BEARISH. 



1!"ATIKU'ATI"\. 



civilians ; U>*n in Italy ; then to Germany ; then to Spain toil Russia; 

 ad. lastly, to Knxlan.1, where, though vet far from general, it i 

 vidtntly uo the inert***, lu retention has bean advocated by some 

 mnBoJ men a* conducing to health ; and while the British army wa* 

 in th Crimea, dinoMoM WOT* iamiad to allow the loldien to wear 

 their beard*, which they are .till allowed to, with certain restriction. 



The reader who deairat further information on the history of beard* 

 may oonrah the lexicons of Hoffmann and Pitiwu* for the classic 

 time* ; and in Bulwer'* ' AnthropometamorphosU, or Artificial Change- 

 ling.' 4to, Land. 1053, pp. 193-218, so*n* xii. i* a whole chapter Mint lie 

 opinion and practice of divem* nation* concerning the natural! ensigne 

 of manhood appearing about the mouth ;' quoted from innumerable 

 author*, ancient and modern. 



Shaving the beard in deriaion wa*, throughout the Kost, considered 

 to be the greatest mark of ignominy which could be inflicted upon an 

 S Sam. x. 4, 6) ; and to pluck a man'* beard waa the highest 

 "of insult. The Eastern origin of aome of our old romance* in, 

 perhaps, in no circumstance more risible than in the description* 

 which are *o frequently given of gianU cutting off the beard* of 

 prince* who fell into their hand*. Drayton alludes to thi* practice in 

 hi* Polyolbion,' Song iv. : 



" And for trophy brought the giant 1 * coat away, 

 Made of the beards of klngi." 



Beard* were considered to be of great use in enchantments. Spenser 

 ( Faerie Queene,' book vi. canto L v. 15) tell* of the lady Briana, who 

 to her suitor 



Retailed bad to yield her lore agaioe, 

 Dntill a man tell ahe for him do fynd. 

 With beard, of knight* and lock* of ladle* bjrnd." 



The suffering of the beard to grow in the time of mourning is a 

 custom which has been already incidentally alluded to. Levi, in his 

 ' Succinct Account of the Rites and Ceremonies of the Jews at this 

 present time/ 8vo, Loud., says, that for the seven following relations, 

 namely, a father or mother, brother or sister, sou or daughter, husband 

 or wife, they must not shave their beard*, nor cut their nails neither 

 of their hands or feet, nor bathe for the term of thirty days ; which 

 term is called in Hebrew Sliyluihim, which means thirty days. 



To beard, in modern English, means to set at defiance, to oppose face 

 to face in a hostile manner. Shakspere, in ' Henry IV.,' act. iv. scene 4, 

 make* Douglas say, 



" No man to potent breathe* upon the ground 

 But / trill ttari kirn." 



BEARING, the direction of the line drawn from one point to 

 another. It is a term usually applied to the point* of the compass, as 

 follows : If the line B A be in a N. W. direction from B, A is said to 

 bear N. W. of B, or the bearing of A is N. W. To take bearing! is to 

 ascertain the points of the compass on which object* lie. The follow- 

 ing example will serve to faimliuri.se the word, by connecting it with a 

 simple problem of trigonometry : 



Cape B is twenty mile* from Cape A, and bear* S. K. of it. On board 

 a chip s, Cape A is observed to bear N.K.E., and B beats E. by N. : 

 required the position of the ship. Draw s o, A c, both east ; then the 

 angle D B i* on* point of the compass, and the angle D 8 A aix point* : 

 oooMquently, A a B i* five point* of the compaw, or 86 16' ; but o A s 

 and A B i) are together equal to two right angles, or sixteen point*, of 

 which A s D i* six point*, therefore c A i* ten point* ; but o A B i* 

 four points, therefore I A B i* six poinU, or 67 80' ; therefore, hi the 

 triangle A B a, the side A B and two angle* are known, whence the other 

 aide*, or the *hip'* distance from the two cape*, can be found. The 

 eaaiect method of aolving thi* problem i* by actual contruction, the 

 remit* of which are generally a* accurate a* the data. 



In a manner somewhat similar, the distance of a ship from a head- 

 land might be found by observing it* bearing* at two different hour* 

 of the day, and knowing the course and the distance sailed in the inter- 

 mediate time. If all the bearings are by compa**, a* in the aecond 

 problem, the magnetic variation need not be allowed for, because all 

 the bearing* are equally wrong; but if one or more be true bear- 

 ing* taken from a map, a* in the first problem,' then the bearings 

 observed by the oompa** must be corrected. [AjlMUTH ; COMPASS, 

 AZIMUTH.] 



The above diagram i a .t-nt illustration of the purpose to which 

 " bearings" apply at Ma : itf ..aiains to describe Ihr nuttintr in which nu-k 

 are lobe o&snirrf. Of late year* coniiderable improvement has taken 

 place in the mode of obtaining bearing* at sea. Tlio oscillation of the 

 compass card wu long an impediment to accuracy, and observations hi 

 aaimuth could only be relied on to within a quarter of a point ; but 

 the improvement* in compasses [COMPASSES], the increased sire of 

 merchant shipping, and the extended use of steam as a propeller, 

 including increase of speed, hare affected "navigation" to such an 

 extent, that it will bo a legitimate object in this Cyclopedia to con- 

 dense within certain limits all that is known in nautical science up to 

 the present, all that is of public or general interest in that subject. 



The operation of observing a bearing of a distant object has con- 

 sisted in bringing the two sight vanes of an azimuth compaw [Cou- 

 PA88, AZIMUTH] in a line with the object, and then reading off !!,. 

 degree upon the compass card. If two object* were to be observed, 

 the same operation was repeated with the second, and the differen. v in 

 degrees or point* of the compass gave the contained angle, and a good 

 azimuth eompass on shore would, on ordinary occasions, afford suffi- 

 cient accuracy ; but it is difficult at aea, even to a practised navigator, 

 when a ship and the cord have much motion, to catch the intersection 

 of the object with the sight vanes at thr rery lime of estimating or 

 reading off the degree which then precisely faces the " lubber-line " of 

 the instrument And a highly experienced nautical surveyor has shown 

 (' Nautical Mag.') that on frequent occasion* the usual position of 

 the azimuth or standard compass unfits it for conreniext use. It is, 

 indeed, placed so high above the deck on board iron ships or steamers, 

 that an improvement in the method of taking a bearing waa called 

 for. Accordingly, Captain Becher, R.N., described a "dumb card," 

 for general use ; and a veteran and experienced officer. Lieut. Friend, 

 K.R.8. , invented and patented a species of dumb card, which he call* 

 a " Pelorus." The navigator gains herefrom these great advantage* ; 

 namely, his attention is not distracted by two observations, tehic/i 

 mil/Id to be nmullanntu ; but while he "sets" the distant object* by 

 the sight-vanes of the Pelorus, hi* assistant, at a preconcerted signal, 

 reads off the degree on the compass cord. And again : it often happens 

 that an island or headland is visible from aloft, but not so from tin- 

 deck ; in such cases, from the circumstance of the Pelorus, or dumb 

 card, having no magnetic needle, it can be used with equal faoilii I 

 in a ship's top-gallant cross-trees, if desirable, thus avoiding all con- 

 siderations of attraction from contiguous chain-gear ; and nil that ix 

 necessary is fur the observer to set the side of the square box of the instru- 

 ment parallel to the fore-and-aft line of the ship, and at the moment of 

 making the observation to raise a hand or the voice, when the man at 

 the binnacle (by previous arrangement) records the bearing of the 

 ship's head at the precise moment ; and the bearing of the ship's head, 

 compared with the angle which the object makes with the ship's head 

 by Pelorus, will be the bearing of the object. For example : An 

 object.is seen to bear, by Pelorus or dumb card, 45* on the starboard 

 bow, while the ship's head, by the binnacle, was N. by W. The differ- 

 ence between N. by W. and 45, or four point* eastward, will extend 

 to N. E. by N. (the bearing of the object). The value of these instru- 

 ment* is increased by the introduction of another very recent discovery 

 in astronomical science [SPHEROOHAPH] ; and they are likely to be of 

 immense importance in navigating foggy district*, inasmuch as a good 

 bearing of the sun hi a mist by day, or of a star or planet by night 

 [HORIZON], obtained by a Pelorug, gives, in connection with the 

 Spherograph, a good and reliable approximate latitude, &c., dispensing 

 with the altitude. [DEAD RECKONING.] 



Another recent change in the mode of taking bearing* bids fair to 

 prove extensively useful to navigators, and especially in iron ships or 

 steamers. A well-known and experienced London merchant-captain, 

 Charles Robertson, has invented and patented a " Deviation Detector." 

 It is simply a brass arrow-sha]>ed index, with a pin through it* centre 

 extending downwards and dropping into a hole in the centre of the 

 covering-glass of a ship's compass. The pin' is long enough to stand 

 some three or four inches above the arrow, and by mean* of a joint in 

 it admit* of it* being elevated or depressed vertically, as convenient 

 On the sun's true bearing being known by calculation (or by the 

 spherograph), the arrow point is turned so that the tkadotc of the pin 

 falls along the axis of the arrow, when the difference between the 

 arrow point and the degree beneath it on the compass card marks at 

 once the absolute error of the compass (including both deviation 

 arising from tone* trial magnetism and the cflecta of local attraction). 



For example: Suppose calculation, or "inspection," informs me 

 that, at a given moment, the sun bears truly S.W. On turning the 

 arrow point toward* the sun, so that the shadow of the pin lies . 

 axial line, if the part of the compass card immediately under the 

 arrow point reads S.W., the compass lias no error, becaun 

 the trtu and magnetic bearings coincide ; but if the card read S.S.W.. 

 and the true bearing (by the arrow point) read S.W., there will evi- 

 dently be an error of two point* of the compass. The importance of 

 the instrument (simple as it i*) may be inferred from the numerous 

 and varied attempt* which have long been made, to apply the prin- 

 ciple in various forms in navigating an iron ship or steamer. 



BEATIFICATION, an act by which the pope declare* a "servus 

 Dei," that is, an individual who died in good repute as a virtuous and 

 holy man, to be beatified or bleated after death ; that prayers may be 



