[1] Bone oil, also known as Dippel's oil, was originally produced by
the distillation of stags' horns; it is of interest in the history of
chemistry, since from it were isolated in 1846 by T. Anderson
pyridine and some of its homologues.
BONE BED, a term loosely used by geologists when speaking generally of
any stratum or deposit which contains bones of whatever kind. It is also
applied to those brecciated and stalagmitic deposits on the floor of
caves, which frequently contain osseous remains. In a more restricted
sense it is used to connote certain thin layers of bony fragments, which
occur upon well-defined geological horizons. One of the best-known of
these is the Ludlow Bone Bed, which is found at the base of the Downton
Sandstone in the Upper Ludlow series. At Ludlow itself, two such beds
are actually known, separated by about 14 ft. of strata. Although quite
thin, the Ludlow Bone Bed can be followed from that town into
Gloucestershire for a distance of 45 m. It is almost made up of
fragments of spines, teeth and scales of ganoid fish. Another well-known
bed, formerly known as the "Bristol" or "Lias" Bone Bed, exists in the
form of several thin layers of micaceous sandstone, with the remains of
fish and saurians, which occur in the Rhaetic Black Paper Shales that
lie above the Keuper marls in the south-west of England. It is
noteworthy that a similar bone bed has been traced on the same
geological horizon in Brunswick, Hanover and Franconia. A bone bed has
also been observed at the base of the Carboniferous limestone series in
certain parts of the south-west of England.
BONE-LACE, a kind of lace made upon a cushion from linen thread; the
pattern is marked out with pins, round which are twisted the different
threads, each wound on its own bobbin. The lace was so called from the
fact that bobbins were formerly made of bone.
BONER (or BONERIUS), ULRICH (fl. 14th century), German-Swiss writer of
fables, was born in Bern. He was descended of an old Bernese family,
and, as far as can be ascertained, took clerical orders and became a
monk; yet as it appears that he subsequently married, it is certain that
he received the "tonsure" only, and was thus entitled to the benefit of
the _clerici uxoriati_, who, on divesting themselves of the clerical
garb, could return to secular life. He is mentioned in records between
1324 and 1349, but neither before nor after these dates. He wrote, in
Middle High German, a collection of fables entitled _Der Edelstein_ (c.
1349), one hundred in number, which were based principally on those of
Avianus (4th century) and the _Anonymus_ (edited by I. Nevelet, 1610).
This work he dedicated to the Bernese patrician and poet, Johann von
Rinkenberg, advocatus (_Vogt_) of Brienz (d. c. 1350). It was printed in
1461 at Bamberg; and it is claimed for it that it was the first book
printed in the German language. Boner treats his sources with
considerable freedom and originality; he writes a clear and simple
style, and the necessarily didactic tone of the collection is relieved
by touches of humour.
_Der Edelstein_ has been edited by G.F. Benecke (Berlin, 1816) and
Franz Pfeiffer (Leipzig, 1844); a translation into modern German by K.
Pannier will be found, in Reclam's _Universal-Bibliothek_ (Leipzig,
1895). See also G.E. Lessing in _Zur Geschichte und Literatur_
(_Werke_, ix.); C. Waas, _Die Quellen der Beispiele Boners_ (Giessen,
1897).
BO'NESS, or BORROWSTOUNNESS, a municipal and police burgh and seaport of
Linlithgowshire, Scotland. Pop. (1891) 6295; (1901) 9306. It lies on the
southern shore of the Firth of Forth, 17 m. W. by N. of Edinburgh, and
24 m. by rail, being the terminus of the North British railway's branch
line from Manuel. In the 18th century it ranked next to Leith as a port,
but the growth of Grangemouth, higher up the firth, seriously affected
its shipping trade, which is, however, yet considerable, coal and
pig-iron forming the principal exports, and pit props from the Baltic
the leading import. It has an extensive harbour (the area of the dock
being 7-3/4 acres). The great industries are coal-mining--some of the
pits extending for a long distance beneath the firth--iron-founding
(with several blast furnaces) and engineering, but it has also important
manufactures of salt, soap, vitriol and other chemicals. Shipbuilding
and whaling are extinct. Traces of the wall of Antoninus which ran
through the parish may still be made out, especially near Inveravon.
Blackness, on the coast farther east, was the seaport of Linlithgow till
the rise of Bo'ness, but its small export trade now mainly consists of
coal, bricks, tiles and lime. Its castle, standing on a promontory, is
of unknown age. James III. of Scotland is stated to have consigned
certain of the insurgent nobles to its cells; and later it was used as a
prison in which many of the Covenanters were immured. It was one of the
four castles that had to be maintained by the Articles of Union, but
when its uselessness for defensive purposes became apparent, it was
converted into an ammunition depot. Kinneil House, 1 m. south of
Bo'ness, a seat of the duke of Hamilton, formerly a keep, was fortified
by the regent Arran, plundered by the rebels in Queen Mary's reign, and
reconstructed in the time of Charles II. Dr John Roebuck (1718-1794),
founder of the Carron Iron Works, occupied it for several years from
1764. It was here that, on his invitation, James Watt constructed a
model of his steam-engine, which was tested in a now disused colliery.
Though Roebuck lost all his money in the coal-mines and salt works which
he established at Bo'ness, the development of the mineral resources of
the district may be regarded as due to him.
BONFIGLI, BENEDETTO, 15th century Italian painter, was born at Perugia.
Until near the middle of the 15th century the Umbrian school was far
behind those of Florence and the North, but in the person of Perugino
and some of his followers it suddenly advanced into the very first rank.
Among the latter none holds a more distinguished place than Benedetto
Bonfigli. The most important of his extant works are a series, in
fresco, of the life of St Louis of Toulouse, in the communal palace of
Perugia.
BONFIRE (in Early English "bone-fire," Scottish "bane-fire"), originally
a fire of bones, now any large fire lit in the open air on an occasion
of rejoicing. Though the spelling "bonfire" was used in the 16th
century, the earlier "bone-fire" was common till 1760. The earliest
known instance of the derivation of the word occurred as _ban fyre ignis
ossium_ in the _Catholicon Anglicum_, A.D. 1483. Other derivations, now
rejected, have been sought for the word. Thus some have thought it
_Baal-fire_, passing through _Bael_, _Baen_ to _Bane_. Others have
declared it to be _boon_-fire by analogy with _boen-harow_, i.e.
"harrowing by gift," the suggestion being that these fires were
"contribution" fires, every one in the neighbourhood contributing a
portion of the material, just as in Northumberland the "contributed
Ploughing Days" are known as _Bone-daags_.
Whatever the origin of the word, it has long had several meanings-(a) a
fire of bones, (b) a fire for corpses, a funeral pile, (c) a fire for
immolation, such as that in which heretics and proscribed books were
burnt, (d) a large fire lit in the open air, on occasions of national
rejoicing, or as a signal of alarm such as the bonfires which warned
England of the approach of the Armada. Throughout Europe the peasants
from time immemorial have lighted bonfires on certain days of the year,
and danced around or leapt over them. This custom can be traced back to
the middle ages, and certain usages in antiquity so nearly resemble it
as to suggest that the bonfire has its origin in the early days of
heathen Europe. Indeed the earliest proof of the observance of these
bonfire ceremonies in Europe is afforded by the attempts made by
Christian synods in the 7th and 8th centuries to suppress them as pagan.
Thus the third council of Constantinople (A.D. 680), by its 65th canon,
orders: "Those fires that are kindled by certaine people on new moones
before their shops and houses, over which also they use ridiculously and
foolishly to leape, by a certaine antient custome, we command them from
henceforth to cease." And the Synodus Francica under Pope Zachary, A.D.
742, forbids "those sacrilegious fires which they call _Nedfri_ (or
bonefires), and all other observations of the Pagans whatsoever."
Leaping over the fires is mentioned among the superstitious rites used
at the Palilia (the feast of Pales, the shepherds' goddess) in Ovid's
_Fasti_, when the shepherds lit heaps of straw and jumped over them as
they burned. The lighting of the bonfires in Christian festivals was
significant of the compromise made with the heathen by the early Church.
In Cornwall bonfires are lighted on the eve of St John the Baptist and
St Peter's day, and midsummer is thence called in Cornish _Goluan_,
which means both "light" and "festivity." Sometimes effigies are burned
in these fires, or a pretence is made of burning a living person in
them, and there are grounds for believing that anciently human
sacrifices were actually made in the bonfires. Spring and midsummer are
the usual times at which these bonfires are lighted, but in some
countries they are made at Hallowe'en (October 31) and at Christmas. In
spring the 1st Sunday in Lent, Easter eve and the 1st of May are the
commonest dates.
See J.G. Frazer, _Golden Bough_, vol. iii., for a very full account of
the bonfire customs of Europe, &c.
BONGARS, JACQUES (1554-1612), French scholar and diplomatist, was born
at Orleans, and was brought up in the reformed faith. He obtained his
early education at Marburg and Jena, and returning to France continued
his studies at Orleans and Bourges. After spending some time in Rome he
visited eastern Europe, and subsequently made the acquaintance of Segur
Pardaillan, a representative of Henry, king of Navarre, afterwards Henry
IV. of France. He entered the service of Pardaillan, and in 1587 was
sent on a mission to many of the princes of northern Europe, after which
he visited England to obtain help from Queen Elizabeth for Henry of
Navarre. He continued to serve Henry as a diplomatist, and in 1593
became the representative of the French king at the courts of the
imperial princes. Vigorously seconding the efforts of Henry to curtail
the power of the house of Habsburg, he spent health and money
ungrudgingly in this service, and continued his labours until the king's
murder in 1610. He then returned to France, and died at Paris on the
29th of July 1612. Bongars wrote an abridgment of Justin's abridgment of
the history of Trogus Pompeius under the title _Justinus, Trogi Pompeii
Historiarum Philippicarum epitoma de manuscriptis codicibus emendatior
et prologis auctior_ (Paris, 1581). He collected the works of several
French writers who as contemporaries described the crusades, and
published them under the title _Gesta Dei per Francos_ (Hanover, 1611).
Another collection made by Bongars is the _Rerum Hungaricarum scriptores
varii_ (Frankfort, 1600). His _Epistolae_ were published at Leiden in
1647, and a French translation at Paris in 1668-1670. Many of his papers
are preserved in the library at Bern, to which they were presented in
1632, and a list of them was made in 1634. Other papers and copies of
instructions are now in several libraries in Paris; and copies of other
instructions are in the British Museum.
See H. Hagen, _Jacobus Bongarsius_ (Bern, 1874); L. Anquez, _Henri IV
et l'Allemagne_ (Paris, 1887).
BONGHI, RUGGERO (1828-1895), Italian scholar, writer and politician, was
born at Naples on the 20th of March 1828. Exiled from Naples in
consequence of the movement of 1848, he took refuge in Tuscany, whence
he was compelled to flee to Turin on account of a pungent article
against the Bourbons. At Turin he resumed his philosophic studies and
his translation of Plato, but in 1858 refused a professorship of Greek
at Pavia, under the Austrian government, only to accept it in 1859 from
the Italian government after the liberation of Lombardy. In 1860, with
the Cavour party, he opposed the work of Garibaldi, Crispi and Bertani
at Naples, and became secretary of Luigi Carlo Farini during the
latter's lieutenancy, but in 1865 assumed contemporaneously the
editorship of the _Perseveranza_ of Milan and the chair of Latin
literature at Florence. Elected deputy in 1860 he became celebrated by
the biting wit of his speeches, while, as journalist, the acrimony of
his polemical writings made him a redoubtable adversary. Though an
ardent supporter of the historic Right, and, as such, entrusted by the
Lanza cabinet with the defence of the law of guarantees in 1870, he was
no respecter of persons, his caustic tongue sparing neither friend nor
foe. Appointed minister for public instruction in 1873, he, with
feverish activity, reformed the Italian educational system, suppressed
the privileges of the university of Naples, founded the Vittorio
Emanuele library in Rome, and prevented the establishment of a Catholic
university in the capital. Upon the fall of the Right from power in 1876
he joined the opposition, and, with characteristic vivacity, protracted
during two months the debate on Baccelli's University Reform Bill,
securing, single-handed, its rejection. A bitter critic of King Humbert,
both in the _Perseveranza_ and in the _Nuova Antologia_, he was, in
1893, excluded from court, only securing readmission shortly before his
death on the 22nd of October 1895. In foreign policy a Francophil, he
combated the Triple Alliance, and took considerable part in the
organization of the inter-parliamentary peace conference. (H. W. S.)
BONGO (DOR or DERAN), a tribe of Nilotic negroes, probably related to
the Zandeh tribes of the Welle district, inhabiting the south-west
portion of the Bahr-el-Ghazal province, Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. G.A.
Schweinfurth, who lived two years among them, declares that before the
advent of the slave-raiders, c. 1850, they numbered at least 300,000.
Slave-raiders, and later the dervishes, greatly reduced their numbers,
and it was not until the establishment of effective control by the Sudan
government (1904-1906) that recuperation was possible. The Bongo
formerly lived in countless little independent and peaceful communities,
and under the Sudan government they again manage their own affairs.
Their huts are well built, and sometimes 24 ft. high. The Bongo are a
race of medium height, inclined to be thick-set, with a red-brown
complexion--"like the soil upon which they reside"--and black hair.
Schweinfurth declares their heads to be nearly round, no other African
race, to his knowledge, possessing a higher cephalic index. The women
incline to steatopygia in later life, and this deposit of fat, together
with the tail of bast which they wore, gave them, as they walked,
Schweinfurth says, the appearance of "dancing baboons." The Bongo men
formerly wore only a loin-cloth, and many dozen iron rings on the arms
(arranged to form a sort of armour), while the women had simply a
girdle, to which was attached a tuft of grass. Both sexes now largely
use cotton cloths as dresses. The tribal ornaments consist of nails or
plugs which are passed through the lower lip. The women often wear a
disk several inches in diameter in this fashion, together with a ring or
a bit of straw in the upper lip, straws in the _alae_ of the nostrils,
and a ring in the _septum_. The Bongo, unlike other of the upper Nile
Negroes, are not great cattle-breeders, but employ their time in
agriculture. The crops mostly cultivated are sorghum, tobacco, sesame
and durra. The Bongo eat the fruits, tubers and fungi in which the
country is rich. They also eat almost every creature--bird, beast,
insect and reptile, with the exception of the dog. They despise no
flesh, fresh or putrid. They drive the vulture from carrion, and eat
with relish the intestinal worms of the ox. Earth-eating, too, is
common among them. They are particularly skilled in the smelting and
working of iron. Iron forms the currency of the country, and is
extensively employed for all kinds of useful and ornamental purposes.
Bongo spears, knives, rings, and other articles are frequently fashioned
with great artistic elaboration. They have a variety of musical
instruments--drums, stringed instruments, and horns--in the practice of
which they take great delight; and they indulge in a vocal recitative
which seems intended to imitate a succession of natural sounds.
Schweinfurth says that Bongo music is like the raging of the elements.
Marriage is by purchase; and a man is allowed to acquire three wives,
but not more. Tattooing is partially practised. As regards burial, the
corpse is bound in a crouching position with the knees drawn up to the
chin; men are placed in the grave with the face to the north, and women
with the face to the south. The form of the grave is peculiar,
consisting of a niche in a vertical shaft, recalling the mastaba graves
of the ancient Egyptians. The tombs are frequently ornamented with rough
wooden figures intended to represent the deceased. Of the immortality of
the soul they have no defined notion; and their only approach to a
knowledge of a beneficent deity consists in a vague idea of luck. They
have, however, a most intense belief in a great variety of petty goblins
and witches, which are essentially malignant. Arrows, spears and clubs
form their weapons, the first two distinguished by a multiplicity of
barbs. Euphorbia juice is used as a poison for the arrows. Shields are
rare. Their language is musical, and abounds in the vowels o and a; its
vocabulary of concrete terms is very rich, but the same word has often a
great variety of meanings. The grammatical structure is simple. As a
race the Bongo are gentle and industrious, and exhibit strong family
affection.
See G.A. Schweinfurth, _The Heart of Africa_ (London, 1873); W.
Junker, _Travels in Africa_ (Eng. edit., London, 1890-1892).
BONGO (_Boocercus eurycerus_), a West African bushbuck, the largest of
the group. The male is deep chestnut, marked on the body with narrow
white stripes, on the chest with a white crescent, and on the face by
two white spots below the eye. In the East African bongo (_B. e.
Isaaei_) the body hue is stronger and richer. There is, as yet, no
evidence as to whether the females of the true bongo bear horns, though
it is probable they do; but as the horns are present in both sexes of
the East African form, Mr Oldfield Thomas has made that the type of the
genus.[1]