two fifths of his pay remained as a saving to the soldier after he had defrayed all the expenses of his own personal subsistence; that those soldiers are composed of some of the finest and strongest men in the world, whose countenances showed the most evident marks of ruddy health, and perfect contentment; and that there were no soldiers in Europe, whose situation was more comfortable. If this statement of Count Rumford be correct, it would cost less to victual an army of four or five thousand men in Germany, than of one thousand in the United States.

BAY, an arm of the sea running up into the main land. Bays, with good harbors, greatly promote the inland navigation and commerce of a country; nor does any country possess this advantage more amply than the United States of America. Within this territory, besides innumerable small bays, are Casco, Ponobscot, Machias, Saco, and Passamaquoddy bays ;— Massachusetts bay, between Cape Ann and Cape Cod; York bay, which spreads to the southward before the city of New-York; Delaware bay, between Cape May and Cape Henlopen; and Chesapeake bay, between Cape Charles and Cape Henry. The largest and most northern gulph or bay, that has yet been discovered in North America, is Baffin's bay, which lies between the 70th and 80th degrees of north latitude, and was discovered by Mr. Baffin, an Englishman, in the year 1632, while he was attempting to find a north-west passage from Europe to the Pacific Ocean; this bay, on the south side of Davis's straits, has a communication with Hudson's bay, through a cluster of islands. bay of Fundy, which washes Cape Sable, is remarkable for the rapidity and height of the tides, that rise, in different places, thirty, forty, and sixty feet.

The

BEAR, a savage and solitary animal which lives in deserts and unfrequented places, and chooses its den in the most gloomy and retired parts of the forest, or in the most dangerous and inaccessible precipices of unfrequented mountains; it retires alone to its den about the end of autumn, at which time it is exceedingly fat, and lives for several weeks in a state of total inactivity

and abstinence from food. During this time the female brings forth her young and suckles them. She makes for them a warm bed, and attends them with unremitting care during four months, and in all that time allows herself but very little nourishment. The cubs are round and shapeless; and have scarce any resemblance of what the creature is when arrived at maturity. In the spring, the old bears, attended with their young, come out from their retreats, lean, and almost famished by the long abstinence of their confinement. They ascend trees with surprising agility, keep themselves firm on the branches with one paw, and with the other collect the fruit. Their chosen food is corn, sweet apples, acorns, and nuts. When tamed, the bear may be taught to walk upright, to dance, to lay hold of a pole with its paws, and perform various tricks to entertain the multitude. According to Doctor Williams, the bear is frequently to be met with, and arrives to a great size in the state of Vermont; one having been killed there which weighed four hundred and fifty-six pounds.

BEAUTY, a pleasing combination of complexion, features, and form. History and travels inform us, however, that opposite kinds of forms, features, and complexion, have been esteemed as beautiful, in different countries, and among different nations. A nose falling in a straight line from the forehead, without the smallest sinking between the eyes, was esteemed the perfection of beauty among the ancient Greeks: this form they gave to the nose of the Grecian Venus. The old Romans praised their ladies for their flaxen locks, and even for the redness of their hair; also for narrow foreheads, and eye-brows joining in the middle. In Tonquin, black teeth are thought a great ornament: also red teeth, and hair painted white, give beauty its highest charms among the people of Thibet. The passion for coloured teeth obtains likewise in China and Japan; where, for a complete beauty, the lady must have little eyes nearly closed, and feet so cramped and small, that she hobbles rather than walks. With the Moors, beauty would seem to mean magnitude of bulk ; for, according to Park, the mothers cram their girls to make them plump and large. Among the inhabitants

of some of the western parts of Africa, a flat nose, thick lips, and jet black complexion, are considered as among the highest personal charms; while some of the Florida Indians flatten the heads of their children, in order to render them conformable with their ideas of beauty. In short, while the Europeans and Anglo-Americans paint the arch-fiend black to render him hideous, the negroes of Guinea paint him white for the same reason.

BEAVER, a native of America, valuable for its fur and castor, the latter of which is contained in four bags in the lower belly. This animal is between three and four feet in length, and weighs from forty to sixty pounds. His head is like that of a rat, inclined to the earth; his back rises in an arch between his head and tail; his teeth are long, broad, sharp, and projecting two inches beyond the jaw, and are curved like a carpenter's gouge. In his fore-feet the toes are separate, as if designed to answer the purposes of fingers and hands his hind-feet are accommodated with webs, suited to the purpose of swimming. His tail is a foot long, an inch thick, and five or six inches broad it is covered with scales, and with a skin similar to that of a fish. From the necessity of his nature he spends a part of his time in the water, and a part of it upon the land; and he seeks a dwelling that is most suitable for these opposite modes of living. These amphibious animals choose a convenient situation for a dam, cut down trees with their teeth, gnaw off the branches from the trunk, cut it into convenient and equal lengths, drag the pieces of wood to the stream, and swim with them to the place where the dam is to be built. They sink one end of the stakes, and the other end they raise, fix and secure; they form earth into a kind of mortar with their feet and tails, bring it in their mouths, and spread it over the vacancies between the stakes, twisting in and working up with this slime the small branches of trees; minding always to leave sluices near the middle of the dam, for the redundant waters to pass off. soon as they have completed their dam, which sometimes extends a hundred feet in length, and flows several hundred acres, their next care is to build themselves houses. These houses are built, with wood and

As

slime, upon piles or strong stakes, along the borders of their pond, and are of an oval form, gradually tapering from the bottom to the top. They are never less than two stories, generally three, and sometimes four: each of these huts has two doors; one on the land side, to enable them to go out and procure provisions by land, and the other under water below where it freezes, to preserve their communication with the pond. The male and female pair, and live in families; the smallest hut containing one family, and the largest several. A more full account of the sagacity and social nature of this wonderful animal may be seen in doctor Williams's ingenious history of Vermont.

BEET, a valuable esculent root, easily raised, and considerably used in this country. Its juice is said to be capable of producing excellent sugar, and in great plenty. Mr. Achard has found, that, from that kind of beet called scarcity root, sugar may be obtained in such plenty, that, as he affirms, the sugar of this origin might be afforded at five pence sterling per pound. The Prussian government offered Mr. Achard six thousand dollars as a reward for his invention, if he could prove it to be equal to the uses ascribed to it, and would give it up at once to that government....V. Lon. Rev.

BELL, a machine hung in steeples of churches; made of a compound metal of tin and copper, or pewter and copper, in the proportion of twenty pounds of pewter, or twenty three pounds of tin, to one hundred weight of copper. Bells are said to have been invented by Paulinus, bishop of Nola in Naples, about the year 400; they were first known in France in 550; and were introduced into churches in England about the year 900. The largest bell in the known world is in the cathedral of Moscow in Russia. It was presented by the empress Ann; and, (according to Mr. Walker) weighs four hundred and thirty-two thousand pounds. In the dark ages of popery, bells were baptised, and anointed with holy oil; they were also exorcised by the bishop, from a belief, that in consequence of those ceremonies, the bells would have power to drive the devil out of the air. Hence it was their custom to ring bells when it

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BENGAL....BERMUDAS.

thundered in order to drive off "the prince of the pow er of the air;" and also when any of their communion were dying that the devil might be so astounded at the noise of the holy machine as to give the departing soul an opportunity to get the start of him. The popish book called the Golden Legend, remarked, "The evill Spyrites that be in the regyon of the ayre, doubt motch (that is, are much perplexed) when they here the bells rongen."

BENGAL, a country of India; situated on each side of the river Ganges, and being under the sovereignty of the English East India Company. Its capital is Calcutta, lying on the west arm of the Ganges, one hundred miles from its mouth. This country has been called the Paradise of India. Such are its advantages of soil and climate, that the inhabitants of Bengal are able to subsist by less labor than the people of any other country in the known world. Rice, which forms the basis of their food, is produced in such plenty, (always two, and not unfrequently three crops in a year) that two pounds are often sold for a farthing. More pieces of cotton and silk are manufactured in Bengal, than in any other country of Indostan of three times the same extent. The agents of the British East India Company, by inciting the natives to civil wars, by monopolizing provisions and thereby causing most dreadful and extensive famines, have rendered this delightful country a scene of distress and wretchedness; and have changed one third of it, from extreme populousness, to a mere desert, inhabited by wild beasts. "The civil wars, (says colonel Dow, a Scotch officer in India) to which our violent desire of , creating nabobs gives rise, were attended with tragical effects. Bengal was depopulated by every species of public distress. In the space of six years, half the great cities of this opulent kingdom were rendered desolate; the most fertile fields in the world laid waste, and five millions of harmless and industrious people were either expelled or destroyed."

BERMUDAS, a cluster of small islands, computed to be about four hundred in number, situated about two hundred leagues from Cape Hatteras in Carolina: they