and the single drone is tuned to the lower octave of the first hole 
The more primitive biniou, still occasionally found in the remote districts of Cornouailles and Morbihan, has a chaunter with but five holes,[1] giving part of the scale of D, the drone being also tuned to D. The drone of the biniou is of boxwood, handsomely inlaid with tin, and has a single or beating reed hidden within the stock.
The word biniou or bignou (a Gallicized form), often erroneously derived from bigno, se renfler beaucoup—an etymology not supported by Breton dictionaries—is the Breton plural form of benvek, instrument, tool, i.e. binviou, binvijou.[2] The word is also found in the phrase, “Sac’h ar biniou” (a biniou bag), a bag used by weavers to hold their tools, spindles, &c. The biniou is still the traditional and popular instrument of the Breton peasants of Cornouailles and Morbihan, and is almost inseparable from the bombard (q.v.), which is no other than a survival of the medieval musette, hautbois or chalémie, formerly associated with the bag-pipe in western Europe (see Oboe). At all festivals, at the pardons, wedding feasts and threshing dances, the two traditional musicians or sonneurs give out in shrill penetrating tones the ancient Breton rondes[3] and melodies.
BINMALEY, a town of the province of Pangasinán, Luzon, Philippine Islands, on the delta of the Agno river, about 5 m. W. of Dagupan, the north terminus of the Manila & Dagupan railway. Pop. (1903) 16,439. It has important fisheries, and manufactures salt, pottery, roofing (made of nipa leaves), and nipa wine. Rice and cocoanuts are the principal agricultural products of the town.
BINNACLE (before 18th century bittacle, through Span. bitácula, from Lat. habitaculum, a little dwelling), a case on the deck of a ship, generally in front of the steersman, in which is kept a compass, and a light by which the compass is read at night.
BINNEY, EDWARD WILLIAM (1812–1881), English geologist, was born at Morton, in Nottinghamshire, in 1812. He was articled to a solicitor in Chesterfield, and in 1836 settled at Manchester. He retired soon afterwards from legal practice and gave his chief attention to geological pursuits. He assisted in 1838 in founding the Manchester Geological Society, of which he was then chosen one of the honorary secretaries; he was elected president in 1857, and again in 1865. He was also successively secretary and president of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester. Working especially at the Carboniferous and Permian rocks of the north of England, he studied also the Drift deposits of Lancashire, and made himself familiar with the geology of the country around Manchester. On the Coal Measures in particular he became an acknowledged authority, and his Observations on the Structure of Fossil Plants found in the Carboniferous Strata (1868–1875) formed one of the monographs of the Palaeontographical Society. His large collection of fossils was placed in Owens College. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1856. He died at Manchester on the 19th of December 1881.
BINNEY, HORACE (1780–1875), American lawyer, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on the 4th of January 1780. He graduated at Harvard College in 1797, and studied law in the office of Jared Ingersoll (1749–1822), who had been a member of the Constitutional convention of 1787, and who from 1791 to 1800 and again from 1811 to 1816 was the attorney-general of Pennsylvania. Admitted to the bar in Philadelphia in 1800, Binney practised with great success for half a century, and was recognized as one of the leaders of the bar in the United States. He served in the Pennsylvania legislature in 1806–1807, and was a Whig member of the National House of Representatives from 1833 until 1835, ably defending the United States Bank, and in general opposing the policy of President Andrew Jackson. His most famous case, in which he was unsuccessfully opposed by Daniel Webster, was the case of Bidal v. Girard’s Executors, which involved the disposition of the fortune of Stephen Girard (q.v.). Binney’s argument in this case greatly influenced the interpretation of the law of charities. Binney made many public addresses, the most noteworthy of which, entitled Life and Character of Chief Justice Marshall, was published in 1835. He also published Leaders of the Old Bar of Philadelphia (1858), and an Inquiry into the Formation of Washington’s Farewell Address (1859); and during the Civil War he issued three pamphlets (1861, 1862 and 1865), discussing the right of habeas corpus under the American Constitution, and justifying President Lincoln in his suspension of the writ.
See the Life of Horace Binney (Philadelphia, 1904), by his grandson, C. C. Binney.
BINNEY, THOMAS (1798–1874), English Congregationalist divine, was born of Presbyterian parents at Newcastle-on-Tyne in 1798, and educated at an ordinary day school. After spending seven years in the employment of a bookseller he entered the theological school at Wymondley, Herts, now incorporated in New College, Hampstead. In 1829, after short pastorates at Bedford (New Meeting) and Newport, Isle of Wight, he accepted a call to the historic Weigh House chapel, London. Here he became very popular, and it was found necessary to build a much larger chapel on Fish Street Hill, to which the congregation removed in 1834. An address delivered on the occasion of the laying of the foundation stone was published, with an appendix containing a strong attack on the influence of the Church of England, which gave rise to a long and bitter controversy. Throughout his whole career Binney was a vigorous opponent of the state church principle, but those who simply classified him as a narrow-minded political dissenter did him injustice. His liberality of view and breadth of ecclesiastical sympathy entitle him to rank on questions of Nonconformity among the most distinguished of the school of Richard Baxter; and he maintained friendly relations with many of the dignitaries of the Established Church. He continued to discharge the duties of the ministry until 1869, when he resigned. In 1845 he paid a visit to Canada and the United States, and in 1857–1859 to the Australian colonies. The university of Aberdeen conferred the LL.D. degree on him in 1852, and he was twice chairman of the Congregational Union of England and Wales.
Binney was the pioneer in a much-needed improvement of the forms of service in Nonconformist churches, and gave a special impulse to congregational psalmody by the publication of a book entitled The Service of Song in the House of the Lord. Of numerous other works the best-known is his Is it Possible to Make the Best of Both Worlds? an expansion of a lecture delivered to young men in Exeter Hall, which attained a circulation of 30,000 copies within a year of its publication. He wrote much devotional verse, including the well-known hymn “Eternal Light! Eternal Light!” His last sermon was preached in November 1873, and after some months of suffering he died on the 24th of February 1874. Dean Stanley assisted at his funeral service in Abney Park cemetery.
BINOCULAR INSTRUMENT, or briefly Binocular,[4] an apparatus through which objects are viewed with both eyes. In this article only those instruments will be considered in which solid objects or objects in space are viewed; reference should be made to the article Stereoscope for the instruments in which plane representations are offered to both eyes. The natural vision is such that different central projections of the objects are communicated to both eyes; the difference of the two perspective representations arises from the fact that the projection centres are laterally separated by an interval about equal to the distance between the eyes (the inter-pupillary distance). Binocular instruments should aid the natural spatial or stereoscopic vision, or make it possible if the eyes fail. If the objects be so far
- ↑ See N. Quellien, Chansons et danses des Bretons (Paris, 1889), p. 39, and note, where the description of the instrument is not technical.
- ↑ See Le Gonidec, Dictionnaire breton-français, ed. by T. Hersart de la Villemarqué; and N. Quellien, op. cit. p. 37, note.
- ↑ For examples of these see N. Quellien, op. cit. part ii.
- ↑ The term binocular (from the Lat. bini, two at a time, and oculi, eyes) was originally an adjective used to describe things adapted for the simultaneous use of both eyes, as in “binocular vision,” “a binocular telescope or microscope”; now “a binocular” is used as a noun, meaning a binocular microscope, a field-glass, &c.
