February 1823. He graduated at Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1840, and next year made an ornithological excursion through the mountains of Pennsylvania, walking, says one of his biographers, “400 m. in twenty-one days, and the last day 60 m.” In 1838 he met J. J. Audubon, and thenceforward his studies were largely ornithological, Audubon giving him a part of his own collection of birds. After studying medicine for a time, Baird became professor of natural history in Dickinson College in 1845, assuming also the duties of the chair of chemistry, and giving instruction in physiology and mathematics. This variety of duties in a small college tended to give him that breadth of scientific interest which characterized him through life, and made him perhaps the most representative general man of science in America. For the long period between 1850 and 1878 he was assistant-secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, and on the death of Joseph Henry he became secretary. From 1871 till his death he was U.S. Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries. While an officer of the Smithsonian, Baird’s duties included the superintendence of the labour of workers in widely different lines. Thus, apart from his assistance to others, his own studies and published writings cover a broad range: iconography, geology, mineralogy, botany, anthropology, general zoology, and, in particular, ornithology; while for a series of years he edited an annual volume summarizing progress in all scientific lines of investigation. He gave general superintendence, between 1850 and 1860, to several government expeditions for scientific exploration of the western territories of the United States, preparing for them a manual of Instructions to Collectors. Of his own publications, the bibliography by G. Brown Goode, from 1843 to the close of 1882, includes 1063 entries, of which 775 were short articles in his Annual Record. His most important volumes, on the whole, were Birds, in the series of reports of explorations and surveys for a railway route from the Mississippi river to the Pacific ocean (1858), of which Dr Elliott Coues says (as quoted in the Popular Science Monthly, xxxiii. 553) that it “exerted an influence perhaps stronger and more widely felt than that of any of its predecessors, Audubon’s and Wilson’s not excepted, and marked an epoch in the history of American ornithology”; Mammals of North America: Descriptions based on Collections in the Smithsonian Institution (Philadelphia, 1859); and the monumental work (with Thomas Mayo Brewer and Robert Ridgway) History of North American Birds (Boston, 1875–1884; “Land Birds,” 3 vols., “Water Birds,” 2 vols). He died on the 19th of August 1887 at the great marine biological laboratory at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, an institution which was largely the result of his own efforts, and which has exercised a wide effect upon both scientific and economic ichthyology.
BAIRNSDALE, a town of Tanjil county, Victoria, Australia, on the Mitchell river, 171 m. by rail E. of Melbourne. Pop. (1901) 3074. It lies near the head of a lagoon called Lake King, which is open to the sea, and affords regular communication by water with Melbourne. In the district, which is chiefly pastoral, there are several goldfields, with both alluvial and reef mining. The town has tanneries, and cheese and butter factories. There is an active shipping trade with Melbourne in maize and other grain, hops, fruit and dairy produce.
BAITER, JOHANN GEORG (1801–1877), Swiss philologist and textual critic, was born at Zürich on the 31st of May 1801. Having received his early education in his native place, he went (1818) to the university of Tübingen, but from want of funds was obliged to return to Zürich, where for several years he was a private tutor. From 1824 to 1829 he studied at Munich under Friedrich Thiersch; at Göttingen, under Georg Dissen; at Königsberg, under Christian Lobeck. From 1833 to 1876 he was Oberlehrer at the gymnasium in Zürich, where he died on the 10th of October 1877. Baiter’s strong point was textual criticism, applied chiefly to Cicero and the Attic orators; he was very successful in hunting up the best MS. authorities, and his collations were made with the greatest accuracy. Most of his works were produced in collaboration with other scholars, such as Orelli, who regarded him as his right-hand man. He edited Isocrates, Panegyricus (1831); with Sauppe, Lycurgus, Leocratea (1834) and Oratores Attici (1838–1850); with Orelli and Winckelmann, a critical edition of Plato (1839–1842), which marked a distinct advance in the text, two new MSS. being laid under contribution; with Orelli, Babrius, Fabellae Iambicae nuper repertae (1845); Isocrates, in the Didot collection of classics (1846). He had for some time been associated with Orelli in his great work on Cicero, and assisted in Ciceronis Scholiastae (1833) and Onomasticon Tullianum (1836–1838). For the Fasti Consulares and Triumphales he was alone responsible. With Orelli and (after his death) Halm, he assisted in the second edition of the Cicero, and, with Kayser, edited the same author for the Tauchnitz series (1860–1869). New editions of Orelli’s Tacitus and Horace were also due to him. It is worth noting that, with Sauppe, he translated Leake’s Topography of Athens.
BAIUS, or De Bay, MICHAEL (1513–1589), Belgian theologian, was born at Melun in Hainault in 1513. Educated at Louvain University, he studied philosophy and theology with distinguished success, and was rewarded by a series of academic appointments. In 1552 Charles V. appointed him professor of scriptural interpretation in the university. In 1563 he was nominated one of the Belgian representatives at the council of Trent, but arrived too late to take an important part in its deliberations. At Louvain, however, he obtained a great name as a leader in the anti-scholastic reaction of the 16th century. The champions of this reaction fought under the banner of St Augustine; and Baius’ Augustinian predilections brought him into conflict with Rome on questions of grace, free-will and the like. In 1567 Pius V. condemned seventy-nine propositions from his writings in the Bull Ex omnibus afflictionibus. To this Baius submitted; though certain indiscreet utterances on the part of himself and his supporters led to a renewal of the condemnation in 1579 by Gregory XIII. Baius, however, was not disturbed in the tenure of his professorship, and even became chancellor of Louvain in 1575. He died, still in the enjoyment of these two dignities, in 1589. Baius is chiefly interesting as a forerunner of the more celebrated Cornelius Jansen (see Jansen). His writings are described by Harnack as a curious mixture of Catholic orthodoxy and unconscious tendencies to Protestantism; their most noticeable point is the great importance they attach to the fact of sin, both original and actual.
His principal works were published in a collected form at Cologne, 1696, 1 vol. 4to, in two parts; some large treatises have not been published. There is an excellent study of both books and author by Linsenmann, Michael Baius, und die Grundlegung des Jansenismus, published at Tübingen in 1867.
BAIZE (16th century Fr. baies, cf. English “bay”), a material probably named from its original colour, though a derivation is also suggested from the Fr. baie, as the cloth is said to have been originally dyed with Avignon berries. It is generally a coarse, woollen cloth with a long nap and is commonly dyed green or red. It is now also made of cotton. The manufacture is said to have been introduced into England in the 16th century by refugees from France and the Netherlands. It is used chiefly for curtains, linings, &c., and sometimes, in the lighter makes, for clothing. Table baize is a kind of oilcloth used as a cheap and easily-cleaned covering for tables.
BAJOCIAN, in geology, the name proposed in 1849 by d’Orbigny for the rocks of Middle Jurassic age which are well developed in the neighbourhood of Bayeux, Calvados. The Bajocian stage is practically equivalent to the Inferior Oolite of British geologists. It corresponds fairly closely with the Lower and Middle Brown Jura of Quenstedt, and with the Dogger of Oppel. By means of the fossil ammonites the Bajocia strata have been subdivided into the following zones, in descending order:—
| Zone of | Parkinsonia Parkinsoni and Cosmoceras garantianum | ||
| ” | Coeloceras subcoronatum (Humphriesianum) | ||
| ” | Sonninia Romani | ||
| ” | Stephaeoceras Sowerbyi | ||
| ” | Harpoceras concavum | ||
| ” | ”Murchisonae | = | Substage Aalénien |
| ” | ”opalinum | of Mayer-Eymar. | |
It should be remarked that some European geologists prefer
