BOSCOVICH hear their voices. The 'royal oak,' which now stands at Boscobel, is said to have grown from an acorn of this very tree. Boscovich (bos'ko-vich), ROGER JOSEPH, astronomer and geometrician, born at Ragusa 1711, died at Milan 1787. He was educated among the Jesuits, and entered into their order. He was employed by Pope Benedict XIV. in various undertakings, and in 1750-53 measured a degree of the meridian in the Ecclesiastical States. He afterwards became mathematical professor in the University of Pavia, whence, in 1770, he removed to Milan, and there erected the celebrated observatory at the College of Brera. Bo'sio, FRANÇOIS JOSEPH, BARON, sculptor, born at Monaco 1769, died at Paris 1845. He was much employed by Napoleon and by the successive Bourbon and Orleans dynasties. His works are well known in France and Italy. Bosna-Serai, or SERAJEVO (-se-ri', se-r-à ya'vo), the capital of Bosnia, situated on the Migliazza, 570 miles w.N. w. of Constantinople. It contains a serai or palace, built by Mohammed II., to which the city owes its name. It was formerly surrounded with walls, but its only defence now is a citadel, built on a rocky height at a short distance east from the town. Bosna-Serai is the chief mart in the province, the centre of the commercial relations between Turkey, Dalmatia, Croatia, and South Germany, and has, in consequence, a considerable trade, with various manufactures. Pop. estimated at 46,000. Bos'nia, a Turkish province in the northwest of the Balkan Peninsula, west of Servia, by the Treaty of Berlin (1878) to be administered for an undefined future period by the Austrian government; area (including Herzegovina and Novi- bazar), 23,570 square miles (of which Bosnia Proper occupies 16,000), with (1885) 1,336,091 inhabitants, mostly of Slavonian origin, and speaking the Serbian language. They are partly Mohammedans, partly Roman and Greek Catholics. The country is level towards the north, in the south mountainous. Its chief rivers are the Save, the Verbas, the Bosna, Rama, and Drina. About half the area is covered with forests. Tillage is carried on in the valleys and low grounds; maize, wheat, barley, rye, buckwheat, hemp, tobacco, &c., being grown. Fruits are produced in abundance. Sheep, goats, and swine are numerous. The minerals include coal, which is worked in several places, BOSSUET. manganese, antimony, iron, &c. Among the manufactures are iron goods, arms, leather, linens, and woollens. Bosnia had been subject to Turkey from the beginning of the 15th century till 1875, when an insurrection of the inhabitants led indirectly to the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-78 and the subsequent dismemberment of the Turkish Empire. Bos'porus, or BOSPHORUS, the strait, 19 miles long, joining the Black Sea with the Sea of Marmora, called also the Strait of Constantinople. It is defended by a series of strong forts; and by agreement of the European powers no ship of war belonging to any nation shall pass the Bosporus without the permission of Turkey. Over this channel (about 3000 feet wide) Darius constructed a bridge of boats on his Scythian expedition. (See Constantinople.) The Cimmerian Bosporus was the name given by the ancients to the strait that leads from the Black Sea into the Sea of Azov. There was also anciently a kingdom of the name of Bosporus, so In Bossuet (bos-u-a), JACQUES BENIGNE, illustrious French preacher and theologian, was born in 1627, died in 1704. At the age of fifteen he entered the College of Navarre, where he studied Greek and the Holy Scriptures, read the ancient classics, and investigated the Cartesian philosophy. 1652 he was ordained priest, and made a canon of Metz, where his piety, acquirements, and eloquence, gained him a great reputation. In 1670 he was appointed preceptor to the Dauphin, and in 1681 he was raised to the see of Meaux. He drew up the famous propositions adopted by the assembly of French clergy, which secured the freedom of the Gallican Church against the aggressions of the pope. In his latter years he opposed Quietism, and prosecuted Madame Guyon; and when his old friend Fénelon defended her he caused him to be contains some fine buildings, the parish church being a very large and handsome Gothic structure, with a tower nearly 300 feet high. Ropes, sails, agricultural implements, &c., are made. The town sends one member to Parliament. Pop. of mun. bor. 14,593; of parl. bor. 18,927. Boston, in the United States, the capital of Massachusetts, and the largest city in New England, lies 234 miles N.E. from New York, on Massachusetts Bay, at the mouth of Charles River. It has a capacious harbour, covering 75 sq. miles, protected from storms by a great number of islands, on several of which are fortifications. The scenery is varied and picturesque; the site partly consists of peninsulas, East Boston being on an island. The streets are mostly narrow and irregular in the older parts of the town, but in the newer parts are many fine spacious streets. There are many small parks, and a series of connecting parks is in process of formation; at present the Common and the Public Garden in the heart of the city are the chief pleasure-grounds. Among the principal buildings are the state-house; the county court-house; the post-office; Faneuil Hall (from Peter Faneuil, who presented it to the city in 1742), famous historically as the meeting-place of the revolutionary patriots; the city-hall or old state-house, now used as public offices; the splendid granite custom-house, of Grecian architecture; public halls, theatres, &c. Harvard University, situated at Cambridge, which may be regarded as a Boston suburb, was founded in 1638. The library has 292,000 vols. The medical branch of this institution is in Boston. The Boston Athenæum has two large buildings-one containing a library, and the other a picture-gallery, a hall for public lectures, and other rooms BOSWELL. the War of Independence it played an im portant part. It was here that the opposition to the British measures of colonial taxation were strongest. The defiance reached its height when the Stamp Act was repealed, and the Tea Act denounced by three cargoes being thrown into the harbour. Here the battle of Bunker Hill was fought, June 17, 1775. Pop.; 560,892. Nahant Bay Grt.Pig Rks. Phillips Pt. its vicinity • Egg Rk. East Point Boston, THOMAS, a Scottish divine, born at Dunse 1677, died 1732. He was educated at Edinburgh University, received license to preach in 1697, and in 1707 was appointed to the parish of Ettrick in Selkirkshire, where he remained all his life. Besides engaging hotly in the ecclesiastical controversies of his time, Boston published a volume of sermons, several theological treatises, and his two well-known works, The Crook in the Lot and Human Nature in its Fourfold State. MASSACHUSETTS Deer I. HARBOUR BAY Charlestown BOSTON Governor 1. Roxbury Lovell Dorchester good libraries. Besides those already mentioned, there is the Public Library, founded in 1852, which already contains 556,283 vols.; the State Library, with 50,000 vols.; and others. Boston carries on an extensive home and foreign trade, and is also largely engaged in the fisheries. Many manufactures are carried on, one of the principal being that of boots and shoes. The first American newspaper was set up here in 1704. The book-trade of the city is important, and some of the periodicals are extensively circulated. Boston was founded in 1630 by English emigrants, and received its name from Boston in Lincolnshire, whence several of the settlers had come. Notwithstanding its increasing size and importance, the affairs of Boston for nearly two hundred years were administered by the town's people assembled in 'town's meeting.' In Weymouth Back R. born at Edinburgh in 1740, and died in London in 1795. He was educated at Edinburgh and Cambridge, became a member of the Scottish bar, but never devoted himself with earnestness to his profession. In 1763 he became acquainted with Johnson-a circumstance which he himself calls the most important event of his life. He afterwards visited Voltaire at Ferney, Rousseau at Neufchâtel, and Paoli in Corsica, with whom he became intimate. In 1768, when Corsica attracted so much attention, he published his account of Corsica, with Memoirs of Paoli. In 1785 he settled at London, and was called to the English bar. Being on terms of the closest intimacy with Johnson, he at all times diligently noted and recorded his sayings, opinions, and actions, for future use in his contemplated biography. In 1773 he accompanied him on a tour to the Scottish BOSWELLIA Highlands and the Hebrides, and he pub- Boswel'lia, a genus of balsamic plants belonging to the myrrh family (Amyridaceae), several species of which furnish the frankincense of commerce, more generally known as olibanum. Indian olibanum is got from Boswellia thurifèra, a large timber tree found in the mountainous parts of India. Bos'worth, a small town in the county of Leicester, England, about 3 miles from which is Bosworth Field, where was fought, in 1485, the battle between Richard III. and the Earl of Richmond, afterwards Henry VII. This battle, in which Richard lost his life, put a period to the Wars of the Roses. Bosworth gives name to a parl. div. of the county. Pop. 1149. BOTANY. founded 1634; and those of Berlin, Copenhagen, Florence, &c. In America the chief are those of New York, Philadelphia, and Cambridge. Botany (Gr. botane, herb, plant), or PHYTOLOGY (Gr. phyton, plant, and logos, discourse), is the science which treats of the vegetable kingdom. Plants may be studied from several different points of view. The consideration of their general form and structure, and the comparison of these in the various groups from the lowest to the highest, constitutes morphology. Anatomy and histology treat respectively of the bulkier and the more minute internal structure of the parts, and physiology of their functions. Systematic botany considers the arrangement of plants in groups and sub-groups according to the greater or less degree of resemblance between them. Geographical botany tells of their distribution on the earth's surface, and strives to account for the facts observed, while paleobotany bears the same relation to distribution in the successive geological strata which make up the earth's crust. Economic botany comprises the study of the products of the vegetable kingdom as regards their use to man. Bosworth, JOSEPH, English philologist, born in Derbyshire 1790, died 1876. He was ordained deacon in 1814, and after filling several livings in England was British The simplest plants are very minute, and chaplain at Amsterdam and Rotterdam for can only be studied by use of the compound twelve years. He devoted much time to microscope. A little rain-water which has researches in Anglo-Saxon and its cognate been standing some time when thus exadialects, the result of his studies appearing mined is found to contain a number of from time to time. His chief works are his roundish green objects, each of which is an Anglo-Saxon Grammar; Dictionary of the individual plant, consisting of one cell only, Anglo-Saxon Language; and Compendious with an external limiting membrane or cellAnglo-Saxon and English Dictionary. In wall of a substance known as cellulose, 1857 he was presented to the rectory of within which is granular, viscid protoplasm. Water Shelford, Buckingham, and next year The protoplasm is permeated by a green was appointed Rawlinson Professor of An- colouring matter, chlorophyll, and embedded glo-Saxon at Oxford. He was M.A. and in it is an oval, more solid-looking body, the LL.D. of Aberdeen; Ph.D. of Leyden, and nucleus. Protococcus, as this little plant is D.D. of Cambridge. In 1867 he gave called, though so simple, is yet able, by £10,000 to establish a professorship of An- virtue of the living protoplasm, to take up glo-Saxon at Cambridge. food from the water around it; to work that food up into more cellulose and protoplasm so as to increase in size; and, finally, to produce new individuals, more Protococci. If we imagine Protococcus to elongate considerably and be repeatedly divided across by cell-walls, we get a row or filament of cells, a very common form among the low orders of plants: the masses of green threads seen floating in ditches in the spring and summer consist of such a filamentous plant called Spirogyra. Or we may have a single flat sheet of cells, as in the delicate green Bot, BOTT. See Bot-fly. Botan'ic Gardens, establishments in which plants from all climates are cultivated for the purpose of illustrating the science of botany, and also for introducing and diffusing useful or beautiful plants from all parts of the world. Until modern times their sole design was the cultivation of medicinal plants. In Britain the chief gardens are those of Kew (which see), Edinburgh, and Dublin. On the European continent the chief are the Jardin des Plantes at Paris, BOTANY. sea-weed Ulva. Increased complexity of structure is exemplified in many of the ordinary sea-weeds, the stalk and more or less flattened expansions of which are several to many cells thick, the external cell-layers differing somewhat in structure from the internal. But we cannot distinguish in any of these between a stem, leaf, or root, as we can for instance in the more highly differentiated fern. Plants in which such a distinction cannot be drawn are called Thallophytes, and their whole body a thallus. Thallophytes can be divided into two classes: Alge and Fungi. The former are distinguished by the presence of the green colouring matter chlorophyll, which is of vital importance in the physiology of the plant; sometimes the green colour is obscured by the presence of a brown or red compound, as in the brown and red sea-weeds. The Fungi contain no chlorophyll, and also differ in being composed not of expansions or masses of cells like the algae, but of numbers of delicate interlacing tubes or hypha, often forming, as in the mushroom, quite large and complicated structures. Lichens are an interesting class between Algae and Fungi, inasmuch as they are built up of an alga and a fungus, which live together and are mutually dependent on each other. Going a step higher we reach the Mosses, where, for the first time, we distinguish a clear differentiation of the part of the plant above ground into a stem and leaves borne upon it. The stem is attached to the soil by delicate colourless hairs-root-hairs. Its structure is, however, very simple, and the leaves are merely thin plates of cells. Rising still higher to the fern-like plants, including Equisetums (Horse - tails) and Lycopods (Club-mosses), we notice a great advance in complexity both of external form and internal structure. The leaves are large, often much branched, the stem stout and firm, while instead of the few simple hairs which was all the indication of a root-system to be found in the moss, there are welldeveloped true roots. Microscopic examination of sections of stem, leaf, or root, shows great differences in structure between various groups of cells; there is, in fact, marked differentiation of tissues. A tissue is a layer, row, or group of cells which have all undergone a similar development; by differentiation of tissues we mean that various layers, rows, or groups have developed in different ways, so that we can make out and mark by distinctive names the elements of which a stem or leaf is built up. The structure of thallophytes and mosses is very simple, but in the ferns, besides other wellmarked tissues, we meet with one of so great importance in the higher plants, and so constantly present, that it is used as a distinctive characteristic of all the plants above the mosses. Ferns and floweringplants which contain this vascular tissue are known as vascular plants, in contrast to the thallophytes and mosses, or cellular plants, where it is not found. Microscopical examination of a very thin longitudinal slice of the stem, root, or leaf-stalk of a vascular plant shows bundles of long cells running lengthwise, the walls of which are not uniformly thin, as in the cells making up the groundwork of the portion examined, but are covered with curious markings which are seen to represent local thickenings of the walls, thin places, or pits, being left between them. These cells, which are quite empty, are the wood-cells; they are placed end to end, and when, as frequently occurs, the end-walls separating the cavities of two cells become absorbed, a wood vessel is formed. Near the elements of the wood, but differing greatly from them in their delicate unchanged walls and thick viscid contents, are the bast-vessels, or sieve-tubes, so called from the end-to-end communication between two cells being established, not by absorption of the whole wall, but by its perforation at numerous spots forming a sieve arrangement. This combination of wood and bast vessels forms the essential part of what is therefore known as vascular tissue. The Phanerogams, or Flowering-plants, represent the highest group of plants: Seedplants would be a better name, as their main distinction from those already described is the production of a seed. much greater variety in form and structure seen in them as compared with the ferns justifies us in regarding them as the highest group in the vegetable kingdom. They are divided into two classes. (1) Those in which the seed is developed on an open leaf, termed a carpel, and called therefore Gymnosperms (Gr. gymnos, naked, and sperma, seed); and (2) those in which the seed is developed in a closed chamber, formed by the folding together of one or more carpels, and calied accordingly Angiosperms (Gr. angeion, vessel). To the former belong the Conifers-pines and firsand Cycads; to the latter the rest of our trees and the enormous number of field and |