Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume II.djvu/316

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296 BARANYA BARBADOES erary pursuits. As early as 1809 ho had publish- ed anonymously his Tableau de la litterature francaise au 18' siecle, and he was the real au- thor of a great part of Mine, de la Rochejaque- lin's Memoires on the war in La VendCe. He published a French version of Schiller's dra- mas (1821), contributed to the Collection des the&tres etrangen, and furnished the "Ham- let " of Guizot's translation of Shakespeare. His IIMoire de dues de Bouryogne de la mai- ion de Valois (3 vols. 8vp, 1824-'6), a skilful arrangement of the memoirs of old chroniclers, has been considered a model of purely narra- tive history, and secured his election to the French academy. After the revolution of 1830 he was appointed ambassador to Turin, and in 1835 he went as minister to St. Petersburg. After the revolution of 1848 he devoted him- self wholly to literary pursuits. Among his remaining works are : Melanges hiatoriques et litteraires (3 vols., 1836); Questions constitu- tionnelles (1850) ; ffistoire de la convention na- tionale (6 vols., 1851-'3) ; ffistoire du directoire (3 vols., 1855); Ultudes historiques et biogra- phiques (2 vols., 1857) ; La vie politique de M. Royer-Gollard (2 vols., 1861); and De la decentralisation en 1829 et en 1833 (1865). As a historian Barante was impartial and accurate in his statements. BARANYA, a county of S. W. Hungary, bound- ed by the Danube, which there forms Margitta island, and the Drave, which separates it from Slavonia ; area, about 1,965 sq. m. ; pop. in 1870, 283,506, of whom more than half are Magyars, and the rest chiefly Germans, Croats, and Serbs. The surface is partly hilly and partly level, and the soil almost everywhere very fer- tile, producing wheat, tobacco, fruits, and ex- cellent wines. The county is also rich in cat- tle, sheep, and swine. There are several min- eral springs. The most important towns are Funfkirchen or Pecs, the capital, and Mohacs, near which in 1526 Hungary lost her army, her king, and her independence. BARATIER, Joliann Phllipp, a precocious Ger- man scholar, born at Schwabach, near Nurem- berg, Jan. 19, 1721, died in Halle Oct. 5, 1740. He was the son of a Protestant pastor, who had fled from France on the revocation of the edict of Nantes. Before his 5th year he had learned to read and write French, German, and Latin, and he afterward mastered, almost unaided, Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic, and Ethiopia. In his 9th year he made a dictionary of difficult Hebrew and Chaldaic words, and in his 13th year published a translation from the Hebrew of the itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela, to which life added notes and historical disser- tations, lie also published several learned theological pamphlets, and made difficult math- ematical and astronomical calculations. In his 14th year he received from the university of Halle the degree of master of arts, on which occasion he defended 14 theses in the presence of more than 2,000 spectators. The royal so- ciety of sciences at Berlin made him a member, and the king of Prussia made him an annual allowance of $50, presented him with books and mathematical instruments, and gave to his father a living at Halle. He began a history of the church, a history of the 30 years' war, and various other works. BARATYKSKI, Yevgenl Abramoviteh, a Russian poet, died in Italy in September, 1844. He was educated at St. Petersburg, served eight years as a soldier in Finland, and afterward lived in Moscow. "Eda," the first offspring of his muse, is a spirited poem, with strong local col- oring and Finnish characteristics. His most agreeable production is the "Gypsy," a grace- ful picture of the best features of Russian high life. BARB, a fine breed of horses cultivated by the Moors of Barbary, and first introduced by them into Spain. They are believed to have been of a kindred origin with the Arabian horse, but are less remarkable for beauty and symmetry than for speed, endurance, and do- cility. They are generally larger than the Arabian, and the black barbs of Dongola are said to be rarely less than 16 hands high. The wild horses of America are believed to have descended from Spanish barbs, brought over by the early explorers. BARBADOES, or Barbados, a British island of the West Indies, the most easterly of the Ca- ribbean group, in lat. 13 10' N., Ion. 59 32' W. It is of an oval form, 22 m. long and 14 broad ; area, 166 sq. m. ; pop. in 1861, 152,727, being 920 to the square mile. The population of Barbadoes is denser than that of any other country in the world except Malta. In 1861 there were 16,594 white, 36,118 of mixed race, and 100,005 black. The island is di- vided by a deep valley into two parts. Near the centre of the northern and larger part is Mount Hillaby, 1,147 ft. high. From the W. coast the ground rises in successive ter- races, broken by ravines to the central ridge, from which hills of a conical form radiate in a N. E. direction to the seashore. The N. W. and S. parts of the island consist of rocks of coralline limestone with beds of calcareous marl ; the E. part is composed of strata of silicious sandstone, intermixed with ferrugi- nous matter, clay, marl, minute fragments of pumice, strata of volcanic ashes, seams of bitu- men, and springs of petroleum. There are several chalybeate springs, containing chic-fly iron, carbonic acid, and fixed alkali, in differ- ent proportions. The island is encircled by ( coral reefs, which in some parts extend sea- ward for three miles, and are dangerous to navigation. Carlisle bay, the port and harbor of Barbadoes, is a spacious open roadstead, capable of containing 500 vessels; but it is exposed to S. and S. W. winds. The climate, though warm, is salubrious. The island is greatly exposed to hurricanes. One of these, in October, '1780, destroyed almost every building, and 3,000 or 4,000 lives. During another in August, 1831, the loss of life is