BLUE LICK SPRINGS BLUET D'ARBERES 759 laws (a title of the origin of which the author is ignorant), who do not imagine they form a code of rules drawn up for future conduct, by an enthusiastic precise set of religionists ; and if the inventions of wits, humorists, and buf- foons were to be credited, they must consist of many large volumes. The author had the curiosity to resort to them when the commis- sioners met at New Haven for adjusting a par- tition line between New York and Massachu- setts in 1767; and a parchment-covered book of demi- royal paper was handed him for the laws asked for, as the only volume in the office passing under this odd title. It contains the memorials of the first establishment of the col- ony, which consisted of persons who had wan- dered beyond the limits of the old charter of Massachusetts Bay, and who, as yet unauthor- ! ized by the crown to set up any civil govern- ment in due form of law, resolved to conduct themselves by the Bible. As a necessary con- sequence, the judges they chose took up an authority which every religious man exercises over his own children and domestics. Hence their attentions to the morals of the people in instances with which the civil magistrate can never intermeddle in a regular well policed constitution, because to preserve liberty they are recognizable only by parental authority." " The good men and good wives were admon- ished and fined for liberties daily corrected, but never made criminal by the laws of large and well poised communities ; and so far is the common idea of the blue laws being a collec- tion of rules from being true, that they are only records of convictions consonant in the judgment of the magistrates to the word of God and the dictates of reason." See also Palfrey's "History of New England," vol. ii., p. 32, note. BLUE UCR SPRINGS, a village of Nicholas oo., Kentucky, on Licking river, 40 m. N. E. of Frankfort; pop. in 1870, 751. It is celebrated for its mineral waters, which form an article of considerable traffic in various parts of the United States. They contain soda, magnesia, lime, sulphuretted hydrogen, and carbonic acid, in combination with muriates and sulphates. BLUE MONDAY, originally so called from a fashion, prevalent in the 16th century, of dec- orating the churches on the Monday preceding Lent with blue colors. It was celebrated as a general holiday, and the excesses frequently committed during the revels led to stringent enactments on the subject, amounting almost to an abolition of the custom. BLUE MOUNTAINS. I. The central mountain range of the island of Jamaica. It extends i E. and W. through the centre of the island, ' with offsets covering its eastern portion. The main ridges are from 6,000 to 8,000 ft. high, and are flanked by lower ranges, gradually slo- ping off into verdant savannahs. These moun- tains are remarkable for their steep declivities and sharp, narrow crests, which are some- times only a few yards across. They cover the greater part of the island, the level portions being estimated at not more than JSj part of the whole. The valleys are deep longitudinal depressions, covered, as are also the sides of the mountains, with dense vegeta- tion and stately forests. In the great earth- quake of 1692 these mountains were terribly shattered and rent. II. A range in the S. E. part of New South Wales, extending through the counties of Oook, Roxburgh, and West- moreland, nearly parallel with the coast, and forming the dividing ridge between the rivers of the coast and those of the interior. These mountains attain a considerable elevation, Mt. Beemarang, believed to be the loftiest peak, having a height of 4,100 ft. The road which crosses them, built in 1813, is in places 3,400 ft. high. The range consists of ferruginous sand- stone. BLUE RIDGE, the most eastern of the princi- pal ridges of the Appalachian chain of moun- tains. It is the continuation S. of the Potomac of the same great ridge which in Pennsylvania and Maryland is known as the South moun- tain. It retains the name of Blue Ridge till it crosses the James river, from which to the line of North Carolina its continuation is call- ed the Alleghany mountain. Running through North Carolina into Tennessee, it again bears the name of Blue Ridge. (See APPALACHIAN MOUNTAINS.) BLUE RIVER, a river of Indiana, rising in Henry county in the eastern part of the state, takes a S. W. course, and joins Sugar creek, in Johnson county, after which it takes the name of Driftwood fork, or East fork of White river. Above Sugar creek it is from 30 to 60 yards wide, and affords excellent water power. The towns of Shelbyville and Newcastle are on its banks. BLUE STOCKINGS, a title which originated in England in the time of Dr. Johnson for ladies who cultivated learned conversation. Dr. Do- ran relates that in 1757 it was much the fashion for ladies to form evening assemblies where they might participate in talk with literary and ingenious men. One of the most eminent talk- ers on these occasions was a Mr. Stillingfleet, who always wore blue stockings, and his ab- sence at any time was so regretted that it used to be said, " We can do nothing without the blue stockings." The title was by degrees transferred, first to the clubs of this kind, and then to the ladies who attended them. It soon became a general appellation for pedantic or ridiculously literary ladies. One of the most famous of these clubs was that which met at Mrs. Montagu's, which was sometimes honored by the presence of Dr. Johnson, and the princi- pal members of which have been sketched and eulogized by Hannah More, in her poem enti- tled " The Bas Bleu." BLUE VITRIOL. See COPPER, vol. v., p. 318. BLUET D'ARBERES, Bernard, a professional French fool, born about 1566, died in 1606. In boyhood he was a shepherd, afterward a cart-
