Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 01.djvu/472

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BADGE BAEYER and it is of interest chiefly for the ruins of Roman baths that were discovered in 1847. The foundation of the town is re- ferred to the time of Hadrian, and the remains of the vapor baths, of which there are excellent specimens, are sup- posed to be of the same period. BADGE, a distinctive device, emblem, mark, honorary decoration, or special cognizance, used originally to identify a knight or distinguish his followers. BADGER, a plantigrade, carnivorous mammal, allied both to the bears and to the weasels, of a clumsy make, with short thick legs, and long claws on the fore- feet. The common badger {meles vul- garis) is as large as a middle-sized dog, BADGER but much lower on the legs, with a flat- ter and broader body, very thick, tough hide, and long, coarse hair. It inhabits the N. of Europe and Asia, burrows, is indolent and sleepy, feeds by night on vegetables, small quadrupeds, etc. Its flesh may be eaten, and its hair is used for artists' brushes in painting. The American badger belongs to a separate genus. BADGER DOG, a long-bodied, short- legged dog, with rather large pendulous ears, usually short-haired, black, and with yellow extremities; often called by its German name, dachshund. BADGHIS (bad'gis), a region N. of Herat, Afghanistan, comprising the country between the Murghab and the Harirud rivers, as far N. as the edge of the desert. It lies just to the S. of the boundary line between Afghanistan and the Russian territories, as defined in 1887. BADINGUET (bad-an-ga), the name of the person in whose garments Napo- leon II. escaped from the fortress of Ham in 1846; afterward a nickname for Na- poleon III. BAD LANDS, tracts of land in the N. W. part of the United States, The absence of vegetation enables the rains to wash clean the old lake beds, and in many instances to disclose remarkable fossils of extinct animals. They were first called Bad Lands {Tnauvaises terres) by the French explorers in the region of the Black Hills in South Dakota. BADMINTON, a popular game, closely resembling lawn tennis, played with battledore and shuttlecock on a rectan- gular portion of a lawn. The ground is divided crosswise by a strip of net, not less than three inches wide, suspended from poles at a height of five feet. As in lawn tennis, the ground on either side of the net is divided lengthwise into right and left courts. The first player, standing on a specified part of his right court, must strike the shuttlecock so as to fall across the net into the back sec- tion of the right court opposite. The opponent strikes it back, then it is returned by the first player, and so on till the first player misses the shuttle- cock. After the first stroke, it suffices that the shuttlecock be sent across the net, if it does not fly beyond the bound- aries. BADRINATH (-at'), a peak of the main Himalaya range, in Garhwal dis- trict, Northwestern Provinces, India; 23,210 feet alx)ve the sea. On one of its shoulders, at an elevation of 10,400 feet, stands a celebrated temple of Vishnu, which some years attracts as many as 50,000 pilgrims. BAEDEKER (ba'de-ker), KARL, a German publisher, born in 1801; origi- nator of a celebrated series of guide- books for travelers. He died in 1859. BAEKELAND, LEO HENDRIK, an American chemist, born in Ghent, Bel- gium, in 1863. He graduated from the University of Ghent and studied electro- chemistry in Germany. After being a member of the faculty of several univer- sities in Belgium, he came to the United States in 1889. He founded a company for the manufacture of photographic papers which he had invented, the best known of which was called Velox. From 1889 he was engaged in research me- chanical work and was consulting chem- ist for many important industrial con- cerns. He invented bakelite, a chemical substance replacing hard rubber and amber. He was a member of the Naval Consulting Board from 1915 to 1920, and also was a member of many chemical societies, both in the United States and abroad. He took out many patents in ' the United States and abroad on subjects of organic chemistry, electric insulation, etc., and contributed much to chemical magazines on chemical subjects. BAEYER, ADOLF VON (ba'yer), a German chemist, born in Berlin, Oct. 31, 1835; became Professor of Chemistry at