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up the library and apparatus which he had possessed to the 

 Royal Society of Upsala, she received an annuity of 200 

 rix'dollars from the king of Sweden, In 1776 Frederick of 

 Prussia endeavoured to prevail upon him to become a mem- 

 Iwr of the Berlin Academy of Sciences and to settle at 

 Berlin. The offer was highly advantageous, but though his 

 health had suffered from close application and it seemed 

 probable that the milder climate of Prussia might restore 

 it, the king of Sweden, who had been his benefactor, was 

 unwilling to part with him ; on this occasion he was knighted 

 and received a pension of 150 rix-dollars. 



The health of Bergman appears always to have been 

 delicate, and it was permanently injured by his intense ap- 

 plication to study when he first went to Upsala; in summer 

 he occasionally repaired to the waters of Medevi, a mineral 

 spring which is celebrated in Sweden, and there, on the 8th 

 of July, 1784, he died. 



It is impossible to give an account of all the writings 

 of Bergman, for they amount to 1 06 ; they have been col- 

 lected into six octavo volumes, entitled Opuscula Torberni 

 Bergman Pfiysica et Chemtca, excepting a few of the less 

 important. 



The first chemical memoir whu4i he published was ' On 

 the Aerial Acid,' and printed in 1774; he shows that this 

 gaseous body, now called carbonic acid, possesses acid pro- 

 perries, and is capable of combining with bases and forming 

 salts with them. It is to he observed that he makes no 

 mention of the previous labours of Dr. Black on this sub- 

 ject. In 1778 appeared his paper 'On the Analysis of 

 Mineral Waters.' In this memoir he adverts to many cir- 

 cumstances connected with their general character and 

 sources, and points out the principal re-agents and preci- 

 pitvints used in their examination; the results of his ana- 

 lysis were not accurate, but they were better than those 

 which had previously appeared. His paper on alum has 

 already been mentioned , and although he was well ac- 

 quainted with the process of manufacturing it in Sweden, 

 he was unacquainted with the true nature of the salt. In 

 his dissertation on emetic tartar he gives a full historical 

 detail of the modes of preparing it, and its uses ; but being 

 unacquainted with the nature of the different oxides of 

 antimony, his ideas as to the antimonial preparations best 

 fitted to form it are not accurate. His memoir on the 

 forms of crystals contains the germ of the theory of crys- 

 tallization afterwards developed by Haiiy ; he made a 

 considerable number of experiments on silver, and his 

 analyses of the precious stones, though far from accurate, 

 were among the first attempts to ascertain the composition 

 of these bodies. 



In 1775 Bergman published his important 'Essay on 

 Elective Attractions ;' it was improved and augmented in 

 the third volume of his Opuscula, published 1783, and was 

 translated into English by Dr. Beddoes. In this treatise 

 Bergman considers every substance as possessed of a pecu- 

 liar attractive force for every other substance with which it 

 unites, a force capable of being represented numerically: 

 he also considered decomposition as complete; that is, 

 whenever a third body c, is added to a compound a b, for 

 one of the constituents of which it has a stronger attraction 

 than that which exists between the two, the compound body 

 will be decomposed, and the whole of one of its elements 

 transferred to the body added. Thus, suppose the attrac- 

 tion of a for 6 to be represented by 1 , and of a for c by 2, 

 then the addition of c to a b will produce the compound a c, 

 and b will be separated : thus, when lime-water is added to 

 muriate of magnesia, the magnesia is precipitated and a 

 so'.ution of muriate of lime is obtained ; and hence when 

 muriatic acid is poured upon a mixture of lime and mag- 

 nesia, it dissolves the lime and leaves the magnesia. From 

 these and numerous similar facts Bergman called this kind 

 of attraction or affinity elective. This work contains a vast 

 number of experiments : and though the accuracy of his 

 researches and opinions have been called in question, and 

 in many cases upon good ground, the work will long remain 

 a monument of his sagacity and industry. 



BERGUES, a town in' France in the Department of 

 Nord, 182 miles N. of Paris, through Peronne, Cambray, 

 and Lille; or 160 through Amiens, St. Pol, and Haze- 

 brouck. It is about five miles S.E. of Dunkerque : 50" 58' 

 N. lat., 2 24' E. long, from Greenwich. 



This town is sometimes called Bergufi, or Berg St. 

 Winox, and is said to have risen gradually round a rich and 

 celebrated Benedictine abbey, founded at the foot of a hill 



called Groenberg or the Green Mountain, and which existed 

 up to the Revolution. The older topographers speak of 

 Bergues as ill built, with irregular streets and three miser- 

 able places or squares; but M. Malte-Brun says its houses 

 are all built of brick and are regular. It is surrounded bv 

 an old wall, with round towers placed at intervals, and has 

 been further strengthened by several works constructed by 

 Vauban, so that it still holds rank among fortified places ; 

 and in the year 1793 was besieged in vain by the joint 

 forces of the English, Hessians, and others. When the 

 siege was raised in consequence of the defeat of the allies 

 at Hondtschoote, the besiegers left above fifty pieces of 

 cannon behind them. The principal church is that of 

 the former abbey of St. Winox, which abbey formed, as 

 mentioned above, the nucleus of the town. The present 

 church is, however, a modern edifice, for the old church 

 having been ruined in the previous wars was rebuilt during 

 the last century. Before the Revolution there were two 

 parish churches, that of St. Winox being one of them. 

 The Jesuits had a college here, one of the handsomest in 

 French Flanders. There is a high school at the present 

 time. The little river Colme passes through one quarter of 

 the town, which is traversed by many canals. There are 

 communications by canals with Furnes in Belgium, and 

 from thence with many other Belgic towns ; with the canal 

 of the Aa, and by tliat with St. Omer on one hand, and 

 Gravelines on the other ; and with the sea at Dunkerque. 

 This last mentioned canal is capable of receiving vessels of 

 300 tons burden. 



The manufactures of the town are of cloth, linen, calico, 

 and soap ; and it serves to supply the population of the 

 neighbouring towns with all the necessaries of life, butchers' 

 meat, corn, butter, cheese, beer, wine, spices, sugar, leather, 

 &o. Its corn market is very considerable. The population 

 in 1832 was 5962. 



The neighbourhood was formerly very marshy. There 

 were two considerable marshes called Moeres (meres) ; and 

 the low situation of the town, however it might increase its 

 strength as a fortress, by affording the power of inundating 

 part of the environs, by no means contributed to the health 

 of the inhabitants. By proper draining of the marshes the 

 district has now been rendered more salubrious, and fertile 

 fields and comfortable dwellings have been substituted for 

 a watery waste. 



So important has Bergues been regarded as a military 

 station, and so fiercely has the possession of it been con- 

 tested, than in ten centuries it was eight times taken and 

 retaken, seven times plundered, and three times besieged in 

 vain. (Malte-Brun ; Expilly, Dictionnaire des Gaules, $c.; 

 Dictinnnatre Universal de la France.) 



BE'RIS, a genus of dipterous insects, of the family 

 Xylophagidce. The species of this genus are small metallic- 

 coloured Hies, which frequent the leaves of plants. Their 

 larva! feed on putrescent wood. The generic characters are 

 as follows : Body narrow ; palpi minute, the third joint 

 thickened a little at the extremity ; the two first joints of 

 the antennro equal, third elongate subulate ; eyes pu- 

 bescent; the scutellum with four, six, or eight points; 

 abdomen with seven distinct segments ; the first joint of 

 the posterior tarsi incrassate in the male ; the wings have 

 four posterior cells, and sometimes the indication of a fifth. 



The ova of one of the species of this genus (beris clavipes) 

 are said to be ejected from the ovipositor in the form of a 

 little chain, about an inch long, consisting of a single 

 series of oval eggs, which are glued to each other in an 

 oblique position. Most probably the eggs of the other 

 species are ejected in the same manner. 



BERKELEY, a parish in the hundred of Berkeley, in 

 the county of Gloucester, 16 miles from Gloucester, 113 

 from London, is divided into the borough of Berkeley, the 

 tithings of Alkington, Breadstone, Ham, Hamfallow, Hin- 

 ton, and the chapelry of Stone. This place, according to 

 Domesday survey, must have been of great extent, popula- 

 tion, and opulence, the town itself being a royal demesne 

 and free borough held of the crown ; and in that survey this 

 town is one of the only two places in the county of Glou- 

 cester which are stated as having a market, Tewkesbury 

 being the other. Here, also, in former times, was a wealthy 

 nunnery, which owed its dissolution to Earl Godwin. The 

 town, which consists of four streets diverging from the 

 market-place, is situated on a small river called the Avon, 

 which empties itself into the Severn, a mile and a half from 

 the town. 



