Occasionally balloons have been made subsidiary to science, but very seldom. The British Association has more than once directed its attention to this matter, but with very little result. In 1843, Mr. Green made observations with meteorological instruments at five different elevations, varying from 2591 to 6758 feet; while Mr. Jones, the instrument maker, was making similar observations at the surface of the earth at the same time; such observations as these might perhaps be multiplied with advantage. Mr. Rush communicated to the British Association, in 1849, a series of thermometrical and barometrical observations, made during five balloon ascents, in 1847-8-9, at various altitudes ranging up to 20,000 feet.

A suggestion was made about the year 1851, for sending out balloons to assist in the search for Sir John Franklin; and in 1854 balloons were suggested for reconnoitring Sebastopol.

66

The last seven years (1852 to 1859) have shown that the hope is not yet quite extinguished among ingenious, but not very profound, machinists, of being able to guide balloons through the air. In 1852 Mr. Graham added to the list of contrivances intended to aid in the steering of balloons, by means of levers, sails, rudders, &c. In 1856 another inventor brought into notice an Archimedian balloon," comprising a great variety of mechanical appliances, including a wooden framework, four paddle-wheels, some new kind of chemical engine to supply moving power, and a screw propeller. The inventor's hope was, that the turning of the screw would bring the balloon into any desired direction, and that the paddles would give progressive motion. The balloon was a cylinder, with hemispherical ends, placed immediately over the hull of this aerial screw-ship. The project never appears to have gone beyond the condition of a model. Dr. Lotszky, in the same year, proposed a suite of small balloons and wings, to be attached to "a slim youth," as a means of enabling him to fly over the Crystal Palace grounds. The latest enthusiast is Lord Carlingford, who in 1857 brought into notice his" Archedon," or aërial chariot. It had before been shown in model at the Dublin Exhibition; but as it obtained few admirers, the inventor afterwards made sundry improvements in it. It consists of a sort of light boat, with one wheel in front and two behind; there are two concave wings at the sides, held up by laths, cords, and hoops; and there is a tail, which can be raised or lowered at pleasure. The moving power is a winch turned by the aëronaut; the winch acts through a train of multiplying wheels, upon an Archimedian screw; this screw acts upon the cords which move the sails. The wings are covered with network and silk. It is not often that the specification of a patent contains such glowing language as that which Lord Carlingford used in reference to his invention: "Like the chariot of Jupiter, we may yet behold the eagle trained to draw the aërial chariot." In a letter to the 'Mechanics' Magazine,' his lordship thus commented on the mode in which his invention was received: "The first chariot I made was placed in the Dublin Exhibition; yet, strange to say, although clear and simple as was the principle of it, it was not understood, nor even examined, but left in such an obscure position, that no doubt it was concluded to be some nonsensical production; yet none were courageous enough to question the principle, or to approve it, though challenged to do so."

Of all these contrivances, it may simply be said that the means of guiding balloons through the air have yet to be discovered; that the higher the scientific attainments of the aeronaut, the less sanguine is he of any such means ever being devised. Balloons may possibly, some day, render more service to meteorology than they have yet done, by testing currents, &c., high up in the atmosphere; and indeed the British Association, in 1858, made a grant of money for further experiments in this direction.

BALLOT, a word taken from the French balotte or ballotte, signifying a little ball, and used to designate a mode of voting employed upon occasions where it is considered desirable to preserve secrecy in regard to the opinion of each voter. In many cases where any matter is decided by votes, there are good reasons why it should be generally known how each person has voted; but there are other cases in which there may be equally good reasons for allowing the voters to vote by ballot. Voting by ballot, therefore, cannot be called either a good or a bad system of voting, without considering the particular cases in which it is exercised.

In Great Britain it has been agitated for many years whether the election of members of Parliament should or should not be by ballot. It is a question we are not called on to decide, and much has been written and said on both sides. It may be remarked, however, that there is no strict analogy between the election of members of a private society, or even of a public association, and of members elected for political and legislative purposes. In the one, private reasons which could not be openly stated with propriety, may, and ought to, operate against the admission of an individual as an associate; while, in the other, as it is his public character that should give him the necessary qualification, there is the less reason for secrecy. His public defects, if any, should be publicly stated, to enable him to meet them; he is a representative, and ought not to be rejected on grounds that cannot be publicly stated. Again, as it is said that martyrs make a faith, it is not impossible that the ballot, by ensuring secrecy, may also create indifference, when the public mind is no longer stirred up by the excitement given by open voting; although that may too frequently lead to instances of oppression and hardship suffered in consequence.

The modes of performing the voting by ballot vary, in some respects, according to the object to be attained; as for instance, in the case of an election to an office where the choice can fall upon only one candidate, or upon a smaller number of candidates than are put in nomination, it is usual to deliver lists which are folded so as to conceal the name or names which they bear, and which, in that condition, are placed in a glass or urn, from which, after the votes are all collected, they are taken and examined, in order to determine in whose favour the greatest number of votes has been given. In cases where a simple affirmative or negative is alone required, the same method is sometimes employed, and then the papers deposited in the urn bear only the word 'Yes' or 'No.' Sometimes the original mode of voting by ballot is more strictly adhered to, and balls are used in one of two ways. One of these ways is to choose in which of two compartments into which the urn is divided, the voter will deposit the ball; the other method is to select the colour of the ball to be employed. In cases where the last-mentioned method is resorted to, each voter is furnished with two balls, one white and the other black; the black ball is used to express a negative, whence comes the expression to blackball,' signifying the rejection of a candidate. In determining this point of rejection, no uniform rule is observed by different bodies. In some societies or bodies, one ball is made sufficient to negative the election; sometimes a larger number of adverse votes is necessary for this purpose. Other bodies adopt as a regulation some definite proportion between the rejecting and accepting votes, such as one in three, five, ten, &c., whereby to determine upon the admission of the candidate. This mode of election is now almost universally resorted to in England by clubs and scientific societies, as well as in hospitals for the election of medical officers, and by insurance offices and commercial associations for choosing their managers or directors. The directors of the Bank of England are thus chosen.

In France, voting by ballot is used in the election of members of the Chamber of Deputies, and the same mode of voting was used under the constitutional charter in the chamber itself whenever twenty members concurred in demanding a ballot; but in 1845, the practice was abolished by a law proposed by M. Duvergier de Hauranne, during M. Guizot's administration. The most remarkable instances, however, of the exercise of the ballot, are those of the election of Louis Napoleon to the office of president; and the ratification by the same process of the coup d'état of December, 1851, and the consequent elevation of the president to the throne of the empire.

M. de Tocqueville, though he discusses the constitution of the United States in all its phases, does not think the ballot of sufficient importance to give it even a notice as having any effect, while he dwells strongly on the great influence of publicity, and the passion for general and varied political discussion, which he thinks a marked characteristic of the American people as distinguishing them from Europeans. BALSAM. This name is applied to a class of substances which are exclusively ready formed products of the vegetable kingdom. They are chiefly produced in warm climates, and consist of a mixture of ethereal oils with resinous bodies, frequently containing also benzoic or cinnamic acid, to which their aromatic odour is due. The balsams are of a semifluid or viscous consistence, and are generally obtained by making incisions in the bark of the trees which produce them. By exposure to the air the more volatile part evaporates and they become harder, but it is rarely that they thus entirely lose their viscosity. In addition to these natural productions, some artificial balsams, as balsam of sulphur, are employed in medicine. The following are a few of the principal natural balsams::

Balsam of Canada. A terebinthinous balsam, obtained from the Balm of Gilead Fir (Abies balsamea). It is a transparent honey-like yellowish liquid, becoming hard on exposure to the air. It possesses the odour of turpentine and a bitter taste. Canada Balsam consists of

cold, clammy sweat, or of a colliquative kind, the balsamic medicines frequently check its flow.

When given in large and long-continued doses, they act upon the vascular system, and quicken the heart's action, as well as the extreme or capillary vessels, which last they excite when brought into direct contact with them, as in the case of wounds or ulcers. They possess some power over the nervous system, but less over the nerves of animal than of organic life. It is in diseases referable to morbid states of the nerves of organic life that balsamic medicines are most useful, especially when they are in a state of weakness, torpor, and imperfect action. They act also on the nervous system when over-excited, calming it, and approaching in this respect to the character of antispasmodics. Under this head benzoin is the most powerful and most frequently employed, generally in the form called paregoric elixir. From what is stated above, it is clear that they are unsuited to the beginning or early stages of the diseases in which they are most commonly employed by uninformed persons. So long as any acute inflammatory action exists they are decidedly hurtful; but after this has subsided they are frequently very beneficial in common colds, to lessen the cough and facilitate the expectoration, in the later stages of hooping-cough, and in the humid cough of old or weak persons; that is, in one of the morbid states popularly called asthma. Balsamic medicines are however totally inadmissible when the asthmatic symptoms are connected with any organic change of the heart or lungs. They may be advantageously employed in the later stages of influenza and suffocative catarrh. The early use of paregoric in common colds is frequently productive of much injury.

The external employment of balsams is almost completely banished from modern surgery. The evil of their employment was obvious to the eyes. Friar's balsam, wound balsam, balsam for cuts, &c., as certain combinations or solutions of balsam of Tolu, storax, and benzoin in rectified spirits were called, had, when applied to recent wounds, the manifest bad effect of stimulating the edges, and interposing a mechanical impediment to their union by the first intention, as the direct re-union of divided surfaces is termed by surgeons. In this way they were healed by suppuration and granulation, which is a much more tedious process. To some indolent wounds and sores, especially in parts not possessed of much vascularity, their application is sometimes beneficial. Internal wounds and ulcers are in general equally injured by them. Their vaunted power of curing consumption is only maintained by ignorant and unprincipled persons, who vend their pernicious compounds to the weak and credulous among their suffering fellowcreatures, whom they delude both of health and money.

[For balsam of Canada, see PINUS BALSAMEA; for balsam of Copaiba, see COPAIFERA; and for balsams of Peru and Tolu, see MYROSPERMUM in NAT. HIST. DIV.]

BALUSTER, or BALLISTER, has been derived from balustrum, or balustrium, a place railed off in the ancient baths. (Nicholson's Architectural Dictionary.') It is also conjectured to be derived from 'balaustium' (Baλavσriov), the flower of the wild pomegranate, which it is said to resemble. (Encyclopédie Méthodique d'Architecture.') It is difficult to imagine how the word 'baluster' is derived from the Greek name of the flower of the pomegranate, when we do not even know the form of the ancient baluster, or whether it bore any resemblance to that of the moderns. We think it more probable that the word was derived from balista, an engine used by the Romans for throwing stones, &c. (Vitruvius.) Balista was the engine, and balistarium the place where the balista was put; and it is possible the balistarium was railed in. The balistarium was, according to Lipsius, the engine itself. (Plautus, 'Ponul.', i. 1, 73; Lipsius, Poliorcet. c. iii. dial. 2.) The balista, or balistarium, was in the form of a bow, and the profile of the baluster or ballister is also in the form of a bow. The Norman-French word for a crossbow is arbalastre, and the modern French word for baluster is balustre. There is so much resemblance in the form of the two objects, and in the words by which they are expressed, that we are of opinion that the word baluster, or balister, is derived from the Roman engine of war balista, or balistarium.

The baluster is a peculiar kind of column, of the form of an ancient bow in its profile; it is employed in balustrades. [BALUSTRADE.] The baluster has of late years been formed after the model of Greek and Roman columns. Balusters are placed on a plinth, and are surmounted with a cornice. (See the published works of Palladio, Vignola, Scamozzi, and others.) The proportions of balusters are given in the work of Sir William Chambers on Architecture, where they are proportioned to the orders, and are made heavier or lighter according to their destination; the heaviest balusters are given to the Tuscan, and the lightest to the Corinthian and Composite orders. BALUSTRADE, the termination of a modern edifice. There does not appear to be any example of a balustrade in the remains of antiquity now existing; although there are examples of railing or fencing. Balustrades are most commonly placed over the cornices of large edifices, after the manner of a parapet, as at the Banqueting House at Whitehall, St. Paul's cathedral, London, and on Blackfriars and Westminster bridges when they were first erected, though these have been long since removed. Balustrades are not only employed in large edifices, above the orders of architecture, but also to inclose stairs, terraces, altars, fonts, and the balconies of houses. The balusters forming a balustrade are placed on a plinth, at equal distances from one another, with a small

ARTS AND SCI. DIV. VOL. I.

opening between them; they support a cornice, and are divided at intervals by a pedestal. (For the proportions of a balustrade over an order of columns, see Chambers' Architecture.') When a balustrade is placed over an order of columns, it is usual to set the die of the pedestal over the columns, making the breadth of the die equal to the breadth of the shaft. Balustrades are made of iron and wood, as well as stone. In Italy balustrades are of very frequent occurrence, and of prodigious extent. At Frascati there is a balustrade in the Villa Conti, more than 2000 feet in length. The colonnade of St. Peter's, by Bernini, is surmounted with a balustrade. But perhaps the most elegant balustrade in Rome is at the Villa Albani; the form of the baluster in this differs from the old and bow-shaped baluster commonly employed. Barry introduced balusters imitated from Italian forms, and his example has been since frequently followed. Examples of Balusters employed in four different structures.

The cuts represent four kinds of baluster; one like the bow abovementioned, the others as if the bow-like baluster had been cut in two horizontally to form two balusters. The latter is the baluster most commonly used; but the former appears to be the oldest and earliest form; an example of it may be seen in some of the galleries of old wooden buildings in England and other countries of Europe. The court-yard at Chillingham Castle, and the gate of honour leading into Caius College, Cambridge, present examples of the bow-like baluster. There are examples also in the works of Palladio, Vignola, Scamozzi, and other architects of Italy.

BAN, BANNS. These words are found in many of the modern languages of Europe in various senses. But as the idea of 'publication' or 'proclamation' runs through them all, it is probable that it is the ancient word ban still preserved in the Gaelic and the modern Welsh in the simple sense of proclaiming.'

As a part of the common speech of the English nation, the word is now so rarely used that it is put into some glossaries of provincial or archaical words, as if it were obsolete, or confined to some particular districts or particular classes. Yet, both as a substantive and a verb, it is found in some of our best writers; among the poets, Spenser, Marlowe, and Shakspere; and among prose-writers, Knolles and Hooker. By these writers however it is not used in its original sense of proclamation,' but in a sense which it has acquired by its use in proclamations of a particular kind; and it is in this secondary sense only that it now occurs in common language, to denote cursing, denouncing woe and mischief against one who has offended. A single quotation from Shakspere's tale of Venus and Adonis' will show precisely how it is used by writers who have employed it, and by the people from whose lips it may still sometimes be heard:

All swollen with chafing down Adonis sits,
Banning the boisterous and unruly beast.

The improvement of English manners having driven out the practice, the word has nearly disappeared. But in the middle ages the practice was countenanced by such high authority, that we cannot wonder at its having prevailed in the more ordinary ranks and affairs of life.

When churches and monasteries were founded, writings were usually drawn up, specifying with what lands the founder and other early benefactors endowed them; and these instruments often conclude with imprecatory sentences in which torments here and hereafter are invoked on any one who should attempt to divert the lands from the purposes for which they were bestowed. It seems that what we now read in these instruments was openly pronounced in the face of the Church and the world by the donors, with certain accompanying ceremonies. Matthew Paris, a monk of St. Albans, who has left one of the best of the early chronicles of English affairs, relates that when King Henry III. had refounded the church of Westminster, he went into the chapel of St. Catherine, where a large assembly of prelates and nobles was collected to receive him. The prelates were dressed in full pontificals, and each held a candle in his hand. The king advanced to the altar, and laying his hand on the Holy Evangelists, pronounced a sentence of excommunication against all who should deprive the church of anything which he had given it, or of any of its rights. When the king had finished, the prelates cast down the candles which they held, and while they lay upon the pavement, smoking and stinking (we use the 3 a

This, in the English phrase, was the banning of the middle ages. Nor was it confined to ecclesiastical affairs. King Henry III., in the ninth year of his reign, renewed the grant of Magna Charta. In the course of the struggle which was going on in the former half of the 13th century between the king and the barons, other charters of liberties were granted. But for the preservation of that which the barons knew was only extorted, the strongest guarantee was required; and the king was induced to preside at a great assembly of nobles and prelates, when the archbishop pronounced a solemn sentence of excommunication against all persons of whatever degree who should violate the charters. This was done in Westminster Hall on the 3rd day of May 1253. The transaction was made matter of public record, and is preserved in the great collection of national documents called Rymer's 'Fœdera.'

But besides these general bannings, particular persons who escaped from justice or who opposed themselves to the sentence of the Church, were sometimes banned or placed under a ban. In the history of English affairs, one of the most remarkable instances of this kind is the case of Guido de Montfort. This Guido was the son of Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester, and grandson of King John. In the troubles of England, in which his father lost his life, no one had been more active in the king's service than Henry of Almaine, another grandson of King John, and the eldest son of Richard, that king's younger son, who had been elected King of the Romans. This young prince, being at Viterbo in Italy, and present at a religious service in one of the churches of that city, was suddenly assaulted by Guido de Montfort, and slain upon the spot. A general detestation of the crime was felt throughout Europe. Dante has placed the murderer in the 'Inferno:'

"He in God's bosom smote

The heart still reverenced on the banks of Thames."

The murderer escaped. Among the rumours of the time, one was that he was wandering in Norway. This man the pope placed under a ban; that is, he issued a proclamation requiring that no person should protect, counsel, or assist him; that no person should hold any intercourse with him of any kind, except perhaps some little might be allowed for the good of his soul; that all who harboured him should fall under an interdict; and that if any person were bound to him by any oath of fidelity, he was absolved of the oath. This was promulgated throughout Europe. A papal bull in which the proclamation is set forth still exists among the public records in the chapter-house at Westminster. A copy of it is in Rymer's' Fœdera.' The pope uses the very expression forbannimus; "Guidonem etiam forbannimus."

This species of banning is what is meant when we read of persons or cities being placed under the ban of the empire; a phrase not unfrequently occurring in writers on the affairs of Germany. Persons or cities who opposed themselves to the general voice of the confederation were by some public act, like those which have been described, cut off from society, and deprived of rank, title, privileges, and property.

It is manifest that out of this use of the word has sprung that popular sense in which now only the word is ever heard among us, as well as the Italian bandire, French bannir, and the English banish.

In some parts of England, before the Reformation, an inferior species of banning was practised by the parish priests. "In the Marches of Wales," says Tyndal in his work against the Romish Church, entitled 'The Obedyence of a Christen Man,' 1534, "it is the manner, if any man have an ox or a cow stolen, he cometh to the curate and desireth him to curse the stealer; and he commands the parish to give him, every man, God's curse, and his; 'God's curse and mine have he,' sayeth every man in the parish." Stowe relates that, in 1299, the Dean of St. Paul's accursed at Paul's Cross all those who had searched in the church of St. Martin in the Fields for a hoard of gold. ('London,' in the account of Farringdon Ward within.) Tyndal argues against the practice, as he does against the excommunicatory power in general. Yet something like it seems to be still retained in the Commination Service of the English Church.

In France the popular language has not been influenced by this application of the word ban to the same extent with the English. With them the idea of publication prevails over that of denouncement, and they call the public cry by which men are called to a sale of merchandise, especially when it is done by beat of drum, a ban. In time of war, a proclamation through the ranks of an army is the ban. In Artois and some parts of Picardy the public bell is called the ban-cloque, or cloche à ban, as being rung to summon people to their assemblies. When those who held of the king were summoned to attend him in his wars, they were the ban, and tenants of the secondary rank the arriereban; and out of this feudal use of the term arose the expressions four à ban, and moulin à ban, for a lord's bakehouse, or a lord's mill, at which the tenants of a manor (as is the case in some parts of England) were bound to bake their bread or to grind their corn. The banlieue of a city is a district around it, usually, but not always, a league on all sides, through which the proclamation of the principal judge of the

place has authority. A person submitting to exile is said to keep his ban, and he who returns home without a recall breaks his ban.

the same.

The French use the word as the English do, when they speak of the ban, or, as we speak and write it, the banns of marriage. This is the public proclamation which the law requires of the intention of the parties named to enter into the marriage covenant, when the parties intend to be married with the rites of the church of England. The law of the ancient French and of the English church is in this respect The proclamation must be made on three successive Sundays in the church, during the time of the celebration of public worship, when it is presumed that the whole parish is present. The intent of this provision is two-fold: 1. To prevent clandestine marriages, and marriages between parties not free from the marriage contract, parties within the prohibited degrees of kindred, minors, or excommunicates; and, 2. To save the contracting parties from precipitancy, who by this provision are compelled to suffer some weeks to pass between the consent privately given and received between themselves and the marriage. Both these objects are of importance, and ought to be secured by law; and provision is made for a due publicity in all other cases of sectarian or civil marriage. The ban, or banns, may, however be dispensed with. In that case a licence is obtained from some person who is authorised by the bishop of the diocese to grant it, by which licence the parties are allowed to marry in the church or chapel of the parish or parochial chapelry in which either of them resides, in which marriages are wont to be celebrated, without the publication of banns. The law, however, takes care to ensure the objects for which the publication of banns was devised, by requiring oaths to be taken by the party applying for the licence, and certificates of consent of parents or guardians in the case of minors. Special licences not only dispense with the publication of banns, but allow the parties to marry at any convenient time or place. These are granted only by the Archbishop of Canterbury, in virtue of a statute made in the twenty-fifth year of Henry VIII., entitled an Act concerning Peter-Pence and dispensations. It is not known when this practice began, but it is undoubtedly very ancient. Some have supposed that it is alluded to in a passage of Tertullian. BANCO. [BANK.]

BAND, in Architecture, a flat moulding, with a vertical face slightly projecting beyond the vertical or curved face of any moulding or parts of an edifice to which it is attached. It is very extensively employed in edifices, and is used apparently to bind parts of buildings together, as in the bands which are employed to bind the triglyphs of a Doric architrave. This moulding is most frequently used in the basement story of a building, where it becomes a bold and striking feature: (see the published designs of Palladio, Vignola, Scamozzi, and others.) It is for the most part plain, though sometimes enriched. The term band and bandelet, little band, is often applied to what is more properly speaking a fillet. The band is, however, broader in proportion than the fillet. This moulding is also employed to encircle the shafts of columns [COLUMN; RUSTICATED WORK]; the palace of the Luxerbourg at Paris, and the Pitti palace at Florence, present very remarkable examples of banded columns. Bands were frequently employed to encircle the columns of Norman, and First-pointed, and occasionally the Middle-pointed styles of Gothic architecture. Vitruvius calls the band tenia and fascia; fascia is a term applied also to the flat faces of the architrave. A plain band is often placed in both public and private buildings, to mark the principal floors.

BANDAGE is a term employed in surgery to designate the bands or strips of cloth by which dressings are kept to wounds, separated parts are brought together, blood-vessels compressed, and weak and protruding parts of the body are supported and retained in their natural position. Bandages are commonly composed of flannel, calico, and linen cut into different shapes, according to the parts to which they are applied, and the purposes for which they are required. Thus the bandage often employed in fractures of the upper and lower extremities, and called eighteen or many-tailed bandage, is composed of a longitudinal piece of calico or linen, with transverse pieces, or tails, to fold over the injured part. Another bandage resembles in shape the letter T, and is called the T bandage. But the most common form of bandage, and one available in almost every case, is a long strip or ribbon of calico or flannel, varying in width from two to six inches. Previous to its application it is rolled together, and hence in surgical language is called roller, and the application of a bandage is called rolling. Of late years, ribbons of stocking-net, commonly called elastic web bandages, have been much used, and they appear peculiarly adapted for the purpose, as their elasticity prevents injurious consequences on any sudden increase of the size of the part to which they are applied. On the same principle caoutchouc or India-rubber, interwoven with silk and cotton, is now frequently employed in the construction of bandages.

The proper employment and management of bandages is an extremely important part of surgical knowledge, for after most operations and accidents, and in many serious local diseases and deformities, the assistance of bandages is required, and on their proper application the successful issue of the case frequently depends. The great object in the common use of the bandage is to give equal and uniform support to the part to which it is applied, and it is of course essential that it should not be easily displaced or deranged by any movement