BORODINO, a village of Russia, 70 m. W. by S. of Moscow, on the Kolotscha, an affluent of the river Moskva, famous as the scene of a great battle between the army of Napoleon and the Russians under Kutusov on the 7th of September 1812. Though the battle is remembered chiefly for the terrible losses incurred by both sides, in many respects it is an excellent example of Napoleon’s tactical methods. After preliminary fighting on the 5th of September both sides prepared for battle on the 6th, Napoleon holding back in the hope of confirming the enemy in his resolution to fight a decisive battle. For the same reason the French right wing, which could have manœuvred the Russians from their position, was designedly weakened. The Russian right, bent back at an angle and strongly posted, was also neglected, for Napoleon intended to make a direct frontal attack. The enemy’s right centre near the village of Borodino was to be attacked by the viceroy of Italy, Eugene, who was afterwards to roll up the Russian line towards its centre, the so-called “great redoubt,” which was to be attacked directly from the front by Ney and Junot. Farther to the French right, Davout was to attack frontally a group of field works on which the Russian left centre was formed; and the extreme right of the French army was composed of the weak corps of Poniatowski. The cavalry corps were assigned to the various leaders named, and the Guard was held in reserve. The whole line was not more than about 2 m. long, giving an average of over 20 men per yard. When the Russians closed on their centre they were even more densely massed, and their reserves were subjected to an effective fire from the French field guns. At 6 a.m. on the 7th of September the French attack began. By 8 a.m. the Russian centre was driven in, and though a furious counter-attack enabled Prince Bagration’s troops to win back their original line, fresh French troops under Davout and Ney drove them back again. But the Russians, though they lost ground elsewhere, still clung to the great redoubt, and for a time the advance of the French was suspended by Napoleon’s order, owing to a cavalry attack by the Russians on Eugene’s extreme left. When this alarm was ended the advance was resumed. Napoleon had now collected a sufficient target for his guns. A terrific bombardment by the artillery was followed by the decisive charge of the battle, made by great masses of cavalry. The horsemen, followed by the infantry, charged at speed, broke the Russian line in two, and the French squadrons entered the gorge of the great redoubt just as Eugene’s infantry climbed up its faces. In a fearful mêlée the Russian garrison of the redoubt was almost annihilated. The defenders were now dislodged from their main line and the battle was practically at an end. Napoleon has been criticized for not using the Guard, which was intact, to complete the victory. There is, however, no evidence that any further expenditure of men would have had good results. Napoleon had imposed his will on the enemy so far that they ceded possession of Moscow without further resistance. That the defeat and losses of the Russian field army did not end the war was due to the national spirit of the Russians, not to military miscalculations of Napoleon. Had it not been for this spirit, Borodino would have been decisive of the war without the final blow of the Guard. As it was, the Russians lost about 42,000 men out of 121,000; Napoleon’s army (of which one-half consisted of the contingents of subject allies—Germany, Poland, Switzerland, Holland, &c.) 32,000 out of 130,000 (Berndt, Zahl im Kriege). On the side of the French 31 general officers were killed, wounded or taken, and amongst the killed were General Montbrun, who fell at the head of his cavalry corps, and Auguste Caulaincourt, who took Montbrun’s place and fell in the mêlée in the redoubt. The Russians lost 22 generals, amongst them Prince Bagration, who died of his wounds after the battle, and to whose memory a monument was erected on the battle-field by the tsar Nicholas I.
BOROLANITE, one of the most remarkable rocks of the
British Isles, found on the shores of Loch Borolan in Sutherlandshire,
after which it has been named. In this locality there is
a considerable area of granite rich in red alkali felspar, and
passing, by diminution in the amount of its quartz, into quartz-syenites
(nordmarkites) and syenites. At the margins of the
outcrop patches of nepheline-syenite occur; usually the nepheline
is decomposed, but occasionally it is well-preserved; the other
ingredients of the rock are brown garnet (melanite) and
aegirine. The abundance of melanite is very unusual in igneous
rocks, though some syenites, leucitophyres, and aegirine-felsites
resemble borolanite in this respect. In places the nepheline-syenite
assumes the form of a dark rock with large rounded white
spots. These last consist of an intermixture of nepheline or
sodalite and alkali-felspar. From the analogy of certain leucite-syenites
which are known in Arkansas, it is very probable that
these spots represent original leucites which have been changed
into aggregates of the above-named minerals. They resemble
leucite in their shape, but have not yet been proved to have
its crystalline outlines. The “pseudo-leucites,” as they have
been called, measure one-quarter to three-quarters of an inch
across. The dark matrix consists of biotite, aegirine-augite
and melanite. Connected with the borolanite there are other
types of nepheline-syenite and pegmatite. In Finland, melanite-bearing
nepheline rocks have been found and described as
Ijolite, but the only other locality for melanite-leucite-syenite
is Magnet Cove in Arkansas. (J. S. F.)
BORON (symbol B, atomic weight 11), one of the non-metallic
elements, occurring in nature in the form of boracic (boric) acid,
and in various borates such as borax, tincal, boronatrocalcite
and boracite. It was isolated by J. Gay Lussac and L. Thénard
in 1808 by heating boron trioxide with potassium, in an iron tube.
It was also isolated at about the same time by Sir H. Davy,
from boracic acid. It may be obtained as a dark brown amorphous
powder by placing a mixture of 10 parts of the roughly
powdered oxide with 6 parts of metallic sodium in a red-hot
crucible, and covering the mixture with a layer of well-dried
common salt. After the vigorous reaction has ceased and all
the sodium has been used up, the mass is thrown into dilute
hydrochloric acid, when the soluble sodium salts go into solution,
and the insoluble boron remains as a brown powder, which may
by filtered off and dried. H. Moissan (Ann. Chim. Phys., 1895, 6,
p. 296) heats three parts of the oxide with one part of magnesium
powder. The dark product obtained is washed with water,
hydrochloric acid and hydrofluoric acid, and finally calcined
again with the oxide or with borax, being protected from air
during the operation by a layer of charcoal. Pure amorphous
boron is a chestnut-coloured powder of specific gravity 2.45;
it sublimes in the electric arc, is totally unaffected by air at
ordinary temperatures, and burns on strong ignition with production
of the oxide B2O3 and the nitride BN. It combines
directly with fluorine at ordinary temperature, and with chlorine,
bromine and sulphur on heating. It does not react with the
alkali metals, but combines with magnesium at a low red heat
to form a boride, and with other metals at more or less elevated
temperatures. It reduces many metallic oxides, such as lead
monoxide and cupric oxide, and decomposes water at a red heat.
Heated with sulphuric acid and with nitric acid it is oxidized
to boric acid, whilst on fusion with alkaline carbonates and
hydroxides it gives a borate of the alkali metal. Like silicon
and carbon, very varying values had been given for its specific
heat, until H. F. Weber showed that the specific heat increases
rapidly with increasing temperature. By strongly heating a
mixture of boron trioxide and aluminium, protected from the
air by a layer of charcoal, F. Wöhler and H. Sainte-Claire Deville
obtained a grey product, from which, on dissolving out the
aluminium with sodium hydroxide, they obtained a crystalline
product, which they thought to be a modification of boron,
but which was shown later to be a mixture of aluminium
borides with more or less carbon. Boron dissolves in molten aluminium,
and on cooling, transparent, almost colourless crystals
are obtained, possessing a lustre, hardness and refractivity near
that of the diamond. In 1904 K. A. Kühne (D.R.P. 147,871)
described a process in which external heating is not necessary,
a mixture of aluminium turnings, sulphur and boric acid being
ignited by a hot iron rod, the resulting aluminium sulphide,
formed as a by-product, being decomposed by water.
