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

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ALBATROSS (from the Port. Alcatraz, a pelican), the name of a genus of aquatic birds (Diomedea), closely allied to the petrels, and belonging, like them, to the order Tubinares. In the name Diomedea, assigned to them by Linnaeus, there is a reference to the mythical metamorphosis of the companions of the Greek warrior Diomedes into birds. The beak is large, strong and sharp-edged, the upper mandible terminating in a large hook; the wings are narrow and very long; the feet have no hind toe, and the three anterior toes are completely webbed. The best known is the common or wandering albatross (D. exulans), which occurs in all parts of the Southern Ocean. It is the largest and strongest of all sea-birds. The length of the body is stated at 4 ft., and the weight at from 15 to 25 ℔. It sometimes measures as much as 17 ft. between the tips of the extended, wings, averaging probably from 10 to 12 ft. Its strength of wing is very great. It often accompanies a ship for days—not merely following it, but wheeling in wide circles round it—without ever being observed to alight on the water, and continues its flight, apparently untired, in tempestuous as well as in moderate weather. It has even been said to sleep on the wing, and Moore alludes to this fanciful “cloud-rocked slumbering” in his Fire Worshippers. It feeds on small fish and on the animal refuse that floats on the sea, eating to such excess at times that it is unable to fly and rests helplessly on the water. The colour of the bird is white, the back being streaked transversely with black or brown bands, and the wings dark. Sailors capture the bird for its long wing-bones, which they manufacture into tobacco-pipe stems. The albatross lays one egg; it is white, with a few spots, and is about 4 in. long. In breeding-time the bird resorts to solitary island groups, like the Crozet Islands and the elevated Tristan da Cunha, where it has its nest—a natural hollow or a circle of earth roughly scraped together—on the open ground. The early explorers of the great Southern Sea cheered themselves with the companionship of the albatross in its dreary solitudes; and the evil hap of him who shot with his cross-bow the bird of good omen is familiar to readers of Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Several species of albatross are known; for the smaller forms see Mallemuck.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Albedo

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​ALBEDO (from Lat. albus, white), “whiteness,” a word used principally in astronomy for the degree of reflected light; the light of the sun which is reflected from the moon is called the albedo of the moon.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Brocchi, Giovanni Battista

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​BROCCHI, GIOVANNI BATTISTA (1772–1826), Italian mineralogist and geologist, was born at Bassano on the 18th of February 1772. He studied at the university of Pisa, where his attention was turned to mineralogy and botany. In 1802 he was appointed professor of botany in the new lyceum of Brescia; but he more especially devoted himself to geological researches in the adjacent districts. The fruits of these labours appeared in different publications, particularly in his Trattato mineralogico e chemico sulle miniere di ferro del dipartimento del Mella (1808)—treatise on the iron mines of Mella. These researches procured him the office of inspector of mines in the recently established kingdom of Italy, and enabled him to extend his investigations over great part of the country. In 1811 he produced a valuable essay entitled Memoria mineralogica sulla Valle di Fassa in Tirolo; but his most important work is the Conchiologia fossile subapennina con osservazioni geologiche sugli Apennini, e sul suolo adiacente (2 vols., 4to, Milan, 1814), containing accurate details of the structure of the Apennine range, and an account of the fossils of the Italian Tertiary strata compared with existing species. These subjects were further illustrated by his geognostic map, and his Catalogo ragionato di una raccolta di rocce, disposto con ordine geografico, per servire alla geognosia dell’ Italia (Milan, 1817). His work Dello stato fisico del suolo di Roma (1820), with its accompanying map, is likewise noteworthy. In it he corrected the erroneous views of Breislak, who conceived that Rome occupies the site of a volcano, to which he ascribed the volcanic materials that cover the seven hills. Brocchi pointed out that these materials were derived either from Mont Albano, ​an extinct volcano, 12 m. from the city, or from Mont Cimini, still farther to the north. Several papers by him, on mineralogical subjects, appeared in the Biblioteca Italiana from 1816 to 1823. In the latter year Brocchi sailed for Egypt, in order to explore the geology of that country and report on its mineral resources. Every facility was granted by Mehemet Ali, who in 1823 appointed him one of a commission to examine the district of Sennaar; but Brocchi, unfortunately for science, fell a victim to the climate, and died at Khartum on the 25th of September 1826.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Brocken, Spectre of the

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​BROCKEN, SPECTRE OF THE (so named from having been first observed in 1780 on the Brocken), an enormously magnified shadow of an observer cast upon a bank of cloud when the sun is low in high mountain regions, reproducing every motion of the observer in the form of a gigantic but misty image of himself.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Brock, Thomas

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​BROCK, THOMAS (1847–), English sculptor, was the chief pupil of Foley, and later became influenced by the new romantic movement. His group “The Moment of Peril” was followed by “The Genius of Poetry,” “Eve,” and other ideal works that mark his development. His busts, such as those of Lord Leighton and Queen Victoria; his statues, such as “Sir Richard Owen” and “Dr Philpott, bishop of Worcester”; his sepulchral monuments, such as that to Lord Leighton in St Paul’s cathedral, a work of singular significance, refinement and beauty; and his memorial statues of Queen Victoria, at Hove and elsewhere, are examples of his power as a portraitist, sympathetic in feeling, sound and restrained in execution, and dignified and decorative in arrangement. The colossal equestrian statue of “Edward the Black Prince” was set up in the City Square in Leeds in 1901, the year in which the sculptor was awarded the commission to execute the vast Imperial Memorial to Queen Victoria in front of Buckingham Palace. Brock was elected an associate of the Royal Academy in 1883 and full member in 1891.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Brocklesby, Richard

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​BROCKLESBY, RICHARD (1722–1797), English physician, was born at Minehead, Somersetshire, on the 11th of August 1722. He was educated at Ballitore, in Ireland, where Edmund Burke was one of his schoolfellows, studied medicine at Edinburgh, and finally graduated at Leiden in 1745. Appointed physician to the army in 1758, he served in Germany during part of the Seven Years’ War, and on his return settled down to practise in London. In 1764 he published Economical and Medical Observations, which contained suggestions for improving the hygiene of army hospitals. In his latter years he withdrew altogether into private life. The circle of his friends included some of the most distinguished literary men of the age. He was warmly attached to Dr Johnson, to whom about 1784 he offered an annuity of £100 for life, and whom he attended on his death-bed, while in 1788 he presented Burke, of whom he was an intimate friend, with £1000, and offered to repeat the gift “every year until your merit is rewarded as it ought to be at court.” He died on the 11th of December 1797, leaving his house and part of his fortune to his grand-nephew, Dr Thomas Young.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Brocken

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​BROCKEN, a mountain of Germany, in Prussian Saxony, the highest point (3733 ft.) of the Harz. It is a huge, bare, granite-strewn, dome-shaped mass and, owing to its being the greatest elevation in north Germany, commands magnificent views in all directions. From it Magdeburg and the Elbe, the towers of Leipzig and the Thuringian forest are distinctly visible in clear weather. Access to the summit is attained by a mountain railway (12 m.) from Dreiannen-Hohne, a station on the normal gauge line Wernigerode-Nordhausen, and by two carriage roads from the Bodetal and Ilsenburg respectively. In the folklore of north Germany the Brocken holds an important place, and to it cling many legends. Long after Christianity had penetrated to these regions, the Brocken remained a place of heathen worship. Annually, on Walpurgis night (1st of May), curious rites were here enacted, which, condemned by the priests of the Christian church, led to the belief that the devil and witches here held their orgies. Even to this day, this superstition possesses the minds of many country people around, who believe the mountain to be haunted on this night. In literature ​it is represented by the famous “Brocken scene” in Goethe’s Faust.
See Jacobs, Der Brocken in Geschichte und Sage (Halle, 1878); and Pröhle, Brockensagen (Magdeburg, 1888).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Brockes, Barthold Heinrich

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​BROCKES, BARTHOLD HEINRICH (1680–1747), German poet, was born at Hamburg on the 22nd of September 1680. He studied jurisprudence at Halle, and after extensive travels in Italy, France and Holland, settled in his native town in 1704. In 1720 he was appointed a member of the Hamburg senate, and entrusted with several important offices. Six years (from 1735 to 1741) he spent as Amtmann (magistrate) at Ritzebtütel. He died in Hamburg on the 16th of January 1747. Brockes’ poetic works were published in a series of nine volumes under the fantastic title Irdisches Vergnügen in Gott (1721–1748); he also translated Marini’s La Strage degli innocenti (1715), Pope’s Essay on Man (1740) and Thomson’s Seasons (1745). His poetry has small intrinsic value, but it is symptomatic of the change which came over German literature at the beginning of the 18th century. He was one of the first German poets to substitute for the bombastic imitations of Marini, to which he himself had begun by contributing, a clear and simple diction. He was also a pioneer in directing the attention of his countrymen to the new poetry of nature which originated in England. His verses, artificial and crude as they often are, express a reverential attitude towards nature and a religious interpretation of natural phenomena which was new to German poetry and prepared the way for Klopstock.
Brockes’ autobiography was published by J. M. Lappenberg in the Zeitschrift des Vereins für Hamburger Geschichte, ii. pp. 167 ff. (1847). See also A. Brandl, B. H. Brockes (1878), and D. F. Strauss, Brockes und H. S. Reimarus (Gesammelte Schriften, ii.). A short selection of his poetry will be found in vol. 39 (1883) of Kürschner’s Deutsche Nationalliteratur.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Brochant de Villiers, André Jean François Marie

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​BROCHANT DE VILLIERS, ANDRÉ JEAN FRANÇOIS MARIE (1772–1840), French mineralogist and geologist, was born at Villiers, near Nantes, on the 6th of August 1772. After studying at the École Polytechnique, he was in 1794 the first pupil admitted to the École des Mines. In 1804 he was appointed professor of geology and mineralogy in the École des Mines, which had been temporarily transferred to Pezay in Savoy, and he returned with the school to Paris in 1815. Later on he became inspector general of mines and a member of the Academy of Sciences. He investigated the transition strata of the Tarantaise, wrote on the position of the granite rocks of Mont Blanc, and on the lead minerals of Derbyshire and Cumberland. He was charged with the superintendence of the construction of the geological map of France, undertaken by his pupils Dufrénoy and Elie de Beaumont. He died in Paris on the 16th of May 1840. His publications include Traité élémentaire de minéralogie (2 vols., 1801–1802; 2nd ed., 1808), and Traité abrégé de cristallographie (Paris, 1818).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Brochantite

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​BROCHANTITE, a mineral species consisting of a basic copper sulphate Cu$_4$(OH)$_6$SO$_4$, crystallizing in the orthorhombic system. The crystals are usually small and are prismatic or acicular in habit; they have a perfect cleavage parallel to the face lettered a in the adjoining figure. They are transparent to translucent, with a vitreous lustre, and are of an emerald-green to blackish-green colour. Specific gravity 3.907; hardness 31/2–4. The mineral was first found associated with malachite and native copper in the copper mines of the Urals, and was named by A. Lévy in 1824 after A. J. M. Brochant de Villiers. Several varieties, differing somewhat in crystalline form, have been distinguished, some of them having originally been described as distinct species, but afterwards proved to be essentially identical with brochantite; these are königine from the Urals, brongniartine from Mexico, krisuvigite from Iceland, and warringtonite from Cornwall. Of other localities, mention may be made of Roughten Gill, Caldbeck Fells, Cumberland, where small brilliant crystals are associated with malachite and chrysocolla in a quartzose rock; Rézbánya in the Bihar Mountains, Hungary; Atacama in Chile, with atacamite, which closely resembles brochantite in general appearance; the Tintic district in Utah. A microscopical examination of the green copper ores of secondary origin in the Clifton and Morenci district of Arizona proves brochantite to be of extremely common occurrence mostly intergrown with malachite which effectually masks its presence: it is not unlikely that the malachite of other localities will on examination be found to be intergrown with brochantite.
Mention may be here made of another orthorhombic basic copper sulphate not unlike brochantite in general characters, but differing from it in containing water of crystallization and in its fine blue colour; this is the Cornish mineral langite, which has the composition CuSO$_4$·3Cu(OH)$_2$+H$_2$O.  (L. J. S.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Brock, Sir Isaac

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​BROCK, SIR ISAAC (1769–1812), British soldier and administrator, was born at St Peter Port, Guernsey, on the 6th of October 1769. Joining the army at the age of fifteen as an ensign of the 8th regiment, he became a lieutenant-colonel in 1797, after less than thirteen years’ service. He commanded the 49th regiment in the expedition to North Holland in 1799, was wounded at the battle of Egmont-op-Zee, and subsequently served on board the British fleet at the battle of Copenhagen. From 1802 to 1805 he was with his regiment in Canada, returning thither in 1806 in view of the imminence of war between Great Britain and the United States. From September 1806 till August 1810 he was in charge of the garrison at Quebec; in the latter year he assumed the command of the troops in Upper Canada, and soon afterwards took over the civil administration of that province as provisional lieutenant-governor. On the outbreak of the war of 1812 Brock had to defend Upper Canada against invasion by the United States. In the face of many difficulties and not a little disaffection, he organized the militia of the province, drove back the invaders, and on the 16th of August 1812, with about 730 men and 600 Indians commanded by their chief Tecumseh, compelled the American force of 2500 men under General William Hull (1753–1825) to surrender at Detroit, an achievement which gained him a knighthood of the Bath and the popular title of “the hero of Upper Canada” From Detroit he hurried to the Niagara frontier, but on the 13th of October in the same year was killed at the battle of Queenston Heights. The House of Commons voted a public monument to his memory, which was erected in Saint Paul’s cathedral, London. On the 13th of October 1824, the twelfth anniversary of his death, his remains were removed from the bastions of Fort George, where they had been originally interred, and placed beneath a monument on Queenston Heights, erected by the provincial legislature. This was blown up by a fanatic in 1840, but as the result of a mass-meeting of over 8000 citizens held on the spot, a new and more stately monument was erected.
His Life and Correspondence by his nephew, Ferdinand Brock Tupper (2nd edition, London, 1847), still remains the best; later lives are by D. R. Read (Toronto, 1894), and by Lady Edgar (Toronto and London,1905).  (W. L. G.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Counter

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​COUNTER. (1) (Through the O. Fr. conteoir, modern comptoir, from Lat. computare, to reckon), a round piece of metal, wood or other material used anciently in making calculations, and now for reckoning points in games of cards, &c., or as tokens representing actual coins or sums of money in gambling games such as roulette. The word is thus used, figuratively, of something of no real value, a sham. In the original sense of “a means of counting money, ​or keeping accounts,” “counter” is used of the table or flat-topped barrier in a bank, merchant’s office or shop, on which money is counted and goods handed to a customer. The term was also applied, usually in the form “compter,” to the debtors’ prisons attached to the mayor’s or sheriff’s courts in London and some other boroughs in England. The “compters” of the sheriff’s courts of the city of London were, at various times, in the Poultry, Bread St., Wood St. and Giltspur St.; the Giltspur St. compter was the last to be closed, in 1854. (2) (From Lat. contra, opposite, against), a circular parry in fencing, and in boxing, a blow given as a parry to a lead of an opponent. The word is also used of the stiff piece of leather at the back of a boot or shoe, of the rounded angle at the stern of a ship, and, in a horse, of the part lying between the shoulder and the under part of the neck. In composition, counter is used to express contrary action, as in “countermand,” “counterfeit,” &c.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Coulomb, Charles Augustin

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​COULOMB, CHARLES AUGUSTIN (1736–1806), French natural philosopher, was born at Angoulême on the 14th of June 1736. He chose the profession of military engineer, spent three years, to the decided injury of his health, at Fort Bourbon, Martinique, and was employed on his return at Rochelle, the Isle of Aix and Cherbourg. In 1781 he was stationed permanently at Paris, but on the outbreak of the Revolution in 1789 he resigned his appointment as intendant des eaux et fontaines, and retired to a small estate which he possessed at Blois. He was recalled to Paris for a time in order to take part in the new determination of weights and measures, which had been decreed by the Revolutionary government. Of the National Institute he was one of the first members; and he was appointed inspector of public instruction in 1802. But his health was already very feeble, and four years later he died at Paris on the 23rd of August 1806. Coulomb is distinguished in the history alike of mechanics and of electricity and magnetism. In 1779 he published an important investigation of the laws of friction (Théorie des machines simples, en ayant regard au frottement de leurs parties et à la roideur des cordages), which was followed twenty years later by a memoir on fluid resistance. In 1785 appeared his Recherches théoriques et expérimentales sur la force de torsion et sur l’élasticité des fils de métal, &c. This memoir contained a description of different forms of his torsion balance, an instrument used by him with great success for the experimental investigation of the distribution of electricity on surfaces and of the laws of electrical and magnetic action, of the mathematical theory of which he may also be regarded as the founder. The practical unit of quantity of electricity, the coulomb, is named after him.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Coumarones

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​COUMARONES or Benzofurfuranes, organic compounds containing the ring system C$_6$H$_4$ $<$ CH O $\eqslantgtr$ CH. This ring system may be synthesized in many different ways, the chief methods employed being as follows: by the action of hot alcoholic potash on σ-bromcoumarin (R. Fittig, Ann., 1883, 216, p. 162),
C$_6$H$_4$ $<$ CH:C·Br C·CO $\to$ C$_6$H$_4$ $<$ CH O $\eqslantgtr$ C·COOH $\to$ C$_6$H$_4$ $<$ CH O $\eqslantgtr$ CH;
from sodium salts of phenols and α-chloracetoacetic ester (A. Hantzsch, Ber., 1886, 19, p. 1292),
C$_6$H$_4$ $<$ H O Na $\to$ COCH$_3$ Cl·CH·COOR $\to$ C$_6$H$_4$ $<$ C·COCH$_3$ O $\eqslantgtr$ C·COOR;
or from ortho-oxyaldehydes by condensation with ketones (S. Kostanecki and J. Tambor, Ber., 1896, 29, p. 237), or with chloracetic acid (A. Rossing, Ber., 1884, 17, p. 3000),
C$_6$H$_4$ $<$ OH CHO ${\xrightarrow {\mathsf {CH_{3}CO\cdot C_{6}H_{5}}}}$ C$_6$H$_4$ $<$ OH CH :CH·COC$_6$H$_5$ ${\xrightarrow {2\ {\mathsf {Br}}}}$ C$_6$H$_4$ $<$ OH CH Br·CHBr·COC$_6$H$_5$ ${\xrightarrow {\mathsf {KHO}}}$ C$_6$H$_4$ $<$ O CH $\geqslant$ C·COC$_6$H$_5$,
C$_6$H$_4$ $<$ OH CHO ${\xrightarrow {{\mathsf {Cl}}\cdot {\mathsf {CH_{2}}}\cdot {\mathsf {COOH}}}}$ C$_6$H$_4$ $<$ CHO O·CH$_2$ ·COOH ${\xrightarrow {\mathsf {CH_{3}COONa}}}$ C$_6$H$_4$ $<$ CH O $\eqslantgtr$ C·COOH.
The parent substance coumarone, C$_8$H$_6$O, is also obtained by heating ω-chlor-ortho-oxystyrol with concentrated potash solution (G. Komppa, Ber., 1893, 26. p. 2971),
C$_6$H$_4$ $<$ CH OH:CHCl ${\xrightarrow {\mathsf {KOH}}}$ C$_6$H$_4$ $<$ CH O $\eqslantgtr$ CH.
It is a colourless liquid which boils at 171-172° C. and is readily volatile in steam, but is insoluble in water and in potash solution. Concentrated acids convert it into a resin. When heated with sodium and absolute alcohol, it is converted into hydrocoumarone, C$_8$H$_8$O, and ethyl phenol.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Coulommiers

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​COULOMMIERS, a town of northern France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Seine-et-Marne, 45 m. E. of Paris by rail. Pop. (1906) 5217. It is situated in the fertile district of Brie, in a valley watered by the Grand-Morin. The church of St Denis (13th and 16th centuries), and the ruins of a castle built by Catherine of Gonzaga, duchess of Longueville, in the early 17th century, are of little importance. There is a statue to Commandant Beaurepaire, who, in 1792, killed himself rather than surrender Verdun to the Prussians. Coulommiers is the seat of a subprefect, and has a tribunal of first instance and a communal college. Printing is the chief industry, tanning, flour-milling and sugar-making being also carried on. Trade is in agricultural products, and especially in cheeses named after the town.