Page:EB1911 - Volume 04.djvu/643

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BROACH—BROCADE
  

fish) in order to obtain her protection for those engaged on the sea (Athenaeus viii. p. 335).


BROACH, or Bharuch, an ancient city and modern district of British India, in the northern division of Bombay. The city is on the right bank of the Nerbudda, about 30 m. from the sea, and 203 m. N. of Bombay. The area, including suburbs, occupies 21/6 sq. m. Pop. (1901) 42,896. The sea-borne trade is confined to a few coasting vessels. Handloom-weaving is almost extinct, but several cotton mills have been opened. There are also large flour-mills. Broach is the Barakacheva of the Chinese traveller Hsüan Tsang and the Barygaza of Ptolemy and Arrian. Upon the conquest of Gujarat by the Mahommedans, and the formation of the state of that name, Broach formed part of the new kingdom. On its overthrow by Akbar in 1572, it was annexed to the Mogul empire and governed by a Nawab. The Mahrattas became its masters in 1685, from which period it was held in subordination to the peshwa until 1772, when it was captured by a force under General Wedderburn (brother to Lord Loughborough), who was killed in the assault. In 1783 it was ceded by the British to Sindhia in acknowledgment of certain services. It was stormed in 1803 by a detachment commanded by Colonel Woodington, and was finally ceded to the East India Company by Sindhia under the treaty of Sarji Anjangaom.

The District of Broach contains an area of 1467 sq. m. Consisting chiefly of the alluvial plain at the mouth of the river Nerbudda, the land is rich and highly cultivated, and though it is without forests it is not wanting in trees. The district is well supplied with rivers, having in addition to the Nerbudda the Mahi in the north and the Kim in the south. The population comprises several distinct races or castes, who, while speaking a common dialect, Gujarati, inhabit separate villages. Thus there are Koli, Kunbi or Voro (Bora) villages, and others whose lands are almost entirely held and cultivated by high castes, such as Rajputs, Brahmans or Parsees. In 1901 the population was 291,763, showing a decrease of 15%, compared with an increase of 5% in the preceding decade. The principal crops are cotton, millet, wheat and pulse. Dealing in cotton is the chief industry, the dealers being organized in a gild. Besides the cotton mills in Broach city there are several factories for ginning and pressing cotton, some of them on a very large scale. The district is traversed throughout its length by the Bombay & Baroda railway, which crosses the Nerbudda opposite Broach city on an iron-girder bridge of 67 spans. The district suffered severely from the famine of 1899–1900.


BROACH (Fr. broche, a pointed instrument, Med. Lat. brocca, cf. the Latin adjective brochus or broccus, projecting, used of teeth), a word, of which the doublet “brooch” (q.v.) has a special meaning, for many forms of pointed instruments, such as a bodkin, a wooden needle used in tapestry-making, a spit for roasting meat, and a tool, also called a “rimer,” used with a wrench for enlarging or smoothing holes (see Tool). From the use of a similar instrument to tap casks, comes “to broach” or “tap” a cask. A particular use in architecture is that of “broach-spire,” a term employed to designate a particular form of spire, found only in England, which takes its name from the stone roof of the lower portion. The stone spire being octagonal and the tower square on plan, there remained four angles to be covered over. This was done with a stone roof of slight pitch, compared with that of the spire, and it is the intersection of this roof with the octagonal faces of the spire which forms the broach.


BROADSIDE, sometimes termed Broadsheet, a single sheet of paper containing printed matter on one side only. The broadside seems to have been employed from the very beginning of printing for royal proclamations, papal indulgences and similar documents. England appears to have been its chief home, where it was used chiefly for ballads, particularly in the 16th century, but also as a means of political agitation and for personal statements of all kinds, especially for the dissemination of the dying speeches and confessions of criminals. It is prominent in the history of literature because, particularly during the later part of the 17th century, several important poems, by Dryden, Butler and others, originally appeared printed on the “broad side” of a sheet. The term is also used of the simultaneous discharge of the guns on one side of a ship of war.


BROADSTAIRS, a watering-place, in the Isle of Thanet parliamentary division of Kent, England, 3 m. S.E. of Margate, on the South-Eastern & Chatham railway. Pop. of urban district, Broadstairs and St Peter’s (1901) 6466. From 1837 to 1851 Broadstairs was a favourite summer resort of Charles Dickens, who, in a sketch called “Our English Watering-Place,” described it as a place “left high and dry by the tide of years.” This seaside village, with its “semicircular sweep of houses,” grew into a considerable town owing to the influx of summer visitors, for whose entertainment there are, besides the “Albion” mentioned by Dickens, numerous hotels and boarding-houses, libraries, a bathing establishment and a fine promenade. Dickens’ residence was called Fort House, but it became known as Bleak House, through association with his novel of that name, though this was written after his last visit to Broadstairs in 1851. Broadstairs has a small pier for fishing-boats, first built in the reign of Henry VIII. An archway leading down to the shore bears an inscription showing that it was erected by George Culmer in 1540, and not far off is the site of a chapel of the Virgin, to which ships were accustomed to lower their top-sails as they passed. St Peter’s parish, lying on the landward side of Broadstairs, and included in the urban district, has a church dating from the 12th to the end of the 16th century. Kingsgate, on the North Foreland, north of Broadstairs on the coast, changed its name from St Bartholomew’s Gate in honour of Charles II.’s landing here with the duke of York in 1683 on his way from London to Dover. Stonehouse, close by, now a preparatory school for boys, was the residence of Archbishop Tait, whose wife established the orphanage here.


BROCA, PAUL (1824–1880), French surgeon and anthropologist, was born at Sainte-Foy la Grande, Gironde, on the 28th of June 1824. He early developed a taste for higher mathematics, but circumstances decided him in adopting medicine as his profession. Beginning his studies at Paris in 1841, he made rapid progress, becoming house-surgeon in 1844, assistant anatomical lecturer in 1846, and three years later professor of surgical anatomy. He had already gained a reputation by his pathological researches. In 1853 he was named fellow of the Faculty of Medicine, and in 1867 became member of the Academy of Medicine and professor of surgical pathology to the Faculty. During the years occupied in winning his way to the head of his profession he had published treatises of much value on cancer, aneurism and other subjects. It was in 1861 that he announced his discovery of the seat of articulate speech in the left side of the frontal region of the brain, since known as the convolution of Broca. But famous as he was as a surgeon, his name is associated most closely with the modern school of anthropology. Establishing the Anthropological Society of Paris in 1859, of which he was secretary till his death, he was practically the inventor of the modern science of craniology. He rendered distinguished service in the Franco-German War, and during the Commune by his organization and administration of the public hospitals. He founded La Revue d’Anthropologie in 1872, and it was in its pages that the larger portion of his writings appeared. In his last years Broca turned from his labours in the region of craniology to the exclusive study of the brain, in which his greatest triumphs were achieved (see Aphasia). He was decorated with the Legion of Honour in 1868, and was honorary fellow of the leading anatomical, biological and anthropological societies of the world. He died on the 9th of July 1880. A statue of him by Choppin was erected in 1887 in front of the Faculty of Medicine in Paris.


BROCADE, the name usually given to a class of richly decorative shuttle-woven fabrics, often made in coloured silks and with or without gold and silver threads. Ornamental features in brocade are emphasized and wrought as additions to the main fabric, sometimes stiffening it, though more frequently producing on its face the effect of low relief. These additions present a distinctive appearance on the back of the stuff where