Bignonia
a genus of plants (that of the trumpet flowers), constituting the typical one of the order bignoniaceæ or . It has four perfect stamina, bignoniads two long and two short. The species, which are numerous, are nearly all of an ornamental character, owing to their fine, large, trumpet-like, monopetalous corollas, colored red, blue, yellow, or shrubs, in the white. 'They are trees or latter case often climbing; found in, or sometimes even beyond, the tropics of both hemispheres, and constituting a feature in the flora of the regions which BIG HORN from the they inhabit. Many are India warmer parts of this country. also has various species. BIGNONIACEÆ, an order of plants, ranked by Dr. Lindley as the type of his bignonial alliance. The bignoniads are trees or shrubs, as a rule climbing. They are highly ornamental plants from the tropics of both hemispheres. BIG SANDY CREEK. (1) A river of Colorado that flows into the Arkansas, 200 miles long. (2) A river of Indiana, that flows into the Ohio.
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Bigois or Bigotis
A sorcerer of Tuscany who, it is said, composed a learned work on the nature of prognostications, especially those connected with thunder and lightning. The book is said to be irretrievably lost. It is thought that Bigois is the same as Bagoe (q.v.), a sibly of Erithryea, but this is merely of the nature of surmise.
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Bijapur
a decayed city in the Bombay presidency, 160 miles S. E. of Poona. It was for centuries the flourishing capital of a powerful kingdom, but fell therewith under various dynasties in succession, Hindu and Mussulman, till in 1686 it was captured by Aurungzebe. It passed, during the early part of the 18th century, into the hands of the Mahrattas, and became British in 1848. Now that a gradual decay has done its worst, Bijapur presents a contrast perhaps unequaled in the world. Lofty walls of hewn stone, still entire, inclose the silent and desolate fragments of a once vast and popucity.
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Bikaner
a native state of Rajputána, India, under the superintendence of a political agent and the governorgeneral's agent for Rájputána, lying between 27° 12′ and 30° 12′ N. lat., and 72° 15′ and 73° 50′ E. long. Area, 23,173 square miles. Pop. about 710,000. Bikaner, the capital, is surrounded by a fine wall 3½ miles in circuit. It has a fort, containing the rajah's palace, and manufactures blankets, sugar candy, pottery, etc. Pop., including suburbs, about 55,000.
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Bikelas
DIMITRIOS (bē-kā'las), a Greek poet and essayist, born at Hemopolis, in the island of Syra, in 1835. After completing his studies, he went to London, and after 1874 lived in Paris. He published a collection of his poems in London in 1862, and made Shakespeare's dramas known in Greece through excellent metrical translations. As a prose writer he won wide reputation with his tale, "Lukis Laras" (1879), which was translated into 13 languages. He died in 1908.
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Bilaspur
a district in the chief commissionership of the Central provinces of India, lying between 21° 22′ and 23° 6' N. lat., and between 80° 48′ and 83° 10' E. long. Area, 7,798 square miles. Pop. about 1,200,000. The administrative headquarters of the district are at Bilaspur, which is also the principal town. It is pleasantly situated on the S. bank of the Arpa, and has a population of about 20,000.
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Bilbao
a town of northern Spain, the capital of the Basque province of Vizcaya, is situated in a mountain gorge on the Nervion, 8 miles S. E. of its mouth at Portugalete, and 63 miles N. by E. of Miranda by rail. Bilbao is well built. Pop. about 100,000. Bilbao was founded in 1300 by Diego Lopez de Haro under the name of Belvaoi. e., the fine fort-and soon attained great prosperity. In the 15th century it was the seat of the most authoritative commercial tribunal in Spain. It suffered severely in the wars with France, first in 1795, and again in 1808, when 1,200 of its inhabitants were slaughtered in cold blood. During the Carlist struggles Bilbao stood two great sieges, Zumalacarreguy here receiving his death wound in 1835, while in 1874 the place was vainly besieged and heavily bombarded by the forces of Don Carlos for four months.
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Bilberry
the name given to one or two species of vaccinium, a genus of plants belonging to the order vacciniaceæ (cranberries). It is especially used of the vaccinium myrtillus, called also the whortleberry. It has waxy flowers, greenish with a red tinge, and black berries very pleasant to the taste. It grows in woods and healthy places. The great bilberry or bog whortleberry is an allied species. It grows in mountain bogs. It is also called the bleaberry or blaeberry. The bilberry, properly so called, is eaten in the places where it grows. It is made into jellies and tarts. It is astringent, and may be used in diarrhœa and dysentery. The fruit of • BILBILIS the V. uliginosum is acid, and produces giddiness and headache when eaten in too large quantity.
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Bilbilis
an old Iberian city of Spain, 2 miles E. of the modern town of Calatayud, in the province of Saragossa, chiefly celebrated as the birthplace of the poet Martial, but also famed for its highly tempered steel blades.
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Biled-Ul-Gerid
a tract of north Africa, lying between the S. declivity of Atlas and the Great Desert, noted for the production of date-palms.
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Bilge
the breadth of a ship's bottom, or that part of her floor which approaches to a horizontal direction, on which she would rest if aground. Bilge water, water which enters a ship and lies upon her bilge or bottom. Bilge ways, planks of timber placed under a vessel's bilge on the building slip to support her while launching. BILHARZIA (distomum or gynæcophorus hæmatobius), a parasitic flat worm in the fluke or trematode order, and belonging either to the same genus as the common liver fluke (D. hepaticum), or to one very closely related. In all other trematodes the sexes are united, the animals are hermaphrodite, but here a grooved canal, formed from two folds of skin on the ventral surface of the larger male, contains the female. Pairs thus united are found in the portal and other vessels in the abdominal region, both in men and monkeys. They are especially abundant in boys, and cause hæmaturia and other troubles. They occur from Egypt southward to the Cape. It is said that half of the Fellah and Copt population of Egypt suffer from this parasite. The embryos are ciliated, but the life history is not known.
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