and North Brabant, comprising about 75 sq. m. It is very shallow and contains numerous islands. The Maas flows into it, and issues from it under the name of Holland's Diep. The lake was formed Nov. 18 and 19, 1421, by an inundation, which is said to have submerged 72 villages, drowning 100,000 people.

BIERNACKI, Aloizy Prosper, a Polish agricultural reformer, born near Kalisz in 1778, died in Paris in August, 1856. He devoted himself to scientific agriculture, and established on his estates a school of mutual instruction on the Lancasterian method. He improved the breed of sheep by introducing into Poland merinos of a superior quality, and to his indefatigable BIGAMY, the wilfully contracting a second exertions Poland is greatly indebted for agri- marriage with knowledge that the first is still cultural improvements. His estate, Sulislawice, subsisting. If the first marriage was void or near Kalisz, was the earliest model farm in has been dissolved by the death of one party, Poland, established at his own cost, long before or by a divorce from the bonds of matrimony, the existence of any other similar institution. the offence is not committed; but a divorce He was one of the leaders of the constitutional from bed and board is no defence. By the party under Alexander I. and Nicholas, and du- English statute a person whose husband or wife ring the revolution of 1830-31 was for a short shall have remained absent for seven years time minister of finance. After the suppression without being heard from is excused from the of the revolution he emigrated to Paris, where penalties of bigamy; and in some of the Amerhe lived in studious occupation till his death.-ican states there are similar statutes. In prosHis elder brother JÓZEF, also of high mental accomplishments, a fervent and devoted patriot, fought in the French revolutionary army in Italy against the Austrians and Russians, and after participating in the Polish revolution of 1830-31, and in some subsequent movements, he died in 1836, a state prisoner in Russia.

BIERSTADT, Albert, an American artist, born in Düsseldorf, Germany, in 1829. When he was two years of age his family emigrated to Massachusetts, and finally settled in New Bedford, where his youth and early manhood were passed. He soon discovered a talent for drawing, and in 1851 began to paint in oils. Two years later he went to Europe and entered upon a course of study at Düsseldorf. For four years he labored assiduously at his art, spending the summer months in sketching tours in Germany and Switzerland, and passing one winter in Rome. In 1857 he returned to the United States, and in the succeeding spring accompanied Gen. Lander on his expedition to survey and construct a wagon route to the Pacific coast. From this and subsequent visits to the great plains and the Rocky mountains he obtained the materials for a series of large landscapes, on which his reputation as a painter mainly rests. They comprise "The Rocky Mountains Lander's Peak" (which was exhibited in the United States and Europe, and received marked attention in the Paris exposition of 1867), "The Domes of the Yo-Semite," "Looking down the Yo-Semite," "Storm in the Rocky Mountains," "Laramie Peak," "Emigrants Crossing the Plains," and "Mount Hood," besides a number of smaller works. For several of the larger pictures he obtained very high prices for this class of works. They are effectively painted, and in many points recall the general style of the Düsseldorf school, though his works are executed with greater boldness. He has lately been on the Pacific coast, engaged upon new pictures relating to that region. In 1871 he was made a member of the academy of fine arts of St. Petersburg. BIES-BOSCH, a marshy lake of the Netherlands, between the provinces of South Holland

ecutions for bigamy strict proof of the marriages is required; they cannot be made out by reputation.

BIG BLACK RIVER, a river which rises in Choctaw county, Miss., and after a S. W. course of about 200 m. enters the Mississippi through two mouths, one of which is in Warren county, and the other in Claiborne county, at Grand Gulf. It is bordered throughout most of its course by rich cotton plantations.

BIG BONE LICK, a salt spring in Boone county, Ky., especially interesting to geologists and naturalists, on account of the deposits of fossil bones of the mastodon and several species of mammalia found there. The soil containing the deposit is dark-colored and marshy, generally overlaid with gravel, resting on blue clay.

BIGELOW, Erastus Brigham, an American inventor, born at West Boylston, Mass., in April, 1814. He was intended for a physician, but his father having failed in business, he was unable to pursue his studies, and turned his attention to mechanical inventions. Before he was 18 he had invented a hand loom for wearing suspender webbing, and another for making piping cord. In 1838 he obtained a patent for an automatic loom for weaving knotted counterpanes, and contracted to build three of the machines; but having seen some imported counterpanes which would supersede those to be produced by his loom, he consented to the cancelling of the contract, and in a few months invented a loom capable of producing the new fabric. In 1839 he entered into an agreement with the Lowell manufacturing company to construct a power loom for weaving two-ply ingrain carpets, heretofore woven exclusively by the hand loom, which could only produce 8 yards a day. Mr. Bigelow's first loom produced 10 or 12 yards a day, and it has since been greatly improved by the inventor. In the mean time he had invented a loom for weaving coach lace. In 1862 he proposed a scheme of uniform taxation throughout the United States, and published The Tariff Ques tion considered in regard to the Policy of Eng land and the Interests of the United States."

He is the founder of the flourishing manufacturing village of Clinton, Worcester county, Mass., in which, besides other large manufacturing establishments, are the extensive works of the Bigelow carpet company.

BIGELOW, Jacob, M. D., LL. D., an American physician and writer, born in Sudbury, Mass., in 1787. He graduated at Harvard university in 1806, and commenced practice in Boston in 1810. He early became known as a skilful botanist, had an extensive correspondence with European botanists, and different plants were named for him by Sir J. E. Smith, in the supplement to "Rees's Cyclopædia," by Schrader in Germany, and De Candolle in France. He published Florula Bostoniensis (8vo, 1814; enlarged eds., 1824 and 1840), and "American Medical Botany" (3 vols. 8vo, 1817-21). For more than 40 years he was an active practitioner of medicine in Boston; during half of this time he was a physician of the Massachusetts general hospital, and held the offices of professor of materia medica and of clinical medicine in Harvard university. He also for 10 years (1816-227) delivered lectures on the application of science to the useful arts, at Cambridge, as Rumford professor; these were afterward published under the title of "Elements of Technology" (new ed., "The Useful Arts considered in connection with the Applications of Science," 2 vols. 12mo, 1840). He was one of the committee of five selected in 1820 to form the "American Pharmacopoeia;" and the nomenclature of the materia medica afterward adopted by the British colleges, which substituted a single for a double word when practicable, is due in principle to him. He has published numerous medical essays and discourses, some of which are embodied in a volume entitled "Nature in Disease" 1854); one of these essays, "A Discourse on Self-Limited Diseases," delivered before the Massachusetts medical society in 1835, had unquestionably a great influence in modifying the practice of physicians at that time and since. He was the founder of Mt. Auburn cemetery, near Boston, the first establishment of the kind in the United States, and the model of those which have followed; the much admired stone tower, chapel, gate, and fence were all made after his designs. He has the reputation of an accomplished classical scholar, and has been an occasional contributor to the literary periodicals and reviews; he is an excellent humorous writer both in prose and verse, and a volume of poems, entitled "Eolopoesis," has been tributed to him. He was for many years the president of the Massachusetts medical society, and of the American academy of arts and sciences. In commemoration of his services, the trustees of the hospital in 1856 ordered his marble bust to be placed in the hall of that institution. Since his retirement from active practice he has given much thought to matters of education, and has been specially interested in technological schools, or such as are to give

a technical or utilitarian education as contrasted with a classical or literary one. He has been a pioneer in the so-called "new education," which aims to employ the time and labor of the student in the pursuit of special technical branches of knowledge, without wasting his energy on classical or other subjects irrelevant to his special vocation. See an address delivered by him in 1865, before the Massachusetts institute of technology, "On the Limits of Education."

BIGELOW, John, an American journalist and author, born at Malden, Ulster county, N. Y., Nov. 25, 1817. He graduated at Union college in 1835, was admitted to the bar in New York city in 1839, became connected with journalism, and editor of Gregg's "Commerce of the Prairies" and other books of travel. In 1845 he was appointed one of the inspectors of the Sing Sing state prison, serving till 1848. In November, 1850, he became a partner with Mr. Bryant in the ownership of the "New York Evening Post," and was the managing editor of that journal till 1861, when, after the accession of President Lincoln, he went as United States consul to Paris. This office he retained till after the death of Mr. Dayton, whom he succeeded in 1865, as minister at the court of Napoleon III., where he remained till 1866. In 1869, after the death of Mr. Raymond, he was for a short time editor of the "New York Times," after which he went to reside in Berlin. His works include "Jamaica in 1850," "Life of Fremont " (1856), and Les États-Unis d'Amérique en 1863 (Paris). In 1868 he edited the autobiography of Franklin from materials collected in France; and in 1869 he published "Some Recollections of the late Antoine Pierre Berryer."

BIGELOW, Timothy, an American lawyer, born in Worcester, Mass., April 30, 1767, died May 18, 1821. He was the son of Col. Timothy Bigelow, who served in Arnold's expedition to Quebec. He graduated at Harvard college in 1786, and practised law at Groton, Mass., from 1789 to 1807, when he removed to Boston. He took an active part in politics as a firm federalist, was for 20 years a member of the state legislature, and 11 years speaker of the house of representatives, and a member of the Hartford convention. He stood at the head of his profession, and in the course of 32 years was supposed to have argued 10,000 causes. BIG HORN. See SHEEP.

BIG HORN, the S. E. county of Montana terat-ritory, bounded E. by Dakota and S. by Wyoming territory; area, about 30,000 sq. m.; pop. in 1870, 38. It is intersected by Yellowstone river, and watered by its tributaries and by Mussel Shell river. Thick-Timbered river crosses the S. E. corner. There are mountains in the E. part. The Northern Pacific railroad will pass through the N. part.

BIG HORN RIVER, the largest tributary of the Yellowstone, rising in the Rocky mountains a little N. of Fremont's peak, in the N.

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other choleic. According to the researches of Bernard, have shown that the liver is one of Bensch and Strecker, the choleate of soda is our most important organs, and recent experithe chief principle of bile, as regards its relative ments have proved that bile is a very useful quantity, and also its importance. The choleic secretion, if not an essential one. Schwann acid is a nitrogenized substance, containing opened the abdomen and the gall bladder in sulphur in greater proportion than the other many dogs, and succeeded in forming a biliary nitrogenized matters. As in the bile of most fistula, after having tied the bile duct. Nine animals sulphur exists only in the choleic acid, of these animals very quickly died; six lived 7, and in the proportion of 6 per cent., it is pos- 13, 17, 25, 64, and 80 days; two only survived sible to ascertain easily the quantity of this acid definitively, but in them a new bile canal was in any kind of bile. It has thus been found formed. Of the six dogs that lived from 7 to that almost the whole of the alcoholic extract 80 days, four seemed to die starved, having of bile consists in choleic acid in the fox, the lost their fat. The two others after a few days sheep, the dog, &c., while in the bile of the ox began to regain their fat, and reached their there is as much cholic as choleic acid. The initial weight up to a certain time, when they` salts formed by these two acids amount to at became again emaciated and finally died. least 75 per cent. of the whole of the solid con- Blondlot has seen a dog living five years after stituents of hile. Normal human bile contains, the occlusion of the bile duct, and the formaaccording to Frerichs, about 14 per cent. of tion of a biliary fistula, through which the bile solid constituents; but Lehmann justly remarks flowed out. During this long period the health that the quantity of water, and consequently of the animal was usually very good. More the proportion of solid constituents, may be as recently Schwann has repeated his experiments variable in bile as in most of the other secre- on 20 dogs, out of which only two survived, tions. Gorup-Besanez found 9.13 per cent. one four months, and another a year. Nasse of solid constituents in the bile of an old kept a dog alive five months with a biliary fisman, and 17.19 per cent. in that of a child tula. Its appetite was good, and it ate about aged 12 years; but many more proofs are double the quantity of meat that a healthy dog necessary to determine that bile is more aque- of the same size would have taken, and neverous in old age than in childhood. Lehmann theless it died almost completely deprived of says that the organic constituents of human fat. It results from very careful experiments of bile amount to about 87 per cent. of the Bidder and Schmidt, and of their pupil Schellwhole solid residue. The proportion of the bach, that the cause of death, when bile is not other elements of bile, i. e., bile pigment (bili- allowed to flow into the bowels and passes verdine), cholesterine, fats, and mineral salts, out of the body, is that the animal has a great has not yet been positively determined. The difficulty in repairing the loss of fat and of nitwo special organic acids of bile can be decom- trogenized substances which go out with the posed into various substances. They both, bile. In a dog operated upon by these physiwhen treated by alkalies, give origin to cholalicologists, the quantity of food taken was much acid, and to dyslysine, but one of them (the cholic acid) produces also glycocoll, and the other (the choleic acid) taurine. When treated by powerful acids, cholic acid gives origin to choloïdic acid, glycocoll, and dyslysine, while choleic acid produces taurine, choloïdic acid, and dyslysine. Cholesterine and margaric and oleic acids are kept in solution in bile by the two principal organic acids of this secretion. The biliverdine, or the coloring principle of bile, is a substance resembling in its composition the hematosine or coloring principle of blood. It contains nitrogen and iron, as do all the organic coloring matters, according to M. Verdeil. The biliary sugar, or picromel, seems to be only a product of decomposition of some of the constituents of bile. The biline of Berzelius and Mulder seems to be a mixture of alkaline cholates and choleates.-The ancient physicians and physiologists used to consider the organ which secretes bile, the liver, as a most important one; but after Aselli, in 1622, had discovered the lymphatic vessels, a reaction took place against the importance attributed to the liver, and some physiologists went so far as to think that its share in the vital actions was almost null. In France the researches of many physiologists, and particularly of Prof.

greater than before the operation, and the consequence was that the animal did not lose his forces and remained fat, though less so than before. Prof. Bernard, according to Dr. Porchat, has ascertained that if adult dogs may live many months when bile flows out of their body by a biliary fistula, it is not so with young dogs, in which death always occurs quickly in such circumstances. Some facts observed in men (in children by Dr. Porchat, in adults by Dr. Budd) seem to prove also that adults may live much longer than children when there is no bile passing into the bowels. It seems very probable that bile is not absolutely necessary to digestion, as some animals have lived a long while without bile; but even in these cases there is room for doubt. For instance, Blondlot's dog was not prevented licking its wound, and probably swallowed a little bile, as Schwann has seen his dogs doing; and Bidder and Schellbach, we cannot understand why, at times gave pieces of liver (containing bile) as food to the one of their dogs that was the least affected by the operation. We may sum up thus: 1. Bile has not yet been positively proved not to be absolutely necessary to digestion and to life. 2. It seems probable, however, that its function is not absolutely essen