B E R 



320 



B E K 



lyinir loosely aroonR pulp. The gooseberry and the currant 

 are therefore genuine berries ; but plums, rose-heps, haws, 

 &e., in which the seeds do not lie among pulp, are excluded 

 from the definition, although they are all comprehended 

 under the same name in common language. 



BERRY POMEROY, a parish in the county of Devon, 

 near the river Dart, in the hundred of Haytor, and about 

 two miles E.N.E. from the borough of Totness. This parish 

 includes the villages of Longcombe, Weston. Bourton, Af- 

 ton, and Weekaborough. Bridgetown, adjoining Totness, 

 if also in this purish. Berry, or more properly Bury, sig- 

 nifies a walled town ; and the addition of Pomoroy is from 

 the family which fur many centuries held possession of the 

 manor. This family was descended from Ralph dc Pomerai, 

 one of the followers of William the Conqueror, who cave 

 him not only the manor of Berry, but many other lordships 

 and estates in this county, some of which are specified by 

 Camdcn. This person built a castle here, and made it the 

 seat of a barony or honour. The family of the Pomeroys 

 continued to reside here, and to hold the chief rank in this 

 part of the country, until the reign of Edward VI., when the 

 manor of Berry came, it is not agreed whether by forfeiture, 

 cession, or sale, but Camden says by sale, from the hands of 

 Sir Thomas Pomeroy to the Protector Somerset, with whose 

 descendants it has ever since remained. In the parish 

 church there are some handsome monuments of the Sey- 

 mour family. The Duke of Somerset is impropriator of the 

 great tithes, which belonged formerly to the priory of Merton 

 in Surrey, and patron of the vicarage, which is returned of 

 the annual value of 3GO/. by the Commission of Inquiry 

 into the Ecclesiastical Revenues of England and V> 

 published in 1835. Prince, the author of the Worthies of 

 Devon, was vicar of Berry Pomeroy. The population of 

 the parish was 1185 in the year 1831. The magnificent 

 ruins of the castle erected by the Pomeroys are seated upon 

 a rock which rises almost perpendicularly from a narrow- 

 valley through which winds a small stream of water. Being 

 overhung by the branches of trees and shrubs, and incrusted 

 with moss and mantled by ivy, the ruins form, in combina- 

 tion with the other features of the scene, one of the most 

 striking and picturesque objects in the county. The great 

 gate, with the walls of the south front, the north wing of 

 the court or quadrangle, some apartments on the west side, 

 and a few turrets, are all that now remain of this castle, 

 which was dismantled during the civil wars in the time of 

 Charles I. 



(Cough's Camden'* Britannia ; Prince's Worthies nf 

 Devon; Grose's Antiquities; Polwhele's History of De- 

 von ; Maton's Observations on the Western Counties, &c.) 



BERTHELLA (Zoology), a genus established by Blain- 

 ville for a marine mollusk, from our coasts, which he 

 acknowledges that he owes to the friendship of our country- 

 man, Dr. Leach, and which Donovan had recorded as a 

 species of Bulla (B. plumula). Blainville places it in the 

 first family (Subaplysiacea) of his Monopleurobranchiata, 

 and thus defines it. Body oval, sufficiently protuberant 

 (bombf) above, and recurved below, when in a state of 

 repose, so as completely to hide the head and the foot, 

 which last is large and oval, but much less than the mantle. 

 There is a kind of veil at the anterior border of the head, 

 prolonged on each side into a sort of appendage cleft late- 

 rally. The two tentaculiform occipital auricules are cleft 

 and striated within at their termination, and approach 

 each other very nearly at their base, which is thinned out 

 as it were. The eyes are sessile, placed upon the posterior 

 root of the tentacula. There is but one pectiniform l.nm- 

 ehia, which is lateral, attached anteriorly, and, in great 

 measure, free behind. The organs of generation terminate 

 in one large tubercle, situated before the root of the bran- 

 chia ; the shell is internal, very delicate, and oval, with a 

 fummit hardly to be distinguished. The only recorded 

 species is Berthella porosa. 



[HrrthtlU pnrouj 

 a, ridf ttaw | t, rirv of Uck, to ihow iBlcni.il thclL 



BERTHIER. ALEXANDER, prince ofNcufehfitel and 

 Wagram, was born at Versailles, Nov. 'JO, 17i:i. Having 

 obtained a commission in a regiment of dragoons, la' si -ncd 

 in the American revolutionary war, in whii-h lie acquired 

 considerable reputation. During the French Ki -volution he 

 became commandant of tile-national guard of Ye-i>aiur-, and 

 in this situation he exerted himself to cheek (lie i v uei < f 

 the populace. During the reign of terror he served under 

 La Kaycttc and Luckner, and afterwards under lluunaparte, 

 in his first Italian campaign. From this time he ui-e.mi- 

 panied Napoleon in all his campaigns as chief of the stall; 

 for which situation he was eminently luted, though as a 

 general his talents were not above mediocrity. In 

 he married a Bavarian princess. In ISO 5 he \v 

 a marshal of the empire, grand huntsman of the empire. 

 and chief of the first cohort of the legion of honour. In 

 1806 he became Prince of Neufchutcl, and in 1609 Prince 

 of Wagram. In 1810 he officiated as Napoleon's proxy in 

 the marriage with Maria Ixmisa. On the restoration of 

 Louis XVIII. he accepted the situation of captain of one of 

 the companies of the gardes-du-corps. On the return of 

 Napoleon he retired to Bamberg, where, on the 20th ol 

 March, 1815, he died by falling from a window, from v. 

 he was surveying the entrance of the Russian troops into 

 the town. His death is enveloped in mystery, as it 

 been asserted by some that he was thrown from the window 

 by force, though it does not appear that there is any sulli- 

 cient authority for that supposition. (ANgemeine Knry- 

 clopiidie von J. S. Ersch und J. G. Gruber; Biograj.ltie 

 fiowellt des Contemporains.) 



BERTHOLLET, CLAUDE LOUIS, a distinguished 

 chemical philosopher, was born at Talloire, near Annecy in 

 Savoy, on the 9lh of December, 17-18. He commenced his 

 studies at Chatubcry, and completed them at the C< 

 des Provinces at Turin, an establishment in which many 

 eminent persons have been educated. Having obtained a 

 medical degree, he soon afterwards went to Paris, where he 

 continued chielly to reside during the remainder of a long 

 life devoted to the acquisition of knowledge. 



Not having any acquaintance in Paris, he introduced 

 himself to M. Tronchin, a medical practitioner of eminence, 

 and a native of Geneva. Through the friendship which 

 arose from this introduction he was appointed physician to 

 the Duke of Orleans : in this situation he studied chemistry 

 with great assiduity and success, and soon made himself ad- 

 vantageously known by his 'Essays' on the subject. 



In 1781 he was elected a member of the Academy ii 

 Sciences; and a lew years afterwards the Duke of Orleans 

 procured for him the situation of government cormniss.iry 

 and superintendent of dyeing processes, which had been 

 occupied by Macqucr. To this appointment chemistry v. i-, 

 indebted for his work on dyeing, which contains a beti> 

 count both of the theory and practice of the art than any 

 which had before made its appearance. 



At a meeting of the Academy of Sciences in 1 785, Bcr- 

 thollet announced his belief in the antiphlogistic doctrines 

 recently propounded by Lavoisier, and he was the first 

 French chemist of any celebrity who did so. On one subject 

 he, indeed, differed from this illustrious chemist, for he did 

 not admit oxygen to be the acidifying principle, and cited 

 sulphuretted hydrogen as a compound possessing the pro- 

 perties of an acid ; it is scarcely necessary to state that the 

 justness of Bcrthollct's views is now universally admitted, 

 confirmed ns they have been by the discovery of other acids 

 into the composition of which oxygen docs not enter. In 

 this year he completed the discovery of the composition 

 of ammonia, by following out the previous experiments of 

 Priestley ; and he also published his first essay on de- 

 phlogisticated marine acid, now called chlorine, and pro- 

 posed the use of it in the process of bleaching ; an applica- 

 tion which has been roost extensively and beneficially 

 adopted. 



When the French Revolution broke out, and that country 

 became involved in war, many of the requisites for carrying 

 it on which had previously been imported could no longer 

 be obtained through this channel. This was especially the 

 case with saltpetre for the manufacture of gunpowder. In 

 \\i\- emergency Berthollct visited almost every part of tin- 

 country, for the purpose of pointing out the means of ex- 

 tracting and purifying this salt- he was also employed with 

 some other men of science in ti-achinir the processes of 

 smelting iron and converting it into steel. In the year 

 1792, being oppoiiiU-d one of the commissioners of the Mint, 



