BECCARIA BECKET. 



465 



better support of the roof, and this circumstance has 

 led to all the stories of the different apartments in 

 beaver huts. These larger edifices, so far from hav- 

 ing several apartments, are double or treble houses, 

 the parts liaving no communication except by water. 

 It is a fact, thai the musk rat is sometimes found to 

 have taken lodgings in the huts of the beaver. The 

 otter, also, occasionally intrudes : he, however, is a 

 dangerous guest, for, should provisions grow scarce, 

 it is not uncommon for him to devour his host. All 

 the beavers of a community do not co-operate in fab- 

 ricating houses for the common use of the whole. 

 The only affair in which they have a joint interest, 

 and upon which they labour in concert, is the dam. 

 Beavers also make excavations in the adjacent banks, 

 at regular distances from each other, which have been 

 called washes. These are so enlarged within, that 

 the beaver can raise his head above water to breathe 

 without being seen, and, when disturbed at their huts, 

 they immediately swim under water to these washes 

 for greater security, where they are easily taken by 

 the nunters. 



The food of the beaver consists chiefly of the bark 

 of the aspen, willow, birch, poplar, and, occasionally, 

 alder : to the pine it rarely resorts, unless from severe 

 necessity. They provide a stock of*wood from the 

 trees first mentioned, during summer, and place it in 

 the water, opposite the entrance into their houses. 



The beaver produces from two to five at a litter. 

 It is a cleanly animal, and always performs its eva- 

 cuations in the water, at a distance from the hut: 

 hence no accumulation of filth is found near their 

 dwellings. 



The beaver is about two feet in length ; its body 

 thick and heavy ; the head compressed, and some- 

 what arched at the front, the upper part rather nar- 

 row ; the snout much so. The eyes are placed rather 

 high on the head, and the pupils are rounded ; the 

 ears are short, elliptical, and almost concealed by the 

 fur. The skin is covered by two sorts of hair, of 

 which one is long, rather stifi', elastic, and of a gray 

 colour for two thirds of its length next the base, and 

 terminated by shining, reddish-brown points ; the 

 other is short, thick, tufted, and soft, being of different 

 shades of silver-gray or light lead colour. The hair 

 is shortest on the head and feet. The hind legs are 

 longer than the fore, and are completely webbed. 

 The tail is ten or eleven inches long, and, except the 

 part nearest the body, is covered with hexagonal 

 scales. The part next the body is covered with 

 hair like that on the back. See Godman's Ameri- 

 can Nat. Hist., vol. ii, p. 19, et seq. 



BECCARIA, Cesare Bonesana, marchese di, author of 

 the well known Treatise on Crimes and Punishments, 

 was born at Milan in 1735. He was early excited, 

 by Montesquieu's Lettres Persanes, to the cultivation 

 of his philosophical talents, and afterwards favourably 

 known as a philosophical writer by his memorable 

 work full of a noble philanthropy, Dei Delitti e delle 

 I'ene (On Crimes and Punishments), Naples, 1764, and 

 several others. With the eloquence of true feeling, 

 and a lively imagination, he opposes capital punish- 

 ments and the torture. This work led to the esta- 

 blishment of more settled and more correct principles 

 of penal law, and contributed to excite a general hor- 

 ror against inhuman punishments. B. was a true 

 friend, a good son, a tender husband, and a real phi- 

 lajithropist. He is also known, in Italy, as the author 

 of a philosophical grammar and theory of style, Ri- 

 cerche intorno alia Natura dello Stilo (Milan, 1770) 

 and of several good treatises on style, on rhetorical 

 ornament, &c., contained in the journal II Caffe, edit- 

 ed by him, in conjunction with his friends Visconti, 

 Verri, and others. A fit of apoplexy put an end to 

 his useful life in November, 1793. 



BECCARIA, Giovanni Battista, an ingenious practiai] 

 philosopher, was born, 1716, at Mondovi. He went 

 to Rome in 1732, where he studied, and afterwards 

 taught grammar and rhetoric ; at the same time, he 

 applied himself with success to mathematics. He 

 was appointed professor of philosophy at Palermo, 

 and afterwards at Rome. Charles Emanuel, king of 

 Sardinia, invited him to Turin, in 1748, to fill the 

 professorship of natural philosophy at the university 

 there. Electricity had, at that time, through the 

 experiments of Franklin and others, become an object 

 of universal interest. He therefore published his 

 DelC Elettricismo naturale ed artifiziale (Turin, 4to). 

 The experiments which this work contains on atmo- 

 spherical electricity are so numerous and various, 

 that Priestley affirmed, in his History of Electricity, 

 that Beccaria's labours far surpass all that had been 

 done, before and after him, on this subject. The 

 academies of London and Bologna elected him a 

 member. He wrote many other valuable works on 

 this subject. The most important, Dell' Elettricismo 

 artifiziale (1772), contains all that was then known of 

 electricity. Franklin, who esteemed the works of B., 

 had them translated into English. In 1759, the king 

 employed him to measure a degree of the meridian, 

 in Piedmont. He began the measurement in 1 760, 

 together with the abbot Canonica, and published the 

 result in 1774. The doubts expressed by Cassini of 

 the exactness of this measurement, drew from him 

 his Lettere dun Italiano ad un Parigino, in which 

 he showed the influence of the proximity of the Alps 

 on the deviation of the pendulum. As his thoughts 

 were entirely absorbed by his studies, he often 

 neglected the nicer rules of good-breeding, without 

 losing, however, the general esteem. He died April 

 27, 1781. 



BECHER, John Joachim, author of the first theory 

 of chemistry, was born at Spire, in 1635. He finished 

 his restless life at London, in 1685, after having re- 

 sided in many parts of Germany. He had many 

 enemies, and has been accused, not entirely without 

 justice, of charlatanry ; yet his influence on the 

 science of chemistry gives him still a claim to re- 

 membrance. He brought it into a nearer connexion 

 with physics, and sought for the causes of all the 

 phenomena of the inorganic universe in these two 

 departments of science. This is the object of his 

 principal work, Physica subterranea. At the same 

 time, he began to form a theory of chemistry ; and 

 conceived the idea of a primitive acid, of which all 

 the others were only modifications. He also made 

 researches into the process of combustion. He main- 

 tained that every metal consists of a common earthy 

 matter, of a common combustible principle, and of a 

 peculiar mercurial substance. If we heat a metal so 

 that it changes its form, we disengage the mercurial 

 substance, and nothing remains but the metallic calx. 

 This was the first germ of the phlogistic theory, 

 which was further developed by Stahl, and prevailed 

 until the time of Black and Lavoisier. The numerous 

 works of B. are, even now, not without interest. 



BECKET, Thomas, the most celebrated Roman Ca- 

 tholic prelate in the English annals, was born in 

 London, 1119. He was the son of Gilbert, a London 

 merchant. His mother is said to have been a Saracen 

 lady, to whose father Gilbert was prisoner, in Jeru- 

 salem, being taken captive in one of the crusades. 

 The lady is said to have fallen in love with the, 

 prisoner, and to have followed him to London, where 

 he married her. After study ing at Oxford and Paris, 

 B. was sent, by the favour of Theobald, archbishop 

 of Canterbury, to study civil law at Bononia, in Italy, 

 and, on his return, was made archdeacon of Canter- 

 bury, and provost of Beverley. His claim to the 

 good opinion of Theobald was founded on his bkill in 



