Paris, and at twenty obtained his first appointment in the civil service. His abilities secured him rapid promotion, and in 1806 he obtained the post of auditor to the council of state. After being employed in several political missions in Germany, Poland and Spain, during the next two years, he became prefect of Vendée. At the time of the return of Napoleon I. he held the prefecture of Nantes, and this post he immediately resigned. On the second restoration of the Bourbons he was made councillor of state and secretary-general of the ministry of the interior. After filling for several years the post of director-general of indirect taxes, he was created in 1819 a peer of France and was prominent among the Liberals. After the revolution of July 1830, M. de Barante was appointed ambassador to Turin, and five years later to St Petersburg. Throughout the reign of Louis Philippe he remained a supporter of the government; and after the fall of the monarchy, in February 1848, he withdrew from political affairs and retired to his country seat in Auvergne. Shortly before his retirement he had been made grand cross of the Legion of Honour. Barante’s Histoire des ducs de Bourgogne de la maison de Valois, which appeared in a series of volumes between 1824 and 1828, procured him immediate admission to the French Academy. Its narrative qualities, and purity of style, won high praise from the romantic school, but it exhibits a lack of the critical sense and of scientific scholarship. Amongst his other literary works are a Tableau de la littérature française au dixhuitième siècle, of which several editions were published; Des communes et de l'aristocratie (1821); a French translation of the dramatic works of Schiller; Questions constitutionnelles (1850); Histoire de la Convention Nationale, which appeared in six volumes between 1851 and 1853; Histoire du Directoire de la République française (1855); Études historiques et biographiques (1857); La Vie politique de M. Royer-Collard (1861). The version of Hamlet for Guizot’s Shakespeare was his work. He died on the 22nd of November 1866.
His Souvenirs were published by his grandson (Paris, 1890–99). See also the article by Guizot in the Revue des deux Mondes, July 1867.
BARASAT, a subdivisional town in the district of the Twenty-four Parganas, Bengal, India. For a considerable time Barasat town was the headquarters of a joint magistracy, known as the “Barasat District,” but in 1861, on a readjustment of boundaries Barasat district was abolished by order of government, and was converted into a subdivision of the Twenty-four Parganas. Pop. (1901) 8634. It forms a striking illustration of the rural character of the so-called “towns” in Bengal, and is merely an agglomeration of 41 separate villages, in which all the operations of husbandry go on precisely as in the adjacent hamlets.
BARATIER, JOHANN PHILIPP (1721–1740), German scholar of precocious genius, was born at Schwabach near Nuremberg on the 10th of January 1721. His early education was most carefully conducted by his father, the pastor of the French church at Schwabach, and so rapid was his progress that by the time he was five years of age he could speak French, Latin and Dutch with ease, and read Greek fluently. He then studied Hebrew, and in three years was able to translate the Hebrew Bible into Latin or French. He collected materials for a dictionary of rare and difficult Hebrew words, with critical and philological observations; and when he was about eleven years old translated from the Hebrew Tudela’s Itinerarium. In his fourteenth year he was admitted master of arts at Halle, and received into the Royal Academy at Berlin. The last years of his short life he devoted to the study of history and antiquities, and had collected materials for histories of the Thirty Years’ War and of Antitrinitarianism, and for an Inquiry concerning Egyptian Antiquities. His health, which had always been weak, gave way completely under these labours, and he died on the 5th of October 1740. He had published eleven separate works, and left a great quantity of manuscript.
BARATYNSKI, JEWGENIJ ABRAMOVICH (1800–1844), Russian poet, was educated at the royal school at St Petersburg and then entered the army. He served for eight years in Finland, where he composed his first poem Eda. Through the interest of friends he obtained leave from the tsar to retire from the army, and settled in 1827 near Moscow. There he completed his chief work The Gipsy, a poem written in the style of Pushkin. He died in 1844 at Naples, whither he had gone for the sake of the milder climate.
A collected edition of his poems appeared at St Petersburg, in 2 vols. in 1835; later editions, Moscow 1869, and Kazan 1884.
BARB. (1) (From Lat. barba, a beard), a term used in various senses, of the folds of mucous membrane under the tongue of horses and cattle, and of a disease affecting that part, of the wattles round the mouth of the barbel, of the backward turned points of an arrow and of the piece of folded linen worn over the neck by nuns. (2) (From Fr. barbe, meaning “from Barbary”), a name applied to a breed of horses imported by the Moors into Spain from Barbary, and to a breed of pigeons.
BARBACENA, an inland town of Brazil, in the state of Minas Geraes, 150 m. N.N.W. of Rio de Janeiro and about 3500 ft. above sea-level. The surrounding district is chiefly agricultural, producing coffee, sugar-cane, Indian corn and cattle, and the town has considerable commercial importance. It is also noted for its healthiness and possesses a large sanatorium much frequented by convalescents from Rio de Janeiro during the hot season. Barbacena was formerly a principal distributing centre for the mining districts of Minas Geraes, but this distinction was lost when the railways were extended beyond that point.
BARBADOS, or Barbadoes, an island in the British West Indies. It lies 78 m. E. of St Vincent, in 13° 4′ N. and 59° 37′ W.; is 21 m. long, 1412 m. at its broadest, and 166 sq. m. (106,470 acres) in extent (roughly equalling the Isle of Wight). Its coasts are encircled with coral reefs, extending in some places 3 m. seaward. In its configuration the island is elevated but not mountainous. Near the centre is its apex, Mount Hillaby (1100 ft.), from which the land falls on all sides in a series of terraces to the sea. So gentle is the incline of the hills that in driving over the well-constructed roads the ascent is scarcely noticeable. The only natural harbour is Carlisle Bay on the south-western coast, which, however, is little better than a shallow roadstead, only accessible to light draught vessels.
Geology.—The oldest rocks of Barbados, known as the Scotland series, are of shallow water origin, consisting of coarse grits, brown sandstones and sandy clays, in places saturated with petroleum and traversed by veins of manjak. They have been folded and denuded, so as to form the foundation on which rest the later beds of the island. Upon the denuded edges of the Scotland beds lies the Oceanic series. It includes chalky limestones, siliceous earths, red clay, and, at the top, a layer of mudstone composed mainly of volcanic dust. The limestones contain Globigerina and other Foraminifera, the siliceous beds are made of Radiolaria, sponge spicules and diatoms, while the red clay closely resembles the red clay of the deepest parts of the oceans. There can be no doubt that the whole series was laid down in deep waters. The Oceanic series is generally overlaid directly, and unconformably, by coral limestones; but at Bissex Hill, at the base of the coral limestones, and resting unconformably upon the Oceanic series, there is a Globigerina marl. The Coral Limestone series lies indifferently upon the older beds. Although of no great thickness it covers six-sevenths of the island, rising in a series of steps or platforms to a height of nearly 1100 ft.
Even the Scotland series probably belongs to the Tertiary system, but owing to the want of characteristic fossils, it is impossible to determine with any degree of certainty the precise homotaxis of the several formations. Jukes-Browne and Harrison ascribe the Scotland beds to the Eocene or Oligocene period, the Oceanic series to the Miocene, the Bissex Hill marls to the Pliocene, and the coral limestones partly to the Pliocene and partly to the Pleistocene. But these correlations rest upon imperfect evidence.
Sandstone, and clays suitable for brick-making, are found in the district of Scotland, so called from a fancied resemblance to the Highlands of North Britain. The only other mineral product is manjak, a species of asphalt, also found in this district and to some extent exported.
Climate, &c.—The climate of Barbados is pleasant. The
