BURGUNDY PITCH 243 BURIAN Strettlingen formed Upper or Trans- juran Burgundy out of part of Switzer- land and Savoy. Both these Burgundian kingdoms were united, and finally, on the extinction of Rudolph's line, were in- corporated with Germany. But a third State, the historical Duchy of Bur- gundy, consisting principally of the French province of Bourgogne or Bur- gundy, had been formed as a great feudal and almost independent province of France in the 9th century. This first ducal line died out with a Duke Philip, and the duchy, reverting to the crown, was, in 1363, grranted by King John of France to his son, Philip the Bold, who thus became the founder of a new line of Dukes of Burgundy. A marriage with Margaret, daughter of Louis III., Count of Flanders, brought him Flan- ders, Mechlin, Antwerp and Franche- Comte. He was succeeded by his son, Duke John the Fearless, whose son and successor, Philip the Good, so greatly ex- tended his dominions that, on his death, in 1467, his son Charles, surnamed the Bold, though possessing only the title of Duke, was in reality one of the richest and most powerful sovereigns of Eu- rope. Charles left a daughter, Mary of BiiTeundy, the sole heiress of his States, who oy ner marriage to Maximilian of Austria transferred a large part of her dominions to that Prince, while Louis XL, of France, acquired Burgundy proper as a male fief of France. Bur- gundy then formed a province, and is now represented by the four depart- ments of Yonne, Cote-d'Or, Saone-et- Loire, and Ain, It is watered by a num- ber of navigable rivers, and is one of the 5-/iost productive provinces in France, ^specially of wines. BURGUNDY PITCH, the pix biirgun- dica the resinous exudation of the stem of the spruce fir, abies excelsa or pimis abies, melted and strained. It is got from Switzerland, but seldom genuine. It is hard and brittle, opaque, of a dull reddish brown color, empyreumatic odor, and aromatic taste. It gives off no water when heated, is not bitter, and is free from vesicles. It consists chiefly of resin and a little volatile oil, whence its odor. The resin resembles that of tur- pentine. Pitch plaster acts externally as a slight stimulant to the skin. It enters also into the composition of the iron plaster. BURGUNDY WINE, the finest of all the French wines, the product of vines cultivated in the Cote-d'Or, a portion of the ancient province of Burgundy. The most noted of the red wines of Burgundy are Richebourg and Chambertin. The white wines are less celebrated. BURHANPUR, a town of India, Cen- tral Provinces, formerly the capital of Kandeish, and famous for its muslin and flowered silk manufactures, which still exist to some extent, though the town has long been declining. Pop. about 20,000. Under the Moguls the city had an area of 5 square miles. BURIAL, the most universal method of disposing of the dead, the practice of burning them on a funeral pile, preva- lent to a limited extent among the Greeks and the Romans, and nearly uni- versal among the Hindus, being the ex- ception and not the rule. The Egyptians and, at least in some special cases, the Jews embalmed their dead. In Europe, according to Sir John Lubbock, inter- ments in which the corpse is in a sitting or contracted posture belong to the stone age, those in which it has been burned and only the ashes interred, to the bronze age, and those in which the corpse lies extended, presumably to the age of iron. During the first French Revolution a proposal was made to adopt the process of cremation, but it failed. The project was revived on the Conti- nent during the 19th century, and recom- mended in England, in 1873, by Dr. Henry Thompson, but as yet it has met with only limited acceptance from the public. See Cremation. BURIAN, VON RAJECZ, BARON STEFAN, an Austro-Hungarian states- man; born near Pressburg, Hungary, Jan. 15, 1851. He received his educa- tion at Pressburg and Vienna and en- tered upon a diplomatic career. He served in minor capacities as consul chiefly at Balkan capitals where he ob- tained a profound knowledge of Balkan personalities and politics. He was made Consul-General at Moscow and later was promoted to the post of Ambassador to Greece. In 1903 he was made chief ad- ministrator of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and after the outbreak of the World War succeeded Count Berchtold as Premier Foreign Minister of the Dual Monarchy. His appointment had as its moving cause the hope that he would be able by suit- able concessions to keep Italy from en- tering the war on the side of the Allies — a matter in which Berchtold had not been making satisfactory progress. Burian likewise failed, although he was ready to make great concessions. Dur- ing his term of office he was engaged in various diplomatic controversies with the United States in regard to the sinking of American vessels by Austrian sub- marines. He resigned in December, 1916, and assumed the portfoho of finance under his successor. In April, 1918, he was again appointed Premier
