388 BATH 17,018 tons. There were 32 vessels of 681 tons engaged in the cod and mackerel fishery. The custom house is a granite edifice built at a cost of about $50,000. A branch of the Maine Cen- tral railroad connects the city with Brunswick, 9 m. distant ; and there is steamboat commu- nication with Boston and Portland. Bath was incorporated as a town in 1780, and as a city in 1850. BATH, a township and village, capital of Steu- ben co., N. Y., on Oonhocton creek, 20 m. N. W. of Corning ; pop. of the township in 1870, 6,236. The village has several churches, a bank, two weekly newspapers, and some mills and factories. The Buffalo division of the Erie railway passes through the village. BATH (anc. Aquas Solis), a city of Somerset- shire, England, 106 m. W. of London by the Great Western railway, on the river Avon, 12 m. above Bristol ; pop. in 1871, 52,542. Built chiefly of freestone and upon the sides of high hills, the city rises in a succession of terraces, circuses, and gardens. It is a place of resort for invalids on account of the hot springs from which the city derives its name, and which are beneficial in palsy, rheumatism, gout, and scrof- ulous and cutaneous affections. Their charac- ter is alkaline sulphureous, with a slight pro- portion of iron. There are three springs of a constant temperature of 109, 114, and 117 F. The last named yields 128 gallons a minute. Bath was formerly a place of great fashion and gayety. In the last century and the beginning of the present it was at the height of its celeb- rity, but the opening of the continent after the war diverted the stream of visitors toward the German spas. The city is one of the most ancient in Britain, and was reputed to have Bath, England. been founded before the Roman invasion. It was a station on the old Roman road leading from London to Wales. There have been found at and near the site of the present town Ro- man coins, vases, altars, baths, and the remains of a Corinthian temple. Joined with the city of Wells, it is a bishop's see. The city has an abbey church, a relic of an ancient monastery. There are well supported hospitals for general purposes, and for the uses of those poor who resort to the city for the sake of the baths. Bath has been the residence of several men of political distinction, in particular of Pitt and Sheridan. William Beckford, the author of " Vathek," resided and died in Bath. BATH, Earl of. See PULTENKT, WILLIAM. BATH, Knights of the, a military order in Great Britain. This order is supposed to have originated at the tune of the first crusade, but first distinctly mentioned in the reign of Henry IV. Froissart says that, at the coronation of that king in the tower of London in 1399, 46 esquires were made knights, and were called knights of the bath, because they had watch- ed and bathed during the night preceding, and that they wore on the occasion long coats trim- med with white fur, and had white laces hung about their shoulders. From that time it was usual for English kings to create knights of the bath at the coronation of themselves or their queens, the birth or marriage of princes or princesses, on the eve of starting upon foreign military expeditions, and after gaining a battle or taking a town. At the coronation of Charles II. 68 knights of the bath were made, but the order was then neglected and discontinued, till in 1725 George I. revived it by letters patent. He gave a book of statutes for its government,
