512 BELUR TAGH several lakes in the west discharge into Wild Kice river, which flows into the Red. Itasca lake, about 1,600 ft. above the level of the sea; in the S. part of the county, is the source of the Mississippi river, which in its course through the county forms several lakes, the largest being Cass lake, on the S. E. border. Leech lake, a large body of water touching the S. E. corner, also flows into the Mississippi. BELUR TAtU. See BOLOB TAGH. BELL'S (Heb. Bel; Gr. Biy/lof), the GrsBcized form of the Chaldee Bel, as given in the He- brew Scriptures, or Bil, as read in the inscrip- tions, the name or title of one of the principal Babylonian divinities. The name Bel is sup- posed to be contracted from Heel, a. Chaldee equivalent of the Phoenician and Hebrew Baal (the Lord). (See BAAL, BABYLONIA, and ME- EODACH.) The attending female divinity was Bilit or Mylitta. (See MTLITTA.) The Greeks adopted Belus among their divinities, making him the son of Neptune, and the ancestral hero and national divinity of several eastern nations. BELUS, Temple of. See BABEL, and BABYLON. BELZONI, Giovanni Battlsta, an Italian travel- ler and explorer, the son of a barber, born in Padua about 1778, died in Africa, Dec. 3, 1823. He was educated for monastic life; but the French revolution broke up this design, and after wandering for some time about the con- tinent, he went to England in 1803. Here he at first gained a precarious subsistence by exhibiting as an athlete at Astley's circus, being endowed with prodigious strength. To these feats were added scientific experiments, as he had paid much attention to natural phi- losophy, particularly to hydraulics. He mar- ried in England, and after residing there for nine years visited Portugal, Spain, and Malta. Conceiving the idea of offering his services to the pasha of Egypt in constructing water wheels to irrigate the fields contiguous to the Nile, he arrived in Egypt June 9, 1815. He first constructed for the pasha one of his hy- draulic machines, at the gardens of Subra, three miles from Cairo. Mehemet Ali himself appears to have been satisfied with it, but the cultivators regarded it as an innovation, and their prejudices obliged Belzoni to abandon his scheme without even being rewarded by the pasha. His curiosity being now strongly excited on the subject of Egyptian antiquities, at the recommendation of Burckhardt he was employed by Mr. Salt, the English consul, to remove the colossal head, generally but incor- rectly styled the young Memnon. This Bel- zoni successfully accomplished, in the face of great difficulties, transporting it to Alexandria, and thence shipping it for England. In the mean time he made excursions to the mountain of Gornoo, to Asswan and Phils, and at Ip- sambul he was the first to open the great temple which had been discovered by Burck- hardt. In 1817 he made a second journey to Upper Egypt, and became involved in a quarrel with Drovetti, the French consul, and his co- BEM adjutor the count do Forbin. He visited the necropolis of Thebes, and made excavations at Karnak. Belzoni also discovered another co- lossal head of granite, which is now in the British museum, and, in the valley of Biban- ul-Moluk, the most perfect of known Egyptian tombs, a model of which, exhibited by him in London in 1821, attracted crowds of visitors. Before leaving Egypt he succeeded in 1818, after much trouble, in exploring the second of the great pyramids of Gizeh, that of Chephren or Sephres. This, ever since the time of He- rodotus, was believed to be without internal chambers. After 30 days of persevering labor, Belzoni found the entrance, and penetrated to the central chamber. He also visited the district of Fayoom, the oasis of Jupiter Am- mon, and Lake Moeris, and discovered the ruins of Berenice. He left Egypt in Septem- ber, 1819, and visited his native city of Padua, where a medal was struck in his honor ; and on his return to England he published a "Nar- rative of the Operations and recent Discoveries within the Pyramids, Temples, Tombs, and Ex- cavations in Egypt and Nubia " (3d ed., 2 vols. 8vo, London, 1822). In 1823 he formed the design of penetrating to Timbuctoo in Africa, and had reached the bight of Benin, but was attacked with dysentery, of which he died at a small place in Benin. BEJI, Jozef, a Polish general, born at Tar- now, Galicia, in 1795, died at Aleppo, Dec. 10, 1850. At an early age he entered the corps of cadets at Warsaw, and received his military training at the artillery school directed by Gen. Pelletier. On leaving this school he was ap- pointed lieutenant of the horse artillery, served in that capacity nnder Davonst and Macdon- ald in the campaign of 1812, won the cross of the legion of honor by his cooperation in the defence of Dantzic, and after the surrender of that fortress returned to Poland. As the czar Alexander now affected a great predilection for the Polish nation, and reorganized the Polish army, Bern entered the latter in 1815 as an officer of artillery, but was soon dismissed for fighting a duel with a superior; but he was subsequently appointed military teacher at the artillery school of Warsaw and promoted to the rank of captain. He now introduced the use of the Congreve rocket into the Polish army, recording the experiments made in a volume originally published in French. He was insubordinate, and from 1820 to 1825 was several times arraigned before courts martial, punished with imprisonment, and at last sent to Kock under strict police surveillance. He did not obtain his discharge from the Polish ar- my until the death of Alexander and the Peters- burg insurrection made Constantino lose sight of him. Leaving Russian Poland, he now retired to Lemberg, where he became an over- seer in a large distillery, and wrote a book on steam applied to the distillation of alcohol. When the Warsaw insurrection of 1830 broke out he joined it, after a few months was made
