SHELL, are subdivided into numerous kinds, the most important of which will be found noticed under their proper designations. A particular class of spherical combustibles is described under BALLS. For BALL-CARTRIDGE, see CARTRIDGE.

BALL (Fr. bal), a dancing entertainment. In England there are co. balls, attended by the gentry of the shire or co.; military balls, court balls, subscription balls, besides balls on various festive occasions. Whether designated balls or assemblies, these entertainments are conducted with great decorum, according to certain established usages. If of a general kind, it is expected that those who avail themselves of tickets shall be of undoubted respectability; and, as a further voucher of propriety, a number of lady-patronesses (married ladies of distinction) take a lead in the management, and grace the assembly by their presence. Ordinarily, the charge for gentlemen's tickets at subscription balls is at least two-thirds higher than those for ladies. According to etiquette, no unmarried lady can attend a ball unless she accompany a gentleman, or a married lady. All, of both sexes, are expected to be in full dress-anything else would be held disrespectful. Fancy balls are entertainments at which every person attending is expected to be in a fancy or peculiar national costume; in other respects, they are conducted like ordinary balls. Masked balls, once so common, have now, for obvious reasons, lost their repute. At all high-class balls, there is an appointed master of the ceremonies, or "director," who superintends the proceedings, and, in the event of there being no programme, prescribes the dances.

BALL, GAME OF. See BASE BALL.

Among his works are statues and busts He holds high rank in his art.

BALL, THOMAS, b. Mass., 1819. A sculptor. of Washington, Webster, Everett, Choate, etc. BALLACHU'LISH, a quoad sacra parish, partly in Argyle, and partly in Inverness shires. In the Argyleshire part of the parish, 114 m. s.s. w. of Fort William, on the s. side of Loch Leven, an e. branch of Loch Linnhe, are the celebrated quarries of blue roofing clay-slate. These quarries, which have been wrought for some time previous to 1760, employ from 200 to 300 men. White and gray marble quarries exist also in the neighborhood.

The slate is exposed on the mountain-side, and the quarries, commencing on the shore, extend southwards along the side of the mountain. The face of the rock is laid open by three workings fronting the w., and rising one above another in successive steplike terraces, all of them being entered from the n. end of the bed. The height from the lowest terrace to the top of the workings is about 216 ft., and the face of rock wrought about 536 feet. The situation of the quarries permits the water and débris of broken and waste slate, which amounts to about six times the quantity of salable materials raised, to be at once got rid of into the sea. A few years ago, the annual produce amounted to from 5,000,000 to 7,000,000 of roofing-slates, weighing about 10,000 tons. The village of B. contained in 1881, 1019 inhabitants.

BALLAD. The name is of Italian origin (ballate), and meant originally a dance-song, being derived from the mid. Lat. ballare or balare, corresponding to the Gr. ballizein, to dance. The B. is a kind of poem which it is very difficult to characterize. In the course of centuries it has undergone various transformations, and the name has been transferred to pieces which in extent, subject, and character have no longer anything in common with the primitive ballad. The confusion of ideas was rendered still worse from the circumstance that poems of exactly the same nature were styled sometimes romances, sometimes ballads, sometimes epic or lyrico-epic, or poetic narratives; so that it was left to the caprice of the poet which of these generic names he would give to his production. As early as the 12th c. the Italians gave the title of B. to short, purely lyrical pieces, allied to the sonnet or still more to the madrigal, and which generally had love-sorrows for their subject. Dante has such ballate. Akin to these are those French ballads which Molière set himself against, and which fell into disuse. The earliest bal lads, as the word is now understood, are those of England and of Scotland, beginning about the 14th century. They in so far resemble the Spanish romances, that the subject in both is narrative, and handied lyrically. See LYRIC. The Spanish romance, however, has more of the lyrical element, and is of a gayer cast, reflecting the southern character of the people; while the northern B. took a more earnest, somber shape, especially among the Danes; though in the n. also there are ballads of a cheerful and sportive tone.

As far as subject is concerned, the B. is a species of minor epic (q.v.). The name is generally applied to a versified narrative, in a simple, popular, and often rude style, of some valorous exploit, or some tragic or touching story. Ballads are adapted to be sung or accompanied by an instrument. They are comparatively short, the story being circumscribed, and not embracing a combination of events, as the plan of the grand epic does. There can be little doubt that the B. has been the first form of poetry among all nations; and that the earlier epics or heroic poems of the higher kind, such as the Spanish Cid or the German Nibelungen, grew out of such simple beginnings. Of the popular B., Scotland, or more correctly the border-land of Scotland and England, is allowed to have produced the best examples-as Chevy Chase, Fair Helen of Kirkconnel

Lee, and many others. As a B. of modern composition may be instanced Goldsmith's Edwin and Angelina.

Many of the old popular songs of the Germanic nations are just narratives of epic events and incidents in which the feelings of the composer manifest themselves. But the name of B. was not then in use, and such poetical narratives were called simply songs, or more specifically, perhaps, lays (Ger. lieder). It was not till the last half of the 18th c. that the foreign name was transferred to them.

The B. has, in recent times, been cultivated chiefly by the Germans, and in their hands it has assumed a more artificial development. Bürger may be said to be the creator of the modern ballad. He was intimately acquainted with the more simple Scotch and English B. poetry; but while adhering to its spirit, he gave to his own compositions a far wider extent, surrounded his narration with descriptions of scenery and other decorations, and by means of dialogue imparted to them the vivacity of the drama. His Leonore has become at once classical and popular. Bürger, Schiller, Göthe, and Uhland are the greatest German names in this department of composition. Following the practice of these writers, it has become common to confine the name B. to an epic narrative with something fabulous and supernatural in the background. In this sense, Göthe's Erlkönig is a ballad; and Coleridge's Ancient Mariner is perhaps the best exemplification in English.

BALLANTINE, WILLIAM. See page 881.

BALLANCHE, PIERRE SIMON, 1776-1847; a French theocratic philosopher, author of Du sentiment considére dans la litérature et dans les Arts, Antigone (a prose poem), Essai sur les Institutions Sociales dans leur Rapport avec les Idées nouvelles, Le Vieillard et le Jeune Homme, L'Homme sans Nom (a novel), Palingénésie Sociale, Vision d'Hébal, etc. The Palingénésie, which he did not finish, was to be an exposition of the workings of God in history, and is considered his greatest work. B. became a member of the academy, and is represented as a warm-hearted, amiable man, whose intellect was overshadowed by his imagination.

BALLARAT, the oldest of the considerable gold-fields of Victoria, and in fact the oldest but one of all the gold-fields of the colony. It is about 100 m. w. by n. of Melbourne. It was first worked in Sept., 1851, the comparatively unimportant ground at Anderson's creek, which dated from Aug. of the same year, having been the earliest result of the "prospecting" which, a few months previously, had been stimulated by the newly discovered diggings" of New South Wales. Though B. was speedily rivaled by Mount Alexander and Bendigo, yet it has by no means lost its original pre-eminence. As its surfacedigging became exhausted, mines were formed-some of them now as deep as average English coal-pits. In 1876 there were in B. (also spelt Ballaurat) 142 steam-engines, of 4662 horse-power, working the alluvial mines, and 159, of 3866 horse-power, used in quartz mining. B. West was raised to the dignity of a city in 1870, and has a pop. of nearly 23,000. It is connected by railway with Melbourne.

BALLARD, a co. in w. Kentucky, on the Mississippi and Ohio rivers; 500 sq.m.; pop. 80, 14,378-1725 colored. Productions-tobacco, wheat, corn, and oats. Co. seat, Blandville.

BALLAST is a heavy substance employed to give a ship sufficient hold of the water, to insure her safe sailing with spread canvas, when her cargo and equipment are too light. The amount of B. required by a ship depends not only on her size and cargo, but also on her build; some forms of construction requiring more B. than others. It is not merely the quantity of B. which a skillful mariner has to consider; he is required also to take into account its distribution. If a heavy mass of B. be deposited within a small compass near the keel, it places the center of gravity very low down; the ship will sail sluggishly, and is said to be "stiff." If, on the other hand, the B. be massed too high up, the ship becomes "crank," and cannot carry much sail without danger of being upset. Under average circumstances it is considered that a ship is well ballasted when the water comes up to about the extreme breadth amid-ships.

In ballasting a ship, the cargo and B. are considered together, the quantity and distribution of the latter being made dependent on the former. In a ship of war, the B. is made subservient to the requirements of the necessary stores and war materiel; in a merchant or passenger vessel, to the convenience of the passengers and the careful stowage of the cargo. During the period of the Crimean war, the ships of the British navy were supplied with a certain conventional weight of B., according to size and armament. Thus, a 100-gun ship had 550 tons of B.; an 80-gun, 440 tons; a 50-gun, 235 tons; a 36gun, 225 tons; a 20-gun, 110 tons, etc. The recent revolution in the sizes and shape of war-ships, however, and the introduction of steam-propulsion, have rendered all such fixity of ratio inapplicable.

The substances used as B. are various-chiefly iron, stone, gravel, sand, mud, and water. Iron is now superseding the next three varieties in ships of any importance; and water-ballast is gradually being introduced in the collier-ships of the Tyne, Wear, and Tees. Water-ballast is employed in four different ways. Bag-water B. is contained in water-proof bags laid on the floor of the vessel, and filled or emptied by means of a pump and a hose. Bottom-water B. is confined beneath a false bottom in the vessel. Hold-water B.. first employed in screw-steamer colliers constructed by Mr. Scott Russell, is contained in a large receptacle, which may be filled with the cargo when the ship is not in B.

Tank-water B. is contained in two fore-and-aft tanks, which can easily be filled and emptied. The customs' laws relieve merchant-ships from certain formalities and pay. ments when leaving a port in ballast.

The term B. is employed by civil engineers to signify the sand or gravelly material which is laid as a packing between railway-sleepers, in order to give them solidity. No English railway is considered to be complete or safe for transit until it is dressed and finished by ballasting. The possibility of procuring B. at a cheap rate, considerably affects the cost of railway undertakings.

BALLAST HEAVING has reference to the use of sand or mud ballast. In order to prevent captains from filling up, or otherwise injuring the entrance to rivers, ports, havens, roadsteads, etc., by the discharge of ballast, certain regulations have been made at most maritime places as to its disposal. The Trinity House corporation has a peculiar jurisdiction over the bed of the Thames, and regulates all the proceedings touching the reception and discharge of ballast. Before the use of water-ballast, the collier captains ballasted their empty ships with gravel or sand, mostly dredged up from the bed of the Thames in and near Woolwich Reach. Generally about 10,000 tons per annum were thus used. The ballast-heavers were men employed by the Trinity House ballast-office in transferring sand from the bed of the Thames to the empty ships. When the collier vessels returned to the Tyne or its neighborhood, they were not permitted to empty the sand in the river, but were under penalties to discharge it on shore. This is the origin of the vast mounds or sand-hills on the banks of the Tyne, which have been made very useful in the construction of railways. Ships coming into, as well as those leaving the Thames in ballast, are equally subject to Trinity House control. The ballast-office corporation of Dublin has similar powers in reference to the river Liffey.

BALLATER, a village of Aberdeenshire, Scotland, on the banks of the Dee, 36 m. w.s.w. of Aberdeen. It is remarkable as the resort of numerous visitors, on account of its chalybeate springs. Pop. '81, 759.

BAL LENY ISLANDS, a group of 5 small volcanic islands discovered in the Antarctic ocean, 1839. Lat 66° 44' s., long. 163° 11' east.

BALLET (of similar derivation with the word ball-sce BALLAD), a species of dance usually forming an interlude in theatrical performances, but confined principally to operas. Properly, a B. is a theatrical exhibition of the art of dancing in its highest perfection, and must therefore, in general, comply with the rules of the drama as to its composition and form. The pantomimic sacrificial dances of antiquity, although they may be regarded as the source of Attic tragedy, are not to be considered as directly the origin of the ballet. The B., as known to us, undoubtedly originated in the service of the courts. We find it existing in Italy in the beginning of the 16th c., especially at the court of Turin, where it was enriched by the inventive genius of count Aglio; and where the princes and princesses of the court themselves took part in it, in song and declamation as well as in dance; for the B. at first appeared in combination with the other theatrical arts, and completed the chaotic medley exhibited in these spectacles, which were at once mythological, allegorical, fantastic, warlike, and pastoral. From these mingled elements the individual species of dramatic entertainments were gradually evolved in their distinct forms. Baltagerini, director of music to Catharine de' Medici, was the first to introduce the B. into France, where it soon became such a favorite, that Louis XIII. danced in one of these ballets, and his example was followed by Louis XIV. in his youth. The latter made his last appearance on the stage in 1699, in the B. of Flora. Hitherto. the B. had always appeared in combination with the characteristic features of the opera, and even of comedy, as is evident from the works of Quinault and Molière, arranged by Lully. The art of dancing possessed then little dramatic expression, and still required to be introduced and explained by singing and recitation. In 1697, Antoine Houbart de la Motte undertook to reform the B., to which he imparted both dramatic action and the expression of passionate feeling. About this time, women first made their appearance in the B., as well as in plays and operas, which had till then been performed exclusively by men. There is no mention of any female B.-dancer of note before 1790. About the middle of the 18th c., Noverre separated the B. from the opera, gave it an independent dramatic form, and laid the foundation in his writings of an ingenious theory on the subject. The mythological B., a relic of the magnificerce of Versailles, came to an end during the consulate, when it gave place to the newly invented comic ballets Dansomanie, La Fille mal Gardée, and the Arlequinades. Vincenzo Galeotti, in Copenhagen, carried out the ideas of Noverre so far as to subordinate the dance to purely dramatic principles, instead of giving it the first place as formerly; and thus he gave to his ballets the character of great rhythmical pantomimes. These splendid and talented performances were longest kept up in the theater of Milan, where the most lifelike and magnificent tableaux were exhibited in pantomime; and subjects were attempted far beyond the limits of the ballet. The story of Hamlet was turned into a B., and the subjects of several other tragedies were similarly treated. In general, the B. has now become unfaithful to its original design and its true artistic signification; and exhausts itself in the exhibition of mere feats of bodily agility, tasteless displays of artificial dexterity, distortions of the person almost to dislocation, and balancings of the figure in attitudes often indelicate. Consisting as it does more of external show than internal meaning, it contributes gradu

Balloon.

ally to blunt the public taste for the enjoyment of the legitimate drama, which speaks more to the mind than to the eye.

BALL-FLOWER, so named from its resembling a ball placed in a circular flower; an ornament peculiar to the decorated style of Gothic architecture which prevailed in the 14th century. The B.-F. is supposed by some to be an imitation of a pomegranate, by others of a hawk's bell.

BALLINA', a seaport t. on the confines of Mayo and Sligo counties, Ireland, but chiefly in Sligo, on the Moy, 7 m. s. of its entrance into Killala bay. The Moy runs through the town, is crossed by two bridges, and separates the two counties. B. proper is on the Mayo side, the Sligo portion being a suburb called Ardnaree. The tide runs up to the town, but the river is only navigable from the sea up to a mile and a half below B. B. has a brisk trade in agricultural produce, salmon, and cured provisions. Coarse linens and snuff are manufactured here. Many anglers resort to the river Moy and lough Conn. Killala bay was the rendezvous of the French invaders in 1798. They landed and took B., but were, three weeks afterwards, defeated at Killala. Pop. '81, 5760.

BALLINASLOE', a small inland t. on the borders of Galway and Roscommon counties, near the center of Íreland, on both sides of the river Suck-which divides the two counties-8 m. from its confluence with the Shannon, and 81 m. w. of Dublin. The Suck at B. is divided into several channels, over which the road from Athlone to Galway is carried by a succession of bridges and causeways 500 yards long. B. is noted for its great annual fair in Oct., one of the largest in the kingdom. It is the seat of a poor-law union, and the station of the Galway militia staff. Pop. '71, 5052; '81, 4772.

BALLINROBE', a small t. of Ireland, co. Mayo, picturesquely seated on the Robe, about 3 m. from its mouth in lough Mask, and about 16 m. s.s.e. of Castle Bar. B. is a seat of petty and general sessions, and has a union workhouse and a barrack. It has a weekly market and two annual fairs. Pop. '71. 2408; '81, 2286.

BALLI'OL COLLEGE, Oxford, was founded between 1263 and 1268 by John de Balliol, father of John Balliol, king of Scotland. The original foundation consisted of 16 poor scholars, and the revenue for their maintenance amounted for many years to only 8d. per week for each. In 1340, the establishment was enriched by benefactions from sir William Fenton and sir Philip Somervyle, the latter of whom gave the college a new body of statutes. Its most important subsequent benefactors were Bell, bishop of Worcester, in 1566; William Hammond, esq., in 1575; Peter Blundell's executors in 1615 and 1676; lady Periam, 1620; Warner, bishop of Rochester, 1667; John Snell, esq., 1677; and Mrs. Williams, 1830. The society consists of a master, 13 fellows, and 24 scholars. The number of members on the books in 1877 was 600. The master and fellows enjoy the privilege of electing their own visitor. John Wycliffe was master of this college in 1361; among its scholars have been John Evelyn, and Bradley the astronomer. The Snell exhibitions for students of Glasgow university attract annually to this college a few distinguished Scottish students. Among these have been sir William Hamilton, J. G. Lockhart, and Dr. Tait, archbishop of Canterbury.

BALLISTA. See BALISTA.

BALLISTIC PENDULUM. An instrument so named was invented by Robins, in the latter part of last century, to ascertain the velocity of projectiles, and to prove the quality of gunpowder. It consists of a large block of wood suspended from a strong horizontal axis; and it is so solidly constructed as to bear the heaviest blow of the heaviest shot without injury. An excavated center on one side of the block is filled with sand, packed in leather upon an iron frame; four bags form a filling or core. The core, forming the place of impact, is easily replaced after each firing. Straps of wrought iron suspend the block from the wrought-iron axis or shaft. The shaft-ends have knife-edges, which rest on V. supports. The construction is such, that a violent percussion makes only a very slight oscillatory movement in the block. A brass graduated limb measures the arc of vibration; and a brass slide is pushed forward by an index attached to a bar connected with the suspension straps. Another form of instrument for similar purposes is described under EPROUVETTE; and some of the results of these experiments are noticed under GUNNERY. See WAR-SERVICES.

BAL LIUM. See BAILEY.

BALLOON (Fr. ballon, a large ball). According to the principle of Archimedes (q v.), bodies immersed in a fluid are buoyed upwards with a force equivalent to the weight of the fluid displaced by them. If their own weight is not sufficient to counterbalance this force-that is, if they are lighter than the fluid they rise upwards with a force equal to the difference of the weight of the displaced fluid and of their own weight. A B., therefore, which consists of an integument inclosing a gas within it, will rise in air in the same way that a cork rises in water, provided that the weight of the whole be less than that of an equal volume of air. If one, for instance, occupy as much space as 1000 lbs. of air, but weigh itself-covering, gas, and appendages-600 lbs., it will be impelled upwards with a force of 400 lbs. The gases employed for filling balloons are either hydrogen or ordinary coal-gas. The former, when pure, is between 14 and 15 times lighter than atmospheric air, and the latter generally about two and a half.

The B., as it is at present employed, is a large pear-shaped bag, made of any pliable silk cloth, covered with a varnish, made by dissolving caoutchouc in oil of turpentine, to render it air-tight. The common size of this bag varies from 20 to 30 ft. in equatorial diameter with a proportionate height. The mouth or neck of this bag is just large enough to enable a man to get inside to make any necessary repairs, and is, of course, turned downwards when the B. is inflated. A net-work of hempen or cotton twine is accurately fitted to the B., and the separate cords, on which it ends, are tied to a circular hoop placed a few feet below the neck. The car, generally a large wicker-basket, is suspended by ropes from this hoop, and hangs at a considerable distance below, so that the aeronaut may be removed from the vicinity of the gas. The net-work serves to distribute the weight of the car and its charge equally over the whole upper surface of the balloon. One of the most important requisites in the construction is the valve, which is introduced into the top of the balloon. It consists of a wooden clapper, 4 or 5 in. square, opening inwards, and kept closed by a sufficient spring. A rope attached to this valve descends through the neck into the car, where, to prevent accidental opening, it is allowed to dangle freely. The furniture of the car are the ballast or sand-bags, by emptying which the B. may be lightened; the barometer, or corresponding apparatus for telling the height ascended, or the upward or downward course of the B.; the map and compass, for showing the direction of the voyage; and the grappling-iron, tied to the end of a long rope, for anchoring the B. at the descent. During his flight, the aeronaut has at his disposal the means of guiding his air-ship only in an upward or downward direction, the motion of translation being wholly dependent on the wind by which it is borne. If he wishes to ascend, he throws some of the ballast over the side of the car; and if to descend, he pulls the valve-rope, so that, the gas rushing by virtue of its specific lightness through the passage made for it by the open valve, the buoyant material may be lessened. It is evident that the power of thus directing his machine becomes more limited with each exercise of it, for in each case there is an unrepaired loss of the means necessary to it. All attempts at guiding balloons in a horizontal direction have hitherto proved failures. In ordinary flights, the mouth of the B. is left open, so that there is no danger of explosion arising from the expansion of the gas in the rarer regions of the atmosphere. The diffusion that takes place through the open neck is inconsiderable during the few hours that an aërial voyage lasts. Early aeronauts, who kept their balloons closed, frequently ran considerable risk by inattention to the valve when the imprisoned gas demanded vent for its expansion.

The art of traversing the air by means of balloons, generally called aeronautics, and sometimes aërostation, is of comparatively recent date. The germ of the invention of balloons is to be found in the discovery by Cavendish, in 1766, of the remarkable lightness of hydrogen gas, then called inflammable air. Prof. Black, of Edinburgh, seems to have been the first who conceived the idea that a light envelope, containing this gas, would rise of itself. He requested Dr. Monro, the professor of anatomy, to give him some thin animal membrane for the experiment, but for some reason or other, it was never made. The first practical attempts were made by Cavallo, who, in 1772, filled swine's bladders and paper-bags with the gas, but found the former too heavy, and the latter too porous; and he only succeeded in raising soap-bubbles inflated with the gas. The invention of the B. is due to the two brothers Stephen and Joseph Montgolfier, paper-makers at Annonay, in France, whose names are as distinguished in the development of their own branch of manufacture as in the history of aeronautics. It immediately struck these brothers, on reading Cavendish's Different Kinds of Air, that the air could be rendered navigable by inclosing a light gas within a covering of inconsiderable weight. Led by their avocation, they fixed upon paper as the most fitting material for the purpose, and first attempted to make balloons of paper filled with inflammable air. Finding that these emptied themselves almost as soon as they were filled, instead of abandoning the paper as an unsuitable covering for the gas, they sought after another gas more suited to the paper. By a chain of false reasoning which need not here be detailed, they thought they found such in the gas which resulted from the combustion of slightly moistened straw and wool, which had, as they imagined, an upward tendency, not only from its being heated, but from its electrical properties, which caused it to be repelled from the ground. It is hardly necessary to say that this so-called Montgolfier gas possessed no advantages for raising balloons other than that possessed by heated air of any kind; in fact, the abundant smoke with which it was mixed, by adding to its weight, rather detracted from its merits. At Avignon, in Nov., 1782, Stephen Montgolfier first succeeded in causing a silk parallelopiped, of about 50 cubic ft., to rise to the roof of a room. Encouraged by this success, the brothers made experiments on a larger scale at Annonay with an equally happy result; and finally, in June, 1783, in the presence of the states of Vivarais, and of an immense multitude, they raised a B., 35 ft. in diameter, to a height of 1500 feet. This last, nearly spherical in shape, was made of packcloth, covered with paper, and was heated by an iron choffer placed beneath it, in which 10 lbs. of moist straw and wool were burned.

The news of this extraordinary experiment soon reached Paris, where it produced a most lively impression. A commission was appointed by the academy of sciences to report upon it. Public curiosity, however, could not await the tardy decision of this body, and accordingly a subscription was entered into to defray the expense of repeating