BIS 



459 



B I S 



Hugh, whose brother Robert held this manor of him. It 

 was rated at eight hides. We count ninety-one persons enu- 

 merated in this statement as holding property, or attached 

 to the property, and who may be considered as equivalent to 

 as many families. The enumeration comprehends, among 

 others, two priests, twenty villeins, twenty-eight bordarii, 

 translated ' yeomen' by Kennett, and twenty-three persons 

 paying a rent of 44*. and two sextaries of honey. There 

 were five mills of 16*. value, and a wood of 20*., and eleven 

 burgages in Gloucester yielding 66rf. The manor had been 

 worth 24/. per annum, but was then worth only 201. The 

 singular circumstance of two quarts of honey being speci- 

 fied as an annual rent, induces Bigland to hazard a conjec- 

 ture that the parish derived its name from Bees; but a pre- 

 vious historian, taking into account the woody character of 

 the district, which character was probably more prevalent 

 at a former period, thought it not unlikely that the name is 

 a compound of Bois, a wood, and leaz, a lea or pasture. 



Soon after the Domesday Survey the manor of Bisley 

 came to the crown, and in the time of Edward I. it passed, 

 by marriage, to the Mortimers, afterwards earls of March. 

 It continued in that family for nearly three centuries, de- 

 volved to Edward, Duke of York, afterwards Edward IV., 

 the heir-general of that family in the female line. From 

 that time it remained attached to the crown, with little in- 

 terruption, until it was given by James I. to the Marquis 

 of Rockingham, who sold it to Dr. Masters, since which it 

 has remained exclusively in private hands, and has several 

 times passed by sale from one family to another. 



Bisley is little more than a village, although considered as 

 a town since the grant of a weekly market and two annual 

 fairs by James II. The market-day is Thursday : it is but 

 little frequented, and may be considered almost extinct. 

 The fairs for cattle, &c., on May 4 and November 12, are 

 however of considerable importance. The population re- 

 turns do not give any account for the town separately from 

 the parish, which, in its large extent, comprehended 1480 

 houses in 1831, with a population of 5896 persons, of whom 

 3090 were females. The village, which stands partly upon 

 the acclivity of a hill and partly in the valley below, consists 

 of irregular streets, and has not many houses of good ap- 

 pearance. The church, dedicated to All Saints, is spacious, 

 and may be called handsome ; and, being placed on an 

 eminence, i a very conspicuous object. It consists of a 

 nave and two aisles, and is considered to have been built, at 

 least in part, about the time of Edward IV. Bigland calls 

 the steeple ' a clumsy obelisk,' but says it is useful as a 

 land-mark. The church was re-pewed in 1771, when a 

 fresco painting, in very lively colours, and about ten feet 

 square, representing St. Michael subduing the fallen angels, 

 was discovered against the north wall, but it was immedi- 

 ately defaced. The church contains some interesting monu- 

 ments, among which one in memory of a crusader, with his 

 effigies in armour, attracts particular attention. The church 

 accommodates 1200 persons. The living is a vicarage in 

 the diocese of Gloucester, in the gift of the crown, and has 

 a net income of 527/. In the churchyard there stands an 

 antient octagonal stone cross. It appears to have been 

 erected over a deep well, into which a man fell and was 

 drowned, in consequence of which the churchyard was placed 

 under an interdict for three years, during which time 

 the inhabitants were obliged to carry their dead to Bibury 

 for interment. Mr. S. Lysons, in his Antiquities of Glou- 

 cestershire, thinks, from the style of ornament, that this 

 cross was erected in the thirteenth century. It is now sur- 

 mounted by an antient stone fount, which was removed 

 from the church when it was new pewed. 



There are church lands at Bisley which have from time 

 immemorial formed the estate of the parish. The proceeds 

 amount to about 100/. per annum, a portion of which is ap- 

 propriated to the support of what is called the ' Free School,' 

 the master of which receives out of it 13/. 14*. as his salary. 

 He is allowed to take some day-scholars, and is also the 

 master of the Blue-coat School, founded by the will of John 

 Taylor (dated in 1 732), who bequeathed lands, at present 

 producing 55/. 10*. per annum, for the education and cloth- 

 ing of ten boys. The additional salary of the schoolmaster 

 from this source is twelve guineas per annum. The two 

 establishments are taught together in a commodious school- 

 room, standing on ground belonging to the parish. The 

 children are taught to read and write, and are instructed in 

 the Church catechism. 



The canal by which the Thames and Severn are united 



passes through this parish ; and near the border of it, at Sap- 

 perton, enters a tunnel two miles and five furlongs in length. 

 It is lined with masonry, and arched over at top, with an in- 

 verted arch at the bottom, except at some few places, where 

 the solid rock being scooped out renders it unnecessary. 

 The summit level of the Thames and Severn canal at Sap- 

 perton tunnel is 376 feet above low water-mark at London. 



(Bigland's Collections relative to the County of Glou- 

 cester ; Rudder's History of Gloucestershire ; Rudge's His- 

 tory of the County of Gloucester ; Lysons's Collection of 

 Gloucestershire Antiquities; Beauties of England and 

 Wales; Reports on Charities ; Phillips's General History 

 of Inland Navigation.) 



BISMUTH ORES. The minerals in which this metal 

 constitutes the principal ingredient are comparatively few 

 in number; and of these only two species are of any im- 

 portance in a commercial point of view, namely, the native 

 bismuth, and its sulphurets. The general characters of 

 these minerals are the following : Before the blow-pipe they 

 are readily fused and reduced to a metallic state, the regulus 

 itself gradually subliming if the flame be continued, leaving 

 on the charcoal an orange-yellow areola, which however 

 may readily be made to disappear in the deoxidizing flame. 

 When the metallic regulus is fused in an open glass tube, 

 a yellowish-white sublimate is obtained, and the regulus 

 itself becomes covered by the fused oxide, which while hot 

 is of a dark brown colour, but assumes a yellow tint on 

 cooling. These minerals are all of them soluble in strong 

 nitric acid, the solution yielding a white/precipitate on being 

 dropped into water. They are known and described by 

 mineralogists under the following names : Native or Octa- 

 hedral Bismuth, Bismuth-ochre, Prismatic Bismuth-glance, 

 Needle-ore or Acieular Bismuth-glance, called by Phillips 

 Plumbo-cupriferous Sulphuret of Bismuth ; Tellurbismuth, 

 formerly known by the name of Molybdan silver. Native, 

 or octahedral Bismuth, is sometimes found crystallized : the 

 observed forms are the octahedron, the tetrahedron, and 

 combinations of the latter with the dodecahedron, which 

 produce the shape seen in the accompanying figure. 



The faces marked o belong to the tetrahedron and those 

 marked with d to the rhombic dodecahedron. The edge 

 between the faces o is therefore 70 32', between the faces 

 dl20, and in the edges of combination between o and 

 d 144 44'. These crystals are generally very imperfect, 

 and the faces rough and uneven ; they possess a perfect 

 cleavage parallel to the faces of the octahedron. The hard- 

 ness varies from 2 to 2'5 ; the specific gravity from 9'6 to 

 9'8. The crystals are opaque, possess the metallic lustre, 

 and the fresh fracture presents a reddish silver white, but 

 the surface is usually tarnished owing to partial oxidation, 

 and presents a variegated appearance of grey, red, and blue 

 colours. They may be considered as presenting us with 

 the metal bismuth in a pure state, the only foreign matter 

 being traces of arsenic. The occurrence of crystals is 

 somewhat rare, this mineral being usually found in feathery 

 and arborescent forms, and also in dentiform concretions in 

 veins traversing gneiss, mica, and clay-slates, where it is 

 usually accompanied by ores of silver, cobalt, nickel, and 

 iron. It is found at St. Colomb and Botallack mines in 

 Cornwall, and at Carrock in Cumberland, but in much 

 greater abundance in the mines of Saxony and Bohemia, at 

 Johann-Georgenstadt, Annaberg, Altenberg, Schneeberg, 

 and at Joachimsthal, from whence the greater portion of the 

 bismuth of commerce is obtained. It is also found at Beiber 

 in Hainau, at Liiling in Carinthia, and in the Sophia mine 

 at Wittichen in Fiirstenberg. 



The bismuth-ochre is a rare mineral, which occurs massive 

 and disseminated. It is of a straw-yellow, passing some- 

 times into a light yellowish grey. Its specific gravity is 

 4'36, and its chemical constitution 



Bismuth .... 89'87 

 Oxygen .... 10'13 

 It usually contains small quantities of arsenic and oxide of 

 iron as impurities. Its known localities are St. Agnes, 



3N 2 



