OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Burke, Sir John Bernard

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​BURKE, SIR JOHN BERNARD (1814–1892), British genealogist, was born in London, on the 5th of January 1814, and was educated in London and in France. His father, John Burke (1787–1848), was also a genealogist, and in 1826 issued a Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Peerage and Baronetage of the United Kingdom. This work, generally known as Burke’s Peerage, has been issued annually since 1847. While practising as a barrister Bernard Burke assisted his father in his genealogical work, and in 1848 took control of his publications. In 1853 he was appointed Ulster king-at-arms; in 1854 he was knighted; and in 1855 he became keeper of the state papers in Ireland. After having devoted his life to genealogical studies he died in Dublin on the 12th of December 1892. In addition to editing Burke’s Peerage from 1847 to his death, Burke brought out several editions of a companion volume, Burke’s Landed Gentry, which was first published between 1833 and 1838. In 1866 and 1883 he published editions of his father’s Dictionary of the Peerages of England, Scotland and Ireland, extinct, dormant and in abeyance (earlier editions, 1831, 1840, 1846); in 1855 and 1876 editions of his Royal Families of England, Scotland and Wales (1st edition, 1847–1851); and in 1878 and 1883 enlarged editions of his Encyclopaedia of Heraldry, or General Armoury of England, Scotland and Ireland. Burke’s own works include The Roll of Battle Abbey (1848); The Romance of the Aristocracy (1855); Vicissitudes of Families (1883 and several earlier editions); and The Rise of Great Families (1882). He was succeeded as editor of Burke’s Peerage and Landed Gentry by his fourth son, Ashworth Peter Burke.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Buri

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​BURI, or Bure, in Norse mythology, the grandfather of Odin. In the creation of the world he was born from the rocks, licked by the cow Andhumla (darkness). He was the father of Bor, and the latter, wedded to Bestla, the daughter of the giant Bolthorn (evil), became the father of Odin, the Scandinavian Jove.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Buriats

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​BURIATS, a Mongolian race, who dwell in the vicinity of the Baikal Lake, for the most part in the government of Irkutsk and the Trans-Baikal Territory. They are divided into various tribes or clans, which generally take their names from the locality they frequent. These tribes are subdivided according to kinship. The Buriats are a broad-shouldered race inclined to stoutness, with small slanting eyes, thick lips, high cheekbones, broad and flat noses and scanty beards. The men shave their heads and wear a pigtail like the Chinese. In summer they dress in silk and cotton gowns, in winter in furs and sheepskins. Their principal occupation is the rearing of cattle and horses. The Buriat horse is famous for its power of endurance, and the attachment between master and animal is very great. At death the horse should, according to their religion, be sacrificed at its owner’s grave; but the frugal Buriat heir usually substitutes an old hack, or if he has to tie up the valuable steed to the grave to starve he does so only with the thinnest of cords so that the animal soon breaks his tether and gallops off to join the other horses. In some districts the Buriats have learned agriculture from the Russians, and in Irkutsk are really better farmers than the latter. They are extraordinarily industrious at manuring and irrigation. They are also clever at trapping and fishing. In religion the Buriats are mainly Buddhists; and their head lama (Khambo Lama) lives at the Goose Lake (Guisinoe Ozero). Others are Shamanists, and their most sacred spot is the Shamanic stone at the mouth of the river Angar. Some thousands of them around Lake Baikal are Christians. A knowledge of reading and writing is common, especially among the Trans-Baikal Buriats, who possess books of their own, chiefly translated from the Tibetan. Their own language is Mongolian, and of three distinct dialects. It was in the 16th century that the Russians first came in touch with the Buriats, who were long known by the name of Bratskiye, “Brotherly,” given them by the Siberian colonists. In the town of Bratskiyostrog, which grew up around the block-house built in 1631 at the confluence of the Angara and Oka to bring them into subjection, this title is perpetuated. The Buriats made a vigorous resistance to Russian aggression, but were finally subdued towards the end of the 17th century, and are now among the most peaceful of Russian peoples.
See J. G. Gruelin, Siberia; Pierre Simon Pallas, Sammlungen historischer Nachrichten über die mongolischen Volkerschaften (St Petersburg, 1776–1802); M. A. Castrén, Versuch einer buriatischen Sprachlehre (1857); Sir H. H. Howorth, History of the Mongols (1876–1888).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Burial Societies

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​BURIAL SOCIETIES, a form of friendly societies, existing mainly in England, and constituted for the purpose of providing by voluntary subscriptions, for insuring money to be paid on the death of a member, or for the funeral expenses of the husband, wife or child of a member, or of the widow of a deceased member. (See Friendly Societies.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Cradock

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​CRADOCK, a town of South Africa, capital of a division of the Cape province, in the upper valley of the Great Fish river, 181 m. by rail N. by E. of Port Elizabeth. Pop. (1904) 7762. It is one of the chief centres of the wool industry of the Cape, and does also a large trade in ostrich feathers, mohair, &c. The town enjoys a reputation as one of the best health resorts in the province. It stands at an altitude of 2856 ft.; the climate is very dry, the average annual rainfall being 14.50 in. The mean maximum temperature is 77.6° F. Three miles N. of the town are sulphur baths (temp. 100° F.) used for the treatment of rheumatism. In the neighbouring district survive a few herds of zebras, now protected by the game laws. The town dates from the beginning of the 19th century and is named after Sir John Cradock, governor of the Cape 1811–1813. The division has an area of 3048 sq. m. and a pop. (1904) of 18,803, of whom 41% are white.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Cracker

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​CRACKER (from “crack,” a common Teutonic word, cf. Ger. krachen, Dutch kraken, meaning to break with a sharp sound), that which “cracks”; it is, therefore, applied (1) to a firework so constructed that it explodes with several reports and jumps at each explosion, when placed on the ground (see Fireworks); (2) to a roll of coloured and ornamented paper containing sweets, small articles of cheap jewelry, paper caps and other trifles, together with a strip of card with a fulminant which explodes with a “crack” on being pulled; (3) to a thin crisp biscuit (q.v.); in America the general name for a biscuit. In the southern states of America, “cracker” is a term of contempt for the “poor” or “mean whites,” particularly of Georgia and Florida; the term is an old one and dates back to the Revolution, and is supposed to be derived from the “cracked corn” which formed the staple food of the class to whom the term refers.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Craft

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​CRAFT (a word common to Teutonic languages for strength, or power; cf. Ger. Kraft), a word confined in English only, of the Teutonic languages in which it occurs, to intellectual power, and used as a synonym of “art.” It then means skill or ingenuity, especially in the manual arts, hence its use in the expression “Arts and Crafts” (q.v.), and it is thus applied to the trade or profession in which such skill is displayed, to an association of workmen of a particular trade, a trade gild, and in particular to Freemasons, “the craft”; the word appears also in words such as “handicraft” or “craftsman.” Skill applied to outwit or deceive gives the common sense of cunning or trickery, and it is this meaning which is implied in such combined words as “priestcraft,” “witchcraft” and the like. A more particular use of the word is in the nautical sense of vessels of transport by water; this is probably a colloquially shortened form either of “vessels of a fisherman’s, lighterman’s &c., craft,” i.e. “art,” or of “vessels of a heavier or lighter craft,” i.e. burden or capacity; in both cases the qualifying words are dropped and the word comes to be used of vessels in general.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Craggs, James

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​CRAGGS, JAMES (1657–1721), English politician, was a son of Anthony Craggs of Holbeck, Durham, and was baptized on the 10th of June 1657. After following various callings in London, Craggs, who was a person of considerable financial ability, entered the service of the duchess of Marlborough, and through her influence became in 1702 member of parliament for Grampound, retaining his seat until 1713. He was in business as an army clothier and held several official positions, becoming joint postmaster-general in 1715; and, making the most of his opportunities in all these capacities, he amassed a great deal of money. Craggs also increased his wealth by mixing in the affairs of the South Sea Company, but after his death an act of parliament confiscated all the property which he had acquired since December 1719. He left an enormous fortune when he died on the 16th of March 1721. It is possible that Craggs committed suicide.
His son, James Craggs the younger (1686–1721), was born at Westminster on the 9th of April 1686. Part of his early life was spent abroad, where he made the acquaintance of George Louis, elector of Hanover, afterwards King George I. In 1713 he became member of parliament for Tregoney, in 1717 secretary-at-war, and in the following year one of the principal secretaries of state. Craggs was implicated in the South Sea Bubble, but not so deeply as his father, whom he predeceased, dying on the 16th of February 1721. Among Craggs’s friends were Pope, who wrote the epitaph on his monument in Westminster Abbey, Addison and Gay.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Cradle

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​CRADLE (of uncertain etymology, possibly connected with “crate” and “creel,” i.e. basket; the derivation from a Celtic word, with a sense of rocking, is scouted by the New English Dictionary), a child’s bed of wood, wicker or iron, with enclosed sides, slung upon pivots or mounted on rockers. It is a very ancient piece of furniture, but the date when it first assumed its characteristic swinging or rocking form is by no means clear. A miniature in an illuminated Histoire de la belle Hélaine in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris (end of the 14th or beginning of the 15th century) shows an infant sleeping in a tiny four-post bed slung upon rockers. In its oldest forms the cradle is an oblong oak box without a lid—originally the rockers appear to have been detachable—but, like all other household appliances, it has been subject to changes of fashion alike in shape and adornment. It has been panelled and carved, supported on Renaissance pillars, inlaid with marqueterie or mounted in gilded bronze. The original simple shape persisted for two or three centuries—even the hood made its appearance very early. In the 18th century, however, cradles were often very elaborate—indeed in France they had begun to be so much earlier, but the richly carved and upholstered examples were used chiefly for purposes of state, being in fact miniature lits de parade. In modern times they have become lighter and simpler, the old hood being very often replaced by a draped curtain dependent from a carved or shaped upright. About the middle of the 19th century iron cradles were introduced, along with iron bedsteads. A number of undoubted historic cradles have been preserved, together with many others with doubtful attributions. Two alleged cradles of Henry V. exist; one which claims to have been used by the unhappy earl of Derwentwater is in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London; the other is at Windsor Castle. That of Henry IV. of France, now in the Château de Pau, is mounted upon a large tortoiseshell. That of the king of Rome (“Napoleon II.”) was designed by Prud’hon, and along with that of the comte de Chambord is preserved in the Garde Meuble. In England a cradle is now often called a “bassinet” (i.e. little basket), and the “cot” has to some extent taken its place. By analogy, the word “cradle” is also applied to various sorts of framework in engineering, and to a rocking-tool used in engraving.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Crag

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​CRAG (a Celtic word, cf. Gael. creag, Manx creg, and Welsh and modern Scots craig), a steep rock. The word appears in many place-names in the north of England and in Scotland, and is also connected with “carrick,” a word of similar meaning, also found in place-names. In geology, the term is applied to the strata in which a shelly sand deposit is found, and, in the expression “crag and tail,” to a formation of hills, in which one side is precipitous and lofty and the other slopes or “tails” gradually away, as in the Castle Rock in Edinburgh.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Craddock, Charles Egbert

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​CRADDOCK, CHARLES EGBERT (1850–), the pen-name of Mary Noailles Murfree, American author, who was born near Murfreesboro, Tennessee, on the 24th of January 1850, the great-granddaughter of Col. Hardy Murfree. She was crippled in childhood by paralysis. She attended school in Nashville and Philadelphia. Spending her summers in the mountains of eastern Tennessee, she came to know the primitive people there with whose life her writings deal. She contributed to Appleton’s Journal, and, first in 1878, to The Atlantic Monthly. No one, apparently, suspected that the author of these stories was a woman, and her identity was not disclosed until 1885, a year after the publication of her first volume of short stories, In the Tennessee Mountains. She deals mainly with the narrow, stern life of the Tennessee mountaineers, who, left behind in the advance of civilization, live amid traditions and customs, and speak a dialect, peculiarly their own; and her work abounds in exquisite descriptions of scenery. Among her other books are: Where the Battle was Fought (1884), a novel dealing with the old aristocratic southern life; Down the Ravine (1885) and The Story of Keedon Bluffs (1887) for young people; The Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountains (1885), a novel; In the Clouds (1886), a novel; The Despot of Broomsedge Cove (1888), a novel; In the “Stranger-People’s” Country (1891); His Vanished Star (1894), a novel; The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories (1895); The Phantoms of the Footbridge and Other Stories (1895); The Young Mountaineers (1897), short stories; The Juggler (1897); The Story of Old Fort Loudon (1899); The Bushwhackers and Other Stories (1899); The Champion (1902); A Spectre of Power (1903); The Frontiersman (1904); The Storm Centre (1905); The Amulet (1906); The Windfall (1907); and Fair Mississippian (1908).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Arequipa (city)

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​AREQUIPA, a city of southern Peru, capital of the department of the same name, about 90 m. N.E. by N. of its seaport Mollendo (107 m. by rail), and near the south-west foot of the volcano Misti which rises to a height of 19,029 ft. above sea-level. The population was estimated at 35,000 in 1896. The city is provided with a tram line, and is connected with the coast at Mollendo (Islay) by a railway 107 m. long, and with Puno, on Lake Titicaca, by an extension of the same line 218 m. long. The city occupies a green, fertile valley of the Rio Chile, 7753 ft. above the sea, surrounded by an arid, barren desert. It is built on the usual rectangular plan and the streets are wide and well paved. The edifices in general are low, and are massively built with thick walls and domed ceilings to resist earthquakes, and lessen the danger from falling masonry. The material used is a soft, porous magnesian limestone, which is well adapted to the purpose in view. Arequipa is the seat of a bishopric created in 1609–1612, and possesses a comparatively modern cathedral, its predecessor having been destroyed by fire in 1849. It has several large churches, and formerly possessed five monasteries and three nunneries, which have been closed and their edifices devoted to educational and other public purposes. The religious element has always been a dominating factor in the life of the city. A university, founded in 1825, three colleges, one of them dating from colonial times, a medical school, and a public library, founded in 1821, are distinguishing features of the city, which has always taken high rank in Peru for its learning and liberalism, as well as for its political restlessness. The city’s water-supply is derived from the Chile river and is considered dangerous to new arrivals because of the quantity of saline and organic matter contained. The climate is temperate and healthy, and the fertile valley (10 m. long by 5 m. wide) surrounding the city produces an abundance of cereals, fruits and vegetables common to both hot and temperate regions. Pears and strawberries grow side by side with oranges and granadillas, and are noted for their size and flavour. The trade of the city is principally in Bolivian products—mineral ores, alpaca wool, &c.—but it also receives and exports the products of the neighbouring ​Peruvian provinces, and the output of the borax deposits in the neighbourhood. Arequipa was founded by Pizarro in 1540, and has been the scene of many events of importance in the history of Peru. It was greatly damaged in the earthquakes of 1582, 1609, 1784 and 1868, particularly in the last. It was captured by the Chileans in 1883, near the close of the war between Chile and Peru.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Arequipa (department)

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​AREQUIPA, a coast department of southern Peru, bounded N. by the departments of Ayacucho and Cuzco, E. by Puno and Moquegua, S. and W. by Moquegua and the Pacific. It is divided into seven provinces. Area, 21,947 sq. m.; pop. (1896) 229,007. It is traversed by an important railway line from Mollendo (Islay) to Puno, on Lake Titicaca, 325 m. long, with extensions to Santa Rosa, Peru and La Paz, Bolivia. The highest point reached by this line is 14,660 ft. The department includes an arid, sand-covered region on the coast traversed by deep gorges formed by river courses, and a partly barren, mountainous region inland composed of the high Cordillera and its spurs toward the coast, between which are numerous highly fertile valleys watered by streams from the snow-clad peaks. These produce cotton, rice, sugar-cane, wheat, coffee, Indian corn, barley, potatoes and fruit. The mountainous region is rich in minerals, and there is a valuable deposit of borax near the capital, Arequipa.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Arecibo

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​ARECIBO, a city and port on the north coast of Porto Rico, at the mouth of a small stream called the Rio Grande de Arecibo, and contiguous to one of the most fertile regions of the island. Pop. (1899) 8008; of the tributary district, about 30,000; (1910) 9612. It is connected with San Juan, Mayaguez and Ponce by railway. It is a well-built and active commercial city, and has a large export trade in coffee and sugar. The harbour is an open roadstead, very dangerous to shipping in northerly winds, and the discharge and loading of cargoes is effected by means of lighters at considerable risk and expense. Arecibo was founded in 1788.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Arena

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​ARENA (Lat. for “sand”), the central area of an amphitheatre on which the gladiatorial displays took place, its name being derived from the sand with which it was covered. The word is applied sometimes to any level open space on which spectacles take place.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Arendal

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​ARENDAL, a seaport of Norway, in Nedenaes amt (county), on the south coast, 46 m. N.E. from Christiansand. Pop. (1900) 11,155. It rises picturesquely above the mouth of the river Nid, with a good harbour protected by an island from the open waters of the Skagerrack. The town itself occupies several islets, and some of the houses are supported above the water on piles. The chief exports are timber (very largely exported to Great Britain), wood-pulp, sealskins and felspar. In 1879 Arendal ranked second (after Christiania) as a ship-owning port; in 1899 it had dropped to the fifth place. In and near the town are factories for wood-pulp, paper, cotton and joinery; and at Fevig, 8 m. north-east, a shipbuilding yard and engineering works. The neighbourhood is remarkable for the number of beautiful and rare minerals found there; one of these, a variety of epidote, was formerly called Arendalite. Louis Philippe stayed here for some time during his exile.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Areoi

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​AREOI, or Areoiti, a secret society which originated in Tahiti and later extended its influence to other South Pacific islands. To its ranks both sexes were admitted. The society was primarily of a religious character. Members styled themselves descendants of Oro-Tetifa, the Polynesian god, and were divided into seven or more grades, each having its characteristic tattooing. Chiefs were at once qualified for the highest grade, but ordinary members attained promotion only through initiatory rites. The Areois enjoyed great privileges, and were considered as depositaries of knowledge and as mediators between God and man. They were feared, too, as ministers of the taboo and were entitled to pronounce a kind of excommunication for offences against its rules. The chief religious purpose of the society was the worship of the generative powers of nature, and the ritual and ceremonies of initiation were grossly licentious. But the ​Areois were also a social force. They aimed at communism in all things. The women members were common property; the period of cohabitation was limited to three days, and the female Areois were bound by oath at initiation to strangle at birth any child born to them. If, however, the infant was allowed to survive half an hour only, it was spared; but to have the right of keeping it the mother must find a male Areoi willing to adopt it. The Areois travelled about, devoting their whole time to feasting, dancing (the chief dance of the women being the grossly indecent Timorodee mentioned by Captain Cook), and debauchery, varied by elaborate realistic stage presentments of the lives and loves of gods and legendary heroes.