BOIARDO 86 BOILER Bisayas group. It has an area of about 1,300 square miles and an estimated population of about 250,000. Sugar cane is grown and the island is reputed rich in gold deposits. The most important town is Tagbilaran, a port on the S. W. coast. The Visayas dialect prevails throughout Bohol. BOIARDO (bo-yar'do), MATTEO MARIA, COUNT OF SCANDIANO, one of the greater Italian poets, was born in 1434 at Scandiano. He studied at the University of Ferrara, and, in 1462, mar- ried the daughter of the Count of Norel- lara. He lived principally at the court of Ferrara on terms of intimate friend- ship with Duke Borso and Duke Ercole, by the latter of whom he was employed on important diplomatic missions, and appointed, in 1481, Governor of Modena, dnd, in 1487, Governor of Reggio. He died at Reggio, in 1494. Boiardo has been called the "Flower of Chivalry." His fame rests on the "Orlando Inna- morato" (1486), a long narrative poem in which the romances of the Carlovin- gian cycle are recast into "ottava rima." Full of rich and graceful fancy, this is the only work in which the spirit of chiv- alry is found in union with the spirit of the Renaissance. Ariosto adopted Boiardo's characters and magic machin- ery, and brought his narrative to a close in the "Orlando Furioso." Boiardo's other works comprise various Latin eclogues, a versification of Lucian's "Timon," translations of Herodotus, the "Ass" of Lucian, and the "Golden Ass" of Apuleius. BOID-ffi, a family of ophidias (ser- pents) belonging to the suborder colu- hrina. They have no poison fangs. They have the rudiments of hind limbs. The chief genera are boa, python and eryx. BOII, a powerful Celtic people who dwelt originally in Transalpine Gaul, part of whom settled in the modern Bo- hemia, and bequeathed their name to that country. BOIL, a disease called by medical men furunculus. It is a phlegmonous tumor, which rises externally, attended with red- ness and pain, and sometimes with a violent, burning heat. Ultimately it be- comes pointed, breaks, and emits pus. A blind boil is one which does not suppu- BOILEAU, NICOLAS (bwa-16'), a French poet, bom at Paris, Nov. 1, 1636. He was educated at Beauvais, and re- ceived both a legal and a theological training. In his 21st year, however, he inherited a competence, and decided to follow a purely literary life. His first work appeared under the name of Des- preaux. He published his satirical "Adieux d'un Poete a la Ville de Paris," in 1660, and, in 1663, we find him united with Moliere, La Fontaine, and Racine, in the famous "society of four." In 1666 he published a collection of satires from which the royal privilege was for a time withdrawn, through the influence of Chapelain, one of the writers whom he had gibbeted. Boileau, however, soon gained the favor of the king, who award- ed him various pensions, and in 1677 ap- pointed him, along with Racine, to the post of royal historiographer. "L'Art Poetique," which contains the exposition of his literary creed, and which was imi- tated by Pope in the "Essay on Criti- cism," was published in 1674, along with four cantos of the "Lutrin." Between 1669 and 1677 Boileau published nine epistles, written, like his satires, on the Horatian model. In his last years Boi- leau retired to Auteuil, where he died March 13, 1711. BOILER, the name given to a vessel in which steam is generated. In its sim- plest form, it consists of a close vessel made of metal plate, having apertures for the admission of water and egress of steam, fitted with apparatus for show- ing the level of the water and the pres- sure of the steam, and in connection with a furnace. When water is boiled in an open pan, the temperature of the water and of the steam rising from it remains at 212° F., and the tension or pressure of the steam is no more than sufficient to make its way into the atmosphere, being exactly equal to that exerted in all di- rections by the atmosphere itself — 14.7 pounds per square inch. In a close ves- sel, on the other hand, the temperature and pressure to which we can raise the steam are only limited by the strength of the boiler. The form of a boiler is determined by two considerations — ^namely, strength to withstand internal pressure, and effi- ciency in producing steam. The globular form is that best adapted for strength, and was the earliest to be used. It pre- sents to the fire, however, the minimum area in proportion to its contents, and, therefore, has a minimum efficiency. Af- ter spherical boilers, cylindrical ones came into use, at first set on end, and afterward laid on their sides, and, later on, these were furnished with internal cylindrical tubes for furnaces. Boilers may be classified in several ways — as horizontal and vertical; inter- nally and externally fired; and plain, multitubular and tubulous. Large boil-
