OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Benbow, John

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​BENBOW, JOHN (1653–1702), English admiral, the son of a tanner in Shrewsbury, was born in 1653. He went to sea when very young, and served in the navy as master’s mate and master, from 1678 to 1681. When trading to the Mediterranean in 1686 in a ship of his own he beat off a Salli pirate. On the accession of William III. he re-entered the navy as a lieutenant and was rapidly promoted. It is probable that he enjoyed the protection of Arthur Herbert, earl of Torrington, under whom he had already served in the Mediterranean. After taking part in the bombardment of St Malo (1693), and superintending the blockade of Dunkirk (1696), he sailed in 1698 for the West Indies, where he compelled the Spaniards to restore two vessels belonging to the Scottish colonists at Darien (see Paterson, William) which they had seized. On his return he was appointed vice-admiral, and was frequently consulted by the king. In 1701 he was sent again to the West Indies as commander-in-chief. On the 19th of August 1702, when cruising with a squadron of seven ships, he sighted, and chased, four French vessels commanded by M. du Casse near Santa Marta. The engagement is the most disgraceful episode in English naval history. Benbow’s captains were mutinous, and he was left unsupported in his flagship the “Breda.” His right leg was shattered by a chain-shot, despite which he remained on the quarter-deck till morning, when the flagrant disobedience of the captains under him, and the disabled condition of his ship, forced him reluctantly to abandon the chase. After his return to Jamaica, where his subordinates were tried by court-martial, he died of his wounds on the 4th of November 1702. A great deal of legendary matter has collected round his name, and his life is really obscure.
See Yonge’s Hist. of the British Navy, vol. i.; Campbell’s British Admirals, vol. iii.; also Owen and Blakeway’s History of Shrewsbury.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bence-Jones, Henry

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​BENCE-JONES, HENRY (1814–1873), English physician and chemist, was born at Thorington Hall, Suffolk, in 1814, the son of an officer in the dragoon guards. He was educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge. Subsequently he studied medicine at St George’s hospital, and chemistry at University College, London. In 1841 he went to Giessen in Germany to work at chemistry with Liebig. Besides becoming a fellow, and afterwards senior censor, of the Royal College of Physicians, and a fellow of the Royal Society, he held the post of secretary to the Royal Institution for many years. In 1846 he was elected physician to St George’s hospital. He died in London on the 20th of April 1873. Dr Bence-Jones was a recognized authority on diseases of the stomach and kidneys. He wrote, in addition to several scientific books and a number of papers in scientific periodicals, The Life and Letters of Faraday (1870).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ben

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​BEN (from Old Eng. bennan, within), in the Scottish phrase “a but and a ben,” the inner room of a house in which there is only one outer door, so that the entrance to the inner room is through the outer, the but (Old Eng. butan, without). Hence “a but and a ben” meant originally a living room and sleeping room, and so a dwelling or a cottage.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ben Nevis

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​BEN NEVIS, the highest mountain in the British Isles, in Inverness-shire, Scotland. It is 4406 ft. above the level of the sea, and is situated 41/2 m. E.S.E. of Fort William, the meridian of 5° W passing through it. As viewed from Banavie on the Caledonian Canal, it has the appearance of two great masses, one higher than the other, and though its bulk is impressive, its outline is much less striking than that of many other Highland hills. Its summit consists of a plateau 100 acres in area, with a slight slope to the south, terminating on its north-eastern side in a sheer fall of more than 1500 ft. Snow lies in some of the gorges all the year round. The rocks of its lower half are mainly granite and gneiss; its upper half is composed of porphyritic greenstone, and a variety of minerals occur. Its circumference at the base is about 30 m. It may be described as flanked on the west and south by the Glen and Water of Nevis, on the east by the river and Glen of Treig, and on the north by the river and Glen of Spean. From 1881 till 1904 meteorological observations were taken from the summit of Ben Nevis, the observers at first making the ascent daily for the purpose. In 1883, however, an observatory, equipped at a cost of £4000 (raised by public subscription), was opened by Mrs Cameron Campbell of Monzie, who provided the site. The observatory, which was connected by wire with the post office at Fort William, was provisioned by the Scottish Meteorological Society, to whom it belonged. The burden of maintaining it, however, proving too great for the society’s means, appeal was made in vain to government for national support, and the station was closed in 1904. The bridle road up the mountain leaves Glen Nevis at Achintee; it has a gradient nowhere exceeding 1 in 5, and the ascent is commonly effected in two to three hours. There is a small hotel on the summit for the convenience of tourists, especially of those anxious to witness sunrise. From the summit every considerable peak in Scotland is visible. Observations conducted during several months have shown that, whilst the mean temperature at Fort William was 57° F., at the summit of Ben Nevis it was 41° F., and that though the rainfall at the fort amounted to 24 in., it was as much as 43 in. on the top of the Ben.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ben Venue

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​BEN VENUE, a mountain in south-west Perthshire, Scotland, 10 m. W. of Callander. Its principal peaks are 2393 and 2386 ft. high, and, owing to its position near the south-eastern shore of Loch Katrine, its imposing contour is one of the most familiar features in the scenery of the Trossachs, the mountain itself figuring prominently in The Lady of the Lake. On its northern base, close to the lake, Sir Walter Scott placed the Coir-nan-Uriskin, or “Goblin’s Cave.” Immediately to the south of the cave is the dell called Beal(ach)-nam-Bo, or “Cattle Pass,” through which were driven to the refuge of the Trossachs the herds lifted by the Highland marauders in their excursions to the lands south of Loch Lomond. The pass, though comparatively unvisited, offers the grandest scenery in the district.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bartholinus, Gaspard

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​BARTHOLINUS, GASPARD [Caspar Berthelsen], (1585–1629), physician, was born in 1585 at Malmö, in Sweden. His precocity was extraordinary; at three years of age he was able to read, and in his thirteenth year he composed Greek and Latin orations and delivered them in public. When he was about eighteen he went to the university of Copenhagen and afterwards studied at Rostock and Wittenberg. He then travelled through Germany, the Netherlands, England, France and Italy, and was received with marked respect at the different universities he visited. In 1613 he was chosen professor of medicine in the university of Copenhagen, and filled that office for eleven years, when, falling into a dangerous illness, he made a vow that if he should recover he would apply himself solely to the study of divinity. He fulfilled his vow by becoming professor of divinity at Copenhagen and canon of Roskilde. He died on the 13th of July 1629 at Sorö in Zeeland.
Of his sons, Thomas (1616–1680) was born at Copenhagen, where, after a long course of study in various universities of Europe, he was appointed successively professor of mathematics (1647) and anatomy (1648). During his tenure of the latter chair he distinguished himself by observations on the lymphatics. In 1661 he retired to Hagestaed. In 1670 his house and library were burnt, and in consideration of his loss he was appointed physician to the king, with a handsome salary, and librarian to the university of Copenhagen. He died at Hagestaed in 1680. Another son, Erasmus (1625–1698), born at Roskilde, spent ten years in visiting England, Holland, Germany and Italy, and filled the chairs of mathematics and medicine at Copenhagen. He discovered double refraction in Iceland spar (Experimenta crystalli islandici disdiaclastici, Copenhagen, 1669). He died at Copenhagen in 1698. In the third generation Caspar Thomeson (1655–1738), son of Thomas, also taught anatomy at Copenhagen, his name being associated with the description of one of the ducts of the sublingual gland and of the glandulae Bartholini, while his younger brother, Thomas (1659–1690), was a student of northern antiquities who published Antiquitatum Danicarum libri tres in 1689.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bartholomew, John

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​BARTHOLOMEW, JOHN (1831–1893), Scottish cartographer, was born at Edinburgh on the 25th of December 1831. His father had a cartographical establishment there and he was educated in the work. He was subsequently assistant to the German geographer August Petermann, until in 1856 he took up the management of his father’s firm. For this establishment, now known as the Edinburgh Geographical Institute, Bartholomew built up a reputation unsurpassed in Great Britain for the production of the finest cartographical work. Among his numerous publications mention may be specially made of the series of maps of Great Britain reduced from the Ordnance Survey to scales of 1/2 in. and 1/4 in. to 1 m., with relief shown by contours and a systematic scale of colours. The 1/2 in. series, which was extended (and its principles applied to many other works) by Mr. J. G. Bartholomew, who succeeded his father in the business, is the finest of its kind ever produced. John Bartholomew died in London on the 29th of March 1893.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bartholomew, Saint

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Dr. Nestle has drawn attention to the fact that in the Syriac translation of Eusebius’ history the name Tolmai, i.e. Bartholomew, takes the place of Matthias, the apostle who was appointed in place of Judas (i. 12, cf. ii. 1, iii. 25 and 29). If this identification can be made out there would, in the list of apostles as finally constituted, be two men who bore the patronymic Bartholomew. See further Expository Times, ix. pp. 566 ff. (1898).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Barth, Heinrich

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​BARTH, HEINRICH (1821–1865), German explorer, was born at Hamburg on the 16th of February 1821, and educated at Berlin University, where he graduated in 1844. He had already visited Italy and Sicily and had formed a plan to journey through the Mediterranean countries. After studying Arabic in London he set out on his travels in 1845. From Tangier he made his way overland throughout the length of North Africa, visiting the sites of the ancient cities of Barbary and Cyrenaica. He also travelled through Egypt, ascending the Nile to Wadi Halfa and crossing the desert to Berenice. While in Egypt he was attacked and wounded by robbers. Crossing the Sinai peninsula he traversed Palestine, Syria, Asia Minor, Turkey and Greece, everywhere examining the remains of antiquity; and returned to Berlin in 1847. For a time he was engaged there as Privat-docent, and in preparing for publication the narrative of his Wanderungen durch die Küstenländer des Mittelmeeres, which appeared in 1849.
At the instance of Bunsen and other scientists, Barth and Adolf Overweg, a Prussian astronomer, were appointed colleagues of James Richardson, an explorer of the Sahara who had been selected by the British government to open up commercial relations with the states of the central and western Sudan. The party left Tripoli early in 1850, but the deaths of Richardson (March 1851) and Overweg (September 1852) left Barth to early on the mission alone. He returned to Europe in September 1855, after one of the most fruitful expeditions ever undertaken in inner Africa. In addition to journeys across the Sahara, Barth traversed the country from Lake Chad and Bagirmi on the east to Timbuktu on the west and Cameroon on the south, making prolonged sojourns in the ancient sultanates or emirates of Bornu, Kano, Nupe, Sokoto and Gando and at Timbuktu. He studied minutely the topography, history, civilizations and resources of the countries he visited. The story of his travels was published simultaneously in English and German, under the title Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa (1857–1858, 5 vols.). For accuracy, interest, variety and extent of information Barth’s Travels have few rivals among works of the kind. It is a book that will always rank as a standard authority on the regions in question, of which a great part, under the name of Nigeria, has since come under British rule. Except a C.B., Barth himself received no recognition of his services from the British government. He returned to Germany, where he prepared a collection of Central African vocabularies (Gotha, 1862–1866). In 1858 he undertook another journey in Asia Minor, and in 1862 visited Turkey in Europe. In the following year he was appointed professor of geography at Berlin University and president of the Geographical Society. He died at Berlin on the 25th of November 1865.
See Schubert’s Heinrich Barth, der Bahnbrecher der deutschen Afrikaforschung (Berlin, 1897). An edition of the Travels in two volumes was published in London in 1890 (Minerva Library of Famous Books).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bartholomew Fair

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​BARTHOLOMEW FAIR, a fair held in West Smithfield, London, on St Bartholomew’s Day (24th of August, O.S.) from 1133 to 1855. The charter authorizing its holding was granted by Henry I. to his former minstrel, Rahere, who had taken orders and had founded the priory of St Bartholomew close by. For many centuries the fair lasted a fortnight, but in 1691 it was shortened to four days only. In 1641 it had become so large that it involved no less than four parishes: Christ Church, Great and Little St Bartholomew’s and St Sepulchre’s. It was customary for the lord mayor of London to open the fair formally on St Bartholomew’s Eve, and on his way to stop at Newgate where he received from the governor a cup of sack. In 1753, owing to the change in the calendar, the fair was proclaimed on the 3rd of September. During its earlier history the fair grew to be a vast national market and the chief cloth sale in the kingdom. Down to 1854 it was usual for the representative of the Merchant Taylors’ Gild to proceed to the cloth fair which formed part of Bartholomew fair, and test the measures used for selling cloth there by the company’s silver yard. The fair was finally closed in 1855.
For a full account see Prof. H. Morley, Memoirs of Bartholomew Fair (1859).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Barth

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​BARTH, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Prussia, on the Barther Bodden, a lake connecting with the Baltic, 15 m. N.W. from Stralsund by rail. Pop. (1900) 7070. It contains a fine Gothic Protestant church (St Mary’s) dating from the 13th century and has several educational establishments, notably a ​school of seamanship. Its industries comprise iron-founding, ship-building, brewing, and the manufacture of cigars, leather and tinned fish. There is an active export trade in grain.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Barth, Kaspar von

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​BARTH, KASPAR VON (1587–1658), German philologist, was born at Küstrin in the province of Brandenburg on the 21st of June 1587. He was an extremely precocious child, and was looked upon as a marvel of learning. After studying at Gotha, Eisenach, Wittenberg and Jena, he travelled extensively, visiting most of the countries of Europe. Too independent to accept any regular post, he lived alternately at Halle and on his property at Sellerhausen near Leipzig. In 1636, his library and MSS. at Sellerhausen having been destroyed by fire, he removed to the Paulinum at Leipzig, where he died on the 17th of September 1658. Barth was a very voluminous writer; his works, which were the fruits of extensive reading and a retentive memory, are unmethodical and uncritical and marred by want of taste and of clearness. He appears to have been excessively vain and of an unamiable disposition. Of his writings the most important are; Adversaria (1624), a storehouse of miscellaneous learning, dealing not only with classical but also with medieval and modern writers; and commentaries on Claudian (1612, 1650) and Statius (1664).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Barthez, Paul Joseph

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​BARTHEZ, or Barthès, PAUL JOSEPH (1734–1806), French physician, was born on the 11th of December 1734 at Montpellier. He was educated at Narbonne and Toulouse, and began the study of medicine at Montpellier in 1750, taking his doctor’s degree in 1753. In 1756 he obtained the appointment of physician to the military hospital in Normandy attached to the army of observation commanded by Marshal d'Estrées, but a severe attack of hospital fever compelled him to leave this post. In 1757 his services were required in the medical staff of the army of Westphalia, where he had the rank of consulting physician, and on his return to Paris he acted as joint editor of the Journal des savants and the Encyclopédie méthodique. In 1759 he obtained a medical professorship at Montpellier, and in 1774 he was created joint chancellor of the university. In 1778 he published his most famous work, Nouveaux élémens de la science de l’homme, in which he employs the expression “vital principle” as a convenient term for the cause of the phenomena of life, without committing himself to either a spiritualistic or a materialistic view of its nature. Taking the degree of doctor of civil law in 1780, he secured the appointment of counsellor to the Supreme Court of Aids at Montpellier, but he soon took up his residence in Paris, having been nominated consulting physician to the king.
On the outbreak of the French Revolution he lost much of his fortune and retired to Carcassonne, where he devoted himself to the study of theoretical medicine. It was from this retreat that he gave to the world his Nouvelle mécanique des mouvemens de l’homme et des animaux, which appeared in 1798. In 1802 he published his Traitement des maladies goutteuses, and he afterwards occupied himself in preparing for the press a new edition of his Élémens de la science de l’homme, of which he just lived to see the publication. His health had been declining for some years before his death, which took place soon after his removal to Paris, on the 15th of October 1806. He bequeathed his books and manuscripts to J. Lordat, who published two volumes of his Consultations de médecine in 1810. His Traité du beau was also published posthumously in 1807.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bartet, Jeanne Julia

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​BARTET (Regnault), JEANNE JULIA (1854–), French actress, was born in Paris and trained at the Conservatoire. In 1872 she began a successful career at the Vaudeville, and in 1879 was engaged at the Comédie Française, of which she became a sociétaire in 1880. For many years she played the chief parts both in tragedy and comedy, her grand style and exquisite finesse making her supreme among the younger actresses on the French stage. She had a season in London in 1908, when her consummate art was displayed in a number of parts.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Barthélemy, Anatole Jean-Baptiste Antoine de

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​BARTHÉLEMY, ANATOLE JEAN-BAPTISTE ANTOINE DE (1821–1904), French archaeologist and numismatist, was born at Reims on the 1st of July 1821, and died at Ville d’Avray on the 27th of June 1904. In collaboration with J. Geslin de Bourgogne he published Études sur la révolution en Bretagne in 1858, and between 1855 and 1879 an exhaustive work in six volumes on the Anciens évêchés de Bretagne; histoire et monuments. In 1880 appeared the Choix de documents inédits sur l’histoire de la ligue en Bretagne, by himself alone. But it was, above all, his numismatical work which established his reputation. This included several popular publications, such as the Nouveau manuel complet de numismatique ancienne (1851; second edition, revised, 1890), and the Nouveau manuel complet de numismatique du moyen âge et moderne (1853; new edition revised by Adrien Planchet), and a large number of monographs and articles in the technical reviews. The following may be specially mentioned: Numismatique mérovingienne (1865); Essai sur la monnaie parisis (1874); Note sur l’origine de la monnaie tournoise (1896); and in the series of instructions issued by the Comité des travaux historiques et scientifiques he edited the number on La Numismatique de la France (1891). In 1897 he was elected a member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-lettres.
His younger brother, Édouard Marie, comte de Barthélemy, who was born in Angers in 1830, has published a number of documents upon the ancient French nobility and upon the history of Champagne.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Brachycephalic

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​BRACHYCEPHALIC (Gr. for short-headed), a term invented by Andreas Retzius to denote those skulls of which the width from side to side was little less than the length from front to back, their ratio being as 80 to 100, as in those of the Mongolian type. Thus taking the length as 100, if the width exceeds 80, the skull is to be classed as brachycephalic. The prevailing form of the head of civilized races is brachycephalic. It is supposed that a brachycephalic race inhabited Europe before the Celts. Among those peoples whose heads show marked brachycephaly are the Indo-Chinese, the Savoyards, Croatians, Bavarians, Lapps, Burmese, Armenians and Peruvians. (See Craniometry.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bracket-Fungi

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​BRACKET-FUNGI. The term “bracket” has been given to those hard, woody fungi that grow on trees or timber in the form of semicircular brackets. They belong to the order Polyporeae, distinguished by the layer of tubes or pores on the under surface within which the spores are borne. The mycelium, or vegetable part of the fungus, burrows in the tissues of the tree, and often destroys it; the “bracket” represents the fruiting stage, and produces innumerable spores which gain entrance to other trees by some wound or cut surface; hence the need of careful forestry. Many of these woody fungi persist for several years, and a new layer of pores is superposed on the previous season’s growth.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Brachistochrone

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​BRACHISTOCHRONE (from the Gr. βράχιστος, shortest, and χρόνος, time), a term invented by John Bernoulli in 1694 to denote the curve along which a body passes from one fixed point to another in the shortest time. When the directive force is constant, the curve is a cycloid (q.v.); under other conditions, spirals and other curves are described (see Mechanics).