Blenny (Blennius ocellaris). were used for the culture of hemp, the man- | pholis, called in England the shanny, has no sion being converted into a storehouse for the appendages on the head. The B. serpentinus crops. In 1811 he endeavored to recover of our coast attains a length of 18 inches; the from Gov. Alston, Burr's son-in-law, $22,500, a balance of some $50,000, for which he alleged Alston was responsible. Unless this was paid he threatened to publish a book which he had prepared exposing the whole conspiracy. He afterward bought 1,000 acres of land near Port Gibson, Mississippi, for a cotton plantation; but the war of 1812 prostrated all commercial enterprises. Becoming continually poorer, in 1819 he removed with his family to Montreal, where he practised law for a time. He sailed for Ireland in 1822, to prosecute a reversionary claim still existing there. In this he failed; nor did he meet with any success in his application for aid to the marquis of Anglesey, whom he had formerly known. He endeavored to procure employment from the government of Portugal, and from the South American republic of Colombia; projected some improvements in firearms; and tried to obtain a situation as companion to an infirm kinsman. During the later years of his life he was supported by a maiden sister, who had a small estate, which she left to his wife and children. His wife, the daughter of Governor Agnew of the Isle of Man, was a woman of much talent. About 1822 she published a volume of poems, "The Deserted Isle," and in 1824 "The Widow of the Rock, and other Poems," which contain many fine passages. In 1842 she returned to America, and petitioned congress for a grant of money for the spoliation of her former home. The petition was presented by Henry Clay, and a committee of the senate reported favorably upon it; but she died before the bill was acted upon, and was buried in New York by sisters of charity.-Blennerhassett had three sons, the youngest of whom, JOSEPH LEWIS, became a lawyer in Missouri, and furnished the original documents for the "Blennerhassett Papers, with a Memoir," by William H. Safford (8vo, New York, 1864). BLENNY, a name given to several spiny-rayed fishes of the goby family, but especially to the genus blennius (Cuv.). They have the body covered with a thick coating of mucus, in which are imbedded small soft scales; the ventral fins are in advance of the pectorals, and generally have only two rays; head blunt and rounded; dorsal fin long, generally with the edge interrupted; teeth slender, in a single row. The species are small in the true blennies, 2 to 5 inches long, living in small shoals; active and tenacious of life, they crawl out of water in crevices of rocks, hiding among the weeds till the next tide. Several species are described in northern Europe, distinguished from each other and from allied genera by the number of the fimbriated appendages about the head. One called the butterfly fish or the eyed blenny (B. ocellaris) has a dark brown spot on the dorsal fin. The genus American shanny resembles the European. The gunnels (gunnellus, Flem.) are also blen nies, with an elongated body, velvet-like teeth, very long and low dorsal fin, and ventrals exceedingly small; one species, called the butter fish, attains the length of a foot. In the genus zoarces (Cuv.) the dorsal, anal, and caudal fins are united, which, with the elongated body, have obtained for it the name of eelpout. The ventrals are under the throat and small. This genus includes the viviparous blenny, Z. viviparus of Europe and Z. anguillaris of this country. The young are brought forth alive, and able to provide for themselves as soon as excluded; they appear to be produced of a size proportionate to the mother. From the green hue of the bones when boiled, a common English name for it is "green-bone." In this blenny the ovarian bag of the mature eggs is a double sac, having a disk of considerable size at the upper part, where the spermatozoa may come into contact with the yolk membrane. The American species attains a length of 3 feet, and is occasionally caught by cod-fishers, who call it ling and conger eel; it is of a light salmon color, with irregular olive blotches. The blennies feed upon mollusks and crustaceans, and the flesh of the young of the larger species is very good. They use their ventral fins almost as legs to climb on the rocks; the small size of the branchial openings, preventing the rapid escape of water from and the entrance of air into the gill chamber, enables them to live several hours out of water. They are said to have no air bladder or rudimentary lung. BLERE, a town of France, in the department of Indre-et-Loire, on the left bank of the Cher, 15 m. E. S. E. of Tours; pop. in 1866, 3,561. In the vicinity stands the castle of Chenonceaux. Originally a simple manor house, it was enlarged during the reign of Francis I. to its present dimensions. Henry II. purchased it in 1535, and gave it to Diana of Poitiers, who, before completing the magnificent embellishments which she had commenced, was forced to yield it to Catharine de' Medici. The | London sketches entitled "The Magic Lanlatter adorned the castle still more richly, and tern," which were followed by "Travelling surrounded it with a beautiful park. It after- Sketches in Belgium." Castle of Chenonceaux. ward came into the possession of the house of Condé, and after many vicissitudes was purchased in 1733 by Gen. Dupin, whose accomplished wife made it the resort of some of the most celebrated men of the 18th century. Montesquieu, Voltaire, Fontenelle, Bolingbroke, Buffon, and others, were among its frequent visitors. The castle is still in excellent preservation. The remains of a Roman aqueduct are to be seen near the city. Bléré is the entrepot of the trade along the Cher, and is especially noted for its red wines. Her "Conversations with Lord Byron," published first in 1832 in the "New Monthly Magazine," afterward appeared in book form, and excited a considerable degree of interest. Subsequently she published "Desultory Thoughts and Reflections," and several novels; among them "Grace Cassidy, or the Repealers," "The Two Friends,' ," "Meredith," Strathern," " 'Marmaduke Hubert," "The Governess," "The Victims of Society," &c. The last named is con. sidered one of her best works. Besides her novels, she wrote illustrated books of poetry, 66 and books of travel, as "The Idler in France" and "The Idler in Italy," and at the same time she was an active contributor to many English magazines, and the editor of fashionable annuals. In 1849 Count D'Orsay went to Paris in the hope of obtaining some preferment from Louis Napoleon, then president of the French republic; and she followed him thither, but died soon after reaching that capital.-See Madden's "Literary Life and Correspondence of the Countess of Blessington" (3 vols. 8vo, 1855). the album Sneeklokken (1826) and the monthly magazine Nordlyset (1827-'9). In some of his best ballads he employed the dialect of Jutland, and he described the popular life of that country in some of his novels. His select poetry was published at Copenhagen in 2 vols., 1835-'6, and a third complete edition of his works in 1861-'2, in 8 vols. BLICHER, Steen Steensen, a Danish author, BLESSINGTON, Margaret, countess of, an Irish born at Vium, province of Viborg, Oct. 11, 1782, woman of letters, born near Clonmel, Sept. 1, died at Spentrup, Jutland, March 26, 1848. 1789, died in Paris, June 4, 1849. She was He was a graduate of the university of Copenthe third daughter of Mr. Edmund Power, and hagen, and a clergyman at Thorning and at when only 15 years old married Capt. Farmer. Spentrup. He translated Ossian (2 vols., 1807 The marriage was an unhappy one, and within-9), published poems (1814-'17), and wrote for four months after her husband's death in 1817 she married Charles John Gardiner, earl of Blessington. With him she saw much of fashionable life, and travelled extensively on the continent. She formed an intimate acquaintance with Lord Byron at Genoa; and at Paris, where she lived for some time with her husband, Count d'Orsay, was an inmate of their house. D'Orsay had married and afterward been separated from a daughter of the earl by a former wife. Soon after the earl's death, which took place at Paris in 1829, Lady Blessington went to reside at Gore House, Kensington. Her social position was somewhat compromised by her intimacy with Count d'Orsay, but she gathered at her house a brilliant circle of the notable people of the day. Her expensive manner of living greatly impaired her fortune, and she resorted to the pen mainly for the purpose of enlarging her means. She first appeared as an author in 1825, with some BLIDAH, or Blida, a town of Algeria, on the borders of the fertile plain of Metidjah, 25 m. S. S. W. of Algiers; pop. in 1866, 9,975. It is a station on the first railway ever built in Algeria. It was taken by the French in 1830, but first occupied by them in 1838. BLIGH, William, an English navigator, born in 1753, died in London, Dec. 7, 1817. He was a lieutenant in the navy, accompanied Cook on his voyages in the Pacific, and when he returned was appointed commander of the Bounty, commissioned by George III. to import the breadfruit tree and other vegetable productions the nerves of special sense; or in other words, the defect generally exists in some part of the globe of the eye. Hereditary blindness is not frequent. Of 700 blind persons in the institutions at Philadelphia whose parentage is known, according to Mr. Chapin, the principal of the Pennsylvania institution for the blind, only 12 had either parent blind. An investigation which he made at the hospice des Quinze Vingts, Paris, revealed the remarkable fact that of the several hundred children born there of parents one or both of whom were blind, there was not one blind at birth. After birth the principal causes of blindness are: 1, special diseases, such as purulent ophthalmia, inflammation of the cornea and of the iris, cataract or opacity of the crystalline lens, and amaurosis or paralysis of the optic nerve; 2, general diseases, whose sequelae attack different parts of the eye, as smallpox, scarlatina, measles, typhus fever and other inflammatory fevers, and scrofula; 3, injuries from blows or wounds, and from malpractice, the latter being one of the most fruitful causes. The following table exhibits the causes of the malady in nearly all the cases received in the Liverpool asylum for the blind from its foundation in 1791 to January, 1859: of the South Sea islands into the West Indies. BLIND, The, persons who have not the sense of sight. In common use the term also includes persons who possess some power of vision, but not sufficient to enable them to distinguish the forms of objects. The causes of blindness are both ante-natal and post-natal. It is contended by some that psychological influences may induce blindness in the offspring, as when the mother has received a powerful nervous impression from witnessing some horrible spectacle, or an extremely disgusting case of sore eyes or malformation, and cases have been adduced which are supposed to establish the theory; but the probability is that there is not sufficient proof to warrant its reception. The ante-natal causes which are acknowledged to produce blindness are the intermarriage of near relatives, scrofula, and syphilis; but congenital cases of blindness are not found to be so frequent as those of deafness. In intermarriage, and where the parents are imperfectly developed, there is liability to want of development of the nerves of special sense; but in most cases ante-natal as well as post-natal blindness is caused by imperfection or disease of the optical apparatus which is accessory to CAUSES. Inflammation. Amaurosis.. Imperfect organization. After fever. Convulsions An examination of 500 cases from the Perkins institution for the blind at Boston gives the following percentage of causes: congenital, 37.75; disease after birth, 47-09; accidents, 15·16. The extraordinary exemption from blindness in the United States as compared with Great Britain and Ireland may be in a great measure attributed to the far less prevalence of smallpox in this country. Dr. Crompton of Manchester estimated that in Great Britain and Ireland more than 4,000 were blind from smallpox, out of a blind population of 28,450 in 1841. In the Glasgow asylum nearly one fifth were blind from smallpox. In the Pennsylvania institution, of 476 received up to 1863, only 21, or of the whole, lost their sight by that disease. In the Ohio institution, of 118 up to a certain date, only one was blind from this cause. Proceeding from temperate latitudes toward the equator, the proportion of blind to the entire population increases, but this is more noticeable in the eastern than in the western hemisphere. The glittering sand which reflects the light and heat of the sun, AGES. Under 10 years. Females. 836 Males. 619 510 896 675 • 20 66 80. 986 682 80" 40. 1,057 673 40 66 50. 1,823 and also the fine particles of dust that are blown | less vitality than those who have their sight, into the eyes, are causes which are very fruit- and statistics confirm this opinion. This want ful in producing ophthalmia in northern Africa. of vitality is doubtless one cause of blindness; Again, as we approach the polar regions, where but again, much of their want of vitality is in snow and icebergs reflect the sun's rays, the consequence of their being blind, which causes proportion of the blind increases. The follow- them to lead more sedentary lives than they ing table, taken from the work of a blind otherwise would. As Dr. Howe remarks, author, W. Hanks Levy ("Blindness and the "There are many who are not born blind, who Blind," London, 1872), of blind persons in Eng- are born to become blind." From statistics land and Wales, shows the proportion as to embraced in a report of the Boston institution, sex, and the tendency of increase of years to gathered from seven American state instituproduce loss of sight: tions, the director makes the following note: "Of the number of persons admitted to the above-mentioned institutions between the ages of 10 and 14, the number that was surviving in 1859 was 8.6 per cent. less, according to the Massachusetts life table, than the number that should then be surviving. Of the number admitted during the three years of 1838-'40, from which the average time elapsing to the middle of 1859 was 20 years, the number that survived in 1859 was 12.3 per cent. less than the number that should have survived."-The number of blind in the world cannot be stated with any great degree of exactness. In the United States and in most of the countries of Europe, however, the number is known from census returns. In other countries the number has been estimated by various travellers and writers, and from a comparison of data it is believed that a pretty near approximation has been reached. The table on the next page, compiled from the United States census of 1870, contains a considerably larger number than was shown by that of 1860, giving reason to believe that the latter census was imperfect. The following is a table of the blind in Europe, the number in Russia, Austria, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, and Turkey in Europe being estimated; but the attention given to the subject in most of these countries makes it probable that the estimates are pretty nearly correct: " 90 "100. Upward of 100. It is thus seen that about half of the blind in Denmark 1,800,000 1,200 1" 1,523 Germany 43,000,000 26,500 1" 1,620 Austria 88,000,000 88,000 1" 1,000 Switzerland. 2,510,000 1,790 1" 1,400 8,809,000 1,990 1" 1,668 4,580,000 8,675 1" 1,233 TABLE OF THE BLIND OF ALL CLASSES IN THE UNITED STATES AND TERRITORIES. Total States....20,041 7,478 6,067 1,465 1,897 157 181 14 11 9,114 7,656 16,770 2,085 1,206 8,241 38,115,641 Total Territories 309 188 Aggregate. 20,320 7,616 6,142 1,488 1,418 165 187 14 13 9,288 7,760 1,743 2,060 1,217 8,277 38,558,871 |