other great commanders of the age of Louis XIV., becoming maréchal de camp in 1676, lieutenant-general in 1688, and finally marshal of France in 1724.
The eldest son of Victor Marie, François Marie, afterwards Duc de Broglie (1671-1745), entered the army at an early age, and had a varied career of active service before he was made, at the age of twenty-three, lieutenant-colonel of the king's regiment of cavalry. He served continuously in the War of the Spanish Succession and was present at Malplaquet. He was made lieutenant-general in 1710, and served with Villars in the last campaign of the war and at the battle of Denain. During the peace he continued in military employment, and in 1719 he was made director-general of cavalry and dragoons. He was also employed in diplomatic missions, and was ambassador in England in 1724. The war in Italy called him into the field again in 1733, and in the following year he was made marshal of France. In the campaign of 1734 he was one of the chief commanders on the French side, and he fought the battles of Parma and Guastalla. A famous episode was his narrow personal escape when his quarters on the Secchia were raided by the enemy on the night of the 14th of September 1734. In 1735 he directed a war of positions with credit, but he was soon replaced by Marshal de Noailles. He was governor-general of Alsace when Frederick the Great paid a secret visit to Strassburg (1740). In 1742 de Broglie was appointed to command the French army in Germany, but such powers as he had possessed were failing him, and he had always been the "man of small means," safe and cautious, but lacking in elasticity and daring. The only success obtained was in the action of Sahay (25th May 1742), for which he was made a duke. He returned to France in 1743, and died two years later.
His son, Victor François, Duc de Broglie (1718-1804), served with his father at Parma and Guastalla, and in 1734 obtained a colonelcy. In the German War he took part in the storming of Prague in 1742, and was made a brigadier. In 1744 and 1745 he saw further service on the Rhine, and in 1756 he was made maréchal de camp. He subsequently served with Marshal Saxe in the low countries, and was present at Roucoux, Val and Maastricht. At the end of the war he was made a lieutenant-general. During the Seven Years' War he served successively under d'Estrées, Soubise and Contades, being present at all the battles from Hastenbeck onwards. His victory over Prince Ferdinand at Bergen (1759) won him the rank of marshal of France from his own sovereign and that of prince of the empire from the emperor Francis I. In 1760 he won an action at Corbach, but was defeated at Vellinghausen in 1761. After the war he fell into disgrace and was not recalled to active employment until 1778, when he was given command of the troops designed to operate against England. He played a prominent part in the Revolution, which he opposed with determination. After his emigration, de Broglie commanded the "army of the princes" for a short time (1792). He died at Münster in 1804.
Another son of the first duke, Charles François, Comte de Broglie (1719-1781), served for some years in the army, and afterwards became one of the foremost diplomatists in the service of Louis XV. He is chiefly remembered in connexion with the Secret du Roi, the private, as distinct from the official, diplomatic service of Louis, of which he was the ablest and most important member. The son of Victor François, Victor Claude, Prince de Broglie (1757-1794), served in the army, attaining the rank of maréchal de camp. He adopted revolutionary opinions, served with Lafayette and Rochambeau in America, was a member of the Jacobin Club, and sat in the Constituent Assembly, constantly voting on the Liberal side. He served as chief of the staff to the Republican army on the Rhine; but in the Terror he was denounced, arrested and executed at Paris on the 27th of June 1794. His dying admonition to his little son was to remain faithful to the principles of the Revolution, however unjust and ungrateful.
Achille Charles Léonce Victor, Duc de Broglie (1785-1870), statesman and diplomatist, son of the last-named, was born at Paris on the 28th of November 1785. His mother had shared her husband's imprisonment, but managed to escape to Switzerland, where she remained till the fall of Robespierre. She now returned to Paris with her children and lived there quietly until 1796, when she married a M. d'Argenson, grandson of Louis XV.'s minister of war. Under the care of his step-father young de Broglie received a careful and liberal education and made his entrée into the aristocratic and literary society of Paris under the Empire. In 1809, he was appointed a member of the council of state, over which Napoleon presided in person; and was sent by the emperor on diplomatic missions, as attaché, to various countries. Though he had never been in sympathy with the principles of the Empire, de Broglie was not one of those who rejoiced at its downfall. In common with all men of experience and sense he realized the danger to France of the rise to power of the forces of violent reaction. With Decazes and Richelieu he saw that the only hope for a calm future lay in "the reconciliation of the Restoration with the Revolution." By the influence of his uncle, Prince Amédée de Broglie, his right to a peerage had been recognized; and to his own great surprise he received, in June 1814, a summons from Louis XVIII. to the Chamber of Peers. There, after the Hundred Days, he distinguished himself by his courageous defence of Marshal Ney, for whose acquittal he, alone of all the peers, both spoke and voted. After this defiant act of opposition it was perhaps fortunate that his impending marriage gave him an excuse for leaving the country. On the 15th of February 1816, he was married at Leghorn to the daughter of Madame de Staël. He returned to Paris at the end of the year, but took no part in politics until the elections of September 1817 broke the power of the "ultra-royalists" and substituted for the Chambre introuvable a moderate assembly. De Broglie's political attitude during the years that followed is best summed up in his own words: "From 1812 to 1822 all the efforts of men of sense and character were directed to reconciling the Restoration and the Revolution, the old régime and the new France. From 1822 to 1827 all their efforts were directed to resisting the growing power of the counter-revolution. From 1827 to 1830 all their efforts aimed at moderating and regulating the reaction in a contrary sense." During the last critical years of Charles X.'s reign, de Broglie identified himself with the doctrinaires, among whom Royer-Collard and Guizot were the most prominent. The July revolution placed him in a difficult position; he knew nothing of the intrigues which placed Louis Philippe on the throne; but, the revolution once accomplished, he was ready to uphold the fait accompli with characteristic loyalty, and on the 9th of August took office in the new government as minister of public worship and education. As he had foreseen, the ministry was short-lived, and on the 2nd of November he was once more out of office. During the critical time that followed he consistently supported the principles which triumphed with the fall of Laffitte and the accession to power of Casimir Périer in March 1832. After the death of the latter and the insurrection of June 1832, de Broglie took office once more as minister for foreign affairs (October 11th). His tenure of the foreign office was coincident with a very critical period in international relations. But for the sympathy of Great Britain under Palmerston, the July monarchy would have been completely isolated in Europe; and this sympathy the aggressive policy of France in Belgium and on the Mediterranean coast of Africa had been in danger of alienating. The Belgian crisis had been settled, so far as the two powers were concerned, before de Broglie took office; but the concerted military and naval action for the coercion of the Dutch, which led to the French occupation of Antwerp, was carried out under his auspices. The good understanding of which this was the symbol characterized also the relations of de Broglie and Palmerston during the crisis of the first war of Mehemet Ali (q.v.) with the Porte, and in the affairs of the Spanish peninsula their common sympathy with constitutional liberty led to an agreement for common action, which took shape in the treaty of alliance between Great Britain, France, Spain and Portugal, signed at London on the 22nd of April 1834. De Broglie had retired from office in the March preceding, and did not return to power till March of the following year, when he became head of the cabinet. In 1836, the government having been defeated on a proposal to reduce the five per cents, he once more resigned, and never returned to official life. He had remained in power long enough to prove what honesty of purpose, experience of affairs, and common sense can accomplish when allied with authority. The debt that France and Europe owed him may be measured by comparing the results of his policy with that of his successors under not dissimilar circumstances. He had found France isolated and Europe full of the rumours of war; he left her strong in the English alliance and the respect of Liberal Europe, and Europe freed from the restless apprehensions which were to be stirred into life again by the attitude of Thiers in the Eastern Question and of Guizot in the affair of the "Spanish marriages." From 1836 to 1848 de Broglie held almost completely aloof from politics, to which his scholarly temperament little inclined him, a disinclination strengthened by the death of his wife on the 22nd of September 1838. His friendship for Guizot, however, induced him to accept a temporary mission in 1845, and in 1847 to go as French ambassador to London. The revolution of 1848 was a great blow to him, for he realized that it meant the final ruin of the Liberal monarchy—in his view the political system best suited to France. He took his seat, however, in the republican National Assembly and in the Convention of 1848, and, as a member of the section known as the "Burgraves," did his best to stem the tide of socialism and to avert the reaction in favour of autocracy which he foresaw. He shared with his colleagues the indignity of the coup d'état of the 2nd of December 1851, and remained for the remainder of his life one of the bitterest enemies of the imperial regime, though he was heard to remark, with that caustic wit for which he was famous, that the empire was "the government which the poorer classes in France desired and the rich deserved." The last twenty years of his life were devoted chiefly to philosophical and literary pursuits. Having been brought up by his step-father in the sceptical opinions of the time, he gradually arrived at a sincere belief in the Christian religion. "I shall die," said he, "a penitent Christian and an impenitent Liberal." His literary works, though few of them have been published, were rewarded in 1856 by a seat in the French Academy, and he was also a member of another branch of the French Institute, the Academy of Moral and Political Science. In the labours of those learned bodies he took an active and assiduous part. He died on the 25th of January 1870.
Besides his Souvenirs, in 4 vols. (Paris, 1885-1888), the duc de Broglie left numerous works, of which only some have been published. Of these may be mentioned Écrits et discours (3 vols., Paris, 1863); Le Libre Échange et l'impôt (Paris, 1879); Vues sur le gouvernement de la France (Paris, 1861). This last was confiscated before publication by the imperial government. See Guizot, Le Duc de Broglie (Paris, 1870), and Mémoires (Paris, 1858-1867); and the histories of Thureau-Dangin and Duvergier de Hauranne.
Jacques Victor Albert, Duc de Broglie (1821-1901), his eldest son, was born at Paris on the 13th of June 1821. After a brief diplomatic career at Madrid and Rome, the revolution of 1848 caused him to withdraw from public life and devote himself to literature. He had already published a translation of the religious system of Leibnitz (1846). He now at once made his mark by his contributions to the Revue des deux Mondes and the Orleanist and clerical organ Le Correspondant, which were afterwards collected under the titles of Études morales et littéraires (1853) and Questions de religion et d'histoire (1860). These were supplemented in 1869 by a volume of Nouvelles études de littérature et de morale. His L'Église et l'empire romain au IVe siècle (1856-1866) brought him the succession to Lacordaire's seat in the Academy in 1862. In 1870 he succeeded his father in the dukedom, having previously been known as the prince de Broglie. In the following year he was elected to the National Assembly for the department of the Eure, and a few days later (on the 19th of February) was appointed ambassador in London; but in March 1872, in consequence of criticisms upon his negotiations concerning the commercial treaties between England and France, he resigned his post and took his seat in the National Assembly, where he became the leading spirit of the monarchical campaign against Thiers. On the replacement of the latter by Marshal MacMahon, the duc de Broglie became president of the council and minister for foreign affairs (May 1873), but in the reconstruction of the ministry on the 26th of November, after the passing of the septennate, transferred himself to the ministry of the interior. His tenure of office was marked by an extreme conservatism, which roused the bitter hatred of the Republicans, while he alienated the Legitimist party by his friendly relations with the Bonapartists, and the Bonapartists by an attempt to effect a compromise between the rival claimants to the monarchy. The result was the fall of the cabinet on the 16th of May 1874. Three years later (on the 16th of May 1877) he was entrusted with the formation of a new cabinet, with the object of appealing to the country and securing a new chamber more favourable to the reactionaries than its predecessor had been. The result, however, was a decisive Republican majority. The duc de Broglie was defeated in his own district, and resigned office on the 20th of November. Not being re-elected in 1885, he abandoned politics and reverted to his historical work, publishing a series of historical studies and biographies written in a most pleasing style, and especially valuable for their extensive documentation. He died in Paris on the 19th of January 1901.
Besides editing the Souvenirs of his father (1886, &c.), the Mémoires of Talleyrand (1891, &c.), and the Letters of the Duchess Albertine de Broglie (1896), he published Le Secret du roi, Correspondance secrète de Louis XV avec ses agents diplomatiques, 1752-1774 (1878); Frédéric II et Marie Thérèse (1883); Frédéric II et Louis XV (1885); Marie Thérèse Impératrice (1888); Le Père Lacordaire (1889); Maurice de Saxe et le marquis d'Argenson (1891); La Paix d'Aix-la-Chapelle (1892); L'Alliance autrichienne (1895); La Mission de M. de Gontaut-Biron à Berlin (1896); Voltaire avant et pendant la Guerre de Sept Ans (1898); Saint Ambroise, translated by Margaret Maitland in the series of "The Saints" (1899).
BROGUE, (1) A rough shoe of raw leather (from the Gael. brog, a shoe) worn in the wilder parts of Ireland and the Scottish Highlands. (2) A dialectical accent or pronunciation (of uncertain origin), especially used of the Irish accent in speaking English.
BROHAN, AUGUSTINE SUSANNE (1807-1887), French actress, was born in Paris on the 22nd of January 1807. She entered the Conservatoire at the age of eleven, and took the second prize for comedy in 1820, and the first in 1821. She served her apprenticeship in the provinces, making her first Paris appearance at the Odéon in 1832 as Dorine in Tartuffe. Her success there and elsewhere brought her a summons to the Comédie Française, where she made her début on the 15th of February 1834, as Madelon in Les Précieuses ridicules, and Suzanne in Le Mariage de Figaro. She retired in 1842, and died on the 16th of August 1887.
Her elder daughter, Josephine Félicité Augustine Brohan (1824-1893), was admitted to the Conservatoire when very young, twice taking the second prize for comedy. The soubrette part, entrusted for more than 150 years at the Comédie Française to a succession of artists of the first rank, was at the moment without a representative, and Mdlle Augustine Brohan made her début there on the 19th of May 1841, as Dorine in Tartuffe, and Lise in Rivaux d'eux-mêmes. She was immediately admitted pensionnaire, and at the end of eighteen months unanimously elected sociétaire. She soon became a great favourite, not only in the plays of Molière and de Regnard, but also in those of Marivaux. On her retirement from the stage in 1866, she made an unhappy marriage with Edmond David de Gheest (d. 1885), secretary to the Belgian legation in Paris.
Susanne Brohan's second daughter, Émilie Madeleine Brohan (1833-1900), also took first prize for comedy at the Conservatoire (1850). She was engaged at once by the Comédie Française, but instead of making her début in some play of the répertoire of the theatre, the management put on for her benefit a new comedy by Scribe and Legouvé, Les Contes de la reine de Navarre, in which she created the part of Marguerite on the 1st of September 1850. Her talents and beauty made her a success from the first, and in less than two years from her début she was elected sociétaire. In 1853 she married Mario Uchard, from whom she was soon separated, and in 1858 she returned to the Comédie Française in leading parts, until her retirement in 1886. Her name is associated with a great number of plays, besides those in the classical répertoire, notably Le Monde où l'on s'ennuie, Par droit de conquête, Les Deux Veuves, and Le Lion amoureux, in which, as the "marquise de Maupas", she had one of her greatest successes.
BROKE, or Brooke, ARTHUR (d. 1563), English author, wrote the first English version of the story of Romeo and Juliet. The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Julieit (1562) is a rhymed account of the story, taken, not directly from Bandello's collection of novels (1554), but from the French translation (Histoires tragiques) of Pierre Boaistuau or Boisteau, surnamed Launay, and François de Belleforest. Broke adds some detail to the story as told by Boisteau. As the poem contains many scenes which are not known to exist elsewhere, but which were adopted by Shakespeare in Romeo and Juliet, there is no reasonable doubt that it may be regarded as the main source of the play. Broke perished by shipwreck in 1563, on his way from Newhaven to join the English troops fighting on the Huguenot side in France.
The genesis of the Juliet story, and a close comparison of Shakespeare's play with Broke's version, are to be found in a reprint of the poem and of William Paynter's prose translation from the Palace of Pleasure, edited by Mr P. A. Daniel for the New Shakespere Society (1875).
BROKE, SIR PHILIP BOWES VERE, BART. (1776-1841), British rear-admiral, was born at Broke Hall, near Ipswich, on the 9th of September 1776, a member of an old Suffolk family. Entering the navy in June 1792, he saw active service in the Mediterranean from 1793 to 1795, and was with the British fleet at the battle of Cape St Vincent, 1797. In 1798 he was present at the defeat and capture of the French squadron off the north coast of Ireland. From 1799 to 1801 he served with the North Sea fleet, and in the latter year was made captain. Unemployed for the next four years, he commanded in 1805 a frigate in the English and Irish Channels. In 1806 he was appointed to the command of the "Shannon", 38-gun frigate, remaining afloat, principally in the Bay of Biscay, till 1811. The "Shannon" was then ordered to Halifax, Nova Scotia. For a year after the declaration of war between Great Britain and the United States in 1812, the frigate saw no important service, though she captured several prizes. Broke utilized this period of comparative inactivity to train his men thoroughly. He paid particular attention to gunnery, and the "Shannon" ere long gained a unique reputation for excellence of shooting. Broke's opportunity came in 1813. In May of that year the "Shannon" was cruising off Boston, watching the "Chesapeake", an American frigate of the same nominal force but heavier armament. On the 1st of June Broke, finding his water supply getting low, wrote to Lawrence, the commander of the "Chesapeake", asking for a meeting between the two ships, stating the "Shannon's" force, and guaranteeing that no other British ship should take part in the engagement. Before this letter could be delivered, however, the "Chesapeake", under full sail, ran out of Boston harbour, crowds of pleasure-boats accompanying her to witness the engagement. Broke briefly addressed his men. "Don't cheer," he concluded, "go quietly to your quarters. I feel sure you will all do your duty." As the "Chesapeake" rounded to on the "Shannon's" weather quarter, at a distance of about fifty yards, the British frigate received her with a broadside. A hundred of the "Chesapeake's" crew were struck down at once, Lawrence himself being mortally wounded. A second broadside, equally well-aimed, increased the confusion, and, her tiller-ropes being shot away, the American frigate drifted foul of the "Shannon". Broke sprang on board with some sixty of his men following him. After a brief struggle the fight was over. Within fifteen minutes of the firing of the first shot, the "Chesapeake" struck her flag, but Broke himself was seriously wounded. For his services he was rewarded with a baronetcy, and subsequently was made a K.C.B. His exploit captivated the public fancy, and his popular title of "Brave Broke" gives the standard by which his action was judged. Its true significance, however, lies deeper. Broke's victory was due not so much to courage as to forethought. "The 'Shannon,'" said Admiral Jurien de La Gravière, "captured the 'Chesapeake' on the 1st of June 1813; but on the 14th of September 1806, when he took command of his frigate, Captain Broke had begun to prepare the glorious termination to this bloody affair." Broke's wound incapacitated him from further service, and for the rest of his life caused him serious suffering. He died in London on the 2nd of January 1841.
BROKEN HILL, a silver-mining town of Yancowinna county, New South Wales, Australia, 925 m. directly W. by N. of Sydney, and connected with Adelaide by rail. Pop. (1901) 27,518. One of the neighbouring mines, the Proprietary, is the richest in the world; gold is associated with the silver; large quantities of lead, good copper lodes, zinc and tin are also found. The problem of the profitable treatment of the sulphide ores has been practically solved here. In addition Broken Hill is the centre of one of the largest pastoral districts in Australia. The town is the seat of the Roman Catholic bishop of Wilcannia.
BROKER (according to the New English Dictionary, from Lat. brocca, spit, spike, broccare, to "broach"—another Eng. form of the same word; hence O. Fr. vendre à broche, to retail, e.g. wine, from the tap, and thus the general sense of dealing; see also for a discussion of the etymology and early history of the use of the word, J.R. Dos Passos, Law of Stockbrokers, chap. i., New York, 1905). In the primary sense of the word, a broker is a mercantile agent, of the class known as general agents, whose office is to bring together intending buyers and sellers and make a contract between them, for a remuneration called brokerage or commission; e.g. cotton brokers, wool brokers or produce brokers. Originally the only contracts negotiated by brokers were for the sale or purchase of commodities; but the word in its present use includes other classes of mercantile agents, such as stockbrokers, insurance-brokers, ship-brokers or bill-brokers. Pawnbrokers are not brokers in any proper sense of the word; they deal as principals and do not act as agents. In discussing the chief questions of modern legal interest in connexion with brokers, we shall deal with them, firstly, in the original sense of agents for the purchase and sale of goods.
Relations between Broker and Principal.—A broker has not, like a factor, possession of his principal's goods, and, unless expressly authorized, cannot buy or sell in his own name; his business is to bring into privity of contract his principal and the third party. When the contract is made, ordinarily he drops out altogether. Brokers very frequently act as factors also, but, when they do so, their rights and duties as factors must be distinguished from their rights and duties as brokers. It is a broker's duty to carry out his principal's instructions with diligence, skill and perfect good faith. He must see that the terms of the bargain accord with his principal's orders from a commercial point of view, e.g. as to quality, quantity and price; he must ensure that the contract of sale effected by him be legally enforceable by his principal against the third party; and he must not accept any commission from the third party, or put himself in any position in which his own interest may become opposed to his principal's. As soon as he has made the contract which he was employed to make, in most respects his duty to, and his authority from, his principal alike cease; and consequently the law of brokers relates principally to the formation of contracts by them.
The most important formality in English law, in making contracts for the sale of goods, with which a broker must comply, in order to make the contract legally enforceable by his principal against the third party, is contained in section 4 of the Sale of Goods Act 1893, which (in substance re-enacting section 17 of the Statute of Frauds) provides as follows:—"A contract for the sale of any goods of the value of ten pounds or upwards shall not be enforceable by action unless the buyer shall accept part of the goods as sold, and actually receive the same, or give something in earnest to bind the contract, or in part payment, or unless some note or memorandum in writing of the contract be made and signed by the party to be charged or his agent in that behalf."
From the reign of James I. till 1884 brokers in London were admitted and licensed by the corporation, and regulated by statute; and it was common to employ one broker only, who acted as intermediary between, and was the agent of both buyer and seller. When the Statute of Frauds was passed in the reign of Charles II., it became the practice for the broker, acting for both parties, to insert in a formal book, kept for the purpose, a memorandum of each contract effected by him, and to sign such memorandum on behalf of both parties, in order that there might be a written memorandum of the contract of sale, signed by the agent of the parties as required by the statute. He would then send to the buyer a copy of this memorandum, called the "bought note", and to the seller a "sold note", which would run as follows:—
"I have this day bought for you from A B [or "my principal"] ..."
[signed] "M, Broker."
"I have this day sold for you to A B [or "my principal"] ..."
[signed] "M, Broker."
There was in the earlier part of the 19th century considerable discussion in the courts as to whether the entry in a broker's book, or the bought and sold notes (singly or together), constituted the statutory memorandum; and judicial opinion was not unanimous on the point. But at the present day brokers are no longer regulated by statute, either in London or elsewhere, and keep no formal book; and as an entry made in a private book kept by the broker for another purpose, even if signed, would probably not be regarded as a memorandum signed by the agent of the parties in that behalf, the old discussion is now of little practical interest.
Under modern conditions of business the written memorandum of the contract of sale effected by the broker is usually to be found in a "contract note"; but the question whether, in the particular circumstances of each case, the contract note affords a sufficient memorandum in writing, depends upon a variety of considerations—e.g. whether the transaction is effected through one or through two brokers; whether the contract notes are rendered by one broker only, or by both; and, if the latter, whether exchanged between the brokers, or rendered by each broker to his own client; for under present practice any one of these methods may obtain, according to the trade in which the transaction is effected, and the nature of the particular transaction.
Where one and the same broker is employed by both seller and buyer, bought and sold notes rendered in the old form provide the necessary memorandum of the contract. Where two brokers are employed, one by the seller and one by the buyer, sometimes one drops out as soon as the terms are negotiated, and the other makes out, signs and sends to the parties the bought and sold notes. The latter then becomes the agent of both parties for the purpose of signing the statutory memorandum, and the position is the same as if one broker only had been employed. On the other hand, if one broker does not drop out of the transaction, each broker remains to the end the agent of his own principal only, and neither becomes the agent of the other party for the purpose of signing the memorandum. In such a case it is the usual practice for the buyer's broker to send to the seller's broker a note of the contract,—"I, acting on account of A. B. [or, "of my principal,"], have this day bought from you, acting on account of C. D. [or, "of your principal"],"—and to receive a corresponding note from the seller's broker. Thus each of the parties receives through his own agent a memorandum signed by the other party's agent. These contract notes are usually known as, and serve the purpose of, "bought" and "sold" notes. In all the above three cases the broker's duty of compliance with all formalities necessary to make the contract of sale legally enforceable is performed, and both parties obtain a written memorandum of the contract upon which they can sue.
The broker, on performing his duty in accordance with the terms upon which he is employed, is entitled to be paid his "brokerage." This usually takes the form of a percentage, varying according to the nature and conditions of the business, upon the total price of the goods bought or sold through him. When he guarantees the solvency of the other party, he is said to be employed upon del credere terms, and is entitled to a higher rate of remuneration. In some trades it is the custom for the selling broker to receive payment from the buyer or his broker; and in such case it is his duty to account to his principal for the purchase money. A broker who properly expends money or incurs liability on his principal's behalf in the course of his employment, is entitled to be reimbursed the money, and indemnified against the liability. Not having, like a factor, possession of the goods, a broker has no lien by which to enforce his rights against his principal. If he fails to perform his duty, he loses his right to remuneration, reimbursement and indemnity, and further becomes liable to an action for damages for breach of his contract of employment, at the suit of his principal.
Relations between Broker and Third Party.—A broker who signs a contract note as broker on behalf of a principal, whether named or not, is not personally liable on the contract to the third party. But if he makes the contract in such a way as to make himself a party to it, the third party may sue either the broker or his principal, subject to the limitation that the third party, by his election to treat one as the party to the contract, may preclude himself from suing the other. In this respect the ordinary rules of the law of agency apply to a broker. Generally, a broker has not authority to receive payment, but in trades in which it is customary for him to do so, if the buyer pays the seller's broker, and is then sued by the seller for the price by reason of the broker having become insolvent or absconded, he may set up the payment to the broker as a defence to the action by the broker's principal. Brokers may render themselves liable for damages in tort for the conversion of the goods at the suit of the true owner if they negotiate a sale of the goods for a selling principal who has no title to the goods.
The Influence of Exchanges.—The relations between brokers and their principals, and also between brokers and third parties as above defined, have been to some extent modified in practice by the institution since the middle of the 19th century in important commercial centres of "Exchanges," where persons interested in a particular trade, whether as merchants or as brokers, meet for the transaction of business. By the contract of membership of the association in whose hands is vested the control of the exchange, every person on becoming a member agrees to be bound by the rules of the association, and to make his contracts on the market in accordance with them. A governing body or committee elected by the members enforces observance of the rules, and members who fail to meet their engagements on the market, or to conform to the rules, are liable to suspension or expulsion by the committee. All disputes between members on their contracts are submitted to an arbitration tribunal composed of members; and the arbitrators in deciding the questions submitted to them are guided by the rules. A printed book of rules is available for reference; and various printed forms of contract suited to the various requirements of the business are specified by the rules and supplied by the association for the use of members. In order to simplify the settlement of accounts between members, particularly in respect of "futures," i.e. contracts for future delivery, a weekly or other periodical settlement is effected by means of a clearing-house; each member paying or receiving in respect of all his contracts which are still open, the balance of his weekly "differences," i.e. the difference between the contract price and the market price fixed for the settlement, or between the last and the present settlement prices.
As all contracts on the market are made subject to the rules, it follows that so far as the rules alter the rights and liabilities attached by law, the ordinary law is modified. The most important modification in the position of brokers effected by membership of such an exchange is due to the rule that as, between themselves, all members are principals, on the market no agents are recognized; a broker employed by a non-member to buy for him on the market is treated by the rules as buying for himself, and is, therefore, personally liable on the contract. If it be a contract in futures, he is required to conform to the weekly settlement rules. If his principal fails to take delivery, the engagement is his and he is required to make good to the member who sold to him any difference between the contract and market price at the date of delivery. But whilst this practice alters directly the relations of the broker to the third party, it also affects or tends to affect indirectly the relations of the broker to his own principal. The terms of the contract of employment being a matter of negotiation and agreement between them, it is open to a broker, if he chooses, to stipulate for particular terms; and it is the usual practice of exchanges to supply printed contract forms for the use of members in their dealings with non-members who employ them as brokers, containing a stipulation that the contract is made subject to the rules of the exchange; and frequently also a clause that the contract is made with the broker as principal. In addition to these express terms, there is in the contract of employment the term, implied by law in all trade contracts, that the parties consent to be bound by such trade usages as are consistent with the express terms of the contract, and reasonable. On executing an order the broker sends to his client a contract-note either in the form of the old bought and sold notes "I have this day [bought / sold] for you," or, when the principal clause is inserted, "I have this day [sold to / bought] from you." These are not bought and sold notes proper, for the broker is not the agent of the third party for the purpose of signing them as statutory memoranda of the sale. But they purport to record the terms of the contract of employment, and the principal may treat himself as bound by their provisions. Sometimes they are accompanied by a detachable form, known as the "client's return contract note," to be filled in, signed and returned by the client; but even the "client's return contract note" is retained by the client's own broker, and is only a memorandum of the terms of employment. The following is a form of contract note rendered by a broker to his client for American cotton, bought on the Liverpool Cotton Exchange for future delivery. The client's contract note is attached to it, and is in precisely corresponding form.
AMERICAN COTTON
Delivery Contract Note.
Liverpool,................
M................
DEAR SIRS,
We have this day.............. to/from you .............. lb American Cotton, net weight, to be contained in .............. American Bales, more or less, to be delivered in Liverpool, during .............. on the basis of .......... per lb for ............ on the terms of the rules, bye-laws, and Clearing House regulations of the Liverpool Cotton Association, Limited, whether endorsed hereon or not.
The contract, of which this is a note, is made between ourselves and yourselves, and not by or with any person, whether disclosed or not, on whose instructions or for whose benefit the same may have been entered into. Yours faithfully,
The contract, of which the above is a note, was made on the date specified, within the business hours fixed by the Liverpool Cotton Association, Limited.
......... per cent to us.
Please confirm by signing and returning the contract attached.
The above form of contract note illustrates the tendency of exchanges to alter the relations between the broker and his principal. The object of inserting in the printed form the provision that the contract is made subject to the rules of the Liverpool Cotton Association is to make those rules binding upon the principal, and if he employs his broker upon the basis of the printed form, he does bind himself to any modification of the relations between himself and his broker which those rules may effect. The object of the principal clause in the above and similar printed forms is apparently to entitle the broker to sell to or buy from his principal on his own account and not as agent at all, thus disregarding the duty incumbent upon him as broker of making for his principal a contract with a third party.
It is not possible, except very generally, to state how far exchanges have succeeded in imposing their own rules and usages on non-members, but it is probably correct to say that in most cases if the question came before the courts, the outside client would be held to have accepted the rules of the exchange so far as they did not alter the fundamental duties to him of his broker. On the other hand, provisions purporting to entitle the broker in disregard of his duties as broker himself to act as principal, would be rejected by the courts as radically inconsistent with the primary object of the contract of brokerage and, therefore, meaningless. But it is undoubtedly too often the practice of brokers who are members of exchanges to consider themselves entitled to act as principals and sell on their own account to their own clients, particularly in futures. The causes of this opinion, erroneously, though quite honestly held, are probably to be looked for partly in the habit of acting as principal on the market in accordance with the rules, partly in the forms of contract notes containing "principal clauses" which they send to their clients, and perhaps, also, in the occasional difficulty of effecting actual contracts on the market at the time when they are instructed so to do.
A stockbroker is a broker who contracts for the sale of stocks and shares. Stockbrokers differ from brokers proper chiefly in that stocks and shares are not "goods," and the requirement of a memorandum in writing, enacted by the Sale of Goods Act 1893, does not apply. Hence actions may be brought by the principals to a contract for the sale of stocks and shares although no memorandum in writing exists. For instance, the jobber, on failing to recover from the buyer's broker the price of shares sold, by reason of the broker having failed and been declared a defaulter, may sue the buyer whose "name was passed" by the broker. The employment of a stockbroker is subject to the rules and customs of the Stock Exchange, in accordance with the principles discussed above, which apply to the employment of brokers proper. A custom which is illegal, such as the Stock Exchange practice of disregarding Leeman's Act (1867), which enacts that contracts for the sale of joint-stock bank shares shall be void unless the registered numbers of the shares are stated therein, is not binding on the client to the extent of making the contract of sale valid. But if a client choose to instruct his broker to buy bank shares in accordance with that practice, the broker is entitled to be indemnified by his client for money which he pays on his behalf, even though the contract of sale so made is unenforceable. For further information the reader is referred to the article Stock Exchange and to the treatises on stock exchange law.
An insurance broker is an agent whose business is to effect policies of marine insurance. He is employed by the person who has an interest to insure, pays the premiums to the underwriter, takes up the policy, and receives from the underwriter payment in the event of a loss under the policy. By the custom of the trade the underwriter looks solely to the broker for payment of premiums, and has no right of action against the assured; and, on the other hand, the broker is paid his commission by the underwriter, although he is employed by the assured. Usually the broker keeps a current account with the underwriter, and premiums and losses are dealt with in account. It is only in the event of the underwriter refusing to pay on a loss, that the broker drops out and the assured sues the underwriter direct. Agents who effect life, fire or other policies, are not known as insurance brokers.
Ship-brokers are, firstly, "commission agents," and, secondly, very often also ships' managers. Their office is to act as agents for owners of ships to procure purchasers for ships, or ships for intending purchasers, in precisely the same manner as house-agents act in respect of houses. They also act as agents for ship-owners in finding charterers for their ships, or for charterers in finding ships available for charter, and in either case they effect the charter-party (see Affreightment).
Chartering brokers are customarily paid by the ship-owner, when the charter-party is effected, whether originally employed by him or by the charterer. Charter-parties effected through brokers often contain a provision—"2½% on estimated amount of freight to be paid to A B, broker, on the signing of this charter-party, and the ship to be consigned to him for ship's business at the port of X [inserting the name of the port where A B carries on business]." The broker cannot sue on the charter-party contract because he is not a party to it, but the insertion of the clause practically prevents his right from being disputed by the ship-owner. When the broker does the ship's business in port, it is his duty to clear her at the customs and generally to act as "ship's husband."
A bill-broker was originally an agent who, for a commission, procured for country bankers the discounting of their bills in London. But the practice arose of the broker guaranteeing the London banker or financier; and finally the brokers ceased to deposit with the London bankers the bills they received, and at the present day a bill-broker, as a rule, buys bills on his own account at a discount, borrows money on his own account and upon his own security at interest, and makes his profit out of the difference between the discount and the interest. When acting thus the bill-broker is not a broker at all, as he deals as principal and does not act as agent.
Authorities.—Story, Commentaries on the Law of Agency (Boston, 1882); Brodhurst, Law and Practice of the Stock Exchange (London, 1897); Gow, Handbook of Marine Insurance (London, 1900); Arnould, On Marine Insurance, edited by Messrs Hart & Simey (1901); J.R. Dos Passos, Law of Stock-Brokers and Stock Exchanges (New York, 1905).
(L. F. S.)
BROMBERG, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Posen, 32 m. by rail W.N.W. from the fortress of Thorn, 7 m. W. from the bank of the Vistula, and at the centre of an important network of railways, connecting it with the strategical points on the Prusso-Russian frontier. Pop. (1900) 52,082; (1905) 54,229. Its public buildings comprise two Roman Catholic and three Protestant churches, a Jewish synagogue, a seminary, high grade schools and a theatre. The town also possesses a bronze statue of the emperor William I., a monument of the war of 1870-71, and a statue of Benkenhoff, the constructor of the Bromberg Canal. This engineering work, constructed in 1773-1774, by command of Frederick II., connects the Brahe with the Netze, and thus establishes communication between the Vistula, the Oder and the Elbe. The principal industrial works are iron foundries and machine shops, paper factories and flour mills; the town has, moreover, an active trade in agricultural and other products. In view of its strategical position, a large garrison is concentrated in and about the town. Bromberg is mentioned as early as 1252. It fell soon afterwards into the hands of the Poles, from whom it was taken in 1327 by the Teutonic Order, which held it till 1343, when the Poles recaptured it. Destroyed in the course of these struggles, it was restored by Casimir of Poland in 1346, and down to the close of the 16th century it continued to be a flourishing commercial city. It afterwards suffered so much from war and pestilence that about 1772, when the Prussians took possession, it contained only from five to six hundred inhabitants. By the treaty of Tilsit it was transferred to the duchy of Warsaw; in 1813 it was occupied by the Russians, and in 1815 was restored to Prussia.
BROME, ALEXANDER (1620-1666), English poet, was by profession an attorney, and was the author of many drinking songs and of satirical verses in favour of the Royalists and against the Rump. He published in 1661 Songs and other Poems, containing songs on various subjects, followed by a series of political songs; ballads, epistles, elegies and epitaphs; epigrams and translations. Izaak Walton wrote an introductory eclogue for this volume in praise of the writer, and his gaiety and wit won for him the title of the "English Anacreon" in Edward Phillips's Theatrum Poetarum. Brome published in 1666 a translation of Horace by himself and others, and was the author of a comedy entitled The Cunning Lovers (1654). He also edited two volumes of Richard Brome's plays.
BROME, RICHARD (d. 1652), English dramatist, was originally a servant of Ben Jonson, and owed much to his master. The development of his plots, the strongly marked characters and the amount of curious information to be found in his work, all show Jonson's influence. The relation of master and servant developed into friendship, and our knowledge of Brome's personal character is chiefly drawn from Ben Jonson's lines to him, prefixed to The Northern Lasse (1632), the play which made Brome's reputation. Brome's genius lay entirely in comedy. He has left fifteen pieces. Five New Playes (ed. by Alex. Brome, 1652?) contained Madd Couple Well Matcht (acted 1639?); Novella (acted 1632); Court Begger (acted 1632); City Witt; The Damoiselle or the New Ordinary. Five New Playes (1659) included The English Moor, or The Mock Marriage; The Love-Sick Court, or The Ambitious Politique; Covent Garden Weeded; The New Academy, or The New Exchange; and The Queen and Concubine. The Antipodes (acted 1638, pr. 1640); The Sparagus Garden (acted 1635, pr. 1640); A Joviall Crew, or the Merry Beggars (acted 1641, pr. 1652, revised in 1731 as an "opera"), and The Queenes Exchange (pr. 1657), were published separately. He collaborated with Thomas Heywood in The late Lancashire Witches (pr. 1634).
See A.W. Ward, History of English Dramatic Literature, vol. iii. pp. 125-131 (1899). The Dramatic Works of Richard Brome ... were published in 1873.
BROMELIACEAE, in botany, a natural order of Monocotyledons, confined to tropical and sub-tropical America. It includes the pine-apple (fig. 1) and the so-called Spanish moss (fig. 2), a rootless plant, which hangs in long grey lichen-like festoons from the branches of trees, a native of Mexico and the southern United States; the water required for food is absorbed from the moisture in the air by peculiar hairs which cover the surface of the shoots. The plants are generally herbs with a much shortened stem bearing a rosette of leaves and a spike or panicle of flowers. They are eminently dry-country plants (xerophytes); the narrow leaves are protected from loss of water by a thick cuticle, and have a well-developed sheath which embraces the stem and forms, with the sheaths of the other leaves of the rosette, a basin in which water collects, with fragments of rotting leaves and the like. Peculiar hairs are developed on the inner surface of the sheath by which the water and dissolved substances are absorbed, thus helping to feed the plant. The leaf-margins are often spiny, and the leaf-spines of Puya chilensis are used by the natives as fish-hooks. Several species are grown as hot-house plants for the bright colour of their flowers or flower-bracts, e.g. species of Tillandsia, Billbergia, Aechmea and others.
BROMINE (symbol Br, atomic weight 79.96), a chemical element of the halogen group, which takes its name from its pungent unpleasant smell (βρῶμος, a stench). It was first isolated by A.J. Balard in 1826 from the salts in the waters of the Mediterranean. He established its elementary character, and his researches were amplified by K.J. Löwig (1803-1890) in Das Brom und seine chemischen Verhaltnisse (1829). Bromine does not occur in nature in the uncombined condition, but in combination with various metals is very widely but sparingly distributed. Potassium, sodium and magnesium bromides are found in mineral waters, in river and sea-water, and occasionally in marine plants and animals. Its chief commercial sources are the salt deposits at Stassfurt in Prussian Saxony, in which magnesium bromide is found associated with various chlorides, and the brines of Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, U.S.A.; small quantities are obtained from the mother liquors of Chile saltpetre and kelp. In combination with silver it is found as the mineral bromargyrite (bromite).
Manufacture.—The chief centres of the bromine industry are Stassfurt and the central district of Michigan. It is manufactured from the magnesium bromide contained in "bittern" (the mother liquor of the salt industry), by two processes, the continuous and the periodic. The continuous process depends upon the decomposition of the bromide by chlorine, which is generated in special stills. A regular current of chlorine mixed with steam is led in at the bottom of a tall tower filled with broken bricks, and there meets a descending stream of hot bittern: bromine is liberated and is swept out of the tower together with some chlorine, by the current of steam, and then condensed in a worm. Any uncondensed bromine vapour is absorbed by moist iron borings, and the resulting iron bromide is used for the manufacture of potassium bromide. The periodic process depends on the interaction between manganese dioxide (pyrolusite), sulphuric acid, and a bromide, and the operation is carried out in sandstone stills heated to 60° C., the product being condensed as in the continuous process. The substitution of potassium chlorate for pyrolusite is recommended when calcium chloride is present in the bittern. The crude bromine is purified by repeated shaking with potassium, sodium or ferrous bromide and subsequent redistillation. Commercial bromine is rarely pure, the chief impurities present in it being chlorine, hydrobromic acid, and bromoform (M. Hermann, Annalen, 1855, 95, p. 211). E. Gessner (Berichte, 1876, 9, p. 1507) removes chlorine by repeated shaking with water, followed by distillation over sulphuric acid; hydrobromic acid is removed by distillation with pure manganese dioxide, or mercuric oxide, and the product dried over sulphuric acid. J.S. Stas, in his stoichiometric researches, prepared chemically pure bromine from potassium bromide, by converting it into the bromate which was purified by repeated crystallization. By heating the bromate it was partially converted into the bromide, and the resulting mixture was distilled with sulphuric acid. The distillate was further purified by digestion with milk of lime, precipitation with water, and further digestion with calcium bromide and barium oxide, and was finally redistilled.
Characters.—Bromine at ordinary temperatures is a mobile liquid of fine red colour, which appears almost black in thick layers. It boils at 59° C. According to Sir W. Ramsay and S. Young, bromine, when dried over sulphuric acid, boils at 57.65° C., and when dried over phosphorus pentoxide, boils at 58.85° C. (under a pressure of 755.8 mm.), forming a deep red vapour, which exerts an irritating and directly poisonous action on the respiratory organs. It solidifies at -21° C. (Quincke) to a dark brown solid. Its specific gravity is 3.18828 (0/4°), latent heat of fusion 16.185 calories, latent heat of vaporization 45.6 calories, specific heat 0.1071. The specific heat of bromine vapour, at constant pressure, is 0.05504 and at constant volume is 0.04251 (K. Strecker). Bromine is soluble in water, to the extent of 3.226 grammes of bromine per 100 grammes of solution at 15° C., the solubility being slightly increased by the presence of potassium bromide. The solution is of an orange-red colour, and is quite permanent in the dark, but on exposure to light, gradually becomes colourless, owing to decomposition into hydrobromic acid and oxygen. By cooling the aqueous solution, hyacinth-red octahedra of a crystalline hydrate of composition Br·4H2O or Br2·8H2O are obtained (Bakhuis Roozeboom, Zeits. phys. Chem., 1888, 2. p. 449). Bromine is readily soluble in chloroform, alcohol and ether.
Its chemical properties are in general intermediate between those of chlorine and iodine; thus it requires the presence of a catalytic agent, or a fairly high temperature, to bring about its union with hydrogen. It does not combine directly with oxygen, nitrogen or carbon. With the other elements it unites to form bromides, often with explosive violence; phosphorus detonates in liquid bromine and inflames in the vapour; iron is occasionally used to absorb bromine vapour, potassium reacts energetically, but sodium requires to be heated to 200° C. The chief use of bromine in analytical chemistry is based upon the oxidizing action of bromine water. Bromine and bromine water both bleach organic colouring matters. The use of bromine in the extraction of gold (q.v.) was proposed by R. Wagner (Dingler's Journal, 218, p. 253) and others, but its cost has restricted its general application. Bromine is used extensively in organic chemistry as a substituting and oxidizing agent and also for the preparation of addition compounds. Reactions in which it is used in the liquid form, in vapour, in solution, and in the presence of the so-called "bromine carriers," have been studied. Sunlight affects the action of bromine vapour on organic compounds in various ways, sometimes retarding or accelerating the reaction, while in some cases the products are different (J. Schramm, Monatshefte fur Chemie, 1887, 8, p. 101). Some reactions, which are only possible by the aid of nascent bromine, are carried out by using solutions of sodium bromide and bromate, with the amount of sulphuric acid calculated according to the equation 5NaBr + NaBrO3 + 6H2SO4 = 6NaHSO4 + 3H2O + 6Br. (German Patent, 26642.) The diluents in which bromine is employed are usually ether, chloroform, acetic acid, hydrochloric acid, carbon bisulphide and water, and, less commonly, alcohol, potassium bromide and hydrobromic acid; the excess of bromine being removed by heating, by sulphurous acid or by shaking with mercury. The choice of solvent is important, for the velocity of the reaction and the nature of the product may vary according to the solvent used, thus A. Baeyer and F. Blom found that on brominating orthoacetamido-acetophenone in presence of water or acetic acid, the bromine goes into the benzene nucleus, whilst in chloroform or sulphuric acid or by use of bromine vapour it goes into the side chain as well. The action of bromine is sometimes accelerated by the use of compounds which behave catalytically, the more important of these substances being iodine, iron, ferric chloride, ferric bromide, aluminium bromide and phosphorus. For oxidizing purposes bromine is generally employed in aqueous and in alkaline solutions, one of its most important applications being by Emil Fischer (Berichte, 1889, 22, p. 362) in his researches on the sugars. The atomic weight of bromine has been determined by J.S. Stas and C. Marignac from the analysis of potassium bromide, and of silver bromide. G.P. Baxter (Zeit. anorg. Chem. 1906, 50, p. 389) determined the ratios Ag: AgBr, and AgCl: Ag Br.
Hydrobromic Acid.—This acid, HBr, the only compound of hydrogen and bromine, is in many respects similar to hydrochloric acid, but is rather less stable. It may be prepared by passing hydrogen gas and bromine vapour through a tube containing a heated platinum spiral. It cannot be prepared with any degree of purity by the action of concentrated sulphuric acid on bromides, since secondary reactions take place, leading to the liberation of free bromine and formation of sulphur dioxide. The usual method employed for the preparation of the gas consists in dropping bromine on to a mixture of amorphous phosphorus and water, when a violent reaction takes place and the gas is rapidly liberated. It can be obtained also, although in a somewhat impure condition, by the direct action of bromine on various saturated hydrocarbons (e.g. paraffin-wax), while an aqueous solution may be obtained by passing sulphuretted hydrogen through bromine water. Alexander Scott (Journal of Chem. Soc., 1900, 77, p. 648) prepares pure hydrobromic acid by covering bromine, which is contained in a large flask, with a layer of water, and passing sulphur dioxide into the water above the surface of the bromine, until the whole is of a pale yellow colour; the resulting solution is then distilled in a slow current of air and finally purified by distillation over barium bromide. At ordinary temperatures hydrobromic acid is a colourless gas which fumes strongly in moist air, and has an acid taste and reaction. It can be condensed to a liquid, which boils at -64.9° C. (under a pressure of 738.2 mm.), and, by still further cooling, gives colourless crystals which melt at -88.5° C. It is readily soluble in water, forming the aqueous acid, which when saturated at 0° C. has a specific gravity of 1.78. When boiled, the aqueous acid loses either acid or water until a solution of constant boiling point is obtained, containing 48% of the acid and boiling at 126° C. under atmospheric pressure; should the pressure, however, vary, the strength of the solution boiling at a constant temperature varies also. Hydrobromic acid is one of the "strong" acids, being ionized to a very large extent even in concentrated solution, as shown by the molecular conductivity increasing by only a small amount over a wide range of dilution.
Bromides.—Hydrobromic acid reacts with metallic oxides, hydroxides and carbonates to form bromides, which can in many cases be obtained also by the direct union of the metals with bromine. As a class, the metallic bromides are solids at ordinary temperatures, which fuse readily and volatilize on heating. The majority are soluble in water, the chief exceptions being silver bromide, mercurous bromide, palladious bromide and lead bromide; the last is, however, soluble in hot water. They are decomposed by chlorine, with liberation of bromine and formation of metallic chlorides; concentrated sulphuric acid also decomposes them, with formation of a metallic sulphate and liberation of bromine and sulphur dioxide. The non-metallic bromides are usually liquids, which are readily decomposed by water. Hydrobromic acid and its salts can be readily detected by the addition of chlorine water to their aqueous solutions, when bromine is liberated; or by warming with concentrated sulphuric acid and manganese dioxide, the same result being obtained. Silver nitrate in the presence of nitric acid gives with bromides a pale yellow precipitate of silver bromide, AgBr, which is sparingly soluble in ammonia. For their quantitative determination they are precipitated in nitric acid solution by means of silver nitrate, and the silver bromide well washed, dried and weighed.
No oxides of bromine have as yet been isolated, but three oxy-acids are known, namely hypobromous acid, HBrO, bromous acid, HBrO2, and bromic acid, HBrO3. Hypobromous acid is obtained by shaking together bromine water and precipitated mercuric oxide, followed by distillation of the dilute solution in vacuo at low temperature (about 40° C.). It is a very unstable compound, breaking up, on heating, into bromine and oxygen. The aqueous solution is light yellow in colour, and possesses strong bleaching properties. Bromous acid is formed by adding bromine to a saturated solution of silver nitrate (A. H. Richards, J. Soc Chem. Ind., 1906, 25, p. 4). Bromic acid is obtained by the addition of the calculated amount of sulphuric acid (previously diluted with water) to the barium salt; by the action of bromine on the silver salt, in the presence of water, 5AgBrO3 + 3Br2 + 3H2O = 5AgBr + 6HBrO3, or by passing chlorine through a solution of bromine in water. The acid is only known in the form of its aqueous solution; this is, however, very unstable, decomposing on being heated to 100° C. into water, oxygen and bromine. By reducing agents such, for example, as sulphuretted hydrogen and sulphur-dioxide, it is rapidly converted into hydrobromic acid. Hydrobromic acid decomposes it according to the equation HBrO3 + 5HBr = 3H2O + 3Br2. Its salts are known as bromates, and are as a general rule difficultly soluble in water, and decomposed by heat, with evolution of oxygen.
Applications.—The salts of bromine are widely used in photography, especially bromide of silver. For antiseptic purposes it has been prepared as "bromum solidificatum," which consists of kieselguhr or similar substance impregnated with about 75% of its weight of bromine. In medicine it is largely employed in the form of bromides of potassium, sodium and ammonium, as well as in combination with alkaloids and other substances.
Medicinal Use.—Bromide of potassium is the safest and most generally applicable sedative of the nervous system. Whilst very weak, its action is perfectly balanced throughout all nervous tissue, so much so that Sir Thomas Lauder Brunton has suggested its action to be due to its replacement of sodium chloride (common salt) in the fluids of the nervous system. Hence bromide of potassium—or bromide of sodium, which is possibly somewhat safer still though not quite so certain in its action—is used as a hypnotic, as the standard anaphrodisiac, as a sedative in mania and all forms of morbid mental excitement, and in hyperaesthesia of all kinds. Its most striking success is in epilepsy, for which it is the specific remedy. It may be given in doses of from ten to fifty grains or more, and may be continued without ill effect for long periods in grave cases of epilepsy (grand mal). Of the three bromides in common use the potassium salt is the most rapid and certain in its action, but may depress the heart in morbid states of that organ; in such cases the sodium salt—of which the base is inert—may be employed. In whooping-cough, when a sedative is required but a stimulant is also indicated, ammonium bromide is often invaluable. The conditions in which bromides are most frequently used are insomnia, epilepsy, whooping-cough, delirium tremens, asthma, migraine, laryngismus stridulus, the symptoms often attendant upon the climacteric in women, hysteria, neuralgia, certain nervous disorders of the heart, strychnine poisoning, nymphomania and spermatorrhoea. Hydrobromic acid is often used to relieve or prevent the headache and singing in the ears that may follow the administration of quinine and of salicylic acid or salicylates.
BROMLEY, SIR THOMAS (1530-1587), English lord chancellor, was born in Staffordshire in 1530. He was educated at Oxford University and called to the bar at the Middle Temple. Through family influence as well as the patronage of Sir Nicholas Bacon, the lord keeper, he quickly made progress in his profession. In 1566 he was appointed recorder of London, and in 1569 he became solicitor-general. He sat in parliament successively for Bridgnorth, Wigan and Guildford. On the death of Sir Nicholas Bacon in 1579 he was appointed lord chancellor. As an equity judge he showed great and profound knowledge, and his judgment in Shelley's case (q.v.) is a landmark in the history of English real property law. He presided over the commission which tried Mary, queen of Scots, in 1586, but the strain of the trial, coupled with the responsibility which her execution involved upon him, proved too much for his strength, and he died on the 12th of April 1587. He was buried in Westminster Abbey.
See Foss, Lives of the Judges; Campbell, Lives of the Lord Chancellors.
BROMLEY, a municipal borough in the Sevenoaks parliamentary division of Kent, England, 10½ m. S.E. by S. of London by the South Eastern & Chatham railway. Pop. (1901) 27,354. It lies on high ground north of the small river Ravensbourne, in a well-wooded district, and has become a favourite residential locality for those whose business lies in London. The former palace of the bishops of Rochester was erected in 1777 in room of an older structure. The manor belonged to this see as early as the reign of Ethelbert. In the gardens is a chalybeate spring known as St Blaize's Well, which was in high repute before the Reformation. The church of St Peter and St Paul, mainly Perpendicular, retains a Norman font and other remains of an earlier building. Here is the gravestone of the wife of Dr Johnson. Bromley College, founded by Bishop Warner in 1666 for "twenty poor widows of loyal and orthodox clergymen," has been much enlarged, and forty widows are in receipt of support. Sheppard College (1840) is an affiliated foundation for unmarried daughters of these widows. In the vicinity of Bromley, Bickley is a similar residential township, Hayes Common is a favourite place of excursion, and at Holwood Hill near Keston are remains of a large encampment known as Caesar's Camp. Bromley was incorporated in 1903, and is governed by a mayor, 6 aldermen and 18 councillors. Area, 4703 acres.
BROMLITE, a member of the aragonite group of minerals. It consists of an isomorphous mixture of calcium and barium carbonates in various proportions, (Ca, Ba) CO3, and thus differs chemically from barytocalcite (q.v.) which is a double salt of these carbonates in equal molecular proportions. Being isomorphous with aragonite, it crystallizes in the orthorhombic system, but simple crystals are not known. The crystals are invariably complex twins, and have the form of doubly terminated pseudo-hexagonal pyramids, like those of witherite but more acute; the faces are horizontally striated and are divided down their centre by a twin-suture, as represented in the adjoining figure. The examination in polarized light of a transverse section shows that each compound crystal is built up of six differently orientated individuals arranged in twelve segments. The crystals are translucent and white, sometimes with a shade of pink. Sp. gr. 3.706; hardness 4-4½. The mineral has been found at only two localities, both of which are in the north of England. At the Fallowfield lead mine, near Hexham in Northumberland, it is associated with witherite; and at Bromley Hill, near Alston in Cumberland, it occurs in veins with galena. The species was named bromlite by T. Thomson in 1837, and alstonite by A. Breithaupt in 1841, both of which names, derived from the locality, have been in common use.
(L. J. S.)
BROMPTON, a western district of London, England, in the south-east of the metropolitan borough of Kensington. Brompton Road, leading south-west from Knightsbridge, is continued as Old Brompton Road and Richmond Road, to join Lillie Road, at which point are the District and West London railway stations of West Brompton. The Oratory of St Philip Neri, commonly called Brompton Oratory, close by the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Brompton consumption hospital and the West London or Brompton cemetery are included in this district, which is mainly occupied by residences of the better class. (See Kensington.)
BROMSGROVE, a market town in the Eastern parliamentary division of Worcestershire, England, 12 m. N.N.E. of Worcester, with a station 1 m. from the town on the Bristol-Birmingham line of the Midland railway. Pop. of urban district (1901) 8418. It lies in a pleasant undulating district near the foot of the Lickey Hills, to surmount which the railway towards Birmingham here ascends for 2 m. one of the steepest gradients in England over such a distance. There remain several picturesque half-timbered houses, dating from 1572 and later. The church of St John is a fine building, Perpendicular and earlier in date, picturesquely placed on an elevation above the town, with a lofty tower and spire. There are a well-known grammar-school, founded by Edward VI., with university scholarships; a college school, a literary institute, and a school of art. Birmingham Sanatorium stands in the parish. Cloth was formerly a staple of trade, but manufactures of nails and buttons are now pre-eminent, while the river Salwarpe works a number of mills in the neighbourhood, and near the town are carriage works belonging to the Midland railway.
BRONCHIECTASIS (Gr. βρόγχια, bronchial tubes, and ἒκτασις, extension), dilatation of the bronchi, a condition occurring in connexion with many diseases of the lungs. Bronchitis both acute and chronic, chronic pneumonia and phthisis, acute pneumonia and broncho-pneumonia, may all leave after them a bronchiectasis whose position is determined by the primary lesion. Other causes, acting mechanically, are tracheal and bronchial obstruction, as from the pressure of an aneurism, new growth, &c. It used to be considered a disease of middle age, but of late years Dr Walter Carr has shown that the condition is a fairly common one among debilitated children after measles, whooping cough, &c. The dilatation is commonly cylindrical, more rarely saccular, and it is the medium and smaller sized tubes that are generally affected, except where the cause is mechanical. The affection is usually of one lung only. Emphysema is a very common accompaniment. Though at first the symptoms somewhat resemble those of bronchitis, later they are quite distinctive. Cough is very markedly paroxysmal in character, and though severe is intermittent, the patient being entirely free for many hours at the time. The effect of posture is very marked. If the patient lie on the affected side, he may be free from cough the whole night, but if he turn to the sound side, or if he rises and bends forward, he brings up large quantities of bronchial secretion. The expectoration is characterized by its abundance and manner of expulsion. Where the dilatation is of the saccular variety, it may come up in such quantities and with so much suddenness as to gush from the mouth. It is very commonly foetid, as it is retained and decomposed in situ. Dyspnoea and haemoptysis occasionally occur, but are by no means the rule. If pyrexia is present, it is a serious symptom, as it is a sign of septic absorption in the bronchi, and may be the forerunner of gangrene. If gangrene does set in, it will be accompanied by severe attacks of shivering and sweating. Where the disease has lasted long, clubbing of fingers and toes is very common. The diagnosis from putrid bronchitis is usually fairly easily made, but at times it may be a matter of extreme difficulty to distinguish between this condition and a tuberculous cavity in the lung. Nothing can be done directly to cure this disease, but the patient's condition can be greatly alleviated. Creosote vapour baths are eminently satisfactory. A mechanical treatment much recommended by some of the German physicians is that of forced expiration.
BRONCHITIS, the name given to inflammation of the mucous membrane of the bronchial tubes (see Respiratory System: Pathology). Two main varieties are described, specific and non-specific bronchitis. The bronchitis which occurs in infectious or specific disorders, as diphtheria, influenza, measles, pneumonia, &c., due to the micro-organisms observed in these diseases, is known as specific; whereas that which results from extension from above, or from chemical or mechanical irritation, is known as non-specific. It is convenient to describe it, however, under the chemical divisions of acute and chronic bronchitis.
Acute bronchitis, like other inflammatory affections of the chest, generally arises as the result of exposure to cold, particularly if accompanied with damp, or of sudden change from a heated to a cool atmosphere. The symptoms vary according to the severity of the attack, and more especially according to the extent to which the inflammatory action spreads in the bronchial tubes. The disease usually manifests itself at first in the form of a catarrh, or common cold; but the accompanying feverishness and general constitutional disturbance proclaim the attack to be something more severe, and symptoms denoting the onset of bronchitis soon present themselves. A short, painful, dry cough, accompanied with rapid and wheezing respiration, a feeling of rawness and pain in the throat and behind the breast bone, and of oppression or tightness throughout the chest, mark the early stages of the disease. In some cases, from the first, symptoms of the form of asthma (q.v.) known as the bronchitic are superadded, and greatly aggravate the patient's suffering.
After a few days expectoration begins to come with the cough, at first scanty and viscid or frothy, but soon becoming copious and of purulent character. In general, after free expectoration has been established the more urgent and painful symptoms abate; and while the cough may persist for a length of time, often extending to three or four weeks, in the majority of instances convalescence advances, and the patient is ultimately restored to health, although there is not unfrequently left a tendency to a recurrence of the disease on exposure to its exciting causes.
When the ear or the stethoscope is applied to the chest of a person suffering from such an attack as that now described, there are heard in the earlier stages snoring or cooing sounds, mixed up with others of wheezing or fine whistling quality, accompanying respiration. These are denominated dry sounds, and they are occasionally so abundant and distinct, as to convey their vibrations to the hand applied to the chest, as well as to be audible to a bystander at some distance. As the disease progresses these sounds become to a large extent replaced by others of crackling or bubbling character, which are termed moist sounds or râles. Both these kinds of abnormal sounds are readily explained by a reference to the pathological condition of the parts. One of the first effects of inflammation upon the bronchial mucous membrane is to cause some degree of swelling, which, together with the presence of a tough secretion closely adhering to it, tends to diminish the calibre of the tubes. The respired air as it passes over this surface gives rise to the dry or sonorous breath sounds, the coarser being generated in the large, and the finer or wheezing sounds in the small divisions of the bronchi. Before long, however, the discharge from the bronchial mucous membrane becomes more abundant and less glutinous, and accumulates in the tubes till dislodged by coughing. The respired air, as it passes through this fluid, causes the moist râles above described. In most instances both moist and dry sounds are heard abundantly in the same case, since different portions of the bronchial tubes are affected at different times in the course of the disease.
Such are briefly the main characteristics presented by an ordinary attack of acute bronchitis running a favourable course. The case is, however, very different when the inflammation spreads into, or when it primarily affects, the minute ramifications of the bronchial tubes which are in immediate relation to the air-cells of the lungs, giving rise to that form of the disease known as capillary bronchitis or broncho-pneumonia (see Respiratory System: Pathology; and Pneumonia). When this takes place all the symptoms already detailed become greatly intensified, and the patient's life is placed in imminent peril in consequence of the interruption to the entrance of air into the lungs, and thus to the due aeration of the blood. The feverishness and restlessness increase, the cough becomes incessant, the respiration extremely rapid and laboured, the nostrils dilating with each effort, and evidence of impending suffocation appears. The surface of the body is pale or dusky, the lips are livid, while breathing becomes increasingly difficult, and is attended with suffocative paroxysms which render the recumbent posture impossible. Unless speedy relief is obtained by successful efforts to clear the chest by coughing and expectoration, the patient's strength gives way, somnolence and delirium set in and death ensues. All this may be brought about in the space of a few days, and such cases, particularly among the very young, sometimes prove fatal within forty-eight hours.
Acute bronchitis must at all times be looked upon as a severe and even serious ailment, but there are certain circumstances under which its occurrence is a matter of special anxiety to the physician. It is pre-eminently dangerous at the extremes of life, and mortality statistics show it to be one of the most fatal of the diseases of those periods. This is to be explained not only by the well-recognized fact that all acute diseases tell with great severity on the feeble frames alike of infants and aged people, but more particularly by the tendency which bronchitis undoubtedly has in attacking them to assume the capillary form, and when it does so to prove quickly fatal. The importance, therefore, of early attention to the slightest evidence of bronchitis among the very young or the aged can scarcely be overrated.
Bronchitis is also apt to be very severe when it occurs in persons who are addicted to intemperance. Again, in those who suffer from any disease affecting directly or indirectly the respiratory functions, such as consumption or heart disease, the supervention of an attack of acute bronchitis is an alarming complication, increasing, as it necessarily does, the embarrassment of breathing. The same remark is applicable to those numerous instances of its occurrence in children who are or have been suffering from such diseases as have always associated with them a certain degree of bronchial irritation, such as measles and whooping-cough.
One other source of danger of a special character in bronchitis remains to be mentioned, viz. collapse of the lung. Occasionally a branch of a bronchial tube becomes plugged up with secretion, so that the area of the lung to which this branch conducts ceases to be inflated on inspiration. The small quantity of air imprisoned in the portion of lung gradually escapes, but no fresh air enters, and the part collapses and becomes of solid consistence. Increased difficulty of breathing is the result, and where a large portion of lung is affected by the plugging up of a large bronchus, a fatal result may rapidly follow, the danger being specially great in the case of children. Fortunately, the obstruction may sometimes be removed by vigorous coughing, and relief is then obtained.
With respect to the treatment of acute bronchitis, in those mild cases which are more of the nature of a simple catarrh, little else will be found necessary than confinement in a warm room, or in bed, for a few days, and the use of light diet, together with warm diluent drinks. Additional measures are however called for when the disease is more markedly developed. Medicines to allay fever and promote perspiration are highly serviceable in the earlier stages. Later, with the view of soothing the pain of the cough, and favouring expectoration, mixtures of tolu, with the addition of some opiate, such as the ordinary paregorics, may be advantageously employed. The use of opium, however, in any form should not be resorted to in the case of young children without medical advice, since its action on them is much more potent and less under control than it is in adults. Not a few of the so-called "soothing mixtures" have been found to contain opium in quantity sufficient to prove dangerous when administered to children, and caution is necessary in using them.
From the outset of the attack the employment of fomentations, or especially a turpentine stupe, gives great relief, and occasionally in the non-specific form this treatment, combined with a good dose of calomel and salts, may render the attack abortive. Some relief is always obtained by inhalations, and theoretically, an acute specific bronchitis should be successfully treated by inhalation of antiseptic and soothing remedies. In practice, however, it is found that the strength cannot be sufficiently strong to destroy the bacteria in the bronchial tubes. However, much relief is obtained from the use of steam atomizers filled with an aqueous solution of compound tincture of benzoin, creosote or guaiacol. A still more practicable means of introducing volatile antiseptic oils is the globe nebulizer, which throws oleaginous solutions in the form of a fine fog, that can be deeply inhaled. Menthol, eucalyptol and white pine extract are some of the remedies that may be tried dissolved in benzoinol, to which cocaine or opium may be added if the cough is troublesome.
When the bronchitis is of the capillary form, the great object is to maintain the patient's strength, and to endeavour to secure the expulsion of the morbid secretion from the fine bronchi. In addition to the remedies already alluded to, stimulants are called for from the first; and should the cough be ineffectual in relieving the bronchial tubes, the administration of an emetic dose of sulphate of zinc may produce a good effect.
During the whole course of any attack of bronchitis attention must be paid to the due nourishment of the patient; and during the subsequent convalescence, which, particularly in elderly persons, is apt to be slow, tonics and stimulants may have to be prescribed.
Chronic bronchitis may arise as the result of repeated attacks of the acute form, or it may exist altogether independently. It occurs more frequently among persons advanced in life than among the young, although no age is exempt from it. The usual history of this form of bronchitis is that of a cough recurring during the colder seasons of the year, and in its earlier stages, departing entirely in summer, so that it is frequently called "winter cough." In many persons subject to it, however, attacks are apt to be excited at any time by very slight causes, such as changes in the weather; and in advanced cases of the disease the cough is seldom altogether absent. The symptoms and auscultatory signs of chronic bronchitis are on the whole similar to those pertaining to the acute form, except that the febrile disturbance and pain are much less marked. The cough is usually more troublesome in the morning than during the day. There is usually free and copious expectoration, and occasionally this is so abundant as to constitute what is termed bronchorrhoea.
Chronic bronchitis leads to alterations of structure in the affected bronchial tubes, their mucous membrane becoming thickened or even ulcerated, while occasionally permanent dilatation of the bronchi takes place, often accompanied with profuse foetid expectoration. In long-standing cases of chronic bronchitis the nutrition of the lungs becomes impaired, and dilatation of the air-tubes (emphysema) and other complications result, giving rise to more or less constant breathlessness.
Chronic bronchitis may arise secondarily to some other ailment. This is especially the case in Bright's disease of the kidneys and in heart disease, of both of which maladies it often proves a serious complication, also in gout and syphilis. The influence of occupation is seen in the frequency in which persons following certain employments suffer from chronic bronchitis. Hirt has shown that the inhalation of vegetable dust is very liable to produce bronchitis through the irritation produced by the dust particles and the growth of organisms carried in with the dust. Consequently, millers and grain-shovellers are especially liable to it, while next in order come weavers and workers in cotton factories.
The treatment to be adopted in chronic bronchitis depends upon the severity of the case, the age of the patient and the presence or absence of complications. Attention to the general health is a matter of prime importance in all cases of the disease, more particularly among persons whose avocations entail exposure, and tonics with cod-liver oil will be found highly advantageous. The use of a respirator in very cold or damp weather is a valuable means of protection. In those aggravated forms of chronic bronchitis, where the slightest exposure to cold air brings on fresh attacks, it may become necessary, where circumstances permit, to enjoin confinement to a warm room or removal to a more genial climate during the winter months.
BRONCHOTOMY (Gr. βρόγχος, wind-pipe, and τέμνειν, to cut), a medical term used to describe a surgical incision into the throat; now largely superseded by the terms laryngotomy, thyrotomy and tracheotomy, which indicate more accurately the place of incision.
BRONCO, usually incorrectly spelt Broncho (a Spanish word meaning rough, rude), an unbroken or untamed horse, especially in the United States, a mustang; the word entered America by way of Mexico.
BRÖNDSTED, PETER OLUF (1780-1842), Danish archaeologist and traveller, was born at Fruering in Jutland on the 17th of November 1780. After studying at the university of Copenhagen he visited Paris in 1806 with his friend Georg Koes. After remaining there two years, they went together to Italy. Both were zealously attached to the study of antiquities; and congeniality of tastes and pursuits induced them, in 1810, to join an expedition to Greece, where they excavated the temples of Zeus in Aegina and of Apollo at Bassae in Arcadia. After three years of active researches in Greece, Bröndsted returned to Copenhagen, where, as a reward for his labours, he was appointed professor of Greek in the university. He then began to arrange and prepare for publication the vast materials he had collected during his travels; but finding that Copenhagen did not afford him the desired facilities, he exchanged his professorship for the office of Danish envoy at the papal court in 1818, and took up his abode at Rome. In 1820 and 1821 he visited Sicily and the Ionian Isles to collect additional materials for his great work. In 1826 he went to London, chiefly with a view of studying the Elgin marbles and other remains of antiquity in the British Museum, and became acquainted with the principal archaeologists of England. From 1828-1832 he resided in Paris, to superintend the publication of his Travels, and then returned to Copenhagen on being appointed director of the museum of antiquities and the collection of coins and medals. In 1842 he became rector of the university; but a fall from his horse caused his death on the 26th of June. His principal work was the Travels and Archaeological Researches in Greece (in German and French, 1826-1830), of which only two volumes were published, dealing with the island of Ceos and the metopes of the Parthenon.
BRONGNIART, ADOLPHE THÉODORE (1801-1876), French botanist, son of the geologist Alexandre Brongniart, was born in Paris on the 14th of January 1801. He soon showed an inclination towards the study of natural science, devoting himself at first more particularly to geology, and later to botany, thus equipping himself for what was to be the main occupation of his life—the investigation of fossil plants. In 1826 he graduated as doctor of medicine with a dissertation on the Rhamnaceae; but the career which he adopted was botanical, not medical. In 1831 he became assistant to R.L. Desfontaines at the Musée d'Histoire Naturelle, and two years later succeeded him as professor, a position which he continued to hold until his death in Paris on the 18th of February 1876.
Brongniart was an indefatigable investigator and a prolific writer, so that he left behind him, as the fruit of his labours, a large number of books and memoirs. As early as 1822 he published a paper on the classification and distribution of fossil plants (Mém. Mus. Hist. Nat. viii.). This was followed by several papers chiefly bearing upon the relation between extinct and existing forms—a line of research which culminated in the publication of the Histoire des végétaux fossiles, which has earned for him the title of "father of palaeobotany." This great work was heralded by a small but most important "Prodrome" (contributed to the Grand Dictionnaire d'Hist. Nat., 1828, t. lvii.) which brought order into chaos by a classification in which the fossil plants were arranged, with remarkably correct insight, along with their nearest living allies, and which forms the basis of all subsequent progress in this direction. It is of especial botanical interest, because, in accordance with Robert Brown's discoveries, the Cycadeae and Coniferae were placed in the new group Phanérogames gymnospermes. In this book attention was also directed to the succession of forms in the various geological periods, with the important result (stated in modern terms) that in the Palaeozoic period the Pteridophyta are found to predominate; in the Mesozoic, the Gymnosperms; in the Cainozoic, the Angiosperms, a result subsequently more fully stated in his "Tableau des genres de végétaux fossiles" (D'Orbigny, Dict. Univ. d'Hist. Nat., 1849). But the great Histoire itself was not destined to be more than a colossal fragment; the publication of successive parts proceeded regularly from 1828 to 1837, when the first volume was completed, but after that only three parts of the second volume appeared. Brongniart, no doubt, was overwhelmed with the continually increasing magnitude of the task that he had undertaken. Apart from his more comprehensive works, his most important palaeontological contributions are perhaps his observations on the structure of Sigillaria (Arch. Mus. Hist. Nat. i., 1839) and his researches (almost the last he undertook) on fossil seeds, of which a full account was published posthumously in 1880. His activity was by no means confined to palaeobotany, but extended into all branches of botany, more particularly anatomy and phanerogamic taxonomy. Among his achievements in these directions the most notable is the memoir "Sur la génération et le développement de l'embryon des Phanérogames" (Ann. Sci. Nat. xii., 1827). This is remarkable in that it contains the first account of any value of the development of the pollen; as also a description of the structure of the pollen-grain, the confirmation of G. B. Amici's (1823) discovery of the pollen-tube, the confirmation of R. Brown's views as to the structure of the unimpregnated ovule (with the introduction of the term "sac embryonnaire"); and in that it shows how nearly Brongniart anticipated Amici's subsequent (1846) discovery of the entrance of the pollen-tube into the micropyle, fertilizing the female cell which then develops into the embryo. Of his anatomical works, those of the greatest value are probably the "Recherches sur la structure et les fonctions des feuilles" (Ann. Sci. Nat. xxi., 1830), and the "Nouvelles Recherches sur l'Épiderme" (Ann. Sci. Nat. i., 1834), in which, among other important observations, the discovery of the cuticle is recorded; and, further, the "Recherches sur l'organisation des tiges des Cycadées" (Ann. Sci. Nat. xvi., 1829), giving the results of the first investigation of the anatomy of those plants. His systematic work is represented by a large number of papers and monographs, many of which relate to the flora of New Caledonia; and by his Énumération des genres de plantes cultivées au Musée d'Histoire Naturelle de Paris (1843), which is an interesting landmark in the history of classification in that it forms the starting-point of the system, modified successively by A. Braun, A.W. Eichler and A. Engler, which is now adopted in Germany. In addition to his scientific and professorial labours, Brongniart held various important official posts in connexion with the department of education, and interested himself greatly in agricultural and horticultural matters. With J.V. Audouin and J.B.A. Dumas, his future brothers-in-law, he established the Annales des Sciences Naturelles in 1824; he also founded the Société Botanique de France in 1854, and was its first president.
For accounts of his life and work see Bull. de la Soc. Géol. de France, 1876, and La Nature, 1876; the Bulletin de la Soc. Bot. de France for 1876, vol. xxiii., contains a list of his works and the orations pronounced at his funeral.
(S. H. V.*)
BRONGNIART, ALEXANDRE (1770-1847), French mineralogist and geologist, son of the eminent architect who designed the Bourse and other public buildings of Paris, was born in that city on the 5th of February 1770. At an early age he studied chemistry, under Lavoisier, and after passing through the École des Mines he took honours at the École de Médecine; subsequently he joined the army of the Pyrenees as pharmacien; but having committed some slight political offence, he was thrown into prison and detained there for some time. Soon after his release he was appointed professor of natural history in the Collège des Quatre Nations. In 1800 he was made director of the Sèvres porcelain factory, a post which he retained to his death, and in which he achieved his greatest work. In his hands Sèvres became the leading porcelain factory in Europe, and the researches of an able band of assistants enabled him to lay the foundations of ceramic chemistry. In addition to his work at Sèvres, quite enough to engross the entire energy of any ordinary man, he continued his more purely scientific work. He succeeded Haüy as professor of mineralogy in the Museum of Natural History; but he did not confine himself to mineralogy, for it is to him that we owe the division of Reptiles into the four orders of Saurians, Batrachians, Chelonians and Ophidians. Fossil as well as living animals engaged his attention, and in his studies of the strata around Paris he was instrumental in establishing the Tertiary formations. In 1816 he was elected to the Academy; and in the following year he visited the Alps of Switzerland and Italy, and afterwards Sweden and Norway. The result of his observations was published from time to time in the Journal des Mines and other scientific journals. Wide as was the range of his interests his most famous work was accomplished at Sèvres, and his most enduring monument is his classic Traité des arts céramiques (1844). He died in Paris on the 7th of October 1847.
His other principal works are :—Traité élémentaire de minéralogie, avec des applications aux arts (2 vols., Paris, 1807); Histoire naturelle des crustacés fossiles (Paris, 1822); Classification et caractères minéralogiques des roches homogènes et hétérogènes (Paris, 1827); the Tableau des terrains qui composent l'écorce du globe, ou Essai sur la structure de la partie connue de la terre (Paris, 1829); and the Traité des arts céramiques (1844). Brongniart was also the coadjutor of Cuvier in the admirable Essai sur la géographie minéralogique des environs de Paris (Paris, 1811); originally published in Ann. Mus. Hist. Nat. (Paris, xi. 1808).
BRONN, HEINRICH GEORG (1800-1862), German geologist, was born on the 3rd of March 1800 at Ziegelhausen near Heidelberg. Studying at the university at Heidelberg he took his doctor's degree in the faculty of medicine in 1821, and in the following year was appointed professor of natural history. He now devoted himself to palaeontological studies, and to fieldwork in various parts of Germany, Italy and France. From its commencement in 1830 to 1862 he assisted in editing the Jahrbuch für Mineralogie, &c., continued as Neues Jahrbuch. His principal work, Lethaea Geognostica (2 vols., Stuttgart, 1834-1838; 3rd ed. with F. Römer, 3 vols., 1851-1856), has been regarded as one of the foundations of German stratigraphical geology. His Handbuch einer Geschichte der Natur, of which the first part was issued in 1841, gave a general account of the physical history of the earth, while the second part dealt with the life-history, species being regarded as direct acts of creation. The third part included his famous Index Palaeontologicus, and was issued in 3 vols., 1848-1849, with the assistance of H. von Meyer and H. R. Göppert. This record of fossils has proved of inestimable value to all palaeontologists. An important work on recent and fossil zoology, Die Klassen und Ordnungen des Thier-Reichs, was commenced by Bronn. He wrote the volumes dealing with Amorphozoa, Actinozoa, and Malacozoa, published 1859-1862; the work was continued by other naturalists. In 1861 Bronn was awarded the Wollaston medal by the Geological Society of London. He died at Heidelberg on the 5th of July 1862.
BRONSART VON SCHELLENDORF, PAUL (1832-1891), Prussian general, was born at Danzig in 1832. He entered the Prussian Guards in 1849, and was appointed to the general staff in 1861 as a captain; after three years of staff service he returned to regimental duty, but was soon reappointed to the staff, and lectured at the war academy, becoming major in 1865 and lieut.-colonel in 1869. During the war of 1870 he was chief of a section on the Great General Staff, and conducted the preliminary negotiations for the surrender of the French at Sedan. After the war Bronsart was made a colonel and chief of staff of the Guard army corps, becoming major-general in 1876 and lieut.-general (with a division command) in 1881. Two years later he became war minister, and during his tenure of the post (1883-1889) many important reforms were carried out in the Prussian army, in particular the introduction of the magazine rifle. He was appointed in 1889 to command the I. army corps at Königsberg. He died on the 23rd of June 1891 at his estate near Braunsberg. Bronsart's military writings include two works of great importance—Ein Rückblick auf die taktischen Ruckblicke (2nd ed., Berlin, 1870), a pamphlet written in reply to Captain May's Tactical Retrospect of 1866; and Der Dienst des Generalstabes (1st ed., Berlin, 1876; 3rd ed. revised by General Meckel, 1893; new ed. by the author's son, Major Bronsart von Schellendorf, Berlin, 1904), a comprehensive treatise on the duties of the general staff. The third edition of this work was soon after its publication translated into English and issued officially to the British army as The Duties of the General Staff. Major Bronsart's new edition of 1904 was reissued in English by the General Staff, under the same title, in 1905.
BRONTË, CHARLOTTE (1816-1855), EMILY (1818-1848), and ANNE (1820-1849), English novelists, were three of the six children of Patrick Brontë, a clergyman of the Church of England, who for the last forty-one years of his life was perpetual incumbent of the parish of Haworth in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Patrick Brontë was born at Emsdale, Co. Down, Ireland, on the 17th of March 1777. His parents were of the peasant class, their original name of Brunty apparently having been changed by their son on his entry at St John's College, Cambridge, in 1802. In the intervening years he had been successively a weaver and schoolmaster in his native country. From Cambridge he became a curate, first at Wethersfield in Essex, in 1806, then for a few months at Wellington, Salop, in 1809. At the end of 1809 he accepted a curacy at Dewsbury, Yorkshire, following up this by one at Hartshead-cum-Clifton in the same county. At Hartshead Patrick Brontë married in 1812 Maria Branwell, a Cornishwoman, and there two children were born to him, Maria (1813-1825) and Elizabeth (1814-1825). Thence Patrick Brontë removed to Thornton, some 3 m. from Bradford, and here his wife gave birth to four children, Charlotte, Patrick Branwell (1817-1848), Emily Jane, and Anne, three of whom were to attain literary distinction.
In April 1820, three months after the birth of Anne Brontë, her father accepted the living of Haworth, a village near Keighley in Yorkshire, which will always be associated with the romantic story of the Brontës. In September of the following year his wife died. Maria Brontë lives for us in her daughter's biography only as the writer of certain letters to her "dear saucy Pat," as she calls her lover, and as the author of a recently published manuscript, an essay entitled The Advantages of Poverty in Religious Concerns, full of a sententiousness much affected at the time.
Upon the death of Mrs Brontë her husband invited his sister-in-law, Elizabeth Branwell, to leave Penzance and to take up her residence with his family at Haworth. Miss Branwell accepted the trust and would seem to have watched over her nephew and five nieces with conscientious care. The two eldest of those nieces were not long in following their mother. Maria and Elizabeth, Charlotte and Emily, were all sent to the Clergy Daughters' school at Cowan Bridge in 1824, and Maria and Elizabeth returned home in the following year to die. How far the bad food and drastic discipline were responsible cannot be accurately demonstrated. Charlotte gibbeted the school long years afterwards in Jane Eyre, under the thin disguise of "Lowood," and the principal, the Rev. William Carus Wilson (1792-1859), has been universally accepted as the counterpart of Mr Naomi Brocklehurst in the same novel. But congenital disease more probably accounts for the tragedy from which happily Charlotte and Emily escaped, both returning in 1825 to a prolonged home life at Haworth. Here the four surviving children amused themselves in intervals of study under their aunt's guidance with precocious literary aspirations. The many tiny booklets upon which they laboured in the succeeding years have been happily preserved. We find stories, verses and essays, all in the minutest handwriting, none giving any indication of the genius which in the case of two of the four children was to add to the indisputably permanent in literature.
At sixteen years of age—in 1831—Charlotte Brontë became a pupil at the school of Miss Margaret Wooler (1792-1885) at Roe Head, Dewsbury. She left in the following year to assist in the education of the younger sisters, bringing with her much additional proficiency in drawing, French and composition; she took with her also the devoted friendship of two out of her ten fellow-pupils—Mary Taylor (1817-1893) and Ellen Nussey (1817-1897). With Miss Taylor and Miss Nussey she corresponded for the remainder of her life, and her letters to the latter make up no small part of what has been revealed to us of her life story. Her next three years at Haworth were varied by occasional visits to one or other of these friends. In 1835 she returned to Miss Wooler's school at Roe Head as a governess, her sister Emily accompanying her as a pupil, but remaining only three months, and Anne then taking her place. The year following the school was removed to Dewsbury. In 1838 Charlotte went back to Haworth and soon afterwards received her first offer of marriage—from a clergyman, Henry Nussey, the brother of her friend Ellen. This was followed a little later by a second offer from a curate named Bryce. She refused both and took a situation as nursery governess, first with the Sidgwicks of Stonegappe, Yorkshire, and later with the Whites at Rawdon in the same county. A few months of this, however, filled her with an ambition to try and secure greater independence as the possessor of a school of her own, and she planned to acquire more proficiency in "languages" on the continent, as a preliminary step. The aunt advanced some money, and accompanied by her sister Emily she became in February 1842 a pupil at the Pensionnat Héger, Brussels. Here both girls worked hard, and won the goodwill and indeed admiration of the principal teacher, M. Héger, whose wife was at the head of the establishment. But the two girls were hastily called back to England before the year had expired by the announcement of the critical illness of their aunt. Miss Branwell died on the 29th of October 1842. She bequeathed sufficient money to her nieces to enable them to reconsider their plan of life. Instead of a school at Bridlington which had been talked of, they could now remain with their father, utilize their aunt's room as a classroom, and take pupils. But Charlotte was not yet satisfied with what the few months on Belgian soil had done for her, and determined to accept M. Héger's offer that she should return to Brussels as a governess. Hence the year 1843 was passed by her at the Pensionnat Héger in that capacity, and in this period she undoubtedly widened her intellectual sphere by reading the many books in French literature that her friend M. Héger lent her. But life took on a very sombre shade in the lonely environment in which she found herself. She became so depressed that on one occasion she took refuge in the confessional precisely as did her heroine Lucy Snowe in Villette. In 1844 she returned to her father's house at Haworth, and the three sisters began immediately to discuss the possibilities of converting the vicarage into a school. Prospectuses were issued, but no pupils were forthcoming.
Matters were complicated by the fact that the only brother, Patrick Branwell, had about this time become a confirmed drunkard. Branwell had been the idol of his aunt and of his sisters. Educated under his father's care, he had early shown artistic leanings, and the slender resources of the family had been strained to provide him with the means of entering at the Royal Academy as a pupil. This was in 1835. Branwell, it would seem, indulged in a glorious month of extravagance in London and then returned home. His art studies were continued for a time at Leeds, but it may be assumed that no commissions came to him, and at last he became tutor to the son of a Mr Postlethwaite at Barrow-in-Furness. Ten months later he was a booking-clerk at Sowerby Bridge station on the Leeds & Manchester railway, and later at Luddenden Foot. Then he became tutor in the family of a clergyman named Robinson at Thorp Green, where his sister Anne was governess. Finally he returned to Haworth to loaf at the village inn, shock his sisters by his excesses, and to fritter his life away in painful sottishness. He died in September 1848, having achieved nothing reputable, and having disappointed all the hopes that had been centred in him. "My poor father naturally thought more of his only son than of his daughters," is one of Charlotte's dreary comments on the tragedy. In early years he had himself written both prose and verse; and a foolish story invented long afterwards attributed to him some share in his sisters' novels, particularly in Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights. But Charlotte distinctly tells us that her brother never knew that his sisters had published a line. He was too much under the effects of drink, too besotted and muddled in that last year or two of life, to have any share in their intellectual enthusiasms.
The literary life had, however, opened bravely for the three girls during those years. In 1846 a volume of verse appeared from the shop of Aylott & Jones of Paternoster Row; "Poems, by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell," was on the title-page. These names disguised the identity of Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë. The venture cost the sisters about £50 in all, but only two copies were sold. There were nineteen poems by Charlotte, twenty-one by Emily, and the same number by Anne. A consensus of criticism has accepted the fact that Emily's verse alone revealed true poetic genius. This was unrecognized then except by her sister Charlotte. It is obvious now to all.
The failure of the poems did not deter the authors from further effort. They had each a novel to dispose of. Charlotte Brontë's was called The Master, which before it was sent off to London was retitled The Professor. Emily's story was entitled Wuthering Heights, and Anne's Agnes Gray. All these stories travelled from publisher to publisher. At last The Professor reached the firm of Smith, Elder & Co., of Cornhill. The "reader" for that firm, R. Smith Williams (1800-1875), was impressed, as were also his employers. Charlotte Brontë received in August 1847 a letter informing her that whatever the merits of The Professor—and it was hinted that it lacked "varied interest"—it was too short for the three-volume form then counted imperative. The author was further told that a longer novel would be gladly considered. She replied in the same month with this longer novel, and Jane Eyre appeared in October 1847, to be wildly acclaimed on every hand, although enthusiasm was to receive a counterblast when more than a year later, in December 1848, Miss Rigby, afterwards Lady Eastlake (1809-1893), reviewed it in the Quarterly.
Meanwhile the novels of Emily and Anne had been accepted by T. C. Newby. They were published together in three volumes in December 1847, two months later than Jane Eyre, although the proof sheets had been passed by the authors before their sister's novel had been sent to the publishers. The dilatoriness of Mr Newby was followed up by considerable energy when he saw the possibility of the novels by Ellis and Acton Bell sailing on the wave of Currer Bell's popularity, and he would seem very quickly to have accepted another manuscript by Anne Brontë, for The Tenant of Wildfell Hall was published by Newby in three volumes in June 1848. It was Newby's clever efforts to persuade the public that the books he published were by the author of Jane Eyre that led Charlotte and Anne to visit London this summer and interview Charlotte's publishers in Cornhill with a view to establishing their separate identity. Soon after their return home Branwell died (the 24th of September 1848), and less than three months later Emily died also at Haworth (the 19th December 1848). Then Anne became ill and on the 24th of May 1849 Charlotte accompanied her to Scarborough in the hope that the sea air would revive her. Anne died there on the 28th of May, and was buried in Scarborough churchyard. Thus in exactly eight months Charlotte Brontë lost all the three companions of her youth, and returned to sustain her father, fast becoming blind, in the now desolate home at Haworth.
In the interval between the death of Branwell and of Emily, Charlotte had been engaged upon a new novel—Shirley. Two-thirds were written, but the story was then laid aside while its author was nursing her sister Anne. She completed the book after Anne's death, and it was published in October 1849. The following winter she visited London as the guest of her publisher, Mr George Smith, and was introduced to Thackerary, to whom she had dedicated Jane Eyre. The following year she repeated the visit, sat for her portrait to George Richmond, and was considerably lionized by a host of admirers. In August 1850 she visited the English lakes as the guest of Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth, and met Mrs Gaskell, Miss Martineau, Matthew Arnold and other interesting men and women. During this period her publishers assiduously lent her books, and her criticisms of them contained in many letters to Mr George Smith and Mr Smith Williams make very interesting reading. In 1851 she received a third offer of marriage, this time from Mr James Taylor, who was in the employment of her publishers. A visit to Miss Martineau at Ambleside and also to London to the Great Exhibition made up the events of this year. On her way home she visited Manchester and spent two days with Mrs Gaskell. During the year 1852 she worked hard with a new novel, Villette, which was published in January of 1853. In September of that year she received a visit from Mrs Gaskell at Haworth; in May 1854 she returned it, remaining three days at Manchester, and planning with her hostess the details of her marriage, for at this time she had promised to unite herself with her father's curate, Arthur Bell Nicholls (1817-1906), who had long been a pertinacious suitor for her hand but had been discouraged by Mr Brontë. The marriage took place in Haworth church on the 29th of June 1854, the ceremony being performed by the Rev. Sutcliffe Sowden, Miss Wooler and Miss Nussey acting as witnesses. The wedded pair spent their honeymoon in Ireland, returning to Haworth, where they made their home with Mr Brontë, Mr Nicholls having pledged himself to continue in his position as curate to his father-in-law. After less than a year of married life, however, Charlotte Nicholls died of an illness incidental to childbirth, on the 31st of March 1855. She was buried in Haworth church by the side of her mother, Branwell and Emily. The father followed in 1861, and then her husband returned to Ireland, where he remained some years afterwards, dying in 1906.
The bare recital of the Brontë story can give no idea of its undying interest, its exceeding pathos. Their life as told by their biographer Mrs Gaskell is as interesting as any novel. Their achievement, however, will stand on its own merits. Anne Brontë's two novels, it is true, though constantly reprinted, survive principally through the exceeding vitality of the Brontë tradition. As a hymn writer she still has a place in most religious communities. Emily is great alike as a novelist and as a poet. Her "Old Stoic" and "Last Lines" are probably the finest achievement of poetry that any woman has given to English literature. Her novel Wuthering Heights stands alone as a monument of intensity owing nothing to tradition, nothing to the achievement of earlier writers. It was a thing apart, passionate, unforgettable, haunting in its grimness, its grey melancholy. Among women writers Emily Brontë has a sure and certain place for all time. As a poet or maker of verse Charlotte Brontë is undistinguished, but there are passages of pure poetry of great magnificence in her four novels, and particularly in Villette. The novels Jane Eyre and Villette will always command attention whatever the future of English fiction, by virtue of their intensity, their independence, their rough individuality.
The Life of Charlotte Brontë, by Mrs Gaskell, was first published in 1857. Owing to the many controversial questions it aroused, as to the identity of Lowood in Jane Eyre with Cowan Bridge school, as to the relations of Branwell Brontë with his employer's wife, as to the supposed peculiarities of Mr Brontë, and certain other minor points, the third edition was considerably changed. The Life has been many times reprinted, but may be read in its most satisfactory form in the Haworth edition (1902), issued by the original publishers, Smith, Elder & Co. To this edition are attached a great number of letters written by Miss Brontë to her publisher, George Smith. The first new material supplied to supplement Mrs Gaskell's Life was contained in Charlotte Brontë: a Monograph, by T. Wemyss Reid (1877). This book inspired Mr A.C. Swinburne to issue separately a forcible essay on Charlotte and Emily Brontë, under the title of A Note on Charlotte Brontë (1877). A further collection of letters written by Miss Brontë was contained in Charlotte Brontë and her Circle, by Clement Shorter (1896), and interesting details can be gathered from the Life of Charlotte Brontë, by Augustine Birrell (1887), The Brontës in Ireland, by William Wright, D.D. (1893), Charlotte Brontë and her Sisters, by Clement Shorter (1906), and the Brontë Society publications, edited by Butler Wood (1895-1907). Miss A. Mary F. Robinson (Madame Duclaux) wrote a separate biography of Emily Brontë in 1883, and an essay in her Grands Écrivains d'outre-Manche. The Brontës: Life and Letters, by Clement Shorter (1907), contains the whole of C. Brontë's letters in chronological order.
(C. K. S.)
BRONTE, a town of the province of Catania, Sicily, on the western slopes of Mt. Etna, 24 m. N.N.W. of Catania direct, and 34 m. by rail. Pop. (1901) 20,366. It was founded by the emperor Charles V. The town, with an extensive estate which originally belonged to the monastery of Maniacium (Maniace), was granted, as a dukedom, to Nelson by Ferdinand IV. of Naples in 1799.
BRONX, THE, formerly a district comprising several towns in Westchester county, New York, U.S.A., now (since 1898) the northernmost of the five boroughs of New York City (q.v.). Several settlements in the Bronx were made by the English and the Dutch between 1640 and 1650.
BRONZE, an alloy formed wholly or chiefly of copper and tin in variable proportions. The word has been etymologically connected with the same root as appears in "brown," but according to M.P.E. Berthelot (La Chimie au moyen âge) it is a place-name derived from aes Brundusianum (cf. Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxxiii. ch. ix. §45, "specula optima apud majores fuerunt Brundusiana, stanno et aere mixtis"). A Greek MS. of about the 11th century in the library of St Mark's, Venice, contains the form βροντήσιον, and gives the composition of the alloy as 1 lb of copper with 2 oz. of tin. The product obtained by adding tin to copper is more fusible than copper and thus better suited for casting; it is also harder and less malleable. A soft bronze or gun-metal is formed with 16 parts of copper to 1 of tin, and a harder gun-metal, such as was used for bronze ordnance, when the proportion of tin is about doubled. The steel bronze of Colonel Franz Uchatius (1811-1881) consisted of copper alloyed with 8% of tin, the tenacity and hardness being increased by cold-rolling. Bronze containing about 7 parts of copper to 1 of tin is hard, brittle and sonorous, and can be tempered to take a fine edge. Bell-metal varies considerably in composition, from about 3 to 5 parts of copper to 1 of tin. In speculum metal there are 2 to 2½ parts of copper to 1 of tin. Statuary bronze may contain from 80 to 90% of copper, the residue being tin, or tin with zinc and lead in various proportions. The bronze used for the British and French copper coinage consists of 95% copper, 4% tin and 1% zinc. Many copper-tin alloys employed for machinery-bearings contain a small proportion of zinc, which gives increased hardness. "Anti-friction metals," also used in bearings, are copper-tin alloys in which the amount of copper is small and there is antimony in addition. Of this class an example is "Babbitt's metal," invented by Isaac Babbitt (1799-1862); it originally consisted of 24 parts of tin, 8 parts of antimony and 4 parts of copper, but in later compositions for the same purpose the proportion of tin is often considerably higher. Bronze is improved in quality and strength when fluxed with phosphorus. Alloys prepared in this way, and known as phosphor bronze, may contain only about 1% of phosphorus in the ingot, reduced to a mere trace after casting, but their value is nevertheless enhanced for purposes in which a hard strong metal is required, as for pump plungers, valves, the bushes of bearings, &c. Bronze again is improved by the presence of manganese in small quantity, and various grades of manganese bronze, in some of which there is little or no tin but a considerable percentage of zinc, are extensively used in mechanical engineering. Alloys of copper with aluminium, though often nearly or completely destitute of tin, are known as aluminium bronze, and are valuable for their strength and the resistance they offer to corrosion. By the addition of a small quantity of silicon the tensile strength of copper is much increased; a sample of such silicon bronze, used for telegraph wires, on analysis was found to consist of 99.94% of copper, 0.03% of tin, and traces of iron and silicon.
The bronze (Gr. χαλκός, Lat. aes) of classical antiquity consisted chiefly of copper, alloyed with one or more of the metals, zinc, tin, lead and silver, in proportions that varied as times changed, or according to the purposes for which the alloy was required. Among bronze remains the copper is found to vary from 67 to 95%. From the analysis of coins it appears that for their bronze coins the Greeks adhered to an alloy of copper and tin till 400 B.C., after which time they used also lead with increasing frequency. Silver is rare in their bronze coins. The Romans also used lead as an alloy in their bronze coins, but gradually reduced the quantity, and under Caligula, Nero, Vespasian and Domitian, coined pure copper coins; afterwards they reverted to the mixture of lead. So far the words χαλκός and aes may be translated as bronze. Originally, no doubt, χαλκός was the name for pure copper. It is so employed by Homer, who calls it ἐρυθρός (red), αἴθυψ (glittering), φαεννός (shining), terms which apply only to copper. But instead of its following from this that the process of alloying copper with other metals was not practised in the time of the poet, or was unknown to him, the contrary would seem to be the case from the passage (Iliad xviii. 474) where he describes Hephaestus as throwing into his furnace copper, tin, silver and gold to make the shield of Achilles, so that it is not always possible to know whether when he uses the word χαλκός he means copper pure or alloyed. Still more difficult is it to make this distinction when we read of the mythical Dactyls of Ida in Crete or the Telchines or Cyclopes being acquainted with the smelting of χαλκός. It is not, however, likely that later Greek writers, who knew bronze in its true sense, and called it χαλκός, would have employed this word without qualification for objects which they had seen unless they had meant it to be taken as bronze. When Pausanias (iii. 17. 6) speaks of a statue, one of the oldest figures he had seen of this material, made of separate pieces fastened together with nails, we understand him to mean literally bronze, the more readily since there exist very early figures and utensils of bronze so made.
For the use of bronze in art, see Metal-work.
BRONZE AGE, the name given by archaeologists to that stage in human culture, intermediate between the Stone and Iron Ages, when weapons, utensils and implements were, as a general rule, made of bronze. The term has no absolute chronological value, but marks a period of civilization through which it is believed that most races passed at one time or another. The "finds" of stone and bronze, of bronze and iron, and even of stone and iron implements together in tumuli and sepulchral mounds, suggest that in many countries the three stages in man's progress overlapped. From the similarity of types of weapons and implements of the period found throughout Europe a relatively synchronous commencement has been inferred for the Bronze Age in Europe, fixed by most authorities at between 2000 B.C. to 1800 B.C. But it must have been earlier in some countries, and is certainly known to have been later in others; while the Mexicans and Peruvians were still in their bronze age in recent times. Not a few archaeologists have denied that there ever was a distinct Bronze Age. They have found their chief argument in the fact that weapons of these ages have been found side by side in prehistoric burial-places. But when it is admitted that the ages must have overlapped, it is fairly easy to undertand the mixed "finds." The beginning, the prevalence and duration of the Bronze Age in each country would have been ordered by the accessibility of the metals which form the alloy. Thus in some lands bronze may have continued to be a substance of extreme value until the Iron Age was reached, and in tumuli in which more than one body was interred, as was frequently the case, it would only be with the remains of the richer tenants of the tomb that the more valuable objects would be placed. There is, moreover, much reason to believe that sepulchral mounds were opened from age to age and fresh interments made, and in such a practice would be found a simple explanation of the mixing of implements. Another curious fact has been seized on by those who argue against the existence of a Bronze Age. Among all the "finds" examined in Europe there is a most remarkable absence of copper implements. The sources of tin in Europe are practically restricted to Cornwall and Saxony. How then are we to explain on the one hand the apparent stride made by primitive man when from a Stone Age civilization he passed to a comparatively advanced metallurgical skill? On the other, how account for a comparatively synchronous commencement of bronze civilization when one at least of the metals needed for the alloy would have been naturally difficult of access, if not unknown to many races? The answer is that there can be but little doubt that the knowledge of bronze came to the races of Europe from outside. Either by the Phoenicians or by the Greeks metallurgy was taught to men who no sooner recognized the nature and malleable properties of copper than they learnt that by application of heat a substance could be manufactured with tin far better suited to their purposes. Copper would thus have been but seldom used unalloyed; and the relatively synchronous appearance of bronze in Europe, and the scanty "finds" of copper implements, are explained. We may conclude then that there was a Bronze Age in most countries; that it was the direct result of increasing intercommunication of races and the spread of commerce; and that the discovery of metals was due to information brought to Stone-Age man in Europe by races which were already skilful metallurgists.
The Bronze Age in Europe is characterized by weapons, utensils and implements, distinct in design and size from those in use in the preceding or succeeding stage of man's civilization. Moreover—and this has been employed as an argument in favour of the foreign origin of the knowledge of bronze—all the objects in one part of Europe are identical in pattern and size with those found in another part. The implements of the Bronze Age include swords, awls, knives, gouges, hammers, daggers and arrow-heads. A remarkable confirmation of the theory that the Bronze Age culture came from the East is to be found in the patterns of the arms, which are distinctly oriental; while the handles of swords and daggers are so narrow and short as to make it unlikely that they would be made for use by the large-handed races of Europe. The Bronze Age is also characterized by the fact that cremation was the mode of disposal of the dead, whereas in the Stone Age burial was the rule. Barrows and sepulchral mounds strictly of the Bronze Age are smaller and less imposing than those of the Stone Age. Besides varied and beautiful weapons, frequently exhibiting high workmanship, amulets, coronets, diadems of solid gold, and vases of elegant form and ornamentation in gold and bronze are found in the barrows. These latter appear to have been used as tribal or family cemeteries. In Denmark as many as seventy deposits of burnt bones have been found in a single mound, indicating its use through a long succession of years. The ornamentation of the period is as a rule confined to spirals, bosses and concentric circles. What is remarkable is that the swords not only show the design of the cross in the shape of the handle, but also in tracery what is believed to be an imitation of the Svastika, that ancient Aryan symbol which was probably the first to be made with a definite intention and a consecutive meaning. The pottery is all "hand-made," and the bulk of the objects excavated are cinerary urns, usually found full of burnt bones. These vary from 12 to 18 in. in height. Their decoration is confined to a band round the upper part of the pot, or often only a projecting flange lapped round the whole rim. A few have small handles, formed of pierced knobs of clay and sometimes projecting rolls of clay, looped, as it were, all round the urn. The ornamentation consists of dots, zigzags, chevrons or crosses. The lines were frequently made by pressing a twisted thong of skin against the moist clay; the patterns in all cases being stamped into the pot before it was hardened by fire.
See Archaeology, &c. Also Lord Avebury, Prehistoric Times (1900); Sir J. Evans, Ancient Bronze Implements of Great Britain (1881); Chartre's Age du bronze en France.
BRONZING, a process by which a bronze-like surface is imparted to objects of metal, plaster, wood, &c. On metals a green bronze colour is sometimes produced by the action of such substances as vinegar, dilute nitric acid and sal-ammoniac. An antique appearance may be given to new bronze articles by brushing over the clean bright metal with a solution of sal-ammoniac and salt of sorrel in vinegar, and rubbing the surface dry, the operation being repeated as often as necessary. Another solution for the same purpose is made with sal-ammoniac, cream of tartar, common salt and silver nitrate. With a solution of platinic chloride almost any colour can be produced on copper, iron, brass or new bronze, according to the dilution and the number of applications. Articles of plaster and wood may be bronzed by coating them with size and then covering them with a bronze powder, such as Dutch metal, beaten into fine leaves and powdered. The bronzing of gun-barrels may be effected by the use of a strong solution of antimony trichloride.
BRONZINO, IL, the name given to Angelo Allori (1502-1572), the Florentine painter. He became the favourite pupil of J. da Pontormo. He painted the portraits of some of the most famous men of his day, such as Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio. Most of his best works are in Florence, but examples are in the National Gallery, London, and elsewhere.
BRONZITE, a member of the pyroxene group of minerals, belonging with enstatite and hypersthene to the orthorhombic series of the group. Rather than a distinct species, it is really a ferriferous variety of enstatite, which owing to partial alteration has acquired a bronze-like sub-metallic lustre on the cleavage surfaces. Enstatite is magnesium metasilicate, MgSiO3, with the magnesia partly replaced by small amounts (up to about 5%) of ferrous oxide; in the bronzite variety, (Mg,Fe)SiO3, the ferrous oxide ranges from about 5 to 14%, and with still more iron there is a passage to hypersthene. The ferriferous varieties are liable to a particular kind of alteration, known as "schillerization," which results in the separation of the iron as very fine films of oxide and hydroxides along the cleavage cracks of the mineral. The cleavage surfaces therefore exhibit a metallic sheen or "schiller," which is even more pronounced in hypersthene than in bronzite. The colour of bronzite is green or brown; its specific gravity is about 3.2-3.3, varying with the amount of iron present. Like enstatite, bronzite is a constituent of many basic igneous rocks, such as norites, gabbros, and especially peridotites, and of the serpentines which have been derived from them. It also occurs in some crystalline schists.
Bronzite is sometimes cut and polished, usually in convex forms, for small ornamental objects, but its use for this purpose is less extensive than that of hypersthene. It often has a more or less distinct fibrous structure, and when this is pronounced the sheen has a certain resemblance to that of cat's-eye. Masses sufficiently large for cutting are found in the norite of the Kupferberg in the Fichtelgebirge, and in the serpentine of Kraubat near Leoben in Styria. In this connexion mention may be made of an altered form of enstatite or bronzite known as bastite or schiller-spar. Here, in addition to schillerization, the original enstatite has been altered by hydration and the product has approximately the composition of serpentine. In colour bastite is brown or green with the same metallic sheen as bronzite. The typical locality is Baste in the Radauthal, Harz, where patches of pale greyish-green bastite are embedded in a darker-coloured serpentine. This rock when cut and polished makes an effective decorative stone, although little used for that purpose.
(L. J. S.)
BROOCH, or Broach (from the Fr. broche, originally an awl or bodkin; a spit is sometimes called a broach, and hence the phrase "to broach a barrel"; see Broker), a term now used to denote a clasp or fastener for the dress, provided with a pin, having a hinge or spring at one end, and a catch or loop at the other.
Brooches of the safety-pin type (fibulae) were extensively used in antiquity, but only within definite limits of time and place. They seem to have been unknown to the Egyptians, and to the oriental nations untouched by Greek influence. In lands adjacent to Greece, they do not occur in Crete or at Hissarlik. The place of origin cannot as yet be exactly determined, but it would seem to have been in central Europe, towards the close of the Bronze Age, somewhat before 1000 B.C. The earliest form is little more than a pin, bent round for security, with the point caught against the head. One such actual pin has been found. In its next simplest form, very similar to that of the modern safety-pin (in which the coiled spring forces the point against the catch), it occurs in the lower city of Mycenae, and in late deposits of the Mycenaean Age, such as at Enkomi in Cyprus. It occurs also (though rarely) in the "terramare" deposits of the Po valley, in the Swiss lake-dwellings of the later Bronze Age, in central Italy, in Hungary and in Bosnia. (fig. 1).
From the comparatively simple initial form, the fibula developed in different lines of descent, into different shapes, varying according to the structural feature which was emphasized. On account of the number of local variations, the subject is extremely complex, but the main lines of development were approximately as follows.
Towards the end of the Bronze Age the safety-pin was arched into a bow, so as to include a greater amount of stuff in its compass.
In the older Iron Age or "Hallstatt period" the bow and its accessories are thickened and modified in various directions, so as to give greater rigidity, and prominences or surfaces for decoration. The chief types have been conveniently classed by Montelius in four main groups, according to the characteristic forms:—
I. The wire of the catch-plate is hammered into a flat disk, on which the pin rests (fig. 2)
II. The bow is thickened towards the middle, so as to assume the "leech" shape, or it is hollowed out underneath, into the "boat" form. The catch-plate is only slightly turned up, but it becomes elongated, in order to mask the end of a long pin (fig. 3).
III. The catch-plate is flattened out as in group I., but additional convolutions are added to the bow (fig. 4).
IV. The bow is convoluted (but the convolutions are sometimes represented by knobs); the catch-plate develops as in group II. (fig. 5). For further examples of the four types, see Antiquities of Early Iron Age in British Museum, p. 32.
Among the special variations of the early form, mention should be made of the fibulae of the geometric age of Greece, with an exaggerated development of the vertical portion of the catch-plate (fig. 6).
The example shown in fig. 7 is an ornate development of type II. above.
In the later Iron Age (or early La Tène period) the prolongation of the catch-plate described in the second and fourth groups above has a terminal knob ornament, which is reflexed upwards, at first slightly (fig. 8), and then to a marked extent, turning back towards the bow.
A far-reaching change in the design was at the same time brought about by a simple improvement in principle, apparently introduced within the area of the La Tène culture. Instead of a unilateral spring—that is, of one coiled on one side only of the bow as commonly in the modern safety-pin—the brooch became bilateral. The spring was coiled on one side of the axis of the bow, and thence the wire was taken to the other side of the axis, and again coiled in a corresponding manner before starting in a straight line to form the pin. Once invented, the bilateral spring became almost universal, and its introduction serves to divide the whole mass of ancient fibulae into an older and a younger group.
With the progress of the La Tène period (300-1 B.C.) the reflection of the catch-plate terminal became yet more marked, until it became practically merged in the bow (fig. 9). Meanwhile, the bilateral spring described above was developing into two marked projections on each side of the axis. In order to give the double spring strength and protection it was given a metal core, and a containing tube. When the core had been provided the pin was no longer necessarily a continuation of the bow, and it became in fact a separate member, as in a modern brooch of a non-safety-pin type, and was no longer actuated by its own spring.
The T-shaped or "cross-bow" fibula was thus developed. During the first centuries of the Empire it attained great size and importance (figs. 10-12). The form is conveniently dated at its highest development by its occurrence on the ivory diptych of Stilicho at Monza (c. A.D. 400).
In the tombs of the Frankish and kindred Teutonic tribes between the 5th and 9th centuries the crossbar of the T becomes a yet more elaborately decorated semicircle, often surrounded by radial knobs and a chased surface. The base of the shaft is flattened out, and is no less ornate (fig. 13). At the beginning of this period the fibula of King Childeric (A.D. 481) has a singularly complicated pin-fastening.
So far we have traced the history of the safety-pin form of brooch. Concurrently with it, other forms of brooch were developed in which the safety-pin principle is either absent or effectually disguised. One such form is that of the circular medallion brooch. It is found in Etruscan deposits of a fully developed style, and is commonly represented in Greek and Roman sculptures as a stud to fasten the cloak on the shoulder. In the Roman provinces the circular brooches are very numerous, and are frequently decorated with inlaid stone, paste or enamel. Another kind of brooch, also known from early times, is in the form of an animal. In the early types the animal is a decorative appendage, but in later examples it forms the body of the brooch, to which a pin like the modern brooch-pin is attached underneath. Both of these shapes, namely the medallion and the animal form, are found in Frankish cemeteries, together with the later variations of the T-shaped brooch described above. Such brooches were made in gold, silver or bronze, adorned with precious stones, filigree work, or enamel; but whatever the richness of the material, the pin was nearly always of iron. The Scandinavian or northern group of T-shaped brooches are in their early forms indistinguishable from those of the Frankish tombs, but as time went on they became more massive, and richly decorated with intricate devices (perhaps brought in by Irish missionary influence), into which animal forms were introduced. The period covered is from the 5th to the 8th centuries.