B THE AMERICANA urnham, Sherburne Wesley, American astronomer: b. Thetford, Vt., 1838. He started in life as a stenographer, and became a clerk in the United States Circuit Court, northern district of Illinois. He took up astronomy as an amateur, and, in 1876, became connected with the Chicago Observatory, and later with the Lick Observatory, receiving also an appointment as professor of practical astronomy at the University of Chicago. He has made notable discoveries of double stars, having catalogued 1,274 new ones. In 1874 he was made a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society of England, receiving its gold medal in 1894 for his discovery and measurement of double stars. Burnham Beeches, the fragment of an ancient forest in Buckinghamshire. It is sit uated some 25 miles northwest of London, and is famous for its enormous beech trees. Since 1883, the Burnham Beeches tract of 374 acres has been open to the public as a park by the Corporation of London. as t Burning-glass, a lens which readily brings the rays of light that fall upon it to a focus so cause them to kindle any combustible matter on which they are directed. The lenses commonly used as burning-glasses are convex. on both sides. If a second lens, of a smaller focal distance, is placed between the first and its focus, so as to intercept the rays which pass through the first, the effect is greatly augmented. Glasses of this kind have been made with a diameter of two or three feet. Several accidents in modern times have shown that conflagrations may be caused by convex waterbottles, etc., which have the form of burning glasses if the rays of the sun are concentrated by then upon combustible substances lying within heir reach. Burning mirrors or reflectors with a smoothly polished surface which reflects the rays of the sun and brings them to a focus may be used like burning-glasses. Spherical mirrors of this kind are the most common, but parabolic ones are the most suitable. The ancients were acquainted with such mirrors, and, as is well known, Archimedes, during the siege of Syracuse by Marcellus, is said to have set on fire the fleet of the latter by means of mirrors. Buffon in 1747, by means of a compound mirror formed of a combination of plane mirrors, set on fire, almost instantaneously, a piece of beech wood covered with tar, at the distance of 66 feet; and with a stronger combination he afterward burned wood at the distance of 200 feet, melted tin at the distance of 150, lead at the distance of 130, and silver at the distance of 60 feet. VOL. 4-1 Bur'nisher, a blunt, smooth tool, used for smoothing and polishing a rough surface by pressure, and not by removing any part of the body. Other processes of polishing detach the little asperities. Agates, tempered steel, and dogs' teeth are used for burnishing. It is one of the most expeditious methods of polishing, and one which gives the highest lustre. The burnishers used by engravers are formed to burnish with one end and to erase blemishes with the other. Burn'ley, England, a parliamentary county, and municipal borough in Lancashire, about 22 miles north of Manchester, situated on the small river Brun, near its confluence with the Calder. The town presents a modern appearance, and is, generally speaking, well built, mostly of stone. The town-hall is a large, handsome building, erected in 1887; there is also a commodious exchange, and a convenient market hall. Among the churches the chief place is due to St. Peter's, an ancient building modernized. The churches of St. James. St. Paul, and St. Andrew are all very modern structures; and there are numerous other places of worship. There are board and other schools; an ancient grammar school with modern scientific departments; mechanics' institute and technical school; public baths; and a Victoria Hospital. Burnley owns its gas, water, and electric works, public markets, and abattoirs, deriving considerable income from each. The manufactures and commerce of Burnley have rapidly increased in recent years. The staple manufacture is cotton goods, and there are large cotton-mills, worsted-mills, and several extensive foundries and machine-shops, with collieries, quarries, and other works in the vicinity. Burnley is situated on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, has a good water supply, and has five railway stations. It seems to have been a Roman station, and various Roman remains have been dug up in and around it. Burnley was made a parliamentary borough with one member in 1867. Burnoose, ber-noos', a large kind of mantle in use among the Bedouin Arabs and the Berbers of northern Africa, commonly made of white or undyed wool, but sometimes also of red, blue, green, or some other color, and having a hood which may be drawn over the head in case of rain. In Spain also a similar garment is worn which bears the similar name of albornoz, and the name has also been applied to different kinds of upper garments worn by women of other European countries. Burnouf, Emil Louis, a-mēl loo-ē bùrnoof, French Orientalist, cousin of Eugène Burnouf (q.v.): b. Valognes, Mancheh, 25 Aug. 1821. After a normal-school training, he became professor of ancient literature in the faculty of Nancy, and in 1867 director of the French School in Athens. Among his works are: Essay on the Veda' (1863); SanskritFrench Dictionary'; History of Greek Literature'; 'Science of Religions'; 'The Athenian Legend'. The Mythology of the Japanese); 'The City and the Acropolis of Athens'; and BURNOUF - BURNS "Contemporary Catholicism' (1879). He also edited the letters of his cousin, Eugène Burnouf. Burnouf, Eugène, e-zhan, French Orientalist: b. Paris, 12 Aug. 1801; d. there, 28 May 1852. He commenced his studies at the College of Louis-le-Grand, became a pupil in the École des Chartes in 1822, passed as a lawyer in 1824, and soon after devoted himself to the study of Oriental languages. In 1826 he attracted the attention of men of learning throughout Europe by publishing, in conjunction with his friend, Lassen, an Essay on the Pali,' or the sacred language of the Buddhists in Ceylon and the Eastern Peninsula, and in 1827 by furnishing an explanatory text to the series of lithographic plates prepared by Geringer and Chabrelle to lustrate the religion, manners, customs, etc., of the Hindu nations inhabiting the French possessions in India. This work was not completed till 1835. In 1832 he was admitted into the Academy of Inscriptions, and in the same year was appointed to the professorship of Sanskrit in the Collége de France, an office which he held til his death. His fame is chiefly due to his having, so to speak, restored to life an entire language, the Zend or old Persian language in which the Zoroastrian writings were composed. Anquetil-Duperron had obtained the text of the extant works of this sacred language of the Persians. It is the glory of Burnouf to have interpreted those works with the aid of the Sanskrit. To this part of his labors belong his 'Extrait d'un Commentaire et d'une Traduction nouvelle du Vendidad-Sadé (1830); Observations sur la Grammaire de M. Bopp' (1833); Commentaire sur le Yaçna' (1833-5). Burnouf also distinguished himself by his labors on Buddhism. On this subject he published the text accompanied by a translation of the Bhâgavata Purâna' (1840-7); Introduction à Histoire du Bouddhisme Indien (1st vol. 1844), A fortnight before his death the Academy of Inscriptions elected him secretary for life. etc. Burns, Alexander, Canadian educator: b. Castlewellan, Ireland, 12 Aug. 1834; d. 22 May 1900. He went to Canada in 1847, and was graduated at Victoria College, Toronto, in 1861, joining the Methodist Church. From 1868 to 1878 he was president of Wesleyan Ladies' College, Hamilton, Ontario. He was tried for heresy by the Ontario Methodist Conference in 1882, but acquitted. Burns, Anthony, American fugitive slave: b. Virgina, about 1830; d. Saint Catherine's, Ontario, 27 July 1862. Escaping from slavery he worked in Boston during the winter of 1853-4; but on 24 May 1854-the day after the repeal of the Missouri Compromise and the passing of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill had inflamed the North against the slave powerwas arrested on warrant of Charles F. Suttle through his agent Brent. The next day he was taken before United States Commissioner Edward G. Loring for examination; but Wendel! Phillips and Theodore Parker secured an adjournment for two days. Burns, meanwhile, was confined in the court-house under a strong guard, and on the evening of the 26th a great mass meeting in protest was held at Faneuil Hall. T. W. Higginson and others had planned to stampede the meeting into storming the court-house and rescuing Burns, and at the ap pointed time battered in a door and attempted the rescue themselves, relying upon assistance: in their undertaking. The size of the meeting, however, prevented the signals from working well and the leaders from emerging, and after a scuffle in which a deputy was fatally stabbed and several assailants wounded, the latter retired. The next day Loring, an ardent upholder of the Fugitive Slave law, delivered Burns to his claimant on evidence entirely illegal and worthless even under that law. Escorted by a strong military guard Burns was taken to a government cutter, through streets draped in mourning and crowds ready to stone the soldiers. A riot at the wharf was only prevented by the action of Rev. Daniel Foster upon his saying "Let us pray!" The crowd uncovered and stood quiet while Burns was taken on board. Indictments were drawn against his would-be rescuers, but quashed for want of eviBurns afterward dence. gained his liberty, studied theology at Oberlin College, and was. eventually settled over a Baptist colored church in Saint Catherines, Ontario, where he died. Consult: Stevens, 'Anthony Burns: a liistory' (1856); Adams, Richard Henry Dana: Biography) (1891); Higginson, 'Cheerful Yesterdays) (1898). a Burns, John, English labor organizer and Socialist leader: b. London, October 1858. He was of humble birth and became a factory employee at the age of 10. He was an omnivorous. reader and imbibed his socialistic views from a French fellow laborer. By working a year as engineer on the Niger River, he earned enough for a six months' tour of Europe. He constantly addressed audiences of workingmen, and was a persistent labor agitator. He was one of the leaders in the West End riot in London, February 1887, and was imprisoned the same year for maintaining the right of public meeting in Trafalgar Square. He has been thrice elected to the London county council and has sat in the House of Commons as member of Battersea since 1892. In 1905 he became President of the Local Government Board. Burns, Robert, Scottish poet: b. near Ayr, Scotland, 25 January 1759; d., Dumfries, 21 July 1796. His father, William Burnes or Burness, a native of Kincardineshire, had been a gardener; but at the time of the poet's birth was a nurseryman on a small piece of land on the banks of the Doon in Ayrshire. He was a man of strong intelligence and deep piety, but unsuccessful in his struggle with poverty. His mother was Agnes Brown, a woman of ability, and, though of meagre book education, wellversed in folk-song and legend. Robert, the eldest of seven children, went to school for three years, 1765-68, under John Murdoch in the neighboring village of Alloway. Later he was in attendance for a few months each at Dalrymple parish school in 1772, at Ayr Academy in 1773, and at Kirkoswald about 1776; but the more important part of his education he received from his father and his own reading. In 1766 William Burness had borrowed money to rent the farm of Mount Oliphant; and the future poet by the time he was sixteen was doing a man's work, overstraining his immature physique in performing his share in the vain effort of the family to keep its head above water. The scene of the struggle was moved |