Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 4.djvu/391

of earl of Burlington, from which the name of Burlington

House in London is derived.

Arms of Bridport.

BRIDPORT, a parliamentary and municipal borough and market-town of England, in the county of Dorset, 18 miles by rail N.W. from Dorchester between two branches of the River Brit, from which it takes its name. The main part of the town is about a mile from the sea, with which it is connected by a single winding street, terminating in a quay sur rounded by a fishing village. The principal buildings comprise a town- hall, a market-house, a jail, a custom house, a mechanics institute with reading and lecture rooms ; there are also a school of art, alms-houses, and several charities. The parish church of St Mary, a cruciform edifice in the Perpendicular style, was restored in 1865. The harbour, which had become choked with sand, was rendered available and secure for vessels of 250 tons by extensive improvements undertaken in 1742 and 1823. The total value of the imports, which consist mainly of timber, coal, and flax, was in 1874 89,616; and the exports amounted to 18,021. Its principal articles of manufacture have long been sail cloth, cordage, linen, and fishing-nets. Bridport formerly returned two members to parliament, but since 1868 it returns only one. The population was 7670 in 1871. Though a place of considerable antiquity, it has very little historical importance. Its mint is mentioned in Domesday Boole. In the reign of Henry VIII. the town and district had a monopoly of the supply of cordage for the Royal Navy.

BRIEG, the capital of a circle in the Prussian province of Silesia and government of Breslau, is situated on the left bank of the Oder, and on the Breslau and Oppeln Railway, 27 miles S.E. of the former town. It is "well built, and has. a castle (the residence of the old Piastic counts of Brieg), a lunatic asylum, a gymnasium with a good library, and several churches and hospitals. Its fortifications were destroyed by the French in 1807, and are now replaced by beautiful promenades. Brieg carries on a considerable trade, its chief manufactures being linen, cotton, and woollen goods, porcelain and machinery, hats, pasteboard, and cigars. Important cattle-markets are held there. Brieg, or, as it is called in early documents, Givitas Altae Ripce, obtained municipal rights in 1250 from Duke Henry III. of Breslau, and was fortified in 1297; its name is derived from the Polish Brzey (shore). In the 14th century it became the seat of a line of counts, by one of whom the castle was built in 1341. Burned by the Hus sites in 1428, the town was soon afterwards rebuilt, and in 1595 it was again fortified by Duke Joachim Frederick. In the Thirty Years War it suffered greatly ; in that of the Austrian succession it was heavily bombarded by the Prussian forces; and in 1806 it was captured by the French. Population in 1871, 15,372.

BRIEL, Brielle, or Beil, a fortified seaport town of Holland, in the province of South Holland, and capital of an arrondissement, stands on the north side of the island of Voorne, near the mouth of the Maese, 14 miles west of Rotterdam, in 51 54 11" N. lat. and 4 9 51" E: long. The town is well built and strongly fortified, and has an arsenal, military magazines, barracks, and a good harbour. The tower of St Catharine s church serves as a lighthouse. Briel is remarkable in history as having been the first place captured in the struggle that resulted in the independence of the Netherlands a fact which is commemorated in the popular rhyme, Den eerste van April verloor due d Albe syne JBril, punning on the meaning of Bril, which is the Dutch for " spectacles." Admiral Van Tromp was born in the town. The inhabitants, who are principally engaged as fishermen and pilots, numbered 4058 in ltJ69.

BRIGADE, a tactical body, composed of two or more regiments of cavalry or infantry, under the command of a general officer of the lowest grade. The term brigade is also applied to from four to eight batteries of artillery working together, and to the small detachments (eight or nine men) of engineers employed in excavating saps in siege operations. Two or more brigades constitute a divi sion, two or more divisions a corps d armee, two or more corps d armde an army.

BRIGADE-MAJOR, a third-class staff officer, appointed by the brigadier to assist him in the management of his brigade.

BRIGADIER, a general officer of the lowest grade, next in rank above a colonel, who is intrusted with the command of a brigade.

BRIGGS, Henry, one of the greatest mathematicians of the 16th century, was born in 1556 at Warley Wood near Halifax, in Yorkshire. He studied at St John s College, Cambridge, graduated in 1581, and obtained a fellowship in 1588. In 1592 he was made reader of the physical lecture founded by Dr Linacre, and in 1596 first professor of geometry in Gresham House (afterwards Col lege), London. In his lectures at Gresham House he proposed the alteration of the scale of logarithms from the hyperbolic form which Napier had given them, to that in which unity is assumed as the logarithm of the ratio of ten to one ; and soon afterwards he wrote to the inventor on the subject. In 1616 he paid a visit to Napier at Edin burgh in order to discuss the suggested change ; and next year he repeated his visit for a similar purpose. During these conferences the alteration proposed." by Briggs was agreed upon ; and on his return from his second visit to Edinburgh in 1617 he accordingly published the first chiliad of his logarithms. In 1619 he was appointed Savilian professor of geometry at Oxford, and resigned his professorship of Gresham College on the 25th of July 1620. Soon after his settlement at Oxford he was incorporated master of arts in that university, where he continued a laborious and studious life, employed partly in discharging the duties of his office, and partly in the computation of logarithms and in other useful works. In 1G22 he pub lished a small tract on the North-West Passage to the South Seas, through the Continent of Virginia and Ihidson s Bay ; and in 1624 he printed at London his Arithmetica Loga- rithmica, in folio, a work containing the logarithms of thirty thousand natural numbers to fourteen places of figures besides the index. He also completed a table of logarithmic sines and tangents for the hundredth part of every degree to fourteen places of figures besides the index, with a table of natural sines to fifteen places, and the tangents and secants for the same to ten places ; all of which were printed at Gotida in 1631 and published in 1633 under the title of Trigonomctria Britannica. Briggs died on the 26th of January 1630 in the 74th year of his age. Dr Smith, in his Lives of the Gresham Pro fessors, characterizes him as a man of great probity, a con- temner of . riches, and contented with his own station, preferring a studious retirement to all the splendid circum stances of life.

His works are—1. A Table to find the Height of the Pole, the Magnetical Declination being given, London, 1602, 4to. 2. "Tables for the Improvement of Navigation," printed in the second edition of Edward Wright s treatise entitled Certain Errors in Navigation detected and corrected, London, 1610, 4to. 3. A Description of an Instrumental Table to find the part proportional, devised by Mr Edward Wright, London, 161 6 and 1618, 12mo. 4. LogaritJimorum Chilias prima, London, 1017, 8vo. 5. Lucubrationes et Annotations in opera posthuma J. Neper i, Edin., 1619, 4to. 6. Euclidis Ele-