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

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​BACKWARDATION, or, as it is more often called for brevity, Back, a technical term employed on the London Stock Exchange to express the amount charged for the loan of stock from one account to the other, and paid to the purchaser by the seller on a bear account (see Account) in order to allow the seller to defer the delivery of the stock. The seller, having sold for delivery on a certain date, stocks or shares which probably he does not possess, in the hope that he may be able, before the day fixed for delivery, to buy them at a cheaper price and so earn a profit, finds on settling-day that the prices have not gone down according to his expectation, and therefore pays the purchaser an agreed amount of interest (backwardation) for the privilege of deferring the delivery, either in order to procure the stock, or else in the hope that there will be a shrinkage in the price which will enable him to gain a profit. (See also Stock Exchange).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bacon

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​BACON (through the O. Fr. bacon, Low Lat. baco, from a Teutonic word cognate with “back,” e.g. O. H. Ger. pacho, M. H. Ger. backe, buttock, flitch of bacon), the flesh of the sides and back of the pig, cured by salting, drying, pickling and smoking.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Backscratcher

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​BACKSCRATCHER, a long slender rod of wood, whalebone, tortoiseshell, horn or cane, with a carved human hand, usually of ivory, mounted at the extremity. Its name suggests the primary use of the implement, but little is known of its history, and it was unquestionably also employed as a kind of rake to keep in order the huge “heads” of powdered hair worn by ladies during a considerable portion of the 18th and the early part of the 19th centuries. The backscratcher varies in length from 12 to 20 in., and the more elaborate examples, which were occasionally hung from the waist, are silver-mounted, and in rare instances the ivory fingers bear carved rings. The hand is sometimes outstretched, and sometimes the fingers are flexed; the modelling is frequently good, the fingers delicately formed and the nails well defined. As a rule the rod is finished off with a knob. The hand was now and again replaced by a rake or a bird’s claw. The hand was indifferently dexter or sinister, but the Chinese variety usually bears a right hand. Like most of the obsolete appliances of daily life, the backscratcher, or scratch-back, as it is sometimes called, has become scarce, and it is one of the innumerable objects which attract the attention of the modern collector.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bacon, John

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​BACON, JOHN (1740–1799), British sculptor, was born in Southwark on the 24th of November 1740, the son of Thomas Bacon, a cloth-worker, whose forefathers possessed a considerable estate in Somersetshire. At the age of fourteen he was bound apprentice in Mr Crispe’s manufactory of porcelain at Lambeth, where he was at first employed in painting the small ornamental pieces of china, but by his great skill in moulding he soon attained the distinction of being modeller to the work. While engaged in the porcelain works his observation of the models executed by different sculptors of eminence, which were sent to be burned at an adjoining pottery, determined the direction of his genius; he devoted himself to the imitation of them with so much success that in 1758 a small figure of Peace sent by him to the Society for the Encouragement of Arts received a prize, and the highest premiums given by that society were adjudged to him nine times between the years 1763 and 1776. During his apprenticeship he also improved the method of working statues in artificial stone, an art which he afterwards carried to perfection. Bacon first attempted working in marble about the year 1763, and during the course of his early efforts in this art was led to improve the method of transferring the form of the model to the marble (technically “getting out the points”) by the invention of a more perfect instrument for the purpose. This instrument possessed many advantages above those formerly employed; it was more exact, took a correct measurement in every direction, was contained in a small compass, and could be used upon either the model or the marble. In the year 1769 he was adjudged the first gold medal for sculpture given by the Royal Academy, his work being a bas-relief representing the escape of Aeneas from Troy. In 1770 he exhibited a figure of Mars, which gained him the gold medal of the Society of Arts and his election as A.R.A. As a consequence of this success he was engaged to execute a bust of George III., intended for Christ Church, Oxford. He secured the king’s favour and retained it throughout life. Considerable jealousy was entertained against him by other sculptors, and he was commonly charged with ignorance of classic style. This charge he repelled by the execution of a noble head of Jupiter Tonans, and many of his emblematical figures are in perfect classical taste. He died on the 4th of August 1799 and was buried in Whitfield’s Tabernacle. His various productions which may be studied in St Paul’s cathedral, London, Christ Church and Pembroke College, Oxford, the Abbey church, Bath, and Bristol cathedral, give ample testimony to his powers. Perhaps his best works are to be found among the monuments in Westminster Abbey.
See Richard Cecil, Memoirs of John Bacon, R.A. (London. 1801); and also vol. i. of R. Cecil’s works, ed. J. Pratt (1811).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Backhuysen, Ludolf

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​BACKHUYSEN, or Bakhuisen, LUDOLF (1631–1708), Dutch painter, was born at Emden, in Hanover. He was brought up as a merchant at Amsterdam, but early discovered so strong a genius for painting that he relinquished business and devoted himself to art. He studied first under Allart van Everdingen and then under Hendrik Dubbels, two eminent masters of the time, and soon became celebrated for his sea-pieces. He was an ardent student of nature, and frequently exposed himself on the sea in an open boat in order to study the effects of tempests. His compositions, which are very numerous, are nearly all variations of one subject, and in a style peculiarly his own, marked by intense realism or faithful imitation of nature. In his later years Backhuysen employed his time in etching and calligraphy. He died in Amsterdam on the 17th of November 1708.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Back-Choir

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​BACK-CHOIR, Retro-Choir, a space behind the high altar in the choir of a church, in which there is, or was, a small altar standing back to back with the other.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Backnang

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​BACKNANG, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Württemberg, 19 m. by rail N.E. from Stuttgart. Pop. (1900) 7650. It has an interesting church, dating from the 12th century, and notable tanneries and leather factories, woollen and cloth mills. In 1325 Backnang was ceded to Württemberg by Baden. In the vicinity is the Wilhelmsheim sanatorium for consumptives.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Fraser, James Baillie

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​FRASER, JAMES BAILLIE (1783–1856), Scottish traveller and author, was born at Reelick in the county of Inverness on the 11th of June 1783. He was the eldest of the four sons of Edward Satchell Fraser of Reelick, all of whom found their way to the East, and gave proof of their ability. In early life he went to the West Indies and thence to India. In 1815 he made a tour of exploration in the Himalayas, accompanied by his brother William (d. 1835). When Reza Kuli Mirza and Nejeff Kuli Mirza, the exiled Persian princes, visited England, he was appointed to look after them during their stay, and on their return he accompanied them as far as Constantinople. He was afterwards sent to Persia on a diplomatic mission by Lord Glenelg, and effected a most remarkable journey on horseback through Asia Minor to Teheran. His health, however, was impaired by the exposure. In 1823 he married a daughter of Alexander Fraser Tytler, Lord Woodhouselee, a sister of the historian Patrick Fraser Tytler. He died at Reelick in January 1856. Fraser is said to have displayed great skill in water-colours, and several of his drawings have been engraved; and the astronomical observations which he took during some of his journeys did considerable service to the cartography of Asia. The works by which he attained his literary reputation were accounts of his travels and fictitious tales illustrative of Eastern life. In both he employed a vigorous and impassioned style, which was on the whole wonderfully effective in spite of minor faults in taste and flaws in structure.
Fraser’s earliest writings are: Journal of a Tour through Part of the Himālā Mountains and to the Sources of the Jumna and the Ganges (1820); A Narrative of a Journey into Khorasan in the Years 1821 and 1822, including some Account of the Countries to the North-East of Persia (1825); and Travels and Adventures in the Persian Provinces on the Southern Banks of the Caspian Sea (1826). His romances include The Kuzzilbash, a Tale of Khorasan (1828), and its sequel, The Persian Adventurer (1830); Allee Neemroo (1842); and The Dark Falcon (1844). He also wrote An Historical and Descriptive Account of Persia (1834); A Winter’s Journey (Tâtar) from Constantinople to Teheran (1838); Travels in Koordistan, Mesopotamia, &c. (1840); Mesopotamia and Assyria (1842); and Military Memoirs of Col. James Skinner (1851).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Français, François Louis

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​FRANÇAIS, FRANÇOIS LOUIS (1814–1897), French painter, was born at Plombières (Vosges), and, on attaining the age of fifteen, was placed as office-boy with a bookseller. After a few years of hard struggle, during which he made a precarious living by drawing on stone and designing woodcut vignettes for book illustration, he studied painting under Gigoux, and subsequently under Corot, whose influence remained decisive upon Français’s style of landscape painting. He generally found his subjects in the neighbourhood of Paris, and though he never rivalled his master in lightness of touch and in the lyric poetry which is the principal charm of Corot’s work, he is still counted among the leading landscape painters of his country and period. He exhibited first at the Salon in 1837 and was elected to the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 1890. Comparatively few of his pictures are to be found in public galleries, but his painting of “An Italian Sunset” is at the Luxembourg Museum in Paris. Other works of importance are “Daphnis et Chloé” (1872), “Bas Meudon” (1861), “Orpheus” (1863), “Le Bois sacré” (1864), “Le Lac de Némi” (1868).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Fraser, James

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​FRASER, JAMES (1818–1885), English bishop, was born at Prestbury, in Gloucestershire, on the 18th of August 1818, and was educated at Bridgnorth, Shrewsbury, and Lincoln College, Oxford. In 1839 he was Ireland scholar, and took a first class. In 1840 he gained an Oriel fellowship, and was for some time tutor of the college, but did not take orders until 1846. He was successively vicar of Cholderton, in Wiltshire, and rector of Ufton Nervet, in Berkshire; but his subsequent importance was largely due to W. K. Hamilton, bishop of Salisbury, who recommended him as an assistant commissioner of education. His report on the educational condition of thirteen poor-law unions, made in May 1859, was described by Thomas Hughes as “a superb, almost a unique piece of work.” In 1865 he was commissioned to report on the state of education in the United States and Canada, and his able performance of this task brought him an offer of the bishopric of Calcutta, which he declined, but in January 1870 he accepted the see of Manchester. The task before him was an arduous one, for although his predecessor, James Prince Lee, had consecrated no fewer than 130 churches, the enormous population was still greatly in advance of the ecclesiastical machinery. Fraser worked with the utmost energy, and did even more for the church by the liberality and geniality which earned him the title of “the bishop of all denominations.” He was prominent in secular as well as religious works, interesting himself in every movement that promoted health, morality, or education; and especially serviceable as the friendly, unofficious counsellor of all classes. His theology was that of a liberal high-churchman, and his sympathies were broad. In convocation he seconded a motion for the disuse of the Athanasian Creed, and in the House of Lords he voted for the abolition of university tests. He died suddenly on the 22nd of October 1885.
A biography by Thomas Hughes was published in 1887, and an account of his Lancashire life by J. W. Diggle (1889), who also edited 2 vols. of University and Parochial Sermons (1887).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Fraser

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​FRASER, the chief river of British Columbia, Canada, rising in two branches among the Rocky Mountains near 52° 45′ N., 118° 30′ W. Length 740 m. It first flows N.W. for about 160 m., then rounds the head of the Cariboo Mountains, and flows directly S. for over 400 m. to Hope, where it again turns abruptly and flows W. for 80 m., falling into the Gulf of Georgia at New Westminster. After the junction of the two forks near its northern extremity, the first important tributary on its southern course is the Stuart, draining Lakes Stuart, Fraser and François. One hundred miles lower down the Quesnel, draining a large lake of the same name, flows in from the east at a town also so named. Farther on the Fraser receives from the west the Chilcotin, and at Lytton, about 180 m. from the sea, the Thompson, its largest tributary, flows in from the east, draining a series of mountain lakes, and receiving at Kamloops the North Thompson, which flows through deep and impassable canyons. Below Hope the Lillooet flows in from the north. The Fraser is a typical mountain stream, rapid and impetuous through all its length, and like most of its tributaries is in many parts not navigable even by canoes. On its southern course between Lytton and Yale, while bursting its way through the Coast Range, it flows through majestic canyons, which, like those of the Thompson, were the scene of many tragedies during the days of the gold-rush to the Cariboo district. At Yale, about 80 m. from its mouth, it becomes navigable, though its course is still very rapid. In the Cariboo district, comprised within the great bend of the river, near Tête Jaune Cache, are many valuable gold deposits. With its tributaries the Fraser drains the whole province from 54° to 49° N., except the extreme south-eastern corner, which is within the basin of the Columbia and its tributary the Kootenay.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Frascati

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​FRASCATI, a town and episcopal see of Italy, in the province of Rome, 15 m. S.E. of Rome by rail, and also reached by electric tramway via Grottaferrata. Pop. (1901) 8453. The town is situated 1056 ft. above the sea-level, on the N. slopes of the outer crater ring of the Alban Hills, and commands a very fine view of the Campagna of Rome. The cathedral contains a memorial tablet to Charles Edward, the Young Pretender, whose body for some while rested here; his brother, Henry, Cardinal York, owned a villa at Frascati. The villas of the Roman nobility, with their beautiful gardens and fountains, are the chief attraction of Frascati. The earliest in date is the Villa Falconieri, planned by Cardinal Ruffini before 1550; the most important of the rest are the Villa Torlonia (formerly Conti), Lancelotti (formerly Piccolomini), Ruffinella (now belonging to Prince Lancellotti), Aldobrandini, Borghese and Mondragone (now a Jesuit school). The surrounding country, covered with remains of ancient villas, is fertile and noted for its wine. Frascati seems to have arisen on the site of a very large ancient villa, which, under Domitian at any rate, belonged to the imperial house about the 9th century in which period we find in the Liber Pontificalis the names of four churches in Frascata. The medieval stronghold of the counts of Tusculum (q.v.), which occupied the site of the ancient city, was dismantled by the Romans in 1191, and the inhabitants put to the sword or mutilated. Many of the fugitives naturally took refuge in Frascati. The see of Tusculum had, however, always had its cathedral church in Frascati. For the greater part of the middle ages Frascati belonged to the papacy.
See G. Tomassetti, La Via Latina nel medio evo (Rome, 1886), 170 seq.; T. Ashby in Papers of the British School at Rome, iv. (London, 1907). (T. As.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Fraserburgh

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​FRASERBURGH, a police burgh and seaport, on the N. coast of Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Pop. (1891), 7466; (1901), 9105. It is situated 471/4 m. by rail N. of Aberdeen, from which there is a branch line, of which it is the terminus, of the Great North of Scotland railway. It takes its name from Sir Alexander Fraser, the ancestor of Lord Saltoun, whose seat, Philorth House, lies 2 m. to the south. Sir Alexander obtained for it in 1613 a charter as a burgh of royalty, and also in 1592 a charter for the founding of a university. This latter project, however, was not carried out, and all that remains of the building intended for the college is a three-storeyed tower. The old castle of the Frasers on Kinnaird Head now contains a lighthouse, and close by is the Wine Tower, with a cave below. The town cross is a fine structure standing upon a huge hexagon, surmounted by a stone pillar 12 ft. high, ornamented by the royal and Fraser arms. The port is one of the leading stations of the herring fishery in the north of Scotland and the head ​of a fishery district. During the herring season (June to September) the population is increased by upwards of 10,000 persons. The fleet numbers more than 700 boats, and the annual value of the catch exceeds £200,000. The harbour, originally constructed as a refuge for British ships of war, is one of the best on the east coast, and has been improved by the widening of the piers and the extension of the breakwaters. It has an area of upwards of eight acres, is easy of access, and affords anchorage for vessels of every size.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Fraser, Sir William Augustus

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​FRASER, SIR WILLIAM AUGUSTUS, Bart. (1826–1898), English politician, author and collector, was born on the 10th of February 1826, the son of Sir James John Fraser, 3rd baronet, a colonel of the 7th Hussars, who had served on Wellington’s staff at Waterloo. He was educated at Eton and at Christ Church, Oxford, entered the 1st Life Guards in 1847, but retired with a captain’s rank in 1852. He then set about entering parliament, and the ups and downs of his political career were rather remarkable. He was returned for Barnstaple in 1852, but the election was declared void on account of bribery, and the constituency was disfranchised for two years. At the election of 1857 Sir William, who had meantime been defeated at Harwich, was again returned at Barnstaple. He was, however, defeated in 1859, but was elected in 1863 at Ludlow. This seat he held for only two years, when he was again defeated and did not re-enter parliament until 1874, when he was returned for Kidderminster, a constituency he represented for six years, when he retired. He was a familiar figure at the Carlton Club, always ready with a copious collection of anecdotes of Wellington, Disraeli and Napoleon III. He died on the 17th of August 1898. He was an assiduous collector of relics; and his library was sold for some £20,000. His own books comprise Words on Wellington (1889), Disraeli and his Day (1891), Hic et Ubique (1893), Napoleon III. (1896) and the Waterloo Ball (1897).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Fraserville

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​FRASERVILLE (formerly Rivière du Loup en Bas), a town and watering-place in Temiscouata county, Quebec, Canada, 107 m. (by water) north-east of Quebec, on the south shore of the St Lawrence river, and at the mouth of the Rivière du Loup, at the junction of the Intercolonial and Temiscouata railways. It contains a convent, boys’ college, hospital, several mills, and is a favourite summer resort on account of the angling and shooting, and the magnificent scenery. Pop. (1901) 4569.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Fraser, Alexander Campbell

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​FRASER, ALEXANDER CAMPBELL (1819– ), Scottish philosopher, was born at Ardchattan, Argyllshire, on the 3rd of September 1819. He was educated at Glasgow and Edinburgh, where, from 1846 to 1856, he was professor of Logic at New College. He edited the North British Review from 1850 to 1857, and in 1856, having previously been a Free Church minister, he succeeded Sir William Hamilton as professor of Logic and Metaphysics at Edinburgh University. In 1859 he became dean of the faculty of arts. He devoted himself to the study of English philosophers, especially Berkeley, and published a Collected Edition of the Works of Bishop Berkeley with Annotations, &c. (1871; enlarged 1901), a Biography of Berkeley (1881), an Annotated Edition of Locke’s Essay (1894), the Philosophy of Theism (1896) and the Biography of Thomas Reid (1898). He contributed the article on John Locke to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. In 1904 he published an autobiography entitled Biographia philosophica, in which he sketched the progress of his intellectual development. From this work and from his Gifford lectures we learn objectively what had previously been inferred from his critical works. After a childhood spent in an austerity which stigmatized as unholy even the novels of Sir Walter Scott, he began his college career at the age of fourteen at a time when Christopher North and Dr Ritchie were lecturing on Moral Philosophy and Logic. His first philosophical advance was stimulated by Thomas Brown’s Cause and Effect, which introduced him to the problems which were to occupy his thought. From this point he fell into the scepticism of Hume. In 1836 Sir William Hamilton was appointed to the chair of Logic and Metaphysics, and Fraser became his pupil. He himself says, “I owe more to Hamilton than to any other influence.” It was about this time also that he began his study of Berkeley and Coleridge, and deserted his early phenomenalism for the conception of a spiritual will as the universal cause. In the Biographia this “Theistic faith” appears in its full development (see the concluding chapter), and is especially important as perhaps the nearest approach to Kantian ethics made by original English philosophy. Apart from the philosophical interest of the Biographia, the work contains valuable pictures of the Land of Lorne and Argyllshire society in the early 19th century, of university life in Glasgow and Edinburgh, and a history of the North British Review.