Volume 3 — [E-Text Edition of Volume III - Part 1 of 2, Slice 2 of 3 - BACONTHORPE to BANKRUPTCY] (continued 7)

It should be remarked that some European geologists prefer to include the Parkinsonia zone in the base of the overlying Bathonian (q.v.).

The Bajocian rocks of Europe are mostly limestones of various kinds, very frequently oolitic. At Bayeux, the type district, they are ferruginous oolites; in the Jura and Lorraine a coral limestone overlies a crinoidal variety; calcareous sandy and marly beds occur in Maine and Anjou; in Poitou the limestone is dolomitic and bears nodules of chert. Rocks of the same age, as recognized by their fossil contents, have a wide range; they are found in north Africa, Goa, Somaliland, German East Africa, and north-west Madagascar; through southern Europe they may be followed into Turkestan, and the Kota-Maleri beds of the Upper Gondwana series of India may possibly belong to this stage. In South America they appear in Bolivia, Chile and Argentina; in North America, in British Columbia, Dakota, Mexico, Oregon and California. The Bajocian sea also included parts of New South Wales, New Zealand (Flag Hills beds?), Borneo and Japan, and it extended into the polar region of eastern Greenland and Franz Josef Land.

In addition to the ammonites already mentioned, the large belemnites (Megateuthis giganteus) and terebratulas (T. perovalis) are worthy of notice; crinoids and corals were abundant, and so also were certain forms of Trigonia (T. costata), Pleurotomaria and Cidaris.

See Jurassic; also A. de Lapparent, Traité de géologie, vol. ii. (5th ed., 1906); and H. B. Woodward, "The Jurassic Rocks of Britain," vol. iv., 1894 (Mem. Geol. Survey); both works contain references to original papers.

(J. A. H.)

BAJOUR, or Bajaur, a small district peopled by Pathan races of Afghan origin, in the North-West Frontier Province of India. It is about 45 m. long by 20. broad, and lies at a high level to the east of the Kunar valley, from which it is separated by a continuous line of rugged frontier hills, forming a barrier easily passable at one or two points. Across this barrier the old road from Kabul to India ran before the Khyber Pass was adopted as the main route. Bajour is inhabited almost exclusively by Tarkani (Tarkalanri) Pathans, sub-divided into Mamunds, Isazai, and Ismailzai, numbering together with a few Mohmands, Utmauzais, &c., about 100,000. To the south of Bajour is the wild mountain district of the Mohmands, a Pathan race. To the east, beyond the Panjkora river, are the hills of Swat, dominated by another Pathan race. To the north is an intervening watershed between Bajour and the small state of Dir; and it is over this watershed and through the valley of Dir that the new road from Malakand and the Punjab runs to Chitral. The drainage of Bajour flows eastwards, starting from the eastern slopes of the dividing ridge which overlooks the Kunar and terminating in the Panjkora river, so that the district lies on a slope tilting gradually downwards from the Kunar ridge to the Panjkora. Nawagai is the chief town of Bajour, and the khan of Nawagai is under British protection for the safeguarding of the Chitral road. Jandol, one of the northern valleys of Bajour, has ceased to be of political importance since the failure of its chief, Umra Khan, to appropriate to himself Bajour, Dir, and a great part of the Kunar valley. It was the active hostility between the amir of Kabul (who claimed sovereignty of the same districts) and Umra Khan that led, firstly to the demarcation agreement of 1893 which fixed the boundary of Afghanistan in Kunar; and, secondly, to the invasion of Chitral by Umra Khan (who was no party to the boundary settlement) and the siege of the Chitral fort in 1895.

An interesting feature in Bajour topography is a mountain spur from the Kunar range, which curving eastwards culminates in the well-known peak of Koh-i-Mor, which is visible from the Peshawar valley. It was here, at the foot of the mountain, that Alexander found the ancient city of Nysa and the Nysaean colony, traditionally said to have been founded by Dionysus. The Koh-i-Mor has been identified as the Meros of Arrian's history—the three-peaked mountain from which the god issued. It is also interesting to find that a section of the Kafir community of Kamdesh still claim the same Greek origin as did the Nysaeans; still chant hymns to the god who sprang from Gir Nysa (the mountain of Nysa); whilst they maintain that they originally migrated from the Swat country to their present habitat in the lower Bashgol. Long after Buddhism had spread to Chitral, Gilgit, Dir and Swat; whilst Ningrahar was still full of monasteries and temples, and the Peshawar valley was recognized as the seat of Buddhist learning, the Kafirs or Nysaeans held their own in Bajour and in the lower Kunar valley, where Buddhism apparently never prevailed. It is probable that the invader Baber (who has much to say about Bajour) fought them there in the early years of the 16th century, when on his way to found the Mogul dynasty of India centuries after Buddhism has been crushed in northern India by the destroyer Mahmud.

The Gazetteers and Reports of the Indian government contain nearly all the modern information available about Bajour. The autobiography of Baber (by Leyden and Erskine) gives interesting details about the country in the 16th century. For the connexion between the Kafirs and the ancient Nysaeans of Swat, see R. G. S. Journal, vol. vii., 1896.

(T. H. H.*)

BAJZA, JOSEPH (1804-1858), Hungarian poet and critic, was born at Szücsi in 1804. His earliest contributions were made to Kisfaludy's Aurora, a literary paper of which he was editor from 1830 to 1837. He also wrote largely in the Kritische Blätter, the Athenaeum, and the Figyelmezö or Observer. His criticisms on dramatic art were considered the best of these miscellaneous writings. In 1830 he published translations of some foreign dramas, Ausländische Bühna, and in 1835 a collection of his own poems. In 1837 he was made director of the newly established national theatre at Pest. He then, for some years, devoted himself to historical writing, and published in succession the Historical Library (Törtereti Könyvtár), 6 vols., 1843-1845; the Modern Plutarch (Uj Plutarch), 1845-1847; and the Universal History (Világtörétet), 1847. These works are to some extent translations from German authors. In 1847 Bajza edited the journal of the opposition, Ellenör, at Leipzig, and in March 1848 Kossuth made him editor of his paper, Kossuth Hirlapja. In 1850 he was attacked with brain disease and died in 1858.

BAKALAI (Bakalé, Bangouens), a Bantu negroid tribe inhabiting a wide tract of French Congo between the river Ogowé and 2° S. They appear to be immigrants from the south-east, and have been supposed to be connected racially with the Galoa, one of the Mpongwe tribes and the chief river-people of the Ogowé. The Bakalai have suffered much from the incursions of their neighbours the Fang, also arrivals from the south-east, and it may be that they migrated to their present abode under pressure from this people at an earlier date. They are keen hunters and were traders in slaves and rubber; the slave traffic has been prohibited by the French authorities. Their women display considerable ingenuity in dressing their hair, often taking a whole day to arrange a coiffure; the hair is built up on a substructure of clay and a good deal of false hair incorporated; a coat of red, green or yellow pigment often completes the effect. The same colours are used to decorate the hut doors. The villages, some of which are fortified with palisades, are usually very dirty; chiefs and rich men own plantations which are situated at some distance from the village and to which their womenfolk are sent in times of war. The Bakalai of Lake Isanga cremate their dead; those of the Upper Ogowé throw the bodies into the river, with the exception of those killed in war. The body of a chief is placed secretly in a hut erected in the depths of the forest, and the village is deserted for that night, in some cases altogether; the slaves of the deceased are (or were) sacrificed, and his wives scourged and secluded in huts for a week. "Natural" deaths are attributed to the machinations of a sorcerer, and the poison-ordeal is often practised. Of their social organization little is known, but it appears that nearly all individuals refrain from eating the flesh of some particular animal.

BAKE, JAN (1787-1864), Dutch philologist and critic, was born at Leiden on the 1st of September 1787, and from 1817 to 1854 he was professor of Greek and Roman literature at the university. He died on the 26th of March 1864. His principal works are:—Posidonii Rhodii Reliquiae Doctrinae (1810); Cleomedis Circularis Doctrina de Sublimitate (1820); Bibliotheca Critica Nova (1825-1831) and Scholica Hypomnemata (1837-1862), a collection of essays dealing mainly with Cicero and the Attic orators; Cicero, De Legibus (1842) and De Oratore (1863); the Rhetorica of Apsines and Longinus (1849).

His biography was written (in Dutch) by his pupil Bakhuizen van der Brink (1865); for an appreciation of his services to classical literature see L. Müller, Geschichte der klassischen Philologie in den Niederlanden (1869).

BAKER, SIR BENJAMIN (1840-1907), English engineer, was born near Bath in 1840, and, after receiving his early training in a South Wales ironworks, became associated with Sir John Fowler in London. He took part in the construction of the Metropolitan railway (London), and in designing the cylindrical vessel in which Cleopatra's Needle, now standing on the Thames Embankment, London, was brought over from Egypt to England in 1877-1878. By this time he had already made himself an authority on bridge-construction, and shortly afterwards he was engaged on the work which made his reputation with the general public—the design and erection of the Forth Bridge. On the completion of this undertaking in 1890 he was made K.C.M.G., and in the same year the Royal Society recognized his scientific attainments by electing him one of its fellows. Twelve years later at the formal opening of the Assuan dam, for which he was consulting-engineer, he was created K.C.B. Sir Benjamin Baker, who also had a large share in the introduction of the system widely adopted in London of constructing intra-urban railways in deep tubular tunnels built up of cast iron segments, obtained an extremely large professional practice, ranging over almost every branch of civil engineering, and was more or less directly concerned with most of the great engineering achievements of his day. He was also the author of many papers on engineering subjects. He died at Pangbourne, Berks, on the 19th of May 1907.

BAKER, HENRY (1698-1774), English naturalist, was born in London on the 8th of May 1698. After serving an apprenticeship with a bookseller, he devised a system of instructing the deaf and dumb, by the practice of which he made a considerable fortune. It brought him to the notice of Daniel Defoe, whose youngest daughter Sophia he married in 1729. A year before, under the name of Henry Stonecastle, he was associated with Defoe in starting the Universal Spectator and Weekly Journal. In 1740 he was elected fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and of the Royal Society. He contributed many memoirs to the Transactions of the latter society, and in 1744 received the Copley gold medal for microscopical observations on the crystallization of saline particles. He was one of the founders of the Society of Arts in 1754, and for some time acted as its secretary. He died in London on the 25th of November 1774. Among his publications were The Microscope made Easy (1743), Employment for the Microscope (1753), and several volumes of verse, original and translated, including The Universe, a Poem intended to restrain the Pride of Man (1727). His name is perpetuated by the Bakerian lecture of the Royal Society, for the foundation of which he left by will the sum of £100.

BAKER, SIR RICHARD (1568-1644/5), author of the Chronicle of the Kings of England and other works, was probably born at Sissinghurst in Kent, and entered Hart Hall, Oxford, as a commoner in 1584. He left the university without taking a degree, studied law in London and afterwards travelled in Europe. In 1593 he was chosen member of parliament for Arundel, in 1594 his university conferred upon him the degree of M.A., and in 1597 he was elected to parliament as the representative of East Grinstead. In 1603 he was knighted by King James I., in 1620 he acted as high sheriff at Oxfordshire where he owned some property, and soon afterwards he married Margaret, daughter of Sir George Mainwaring, of Ightfield, Shropshire. By making himself responsible for some debts of his wife's family, he was reduced to great poverty, which led to the seizure of his Oxfordshire property in 1625. Quite penniless, he took refuge in the Fleet prison in 1635, and was still in confinement when he died on the 18th of February 1644 (1645). He was buried in the church of St Bride, Fleet Street, London.

During his imprisonment Baker spent his time mainly in writing. His chief work is the Chronicle of the Kings of England from the Time of the Romans' Government unto the Death of King James (1643, and many subsequent editions). It was translated into Dutch in 1649, and was continued down to 1658 by Edward Phillips, a nephew of John Milton. For many years the Chronicle was extremely popular, but owing to numerous inaccuracies its historical value is very slight. Baker also wrote Cato Variegatus or Catoes Morall Distichs, Translated and Paraphrased by Sir Richard Baker, Knight (London, 1636); Meditations on the Lord's Prayer (1637); Translation of New Epistles by Moonsieur D'Balzac (1638); Apologie for Laymen's Writing in Divinity, with a Short Meditation upon the Fall of Lucifer (1641); Motives for Prayer upon the seaven dayes of ye weeke (1642); a translation of Malvezzi's Discourses upon Cornelius Tacitus (1642), and Theatrum Redivivum, or The Theatre Vindicated, a reply to the Histrio-Mastix of William Prynne (1642). He also wrote Meditations upon several of the psalms of David, which have been collected and edited by A. B. Grosart (London, 1882).

See J. Granger, Biographical History of England to the Revolution (London, 1804); Biographia Britannica, corrected by A. Kippis (London, 1778-1793).

BAKER, SIR SAMUEL WHITE (1821-1893), English explorer, was born in London on the 8th of June 1821. He was educated partly in England and partly in Germany. His father, a West India merchant, destined him for a commercial career, but a short experience of office work proved him to be entirely unsuited to such a life. On the 3rd of August 1843 he married Henrietta Biddulph Martin, daughter of the rector of Maisemore, Gloucestershire, and after two years in Mauritius the desire for travel took him in 1846 to Ceylon, where in the following year he founded an agricultural settlement at Nuwara Eliya, a mountain health-resort. Aided by his brother, he brought emigrants thither from England, together with choice breeds of cattle, and before long the new settlement was a success. During his residence in Ceylon he published, as a result of many adventurous hunting expeditions, The Rifle and the Hound in Ceylon (1853), and two years later Eight Years' Wanderings in Ceylon (1855). After a journey to Constantinople and the Crimea in 1856, he found an outlet for his restless energy by undertaking the supervision of the construction of a railway across the Dobrudja, connecting the Danube with the Black Sea. After its completion he spent some months in a tour in south-eastern Europe and Asia Minor. It was during this time that he met in Hungary the lady who (in 1860) became his second wife, Florence, daughter of Finnian von Sass, his first wife having died in 1855. In March 1861 he started upon his first tour of exploration in central Africa. This, in his own words, was undertaken "to discover the sources of the Nile, with the hope of meeting the East African expedition under Captains Speke and Grant somewhere about the Victoria Lake." After a year spent on the Sudan-Abyssinian border, during which time he learnt Arabic, explored the Atbara and other Nile tributaries, and proved that the Nile sediment came from Abyssinia, he arrived at Khartum, leaving that city in December 1862 to follow up the course of the White Nile. Two months later at Gondokoro he met Speke and Grant, who, after discovering the source of the Nile, were following the river to Egypt. Their success made him fear that there was nothing left for his own expedition to accomplish; but the two explorers generously gave him information which enabled him, after separating from them, to achieve the discovery of Albert Nyanza, of whose existence credible assurance had already been given to Speke and Grant. Baker first sighted the lake on the 14th of March 1864. After some time spent in the exploration of the neighbourhood, during which Baker demonstrated that the Nile flowed through the Albert Nyanza—of whose size he formed an exaggerated idea—he started upon his return journey, and reached Khartum after many checks in May 1865. In the following October he returned to England with his wife, who had accompanied him throughout the whole of the perilous and arduous journey. In recognition of the achievements by which Baker had indissolubly linked his name with the solution of the problem of the Nile sources, the Royal Geographical Society awarded him its gold medal, and a similar distinction was bestowed on him by the Paris Geographical Society. In August 1866 he was knighted. In the same year he published The Albert N'yanza, Great Basin of the Nile, and Explorations of the Nile Sources, and in 1867 The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia, both books quickly going through several editions. In 1868 he published a popular story called Cast up by the Sea. In 1869 he attended the prince of Wales, afterwards King Edward VII., in a tour through Egypt. In the same year, at the request of the khedive Ismail, Baker undertook the command of a military expedition to the equatorial regions of the Nile, with the object of suppressing the slave-trade there and opening the way to commerce and civilization. Before starting from Cairo with a force of 1700 Egyptian troops—many of them discharged convicts—he was given the rank of pasha and major-general in the Ottoman army. Lady Baker, as before, accompanied him. The khedive appointed him governor-general of the new territory for four years at a salary of £10,000 a year; and it was not until the expiration of that time that Baker returned to Cairo, leaving his work to be carried on by the new governor, Colonel Charles George Gordon. He had to contend with innumerable difficulties—the blocking of the river by sudd, the bitter hostility of officials interested in the slave-trade, the armed opposition of the natives—but he succeeded in planting in the new territory the foundations upon which others could build up an administration. He returned to England with his wife in 1874, and in the following year purchased the estate of Sandford Orleigh in South Devon, where he made his home for the rest of his life. He published his narrative of the central African expedition under the title of Ismailia (1874). Cyprus as I saw it in 1879 was the result of a visit to that island. He spent several winters in Egypt, and travelled in India, the Rocky Mountains and Japan in search of big game, publishing in 1890 Wild Beasts and their Ways. He kept up an exhaustive and vigorous correspondence with men of all shades of opinion upon Egyptian affairs, strongly opposing the abandonment of the Sudan and subsequently urging its reconquest. Next to these, questions of maritime defence and strategy chiefly attracted him in his later years. He died at Sandford Orleigh on the 30th of December 1893.

See, besides his own writings, Sir Samuel Baker, a Memoir, by T. Douglas Murray and A. Silva White (London, 1895).

BAKER, THOMAS (1656-1740), English antiquary, was born on the 14th of September 1656 at Lanchester, Durham. He was the grandson of Colonel Baker of Crook, Durham, who won fame in the civil war by his defence of Newcastle against the Scots. He was educated at the free school at Durham, and proceeded thence in 1672 to St John's College, Cambridge, where he afterwards obtained a fellowship. Lord Crew, bishop of Durham, collated him to the rectory of Long-Newton in his diocese in 1687, and intended to give him that of Sedgefield with a prebend had not Baker incurred his displeasure by refusing to read James II.'s Declaration of Indulgence. The bishop who disgraced him for this refusal, and who was afterwards specially excepted from William's Act of Indemnity, took the oaths to that king and kept his bishopric till his death. Baker, on the other hand, though he had opposed James, refused to take the oaths to William; he resigned Long-Newton on the 1st of August 1690, and retired to St John's, in which he was protected till the 20th of January 1716-1717, when he and one-and-twenty others were deprived of their fellowships. After the passing of the Registering Act in 1723, he could not be prevailed on to comply with its requirements by registering his annuity of £40, although that annuity, left him by his father, with £20 per annum from his elder brother's collieries, was now his whole subsistence. He retained a lively sense of the injuries he had suffered; and inscribed himself in all his own books, as well as in those which he gave to the college library, socius ejectus, and in some rector ejectus. He continued to reside in the college as commoner-master till his sudden death from apoplexy on the 2nd of July 1740. The whole of his valuable books and manuscripts he bequeathed to the university. The only works he published were, Reflections on Learning, showing the Insufficiency thereof in its several particulars, in order to evince the usefulness and necessity of Revelation (Lond., 1709-1710) and the preface to Bishop Fisher's Funeral Sermon for Margaret, Countess of Richmond and Derby (1708)—both without his name. His valuable manuscript collections relative to the history and antiquities of the university of Cambridge, amounting to thirty-nine volumes in folio and three in quarto, are divided between the British Museum and the public library at Cambridge,—the former possessing twenty-three volumes, the latter sixteen in folio and three in quarto.

The life of Baker was written by Robert Masters (Camb., 1784), and by Horace Walpole in the quarto edition of his works.

BAKER, VALENTINE [Baker Pasha] (1827-1887), British soldier, was a younger brother of Sir Samuel Baker (q.v.). He was educated at Gloucester and in Ceylon, and in 1848 entered the Ceylon Rifles as an ensign. Soon transferred to the 12th Lancers, he saw active service with that regiment in the Kaffir war of 1852-53. In the Crimean War Baker was present at the action of Traktir (or Tchernaya) and at the fall of Sevastopol, and in 1859 he became major in the 10th Hussars, succeeding only a year later to the command. This position he held for thirteen years, during which period the highest efficiency of his men was reached, and outside the regiment he did good service to his arm by his writings. He went through the wars of 1866 and 1870 as a spectator with the German armies, and in 1873 he started upon a famous journey through Khorassan. Though he was unable to reach Khiva the results of the journey afforded a great deal of political, geographical and military information, especially as to the advance of Russia in central Asia. In 1874 he was back in England and took up a staff appointment at Aldershot. Less than a year later Colonel Baker's career in the British army came to an untimely end. He was arrested on a charge of indecent assault upon a young woman in a railway carriage, and was sentenced to a year's imprisonment and a fine. His dismissal from the service was an inevitable consequence; it must be stated, however, that the view taken of the circumstances by good authorities was that Baker's conduct, when judged by conventional standards, admitted of considerable extenuation. He himself never opened his mouth in self-defence. Two years later, having meanwhile left England, he entered the service of Turkey in the war with Russia. At first in a high position in the gendarmerie, he was soon transferred to Mehemet's staff, and thence took over the command of a division of infantry. With this division Baker sustained the brilliant rearguard action of Tashkessan against the troops of Gourko. Promoted Ferik (lieutenant-general) for this feat, he continued to command Suleiman's rearguard with distinction. After the peace he was employed in an administrative post in Armenia, where he remained until 1882. In this year he was offered the command of the newly formed Egyptian army, which he accepted. On his arrival at Cairo, however, the offer was withdrawn and he only obtained the command of the Egyptian police. In this post he devoted by far the greater amount of his energy to the training of the gendarmerie, which he realized would be the reserve of the purely military forces.

When the Sudan War broke out, Baker, hastening with 3500 men to relieve Tokar, encountered the enemy under Osman Digna at El Teb. His men became panic-stricken at the first rush and allowed themselves to be slaughtered like sheep. Baker himself with a few of his officers succeeded by hard fighting in cutting a way out, but his force was annihilated. British troops soon afterwards arrived at Suakin, and Sir Gerald Graham took the offensive. Baker Pasha accompanied the British force, and guided it in its march to the scene of his defeat, and at the desperately-fought second battle of El Teb he was wounded. He remained in command of the Egyptian police until his death in 1887. Amongst his works may be mentioned Our National Defences (1860), War in Bulgaria, a Narrative of Personal Experience (London, 1879), Clouds in the East (London, 1876).

BAKER CITY, a city and the county-seat of Baker county, Oregon, U.S.A., about 337 m. E. by S. of Portland. Pop. (1890) 2604; (1900) 6663 (1017 foreign-born); (1910) 6742. The city is served by the Oregon Railroad & Navigation Company, and by the Sumpter Valley railway, a short line (62 m.) extending from Baker City to Austin, Oregon. Baker City lies in the valley of Powder river, at the base of the Blue Mountains, and has an elevation of about 3440 ft. above the sea. It is the largest city in eastern Oregon, and is the centre of important mining, lumber, farming and live-stock interests. It was laid out as a town in 1865, became the county-seat in 1868, and was chartered as a city in 1874. The county and the city were named in honour of Edward Dickinson Baker (1811-1861), a political leader, orator and soldier, who was born in London, England, was taken to the United States in 1815, was a representative in Congress from Illinois in 1845-1846 and 1849-1851, served in the Mexican War as a colonel (1846-1847), became a prominent lawyer in California and later in Oregon, was a Republican member of the United States Senate in 1860-1861 and was killed at Ball's Bluff, Virginia, on the 21st of October in 1861, while serving as a colonel in the Federal army.

BAKEWELL, ROBERT (1725-1795) English agriculturist, was born at Dishley, Leicestershire, in 1725. His father, a farmer at the same place, died in 1760, and Robert Bakewell then took over the management of the estate. By visiting a large number of farms all over the country, he had already acquired a wide theoretical knowledge of agriculture and stock-breeding; and this knowledge he now put to practical use at Dishley. His main object was to improve the breed of sheep and oxen, and in this he was highly successful, his new Leicestershire breed of sheep attaining within little more than half a century an international reputation, while the Dishley cattle (also known as the new Leicestershire long-horn) became almost as famous. He extended his breeding experiments to horses, producing a new and particularly useful type of farm-horse. He was the first to establish the trade in ram-letting on a large scale, and founded the Dishley Society, the object of which was to ensure purity of breed. The value of his own stock was quickly recognized, and in one year he made 1200 guineas from the letting of a single ram. Bakewell's agricultural experiments were not confined to stock-breeding. His reputation stood high in every detail of farm-management, and as an improver of grass land by systematic irrigation he had no rival. He died on the 1st of October 1795.

BAKEWELL, ROBERT (1768-1843), English geologist, was born in 1768. He was an able observer, and deserving of mention as one of the earliest teachers of general and practical geology. His Introduction to Geology (1813) contained much sound information, and reached a fifth edition in 1838. The second edition was translated and published in Germany, and the third and fourth editions were reprinted in America by Professor Silliman of Yale College. Bakewell as author also of an Introduction to Mineralogy (1819), and of Travels comprising Observations made during a Residence in the Tarentaise, &c. (2 vols., 1823). He died at Hampstead on the 15th of August 1843.

BAKEWELL, a market-town in the western parliamentary division of Derbyshire, England, on the river Wye, 25 m. N.N.W. of Derby, on the Midland railway. Pop. of urban district (1901) 2850. The church of All Saints is mentioned in Domesday, and tradition ascribes the building of its nave to King John, while the western side of the tower must be older still. Within are some admirable specimens of encaustic tiles, and several monuments of the Vernon and Manners families; while an ancient runic rood-stone stands in the churchyard. Zinc and marble are worked in the neighbourhood. The cotton manufacture was established in the town by Sir Richard Arkwright. Bakewell is noted for a chalybeate spring, of use in cases of chronic rheumatism, and there are baths attached to it. A kind of jam-cake, called a "Bakewell pudding," gives another sort of fame to the place. The almshouses, known as St John's hospital, were founded in 1602; and in 1637 a free grammar school was endowed by Lady Grace Manners. Among modern buildings may be mentioned the Bakewell and High Peak Institute, and the town hall and museum. On Castle Hill, in the vicinity, are the remains of an earthwork, said to have been raised by Edward the Elder in 924. Within the parish are included the mansions of Burton Closes and Castle Hill. Two miles from the town, amidst beautiful gardens and meadows, is Haddon Hall. To the east lies the magnificent domain of Chatsworth. The scenery of the neighbourhood, in both the Wye and the Derwent valleys, is very beautiful; the village of Eyam (pronounced Eem) near the Derwent may be noticed as specially picturesque. The plague of 1665, carried hither from London, almost depopulated this village, and the name of the rector, William Mompesson, attracted wide notice on account of his brave attempts to combat the outbreak.

BAKHCHI-SARAI (Turk. for "garden-palace"), a town of Russia, in the government of Taurida, situated in a narrow gorge in the Crimea, 20 m. by rail S.S.W. of Simferopol. From the close of the 15th century down to 1783 it was the residence of the Tatar khans of the Crimea; and its streets wear a decidedly oriental look. The principal building, the palace, or Khan-sarai, was originally erected in 1519 by Abdul-Sahal-Ghirai, destroyed in 1736, and restored at Potemkin's command for the reception of Catherine II. Attached to it is a mausoleum, which contains the tombs of many of the khans. There are in the place no fewer then thirty-six mosques. The population consists for the most part of Tatars. Bakhchi-sarai manufactures morocco, sheepskin cloaks, agricultural implements, sabres and cutlery. Pop. (1897) 12,955. Two and a half miles to the east is Chufut-Kaleh (or Jews' city), formerly the chief seat of the Karaite Jews of the Crimea, situated on lofty and almost inaccessible cliffs; it is now deserted except by the rabbi. Between Bakhchi-sarai and Chufut-kaleh is the Uspenskiy monastery, clinging like a swallow's nest to the face of the cliffs, and the scene of a great pilgrimage on the 15th (29th) of August every year.

BAKHMUT, a town of Russia, in the government of Ekaterinoslav, near the river from which it derives its name, 136 m. E. of the town of Ekaterinoslav. It owed its origin in the latter half of the 17th century to the discovery of salt-springs, and now produces coal, salt, alabaster and quicksilver, and manufactures steel rails. Pop. (1897) 19,416.

BAKHTIÁRI, one of the great nomad tribes of Persia, whose camping-grounds are in the hilly district, known as the Bakhtiári province. This province extends from Chaharmahal (west of Isfahan) in the E., to near Shushter in the W., and separated from Luristan in the N. by the Dizful river (Ab i Diz), and in the S touches Behbahan and Ram Hormuz. The Bakhtiári are divided into the two great divisions Haft-lang and Chahar-lang, and a number of branches and clans, and were known until the 15th century as the "Great Lurs," the "Little Lurs" being the tribes settled in the district now known as Luristan, with Khorremábád as capital. According to popular tradition the Lurs originally came from Syria in the 10th century, but it is now held that they were in Persia long, perhaps fifteen centuries, before. They speak the Lur language, a Persian dialect. The Bakhtiári number about 38,000 or 40,000 families, under 200,000 souls, while the area of the district occupied by them is about 25,000 sq. m. In the middle of the 19th century they could put 20,000 well-equipped horsemen into the field, but in consequence of misrule and long-lasting feuds between the different branches, which the government often fostered, or even instigated, the district has become poor, and it would now be difficult to find 4000 horsemen. The province is under the governor-general of Arabistan, and pays a yearly tribute of about £5000. The chiefs of the Bakhtiári in 1897, having obtained the shah's permission for improving the road between Shushter or Ahvaz and Isfahan, an iron suspension bridge with a span of 120 ft. was erected over the Karun river at Gudár i Bulútek; another, with a span of 70 ft., over the Bázuft river at Pul i Amárat; and a stone bridge over the Karun at Do-pu-lán.

For accounts of the Bakhtiari see Mrs Bishop (Isabella Bird), Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan (London, 1893); C. de Bode, Travels in Luristan (London, 1841); Lord Curzon, Persia and the Persian Question, vol. ii. 283-303 (London, 1892); Sir H. Layard, Early Adventures in Persia (London, 1894).

(A. H.-S.)

BAKING, the action of the verb "to bake," a word, in various forms, common to Teutonic languages (cf. Ger. backen), meaning to cook by dry heat. "Baking" is thus primarily applied to the process of preparing bread, and is also applied to the hardening by heat or "firing" of pottery, earthenware or bricks. (See Bread; Ceramics and Brick.)

BAKIS (i.e. "speaker," from βάζω), a general name for the inspired prophets and dispensers of oracles who flourished in Greece from the 8th to the 6th century B.C. Suidas mentions three: a Boeotian, an Arcadian and an Athenian. The first, who was the most famous, was said to have been inspired by the nymphs of the Corycian cave. His oracles, of which specimens are extant in Herodotus and Pausanias, were written in hexameter verse, and were considered to have been strikingly fulfilled. The Arcadian was said to have cured the women of Sparta of a fit of madness. Many of the oracles which were current under his name have been attributed to Onomacritus.

Herodotus viii. 20, 77, ix. 43; Pausanias iv. 27, ix. 17, x. 12; Schol. Aristoph. Pax, 1070; see Göttling, Opuscula Academica (1869).

BAKÓCZ, TAMÁS, Cardinal (1442-1521), Hungarian ecclesiastic and statesman, was the son of a wagoner, adopted by his uncle, who trained him for the priesthood and whom he succeeded as rector of Tétel (1480). Shortly afterwards he became one of the secretaries of King Matthias I., who made him bishop of Gyor and a member of the royal council (1490). Under Wladislaus II. (1490-1516) he became successively bishop of Eger, the richest of the Hungarian sees, archbishop of Esztergom (1497), cardinal (1500), and titular patriarch of Constantinople (1510). From 1490 to his death in 1521 he was the leading statesman of Hungary and mainly responsible for her foreign policy. It was solely through his efforts that Hungary did not accede to the league of Cambrai, was consistently friendly with Venice, and formed a family compact with the Habsburgs. He was also the only Magyar prelate who seriously aspired to the papal throne. In 1513, on the death of Julius II., he went to Rome for the express purpose of bringing about his own election as pope. He was received with more than princely pomp, and all but succeeded in his design, thanks to his extraordinary adroitness and the command of an almost unlimited bribing-fund. But Venice and the emperor played him false, and he failed. He returned to Hungary as papal legate, bringing with him the bull of Leo X. proclaiming a fresh crusade against the Turks. But the crusade degenerated into a jacquerie which ravaged the whole kingdom, and much discredited Bakócz. He lost some of his influence at first after the death of Wladislaus, but continued to be the guiding spirit at court, till age and infirmity confined him almost entirely to his house in the last three years of his life. Bakócz was a man of great ability but of no moral principle whatever. His whole life was a tissue of treachery. He was false to his benefactor Matthias, false to Matthias's son János Corvinus (q.v.), whom he chicaned out of the throne, and false to his accomplice in that transaction, Queen Beatrice. His rapacity disgusted even an age in which every one could be bought and sold. His attempt to incorporate the wealthy diocese of Transylvania with his own primatial province was one of the principal causes of the spread of the Reformation in Hungary. He left a fortune of many millions. His one redeeming feature was a love of art; his own cathedral was a veritable Pantheon.

See Vilmos Fraknoi, Tamás Bakócz (Hung.) (Budapest, 1889).

(R. N. B.)

BAKRI [Abū ‛Ubaid ‛Abdallah ibn ‛Abd ul-‛Azīz ul-Bakrī], (1040-1094), Arabian geographer, was born at Cordova. His best-known work is the dictionary of geographical names which occur in the poets, with an introduction on the seats of the Arabian tribes. This has been edited by F. Wüstenfeld (Göttingen, 1876-1877). Another of his works was a general geography of the world, which exists in manuscript. The part referring to North Africa was edited by M^cG. de Slane (Algiers, 1857).

See C. Brockelmann's Gesch. der Arab. Litteratur (Weimar, 1898), vol. i. p. 476.

BAKU, a government of Russian Transcaucasia, stretching along the west coast of the Caspian Sea from 41° 50′ to 38° 30′ N. lat., and bounded on the W. by the government of Elisavetpol and the province of Daghestan, and on the S. by Persia. It includes the Kuba plain on the north-east slope of the Caucasus; the eastern extremity of that range from the Shad-dagh (13,960 ft.) and the Bazardyuz (14,727 ft.) to the Caspian, where it terminates in the Apsheron peninsula; the steppes of the lower Kura and Aras on the south of the Caucasus, and a narrow coast-belt between the Anti-Caucasus and the Caspian. The last-mentioned region lies partly round the Kizil-agach Bay, opening to the south. Area of government, 15,172 sq. m. Both slopes of the Caucasus are very fertile and well irrigated, with fine forests, fields of rice and other cereals, and flourishing gardens. The steppes of the Kura are also fertile, but require artificial irrigation, especially for cotton. In addition to agriculture and cattle-breeding, the vine and mulberry are extensively grown. The Apsheron peninsula is dry and bare of vegetation; but within it are situated the famous petroleum wells of Baku. These, which go down to depths of 700 to 1700 ft., yield crude naphtha, from which the petroleum or kerosene is distilled; while the heavier residue (mazut) is used as lubricating oil and for fuel, for instance in the locomotives of the Transcaspian railway. Whereas in 1863 the output was only 5500 tons of crude naphtha, in 1904 it amounted to 9,833,600 tons; but business was much injured by a serious fire in 1905. The oil-fields lie around the town of Baku: the largest, that of Balakhany-Sabunchi-Romany (6 sq. m.), is 8½ m. north of the town; that of Bibi-Eybat, is 3½ m. south; the "black town" (Nobel's) is 2 m. south-east; and beyond the last names is the "white town" (Rothschild's). The lighter oil is conveyed to Batum on the Black Sea in pipes, and is there shipped for export; the heavier oils reach the same port and the ports of Novorossiysk and Poti, also on the Black Sea, in tank railway-cars. At Surakhani, 13 m. east of the town, is the now disused temple of the Parsee fire-worshippers, who were attracted thither by the natural fountains of inflammable gas.

The government is divided into six districts, the chief towns of which are Baku (the capital of the government), Geok-chai (pop. 2247 in 1897), Kuba (15,346), Lenkoran (8768), Salyany (10,168), in district of Jevat, and Shemakha (20,008). The population numbered 828,511 in 1897, of whom the major part were Tatars; other races were Russians, the Iranian tribes of the Tates (89,519) and Talysh (34,994), Armenians (52,233) and the Caucasian mountaineers known as Kurins.

BAKU, the chief town of the government of the same name, in Russian Transcaucasia, on the south side of the peninsula of Apsheron, in 40° 21′ N. and 49° 50′ E. It is connected by rail with the south Russian railway system at Beslan, the junction for Vladikavkaz (400 m.), via Derbent and Petrovsk, with Batum (560 m.) and Poti (536 m.) on the Black Sea via Tiflis. A long stone quay next the harbour is backed by the new town climbing up the slopes behind. To the west is the old town, consisting of steep, narrow, winding streets, and presenting a decidedly oriental appearance. Here are the ruins of a palace of the native khans, built in the 16th century; the mosques of the Persian shahs, built in 1078 and now converted into an arsenal; nearer the sea the "maidens' tower," transformed into a lighthouse; and not far from it remains of ancient walls projecting above the sea, and showing traces of Arabic architecture of the 9th and 10th centuries. Beside the harbour are engineering works, dry docks and barracks, stores and workshops belonging to the Russian Caspian fleet. Besides the petroleum refineries the town possesses oil-works (for fuel), flour-mills, sulphuric acid works and tobacco factories. Owing to its excellent harbour Baku is a chief depot for merchandise coming from Persia and Transcaspia—raw cotton, silk, rice, wine, fish, dried fruit and timber—and for Russian manufactured goods. The climate is extreme, the mean temperature for the year being 58° F., for January 38°, for July 80°; annual rainfall 9.4 in. A wind of exceptional violence blows sometimes from the N.N.W. in winter. Pop. (1860) 13,381; (1897) 112,253; (1900) 179,133. The town is mentioned by the Arab geographer, Masudi, in the 10th century. From 1509 it was in the possession of the Persians. The Russians captured it from them in 1723, but restored it in 1735; it was incorporated in the Russian empire in 1806. In 1904-1905, in consequence of the general political anarchy, serious conflicts took place here between the Tatars and the Armenians, and two-thirds of the Balakhani and Bibi-Eybat oil-works were burned.

See Marvin, The Region of the Eternal Fire (ed. 1891) and J. D. Henry, Baku, an Eventful History (1906).

(P. A. K.)

BAKUNIN, MIKHAIL (1814-1876), Russian anarchist, was born of an aristocratic family at Torjok, in the government of Tver, in 1814. As an officer of the Imperial Guard, he saw service in Poland, but resigned his commission from a disgust of despotism aroused by witnessing the repressive methods employed against the Poles. He proceeded to Germany, studied Hegel, and soon got into touch with the leaders of the young German movement in Berlin. Thence he went to Paris, where he met Proudhon and George Sand, and also made the acquaintance of the chief Polish exiles. From Paris he journeyed to Switzerland, where he resided for some time, taking an active share in all socialistic movements. While in Switzerland he was ordered by the Russian government to return to Russia, and on his refusal his property was confiscated. In 1848, on his return to Paris, he published a violent tirade against Russia, which caused his expulsion from France. The revolutionary movement of 1848 gave him the opportunity of entering upon a violent campaign of democratic agitation, and for his participation in the Dresden insurrection of 1849 he was arrested and condemned to death. The death sentence, however, was commuted to imprisonment for life, and he was eventually handed over to the Russian authorities, by whom he was imprisoned and finally sent to eastern Siberia in 1855. He received permission to remove to the Amur region, whence he succeeded in escaping, making his way through Japan and the United States to England in 1861. He spent the rest of his life in exile in western Europe, principally in Switzerland. In 1869 he founded the Social Democratic Alliance, which, however, dissolved in the same year, and joined the International (q.v.). In 1870 he attempted a rising at Lyons on the principles afterwards exemplified by the Paris Commune. At the Hague congress of the International in 1872 he was outvoted and expelled by the Marx party. He retired to Lugano in 1873 and died at Bern on the 13th of June 1876.

Nothing can be clearer or more frank and comprehensive in its destructiveness than the revolutionary anarchism of Bakunin. He rejects all the ideal systems in every name and shape, from the idea of God downwards; and every form of external authority, whether emanating from the will of a sovereign or from universal suffrage. "The liberty of man," he says in his Dieu et l'État (published posthumously in 1882) "consists solely in this, that he obeys the laws of nature, because he has himself recognized them as such, and not because they have been imposed upon him externally by any foreign will whatsoever, human or divine, collective or individual." In this way will the whole problem of freedom be solved, that natural laws be ascertained by scientific discovery, and the knowledge of them be universally diffused among the masses. Natural laws being thus recognized by every man for himself, he cannot but obey them, for they are the laws also of his own nature; and the need for political organization, administration and legislation will at once disappear. Nor will he admit of any privileged position or class, for "it is the peculiarity of privilege and of every privileged position to kill the intellect and heart of man. The privileged man, whether he be privileged politically or economically, is a man depraved in intellect and heart." "In a word, we object to all legislation, all authority, and all influence, privileged, patented, official and legal, even when it has proceeded from universal suffrage, convinced that it must always turn to the profit of a dominating and exploiting minority, against the interests of the immense majority enslaved." Bakunin's methods of realizing his revolutionary programme are not less frank and destructive than his principles. The revolutionist, as he would recommend him to be, is a consecrated man, who will allow no private interests or feelings, and no scruples of religion, patriotism or morality, to turn him aside from his mission, the aim of which is by all available means to overturn the existing society. (See Anarchism.)

BA-KWIRI, a Bantu nation of German Cameroon, West Africa. According to tradition they are migrants from the eastward. The "Brushmen," for that is the meaning of their name, are grouped in about sixty separate clans. They are a lively intelligent people, brave fighters and daring hunters, and in their love of songs, music and elocution are superior to many negro races. Their domestic affections are strongly developed. Their chief physical peculiarity is the great disparity between the size and complexion of the sexes, most of the women being much shorter and far lighter in colour than the men. The Ba-Kwiri are generous and open-handed among themselves; but the law of blood for blood is mercilessly fulfilled, even in cases of accidental homicide. Their religion is ancestor-worship blended with witchcraft and magic. They believe in good and evil spirits, those of the forests and seas being especially feared. In common with their neighbours the Dualla (q.v.) the Ba-Kwiri possess a curious drum language. By drum-tapping news is conveyed from clan to clan. Slaves and women are not allowed to master this language, but all the initiated are bound to repeat it so as to pass the messages on. The Ba-Kwiri have also a horn language peculiar to themselves.

BALA, a market-town and urban district of Merionethshire, N. Wales, at the north end of Bala Lake, 17 m. N.E. of Dolgelley (Dolgellau). Pop. (1901) 1554. It is little more than one wide street. Its manufactures are flannel, stockings, gloves and hosiery (for which it was well known in the 18th century). The Tower of Bala (some 30 ft. high by 50 diameter) is a tumulus or "moat-hill," formerly thought to mark the site of a Roman camp. The theological college of the Calvinistic Methodists and the grammar school (endowed), which was founded in 1712, are the chief features, together with the statue of the Rev. Thomas Charles, the distinguished theological writer, to whom was largely due the foundation of the British and Foreign Bible Society. Bala Lake, the largest in Wales (4 m. long by some ¾ m. wide), is subject to sudden and dangerous floods, deep and clear, and full of pike, perch, trout, eel and gwyniad. The gwyniad (Caregonus) is peculiar to certain waters, as those of Bala Lake, and is fully described by Thomas Pennant in his Zoology (1776).

The lake (Llyn Tegid) is crossed by the Dee, local tradition having it that the waters of the two never mix, like those of Alpheus and the sea.

BALAAM (בִּלְעָם Bil‛am; Βαλαάμ; Vg. Balaam; the etymology of the name is uncertain), a prophet in the Bible. Balaam, the son of Beor, was a Gentile seer; he appears in the history of the Israelites during their sojourn in the plains of Moab, east of Jordan, at the close of the Forty Years' wandering, shortly before the death of Moses and the crossing of the Jordan. Israel had conquered two kings of eastern Palestine—Sihon, king of the Amorites, and Og, king of Bashan. Balak, king of Moab, became alarmed, and sent for Balaam to curse Israel; Balaam came after some hesitation, but when he sought to curse Israel Yahweh compelled him to bless them.

The main passage concerning Balaam in Num. xxii-xxv.; it consists of a narrative which serves as a framework for seven oracular poems, the first four being of some length and the last three very brief. The story is doubtless based on ancient traditions, current in various forms; the Old Testament references are not wholly consistent.

The narrative in Num. xxii. ff. is held to be compiled with editorial additions from the two ancient documents (900-700 B.C.) commonly denoted by the symbols J and E The distribution of the material between the two documents is uncertain; but some such scheme as the following is not improbable. The references to portions the origin of which is especially uncertain are placed in brackets ( ).

The present narrative, therefore, is not really a single continuous story, but may be resolved into two older accounts. In combining these two and using them as a framework for the poems, the compilers have altered, added and omitted. Naturally, when both documents made statements which were nearly identical, one might be omitted; so that neither account need be given in full in the composite passage. The two older accounts, as far as they are given here, may have run somewhat thus: restorations of supposed omissions are given in square brackets [ ].

(i) J. xxii. 3b-5a to "Beor" (5c to "to the land"—7, 11, 17, 18). Balak, king of Moab, alarmed at the Israelite conquests, sends elders of Moab and Midian to Balaam, son of Beor, to the land of Ammon, to induce him to come and curse Israel. He sends back word that he can only do what Yahweh commands.

The land of Ammon. The current Hebrew Text has the land of ammo, i.e. as EV, "his people," but Ammon is read by the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Syriac and Vulgate Versions and some Hebrew MSS., and is accepted by many modern scholars.

xxii. 22-35a to "Balaam," also "Go" and "So Balaam went." Nevertheless Balaam sets out with two servants to go to Balak, but the Angel of Yahweh meets him. At first the Angel is seen only by the ass, which arouses Balaam's anger by its efforts to avoid the Angel. The ass is miraculously enabled to speak to Balaam. Yahweh at last enables Balaam to see the Angel, who tells him that he would have slain him but for the ass. Balaam offers to go back, but is told to go on.

Speaking animals are a common feature of folk-lore; the only other case in the Old Testament is the serpent in Eden. Maimonides suggested that the episode of the Angel and the conversation with the ass is an account of a vision; similar views have been held by E. W. Hengstenberg and other Christian scholars. Others, e.g. Volck in Hauck's Realencyklopadie (s. "Bileam"), regard the statements about the ass speaking as figurative; the ass brayed, and Balaam translated the sound into words. The ordinary literal interpretation is more probable; but it does not follow that the authors of the Pentateuch intended the story to be taken as historical in its details. It need hardly be said that the exact accuracy of such narratives is not an essential part of the Christian faith; no such doctrine is laid down by the creeds and confessions.

xxii. 36, 39, xxiv. 1, 2, 10-14, 25. Balak meets Balaam and they go together [and offer sacrifices]; Balaam, however, blesses Israel by divine inspiration; Balak remonstrates, but Balaam reminds him of his message and again blesses Israel. Then Balaam goes home. (For the relation of the poems to J's narrative, see below.)

(ii.) E. xxii. 2, 3a, 5b "to Pethor, which is by the river," 8-10, 12-16, 19-21, 37a, to "unto me," 38. Balak, king of Moab, alarmed at the conquests of Israel, sends the princes of Moab to Balaam at Pethor on the Euphrates, that he may come and curse Israel.

A. Jeremias, Das Alte Testament im Lichte des alten Orients, p. 278, adopts Marquart's view that the "River" (nahar) is the so-called "River" (better "Ravine" nahal) of Egypt or Musri, on the southern frontier of Judea. So too Winckler, in the new edition of E. Schrader's Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament. It has been usual to keep nahar and take it in its ordinary sense when used absolutely, i.e. the Euphrates, and to identify Pethor with a Pitru on a tributary of the Euphrates, mentioned in an inscription of Shalmaneser II. Deut. xxiii. 4 places Pethor in Mesopotamia.

God appears to him in a dream and forbids him to go. The princes return and report to Balak, who sends them back to put further pressure on Balaam. God in another dream permits him to go, on condition that he speaks what God tells him. He goes with the princes of Moab. Balak meets them, and Balaam warns him that he can only speak what God tells him.

xxii. 40, 41, xxiii. 1-6, 11-17. Balak offers sacrifices, but Yahweh inspires Balaam with a blessing on Israel. Balak remonstrates and Balaam explains. They try to get a more favourable result by sacrificing on a different spot, and by placing Balaam on the top of Pisgah to view Israel, but he is again compelled to bless Israel. After further remonstrances and explanations [Balaam goes home]. (For the relation of the poems to E's narrative, see below.)

Deut. xxiii. 3-6^[1] summarizes E's account of this incident, adding, however, the feature that the Ammonites were associated with the Moabites, possibly an imperfect reminiscence of the reference to Ammon in J. Joshua, in his farewell speech to the Israelites,^[2] also refers to this episode. The Priestly Code^[3] has a different story of Balaam, in which he advises the Midianites how they may bring disaster on Israel by seducing the people from their loyalty to Yahweh. Later on he is slain in battle, fighting in the ranks of Midian.

It is often supposed that the name of the king of Edom,^[4] Bela, son of Beor, is a corruption of Balaam, and that, therefore, one form of the tradition made him a king of Edom.

The Poems fall into two groups: the first four, in xxiii. 1.-xxiv. 19, are commonly regarded as ancient lyrics of the early monarchy, perhaps in the time of David or Solomon, which J and E inserted in their narrative. Some recent critics,^[5] however, are inclined to place them in the post-exilic period, in which case a late editor has substituted them for earlier, probably less edifying, oracles. But the features which are held to indicate late date may be due to editorial revision.

The first two are found in an E setting, and therefore, if ancient, formed part of E.

The First, xxiii. 7-10, prophesies the unique exaltation of Israel, and its countless numbers.

The Second, xxiii. 18-24, celebrates the moral virtue of Israel, the monarchy and its conquests.

Again the second couple are connected with J.

The Third, xxiv. 3-9, also celebrates the glory and conquests of the monarchy.

Agag, in verse 7, can hardly be the Amalekite king of 1 Sam. xv.; Amalek was too small and obscure. The Septuagint and other Greek Versions and Sam. Pent, have Gog, which would imply a post-exilic date, cf. Ezek. xxxix. Probably both Agag and Gog are textual corruptions. Og has been suggested, but does not seem a great improvement.

The Fourth, xxiv. 14-19, announces the coming of a king, possibly David, who shall conquer Edom and Moab.

The remaining poems are usually regarded as later additions; thus the Oxford Hexateuch on Num. xxiv. 20-24. "The three concluding oracles seem irrelevant here, being concerned neither with Israel nor Moab. It has been thought that they were added to bring the cycle up to seven."

The Fifth, xxiv. 20, deals with the ruin of Amalek. It is of uncertain date; if the historical Amalek is meant, it may be early; but Amalek may be symbolical.

The Sixth, xxiv. 21 f., deals with the destruction of the Kenite state by Assyria; also of uncertain date, Assyria being, according to some, the ancient realm of Nineveh, according to others the Seleucid kingdom of Syria, which was also called Assyria.

The Seventh, xxiv. 23 f., speaks of the coming of ships from the West, to attack Assur and "Eber"; it may refer to the conquest of Persia by Alexander the Great. An interesting, but doubtful, emendation makes this poem describe the ruin of Shamal, a state in N. W. Syria.

In the New Testament Balaam is cited as a type of avarice;^[6] in Rev. ii. 14 we read of false teachers at Pergamum who held the "teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to cast a stumbling-block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit fornication."

Balaam has attracted much interest, alike from Jews, Christians and Mahommedans. Josephus^[7] paraphrases the story more suo, and speaks of Balaam as the best prophet of his time, but with a disposition ill adapted to resist temptation. Philo describes him in the Life of Moses as a great magician; elsewhere^[8] he speaks of "the sophist Balaam, being," i.e. symbolizing, "a vain crowd of contrary and warring opinions"; and again^[9] as "a vain people"; both phrases being based on a mistaken etymology of the name Balaam. The later Targums and the Talmuds represent him as a typical sinner; and there are the usual worthless Rabbinical fables, e.g. that he was blind of one eye; that he was the Elihu of Job; that, as one of Pharaoh's counsellors, he was governor of a city of Ethiopia, and rebelled against Pharaoh; Moses was sent against him by Pharaoh at the head of an army, and stormed the city and put Balaam to flight, &c. &c.

Curiously enough, the Rabbinical (Yalkut) identification of Balaam with Laban, Jacob's father-in-law, has been revived from a very different standpoint, by a modern critic.^[10] The Mahommedans, also, have various fables concerning Balaam. He was one of the Anakim, or giants of Palestine; he read the books of Abraham, where he got the name Yahweh, by virtue of which he predicted the future, and got from God whatever he asked. It has been conjectured that the Arabic wise man, commonly called Luqman (q.v.), is identical with Balaam. The names of their fathers are alike, and "Luqman" means devourer, swallower, a meaning which might be got out of Balaam by a popular etymology.

If we might accept the various theories mentioned above, Balaam would appear in one source of J as an Edomite, in another as an Ammonite; in E as a native of the south of Judah or possibly as an Aramaean; in the tradition followed by the Priestly Code probably as a Midianite. All these peoples either belong to the Hebrew stock or are closely connected with it. We may conclude that Balaam was an ancient figure of traditions originally common to all the Hebrews and their allies, and afterwards appropriated by individual tribes; much as there are various St Georges.

The chief significance of the Balaam narratives for the history of the religion of Israel is the recognition by J and E of the genuine inspiration of a non-Hebrew prophet. Yahweh is as much the God of Balaam as he is of Moses. Probably the original tradition goes back to a time when Yahweh was recognized as a deity of a circle of connected tribes of which the Israelite tribes formed a part. But the retention of the story without modification may imply a continuous recognition through some centuries of the idea that Yahweh revealed his will to nations other than Israel.

Apparently the Priestly Code ignored this feature of the story.

Taking the narratives as we now have them, Balaam is a companion figure to Jonah, the prophet who wanted to go where he was not sent, over against the prophet who ran away from the mission to which he was called.

Bibliography.—Ewald, Geschichte des Volkes Israel³, Bd. ii. p. 298; Hengstenberg's Die Geschichte Bileams und seine Weissagungen (1842); the commentaries on the scriptural passages, especially G. B. Gray on Numbers xxii.-xxiv.; and the articles on "Balaam" (Bileam) in Hamburger's Realencyclopädie für Bibel und Talmud, Hastings' Bible Dict., Black and Cheyne's Encyclopaedia Biblica, Herozog-Hauck's Realencyklopadie. For the analysis into earlier documents, see also the Oxford Hexateuch, Estlin Carpenter and Harford-Battersby.

(W. H. Be.)

BALĀDHURĪ (Abū-l-‛Abbās Ahmad ibn Yahyā ibn Jābir al-Balādhurī), Arabian historian, was a Persian by birth, though his sympathies seem to have been strongly with the Arabs, for Mas‛ūdī refers to one of his works in which he refuted the Shu‛ūbites (see Abu ‛Ubaida). He lived at the court of the caliphs al-Mutawakkil and al-Musta‛īn and was tutor to the son of al-Mu‛tazz. He died in 892 as the result of a drug called balādhur (hence his name). The work by which he is best known is the Futūh ul-Buldān (Conquests of Lands), edited by M. J. de Goeje as Liber expugnationis regionum (Leiden, 1870; Cairo, 1901). This work is a digest of a larger one, which is now lost. It contains an account of the early conquests of Mahomet and the early caliphs. Balādhurī is said to have spared no trouble in collecting traditions, and to have visited various parts of north Syria and Mesopotamia for this purpose. Another great historical work of his was the Ansāb ul-Ashrāf (Genealogies of the Nobles), of which he is said to have written forty parts when he died. Of this work the eleventh book has been published by W. Ahlwardt (Greifswald, 1883), and another part is known in manuscript (see Journal of the German Oriental Society, vol. xxxviii. pp. 382-406). He also made some translations from Persian into Arabic.

(G. W. T.)

BALAGHAT (i.e. "above the ghats or passes," the highlands), a district of British India in the Nagpur division of the Central Provinces. The administrative headquarters are at the town of Burha. The district contains an area of 3132 sq. m. It forms the eastern portion of the central plateau which divides the province from east to west. These highlands, formerly known as the Raigarh Bichhia tract, remained desolate and neglected until 1866, when the district of Balaghat was formed, and the country opened to the industrious and enterprising peasantry of the Wainganga valley. Geographically the district is divided into three distinct parts:—(1) The southern lowlands, a slightly undulating plain, comparatively well cultivated and drained by the Wainganga, Bagh, Deo, Ghisri and Son rivers. (2) The long narrow valley known as the Mau Taluka, lying between the hills and the Wainganga river, and comprising a long, narrow, irregular-shaped lowland tract, intersected by hill ranges and peaks covered with dense jungle, and running generally from north to south. (3) The lofty plateau, in which is situated the Raigarh Bichhia tract, comprising irregular ranges of hills, broken into numerous valleys, and generally running from east to west. The highest points in the hills of the district are as follows:—Peaks above Lanji, 2300 or 2500 feet; Tepagarh hill, about 2600 ft.; and Bhainsaghat range, about 3000 ft. above the sea. The principal rivers in the district are the Wainganga, and its tributaries, the Bagh, Nahra and Uskal; a few smaller streams, such as the Masmar, the Mahkara, &c.; and the Banjar, Halon and Jamunia, tributaries of the Nerbudda, which drain a portion of the upper plateau. In the middle of the 19th century the upper part of the district was an impenetrable waste. About that time one Lachhman Naik established the first villages on the Paraswara plateau. But a handsome Buddhist temple of cut stone, belonging to some remote period, is suggestive of a civilization which had disappeared before historic times. The population in 1901 was 326,521, showing a decrease of 15% in the decade, due to the effects of famine. A large part of the area is still covered with forest, the most valuable timber-tree being sal. There are few good roads. The Gondia-Jubbulpore line of the Bengal-Nagpur railway traverses the Wainganga valley in the west of the district. The district suffered very severely from the famine of 1896-1897. It suffered again in 1900, when in April the number of persons relieved rose above 100,000.

BALAGUER, VICTOR (1824-1901), Spanish politician and author, was born at Barcelona on the 11th of December 1824, and was educated at the university of his native town. His precocity was remarkable; his first dramatic essay, Pepin el jorobado, was placed on the Barcelona stage when he was fourteen years of age, and at nineteen he was publicly "crowned" after the production of his second play, Don Enrique el Dadivoso. From 1843 to 1868 he was the chief of the Liberal party in Barcelona, and as proprietor and editor of El Conseller did much to promote the growth of local patriotism in Catalonia. But it was not till 1857 that he wrote his first poem in Catalan—a copy of verses to the Virgin of Montserrat. Henceforward he frequently adopted the pseudonym of "lo Trovador de Montserrat"; in 1859 he helped to restore the "Juegos Florales," and in 1861 was proclaimed mestre de gay saber. He was removed to Madrid, took a prominent part in political life, and in 1867 emigrated to Provence. On the expulsion of Queen Isabella, he returned to Spain, represented Manresa in the Cortes, and in 1871-1872 was successively minister of the colonies and of finance. He resigned office at the restoration, but finally followed his party in rallying to the dynasty; he was appointed vice-president of congress, and was subsequently a senator. He died at Madrid on the 14th of January 1901. Long before his death he had become alienated from the advanced school of Catalan nationalists, and endeavoured to explain away the severe criticism of Castile in which his Historia de Cataluña y de la Corona de Aragon (1860-1863) abounds. This work, like his Historia politica y literaria de los trovadores (1878-1879), is inaccurate, partial and unscientific; but both books are attractively written and have done great service to the cause which Balaguer once upheld. As a poet he is imitative: reminiscences of Quintana are noticeable in his patriotic songs, of Zorrilla in his historical ballads, of Byron in his lyrical poems. He wrote too hastily to satisfy artistic canons; but if he has the faults he has also the merits of a pioneer, and in Catalonia his name will endure.

BALAKIREV, MILI ALEXEIVICH (1836- ), Russian musical composer, was born at Nijni-Novgorod on the 31st of December 1836. He had the advantage as a boy of living with Oulibichev, author of a Life of Mozart, who had a private band, and from whom Balakirev obtained a valuable education in music. At eighteen, after a university course in mathematics, he went to St Petersburg, full of national ardour, and there made the acquaintance of Glinka. Round him gathered César Cui (b. 1835), and others, and in 1862 the Free School of Music was established, by which, and by Balakirev's personal zeal, the modern school of Russian music was largely stimulated. In 1869 Balakirev was appointed director of the imperial chapel and conductor of the Imperial Musical Society. His influence as a conductor, and as an organizer of Russian music, give him the place of a founder of a new movement, apart even from his own compositions, which though few in number are remarkable in themselves. His works consist largely of songs and collections of folk-songs, but include a symphony (first played in England in 1901), two symphonic poems ("Russia" and "Tamara"), and four overtures, besides pianoforte pieces. His orchestral works are of the "programme-music" order, but all are brilliant examples of the highly coloured, elaborate style characteristic of modern Russian composers, and developed by Balakirev's disciples, such as Borodin and Rimsky-Korsakov.

BALAKLAVA, a village in the Crimea, east of Sevastopol, famous for a battle in the Crimean War. The action of Balaklava (October 25th, 1854) was brought about by the advance of a Russian field army under General Liprandi to attack the allied English, French and Turkish forces besieging Sevastopol. The ground on which the engagement took place was the Vorontsov ridge (see Crimean War), and the valleys on either side of it. Liprandi's corps formed near Traktir Bridge, and early on the 25th of October its advanced guard moved southward to attack the ridge, which was weakly occupied by Turkish battalions behind slight entrenchments. The two nearest British divisions were put into motion as soon as the firing became serious, but were prevented by their orders from descending at once into the plain, and the Turks had to meet the assault of greatly superior numbers. They made a gallant resistance, but the Russians quickly cleared the ridge, capturing several guns, and their first line was followed by a heavy mass of cavalry which crossed the ridge and descended into the Balaklava plain. At this moment the British cavalry division under the earl of Lucan was in the plain, but their commander was prevented from engaging the Russians by the tenor of his orders. One of his brigades, the Heavy (4th and 5th Dragoon Guards, 1st, 2nd and 6th Dragoons) under Brigadier-General J. Y. Scarlett, was in the Balaklava plain; the other, the Light Brigade under Lord Cardigan (4th and 13th Light Dragoons now Hussars, 8th and 11th Hussars and 17th Lancers) in the valley to the north of the Vorontsov ridge. All these regiments were very weak in numbers. The Russian cavalry mass, after crossing the ridge, moved towards Balaklava; a few shots were fired into it by a Turkish battery and a moment later the Heavy Brigade charged. The attack was impeded at first by obstacles of ground, but in the mêlée the weight of the British troopers gradually broke up the enemy, and the charge of the 4th Dragoon Guards, delivered against the flank of the Russian mass, was decisive. The whole of the Russian cavalry broke and fled to the ridge. This famous charge occupied less than five minutes from first to last, and at the same time some of the Russian squadrons, attempting to charge the 93rd Highlanders (who were near Balaklava) were met by the steady volleys of the "thin red line," and fled with the rest. The defeated troops retreated past the still inactive Light Brigade, on whose left a French cavalry brigade was now posted. The Russians were at this juncture reinforced by a mixed force on the Fedukhine heights; Liprandi's infantry occupied the captured ridge, and manned the guns taken from the Turks. The cavalry defeated by the Heavy Brigade was re-formed in the northern valley behind the field guns, and infantry, cavalry and artillery were on both the Fedukhine and the Vorontsov heights. Thus, in front of the Light Brigade was a valley over a mile long, at the end of which was the enemy's cavalry and twelve guns, and on the ridges on either side there were in all twenty-two guns, with cavalry and infantry. It was under these circumstances that an order was given by the British headquarters, which led to the charge for which above all Balaklava is remembered. It was carried to Lord Lucan by Captain L. E. Nolan, 15th Hussars, and ran as follows:—"Lord Raglan wishes the cavalry to advance rapidly to the front and try to prevent the enemy carrying away the guns ... French cavalry is on your left." Lucan, seeing no attempt on the part of the enemy to move guns, questioned Nolan, who is said to have pointed down the valley to the artillery on the plain; whereupon Lucan rode to Lord Cardigan, the commander of the Light Brigade, and repeated Lord Raglan's order and Nolan's explanation. The Light Brigade then advanced straight to its front, and soon came under fire from the guns on both flanks. Nolan was killed as he rode across the front of the brigade, perhaps with the intention of changing its direction to the Vorontsov ridge. Five minutes later the guns in front began to fire with telling effect. The pace was increased, though the "charge" was not sounded, and Cardigan and those of his men who remained mounted, rode up to and through the Russian line of guns. Small parties even charged the Russian cavalry in rear and on either flank. The French 4th Chasseurs d' Afrique made a dashing charge which drove the Russians off the Fedukhine heights, though at considerable loss. Lucan had meanwhile called up the Heavy Brigade to support the Light, but it lost many men and horses and was quickly withdrawn. Only two formed bodies of the Light Brigade found their way back. The 13th Light Dragoons mustered but ten mounted men at the evening parade; the brigade as a whole had lost 247 men and 497 horses out of a total strength of 673 engaged in the charge, which lasted twenty minutes from first to last. The two infantry divisions which now approached the field were again halted, and Liprandi was left undisturbed on the Vorontsov ridge and in possession of the captured guns. The result of the day was thus unfavourable to the allies, but the three chief incidents of the engagement—the two cavalry charges and the fight of the 93rd Highlanders—gave to it all the prestige of a victory. The impression created by the conduct of the Light Brigade was forcibly expressed in Tennyson's well-known ballad, and in spite of the equally celebrated remark of the French general Bosquet, C'est magnifique mais ce n'est pas la guerre, it may be questioned whether the moral effect of the charge did not outweigh the very serious loss in trained men and horses involved.

BALALAÏKA, a stringed instrument said to have retained its primitive form unchanged, very popular in Russia among the peasants, more especially in Ukraine. The instrument has a triangular soundboard to which is glued a vaulted back, forming a body having a triangular base, enabling it to stand upright. To the body is added a fretted neck strung with two, three or four strings, generally so tuned as to produce a minor chord when sounded together. The strings are generally plucked with the fingers, but the peasants obtain charming "glissando" effects by sweeping the strings lightly one after the other with the fingers or side of the hand. The Balalaïka is common to the Slav races, who use it to accompany their folk-songs and dances. It is also to be seen in the hands of gipsies at rural festivities and fairs.

BALANCE (derived through the Fr. from the Late Lat. bilantia, an apparatus for weighing, from bi, two, and lanx, a dish or scale), a term originally used for the ordinary beam balance or weighing machine with two scale pans, but extended to include (with or without adjectival qualification) other apparatus for measuring and comparing weights and forces. In addition to beam and spring balances (see Weighing Machines), apparatus termed "torsion balances," in which forces are measured or compared by their twisting moment on a wire, are used, especially in gravitational, electrostatic and magnetic experiments (see Gravitation and Electrometer). The term also connotes the idea of equality or equalization; e.g. in the following expressions: "balance," in bookkeeping, the amount which equalizes the debit and credit accounts; "balance wheel," in horology, a device for equalizing the relaxing of a watch or clock spring (see Clock); the "balancing of engines," the art of minimizing the total vibrations of engines when running, and consisting generally in the introduction of masses which induce vibrations opposed to the vibrations of the essential parts of the engine.

BALANCE OF POWER, a phrase in international law for such a "just equilibrium" between the members of the family of nations as should prevent any one of them from becoming sufficiently strong to enforce its will upon the rest. The principle involved in this, as Hume pointed out in his Essay on the Balance of Power, is as old as history, and was perfectly familiar to the ancients both as political theorists and as practical statesmen. In its essence it is no more than a precept of commonsense born of experience and the instinct of self-preservation; for, as Polybius very clearly puts it (lib. i. cap. 83): "Nor is such a principle to be despised, nor should so great a power be allowed to any one as to make it impossible for you afterwards to dispute with him on equal terms concerning your manifest rights." It was not, however, till the beginning of the 17th century, when the science of international law took shape at the hands of Grotius and his successors, that the theory of the balance of power was formulated as a fundamental principle of diplomacy. According to this the European states formed a sort of federal community, the fundamental condition of which was the preservation of the balance of power, i.e. such a disposition of things that no one state or potentate should be able absolutely to predominate and prescribe laws to the rest; and, since all were equally interested in this settlement, it was held to be the interest, the right and the duty of every power to interfere, even by force of arms, when any of the conditions of this settlement were infringed or assailed by any other member of the community.^[1] This principle, once formulated, became an axiom of political science. It was impressed as such by Fénelon, in his Instructions, on the young duke of Burgundy; it was proclaimed to the world by Frederick the Great in his Anti-Machiavel; it was re-stated with admirable clearness in 1806 by Friedrich von Gentz in his Fragments on the Balance of Power. It formed the basis of the coalitions against Louis XIV. and Napoleon, and the occasion, or the excuse, for most of the wars which desolated Europe between the congress of Münster in 1648 and that of Vienna in 1814. During the greater part of the 19th century it was obscured by the series of national upheavals which have remodelled the map of Europe; yet it underlay all the efforts of diplomacy to stay or to direct the elemental forces let loose by the Revolution, and with the restoration of comparative calm it has once more emerged as the motive for the various political alliances of which the ostensible object is the preservation of peace (see Europe: History).

An equilibrium between the various powers which form the family of nations is, in fact,—as Professor L. Oppenheim (Internat. Law, i. 73) justly points out—essential to the very existence of any international law. In the absence of any central authority, the only sanction behind the code of rules established by custom or defined in treaties, known as "international law," is the capacity of the powers to hold each other in check. Were this to fail, nothing could prevent any state sufficiently powerful from ignoring the law and acting solely according to its convenience and its interests.

See, besides the works quoted in the article, the standard books on International Law (q.v.).

(W. A. P.)

BALANCE OF TRADE, a term in economics belonging originally to the period when the "mercantile theory" prevailed, but still in use, though not quite perhaps in the same way as at its origin. The "balance of trade" was then identified with the sum of the precious metals which a country received in the course of its trading with other countries or with particular countries. There was no doubt an idea that somehow or other the amount of the precious metals received represented profit on the trading, and each country desired as much profit as possible. Princes and sovereigns, however, with political aims in view, were not close students of mercantile profits, and would probably have urged the acquisition of the precious metals as an object of trade even if they had realized that the country as a whole was exporting "money's worth" in order to buy the precious metals which were desired for political objects. The "mercantile theory" was exploded by Adam Smith's demonstration that gold and silver were only commodities like others with no special virtue in them, and that they would come into a country when there was a demand for them, according to the amount, in proportion to other demands, which the country could afford to pay; but the ideas in which the theory itself has originated have not died out, and the idea especially of a "balance of trade" to which the rulers of a country should give attention is to be found in popular discussions of business topics and in politics, the general notion being that a nation is prosperous when its statistics show a "trade balance" in its favour and unprosperous when the reverse is shown. In modern times the excess of imports over exports or of exports over imports, shown in the statistics of foreign trade, has also come to be identified in popular speech with the "balance of trade," and many minds are no doubt imbued with the ideas (1) that an excess of imports over exports is bad, and (2) an excess of exports over imports is the reverse, because the former indicates an "unfavourable" and the latter a "favourable" trade balance. In the former case it is urged that a nation so circumstanced is living on its capital. Exact remedies are not suggested, although the idea of preventing or hampering foreign imports as a means of developing home trade and of thus altering the supposed disastrous trade balance is obviously the logical inference from the arguments. A consideration of these ideas and of recent discussions about imports and exports, appears accordingly to be needed, although the "mercantile theory" is itself exploded.

The phrase "balance of trade," then, appears to be an application of a trader's language in his own business to the larger affairs of nations or rather of the aggregate of individuals in a nation engaged in foreign trade. A trader in his own books sets his sales against his purchases, and the amount by which the former exceed the latter is his trade balance or profit. What is true of the individual, it is assumed, must be true of a nation or of the aggregate of individual traders in a nation engaged in the foreign trade. If their collective sales amount to more than their collective purchases the trade balance will be in their favour, and they will have money to receive. Contrariwise, if their purchases amount to more than their sales, they will have to pay money, and they will presumably be living on their capital. The argument fails, however, in many ways. Even as regards the experience of the individual trader, it is to be observed that he may or may not receive his profit, if any, in money. As a rule he does not do so. As the profit accrues he may invest it either by employing labour to add to his machinery or warehouses, or by increasing his stock-in-trade, or by adding to his book debts, or by a purchase of stocks or shares outside his regular business. At the end of a given period he may or may not have an increased cash balance to show as the result of his profitable trading. Even if he has an increased cash balance, according to the modern system of business, this might be a balance at his bankers', and they in turn may have invested the amount so that there is no stock of the precious metals, of "hard money," anywhere to represent it. And the argument fails still further when applied to the transactions between nations, or rather, to use the phrase already employed, between the aggregate of individuals in nations engaged in the foreign trade. It is quite clear that if a nation, or the individuals of a nation, do make profit in their foreign trading, the amount may be invested as it accrues—in machinery, or warehouses, or stock-in-trade, or book debts, or stocks and shares purchased abroad, so that there may be no corresponding "balance of trade" to bring home. There is no doubt also that what may be is in reality what largely happens. A prosperous foreign trade carried on by any country implies a continuous investment by that country either abroad or at home, and there may or may not be a balance receivable in actual gold and silver.

In another particular the argument also fails. In the aggregate of individual trading with various countries, there may sometimes be purchases and sales as far as the individuals are concerned, but not purchases and sales as between the nations. For example, goods are exported from the United Kingdom, ammunition and stores and ships, which appear in the British returns as exports, and which have really been sold by individual British traders to individuals abroad; but these sales are not set off by any purchases on the other side which come into the international account, as the set-off is a loan by the people of one country to the people or government of another. The same with the export of railway and other material when goods are exported for the purpose of constructing railways or other works abroad. The sales are made by individuals in the United Kingdom to individuals abroad; but there is no set-off of purchases on the other side. Mutatis mutandis the same explanation applies to the remittance of goods by one country to another, or by individuals in one country to individuals in another to pay the interest or repay the capital of loans which have been received in former times. These are all cases of the movement of goods irrespective of international sales and purchases, though the movements themselves appear in the international records of imports and exports, and therefore it seems to be assumed, though without any warrant, in the international records of the balance of trade. There is yet another failure in the comparison. The individual trader would include in his sales and purchases services such as repairs performed by him for others, and similar services which others do for himself; but no similar accounts are kept of the corresponding portions of international trade such as the earning of freights and commissions, although in strictness, it is obvious, they belong as much to international trade as the imports and exports themselves, which cannot therefore show a complete "balance of trade."

The illusions which may result then from the confusion of ideas between a balance of trade or profit, and a balance of cash paid or received, and from the identification of an excess of imports over exports or of exports over imports with the balance of trade itself, though they are not the same things, hardly need description. The believers in such illusions are not entitled to any hearing as economists, however, much they may be accepted in the market-place or among politicians.

The "balance of trade" and "the excess of imports over exports" are thus simply pitfalls for the amateur and the unwary. On the statistical side, moreover, there is a good deal more to be urged in order to impress the student with care and attention. The records of imports and exports themselves may vary from the actual facts of international purchases and sales. The actual values of the goods imported and paid for by the nation may vary from the published returns of imports, which are, by the necessity of the case, only estimated values. And so with the exports. The actual purchases and sales may be something very different. A so-called sale may prove abortive through its not being paid for at all, the debtor failing altogether. In any case the purchases of a year may not be paid for by the sales of the year, and the "squaring" of the account may take a long time. Still more the estimates of value may be so taken as not to give even an approximately correct account as far as the records go. Thus in the plan followed in the United Kingdom imports are valued as at the port where they arrive and exports at the port where they are despatched from—a plan which so far places them on an equal footing for the purpose of striking a balance of trade. But in the import and export records of the United States a different plan is followed. The imports are no longer valued as at the port of arrival with the freight and other charges included, but as at the port of shipment. The results on the balance of trade drawn out must accordingly be quite different in the two cases. With other countries similar differences arise. To deduce then from records of imports and exports any conclusions as to the excess of imports or exports at different times is a work of enormous statistical difficulty. Excellent illustrations will be found in J. Holt Schooling's British Trade Book (1908).

The country which presents the most interesting questions in connexion with the study is the United Kingdom, with its largely preponderating foreign trade. Its annual imports and exports, excluding bullion, exceed 800 millions sterling, and the bullion one year with another is 100 millions more. Its excess of imports, moreover, between the middle and end of the 19th century gradually rose from a small figure to 180 millions sterling annually, and occasioned the popular discussion referred to respecting an "adverse" balance of trade, and particularly the belief existing in many quarters that the nation is living on its capital. The result has been a new investigation of the subject, so as to bring out and present the credits to which the country is entitled in its trade as a shipowner and commission merchant, and to exhibit at the same time the magnitude of British foreign investments, which cannot be less than 2000 millions sterling and must bring in an enormous annual income. Other countries such as France, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden, are in the same condition, though their foreign trade is not on the same scale, and similar rules apply to the reading of their import and export accounts. The United States is a conspicuous instance of a country which in the first decade of the 20th century was still in the position of a borrower and had a large excess of exports, though there were signs of a change in the opposite direction. New countries generally, such as Canada, Australia and the South American countries, resemble the United States. Comparisons are made difficult by the want of uniformity in the methods of stating the figures, but that different countries have to be grouped according as they are indebted or creditor countries is undeniable, and no study of the trade statistics is possible without recognition of the underlying economic circumstances.

In conclusion it may be useful to repeat the main propositions laid down as to the balance of trade, (1) A "balance of trade" to the individual trader, from whose experience the phrase comes, is not necessarily, as is supposed, a balance received or receivable in the precious metals. It may be invested as it accrues—in machinery, or warehouses, or stock-in-trade, or in book debts, or in stocks and shares or other property outside the trader's business, as well as in cash. (2) What is true of the individual trader is also true of the aggregate of individuals engaged in the foreign trade of a country. Cash is only one of the forms in which they may elect to be paid. (3) The imports and exports recorded in the statistical returns of a country do not correspond with the purchases and sales of individual traders, as the sales especially may be set off by loans, while the so-called imports may include remittances of interest and of capital repaid. (4) When capital is repaid the country receiving it need not be living on it, but may be investing it at home. (5) The foreign trading of countries may also comprise many transactions, such as the earning of freights and commissions, which ought to appear in a proper account showing a balance of trade, as similar transactions appear in an individual trader's account, but which are not treated as imports or exports in the statistical returns of a nation's foreign trade. (6) Import and export returns themselves are not the same as accounts of purchases and sales; the values are only estimates, and must not be relied on literally without study of the actual facts. (7) Import and export returns in different countries are not in all cases taken at the same point, there being important variations, for instance, in this respect between the returns of two great countries, the United Kingdom and the United States, which are often compared, but are really most difficult to compare. (8) The United Kingdom is a conspicuous instance of a country which has a great excess of imports over exports in consequence of its large lending abroad in former times; while its accounts are specially affected by the magnitude of its services as a trading nation carrying passengers and goods all over the world, which do not result, however, in so-called "exports." The United States, on the other hand, is a conspicuous instance of an indebted nation, which has or had until lately few or no sums to its credit in foreign trade except the visible exports. (9) The various countries of the world naturally fall into groups. The nations of western Europe, such as France, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Sweden and Norway, fall into a group with Great Britain as creditor nations, while Canada, Australasia and the South American countries fall into a group with the United States as undeveloped and indebted countries, So also of other countries, each belongs naturally to one group or another. (10) The excess of imports or exports may vary indefinitely at different times according as a creditor country is receiving or lending at the time, or according as a debtor country is borrowing or paying off its debts at the time, but the permanent characteristics are always to be considered.