(A. F. P.)

BALNEOTHERAPEUTICS (Lat. balneum, a bath, and Gr. [Greek: therapeuein], to treat medically). The medical treatment of disease by internal and external use of mineral waters is quite distinct from "hydrotherapy," or the therapeutic uses of pure water. But the term "balneotherapeutics" has gradually come to be applied to everything relating to spa treatment, including the drinking of waters and the use of hot baths and natural vapour baths, as well as of the various kinds of mud and sand used for hot applications. The principal constituents found in mineral waters are sodium, magnesium, calcium and iron, in combination with the acids to form chlorides, sulphates, sulphides and carbonates. Other substances occasionally present in sufficient quantity to exert a therapeutic influence are arsenic, lithium, potassium, manganese, bromine, iodine, &c. The chief gases in solution are oxygen, nitrogen, carbonic acid and sulphuretted hydrogen. Argon and helium occur in some of the "simple thermal" and "thermal sulphur waters." There are few doctors who would deny the great value of special bathing and drinking cures in certain morbid conditions. In the employment of the various mineral waters, many of the spas adopt special means by which they increase or modify their influence, e.g. the so-called "aromatic" or "medicated" baths, in which substances are mixed to exert a special influence on the skin and peripheral nerves. Of these the "pine-needle" bath has the greatest repute; it is made by adding a decoction of the needles or young shoots of firs and pines. Fir wood oil (a mixture of ethereal oils) or the tincture of an alcoholic extract acts equally well. The volatile ethereal constituents are supposed to penetrate the skin and to stimulate the cutaneous [v.03 p.0284] circulation and peripheral nerves, being eliminated later by the ordinary channels. Similar effects follow the addition to the bath of aromatic herbs, such as camomile, thyme, &c. For a full-sized bath 1-1/2 to 2 lb of herbs are tied in a muslin bag and infused in a gallon of boiling water; the juices are then expressed and the infusion added to the bath. Astringent baths are prepared in a similar way from decoctions of oak bark, walnut leaves, &c. In many spas on the European continent baths are prepared from peat or mud mixed with hot mineral water. Mineral peat consists of decomposing vegetable soil that has been so long in the neighbourhood of the medicinal spring that it has undergone peculiar and variable chemical changes. This is mixed with the hot mineral water until the bath has the desired consistency, the effect on the patient being in almost direct proportion to the density. These baths vary greatly in composition. Mud baths are chiefly prepared from muddy deposits found in the neighbourhood of the springs, as at St Amand. They act like a large poultice applied to the surface of the body, and in addition to the influence of the temperature, they exert a considerable mechanical effect. The pulse is accelerated some 6 to 12 beats a minute, the respiration number rises, and the patient is thrown into a profuse perspiration. They have very great value in gouty and rheumatic conditions and in some of the special troubles of women.

There are certain conditions in which mineral water treatment is distinctly contra-indicated. Advanced cardiac disease and cardiac cases with failure of compensation must pre-eminently be treated at home, not at a spa. Advanced arterio-sclerosis, any form of serious organic visceral disease, advanced cirrhosis, pulmonary tuberculosis with a tendency to haemoptysis, much elevation of temperature or emaciation, are all entirely unsuited for this form of treatment. Serious organic nervous diseases, great nervous depression and old cases of paralysis are all contra-indicated. Any trouble, however suited in itself for spa treatment, must be considered inapplicable if complicated with pregnancy.

In advising balneotherapeutic treatment in any case, all the conditions and habits of the patient—pecuniary, physical and psychical—must be considered, as the spa must be fitted to the patient, not the patient to the spa. Besides the particular disease, the idiosyncrasy of the patient must be considered, the same morbid condition in different people requiring very different treatment. Retarded convalescence is a condition often treated at the spas, although hygienic surroundings, both mental and physical, are usually all that is necessary to ensure complete recovery. After rheumatic fever, however, if the joints remain painful and the heart is dilated, the thermal gaseous saline water of Nauheim, augmented by Schott's resistance movements, will often appear to work wonders. Chronic rheumatism, where there is much exudation round a joint or incipient stiffness of a joint, may be relieved by hot thermal treatment, especially when combined with various forms of massage and exercises. Simple thermal waters, hot sulphur springs and hot muriated waters are all successful in different cases. Chronic muscular rheumatism can also be benefited in a similar manner. Diseases of the nervous system are on the whole treated by these means with small success. Mental diseases other than very mild cases of depression should be considered inapplicable. Neurasthenics are sometimes treated at chalybeate or thermal muriated saline spas; but such treatment is entirely secondary to the general management of the case. Neuralgic affections and the later stages of neuritis, especially when dependent on gout or rheumatism, are often relieved or cured. Abdominal venosity (abdominal plethora), a feature of obesity, glycosuria, &c., are extremely well fitted for this form of treatment. The alkaline sulphated waters, the bitter waters and the common salt waters can all be prescribed, and after a short course can be supplemented with various forms of active and passive exercises. Diseases of the respiratory organs are far more suited for climatic treatment than for treatment by baths. Anaemia can usually be better or equally well treated at home, or by seaside residence or a sea voyage, though many physicians prescribe chloride of sodium waters, followed by a course of iron waters at some suitably situated spa. In the anaemia dependent on malarial infection, the muriated or alkaline sulphated waters at spas of considerable elevation and combined with iron and arsenic are often very beneficial. Gravel and stone, if of the uric acid variety, can be treated with the alkaline waters, but the case must be under constant observation lest the urine become too alkaline and a deposition of phosphates take place on the already formed uric acid stone. Gout is so variable both in cause and effect that much discrimination is required in its treatment. Where the patient is of "full habit," with portal stagnation, the sulphated alkaline or mild bitter waters are indicated, especially those of Carlsbad and Marienbad; but the use of these strong waters must be followed by a long rest under strict hygienic conditions. Where this is impossible, a milder course must be advised, as at Homburg, Kissingen, Harrogate, Wiesbaden, Baden-Baden, &c. For very delicate patients, and where time is limited, the simple thermal waters are preferable.

For radiant heat and light baths and electric baths of all kinds, see ELECTROTHERAPEUTICS; and for compressed air baths, AEROTHERAPEUTICS. (See also BATHS, THERAPEUTICS, and the articles on diseases.)

BALQUHIDDER (Gaelic, "the farm in the back-lying country"), a village and parish of Perthshire, Scotland. Pop. of parish (1901) 605. The village lies 2 m. W. of the station of the same name on the Caledonian railway from Callander to Oban, and 27-3/4 m. N.W. of Stirling. It is situated at the east end of Loch Voil, a lake at the foot of the Braes of Balquhidder. The Maclaurins acquired the district as early as the 9th century and occupied it for several hundred years until ousted by the Macgregors, a neighbouring clan, who had repeatedly raided their lands, and in 1558 slew the chief and many of his followers. Balquhidder was the scene of some of the exploits of Rob Roy, who died there in 1734. His grave in the old kirkyard is marked by a stone ornamented with rude carving, executed probably centuries before his time. Another ancient stone is said traditionally to cover the grave of Angus, the Columban missionary, who was the first to carry on Christian work in this part of the Highlands.

BALRAMPUR, a town of British India near the river Rapti, 28 m. from Gonda, in the Gonda district of the United Provinces. Pop. (1901) 16,723. It gives its name to one of the largest talukdari estates in the province. The raja, Sir Drigbijai Singh K.C.S.I., was conspicuously loyal during the Mutiny, and was rewarded with accessions of territory and hereditary privileges. His death in 1882 gave rise to prolonged litigation and the estate was thrown into chancery. The income is estimated at L120,000, paying a revenue of L46,000. Numerous schools and hospitals are supported. Balrampur contains a large palace, a handsome modern temple and an Anglo-vernacular school.

BALSAM (from Gr. [Greek: balsamon], through Lat. balsamum, contracted by popular use to O. Fr. basme, mod. Fr. bame; Eng. balm), a term properly limited to such resins or oleo-resins as contain benzoic acid or cinnamic acid or both. Those balsams which conform to this definition make up a distinct class, allied to each other by their composition, properties and uses. Those found in commerce are the balsam of Peru, balsam of Tolu, liquid storax and liquidambar. Balsam of Peru is the produce of a lofty leguminous tree, Myroxylon Pereirae, growing within a limited area in San Salvador, Central America and introduced into Ceylon. It is a thick, viscid oleo-resin of a deep brown or black colour and a fragrant balsamic odour. It is used in perfumery. Though contained in the pharmacopeias it has no special medicinal virtues. Balsam of Tolu is produced from Myroxylon toluiferum. It is of a brown colour, thicker than Peru balsam, and attains a considerable degree of solidity on keeping. It also is a product of equatorial America, but is found over a much wider area than is the balsam of Peru. It is used in perfumery and as a constituent in cough syrups and lozenges. Liquid storax or styrax preparatus, is a balsam yielded by Liquidambar orientalis, a native of Asia Minor. It is a soft resinous substance, with a pleasing balsamic odour, especially after it [v.03 p.0285] has been kept for some time. It is used in medicine as an external application in some parasitic skin diseases, and internally as an expectorant. An analogous substance is derived from Liquidambar Altingia in Java. Liquidambar balsam is derived from Liquidambar styraciflua, a tree found in the United States and Mexico. It contains cinnamic acid, but not benzoic acid.

Of so-called balsams, entirely destitute of cinnamic and benzoic constituents, the following are found in commerce:—Mecca balsam or Balm of Gilead, from Commiphora opobalsamum, a tree growing in Arabia and Abyssinia, is supposed to be the balm of Scripture and the [Greek: balsamon] of Theophrastus. When fresh it is a viscid fluid, with a penetrating odour, but it solidifies with age. It was regarded with the utmost esteem among the nations of antiquity and to the present day it is peculiarly prized among the people of the East. For balsam of copaiba see COPAIBA. Under the name of wood oil, or Gurjun balsam, an oleo-resin is procured in India and the Eastern Archipelago from several species of Dipterocarpus, chiefly D. turbinatus, which has the odour and properties of copaiba and has been used for the same purposes. Wood oil is also used as a varnish in India and forms an effective protection against the attacks of white ants. Canada balsam or Canada turpentine is the oleo-resin yielded by Abies balsamea, a tree that grows in Canada and the northern parts of the United States. It is a very transparent substance, somewhat fluid when first run, but thickening considerably with age, possessed of a delicate yellow colour and a mild terebinthous odour. It contains 24% of essential oil, 60% of resin soluble in alcohol, and 16% of resin soluble only in ether. Its chief uses are for mounting preparations for the microscope and as a cement for glass in optical work.

The garden balsam is an annual plant, Impatiens balsamina, and the balsam apple is the fruit of Momordica balsamina, nat. order Cucurbitaceae.

BALSHAM, HUGH DE (d. 1286), English churchman, appears first as sub-prior of the monastery of Ely. On the death of William of Kilkenny in 1256 the monks elected him bishop of Ely, to the annoyance of Henry III. who had handed over the temporalities of the see to John de Waleran. The election was confirmed by the pope in 1257 and Hugh set to work to repair the harm done to the diocese by the intruder. In 1280 the bishop obtained a charter allowing him to replace the secular brethren residing in his hospital of St John at Cambridge by "studious scholars"; a second charter four years later entirely differentiated these scholars from the brethren of the hospital, and for them Hugh de Balsham founded and endowed the college of Peterhouse.

BALTA, a town in the Russian government of Podolia, between the Dniester and the Bug, 131 m. by rail N.N.W. of Odessa. It carries on a large trade in cattle, horses and grain, and has two annual fairs, held at Whitsuntide and in June. A variety of industries, such as tallow-melting, soap-boiling, tile-making and brewing, are carried on. The Jews form a very considerable part of the population, which in 1867 numbered 14,528, and in 1897, 23,393. Balta was in great part destroyed by the Russians in 1780.

BALTARD, LOUIS PIERRE (1764-1846), French architect and engraver, was born in Paris on the 9th of July 1764. He was originally a landscape painter, but in his travels through Italy was so much struck with the beauty of the Italian buildings, that he changed his profession and devoted himself to architecture. In his new occupation he achieved great success, and was selected to prepare the plans for some of the largest public edifices in Paris. His reputation, however, is chiefly based on his great skill in engraving. Among the best known of his plates are the drawings of Paris (Paris et ses monuments, 2 vols. fol., 1803), the engravings for Denon's Egypte, the illustrations of Napoleon's wars (La Colonne de la grande armee), and those contained in the series entitled the Grand prix de l'architecture, which for some time he carried on alone. He also gained distinction as an engraver of portraits. Baltard died in Paris on the 22nd of January 1846.

Two of his children were also architects. Of these the more important was VICTOR BALTARD (1805-1874), who was born in Paris on the 19th of June 1805. In 1833 he gained the prix de Rome at the Ecole des beaux-arts for designing a military school. He was largely instrumental in introducing a regular scheme of fresco decoration by modern artists in the churches of Paris, to take the place of the heterogeneous collections of pictures of all kinds with which their walls had been promiscuously decorated. He built many additions to existing churches, and also the church of St Augustin, in which he united the structural values of stone and steel. His most popular achievement was, however, the building of the central market in Paris. Victor Baltard also built the slaughter houses and the cattle market of La Villette. He died in Paris on the 13th of January 1874, after a life of great activity in his profession.

BALTIC SEA (Scand. and Ger. Ostsee; Russ. Baltiyskoe More), a sea extending between 54deg and 66deg N. lat., and 9deg and 30deg E. long., surrounded by the territories of Sweden, Russia, Germany and Denmark. Its greatest length is about 960 m.; greatest breadth about 400 m.; and length of coast-line, 5000 m.; the central axis runs approximately from south-west to north-east. The Baltic is connected with North Sea by the winding channel between the south of Scandinavia and the Cimbrian peninsula. This channel is usually included in the Baltic. The part of it west of a line joining the Skaw with Christiania fjord receives the name of Skagerrak; the part east of this line is called the Kattegat. At its southern end the Kattegat is blocked by the Danish islands, and it communicates with the Baltic proper by narrow channels called the Sound, the Great Belt and the Little Belt. The real physical boundary between the North Sea and the Baltic is formed by the plateau on which the islands Zealand, Funen and Laaland are situated, and its prolongation from the islands Falster and Moen to the coasts of Mecklenburg and Ruegen.

East of this plateau the Baltic proper forms a series of hollows or troughs. The first, or Bornholm deep, lies east of the island of Bornholm, and is separated from the next, or Gotland deep, by the Middelbank. Beyond the Middelbank the Danziger Tiefe, an isolated depression, lies to the south-east, while to the northeast the Gotland basin, the largest and deepest of all, extends north-eastwards to the Gulf of Finland. Along the Swedish coast a deep channel runs northward from outside the island of Oland; this is entirely cut off to the south and east by a bank which sweeps eastward and northward from near Karlskrona, and on which the island of Gotland stands, but it communicates at its northern end with the Gotland deep, and near the junction opposite Landsort is the deepest hole in the Baltic (420 metres = 230 fathoms).

An unbroken ridge, extending from Stockholm to Hango in Finland, separates the Baltic basin proper from the depression between Sweden and the Aland Isles, to which the name Aland Haf has been given. North of the Aland Haf a ridge defines the southern edge of another depression, the Bothnian Sea, which in turn is separated from the most northerly division, the Gulf of Bothnia, by a ridge across the narrow Quarken or Kvarken Strait. The Gotland deep may be said to extend directly into the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic, running eastwards for about 250 m., and separating Finland from Esthonia. Between Esthonia and Courland is the Gulf of Riga, a shallow inlet of roughly circular form, about 100 m. in diameter, and nowhere more than 27 fathoms deep.

According to recent computations the total area of the Baltic, including the Skagerrak and Kattegat, is 166,397 sq. m., and its volume 6907 cub. m., giving a mean depth of 36 fathoms, which is markedly less than that of any other arm of the sea of similar area.

In the deeper hollows in the south part of the Baltic the bottom consists almost invariably of either soft brown or grey mud or hard clay, while on the shallow banks and near the low coasts fine sand, of white, yellow or brown colour with small pebbles, is usually found.

[v.03 p.0286]

[Sidenote: Coasts—changes and character.]

At the time of the last great subsidence, in glacial times, an arm of the sea extended across Sweden, submerging a great part of the littoral up to the Gulf of Bothnia, and including the present lakes Vener, Hjelmar and Malar. During this period the waters of the northern Baltic were sufficiently salt for oysters to flourish. The subsequent upheaval restricted direct communication with the open sea to the Danish channels, and the Baltic waters became fresher: the oyster disappeared, but a number of cold salt-water fishes and crustaceans, and even seals, became acclimatized. It has been suggested that the presence of the remains of these animals indicates a communication to the north with the Arctic Ocean; but in view of the severe climatic conditions still prevailing at the time, this seems an unnecessary assumption. In the next stage of its history the Baltic is transformed by further elevation into a vast freshwater lake, the Ancylus lake of G. de Geer (named from the remains of the mollusc Ancylus fluviatilis), which is supposed to have covered an area of about 220,000 sq. m., including the whole of the present Baltic area and a large part of Finland, with Lake Ladoga. Then followed a subsidence, which not only re-established communication through the Danish channels, but allowed the Baltic to become sufficiently salt for such forms as Cardium edule and Littorina littorea. At this time the Gulf of Bothnia must have suffered greater depression than the Baltic proper, for the deposits of that epoch show a thickness of 100 metres (328 ft.) near Hernosand, but of only 25 metres (82 ft.) in the neighbourhood of Gotland. After this period of subsidence the process of elevation set in which gave the Baltic its present form and physical condition, and appears to be still in progress. Dr R. Sieger has traced a series of isobasic lines, or lines of equal rate of elevation, for portions of Sweden and Finland; these indicate that the movement is now almost nil along the axial lines of the Baltic and the Gulf of Finland, but increases in amplitude northwards to the Gulf of Bothnia and in the direction of the main ridge of the massif of southern Sweden. At Stockholm the rate of elevation is approximately 0.47 metre (= 1.54 ft.) in a century.

The coast of the Baltic is rocky only in the island-studded region at the head of the Baltic basin proper—a submerged lake-district—and the littoral generally is a typical morainic land, the work of the last great Baltic glacier. The southern margin of the Baltic is of peculiar interest. From Schleswig eastwards to Luebeck Bay the coast is pierced by a number of narrow openings or Fohrden, the result of encroachment of the sea caused by subsidence. East of Luebeck, as far as the mouth of the Oder, these give place to Bodden, ramified openings studded with islands: the structure here resembles that of Scania in southern Sweden, a region once joined to both Denmark and Pomerania by an isthmus which was severed by tectonic movements. Beyond the Oder the coast-line is unbroken as far as the Gulf of Danzig. It is then cut into by the estuaries of the Vistula, the Pregel and the Memel. Here the westerly winds have full play, and the coast is rimmed by a continuous line of dunes, which cut off the two great lagoons of the Frisches Haff and Kurisches Haff by sandspits or Nehrungen.

The drainage area of the Baltic is relatively large. According to the measurements of Sir J. Murray it extends to 461,450 sq. sea m. ( = 611,700 sq. English m.) The largest river-basin included in it is that of the Neva in the east, and next in size come the Vistula and the Oder in the south. The narrow parallel troughs, at right angles to the coast, which form the drainage-system of Sweden and western Finland, are a remarkable feature.

[Sidenote: Level.]

Levellings from Swinemuende show that the mean level of the surface of the Baltic at that point is 0.093 metres (= .305 ft.) below the surface of the North Sea at Amsterdam, and 0.066 metres ( = .216 ft.) below its level at Ostend. A line of levels from Swinemuende through Eger to the Adriatic showed the mean level of the surface of the Baltic to be 0.499 metres (1.6 ft.) above that of the Adriatic Sea. The mean level of the surface of the Baltic rises about 0.5 metres (1.6 ft.) from the coast of Holstein to Memel, probably as a result of the prevailing westerly winds; this mean difference is exceeded with strong westerly winds, and disappears or is reversed with easterly winds. The waves of the Baltic are usually short and irregular, often dangerous to navigation. Destructive waves, probably caused by distant earthquakes, called Seebaren (cf. English "bores") have been recorded.

The range of the tides is about one foot at Copenhagen; within the Baltic proper ordinary tides are scarcely perceptible. There is, however, a distinctly marked annual rise and fall due to meteorological influences having a mean range of about 11.4 cm. (0.37 ft.), at Travemuende, and 13.9 cm. (0.46 ft.) at Swinemuende, the maximum occurring at the end of the summer rainy period in August.

[Sidenote: Circulation.]

The circulation of water in the Baltic proper must be considered apart from the circulation in the channels connecting it with the North Sea; and in this relation the plateau connecting the islands Falster and Moen with the coast of Mecklenburg and Ruegen must be taken as the dividing line. In the great basins and hollows from Ruegen to the Gulfs of Bothnia and Finland the upper layers of water, from 30 to 70 metres (16 to 38 fathoms) in thickness, have almost the same salinity throughout. In these waters a vertical circulation is kept up by convection currents. Beneath these layers are masses of salter water, through which a thermal wave of small amplitude is slowly propagated to the bottom by conduction. These strata are practically stagnant, deficient in oxygen and surcharged with carbonic acid. Their salter waters must have been originally derived from outside, and must therefore have passed over the plateau between Falster and Mecklenburg, but their horizontal extension is checked by the ridges separating the deep hollows in the Baltic from each other. The inflow to the deep basins is intermittent, probably with a long period of flux and reflux.

The circulation in the channels connecting the Baltic proper with the North Sea is of a complex character. It is necessary in the first place to distinguish clearly between outflowing and inflowing waters; in practice this is easily done, as the outflowing water always contains less than 30 parts pro mille of salt, and the inflowing water more than 32 pro mille. The Baltic receives much more water by rainfall, discharge of rivers, &c., than it loses by evaporation; hence a surplus must be got rid of by an outflowing current which may be named the "Baltic Stream." The following general laws may be laid down with regard to this:—

1. That the Baltic Stream must be a surface current, because it originates from a redundancy of fresh water.

2. That, on account of the earth's rotation, the main part of the Baltic Stream must keep close to the coast of the Scandinavian peninsula.

3. That it must be a periodic stream, because the discharge of the rivers into the Baltic varies with the season of the year. In spring and summer the water from the Baltic is sufficiently abundant to inundate the whole surface of the Kattegat and Skagerrak, but in winter the sources of the Baltic current are for the most part dried up by the freezing of the land water.

All the waters which enter the Skagerrak or Kattegat as undercurrents can be found at the surface of the North Sea (q.v.). They may be divided according to their origin and salinity as follows:—

(a) Ocean water of 35 pro mille salinity or more.

(b) North Sea water, the predominant water in the North Sea area, of 34 to 35 pro mille salinity.

(c) Bank water, 32 to 34 pro mille, which forms a broad edging covering the coast banks of Holland, Germany, Denmark and Norway.

The deepest water stratum in the Skagerrak is certainly of oceanic origin; it has been found to suffer changes of long period, and it is probably not always composed of water derived from the same part or the same depth of the North Atlantic; this water is, as a rule, deficient in oxygen. The "North Sea" water, of 34 to 35 pro mille salinity, does not appear at the surface in the Skagerrak, except as a strip along part of the coast of Jutland, but it is always found as an undercurrent overlying the oceanic water. It enters into all the deep coast channels, and into the Christiania fjord, but it is not always found in the deep channels of the Kattegat. The principal time of inflow of North Sea water is during spring and summer. The bank-water of 32 to 34 pro mille salinity is found all along the continental coast of the North Sea and North Atlantic, and it may therefore enter the Skagerrak either from the North Sea or from the north along the coast of Norway. It is probable indeed that an influx of this water occurs from both directions—in August and September from the south, and in the late winter and early spring from the north. The seasonal changes in the distribution of the bank-waters in different parts of the coast are too complex to be briefly explained; their relations to the times of occurrence of various fisheries of the region present many remarkable features, which have been investigated in recent years by the Swedish Commission.

On the west and south coasts of Sweden, and in the Skagerrak south-east of Norway, navigation is interfered with by ice only in severe winters, and then the ice is usually drifting, compact sea-ice being very rare. Between Stockholm and Visby navigation usually ceases at the end of December and begins again about the 10th of April. During very severe winters the Aland Sea is covered with thick ice available for traffic. The south part of the Gulf of Bothnia is covered with ice every winter along the coasts, but rarely, if ever, in its central part. Navigation is interrupted by drifting ice from about the middle of November to the beginning of May, though the port of Hernosand has been known to remain open during a whole winter. The northern Quarken is covered with traversable ice every third or fourth year. The northern part of the Gulf of Bothnia is frozen every winter. In the Gulf of Finland the sea is closed to navigation by ice for about 150 days in the year; but navigation is rendered possible throughout the winter by the use of ice-breakers.

See references to different parts of the subject in the standard books of A. Penck, A. de Lapparent, E. Suess and others. Also Credner, Die Entstehung der Ostsee (Leipzig, 1895); G. de Geer, Om Skandinaviens nivaforandringar under quartarperioden (Stockholm, 1888); R. Sieger, Seeenschwankungen und Strandverschiebungen in Skandinavien (Berlin, 1893); O. Pettersson, "Review of Swedish Hydrographic Research," Scottish Geographical Magazine (1894); N. Ekholm, Om klimatets andringar i geologisk och historisk tid. Ymer (Stockholm, 1899); Publications of the International Council for the Study of the Sea (Copenhagen, since 1902).

(H. N. D.)

[v.03 p.0287] BALTIMORE, GEORGE CALVERT, 1ST BARON (c. 1580-1632), English statesman, son of Leonard Calvert, and Alice, daughter of John Crosland of Crosland, was born at Kipling in Yorkshire and educated at Trinity College, Oxford. After travelling on the continent, he entered the public service as secretary to Robert Cecil, afterwards earl of Salisbury. In 1606 he was appointed clerk of the crown in Connaught and Clare, in 1608 a clerk of the council, and was returned to parliament for Bossiney in 1609. He assisted James I. in his discourse against Vorstius, the Arminian theological professor of Leiden, and in 1613 took charge of the Spanish and Italian correspondence. The same year he was sent on a mission to Ireland to investigate grievances. For these services he was rewarded by knighthood in 1617, followed by a secretaryship of state in 1619 and a pension of L2000 a year in 1620. He represented successively Yorkshire (1621) and Oxford University (1624) in the House of Commons, where it fell to him in his official capacity to communicate the king's policy and to obtain supplies. He was distrusted by the parliament, and was in favour of the unpopular alliance with Spain and the Spanish marriage. Shortly after the failure of the scheme he declared himself a Roman Catholic, and on the 12th of February 1625 threw up his office, when he was created Baron Baltimore of Baltimore and received a grant of large estates in Ireland. Henceforth he was seen little in public life and his attention was directed to colonial enterprise, with which his name will be always associated. He had established a small settlement in Newfoundland in 1621, for which under the name of Avalon he procured a charter in 1623, and which he himself visited in 1627. In consequence of disputes and the unsuitable nature of the climate he sailed thence for Virginia, but was forbidden to settle there unless he took the oaths of allegiance and supremacy. He returned home, and died on the 15th of April 1632 before a new concession was secured, the charter of Maryland passing the great seal on the 20th of June 1632 in favour of his son Cecilius, second Lord Baltimore, who founded the colony. Baltimore married Anne, daughter of George Mynne of Hurlingfordbury, Hertfordshire, by whom he had six sons and five daughters. He wrote Carmen funebre in D. Hen. Untonum (1596); The Answer to Tom Tell-Troth ... (1642) is also attributed to him, and Wood mentions Baltimore as having composed "something concerning Maryland." His letters are to be found in various publications, including Strafford's Letters, Clarendon State Papers and the Calendars of State Papers.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.—George and Cecilius Calvert by William Hand Browne (1890); article by C. H. Firth in the Dict. of Nat. Biog. with references there given; Wood's Athenae Oxonienses (Bliss) ii. 522; Doyle's, The English in America; Discourse on the Life and Character of Sir G. Calvert by J. P. Kennedy (1845), with the Review and the Reply to the same; London Magazine, June 1768; "Sir G. Calvert," by L. W. Wilhelm (Maryland Hist. Soc., 14th April 1884); The Nation, vol. 70, p. 95; American Historical Review, vol. 5, p. 577.

BALTIMORE, a city and seaport, and the metropolis of Maryland, U.S.A., the 7th city in population in the United States. It is at the head of tide-water on the Patapsco river and its middle and north-west branches where they form an estuary 12 m. from the entrance of their waters into Chesapeake Bay, in lat. 39deg 17' N. and long. 76deg 37' W., about 172 m. by water from the Atlantic Ocean, 40 m. by rail N.W. from Washington, 26 m. N. by W. from Annapolis, 97 m. S.W. from Philadelphia, and 184 m. from New York. Pop. (1890) 434,439; (1900) 508,957 of whom 79,258 were negroes, and 68,600 foreign-born (of these 33,208 were natives of Germany, 10,493 of Russia, 9690 of Ireland, 2841 of England, 2811 of Poland, 2321 of Bohemia and 2042 of Italy); (1910, census) 558,485. It is served by the Baltimore & Ohio, the Philadelphia, Baltimore & Washington (the Pennsylvania system), the Baltimore & Annapolis Short Line, the Baltimore, Chesapeake & Atlantic; the Northern Central; the Western Maryland and the Maryland & Pennsylvania railways; and by steamship lines running directly to all the more important ports on the Atlantic coast of the United States, to ports in the West Indies and Brazil, to London, Liverpool, Southampton, Bristol, Leith, Glasgow, Dublin, Belfast, Havre, Antwerp, Rotterdam, Bremen, Hamburg and other European ports.

The city extends nearly 6-1/2 m. from E. to W., and except on the W. side a little more than 5 m. from N. to S., covering an area of about 32 sq. m. The ground on which it is built is for the most part gently rolling; originally some portions were swampy and others were marked by precipitous heights, but the swamps have been drained and filled and the heights rounded off. Jones's Falls, a small stream shut in between granite walls several feet in height, crosses the N. boundary line a short distance W. of its middle, flows S.E. to the S.E. corner of the main business quarter, and there meets the north-west branch of the Patapsco, in which lies the harbour, defended at its entrance by the historic Fort McHenry, built at the S.E. extremity of Locust Point, an irregular peninsula extending S.E., on which are grain-elevators and a number of wharves, including those of the Baltimore & Ohio railway.

That part of the city which lies E. of Jones's Falls is known as East Baltimore, and is in turn nominally divided into Fells' Point to the S. and E., now a shipbuilding and manufacturing quarter, and Old Town to the N. and W. In the Old Town still remain a few specimens of eighteenth century architecture, including several old-fashioned post-houses, which used to furnish entertainment for travellers starting for the Middle West by way of the old Cumberland Road beginning at Fort Cumberland, and from Baltimore to Fort Cumberland by a much older turnpike. The more inviting portion of the modern city lies on the western side of Jones's Falls, and the principal residential districts are in the northern half of the city. A little S. from the centre of the city, Baltimore Street, running E. and W., and Charles Street, running N. and S., intersect; from this point buildings on these two streets are numbered N., S., E. and W., while buildings on other streets are numbered N. and S. from Baltimore Street and E. and W. from Charles Street. Baltimore Street is the chief business thoroughfare; S. of it as well as a little to the N. is the wholesale, financial and shipping district; while West Lexington Street, a short distance to the N., and North Howard and North Eutaw Streets, between Fayette and Franklin Streets, have numerous department and other retail stores. In North Gay Street also, which runs N.E. through East Baltimore, there are many small but busy retail shops. North Charles Street, running through the district in which the more wealthy citizens live, is itself lined with many of the most substantial and imposing residences in the city. Mount Vernon Place and Washington Place, intersecting near the centre of the city, Eutaw Place farther N.W., and Broadway running N. and S. through the middle of East Baltimore, are good examples of wide streets, having squares in the middle, adorned with lawns, flower-beds and fountains.

The buildings of the principal business quarter have been erected since 1904, when a fire which broke out on Sunday the 7th of February destroyed all the old ones within an area of 150 acres. Within a year after the fire, however, 225 places of business were again occupied and 170 more were building. A city ordinance prohibited the erection of any building more than 185 ft. in height, and prescribed a uniform height for those in the same neighbourhood; a large portion of the new buildings are of either three or four storeys, but a few tall ones range from ten to sixteen. The principal materials of which they are built are limestone, granite, marble and bricks, and terra-cotta of various colours.

The city hall, the post-office and the court-house, standing in a row, and each occupying a separate block along E. Fayette Street in almost the exact centre of the city, are three of Baltimore's most imposing buildings, and all of them narrowly escaped destruction by the great fire. The city hall, completed in 1875, in the Renaissance style, consists of a centre structure of four storeys surmounted by an iron dome 260 ft. high, and two connecting wings of three storeys surmounted by a mansard roof; the entire outer facing is of white Maryland marble. The post-office, completed in 1890, is built of Maine granite. The court-house, completed in 1899, is of white marble, with mural paintings by La Farge, E. H. Blashfield and C. Y. Turner. Two of the principal library buildings—the Peabody and the Enoch [v.03 p.0288] Pratt—are faced with white marble. Among the churches may be mentioned the Roman Catholic cathedral, surmounted by a dome 125 ft. high—Baltimore being the seat of a Roman Catholic archbishopric, the highest in rank in the United States; the First Presbyterian church (decorated Gothic), with a spire 250 ft. high; the Grace Episcopal church—Baltimore being the seat of a Protestant Episcopal bishopric; the First Methodist Episcopal church; and the synagogues of the Baltimore Hebrew Congregation and the Oheb Shalom Congregation. Other notable buildings are the custom-house, the Masonic Temple, the Maryland Clubhouse, the Mount Royal station of the Baltimore & Ohio railway, and the buildings of the Johns Hopkins hospital. There are several good bridges across Jones's Falls.

On an elevated site at the intersection of Washington Place—a continuation of N. Charles Street—with Mount Vernon Place stands a white marble monument in honour of George Washington, the eldest of the monuments in his honour in the United States. The corner-stone was laid in 1815 and the monument was completed in 1829. The base is 50 ft. sq. and 24 ft. high; on this stands a Doric column, 25 ft. in diameter at the base and 130 ft. high, which is surmounted by a statue of Washington 16 ft. high. A winding stairway in the interior leads to a parapet at the top. In the square by which the monument is surrounded are also statues of George Peabody by W. W. Story (a replica of the one in London), Roger Brooke Taney by W. H. Rinehart, and John Eager Howard by Emmanuel Fremiet; and bronze pieces representing Peace, War, Force and Order, and a figure of a lion by Antoine L. Barye. The Henry Walters collection of paintings, mostly by modern French artists, and of Chinese and Japanese bronzes, ivory carvings, enamels, porcelain and paintings is housed in the Walters Art Gallery at the S. end of Washington Place; at the south-east corner of the square is the Peabody Institute with its conservatory of music and collection of rare books, of American paintings, and of casts, including the Rinehart collection of the works of William H. Rinehart who was a native of Maryland. In Monument Square near the post-office and the court-house is the white marble Battle Monument, erected in 1815 to the memory of those who had fallen in defence of the city in the previous year; it is 52 ft. high, the column being in the form of a bundle of Roman fasces, upon the bands of which are inscribed the names of those whom it commemorates; and the whole is surmounted by a female figure, the emblematical genius of the city. To this monument and the one in honour of Washington, Baltimore owes the name "The Monumental City," frequently applied to it. A small monument erected to the memory of Edgar Allan Poe stands in the Westminster Presbyterian churchyard, where he is buried; there is another monument to his memory in Druid Hill Park. In Greenmount Cemetery in the north central part of the city are the graves of Junius Brutus Booth, Mme Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte (1785-1879), the wife of Jerome Bonaparte, Johns Hopkins, John McDonogh and Sidney Lanier.

In 1908 there were in the city under the jurisdiction of the department of public parks and squares 13 parks of 10 acres or more each and 33 squares, and the total acreage of parks was 2188 acres and of squares 86.53 acres. Chief among the parks is Druid Hill Park in the N.W. containing 672.78 acres and famous for its natural beauty. Clifton Park, of 311.26 acres, 2 m. E. of Druid Hill and formerly a part of the Johns Hopkins estate, passed into the possession of the city in 1895. Patterson Park in the extreme S.E., of 125.79 acres, is a favourite resort for the inhabitants of East Baltimore.

Education.—Baltimore ranks high as an educational centre. Johns Hopkins University (q.v.) is a leading institution of the United States for graduate study. The Peabody Institute, founded in 1859 by George Peabody, who was for some years a resident of Baltimore, is an important factor in the promotion of science, literature and the fine arts. Goucher College (Methodist, 1888) for women, is one of the best institutions of the kind in southern United States. The older of the two state normal schools, opened in 1867, is located here. Morgan College (Methodist), opened in 1876, offers the advantages of a college education to the coloured young people. Loyola College, founded in 1852, and various other institutions are for the training of the Catholics.

The McDonogh farm school, about 12 m. N.W., with a farm of 835 acres, a printing-office, and carpenter and machine shops prepares poor boys to enter any college in the country. The institution owes its origin to a bequest left by John McDonogh. Among the professional schools are the university of Maryland and Baltimore University—each of which offers courses in law, medicine and dentistry—the Baltimore Medical College, the College of Physicians and Surgeons, the Woman's Medical College, the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery, the Maryland College of Pharmacy (since 1904 part of the university of Maryland), the Baltimore Law School, St Joseph's Seminary and St Mary's Seminary, which, established by the Society of St Sulpice in 1791, is said to be the oldest Catholic theological seminary in the United States. The city also has a Polytechnic Institute, as well as high schools for white and for coloured pupils. The principal libraries are those of Johns Hopkins University, Peabody Institute, Maryland Historical Society, and the Bar Association; and the Enoch Pratt, the New Mercantile, and Maryland Diocesan (Protestant Episcopal).

The charitable institutions of Baltimore are numerous. Several such institutions supported wholly or in part by the state of Maryland (q.v.) are located here, and besides these there are scores of others. A representative list includes:— the Charity Organization Society, the primary object of which is to organize the work of the others; the Baltimore Association for the Improvement of the Condition of the Poor, which seeks to discourage indiscriminate alms-giving; the Bay View asylum or city poorhouse; the Children's Aid Society; the Thomas Wilson Fuel-Saving Society, for furnishing coal at low rates; the Woman's Industrial Exchange, for assisting women in need to support themselves; Johns Hopkins hospital, noted for the excellence of its equipment especially for heating and ventilating; Saint Joseph's general hospital; hospital for the women of Maryland of Baltimore city; nursery and child's hospital; Baltimore eye, ear and throat charity hospital; Maryland hospital for the insane; the Sheppard asylum, intended especially for the cure of the insane; the Sheppard and Enoch Pratt hospital; the Baltimore orphan asylum; Saint Vincent's infant asylum; the Thomas Wilson sanatorium for children, intended for children under three years of age, who are suffering from disease, during the warm summer months; the Free Summer Excursion Society, for affording a change of air to the indigent sick; home for the incurables; homes for the aged; homes for friendless children; institutions for the blind; and institutions for the deaf and dumb.

Water for the city taken from Jones's Falls and Gunpowder river a few miles N. of the city limits, is brought through tunnels, and is stored in eight reservoirs having an aggregate capacity of 2275 million gallons. The whole system is owned by the municipality and can furnish about 300 million gallons daily. After the fire $10,000,000 was appropriated for a new sewage system (begun 1906). In 1900 the Maryland legislature empowered the city to borrow $1,350,000 to establish a municipal lighting plant, but in 1909 private concerns still supplied the streets with light.

Commerce.—The harbour, which consists of three parts, is excellent. Its entrance at Fort McHenry is a channel 600 ft. wide, with a minimum draft (1907) of 31 ft. of water. The depth is continued with an increased width for a mile and a quarter to near Fells' Point, where the width is contracted to one-fourth of a mile with a depth of 16 ft. Above this entrance it widens into an ellipse a mile long, half a mile broad and 15 ft. deep. The third or inner harbour has a depth of 14 ft. and penetrates far into the city. Vessels of the largest class can lie at the Locust Point wharves and Canton, and vessels of 4000 tons can use the inner harbour W. of the mouth of Jones's Falls. By 1905 $5,000,000 had been appropriated since the great fire for new docks. In 1908 the city ranked fourth among the Atlantic ports of the United States in the amount of its exports ($82,113,496), and fourth in the amount of its imports ($23,722,045).

[v.03 p.0289] That Baltimore has grown rapidly as a manufacturing city since 1880 is seen from the fact that in that year there were but 3683 manufacturing establishments, with a total annual product valued at $78,417,304, as compared with 6359 establishments (of which 2274 were under the factory system) in 1900 producing commodities valued at $161,249,240 ($135,107,626 under the factory system); in 1905 there were 2163 establishments under the factory system with a total annual product valued at $151,546,580, an increase of 12.2% in the five years. The city ranked eighth among the manufacturing centres of the United States, as regards the value of products, in the three successive censuses of 1880, 1890 and 1900. In 1905 it was ninth. Baltimore is noted particularly as the most important centre in the United States of the canning and preserving industry. The output in 1905 ($5,981,541) of the city's establishments for the canning and preserving of fruits and vegetables was 7.7% of that of the whole United States; in 1900 it had been 15% of the country's total. What seems to have been the first oyster-canning establishment in America was built in Baltimore (by a Thomas Kensett) in 1820, and oyster-canning as a distinct industry on a permanent footing was begun here in 1850. The term "cove oysters," now applied to canned oysters everywhere, was originally applied to the oysters found in the coves on the W. side of the Chesapeake Bay, above the mouth of the Potomac. Up to 1900, after which year oyster canneries began to be built in the southern states, especially in Mississippi, Baltimore was the centre of the oyster-canning industry. Baltimore is also a well-known centre for the manufacture of clothing, in which in 1905 ($22,684,656) it ranked fourth among the cities of the United States; for cigar and cigarette-making (1905, $4,360,366); for the manufacture of foundry and machine shop products (1905, $6,572,925), of tinware (1905, $5,705,980), of shirts (1905, $5,710,783), of cotton-duck (the output of sail-duck being about three-fourths of the total for the United States), bricks (about 150,000,000 annually), and fertilizers; it also manufactures furniture, malt liquors, and confectionery, and many other commodities in smaller amounts. The markets, especially the Lexington market, are noted for the abundance and great variety of their produce. The proximity of coal-mines, the abundance and variety of food supplies furnished by the state, the great quantity and variety of the city's manufactured goods, the excellent shipping facilities, and the consequent low cost of living, are prominent features of the physical life of the city.

Government.—Although the charter under which Baltimore is governed came into effect as late as 1898, it is only the second one for the city, the first one having been in force for 101 years. The mayor is now elected for a term of four years; he must be at least twenty-five years of age and must have property in the city valued at $2000 or more, on which he shall have paid taxes for two years preceding his election. Great responsibility is centred upon him by giving him power to appoint the heads of departments and sub-departments, subject to the approval of the second branch of the council, and permitting him to remove at pleasure for six months after an appointment; in appointing a board or commission, however, he is required to choose the members from more than one political party. He has five days in which to veto an ordinance, and an affirmative vote of three-fourths of the members of each branch of the council is required to pass an ordinance over his veto. The council, constituting the legislative department, consists of two branches. The first branch is composed of one member from each ward, elected for a term of four years; the second branch of two members from each of four districts, and a president elected by the city at large, all for a term of four years; a property qualification is prescribed for members of each branch. All municipal officers are elected in May in order to separate municipal from state and national elections. No street franchise can be granted for a longer term than twenty-five years, and the right to regulate the exercise of each and every franchise is reserved to the mayor and council. A board of estimate, composed of the mayor, the city solicitor, the comptroller, the president of the second branch of the city council, and the president of the board of public improvements, has control over appropriations, the council having power to decrease the amount of any item but not to enlarge it. To create a debt for any purpose other than to meet a temporary deficiency, the mayor and council must first obtain the consent of both the state legislature and the city electorate. The department of education is intrusted to an unsalaried board of nine commissioners, appointed by the mayor with the approval of the second branch of the council for a term of six years, three retiring every two years. This board appoints a superintendent, six or more assistant superintendents, and the teachers of the high schools and the Polytechnic Institute, also the other teachers, but only according to the superintendent's recommendation on the basis of merit.

History.—Baltimore was named in honour of the Lords Baltimore, the founders of the province of Maryland, but no settlement was made here until nearly 100 years after the planting of the colony; meanwhile at least two other town-sites, on which it was hoped permanent towns might be established, had received the same name, but nothing came of either. Finally, however, while the provincial legislature was still engaged in the practice of directing places to be laid out for towns, where, as events proved there was nothing to give these towns more than a mere paper existence, that body in 1729 directed seven commissioners to purchase 60 acres of land on the N. side of the Patapsco and lay it out in sixty equal lots as the town of Baltimore. Three years later, at the instance of the same body, Jones-Town (Old Town) was laid out on the opposite side of Jones's Falls, and in 1745 these two towns were consolidated. About the same time the resources of the interior, for which Baltimore was to become a trade centre, were being rapidly developed by the Germans. Prior to 1752, in which year there were only twenty-five houses with two hundred inhabitants, the growth of the city had indeed been slow; but only a year or two later wheat loaded in its harbour was for the first time shipped to Scotland; during the war between the French and the English at this time some of the unfortunate Acadians found new homes here; in 1767 Baltimore was made the county seat; by the beginning of the War of Independence its population had grown to 6755; and in 1780 it was made a port of entry. The city early became an important shipping centre; during both the War of Independence and the War of 1812 many privateers were sent out from it, and in the interval between these wars, the ship-owners of Baltimore had their share in the world's carrying trade, the "Baltimore clippers" becoming famous. In 1797 Baltimore received its first charter, having been governed until then from Annapolis and through commissions with very limited powers; at the same time the Fells' Point settlement, founded about 1730 by William Fells, a ship carpenter, was annexed. During the War of Independence, the Continental Congress, frightened from Philadelphia in 1776, sat for several weeks in a hall in W. Baltimore Street near Liberty Street; during the same war also fortifications were first erected on the site of the present Fort McHenry. This fort effectively protected the city in 1814 when attacked by the British, and it was during the attack that Francis Scott Key, detained on one of the British attacking vessels, composed the "Star Spangled Banner." In 1860 all three of the candidates opposed to Lincoln—Douglas, Breckinridge and Bell—were nominated here, and here in 1864 President Lincoln was nominated for a second term. The city has been the meeting-place of other important conventions, and is sometimes called "The Convention City." At the outbreak of the Civil War on the 19th of April 1861, the Sixth Massachusetts regiment, while passing through Baltimore, was attacked by a mob and several men were killed on both sides; in the following month the city was subjected to military rule and so continued until the close of the war. From 1856 to 1860 Baltimore was under the control of the American or Know-Nothing party, and suffered greatly from election riots and other disorders, until as a remedy the control of the police system was taken from the mayor and council and exercised by the state government. Soon after the Civil War a Democratic "machine" got firm control of the city, [v.03 p.0290] and although a struggle to overthrow the machine was begun in earnest in 1875 by a coalition of the reform element of the Democratic party with the Republican party, it was not till 1895 that the coalition won its first decisive victory at the polls. Even then the efforts of the Republican mayor were at first thwarted by the council, which passed an ordinance over his veto, taking from him the power of appointment and vesting it in themselves; the Maryland court of appeals, however, soon decided that the council had exceeded its powers, and an important outcome of the reform movement was the new charter of 1898. Annexations of suburban territory in 1888 and 1890 greatly increased the area of the city.

AUTHORITIES.—J. H. Hollander, Guide to the City of Baltimore (Baltimore, 1893); T. P. Thomas, "The City Government of Baltimore" (in Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science, Baltimore, 1896); St G. L. Sioussat, "Baltimore, the Monumental City" (in L. P. Powell, Historic Towns of the Southern States, New York, 1900); J. T. Scharf, Chronicles of Baltimore (Baltimore, 1874).

BALTZAR, THOMAS (c. 1630-1663), German violinist, was born at Luebeck. He visited England in 1656 and made a great impression on Evelyn and Anthony Wood. In 1661 he was appointed leader of the king's famous band of twenty-four violins, but his intemperate habits cut short his career within two years. Nothing like his violin-playing had ever been heard in England before, and in all probability the instrumental music of Henry Purcell owes much to its influence.

BA-LUBA, a Bantu negroid race with several subdivisions; one of the most important and cultivated peoples of Central Africa. They are distributed over eight degrees of longitude between Lakes Tanganyika, Mweru and Bangweulu in the east, and the Kasai in the west. In the east, where they are found in the greatest racial purity, they founded the states of Katanga, Urua and Uguha; in the west they have intermixed to some extent with the Ba-Kete aborigines, whom they have partially dispossessed, dividing them into two portions, one to the north, the other to the south. To the western Ba-Luba the name Ba-Shilange has been given. With the Ba-Luba are connected the founders of the great Lunda empire—now divided between Belgian Congo and Angola—ruled by a monarch entitled Muata Yanvo (Jamvo). The westward movement of the Ba-Luba took place in comparatively recent times, the end of the 18th century or the beginning of the 19th. Shortly afterwards a chief named Kalamba Mukenge founded a large state. There followed in 1870 a remarkable politico-religious revolution, the result of which was the establishment of a cult of hemp-smoking, connected with a secret society termed Bena Riamba; the members of this abandoned their old fetish worship and adopted a form of communism of which the central idea was the blood-brotherhood of all the members. Towards the east hemp-smoking becomes less common.

The Ba-Luba practise circumcision and scar-tattooing is common; tooth-filing is very frequent in the east, though in the west it is comparatively rare; the fashion of dressing the hair is very varied and often extremely fantastic. Their houses, which are built by the women, are rectangular; on the Lulua, however, pile-houses, square in shape, are found. They are an agricultural people, but work in the fields is relegated to the women and slaves; the men are admirable craftsmen and are renowned for their wood-carving, cloth-weaving and iron-work. In the west, bows and arrows are the chief weapons, in the east spears principally are used. The old form of religion still obtains in the east, which was untouched by the communistic movement mentioned, and charms of all sorts, as well as carved anthropomorphic figures, are extremely common. The Ba-Luba are a fine race physically and seem very prosperous, though in the extreme west considerable deterioration, physical, moral and cultural, has taken place.

BALUCHISTAN, a country within the borders of British India which, like Afghanistan, derives its name from its dominant race of inhabitants. It extends from the Gomal river to the Arabian Sea, and from the borders of Persia and Afghanistan to those of the Punjab and Sind. It is divided into two main divisions, British Baluchistan, which is a portion of British India under the chief commissioner, and the foreign territories under the administration or superintendence of the same officer as agent to the governor-general. The former portion, with an area of 9403 sq. m., consists principally of tracts ceded to the British government by Afghanistan under the treaty of Gandamak (1879), and formally declared to be part of British India in 1887. The second class comprises three subdivisions, namely areas directly administered, native states and tribal areas. The directly-administered districts include areas acquired in various ways. Some portions are held on lease from the khan of Kalat; while others are tribal areas in which it has been decided for various reasons that revenue shall be taken. They include the whole of the Zhob and Chagai political agencies, the eastern portion of the Quetta tahsil and other tracts, among which may be mentioned the Bolan Pass, comprising 36,401 sq. m. in all. The whole of the northern boundary, with the north-eastern corner and the railway which traverses Baluchistan through Quetta up to New Chaman on the Afghan-Baluch frontier, is therefore in one form or other under direct British control. The remainder of the territory (79,382 sq. m.) belongs to the native states of Kalat (including Makran and Kharan) and Las Bela. Tribal areas, in the possession of the Marri and Bugti tribes, cover 7129 sq. m.

Baluchistan as a whole is a sparsely populated tract covering a larger area than any Indian province save Burma, Madras and Bengal. Three hundred miles of its mountain walls facing the Indus are south of the railway from the Indus to Quetta, and about 250 north of it. The railway with the passes and plains about it, and the dominant hills which surround Quetta, divide Baluchistan into two distinct parts. North of the railway line, hedged in between Afghanistan and the plains of the Indus, stretch the long ridges of rough but picturesque highlands, which embrace the central ranges of the Suliman system (the prehistoric home of the Pathan highlander), where vegetation is often alpine, and the climate clear and bracing and subject to no great extremes of temperature. The average breadth of this northern Pathan district is 150 m., but it narrows to less than 100 m. on the line of the Gomal, and expands to more than 200 m. on the line of the railway. Here all the main drainage either runs northwards to the Gomal, passing through the uplands that lie west of the Suliman Range; or it gathers locally in narrow lateral valleys at the back of these mountains and then bursts directly eastwards through the limestone axis of the hills, making for the Indus by the shortest transverse route. South of the railway lies a square block of territory, measuring roughly 300 m. by 300, primarily the home of the Brahui and the Baluch; but within that block are included almost every conceivable phase of climate and representatives of half the great races of Asia. Here, throughout the elevated highlands of the Kalat plateau which are called Jalawan, the drainage gathers into channels which cut deep gorges in the hills, and passes eastwards into the plains of Sind. Beyond and south of the hydrographical area of the Jalawan highlands the rivers and streams of the hills either run in long straight lines to the Arabian Sea, north of Karachi, or, curving gradually westwards, they disappear in the inland swamps which form so prominent a feature in this part of south-west Asia. A narrow width of the coast districts collects its waters for discharge into the Arabian Sea direct. This section includes Makran. Baluchistan thus becomes naturally divided into two districts, north and south, by an intervening space which contains the Sind-Pishin railway. This intervening space comprises the wedge-shaped desert of Kach Gandava (Gandava), which is thrust westwards from the Indus as a deep indentation into the mountains, and, above it, the central uplands which figure on the map as "British Baluchistan"—where lies Quetta. All Baluchistan has now been surveyed. From the great Indus series of triangles bases have been selected at intervals which have supported minor chains of triangulation reaching into the heart of the country. These again have been connected by links of more or less regularity, so that, if the Baluchistan triangulation lacks the rigid accuracy of a "first [v.03 p.0291] class" system, it at least supports good topography on geographical scales.

[Sidenote: Northern.]

From Domandi, at the junction of the Gomal and Kundar rivers, the boundary between Baluchistan and Afghanistan follows the Kundar stream for about 40 m. to the south-west. It then leaves the river and diverges northwards, so as to include a section of the plain country stretching away towards Lake Ab-i-Istada, before returning to the skirts of the hills. After about 100 m. of this divergence it strikes the Kadanai river, turning the northern spurs of the Toba plateau (the base of the Kwaja Amran (Kojak) Range), and winds through the open plains west of the Kojak. Here, however, the boundary does not follow the river. It deserts it for the western edge of the Toba plateau (8000 ft. high at this point), till it nears the little railway station of New Chaman. It then descends to the plains, returns again to the hills 40 m. south of Chaman, and thenceforward is defined by hill ranges southwards to Nushki. The eastern boundary of this northern section of Baluchistan is the "red line" at the foot of the frontier hills, which defines the border of British India. This part of Baluchistan thus presents a buffer system of independent tribes between the British frontier and Afghanistan. But the independence of the Pathan people south of the Gomal is not as the independence of the Pathans (Waziris, Afridis, &c.) who live north of it. It is true that the Indian government interferes as little with the internal jurisdiction of the tribal chiefs amongst the Pathans of the Suliman Range as it does with that of the northern chiefs; but the occupation of a line of posts on the Zhob river, which flanks that range almost from end to end on the west, places the doors of communication with Afghanistan in British hands, and gives command of their hills. It thus tends to the maintenance of peace and order on the southern frontier to a degree that does not exist in the north.

The central range of the Suliman hills is the dominant feature in the geography of northern Baluchistan. The central line or axis of the range lies a little east of the meridian of 70deg E., and it is geologically composed of one or more great folds of the Cretaceous series. Towards the northern extremity of the range occur a group of peaks, which together form an oblong block or "massif" amongst the neighbouring ridges known as "Kaisargarh" amongst the Sherani clansmen who occupy it; and as the "Takht-i-Suliman" (Solomon's throne), generally, on the frontier, from the fact of a celebrated shrine of that name existing near its southern abutment. The massif of the Takht is a high tableland (about 8000 ft. above sea-level), bounded on its eastern and western edges by high, rugged and steep parallel ridges. The western ridge culminates on the north in the peak of Kaisargarh (11,300 ft.), and the eastern in a block, or detached headland, on the south, where rests the immortal "zirat" or shrine (11,070 ft.). This tableland is formed by a huge cap of coral limestone, estimated by Griesbach at from 4000 to 5000 ft. in thickness. At each end the tableland is rent by gorges which deepen, amidst stupendous precipices, to the channel of the Draband or "Gat" on the north, and of the Dhana on the south. These two channels carry the rush of mountain streams from the western slopes of the massif right across the axis of the mountains and through the intervening barrier of minor ridges to the plains of the Indus. The plateau is covered with a fairly thick growth of the chilghosa or "edible" pine, and a sprinkling of juniper, on the higher slopes. It was ascended and surveyed for the first time in 1883.

From the summit of the Kaisargarh peak a magnificent view is obtained which practically embraces the whole width of northern Baluchistan. Westwards, looking towards Afghanistan, line upon line of broken jagged ridges and ranges, folds in the Cretaceous series overlaid by coarse sandstones and shales, follow each other in order, preserving their approximate parallelism until they touch the borders of Baluchistan. Immediately on the west of the Kaisargarh there towers the Shingarh Mountain, a geological repetition of the Kaisargarh ridge, black with pines towards the summit and crowned with crags of coral limestone. Beyond it are the grey outlines of the close-packed ridges which enclose the lower reaches of the Zhob and the Kundar. As they pass away southwards this grid-iron formation strikes with a gentle curve westwards, the narrow enclosed valleys widening out towards the sources of the rivers, where ages of denudation have worn down the folds and filled up the hollows with fruitful soil, until at last they touch the central water-divide, the key of the whole system, on the Quetta plateau. Thus the upper parts of the Zhob valley are comparatively open and fertile, with flourishing villages, and a cultivation which has been greatly developed under British rule, and are bounded by long, sweeping, gentle spurs clothed with wild olive woods containing trees of immense size. The lower reaches of the Zhob and Kundar are hemmed in by rugged limestone walls, serrated and banded with deep clefts and gorges, a wilderness of stony desolation. Looking eastwards from the Kaisargarh, one can again count the backs of innumerable minor ridges, smaller wrinkles or folds formed during a process of upheaval of the Suliman Mountains, at the close of a great volcanic epoch which has hardly yet ceased to give evidence of its existence. On the outside edge, facing the Indus plains, is a more strictly regular, but higher and more rugged, ridge of hills which marks the Siwaliks. The Baluch Siwaliks afford us strange glimpses into a recent geological past, when the same gigantic mammals roamed along the foot of these wild hills as once inhabited the tangled forests below the Himalaya. Between the Takht Mountain and the Siwaliks, the intervening belt of ridge and furrow has been greatly denuded by transverse drainage—a system of drainage which we now know to have existed before the formation of the hills, and to have continued to cut through them as they gradually rose above the plain level. Where this intervening band is not covered by recent gravel deposits, it exhibits beds of limestone, clays and sandstone with fossils, which, in age, range from the Lower Eocene to the Miocene. Beyond the Siwaliks, still looking eastwards, are the sand waves of the Indus plain; a yellow sea broken here and there with the shadow of village orchards and the sheen of cultivation, extending to the long black sinuous line which denotes the fringe of trees bordering the Indus. Such is the scene which Solomon is said to have invited his Indian bride to gaze upon for the last time, as they rested on the crags of the southern buttress of the Takht—where his shrine exists to this day. To that shrine thousands of pilgrims, Mahommedans and Hindus alike, resort on their yearly pilgrimages, in spite of its dangerous approach. All this country, so far, is independent Baluchistan within the jurisdiction of the Baluchistan Agency, with the exception of certain clans of the Sheranis on the eastern slopes of the Takht-i-Suliman, north of the Vihowa, who are under the North-West Frontier Province administration. Wedged in between the railway and the Indus, but still north of the railway, is a curious mass of rough mountain country, which forms the southern abutment of the Suliman system. The strike of the main ridges forming that system is almost due north and south till it touches 30deg N. lat. Here it assumes a westerly curve, till it points north-west, and finally merges into the broad band of mountains which hedge in the Quetta and Pishin uplands on the north and east.

At this point, as might be expected, are some of the grandest peaks and precipices in Baluchistan. Khalifat on the east of Quetta, flanking the Harnai loop of the Sind-Pishin railway; Takatu to the north; Chahiltan (Chiltan) on the south-west; and the great square-headed Murdar to the south—all overlook the pretty cantonment from heights which range from 10,500 to 11,500 ft. Lying in the midst of them, on an open plain formed by the high-level tributaries of the Lora (which have also raised the Pishin valley to the north), 5500 ft. above the sea, is Quetta. The mass of twisted flexures, the curved wrinkles that end the Suliman system, is occupied by true Baluchis, the Marri and Bugti sections of the great Rind confederation of tribes owning an Arabic origin. There are no Pathans here. To the north of them are the Bozdars, another Rind clan; and these Rind tribes form the exception to the general rule of Pathan occupation of northern Baluchistan. Amongst the Pathans, the Kakars and Dumars of Pishin, with the Mando Khel of Zhob, are the most prominent tribal divisions.

[Sidenote: Central.]

The curved recession of the Suliman Ranges to the north-west leaves a space of flat alluvial desert to the south, which forms a sort of inlet or bay striking into the Baluchistan mountain system. The point of this desert inlet receives the drainage of two local basins, the Bolan and the Nari. Both drain south-eastwards from the central Quetta-Pishin plateau and both have served for railway alignment. Being fed by tributaries which for the most part drain narrow valleys where gradual denudation has washed bare the flat-backed slopes of limestone ridges, and which consequently send down torrents of rapidly accumulating rainfall, both these central lines of water-course are liable to terrific floods. The drainage of the Bolan and Nari finally disappears in the irrigated flats of the alluvial bay (Kach Gandava), which extends 130 m. from the Indus to Sibi at the foot of the hills, and which offers (in spite of periodic Indus floods) an opportunity for railway approach to Baluchistan such as occurs nowhere else on the frontier. Kach Gandava, whilst its agricultural development has in no way receded, is now rivalled by many of the valleys of the highlands. Its climate debars it from European occupation. It is a land of dust-storms and poisonous winds; a land where the thermometer never sinks below 100deg F. in summer, and drops below freezing-point in winter; where there is a deadly monotony of dust-coloured scenery for the greater part of the year, with the minimum of rain and the maximum of heat. The Quetta and Pishin plateau to which it leads is the central dominant water-divide of Baluchistan and the base of the Kandahar highway.

[Sidenote: British.]

An irregularly-shaped block of upland territory, which includes all the upper Lora tributaries, and the Toba plateau beyond them; resting on the Kwaja Amran (Kojak) Range (with an advanced loop to include the Chaman railway terminus) on the west; reaching south through Shorarud to Nushki; including the basins of the Bolan and Nari as far as Sibi to the south-east; stretching out an arm to embrace the Thal Chotiali valley on the east, and following the main water-divide between the Zhob and Lora on the north, is called British Baluchistan. It is leased from Kalat, and forms a distinctive province, being brought under the ordinary forms of civil administration in British India. Beyond it, north and south, lies independent Baluchistan, which is under British political control. Its administrative staff is usually composed of military officers. The degree of independence enjoyed by the various districts of Baluchistan may be said to vary in direct proportion to their [v.03 p.0292] distance from Quetta. No part of Baluchistan is beyond the reach of the political officer, but there are many parts where he is not often seen. The climate of British Baluchistan is dry and bracing—even exhilarating—but the extremes of temperature lead to the development of fever in very severe forms. On the whole it is favourable to European existence.

[Sidenote: Southern.]

South-west of the dividing railway lies the great block of Southern Baluchistan. Within this area the drainage generally trends south and west, either to the Arabian Sea or to the central swamps of Lora and Mashkel. The Hab river, which forms the boundary west of Karachi; the Purali (the ancient Arabus), which drains the low-lying flats of Las Bela; the Hingol (the ancient Tomerus) and the Dasht, which drain Makran, are all considerable streams, draining into the Arabian Sea and forming important arteries in the network of internal communication. An exception to the general rule is found in the Mulla, which carries the floods of the Kalat highlands into the Gandava basin and forms one of the most important of the ancient highways from the Indus plains to Kandahar. The fortress of Kalat is situated about midway between the sources of the Bolan and the Mulla, near a small tributary of the Lora (the river of Pishin and Quetta), about 6800 ft. above sea-level, on the western edge of a cultivated plain in the very midst of hills. (See KALAT.) To the north are the long sweeping lines of the Sarawan ridges, enclosing narrow fertile valleys, and passing away to the south-west to the edge of the Kharan desert. East and south are the rugged bands of Jalawan, amongst which the Mulla rises, and through which it breaks in a series of magnificent defiles in order to reach the Gandava plain. Routes which converge on Kalat from the south pass for the most part through narrow wooded valleys, enclosed between steep ridges of denuded hills, and, following the general strike of these ridges, they run from valley to valley with easy grades. Kalat is the "hub" or centre, from which radiate the Bolan, the Mulla and the southern Lora affluents; but the Lora drains also the Pishin valley on the north; the two systems uniting in Shorawak, to lose themselves in the desert and swamps to the west of Nushki, on the road to Seistan. Sixty miles south of Kalat, and beyond the Mulla sources, commences another remarkable hydrographic system which includes all southern and south-western Baluchistan. To the west lies the Kharan desert, with intermittent river channels enclosed and often lost in sand-waves ere they reach the Mashkel swamps on the far borders of Persia. To the south-west are the long sweeping valleys of Rakshan and Panjgur, which, curving northwards, likewise discharge their drainage into the Mashkel. Directly south are the beginnings of the meridional arteries, the Hab, the Purali and the Hingol, which end in the Arabian Sea, leaving a space of mountainous seaboard (Makran) south of the Panjgur and west of the Hingol, which is watered (so far as it is watered at all) by the long lateral Kej river and several smaller mountain streams. Thus southern Baluchistan comprises four hydrographical sections. First is the long extension from Kalat, southwards, of that inconceivably wild highland country which faces the desert of Sind, the foot of which forms the Indian frontier. This is the land of the Brahui, and the flat wall of its frontier limestone barrier is one of the most remarkable features in the configuration of the whole line of Indian borderland. For the first 60 m. from the sea near Karachi the Hab river is the boundary of Sind, and here, across the enclosing desolation of outcropping ridges and intervening sand, a road may be found into Makran. But from the point where the boundary leaves the Hab to follow the Kirthar range not a break occurs (save one) in 150 m. of solid rock wall, rising many thousands of feet straight from the sandy plain. The one break, or gorge, which allows the Kej waters to pass, only forms a local gateway into a mass of impracticable hills. Secondly, to the west of this mountain wilderness, stretching upwards from the sea in a wedge form between the Brahui highlands and the group of towering peaks which enclose the Hingol river and abut on the sea at Malan, are the alluvial flats and delta of the Purali, forming the little province of Las Bela, the home of the Las Rajput. In this hot and thirsty corner of Baluchistan, ruled by the Jam or Cham, there is a fairly wide stretch of cultivation, nourished by the alluvial detritus of the Purali and well irrigated. In a little garden to the south of the modern town of Bela (the ancient Armabel) is the tomb of Sir Robert Sandeman, who spent the best part of an energetic and active life in the making of Baluchistan.

[Sidenote: Western boundary.]

The boundary between Baluchistan and Afghanistan, starting from Nushki, cuts across the Lora hamun, leaving the frontier post of Chagai to Baluchistan, and from this point to the Malik Siah Koh it is based partly on the central mountainous water-divide already referred to, and partly runs in straight lines through the desert south of the salt swamps of the Gaud-i-Zirreh. It thus passes 50 m. to the south of the Helmund, entirely shutting off that valley and the approach to Seistan between the Helmund and the Gaud-i-Zirreh (the only approach from the east in seasons of flood) from Baluchistan. But it leaves a connected line of desert route between Nushki and Seistan, which is open in all ordinary seasons, to the south, and this route has been largely developed, posts or serais having been established at intervals and wells having been dug. There is already a promising khafila traffic along it and the railway has been extended from Quetta to Nushki.

Geology.[1]—The mountain ranges of Baluchistan consist chiefly of Cretaceous and Tertiary beds, which are thrown into a series of folds running approximately parallel to the mountain ridges. The folds are part of an extensive system arranged as if in a festoon hanging southwards between Peshawar and Mount Ararat, but with the outer folds looped up at Sibi so as to form the subsidiary festoon of the Suliman and Bugti Hills. Outside the folds lie the horizontal deposits of the Makran coast, and within them lies the stony desert of north-western Baluchistan. In the broader depressions between the mountain ridges the beds are said to be but little disturbed. Besides the Cretaceous and Tertiary beds, Jurassic rocks are known to take a considerable part in the formation of the hills of British Baluchistan. Triassic beds lie along the south side of the upper Zhob, and Fusulina limestone has also been found there. With the exception of the later Tertiary beds the deposits are mostly marine. But in the upper Cretaceous and lower Tertiary, especially in north-western Baluchistan, there is an extensive development of volcanic tuffs and conglomerates, which are probably contemporaneous with the Deccan Traps of India. Great masses of syenite and diorite were intruded during the Tertiary period, and within the curve of the folded belt a line of recent volcanic cones stretches from western Baluchistan into eastern Persia. In Baluchistan these volcanoes appear to be extinct; though the Koh-i-Tafdan, beyond the Persian frontier, still emits vapours at frequent intervals. The lavas and ashes which form these cones are mostly andesitic. Mud "volcanoes" occur upon the Makran coast, but it is doubtful whether these are in any way connected with true volcanic agencies.

So far as is known, the mineral wealth of Baluchistan is inconsiderable. Coal has been worked in the Tertiary beds along the Harnai route to Quetta, but the seams are thin and the quality poor. A somewhat thick and viscid form of mineral oil is met with at Khattan in the Marri country; and petroleum of excellent quality has been found in the Sherani hills and probably occurs in other portions of the Suliman Range. Sulphur has long been worked on a small scale in the Koh-i-Sultan, the largest of the volcanoes of western Baluchistan.