Bolometer
a most sensitive electrical instrument invented by Svanberg in 1851 for the measurement of radiant heat.
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Single-source entries: B (106)
These 13 listings are so strange that each appears in only one of the 7 encyclopedias we compared. They include such classics as Bolometer, Bolor Tagh, Bolsena.
Bolor Tagh
also BILAUR, or
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Bolsena
a walled town of central Italy, province of Viterbo, 11 miles W. S. W. of Orvieto, on a lake of the same name. It is only noticeable for the ruins of the Etruscan goddess Nortia, a granite sarcophagus, ornamented with bas reliefs, and other remains of antiquity. This was anciently a place of great wealth and luxury, and Pliny says that when taken by the Romans, 266 B. c., it contained no less than 7,000 statues.
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Bolting Cloth
a strong silk or linen fabric, woven more or less closely. It is used in mills for bolting or sifting flour.
Only in Aiton's Encyclopedia
Bolton
or BOLTON-LE-MOORS, an important English manufacturing town and parliamentary and municipal borough in south Lancashire, on the Croal, 11 miles N. W. of Manchester. The river Croal divides the town into Great and Little Bolton. It was celebrated as far back as the time of Henry VIII. for its cotton and its woolen manufactures. Emigrants from France and the Palatinate of the Rhine subsequently introduced new branches of manufacture; and the improvements in cotton spinning in the middle of the 18th century rapidly increased the trade of the town. It is the birthplace of the daily evening press, "Bolton Evening News." During the Civil War the Parliament garrisoned Bolton; in 1644 it was stormed by the Bolt Earl of Derby. A canal was opened from Manchester to Bolton in 1791. Pop. about 170,000.
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Bolton Abbey
a notable English structure in Yorkshire; in a highly picturesque district on the river Wharfe, 6 miles E. of Skipton, and 21 N. W. of Leeds. Founded for Augustinian canons about 1150, it has been celebrated by Wordsworth in "The White Doe of Rylstone" and "The Force of Prayer." CHARLES KNOWLES, BOLTON, an American poet and miscellaneous writer, son of Mrs. Sarah Knowles Bolton, born in Ohio, in 1867. He is librarian of the Boston Athenæum librarv. He written Guide to Harvard," "Saskia, the Wife has in prose "Gossiping of Rembrandt," etc.; in verse "The Wooing of Martha Pitkin," "Love Story of Ursula Wolcott," etc. BOLTON, SARAH KNOWLES, an American author, born in Farmington, Conn., Sept. 15, 1841. She married Charles E. Bolton, a merchant and philanthropist. She is the author of a number of books, including " Girl Who Became Far Famous" (1886); "Famous American Authors" (1887); "Famous American Statesmen" (1888); "Famous Types of Womanhood" (1892); etc. She died Feb. 2, 1916.
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Boma
city and capital of the Kongo Free State, on the right bank of the Kongo river, till 1876 was the extreme inland post of the Dutch and Portu、 guese traders. It contains the establishment of the governor-general and also the local government of the administrative district of the same name.
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Bomb Lance
a harpoon used in whale fishing which carries a charge of explosive material in its head. In one form of the weapon the arrangement is that when the harpoon strikes the fish, the bar, which is pivoted obliquely in the head of the instrument, shall serve to release a spring acting on the hammer, the cap and bursts which then explodes en explodes the charge chamber.
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Bomba
a title popularly conferred upon King Ferdinand II. of Naples and by which he will be recorded in history. This appellation he received from the violation of his solemn oath to the citizens of Palermo, which city he perfidiously bombarded, in 1849; thus outraging his own plighted word, the laws of humanity, and the constitutional policy he had sworn to observe.
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Bombardier Beetle
a name applied to many coleopterous insects of the tribe carabidæ. They are divided into two genera the brachinus, and the aptinus; the latter has no membranous wings under the wing sheath. Those found near the tropics are large and brilliantly colored, but those found in this country are generally small. They are called bombardier beetles on account of a remarkable property they possess of violently expelling from the anus a pungent acrid fluid, which, if the species be large, has the power of producing discoloration of the skin, similar to that produced by nitric acid. It also changes blue vegetable colors to red, and then to yellow.
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Bombardment
an attack with bombs. Specifically, the act of throwing shells and shot into a town, fort, or ship. Sometimes carcasses, stink pots, rockets, hot shot, and other incendiary missiles are used for this purpose. The bombardment of a town takes more effect upon the civilians than the garrison, as the latter, in any well constructed for tified place, are lodged in bomb proof proof buildings. Before bombarding a town, it is customary to give notice thereof, to allow women, children, and non-combatants to leave it. Bombs and bombing reached a high point of development during the World War. See EXPLOSIVES: ARTILLERY.
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Bombax
also known as the silk cotton tree; a genus of plants belonging to the order sterculiaceæ (sterculiads) and the section bombacex. B. pentandrum is the cotton tree of India. The fruit is larger than a swan's egg, and when ripe opens in five parts, displaying many roundish, pealike seeds enveloped in dark cotton. This tree yields a gum, given in conjunction with spices in certain stages of bowel complaints. B. ceiba, the five-leaved silk cotton tree, rises to a great height. Its native country is South America and the adjacent West India Islands, where its immense trunk is scooped into canoes.
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Bombay (Chief seaport on the W coast)
the chief seaport on the W. coast of India, and capital of the presidency of the same name; at the southern extremity of the island of Bombay; is divided into two portions, one known as the Fort, and formerly surrounded with fortifications, on a narrow point of land with the harbor on the E. side and Back Bay on the W.; the other known as the City, a little to the N. W. In the Fort are Bombay Castle, the Government offices, and almost all the merchants' warehouses and offices. Bombay has many handsome buildings, both public and private, as the cathedral, the university, the secretariat, the high court. Various industries, such as dyeing, tanning, and metal working, are carried on, and there are large cotton factories. The commerce is very extensive, exports and imports of merchandise reaching a total value of over $300,- 000,000 annually. The harbor is one of the largest and safest in India. There is a large traffic with steam vessels between Bombay and Great Britain, and regular steam communication with China, Australia, Singapore, Mauritius, etc. The island of Bombay, which is about 11 miles long and 3 miles broad, formerly subject to inundations, is protected by embankments, to prevent which substantial walls have been constructed. After Madras, Bombay is the oldest of the British possessions in the East, having been ceded by the Portuguese in 1661. Pop. about 1,000,000.
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