B L A 



50G 



B I. A 



it* neighbourhood, particularly at 1! . land pu the Bode, 

 where there tre iron works, ami mills for working porph) ry, 



BLANTYKK, n parish in tlie middle ward of Lanark- 

 shire, seven miles cast from Glasgow, and bounded on tin- 

 cast by Hamilton, oti tin- west by C'umhushtng, and on the 

 south :<1 and Kilbride. It stretches along the 



south bank of the Clyde for nearly two miles and a half, 

 and iu greatest length from the Haugh op|>osite Calder- 

 bridge to its most southern point is about five miles and a 

 half. The parish is low and sheltered, and hence its name 

 Blantyre, which in Gaelic means 'a warm retreat' From 

 the church in the middle of the parish to the Clyde, the 

 ground is almost a plain, covered with small inclosurcs, 

 which are surrounded by belts of planting ; and from the 

 Clyde to the southern boundary the soil is, by gradations, 

 sandy clay, loam, moss. Iron-stone is found on the banks 

 of Calderwater, which divides this parish from Kilbride. 



On the top of a high rock which rises up from the Clyde, 

 stand amidst trees the picturesque remains of the priory of 

 Blantyre, nearly opposite to Bothwell Castle, which crowns 

 the bold and lofty bank on the other side of the stream. It 

 was of the order of Canon Regulars of St Augustine, and 

 must have been founded before the year 1296, for at that 

 time ' Frere William, priour de Blantyre, was a subscriber 

 to the Ragman's Roll. (Prynne, p. 663.) King Alexander 

 II. annexed the parish church and its property to the priory. 

 At the Reformation the priory was demolished ; and in 

 1 595 Walter Stewart (afterwards Lord Blantyre), the lord 



Srivy seal of Scotland, was made its commcndator by King 

 ames VI. The patronage and church property of the 

 parish are still in the hands of his descendants. 



The village of Blantyre is on the road from Hamilton to 

 Kilbride. The population of the parish in 1831 was 3000, 

 chietly occupied in weaving and at the cotton mills ; 15 per- 

 sons were then employed in iron-stone mines and 27 in 

 quarries. 



The manse was built in 1 773 ; it is not known when the 

 church was erected. The glebe consists of about 12 acres, 

 and the stipend in 1792 was 56 bolls of meal and barley, 

 and 53/. 6*. Sd. in money. At that time there was a slock 

 of about 200/., out of the interest of which, and the weekly 

 colleciions at the church, the poor were supplied. The parish 

 schoolmaster had then no house or garden attached to his 

 office ; his salary was only 6/,, and the whole income of the 

 school was worth about 20f. per annum. 



(Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland, vol. ii. ; Enu- 

 merationAb&tract of Population Returns, vol. ii. ; Chambers s 

 Gazetteer nf Scotland ; General View of the Agriculture 

 of the County of Clydesdale, by John Naismith, Brentford, 

 1 794 ; Practical Observations upon divers Titles of the 

 Law of Scotland, commonly called Hope's Minor Prac- 

 tichs ; to which is subjoined an Account of all the Religious 

 Houses that were in Scotland at the time of the Reforma- 

 tion, written by Sir Thomas Hope of Craighall, sometime 

 advocate to King Charles I., Edin. 1 7.S-4.) 



BLAPS (Fauricius), a genus of insects of the .- 

 Ileieromcra and family Mcla.vmia (f.atrfille): the principal 

 generic characters are, antenna) with the two basal joints 

 short, their breadth equalling their length, the third joint 

 long, exceeding that of the two following together; the 

 three following joints are longer than broad ; the remaining 

 joints nearly round, excepting the terminal one, which is 

 round at the base and acuminated towards its extremity ; 

 maxillary palpi with the terminal joint flattened, and whrn 

 viewed from above or beneath somewhat hatchet-shaped : 

 thorax broad, sides rounded, posterior margin straight: ab- 

 domen oblong-ovate, exceeding the thorax in width : elytra 

 generally soldered together, incurved so as to embrace the 

 sides of the abdomen, more or less acuminated towards the 

 apex, and prolonged to a point at the apex. 



The species of this genus arc tolerably abundant, and fre- 

 quent dark, damp situations, such as the caverns in rocks, &c. 

 In this country there are only two well-authenticated species, 

 B. obtuta and /?. mwtitaga, the latter is very common in 

 our kitchens and cellars (in company with the cock, 

 the fornii-r is much less abundant; it is occasionally found 

 with H. mortisapa. 



Both species are of an obscure black colour, and about 

 three-quarters of an inch in length. As Ii. mortisaga is a 

 well-known common species, wo will merely mention the 

 character* di-tnigui-hing the rarer one from ii. The first 

 striking difference is the superior breadth in u 1,1 u tit : the 



iiitenntc an- sli itrr. the fourth, t'll'ih, and sixth joints are 

 scarcely longer than broad (while in /(. in<irtntig,i their 

 englh is marly double the breadth): the th. . 

 Hinder angles rounded (in nmrtitaga they are acute): tho 



re much shorter in proportion, and the elytra are dis- 

 tinctly punctured. 



There are many curious and interesting facts relating to 



- of this genus, for tho most part to be found i:i l\ 

 and Spcncc's Introduction to British Entomology, to which 

 we refer our readers. 



a, niani oliliiM, rather above llic natural lize. t. An uitenua of UK .uii 

 magnified. 



BLASENDORF, or BALASFALVA, a circle in tho 

 county of Lower Weissenburg or Alben in Austrian Trans- 

 sylvania, containing, besides the town of its name, fifteen 

 villages. Balasfalva or Blasendorf, the chief place of the 

 circle, and a large market-town, is the residence of tho 

 Graco-Roman Catholic- bishop of Foguras, and lies at tho 

 confluence of the two Kockels, in 46 9' N. lat., and V..: 

 E. long. It possesses a theological and philosophical semi- 

 nary for Grsoco-Cathohcs, a Roman Catholic school for edu- 

 cating teachers, a Greek monastery of the order of St. 

 Basil, two Gncco-Catholic churches, a Protestant church, 

 and a gymnasium. Population about 4200 souls. 



BLA'SPHEMY (in Greek j3Xa<r^q/iia, blasphemia'), a 

 crime marked for public punishment in the laws of must 

 civilized nations, and which has been regarded of such 

 enormity in many nations as to be punished with death. 

 The word is Greek, but it has found its way into the English 

 and several other modern languages, owing, it is supj 

 to the want of native terms to express \vitli precision and 

 brevity the idea of which it is the representative. It is, 

 properly speaking, an ecclesiastical term, most of which 

 are Greek, as the term ecclesiastical itself, and under this 

 letter, B, the terms >,n/>ti\m, l>il>I<; and Inxhnp. This has 

 arisen out of the scriptures of the New Testament having 

 been written in Greek, and those of the Old having in re- 

 mote times been tin- better known in the Greek translation 

 than in the original Hebrew. 



Blasphemy is a compound word, of which the second pnrt 

 (]>hp-m) signifies to speak : the origin ol tin- lir-t part (li/n.\) 

 is not so certain; it is derived from ftXAirra {blapto), to 

 hurt or strike, according to some. KtMliolo<_ r ically there- 

 fore it denotes speaking so as to strike or hurt : the using 

 to a person's i;\<v repr nachful and insulting exprc^ 

 (But others derive the first part of the compound from 

 flXdt. See Passow's Schneider.) In this general way it is 

 used by Greek writers, and even in the New Testament : as 

 in 1 Tim. vi. 4, ' Whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil 

 surmisings,' where the word rendered ' railings ' is in the 

 original 'blasphemies.' In Eph. iv. 31, 'Let nil bitterness 

 and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil -speaking l<e 

 put away from you,' where 'evil-speaking ' represents ihc 

 ' blasphemy ' of the original. In a similar passage, Col. 

 iii. H, the translators have retained the 'blasphemy' of the 

 original, though what is meant is probably no more than 

 ordinary insulting or reproachful speech. Thus ;i!>> m 

 Mark vii. 22, our Saviour himself, in enumerating various 

 cul dispositions or practices, mentions ' an evil eve, blas- 

 phemy, pride, foolishness,' not meaning, as it seems, more 

 than the ordinary case of insultinii spe, 



Blasphemy in this sense, however it is to be avoided as 

 immoral and mischievous, is not marked as crime ; ami its 

 suppression is left to tho ordinary influences of morals and 

 religion, and not proudtd tor by law. In tliis si-nsc indeed 

 the word can hardly be said to be naturalized among us, 



