BARTHOLOMEW, HOSPITAL OF ST. 



BASK 



Mi 



exchanges of merchandise are directly effected, but the comparative 

 value of the merchandise if determined by a money-standard. Thin ii 

 clearly not barter. The Indian corn meaiure of value it something 

 like the animal measure which formerly exiited in this country, when 

 certain values being affixed to cattle and slaves, they became an 

 instrument of exchange, under the name of lirin-j money. Amongst 

 the northern nations skins used to be a standard of value : the word 

 rdJta, which signifies money in the Esthonian language, has not lost 

 its primitive signification of skins amongst the Laplanders. When 

 nations come to use any standard of value, whether skins, as in 

 northern Europe, or dhourra (pounded millet, Sorgkmn rub/an), as in 

 Nubia, or shells, as in parts of India, their transactions gradually lose 

 the character of barter. If wages are paid in articles of consumption, 

 as in some mining districts of England, the transaction is called Irii'-H- ; 

 tree is the French for barter. 



The exchanges of a civilised people amongst themselves, or with 

 other countries, are principally carried on by bills of exchange : the 

 actual money-payment in a country by no means represents the amount 

 of its commercial transactions. If any sudden convulsion arise which 

 interrupts the confidence upon which credit is founded, bills of ex- 

 change cease to be negotiable, and exchangers demand money-payments. 

 The coin of a commercial country being insufficient to represent its 

 transactions, barter would be the natural consequence if such a dis- 

 astrous state of things were to continue. Thus, when Mr. Huskisson 

 declared in 1825 that the panic of that year placed this country 

 " within forty-eight hours of barter," he meant that the credit of the 

 state would have been so reduced, that its notes would not have been 

 received, or its coin, except for its intrinsic value as an article of ex- 

 change ; and that the bills of individuals would have been in the same 

 case. Barter, in this case, would be a backward movement toward 

 unciviliaation. 



BARTHOLOMEW, HOSPITAL OF ST. [HOSPITALS.] 

 BARYTA, BARYTES. [BARIUM.] 



BATIYTON, or BARITONE, from Papls, heavy, grave, and rovbs, 

 tone, the male voice, the compass of which is between that of the tenor 

 and the base. Dr. Bennati, in his ' Recherches sur la Mecanisme de la 

 Voix Humaine,' applies a new term, barittnar, to this voice, which is 

 much to be preferred to the above, for that, according to its etymological 

 meaning, would seem to imply a low rather than a high base. 



BARYTON is the name of an instrument similar to the viol da 

 Oamba [ViOL DA GAICBA], invented in 1700, but now entirely disused. 

 Haydn composed no less than 163 pieces for the baryton, or baritone, 

 which was the favourite instrument of his patron, Prince Nicola 

 Esterhazy. 



BASCINET, BASINET, or BASNET, was a light helmet, so called 

 from ite resemblance to. a basin. It was introduced about the time of 

 Edward I. and replaced the chapet-de-fer, being 

 worn commonly with the nasal, which however 

 disappears after this reign. 



Finchet, says Grose (it should be Fauchet, 

 ' Origines des Chevaliers, Armoiries, et Heraux,' 

 8vo, Paris, 1606, p. 42 b.), supposes the bascinet to 

 hare been a lighter sort of helmet that did not 

 cover the face, and Bays he finds that the knights 

 often exchanged their helmets for bascinets when 

 much fatigued, and wishing to ease and refresh 

 themselves, at a time when they could not with 

 propriety go unarmed. An example of this kind, 

 copied from a brass in Minster Church, Sheppey, 

 of the time of Edward II. is appended. 



Bascinets were worn in the reigns of Edwards 

 II. and III. and Richard II. by most of the English 

 infantry, as may be repeatedly seen in the rolls of 

 Parliament and other public records. 



In the reign of Richard II. a novelty in the form 

 of the bascinet was introduced : it was then fur- 

 nished with a species of moveable visor, a ventaille, 

 baviere, or visifere, as it was indifferently called, of 

 which an example, copied from Sir S. Meyrick's 

 ' Engraved Illustrations of Ancient Arms and 

 Armour,' is given below, together with one when 

 it had resumed its simpler form, of the time of 

 Henry V. copied from one in Sir S. Meyrick s collection. The form is 



Vlor*d BsMbwt, trap. Rich. II. Buclnet, temp. Henry V. 



tending to that of the mflet, or German headpiece, which came into 

 use in the next reign. The knob on the top & intended to hold the 



Nmache or plume, which was introduced as a crest in the time of 

 lenryV. 



(Grose, Trtatite on Aneitnt Armour; Meyrick. / "/niri/ into 



4 </>>!( Armour; Plancbtf, Ifittory of BritiA Cottume.) 



BASE. The name base is applied in chemistry to those elements or 

 groups of elements which combine with halogens or with acids to form, 

 n inorganic chemistry, salts, or, in organic chemistry, bodies analogous 



- ill . 



As it appears that every two elements may combine together, it 

 bllows that the basicity of an element is nothing absolute, but win illy 

 relative to the other element or elements present. Thin, in mil- 

 compound an element may be basic to another element, whil>- iu 

 another compound the first element may be halogenous to a tliinl. 

 This being the case even with binary compounds, bodies 1. 

 more than two elements show this ambiguity to a greater exten- 

 n such oases a body which is basic to a second may, when com 

 with a third, form a compound which is halogenous to a fourth. There 

 are no separate terms for compound bases and simple or clem 

 >nes, corresponding to the terms halogen and acid, employed in dis- 

 tinguishing simple and complex base-combiners. 



But although no absolute line of demarcation between basic bodies 

 and acids or halogens exists, yet in compounds resulting from the 

 union of the two, it U generally possible to determine which function 

 j3 exercised by each of the elements or groups of elements. This can t 

 only be done by analogy : by comparing such compounds with others, 

 the functions of whose constituents are assumed as known. T! 

 n hydrochloric acid (HC1) we admit the hydrogen to be basic, thru 

 when zinc dissolves in hydrochloric acid, the zinc, in the chloriil. i 

 zinc formed, must occupy the same position and perform the same 

 function towards the chlorine, as did the hydrogen which it has 

 expelled that is, it must be basic. Again, on treating nitrate of silver 

 with the so-formed chloride of zinc, the silver displaces the zinc to 

 form chloride of silver, and the zinc the silver to form nitrate of /inc. 

 Hence, the silver of chloride of silver stands in the same relation to 

 the chlorine as that which was maintained by the zinc, and therefore 

 also by the hydrogen ; it is therefore basic. Moreover, the formation 

 of nitrate of zinc shows that in this latter body the zinc and niti 

 are related to one another in the same manner as the silver and 

 chlorine in the chloride of silver, the two metals having simply 

 :hanged places. 



By insisting upon the symmetry of the recompositions which occur 

 in analogous interchanges, some chemists have been led to the 

 symbolisations AgNO, and ZnNO, (mutatis mutandis for other oxygen 

 salts), instead of those usually employed, AgON0 5 and ZnONO,. 

 [SALT.] 



The electrolysis of compound bodies by a voltaic current furnishes 

 us with a comparison between the unknown functions of the con- 

 stituents of one compound, and those of another in which such 

 functions are admitted as known. If a piece of zinc and one of copper 

 be immersed iu a vessel (1) of hydrochloric acid, the zinc alone decom- 

 poses the acid, evolving hydrogen. On attaching by metallic wires the 

 tw > plates in (1) with two platinum plates immersed in a second 

 vessel (2) of hydrochloric acid, chlorine is liberated at the platinum 

 plate connected with the copper, hydrogen at that connected with the 

 zinc. If now, instead of hydrochloric ncid, we place in vessel (2) 

 another compound liquid and find that it is decomposed, it is clear 

 that the constituents which appear at the two platinum plates are 

 related to one another, as are the chlorine and hydrogen of the hydro- 

 chloric acid. On the electrolysis of a compound body, therefore, the 

 substance which separates at the plate in connection with the coppt T is 

 halogenous or acid, that at the plate connected with the zinc, basic. 

 Since now the plate connected with the zinc is the negative, anil the 

 one connected with the copper the positive pole, the terms electro- 

 positive and electro-negative may, from the voltaic point of view, be 

 substituted for basic, and halogenous or acid. Since dilute sulphuric 

 acid is the acid most usually employed to be decomposed in the 

 exciting cell, the products of decomposition in th. ng cell 



are strictly the analogues of the products of the decomposition of 

 dilute sulphuric acid when placed in the same decomposing cell ; these 

 are hydrogen and oxygen. But whatever acid be employed in the 

 exciting cell, the same electrolytical products appear at the two poles 

 in the decomposition cell, when the same substance is decomposed. 



The determination by electrolysis of the relative basicity of the 

 elements of a compound, is sometimes complicated by secondary 

 recompositions effected by the re-actions of those separated elenn-nts 

 upon the original body decomposed, sometimes wholly frustrated by 

 the resistance to the passage of the current 



If metallic copper be placed in a cold solution of chloride of gold, 

 the whole of the gold may be <lr]>sit.-<l in the metallic state, and its 

 place be taken by the copper, chloride of copper being formed. If 

 metallic iron be placed in the so-formed chloride of copper, copper U 

 deposited and chloride of iron produced. Hence under these con- 

 ditions copper is more basic than gold, and iron more basic than copper 

 towards chlorine. When metals are compared in this way with one 

 another in regard to their basicity, almost the same order is found to 

 prevail whatever electro-negative constituent is present, and it is there- 

 fore possible to construct a list of the metals arranged according to 

 their basicity. Thus in the following table the most strongly basic 



