HER 



318 



B E R 



which WM still continued. Tho beroet hTo rotatory 

 motion, and Boc observed that they also had another, pro- 

 duced by an alternate contraction and dilatation. 



MM. Audouin and Milne Edwards have given an inte- 

 resting description of the organization of the globular beroe 

 ( Km* Pileut, Lam. ; Plrurobrachia of Fleming ; Eurharn 

 of Prron and of Blainville), and Dr. Grant, in the Trant- 

 Oftiont nftH Zoological .S'>n>fy,has given an able account 

 of its nervous system, and of tho structure of its cilia. 

 Cuvier mentions it as being common in tho north where 

 it is said to be one of the aliments of the whale (Ba/ana) 

 and in the channel on the French coast. Dr. Grant 



und this species on the coast off Stafla, and also on the 

 coast of Sheppey, in the harbour of Sheerness, in which 

 latter locality, says Dr. Grant, ' the boatmen, who seemed 

 to be familiar with it under the name of the spawn of 

 the sea-egg (echinttt), which it somewhat resembles in 

 its globular and ribbed form, assured me that often in 

 hot and calm weather they swarm with tho little medusa 

 in such numbers as to cover the surface of the water in all 

 this part of the estuary of the Thames. The animal has a 

 regular oval form, with its longest diameter from the mouth 

 to the anus, about six lines, and its breadth about four lines. 

 The general texture of the body is quite transparent and 

 colourless.' 



BERO'SUS (Bqpw<r<n$c. that is, son of Ossui), priest of 

 the temple of Belus at Babylon in the time of Ptolemy 

 Philadolphus, is believed to have been born in the latter 

 part of the reign of Alexander the Great He wrote a 

 ' History of the Chaldseans and the Actions of their Kings,' 

 which has been long lost, though fragments of it are pre- 

 served in the works of several antient authors, particularly 

 in those of Josephus and Eusebius. Fabricius, in his 

 Bibliotheca Greeca, edit. Hamb. 1728, vol. xiv. pp. 175- 

 211, collected them under the title of Fragmenta Berosi 

 ex Scriptis tjut genuinis. They wero also edited by 

 Rirhter, Leipzig, 1825, 8vo. 



For this service Fabricius deserves the thanks of the 

 learned world, as one Annius, or Nanni, a monk of Viterbo 

 in Italy, who was bom in 1437, and continued to live to the 

 end of that century, counterfeited several books under old 

 names, of which number were Manetho, Berosut, and Mo- 

 gnsthenes, whom he called Metasthenes, a mistake into 

 which he was led by Ruflnus's Latin version of Josephus, 

 and which gave the first occasion for the discovery of his 

 cheat. These books he published with a comment upon 

 them, and for some time they passed for the genuine works 

 of the authors whose names" they bore, but were presently 

 exploded as fictions. An account of the editions of the 

 filse Berosus will be found in Meusel's Bibliotheca His- 

 torica, 8vo. Lips. 1782, vol. i. part i. p. IS ; with an enume- 

 ration of the earlier authors by whom the forgery was dis- 

 covered. 



Pliny says that the genuine works of Berosus contained 

 astronomical observations for 480 years (Hist. Nat. li'. vii. 

 c. 56) : the computation of which is generally supposed to 

 have begun from the sera of Nabonassar, which would bring 

 them to the time of Berosus, about 270 years before the 

 Christian era. . 



After the Macedonians had made themselves masters of 

 Babylon, Berosus is said to have learned from them the 

 Greek language, and passing thence into Greece, first 

 -I at Cos, the birth-place of Hippocrates (Vitruvius, 

 li. ix. c. 7.), where he established a college or school for the 

 study of astronomy and astrology. Afterwards ho went 

 from Cos to Athens, where he grew go famous for his pro 

 fictions, that the Athenians were induced to place a statue 

 of him in their gymnasium which had a gilded tonguo. 

 (Plin. Hitt. Nat. li. vii. c. 37.) 



(See Morcn, Dictionnaire Hittorique, edit Amst. 1740, 

 torn. ii. p. 238; Biographie Universelle, torn. iv. 8vo. Par. 

 1 8 1 1 , p. 335 ; Prideaux's Connexion of the Hist, of the Old 

 and New Teit. uvo. Lond. 1725, vol. ii. pp. 803, iii. 97.) 



Whether Berosus the astronomer be the same person 

 with tho historian has been a matter of discussion, arising 

 probably out of the extravagant antiquity which some have 

 given to the latter, making him as old as Moses. All the 

 astronomers who preceded historical record have been made 

 mythological personages; Justin Martyr even asserts Be- 

 ronis to be the father of the Cumirah Sibyl. Vimn ins, 

 who says, as above stated, that he opened a whool 

 of astrology at Cot, also explains at some length the 

 opinions of Berosus on the moon's light, which are not 



worth citing ; but Cleomedes (cited by TVUmbro. At. 

 Anc. i. 228) describes him as maintaining that the moon's 

 rotation on her axis is of the same length as her *yn- 

 odical revolution, from fall moon to full union; a curious 

 opinion, and near tin- truth, as her rotation is in lad equal 

 to her sidereal revolution, from a star to the star anain. 

 Vitruvius also attributes to Berosus the invention of the 

 ' hemicyclium excavatum ex quadrate, ad enclimaque suc- 

 cisum.' This Delambre imagines to bo (for the phrase does 

 not admit of decisive interpretation) the same as the <if n. 

 or hemispherical dial : that is, a concave hcuiiiiphcrr, with 

 an opaque point or globule at the centre, by the shadow of 

 which the place of the sun might be laid down in the hemi- 

 sphere ; but it must be observed that in the next words of 

 Yitmvius, the <rc<tyq, as distinguished from the hcmicyclium, 

 is attributed to Aristarohus. Dclarahro, going upon this 

 hypothesis, asserts the description of Vilruvius to be incor- 

 rect, unless ' qimdratum ' mean a parallelepiped. But it 

 seems to us that tho section of the hemispherical dial (a he- 

 misphere hollowed in a cube and elevated for the latitude of 

 the place, as we sayof a globe) made by the plane of the 

 meridian, is in so many words the instrument descriliH l>y 

 Vitruvius ; and we submit, therefore, whether the hemi- 

 cyclium 'be not a meridian instrument, or meridian dial 

 only, for taking the sun's altitude at noon. 



The story of Pliny relative to the Chnldtean observations 

 of 480 years is more modest than that of Simplicius. [See 

 ASTRONOMY, vol. ii. p. 531.] We refer to that article for 

 the notion which we entertain of Chaldcoan astronorrn : i 1 

 would not be worth while to discuss the probability of Pliny's 

 testimony, unless some information could bo gained as to 

 what sort of observations they were. 



(For authorities connected with the astronomy of Berosus, 

 see Weidler, Hist. Astron. ; and Blount, Centura, <c.) 



BERO'SUS, in entomology, a genus of coleopterous in- 

 sects of the family Hydrophilidn? (Leach). These beetles 

 inhabit ponds, in which they may often be seen swimming 

 in an inverted position. There are, however, other pecu- 

 liarities in their mode of progression in the water which, 

 being common to the tribe, will be noticed under the hetul 

 HYDROPHILIIXS. They most probably feed upon \ 

 table substances. The common colouring of the spec- 

 dusky yellow varied with markings <if a black or dark me- 

 tallic bronze hue ; their form is nearly oval, and the prin- 

 cipal generic, characters are, eyes prominent, clypcus entire, 

 antennae nine (?) jointed, thorax narrower than the elytra. 



BERRE, a small town in France, in the department of 

 Bouches-du-Rhone, standing upon a salt lake (ilattg) to 

 which it gives name, and which constitutes its chief claim 

 to a separate notice. 



The lake is near the sea, with which it communicates by 

 the continuous channels of Martigues and la Tour-de-Bouc. 

 The lake is sometimes regarded as consisting of four parts 

 the etanf; de Berre (in the more limited application of the 

 name) in the centre the clang de St. Chamason the north- 

 west the Hang de Marthe on tho south and the (tang de 

 I'aine on the east. These four parts constitute, how 

 but one lake, to which the general name of Berre is given. 

 Sometimes it is called the clang de Marti fues. It is about 

 twelve or thirteen miles long from N.W. to S.E., and about 

 ten in breadth at the widest part, according to the map of 

 France by Brue (Paris, 1818), or rather larger according 

 to the map published by the Society for the Diffusion of 

 Useful Knowledge. Its circuit, which is very irregular, is 

 differently stated ; Malte Brun's estimate of fifteen French 

 leagues (fortv-ono or forty-two miles) is probably not far 

 from the truth. 



An examination of the borders of this lake shows that 

 it was formerly far more extensive. The writer in tho 

 Encyclnpedie Mithodique thinks it is scarcely a twentieth 

 part of what it once was. Its surface is tranquil, and it is 

 navigable in its whole extent and communicates, as already 

 nut iced, with the sea. It receives two small rivers, the 

 Toutoubre and the Arc, of which the former has a course 

 of about thirty miles, and the latter of between forty and 

 fifty. The banks of the lake are, at least on the side of the 

 town of Berre, very charming, and studded with villages; 

 there are on them the two towns of Berre and St. ( hamas. 

 On the south-east side, the lake is bounded by a causeway 

 of about three miles in length and 130 feet in breadth, 

 which separates it from the i lantr de Beaumont or Murignaiu 

 This causeway is said to have been thrown up by Caiu* 

 Marius in a single night, and in the presence of the enemy 



