OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Beckford, William

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​BECKFORD, WILLIAM (1760–1844), English author, son of Alderman William Beckford (1709–1770), was born on the 1st of October 1760. His father was lord mayor of London in 1762 and again in 1769; he was a famous supporter of John Wilkes, and on his monument in the Guildhall were afterwards inscribed the words of his manly and outspoken reproof to George III. on the occasion of the City of London address to the king in 1770. At the age of eleven young Beckford inherited a princely fortune from his father. He married Lady Margaret Gordon in 1783, and spent his brief married life in Switzerland. After his wife’s death (1786) he travelled in Spain and Portugal, and wrote his Portuguese Letters (published 1834, 1835), which rank with his best work. He afterwards returned to England, and after selling his old house, Fonthill Abbey, Wiltshire, began to build a magnificent residence there, on which he expended in about eighteen years the sum of £273,000. His eccentricities, together with the strict seclusion in which he lived, gave rise to scandal, probably unjustified. In 1822 he sold his house, together with its splendid library and pictures, to John Farquhar, and soon after one of the towers, 260 ft. high, fell, destroying part of the villa in the ruins. Beckford erected another lofty structure on Lansdowne Hill, near Bath, where he continued to reside till his death in 1844. His first work, Biographical Memoirs of Extraordinary Painters (1780) was a slight, sarcastic jeu d’esprit. In 1782 he wrote in French his oriental romance, The History of the Caliph Vathek, which appeared in English, translated by the Rev. Samuel Henley, in 1786 and has taken its place as one of the finest productions of luxuriant imagination.
Beckford’s wealth and large expenditure, his position as a collector and patron of letters (he bought Gibbon’s library at Lausanne), his literary industry, and his reputation as author of Vathek, make him an interesting figure in literary history. He had a seat in parliament from 1784 to 1793, and again from 1806 to 1820. He left two daughters, the eldest of whom was married to the 10th duke of Hamilton.
Cyrus Redding’s Memoir (1859) is the only full biography, but prolix; see Dr R. Garnett’s introduction to his edition of Vathek (1893).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Beckmann, Johann

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​BECKMANN, JOHANN (1739–1811), German scientific author, was born on the 4th of June 1739 at Hoya in Hanover, where his father was postmaster and receiver of taxes. He was educated at Stade and the university of Göttingen. The death of his mother in 1762 having deprived him of his means of support, he went in 1763 on the invitation of the pastor of the Lutheran community, Anton Friedrich Büsching, the founder of the modern historic statistical method of geography, to teach natural history in the Lutheran academy, St Petersburg. This office he relinquished in 1765, and travelled in Denmark and Sweden, where he studied the methods of working the mines, and made the acquaintance of Linnaeus at Upsala. In 1766 he was appointed extraordinary professor of philosophy at Göttingen. There he lectured on political and domestic economy with such success that in 1770 he was appointed ordinary professor. He was in the habit of taking his students into the workshops, that they might acquire a practical as well as a theoretical knowledge of different processes and handicrafts. While thus engaged he determined to trace the history and describe the existing condition of each of the arts and sciences on which he was lecturing, being perhaps incited by the Bibliothecae of Albrecht von Haller. But even Beckmann’s industry and ardour were unable to overtake the amount of study necessary for this task. He therefore confined his attention to several practical arts and trades; and to these labours we owe his Beiträge zur Geschichte der Erfindungen (1780–1805), translated into English as the History of Inventions—a work in which he relates the origin, history and recent condition of the various machines, utensils, &c., employed in trade and for domestic purposes. This work entitles Beckmann to be regarded as the founder of scientific technology, a term which he was the first to use in 1772. In 1772 Beckmann was elected a member of the Royal Society of Göttingen, and he contributed valuable scientific dissertations to its proceedings until 1783, when he withdrew from all further share in its work. He died on the 3rd of February 1811. Other important works of Beckmann are Entwurf einer allgemeinen Technologie (1806); Anleitung zur Handelswissenschaft (1789); Vorbereitung zur Warenkunde (1795–1800); Beiträge zur Ökonomie, Technologie, Polizei- und, Kameralwissenschaft (1777–1791).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Beck, Jakob Sigismund

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​BECK, JAKOB SIGISMUND (1761–1840), German philosopher, was born at Danzig in 1761. Educated at Königsberg, he became professor of philosophy first at Halle (1791–1799) and then at Rostock. He devoted himself to criticism and explanation of the doctrine of Kant, and in 1793 published the Erläuternder Auszug aus Kants kritischen Schriften, which has been widely used as a compendium of Kantian doctrine. He endeavoured to explain away certain of the contradictions which are found in Kant’s system by saying that much of the language is used in a popular sense for the sake of intelligibility, e.g. where Kant attributes to things-in-themselves an existence under the conditions of time, space and causality, and yet holds that they furnish the material of our apprehensions. Beck maintains that the real meaning of Kant’s theory is idealism; that of objects outside the domain of consciousness, knowledge is impossible, and hence that nothing positive remains when we have removed the subjective element. Matter is deduced by the “original synthesis.” Similarly, the idea of God is a symbolical representation of the voice of conscience guiding from within. The value of Beck’s exegesis has been to a great extent overlooked owing to the greater attention given to the work of Fichte. Beside the three volumes of the Erläuternder Auszug, he published the Grundriss der krit. Philosophie (1796), containing an interpretation of the Kantian Kritik in the manner of Salomon Maimon.
See Ueberweg, Grundriss der Gesch. der Philos. der Neuzeit; Dilthey in the Archiv für Geschichte der Philos., vol. ii. (1889), pp. 592-650. For Beck’s letters to Kant, see R. Reicke, Aus Kants Briefwechsel (Königsberg, 1885).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Becker, Heinrich

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​BECKER, HEINRICH (1770–1822), German actor, whose real name was Blumenthal, was born at Berlin. He obtained, while quite a young man, an appointment in the court theatre at Weimar, at that time under Goethe’s auspices. The poet recognized his talent, appointed him stage-manager, entrusted him with several of the leading roles in his dramas and consulted him in all matters connected with the staging of his plays. For many years Becker was the favourite of the Weimar stage, and although he was at his best in comedy, he played, to Goethe’s great satisfaction, Vansen in Egmont, and was also seen to great advantage in the leading parts of several of Schiller’s plays; notably Burleigh in Maria Stuart, Karl Moor in Die Räuber, and Antonio in Torquato Tasso. Becker left Weimar in the spring of 1809, played for a short time at Hamburg (under Schröder) and at Breslau, and then began a wandering life, now joining travelling companies, now playing at provincial theatres. Broken in health and ruined in fortune he returned in 1820 to Weimar, where he was again cordially received by Goethe, who reinstated him at the theatre. After playing for two short years with indifferent success, he died at Weimar in 1822.
Becker was twice married. His first wife, Christiane Luise Amalie Becker (1778–1797), was the daughter of a theatrical manager and dramatic poet, Johann Christian Neumann, and made her first stage appearance in 1787 at Weimar. Here she received some training from Goethe and from Corona Schröter, the singer, and her beauty and charm made her the favourite both of court and public. She married Heinrich Becker in 1793. She died on the 22nd of September 1797. Her last part was that of Euphrosyne in the opera Das Petermännchen, and it is under this name that Goethe immortalized her in a poem which first appeared in Schiller’s Musen Almanack of 1799.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Beckwith, James Carroll

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​BECKWITH, JAMES CARROLL (1852– ), American portrait-painter, was born at Hannibal, Missouri, on the 23rd of September 1852. He studied in the National Academy of Design, New York City, of which he afterwards became a member, and in Paris (1873–1878) under Carolus Duran. Returning to the United States in 1878, he gradually became a prominent figure in American art. He took an active part in the formation of the Fine Arts Society, and was president of the National Free Art League, which attempted to secure the repeal of the American duty on works of art. Among his portraits are those of W. M. Chase (1882), of Miss Jordan (1883), of Mark Twain, T. A. Janvier, General Schofield and William Walton. He decorated one of the domes of the Manufactures Building at the Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Chaff

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​CHAFF (from the A.S. ceaf, allied to the O. High Ger. cheva, a husk or pod), the husks left after threshing grain, and also hay and straw chopped fine as food for cattle; hence, figuratively, the refuse or worthless part of anything. The colloquial use of the word, to chaff, in the sense of to banter or to make fun of a person, may be derived from this figurative sense, or from “to chafe,” meaning to vex or irritate.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Chaffinch

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​CHAFFINCH (Fringilla coelebs), the common English name of a bird belonging to the family Fringillidae (see Finch), and distinguished, in the male sex, by the deep greyish blue of its crown feathers, the yellowish green of its rump, the white of the wing coverts, so disposed as to form two conspicuous bars, and the reddish brown passing into vinous red of the throat and breast. The female is drab, but shows the same white markings as the male, and the young males resemble the females until after the first autumn moult, when they gradually assume the plumage of their sex. The chaffinch breeds early in the season, and its song may often be heard in February. Its nest, which is a model of neatness and symmetry, it builds on trees and bushes, preferring such as are overgrown with moss and lichens. It is chiefly composed of moss and wool, lined internally with grass, wool, feathers, and whatever soft material the locality affords. The outside consists of moss and lichens, and according to Selby, “is always accordant with the particular colour of its situation.” When built in the neighbourhood of towns the nest is somewhat slovenly and untidy, being often composed of bits of dirty straw, pieces of paper and blackened moss; in one instance, near Glasgow, the author of the Birds of the West of Scotland found several postage-stamps thus employed. It lays four or five eggs of a pale purplish buff, streaked and spotted with purplish red. In spring the chaffinch is destructive to early flowers, and to young radishes and turnips just as they appear above the surface; in summer, however, it feeds principally on insects and their larvae, while in autumn and winter its food consists of grain and other seeds. On the continent of Europe the chaffinch is a favourite song-bird, especially in Germany, where great attention is paid to its training.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Chagos

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​CHAGOS, a group of atolls in the Indian Ocean, belonging to Britain, disposed in circular form round the Chagos bank, in 4° 44′ to 7° 39′ S., and 70° 55′ to 72° 52′ E. The atolls on the south and east side of the bank, which has a circumference of about 270 m., have disappeared through subsidence; a few—Egmont, Danger, Eagle, and Three Brothers—still remain on the east side, but most of the population (about 700) is centred on Diego Garcia, which lies on the south-east side, and is nearly 13 m. long by 6 m. wide. The lagoon, which is enclosed by two coral barriers and accessible to the largest vessels on the north side, forms one of the finest natural harbours in the world. The group, which has a total land area of 76 sq. m., is dependent for administrative purposes on Mauritius, and is regularly visited by vessels from that colony. The only product is cocoa-nut oil, of which about 106,000 gallons are annually exported. The French occupied the islands in 1791 from Mauritius, and the oil industry (from which the group is sometimes called the Oil Islands) came into the hands of French Creoles.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Chaffarinas

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​CHAFFARINAS, or Zaffarines, a group of islands belonging to Spain off the north coast of Morocco, near the Algerian frontier, 21/2 m. to the north of Cape del Agna. The largest of these isles, Del Congreso, is rocky and hilly. It has a watch-house on the coast nearest to Morocco. Isabella II., the central island, contains several batteries, barracks and a penal convict settlement. The Spanish government has undertaken the construction of breakwaters to unite this island with the neighbouring islet of El Rey, with a view to enclose a deep and already sheltered anchorage. This roadstead affords a safe refuge for many large vessels. The Chaffarinas, which are the Tres Insulae of the Romans and the Zafrān of the Arabs, were occupied by Spain in 1848. The Spanish occupation anticipated by a few days a French expedition sent from Oran to annex the islands to Algeria. The population of the islands is under 1000.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Chafer

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​CHAFER, a word used in modern speech to distinguish the beetles of the family Scarabaeidae, and more especially those species which feed on leaves in the adult state. The word is derived from the O. Eng. ceafor, and it is interesting to note that the cognate Ger. Käfer is applied to beetles of all kinds. For the characters of the Scarabaeidae see Coleoptera. This family includes a large number of beetles, some of which feed on ​dung and others on vegetable tissues. The cockchafers and their near allies belong to the subfamily Melolonthinae, and the rose-chafers to the Cetoniinae; in both the beetles eat leaves, and their grubs spend a long life underground devouring roots. In Britain the Melolonthines that are usually noted as injurious are the two species of cockchafer (Melolontha vulgaris and M. hippocastani), large heavy beetles with black pubescent pro-thorax, brown elytra and an elongated pointed tail-process; the summer-chafer (Rhizotrogus solstitialis), a smaller pale brown chafer; and the still smaller garden-chafer or “cocker-bundy” (Phyllopertha horticola), which has a dark green pro-thorax and brown elytra. Of the Cetoniines, the beautiful metallic green rose-chafer, Cetonia aurata, sometimes causes damage, especially in gardens. The larvae of the chafers are heavy, soft-skinned grubs, with hard brown heads provided with powerful mandibles, three pairs of well-developed legs, and a swollen abdomen. As they grow, the larvae become strongly flexed towards the ventral surface, and lie curled up in their earthen cells, feeding on roots. The larval life lasts several years, and in hard frosts the grubs go deep down away from the surface. Pupation takes place in the autumn, and though the perfect insect emerges from the cuticle very soon afterwards, it remains in its underground cell for several months, not making its way to the upper air until the ensuing summer. After pairing, the female crawls down into the soil to lay her eggs. The grubs of chafers, when turned up by the plough, are greedily devoured by poultry, pigs and various wild birds. When the beetles become so numerous as to call for destruction, they are usually shaken off the trees where they rest on to sheets or tarred boards. On the continent of Europe chafers are far more numerous than in the United Kingdom, and the rural governments in France give rewards for their destruction. D. Sharp states that in the department of Seine-inférieure 867,173,000 cockchafers and 647,000,000 larvae were killed in the four years preceding 1870.
The anatomy of Melolontha is very fully described in a classical memoir by H. E. Strauss-Dürckheim (Paris, 1828).  (G. H. C.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Chaffee, Adna Romanza

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​CHAFFEE, ADNA ROMANZA (1842– ), American general, was born at Orwell, Ohio, on the 14th of April 1842. At the outbreak of the Civil War he entered the United States cavalry as a private, and he rose to commissioned rank in 1863, becoming brevet captain in 1865. He remained in the army after the war and took part with distinction in many Indian campaigns. His promotion was, however, slow, and he was at the age of fifty-six still a lieutenant-colonel of cavalry. But in 1898, at the outbreak of the Spanish-American War, he was made brigadier-general and soon afterwards major-general of volunteers. In the Cuban campaign he won particular distinction, and the victory of the Americans in the action of El Caney was in large measure due to his careful personal reconnaissances of the ground to be attacked and to the endurance of his own brigade. After reverting for a time to the rank of brigadier-general, he was made a major-general U.S.V. again in 1900 and was appointed to command the United States contingent in China. He took a brilliant and successful part in the advance on Peking and the relief of the Legations. In 1901 he became a major-general in the regular army, and in 1901–1902 commanded the Division of the Philippines. In 1902–1903 he commanded the Department of the East, and from 1904 to 1906 was chief of the general staff of the army. In 1904 he received the rank of lieutenant-general in the United States army, being the first enlisted man of the regular army to attain this, the highest rank in the service. He was retired at his own request on the 1st of February 1906, after more than forty years’ service.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Chaetosomatida

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* From Cambridge Natural History, vol. ii. “Worms.” by permission of Macmillan & Co., Ltd.
* Mature female of Chaetosoma daparedii, (From Mechnikov.) a, Oesophagus; b, intestine; c, anus; d, ovary; e, generative pore; f, ventral bristles.
CHAETOSOMATIDA, a small group of minute, free-living, aquatic organisms which are usually placed as an annex to the Nematoda. Indeed Mechnikov, to whom we owe much of our knowledge of these forms, calls them “creeping Nematoda.” They are usually found amongst seaweed in temperate seas, but they are probably widely distributed; some are fresh-water. The genus Chaetosoma, with the two species Ch. claparedii and Ch. ophicephalum and the genus Tristicochaeta, have swollen heads. The third genus Rhabdogaster has no such distinct head, though the body may be swollen anteriorly. The mouth is terminal and anterior and surrounded by a ring of spicules or a half-ring of hooks. Scattered hairs cover the body. Just in front of the anus there is in Chaetosoma a double, and in Tristicochaeta a triple row of about fifteen stout cylindrical projections upon which the animals creep. The females are a little larger than the males; in Ch. claparedii the former attain a length of 1.5 mm., the latter of 1.12 mm. The mouth opens into an oesophagus which passes into an intestine; this opens by a ventral anus situated a little in front of the posterior end. The testis is single, and its duct opens with the anus, and is provided with a couple of spicules. The ovary is double, and the oviducts open by a median ventral pore about the middle of the body; in this region there is a second swelling both in Chaetosoma and in Rhabdogaster. The last-named form is in the female 0.36 mm. in length. In it the hairs are confined to the dorsal middle line and the creeping setae are hooked, of a finer structure than in Chaetosoma, and situated so far forward that the vagina opens amongst them. Ch. ophicephalum has been taken in the English Channel.
See E. Mechnikov, Zeitschr. wiss. Zool. xvii., 1867, p. 537; Panceri, Atti Acc. Napoli, vii., 1878, p. 7.  (A. E. S.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Chafing-dish

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​CHAFING-DISH (from the O. Fr. chaufer, to make warm), a kind of portable grate heated with charcoal, and used for cooking or keeping food warm. In a light form, and heated over a spirit lamp, it is also used for cooking various dainty dishes at table. The employment of the chafing-dish for the latter purpose has been largely restored in modern cookery.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bristol (Connecticut)

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​BRISTOL, a township of Hartford county, Connecticut, U.S.A., in the central part of the state, about 16 m. S.W. of Hartford. It has an area of 27 sq. m., and contains the village of Forestville and the borough of Bristol (incorporated in 1893). Both are situated on the Pequabuck river, and are served by the western branch of the midland division of the New York, New Haven & Hartford railway, and by electric railway to Hartford, New Britain and Terryville. Pop. (1890) 7382; (1900) 9643, including that of the borough, 6268 (1910) 13,502 (borough, 9527). Among the manufactures of the borough of Bristol are clocks, woollen goods, iron castings, hardware, brass ware, silverplate and bells. Bristol clocks, first manufactured soon after the War of Independence, have long been widely known. Bristol, originally a part of the township of Farmington, was first settled about 1727, but did not become an independent corporation until the formation, in 1742, of the first church, known after 1744 as the New Cambridge Society. In 1748 a Protestant Episcopal Church was organized, and before and during the War of Independence its members belonged to the Loyalist party; their rector, Rev. James Nichols, was tarred and feathered by the Whigs, and Moses Dunbar, a member of the church, was hanged for treason by the Connecticut authorities. Chippen’s Hill (about 3 m. from the centre of the township) was a favourite rendezvous of the local Loyalists; and a cave there, known as “The Tories’ Den,” is a well-known landmark. In 1785 New Cambridge and West Britain, another ecclesiastical society of Farmington, were incorporated as the township of Bristol, but in 1806 they were divided into the present townships of Bristol and Burlington.