OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Anthelion

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​ANTHELION (late Gr. ἀνθήλιος, opposite the sun), the luminous ring or halo sometimes seen in Alpine or polar regions surrounding the shadow of the head of an observer cast upon a bank of cloud or mist. The halo diminishes in brightness from the centre outwards, and is probably due to the diffraction of light. Under favourable conditions four concentric rings may be seen round the shadow of the observer’s head, the outermost, which seldom appears, having an angular radius of 40°.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bembo, Pietro

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​BEMBO, PIETRO (1470–1547), Italian cardinal and scholar, was born at Venice on the 20th of May 1470. While still a boy he accompanied his father to Florence, and there acquired a love for that Tuscan form of speech which he afterwards cultivated in preference to the dialect of his native city. Having completed his studies, which included two years’ devotion to Greek under Lascaris at Messina, he chose the ecclesiastical profession. After a considerable time spent in various cities and courts of Italy, where his learning already made him welcome, he accompanied Giulio de’ Medici to Rome, where he was soon after appointed secretary to Leo X. On the pontiff’s death he retired, with impaired health, to Padua, and there lived for a number of years engaged in literary labours and amusements. In 1529 he accepted the office of historiographer to his native city, and shortly afterwards was appointed librarian of St Mark’s. The offer of a cardinal’s hat by Pope Paul III. took him in 1539 again to Rome, where he renounced the study of classical literature and devoted himself to theology and classical history, receiving before long the reward of his conversion in the shape of the bishoprics of Gubbio and Bergamo. He died on the 18th of January 1547. Bembo, as a writer, is the beau ideal of a purist. The exact imitation of the style of the genuine classics was the highest perfection at which he aimed. This at once prevented the graces of spontaneity and secured the beauties of artistic elaboration. One cannot fail to be struck with the Ciceronian cadence that guides the movement even of his Italian writings.
His works (collected edition, Venice, 1729) include a History of Venice (1551) from 1487 to 1513, dialogues, poems, and what we would now call essays. Perhaps the most famous are a little treatise on Italian prose, and a dialogue entitled Gli Asolani, in which Platonic affection is explained and recommended in a rather long-winded fashion, to the amusement of the reader who remembers the relations of the beautiful Morosina with the author. The edition of Petrarch’s Italian Poems, published by Aldus in 1501, and the Terzerime, which issued from the same press in 1502, were edited by Bembo, who was on intimate terms with the great typographer. See Opere de P. Bembo (Venice, 1729); Casa, Vita di Bembo, in 2nd vol. of his works.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bembridge Beds

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​BEMBRIDGE BEDS, in geology, strata forming part of the fluvio-marine series of deposits of Oligocene age, in the Isle of Wight and Hampshire, England. They lie between the Hamstead beds above and the Osborne beds below. The Bembridge marls, freshwater, estuarine and marine clays and marls (70-120 ft.) rest upon the Bembridge limestone, a freshwater pool deposit (15-25 ft.), with large land snails (Amphidromus and Helices), freshwater snails (Planorbis, Limnaea), and the fruits of Chara. The marls contain, besides the freshwater Limnaea and Unio, such forms as Meretrix, Ostrea and Melanopsis. A thin calcareous sandy layer in this division has yielded the remains of many insects and fossil leaves.
See “Geology of the Isle of Wight,” Mem. Geol. Survey, 2nd ed. 1889.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Belvedere (building)

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​BELVEDERE, or Belvidere (Ital. for “fair-view”), an architectural structure built in the upper part of a building or in any elevated position so as to command a fine view. The belvedere assumes various forms, such as an angle turret, a cupola, a loggia or open gallery. The name is also applied to the whole building, as the Belvedere gallery in the Vatican at Rome. For Apollo Belvidere see Greek Art, Plate II. fig. 55.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bemberg, Herman

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​BEMBERG, HERMAN (1861–), French musical composer, was born of French parents at Buenos Aires, and studied at the Paris Conservatoire, under Massenet, whose influence, with that of Gounod, is strongly marked in his music. As a composer he is known by numerous songs and pieces for the piano, as well as by his cantata La Mort de Jeanne d’Arc (1886), comic opera Le Baiser ​de Suzon (1888) and grand opera Elaine (produced at Covent Garden in 1892). Among his songs the dramatic recitative Ballade du Désespéré is well known.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Beluga

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​BELUGA (Delphinapterus leucas), also called the “white whale,” a cetacean of the family Delphinidae, characterized by its rounded head and uniformly light colour. A native of the Arctic seas, it extends in the western Atlantic as far south as the river St Lawrence, which it ascends for a considerable distance. In colour it is almost pure white; the maximum length is about twelve feet; and the back-fin is replaced by a low ridge. Examples have been taken on the British coasts; and individuals have been kept for some time in captivity in America and in London. See Cetacea.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Belzoni, Giovanni Battista

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​BELZONI, GIOVANNI BATTISTA (1778–1823), Italian explorer of Egyptian antiquities, was born at Padua in 1778. His family was from Rome, and in that city he spent his youth. He intended taking monastic orders, but in 1798 the occupation of the city by the French troops drove him from Rome and changed his proposed career. He went back to Padua, where he studied hydraulics, removed in 1800 to Holland, and in 1803 went to England, where he married an Englishwoman. He was 6 ft. 7 in. in height, broad in proportion, and his wife was of equally generous build. They were for some time compelled to find subsistence by exhibitions of feats of strength and agility at fairs and on the streets of London. Through the kindness of Henry Salt, the traveller and antiquarian, who was ever afterwards his patron, he was engaged at Astley’s amphitheatre, and his circumstances soon began to improve. In 1812 he left England, and after travelling in Spain and Portugal reached Egypt in 1815, where Salt was then British consul-general. Belzoni was desirous of laying before Mehemet Ali a hydraulic machine of his own invention for raising the waters of the Nile. Though the experiment with this engine was successful, the design was abandoned by the pasha, and Belzoni resolved to continue his travels. On the recommendation of the orientalist, J. L. Burckhardt, he was sent at Salt’s charges to Thebes, whence he removed with great skill the colossal bust of Rameses II., commonly called Young Memnon, which he shipped for England, where it is in the British Museum. He also pushed his investigations into the great temple of Edfu, visited Elephantine and Philae, cleared the great temple at Abu Simbel of sand (1817), made excavations at Karnak, and opened up the sepulchre of Seti I. (“Belzoni’s Tomb”). He was the first to penetrate into the second pyramid of Giza, and the first European in modern times to visit the oasis of Baharia, which he supposed to be that of Siwa. He also identified the ruins of Berenice on the Red Sea. In 1819 he returned to England, and published in the following year an account of his travels and discoveries entitled Narrative of the Operations and Recent Discoveries within the Pyramids, Temples, Tombs and Excavations in Egypt and Nubia, &c. He also exhibited during 1820–1821 facsimiles of the tomb of Seti I. The exhibition was held at the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, London. In 1822 Belzoni showed his model in Paris. In 1823 he set out for West Africa, intending to penetrate to Timbuktu. Having been refused permission to pass through Morocco, he chose the Guinea Coast route. He reached Benin, but was seized with dysentery at a village called Gwato, and died there on the 3rd of December 1823. In 1829 his widow published his drawings of the royal tombs at Thebes.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bema

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​BEMA (βῆμα), in ecclesiastical architecture, the semicircular recess or exedra, in the basilica, where the judges sat, and where in after times the altar was placed. It generally is roofed with a half dome. The seats, θρόνοι, of the priests were against the wall, looking into the body of the church, that of the bishop being in the centre. The bema is generally ascended by steps, and railed off. In Greece the bema was the general name of any raised platform. Thus the word was applied to the tribunal from which orators addressed assemblies of the citizens at Athens. That in the Pnyx, where the Ecclesia often met, was a stone platform from 10 to 11 ft. in height. Again in the Athenian law court counsel addressed the court from such a platform: it is not known whether each had a separate bema or whether there was only one to which each counsel (? and the witnesses) in turn ascended (cf. W. Wyse in his edition of Isaeus, p. 440). Another bema was the platform on which stood the urns for the reception of the bronze disks (ψῆφοι) by means of which at the end of the 4th century the judges recorded their decisions.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bemis, Edward Webster

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​BEMIS, EDWARD WEBSTER (1860–), American economist, was born at Springfield, Massachusetts, on the 7th of April 1860. He was educated at Amherst and Johns Hopkins University. He held the professorship of history and political economy in Vanderbilt University from 1887 to 1892, was associate professor of political economy in the university of Chicago from 1892 to 1895, and assistant statistician to the Illinois bureau of labour statistics, 1896. In 1901 he became superintendent of the Cleveland water works. He wrote much on municipal government, his more important works being some chapters in History of Co-operation in the United States (1888); Municipal Ownership of Gas in the U.S. (1891); Municipal Monopolies (1899).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Belvidere (Illinois)

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​BELVIDERE, a city and the county-seat of Boone county, Illinois, U.S.A., in the N. part of the state, on the Kishwaukee river, about 78 m. N.W. of Chicago. Pop. (1890) 3867; (1900) 6937 (1018 foreign-born); (1910) 7253. It is served by the Chicago & North-Western railway, and by an extensive inter-urban electric system. Among its manufactures are sewing machines, boilers, automobiles, bicycles, roller-skates, pianos, gloves and mittens, corsets, flour and dairy products, Borden’s condensed milk factory being located there. Belvidere was settled in 1836, was incorporated in 1852 and was re-incorporated in 1881.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Botha, Louis

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​BOTHA, LOUIS (1862– ), Boer general and statesman, was the son of one of the “Voortrekkers,” and was born on the 27th of September 1862 at Greytown (Natal). He saw active service in savage warfare, and in 1887 served as a field-cornet. Subsequently he settled in the Vryheid district, which he represented in the Volksraad of 1897. In the war of 1899 he served at first under Lucas Meyer in northern Natal, but soon rose to higher commands. He was in command of the Boers at the battles of Colenso and Spion Kop, and these victories earned him so great a reputation that on the death of P. J. Joubert, Botha was made commander-in-chief of the Transvaal Boers. His capacity was again demonstrated in the action of Belfast-Dalmanutha (August 23–28, 1900), and after the fall of Pretoria he reorganized the Boer resistance with a view to prolonged guerrilla warfare. In this task, and in the subsequent operations of the war, he was aided by his able lieutenants de la Rey and de Wet. The success of his measures was seen in the steady resistance offered by the Boers to the very close of the three years’ war. He was the chief representative of his countrymen in the peace negotiations of 1902, after which, with de Wet and de la Rey, he visited Europe in order to raise funds to enable the Boers to resume their former avocations. In the period of reconstruction under British rule, General Botha, who was still looked upon as the leader of the Boer people, took a prominent part in politics, advocating always measures which he considered as tending to the maintenance of peace and good order and the re-establishment of prosperity in the Transvaal. After the grant of self-government to the Transvaal in 1907, General Botha was called upon by Lord Selborne to form a government, and in the spring of the same year he took part in the conference of colonial premiers held in London. During his visit to England on this occasion General Botha declared the whole-hearted adhesion of the Transvaal to the British empire, and his intention to work for the welfare of the country regardless of racial differences. (See Transvaal: History.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bosworth, Joseph

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​BOSWORTH, JOSEPH (1789–1876), British Anglo-Saxon scholar, was born in Derbyshire in 1789. Educated at Repton, whence he proceeded to Aberdeen University, he became in 1817 vicar of Little Horwood, Buckinghamshire, and devoted his spare time to literature and particularly to the study of Anglo-Saxon. In 1823 appeared his Elements of Anglo-Saxon Grammar. In 1829 Bosworth went to Holland as chaplain, first at Amsterdam and then at Rotterdam. He remained in Holland until 1840, working there on his Dictionary of the Anglo-Saxon Language (1838), his best-known work. In 1857 he became rector of Water Shelford, Buckinghamshire, and in the following year was appointed Rawlinson professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford. He gave to the university of Cambridge in 1867 £10,000 for the establishment of a professorship of Anglo-Saxon. He died on the 27th of May 1876, leaving behind him a mass of annotations on the Anglo-Saxon charters.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Botany Bay

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​BOTANY BAY, an inlet on the coast of Cumberland county, New South Wales, Australia, 5 m. south of the city of Sydney. On its shore is the township of Botany, forming a suburb of Sydney, with which it is connected by a tramway. It was first visited by Captain Cook in 1770, who landed at a spot marked by a monument, and took possession of the territory for the crown. The bay received its name from Joseph Banks, the botanist of the expedition, on account of the variety of its flora. When, on the revolt of the New England colonies, the convict establishments in America were no longer available (see Deportation and New South Wales), the attention of the British government, then under the leadership of Pitt, was turned to Botany Bay; and in 1787 Commodore Arthur Phillip was commissioned to form a penal settlement there. Finding, on his arrival, however, that the locality was ill suited for such a purpose, he removed northwards to the site of the present city of Sydney. The name of Botany Bay seems to have struck the popular fancy, and continued to be used in a general way for any convict establishment in Australia. The transportation of criminals to New South Wales was discontinued in 1840.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bothnia, Gulf of

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​BOTHNIA, GULF OF, the northern part of the Baltic Sea (q.v.). The name is preserved from the former territory of Bothnia, of which the western part is now included in Sweden, the eastern in Finland.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bothwell

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​BOTHWELL, a town of Lanarkshire, Scotland. Pop. of town (1901) 3015; of parish (1901) 45,905. The town lies on the right bank of the Clyde, 9 m. E.S.E. of Glasgow by the North British and Caledonian railways. Owing to its pleasant situation it has become a residential quarter of Glasgow. The choir of the old Gothic church of 1398 (restored at the end of the 19th century) forms a portion of the parish church. Joanna Baillie, the poetess, was born in the manse, and a memorial has been erected in her honour. The river is crossed by a suspension bridge as well as the bridge near which, on the 22nd of June 1679, was fought the battle of Bothwell Bridge between the Royalists, under the duke of Monmouth, and the Covenanters, in which the latter lost 500 men and 1000 prisoners. Adjoining this bridge, on the level north-eastern bank, is the castle that once belonged to James Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh (fl. 1566–1580), the assassin of the regent Murray; and near the present farmhouse the South Calder is spanned by a Roman bridge. The picturesque ruins of Bothwell Castle occupy a conspicuous position on the side of the river, which here takes the bold sweep famed in Scottish song as Bothwell bank. The fortress belonged to Sir Andrew Moray, who fell at Stirling in 1297, and passed by marriage to the Douglases. The lordship was bestowed in 1487 on Patrick Hepburn, 3rd Lord Hailes, 1st earl of Bothwell, who resigned it in 1491 in favour of Archibald Douglas, 5th earl of Angus. It thus reverted to the Douglases and now belongs to the earl of Home, a descendant. The castle is a fine example of Gothic, and mainly consists of a great oblong quadrangle, flanked on the south side by circular towers. At the east end are the remains of the chapel. A dungeon bears the nickname of “Wallace’s Beef Barrel.” The unpretending mansion near by was built by Archibald Douglas, 1st earl of Forfar (1653–1712). The parish of Bothwell contains several flourishing towns and villages, all owing their prosperity to the abundance of coal, iron and oil-shale. The principal places, most of which have stations on the North British or Caledonian railway or both, are Bothwell Park, Carfin, Chapelhall, Bellshill (pop. 8786), Holytown, Mossend, Newarthill, Uddingston (pop. 7463), Clydesdale, Hamilton Palace, Colliery Rows and Tennochside.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Botori

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​BOTORI, a Japanese game played at the naval, military and other schools, by two sides of equal number, usually about one hundred, each of which defends a pole about 8 ft. high firmly set in the ground, the poles being about 200 yds. distant from each other. The object of each party is to overthrow the adversaries’ pole while keeping their own upright. Pulling, hauling and wrestling are allowed, but no striking or kicking. The players resort to all kinds of massed formations to arrive at the enemies’ pole, and frequently succeed in passing over their heads and shoulders one or more comrades, who are thus enabled to reach the pole and bear it down unless pulled off in time by its defenders. A game similar in character is played by the Sophomore and Freshman classes of Amherst College (Massachusetts), called the “Flag-rush.” It was instituted at the instance of the faculty to take the place of the traditional “Cane-rush,” a general mêlée between the two classes for the ultimate possession of a stout walking-stick, which became so rough that students were frequently seriously injured. In the “Flag-rush” a small flag is set upon a padded post about 6 ft. high, and is defended by one class while the other endeavours, as at Botori, to overthrow it. If the flag is not captured or torn down within a certain time the defending side wins.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Botoshani

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​BOTOSHANI (Botoşani), the capital of the department of Botoshani, Rumania; on a small tributary of the river Jijia, and in one of the richest agricultural and pastoral regions of the north Moldavian hills. Pop. (1900) 32,193. Botoshani is commercially important as the town through which goods from Poland and Galicia pass in transit for the south; being situated on a branch railway between Dorohoi and on the main line from Czernowitz to Galatz. It has extensive starch and flour mills; and Botoshani flour is highly prized in Rumania, besides being largely exported to Turkey and the United Kingdom. Botoshani owes its name to a Tatar chief, Batus or Batu Khan, grandson of Jenghiz Khan, who occupied the country in the 13th century. There are large colonies of Armenians and Jews.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bachaumont, Louis Petit de

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​BACHAUMONT, LOUIS PETIT DE (1690–1771), French littérateur, was of noble family and was brought up at the court of Versailles. He passed his whole life in Paris as the centre of the salon of Madame Doublet de Persan (1677–1771), where criticism of art and literature took the form of malicious gossip. A sort of register of news was kept in a journal of the salon, which dealt largely in scandals and contained accounts of books suppressed by the censor. Bachaumont’s name is commonly connected with the first volumes of this register, which was published anonymously under the title Mémoires secrets pour servir à l'histoire de la République des Lettres, but his exact share in the authorship is a matter of controversy. It was continued by Pidansat de Mairobert (1707–1779) and others, until it reached 36 volumes (1774–1779). It is of some value as a historical source, especially for prohibited literature. Extracts were published by P. Lacroix in one volume, 1859. An incomplete edition (4 vols.) was undertaken in 1830 by Ravenal.
See, in addition to the memoirs of the time, especially the Correspondance littéraire of Grimm, Diderot, d'Alembert and others (new ed., Paris, 1878, 17 vols.); Ch. Aubertin, L’Esprit public au XVIIIᵉ siècle (Paris, 1872).