wright, and then fool to a Savoyard nobleman. At the age of 34 he went to Paris, and assumed the titles of comte de Permission and chevalier des ligues des XIII. cantons suisses. He wrote eulogies for the great, on whose bounty he lived, particularly on that of Henry IV., and afterward wrote prophecies for the people. His works were collected into 173 books, of which about 130 have come down to us. In 1831, a copy of Bluet was sold in England for £20 sterling. It is said that when the plague of 1606 ravaged Paris, Bluet announced that his total abstention from food for nine days would save the city. He died on the sixth day.

BLUM, Robert, a German revolutionist, born in Cologne, Nov. 10, 1807, executed in Vienna, Nov. 9, 1848. He was the son of a journeyman cooper, and at the age of twelve obtained employment as mass servant, but afterward found occupation in a lantern manufactory and was promoted to the counting house. He accompanied his employer on journeys through the southern states of Germany, and in 1829-'30 resided with him at Berlin. Summoned in 1830 to the military service, he was dismissed after six weeks and returned to Cologne, where he was employed as man of all work at the theatre. In 1831 he was appointed cashier and secretary of the Leipsic theatre, a post he held till 1847. From 1831 to 1837 he made contributions to the Leipsic family papers, such as the Komet, the Abendzeitung, &c., and published a "Theatrical Cyclopædia," "Friend of the Constitution," an almanac entitled Vorwärts, &c. In 1840 he became one of the founders, and in 1841 one of the directors of the Schiller association, and of the association of German authors. His contributions to the Sächsische Vaterlandsblätter, a political journal, made him the object of government persecution. German Catholicism found a warm partisan in him. He founded the German Catholic church at Leipsic, and became its spiritual director in 1845. On Aug. 12, 1845, when an immense meeting of armed citizens and students threatened to storm the riflemen's barracks at Leipsic, Blum by his eloquence prevented a riot. The Saxon government continued its persecution against him, and in 1847 suppressed the Vaterlandsblätter. On the outbreak of the revolution of February, 1848, he became the centre of the liberal party of Saxony, founded the "Fatherland's Association," which soon mustered above 40,000 members, was vice president of the preliminary German parliament assembled at Frankfort, after its dissolution a member of the committee it left behind, and ultimately representative of the city of Leipsic in the regular parliament. His political theory aimed at a German republic based on the different traditionary kingdoms, dukedoms, &c.; since, in his opinion, the latter alone were able to preserve intact what he considered a peculiar beauty of German society, the independent development of

its different orders. When the news of the Vienna insurrection of Oct. 6 reached Frankfort, he, in company with Fröbel, carried to Vienna an address drawn up by the parliamentary opposition, which he handed to the municipal council of Vienna, Oct. 17. Having enrolled himself in the ranks of the students' corps, and commanded a barricade during the fight, he was taken prisoner, and, after the capture of Vienna by Windischgrätz, sentenced to the gallows, a punishment commuted to that of being shot. This execution took place at daybreak, in the Brigittenau.

BLUMENBACH, Johann Friedrich, a German naturalist, born at Gotha, May 11, 1752, died in Göttingen, Jan. 22, 1840. His father was a teacher. His love of science was first kindled when he was only 10 years of age, by the sight of a human skeleton in the house of a physician, the friend of his father. While a schoolboy he made collections of human skulls and the bones of animals as a basis for comparative anatomy. At the age of 17 he commenced the study of medicine at Jena, where he remained three years, and afterward went to Göttingen, where he obtained his degree of doctor of medicine in 1775. On that occasion he wrote a thesis on the different varieties of the human race, De Generis Humani Varietate Nativa, in which he developed the germ of those craniological researches and comparisons for which he afterward became celebrated. In the following year he was appointed junior professor of medicine at Göttingen and keeper of the cabinet of natural history, and two years later (1778) regular professor. From 1780 to 1794 he edited a scientific publication, the Medicinische Bibliothek, for which he wrote many valuable articles on medicine, physiology, and comparative anatomy. also obtained a reputation by the publication of his Institutiones Physiologica, a condensed and well arranged view of the animal functions; the work appeared in 1787, and during a period of 34 years passed through many editions in Germany, where it was the general text book in the schools. It was rendered into English by Dr. Caldwell, and published in America in 1798, and in London, by Elliotson, in 1817. Blumenbach became still more extensively known by his manual of comparative anatomy and physiology (Handbuch der vergleichenden Anatomie und Physiologie), of which three editions were published in Germany from 1804 to 1824. It was translated into English in 1809 by the eminent surgeon Lawrence; and again with the latest additions and improvements, by Coulson, in 1827. Though less elaborate than the works of Cuvier and Carus, this work of Blumenbach will always be valued for the accuracy of his own observations, and the just appreciation of the labors of his predecessors. Blumenbach was the first who placed comparative anatomy on a truly scientific basis. În 1785, long before Cuvier's time, he instituted the

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method of comparing different varieties of human skeletons as well as skeletons of animals. Camper had only compared the facial angles of the skulls of Europeans, negroes, and orangoutangs; Blumenbach perceived the insufficiency of these few points of comparison, and introduced a general survey of comparative anatomy. He insisted on the necessity of comparing the whole cranium and face, to distinguish the varieties of the human race; and his numerous observations were published in the Collectio Craniorum Diversarum Gentium, published at Göttingen, in 7 decades, from 1790 to 1828, in 4to, with 80 figures, and in the Nova Pentas Collectionis suæ Craniorum, which was joined to the work in the latter year. The ethnologieal division of mankind into five races, called respectively the Caucasian, the Mongolian, the Malay, the Ethiopian, and the American, was first proposed by Blumenbach, and for many years had popular currency, though now discarded as inadequate by most ethnologists. The greatest part of Blumenbach's life was passed at Göttingen. In 1783 he visited Switzerland, and gave a curious medical topography of that country in his Bibliothek. In 1788 he was in England, and also in 1792. The prince regent in 1816 conferred on him the office of physician to the royal family in Hanover, and in 1821 made him knight companion of the Guelphic order. The royal academy of Paris adopted him as a member in 1831. In 1825 Blumenbach celebrated the 50th anniversary of his inauguration as a doctor of medicine, and in 1826 of his professorship. In 1835 he retired from public life, and only lectured privately to select audiences.

BLUNT. I. Edmund March, an American hydrographer, born at Portsmouth, N. H., June 20, 1770, died at Sing Sing, N. Y., Jan. 2, 1862. His "American Coast Pilot," describing every port on the coasts of the United States, has proved a useful work to seamen throughout the world. It was commenced by him in 1796, and the 24th edition was published by his son G. W. Blunt of New York in 1869; and it has been translated into most of the European languages. His other nautical works, charts, &c., are numerous. II. Edmund, son of the preceding, born in Newburyport, Mass., Nov. 23, 1799, died in Brooklyn, N. Y., Sept. 2, 1866. At the age of 17 he surveyed the harbor of New York; and from that time up to 1833 he was engaged in surveys in the West Indies, Guatemala, and the seacoast of the United States, on his private account. In 1833 he was appointed a first assistant in the U. S. coast survey, in which office he continued till his death. He was also a member of the firm of E. and G. W. Blunt, nautical publishers of New York. Mr. Blunt while on the coast survey advocated and procured the introduction of the Fresnel light in American lighthouses.

BLUNT, John James, an English divine, born at Newcastle-under-Lyme in 1794, died in Cambridge, June 17, 1855. He obtained a

fellowship in the university of Cambridge in 1816, and being appointed in 1818 one of the travelling bachelors, visited Italy, and wrote a volume on the "Vestiges of Ancient Manners and Customs discoverable in Modern Italy and Sicily" (1823). He held various ecclesiastical appointments till 1839, when, on the death of Bishop Marsh, he was elected Lady Margaret's professor of divinity. His principal works are: "Undesigned Coincidences in the Writings both of the Old and New Testaments an Argument of their Veracity" (1847; 5th ed., 1856); "History of the Christian Church in the first three Centuries" (2d ed., 1856); and "Sketch of the Reformation of the Church of England," which passed through 15 editions, and was translated into French and German.

BLUNTSCHLI, Johann Kaspar, a German jurist and statesman, born in Zürich, Switzerland, March 7, 1808. He studied under Savigny at Berlin and under Niebuhr at Bonn, where he graduated in 1829. He was employed in the judiciary at Zürich and as teacher at the university (1830), and subsequently as professor, and member of the grand council (1837) and of the local government (1839). In opposition to the radicals, he founded a liberal-conservative party, and energetically, but in vain, exerted himself to prevent the civil war of 1847. After the downfall of the Sonderbund, and the decided victory of radicalism, he left Switzerland and became professor of German and international law at Munich (1848), and since 1861 he has been professor of political science at Heidelberg. He was active in 1862 in favor of a German house of representatives as a step toward national unity, and as a member of the Baden upper house in the cause of parliamentary reform. In conjunction with Baumgarten and other reformers he founded in 1864 the Protestant union, was president of the Protestant conventions at Eisenach (1865), Neustadt (1867), Bremen and Berlin (1868), and of the Baden general synod (1867). After the victory of Prussia over Austria in 1866 he favored an intimate union between North and South Germany, and was elected in 1867 to the Zollparlament (customs parliament). His works include Staats- und Rechtsgeschichte der Stadt und Landschaft Zürich (2 vols., 1838-'9; 2d ed., 1856); Geschichte des Schweizerischen Bundesrechts (2 vols., 1846 -'52); Allgemeines Staatsrecht (2 vols., Munich, 3d ed., 1863); Deutsches Privatrecht (1853; 3d ed., 1864); and Geschichte des allgemeinen Staatsrechts und der Politik (1864), the last named being the first of a series of works relating to the history of the various sciences, the publication of which was proposed by Maximilian II., the late king of Bavaria. Among the other works which make him a high authority on international and political sciences and law and the laws of war are: Das moderne Kriegsrecht der civilisirten Staaten als Rechtsbuch dargestellt (Nördlingen,

Deutschen Kriege von 1870 (Heidelberg, 1871); and Das Deutsche Staatswörterbuch, in conjunction with Brater (11 vols., 1857-'70).

BOA, a large serpent of the family boida, order ophidia. This family is known by the following characters: The under part of the body and tail is covered with transverse bands, each of a single piece, narrow, scaly, and often six-sided; there is neither spur nor rattle at the tip of the tail; the hinder limbs, formed of several bones, are developed into an exserted horny spine or hook on each side of the vent; the body compressed, larger toward the middle; the tail short and prehensile; the pupil oblong and erect; and scales small, at least on the hinder part of the head. They are the largest of serpents, and though without venom, their immense muscular power enables them to crush within their folds large animals, which they first lubricate with saliva, and then swallow whole by their enormously dilatable jaws and gullet.-It appears that serpents of this family once existed in Italy, Greece, and the Mediterranean regions of Africa. Virgil's description of the death of Laocoon and his two sons, as well as the magnificent marble group which either furnished the subject for his description, or was suggested to the sculptor by it, and again the account in the 24th idyl of Theocritus of the serpents sent by Juno to destroy the infant Hercules in his cradle, all show that the artists were perfectly acquainted with the action of constricting serpents. The narrative by Valerius Maximus of the gigantic serpent which had its lair by the waters of the river Bagradas (Mejerda), not far from Utica, or the present site of Tunis, and kept the whole army of Regulus at bay, killing many of his soldiers, until it was at length destroyed by stones cast from the engines used in the siege of cities, is familiar to most readers. Pliny adds that the serpents called boc in Italy confirm this; for that they grow so large that one killed on the Vatican hill in the reign of Claudius had the entire body of an infant in its belly. Suetonius mentions the exhibition of a serpent of 50 cubits (75 feet) in length, in front of the Comitium. These reptiles, which are now found in tropical countries only, have been distinguished into 25 genera, under which are arranged, according to characteristic differences, the serpents in the British museum. Among these genera, most of which contain several species, are the following: I. Python, two species, distinguished from the boas by placing its eggs in groups, and covering them with its body, a habit which had been doubted, but has been verified from observation of the proceedings of a python in the jardin des plantes at Paris: the ular sawad of Hindostan, Ceylon, and Borneo, and the rock snake of Java. The former is one of the largest and

Natal Rock Snake (Hortalia Natalensis). specimen in the Regent's park; and the royal rock snake, supposed to weigh over 100 lbs. III. Boa, four species, peculiar to Mexico, Honduras, Santa Lucia, and Peru. This is the genus which has given the general name to the whole family of great constricting serpents. The skin of one of these serpents, of the first species, boa constrictor, the tlicoatl and temacuilcahuilia of the Mexicans, and the object of their serpent worship, is preserved in the British museum. The proper boa is decided by Cuvier not to be a native of any portion of the old world. IV. Eunectes, one species, the native of tropical America; this is the anaconda, a name said to be of Ceylonese origin, which, like that of boa, has been vulgarly given to the whole family. (See ANACONDA.)-This is the most terrible class of destructive reptiles in ex

istence. Their long, keen teeth are curved strongly backward, each tooth in either jaw fitting between the interstices of two in the

Boa Constrictor.

other, olasping whatever they seize upon inextricably. The body is readily wound about the victim in huge knots, compressed closer and closer until life is extinct. Mr. McLeod, who wrote a narrative of the voyage of H. M. S. Alceste, in which was brought over to England from the island of Borneo a serpent of the family of boida, 16 ft. long and 18 inches in circumference, describes their process of constriction. A goat was put into the cage of the boa every three weeks and swallowed, not by the power of suction, but by the effect of muscular contraction, assisted by two rows of strong, hooked teeth. This snake was 2 hours and 20 minutes employed in gorging the goat, during which time, particularly while the animal was in the jaws and throat of the constrictor, the skin of the latter was distended almost to bursting, while the points of the horns could be seen, threatening as it were at every moment to pierce the scaly coat of the destroyer. The snake coiled himself, and remained torpid for three weeks, during which he so completely digested and converted to his own use the whole of the goat, that he passed nothing from him but a small quantity of calcareous matter, not equal to a tenth part of the bones of the animal, and a few hairs; and at the end of that time was in condition to devour another goat. Mr. Broderip, the author of "Leaves from the Note Book of a Naturalist" and the "Zoological Journal," describes in almost the same words the killing and deglutition of a rabbit, which he observed in the tower of London. The time required to kill the rabbit was eight minutes. In every respect, indeed, Mr. Broderip corroborates the observations of Mr. McLeod, except on one point, whether the respiration of the serpent is suspended during the act of swallowing, which Mr. McLeod

affirms and Mr. Broderip denies, although without dissection the mode of his breathing cannot well be determined.

BOADEN, James, an English dramatist and biographer, born at Whitehaven in 1762, died in 1839. He was a painter, but abandoned the art, and wrote plays, none of which now keep possession of the stage. He also wrote lives of John Kemble, Mrs. Siddons, Mrs. Jordan, and Mrs. Inchbald, and an "Inquiry into the Authenticity of the various Pictures and Prints of Shakespeare" (London, 1824), directed against what is called Talma's portrait of Shakespeare, and accepting the Chandos portrait as authentic.

BOADICEA, or Boudicea, queen of the Iceni, a British tribe inhabiting what are now the counties of Cambridge, Suffolk, Norfolk, and Hertford, died about A. D. 62. Her husband, Prasutagus, the king of the Iceni, dying, left the emperor Nero and his own two daughters joint heirs to his great wealth, hoping thereby to preserve his family and kingdom from the rapacity of the conquerors. But his kingdom was immediately taken possession of by the Roman centurions. For some real or imaginary offence the British queen was publicly scourged, and her daughters were abandoned to the lust of the slaves. Taking advantage of the absence of Suetonius Paulinus, the Roman governor, from that part of England, Boadicea raised the whole military force of her barbarians, and bursting at their head upon the Roman colony of London, burned the city and put to the sword in that and neighboring places at least 70,000 Roman citizens, traders, Italians, and other subjects of the empire. Suetonius hurried to the scene of action from the Isle of Man. The queen of the Iceni was in command of 120,000 troops, which gradually increased to as many as 230,000, according to Dion Cassius, while Suetonius could bring into the field fewer than 10,000 soldiers. The battle was fiercely contested, and Boadicea displayed great valor; but her troops being finally obliged to yield to the disciplined Romans, she took poison. The victors spared nothing; women, children, the beasts of burden, the dogs, were all cut to pieces. It is said that 80,000 Britons were butchered that day, while of the legionaries only 400 fell, and about as many more were wounded. It is believed that the action took place not far from Verulamium (St. Albans), a Roman colony, which at the first irruption had shared the fate of London.

BOAR (sus aper), the male swine. The domestic hog and the wild boar of Europe, Africa, and Asia are, generally speaking, of the same species, and will breed together and produce young capable of propagating their kind. It appears that the most improved of the English and American domesticated breeds are, for the most part, largely crossed and intermixed with the Chinese and perhaps the Turkish varieties. In America, Australia, and the Polynesian group, the hog was unknown origi