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Bitter Gourd – Bituminous Schist

Bitter Gourd

a plant, citrullus colocynthis, called also colocynth.

Bitter King

the soulamea amāra, a tree of the quassia order peculiar to the Moluccas and Fiji Islands, the root and bark of which, bruised and macerated, are used in the East as an emetic and tonic.

Bitter Lakes

salt lakes on the line of the Suez canal.

Bittern

a name given to the mother liquid obtained when sea water is evaporated to extract the salt (NaCl).

Bittern contains sulphates of magnesium, potassium and sodium, also bromides. It is used as a source of bromine. Under the name of oil of salt, it is sometimes used to relieve rheumatism.

Bitter Nut

a tree of North America, of the walnut order, the carya amāra, or swamp hickory, which produces small and somewhat egg-shaped BITTER ROOT fruits, with a thin, fleshy rind; the kernel is bitter and uneatable.

Bitter Root River

a tributary of the Columbia in Montana, flowing N. into Clark's river in Missoula county; length about 110 miles. Gold has been found in this region.

Bitter Root Valley

on the E. of the Bitter Root Range, in Montana, is 90 miles long and 7 miles wide, enwalled by lofty mountains, and abounding in farms and cornfields.

Bitter Salt

Epsom salt, sulphate of magnesia.

Bitter Spar

rhomb-spar, the crystallized form of dolomite or magnesian limestone.

Bitter Sweet

the woody nightshade, solānum dulcamāra.

BIZERTA stances called naphtha and petroleum, or mineral oil, and the solid ones called mineral pitch, asphalt, mineral caoutchouc, etc.

Bituminous Coal

coal which burns with a yellow, smoky flame, and on distillation gives out hydrocarbon or tar. It contains from 5 to 15, or even 16 or 17 per cent. of oxygen. See COAL.

Bituminous Schist

schist impregnated with bitumen; occurs in the Lower Silurian rocks of Russia. Sir R.

Murchison considered that it arose from the decomposition of the fucoids imbedded in these rocks.