Behemoth

Beke

Behemoth (be'he-moth), the animal the Arctic Ocean; breadth at the narrowdescribed in Job, xl. The est part, between Cape Prince of Wales description is most applicable to the and East Cape, about 36 miles; depth in hippopotamus, and the word seems to be the middle from 29 to 30 fathoms. It is of Egyptian origin and to signify water- frozen in winter, and seldom free from ox'; but it has been variously asserted to be the ox, the elephant, the crocodile,

etc.

larly to the height of 1700 feet. These

fog or haze. Though named after Vitus Behring, it was only fully explored by Cook in 1778.-BEHRING SEA, sometimes called the Sea of Kamchatka, is that

Be'hen, OIL OF. Same as Oil of Ben. portion of the North Pacific Ocean lying Behistun (ba-his-tön'), or BIS'UTUN, between the Aleutian Islands and Behra mountain near a village ing Strait.-BEHRING ISLAND, the most of the same name in Persian Kurdistan, westerly of the Aleutian chain, off the celebrated for the sculptures and cune- east coast of Kamchatka. There are few iform inscriptions cut upon one of its inhabitants; the island is without wood. sides a rock rising almost perpendicu- Beira (ba'i-ra) a division and former province of Portugal, between works, which begin about 300 feet from Spain and the Atlantic, and bounded by the ground, were executed by the orders the Douro on the N. and by the Tagus of Darius I, King of Persia, and set forth and Estremadura on the S. Surface his genealogy and victories. To receive mountainous, with the highest level in the inscriptions the rock was carefully Portugal (6540 feet). Area, 9244 square polished and coated with a hard siliceous miles. Chief town, Coimbra. The town varnish. Their probable date is about of Beira is a seaport of Portuguese East 515 B.C. They were first copied and de- Africa, with a good harbor and exports ciphered by Rawlinson. of gold, wax and rubber. See Beyrout.

Behn (ben), APHRA, English writer of

plays and novels, born 1640;

Beirut.

maiden name Johnson. As a child she Beit-el-Fagih (bat-el-fä'ke), a town

of Yemen, Arabia, a

went out to Surinam, where she became acquainted with the slave Oroonoko, principal market for Mocha coffee. Pop. whom she made the subject of a novel. 8000.

On her return to England she married Beja (bazha),

a town of Portugal, Mr. Behn, a London merchant of Dutch province of Alemtejo, with an old extraction, but was probably a widow cathedral and some Roman remains. when sent by Charles II to serve as a spy Pop. 8900.

at Antwerp during the Dutch war. She Bejapoor (be-ja-pör') a ruined city

of Hindustan, in the Bom.

afterwards became fashionable among the men of wit and pleasure of the time as a bay presidency, near the borders of the prolific writer of plays, poems, and stories, now more notorious for their indecency than their ability. She died in 1689, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

Behring, or BERING (bā'ring), VITUS,

a famous navigator, born in 1680 at Horsens, Jutland. The courage displayed by him as captain in the navy of Peter the Great during the Swedish wars led to his being chosen to command

Nizam's dominions, on an affluent of the Krishna. It was one of the largest cities in India until its capture by Aurungzebe in 1686. The ruins, of which some are in the richest style of oriental art, are chiefly Mohammedan, the principal being Mahomet Shah's tomb, with a dome visible for 14 miles, and a Hindu temple in the earliest Brahmanical style. Pop. about 17,000.

A voyage of discovery in the Sea of Bejar (ba-här'), a fortified town of Kamchatka. In 1728 and subsequently Spain, prov. Salamanca, with he examined the coasts of Kamchatka, woolen manufactures. Pop. 9488. Okhotsk, and the north of Siberia, ascer- Beke (bek), CHARLES TILSTONE, an taining the relation between the northEnglish traveler, born in 1800. eastern Asiatic and northwestern Amer- He studied law at Lincoln's Inn, and havican coasts. Returning from America in ing devoted much attention to ancient 1741, he was wrecked upon the desert history and kindred subjects he published island of Awatska (Behring's Island), in 1834 Origines Biblica, researches in and died there. primitive history. Supported by private individuals, he joined Major Harris in

Behring, or Bering, Strait, the exploration of Abyssinia, of which Sea, and Island. The STRAIT is he published an account in 1846.

the channel separating the continents of Asia and America, and connecting the North Pacific with

Two

works on the Nile followed in 1847 and 1849. In 1856 he sought unsuccessfully to establish trade relations with Abyssinia.

Bekes

Belfast

He also made journeys to Harran in Tagus, now the fashionable suburb of Has an old monastery which 1861, to Abyssinia in 1865, and to the Lisbon. head of the Red Sea in 1874, in which contains the remains of Vasco da Gama, Camoens, and a number of the Portuyear he died. Bekes (ba'kash), a town of Hungary, guese kings. ค name for at the junction of the Black Belemnite (bel'em-nit), straight, solid, tapering, and White Körös, with a trade in flax, dart-shaped fossils, popularly known as cattle, corn, wine, etc. Pop. 25,485. Bekker (bek'er), IMMANUEL, a German classical scholar, born in 1785; died in 1871. His critical editions of the texts of the most important Greek and Latin authors, based on an examination and comparison of MSS., are very valuable, embracing Plato, Aristotle, Aristophanes, Thucydides, Livy, and Tacitus. He also published contributions to the philology of the Romance tongues.

Bel, Babylonians. See Babylon.
Bel, also BELGAR, the Hindu name of

the chief deity of the ancient

the Egle marmelos, or Bengal quince. The fruit, which is not unlike an orange, is slightly aperient; a perfume and yellow dye are obtained from the rind, and a cement from the mucus of the seed.

Belemnites.

Bela (bela), the name of four kings of Hungary belonging to the Arpad dynasty.-BELA I competed for the 1. Belemnoteuthis antiquus-ventral side. crown with his brother Andrew, whom he 2. Belemnites Owenii (restored). A, Guard succeeded in 1061. He died in 1063, c, Phragmacone. D, Muscular tissue of mantle after introducing many reforms.-BELA F, Infundibulum. 1, Uncinated arms. II mounted the throne in 1131, and died tacula. N, Ink-bag. 3. Belemnite.-British Museum. in 1141.-BELA III, crowned 1174, corrected abuses, repelled the Bohemians, arrow-heads, thunderbolts, finger-stones, Poles, Austrians, and Venetians, and died etc.

K, Ten

seaport of

in 1196.-BELA IV, succeeded his father Belfast (bel-fast'), a Ireland (in 1888 declared a

Andrew II in 1235; was shortly after defeated by the Tartars and detained city), the principal town of Ulster, and prisoner for some time in Austria, where county town of Antrim, built on low alluvial land on the left bank of the he had sought refuge. In 1244 he regained his throne, and defeated the Aus- Lagan, at the head of Belfast Lough. The streets are spacious and regular, the trians, but was in turn beaten by the houses mostly of brick. There are a numBohemians. Died in 1270.

Bel and the Dragon, a book of cluding the cathedral, but the most mag

the

ber of handsome Episcopal churches, inApocry- nificent edifice is the Roman Catholic St. pha, forming a sort of addition to the Peter's. The population is largely Protbook of Daniel. In it Daniel is shown as estant, and there are Methodist and Presexposing the imposture of the priests of Bel and killing a sacred dragon. Belasco (be-las'ko), DAVID, actor and adapter of plays, born 1862. His first success was Hearts of Oak. There rapidly followed The Heart of Maryland, Zaza, The Darling of the Gods, and other pieces, one of which is the subject of Puccini's opera, The Girl of the Golden West.

byterian theological seminaries. The chief educational institution is the Queen's University. Chief public buildings: the town-hall; the range of buildings for the customs, inland revenue, and post-office; the Ulster Hall; the Albert memorial In the suburbs are several clock-tower. public parks and a botanic garden. iron shipbuilding industry of Belfast is one of the most important in the United Belbeis (bel-bās), a town of Lower Kingdom, some of the largest ships in the Egypt, 28 miles N. N. E. of world having been launched there, among Cairo, on the road to Syria. Pop. 11,267. them being the Oceanic, the ill-fated Belfast Lough Belem (ba-len'), a town of Portugal, Titanic, the Baltic, etc.

The

on the right bank of the is about 15 miles long, and 6 miles

Belfast

Belgium

broad at the entrance, gradually narrow- between the Marne and Seine and the ing as it approaches the town. The lower Rhine, and bounded northwest by harbor and dock accommodation is now the sea. Cæsar, on his invasion of Britextensive, new docks having been recently ain, found them established also in Kent added. Belfast is the center of the Irish and Sussex.

linen trade, and has the majority of spin. Belgaum (bel-g'um), a town and

fortress in Hindustan, Bombay Presidency, district of Belgaum, on a plain 2500 feet above the sea-level. In 1818 the fort and town were taken by the British, and from its healthy situation it was selected as a permanent military station. Pop. 36,878. It is the capital of a district of the same name, 4657 sq. miles in area.

ning-mills and power-loom factories in Ireland. Previous to about 1830 the cotton manufacture was the leading industry of Belfast, but nearly all the mills have been converted to flax-spinning. The importance of the shipbuilding trade has been mentioned; there are breweries, distilleries, flour-milis, oil-mills, foundries, print-works, tan-yards, chemical works, ropeworks, etc. The commerce is large. An extensive direct trade is carried on (bel'ji-ka), a part of ancient with British North America, the Mediter; the Bellovăci and Atrebates, who lived Gaul, originally the land of ranean, France, Belgium, Holland, and the Baltic, besides the regular traffic with in the neighborhood of Amiens, and perthe principal ports of the British islands. haps of Senlis.

Belgica

Belfast is comparatively a modern town, Belgiojoso (bel-jo-yo'so), a town of

its prosperity dating from the introduction

Italy, province of Pavia, of the cotton trade in 1777. It has suf- with an old castle, in which Francis I fered severely at various times from was lodged after the battle of Pavia in faction-fights between Catholics and Prot- 1525. Pop. about 4000.

an Italian lady who took

estants, the more serious having been in Belgiojoso, CHRISTINA, PRINCESS OF, the years 1880, 1886, and 1907. Belfast is the largest city in Ireland, its popula- a distinguished part in the revolutionary tion in 1910 being 386,576. It is divided movement of 1830, and again in 1848, into four parliamentary divisions, North, when she raised a volunteer corps at her South, East, and West, each returning one own expense. After an exile of some member. The total area is 16,594 acres. years she returned under the amnesty of Belfast (belfast), a city and seaport 1856, regained her property, and supof Maine on Penobscot Bay, ported the policy of Cavour. Died 1871, 30 miles from the ocean, with manufac- aged sixty-three.

tures of boots and shoes, clothing, etc.,

canning factories, good harbor and shipbuilding trade. Pop. (1920) 5083.

Belfort, or BEFORT (ba-fōr), a small

fortified town and territory of France, in the former dep. Haut Rhin, on the Savoureuse, well built, with an ancient castle and a fine parish church. In the Franco-German war it capitulated to the Germans only after an investment of more than three months' duration (1870-71). It has since been greatly strengthened. Belfort, with the district immediately surrounding it, is the only part of the department of Haut Rhin which remained to France on the cession of Alsace to Germany. Pop. of territory, 95,421, of which 27,805 belong to the

town.

Bel'fry, a bell-tower or bell-turret. A bell-tower may be attached to another building, or may stand apart; a bell-turret usually rises above the roof of a building, and is often placed above the top of the western gable of a church. The part of a tower containing a bell or bells is also called a belfry.

Belgæ (bel'je), a collection of Ger

man and Celtic tribes who anciently inhabited the country extending

Belgium (bel'ji-um : French, Belgique; German, Belgien), an European kingdom, bounded by Holland, the North Sea or German Ocean, France, and Germany; greatest length, 165 miles; greatest breadth, 120 miles; area, 11,366 square miles. For administrative purposes it is divided into nine provincesAntwerp, Brabant, East Flanders, West Flanders Hainaut, Liège, Limburg, Luxemburg, and Namur. The total pop. last census (1910) 7,423,784. Brabant, the metropolitan province, occupies the center. The capital is Brussels; other chief towns are Antwerp, Ghent, and Liège. The country may be regarded roughly as an inclined plain, falling away in height from the southern district of the low chain of the Ardennes until in the N. and w. it becomes only a few feet above sealevel. The surface rocks in the south consist of slate, old red sandstone, and mountain limestone; towards the N. w. a rich coal and iron field stretches across the provinces of Hainaut and Liège, skirting those of Namur and Luxemburg. North and west of this coal-field a more

recent formation is found, covered in

land by deep beds of clay and on the coast by sand dunes. The chief rivers