BOLTON BOMB. 



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the greatest fame. Its teachers had the reputation 

 of inculcating principles favourable to despotism, anc 

 were consequently rewarded by the favour of the 

 emperors, and of the Italian sovereigns. During 

 1400 years, every new discovery in science and the 

 arts found patrons here, and the scientific journal 

 prove that curiosity on these subjects is still awake 

 in B. A citizen of B., general count Fern. Marsigli, 

 founded, in 1709, the institute delle scienze, and gave 

 it a library of almost 200,000 volumes. Count Mar- 

 sigli founded and endowed, also, an observatory, an 

 anatomical hall, a botanical garden, and accumulated 

 valuable collections for all branches of science and 

 art. These are at present, connected with the ac- 

 cadetnia Clementina of pope Clement XI. 



In the sixteenth century, the famous painters and 

 sculptors Caracci, Guido Reni, Domenichino, and 

 Albano, founded a school, to which their works have 

 given great reputation. (See Painting.) There were, 

 even as early as the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, 

 great painters in B. Francesco, called it Francia, 

 was famous in the fifteenth century. 



The chief place of the city is adorned by several 

 venerable buildings : among them are the senate hall 

 (which contains a number of excellent pictures and 

 statues, and the 200 folio volumes of the famous na- 

 tural philosopher Ulysses Aldrovandus, written with 

 his own hand, as materials for future works), the 

 palace of justice of the podesta, and the cathedral of 

 St Petronio, with its unfinished front and the meridian 

 of Cassini drawn upon a copper plate in the floor. 

 Among the seventy-three other churches, the follow- 

 ing are distinguished : S. Pietro, S. Salvatore, S. Do- 

 menicho, S. Giovanni in Monte, S. Giacomo maggiore, 

 all possessed of rich treasures of art. The collections 

 of works of art are numerous : they are part of rich 

 family fortunes, transmitted in trust, and are continu- 

 ally increased by each generation. The galleries 

 Sampieri and Zambeccari formerly excelled all others, 

 but are now surpassed by those of Marescalchi and 

 Ercolani. The collection of the academy of painting, 

 endowed, in modern times, by the municipality, prin- 

 cipally with the treasures of abolished churches and 

 monasteries, is rich, and full of historical interest. 

 The admired fountain of the market is deficient in 

 nothing but water. It is adorned with a Neptune in 

 bronze, by John of Bologna. The towers degli Asi- 

 nelli and Garisenda were formerly objects of admira- 

 tion ; the former for its slenderness, which gave it 

 the appearance of an Oriental minaret; the latter 

 for its inclination from the perpendicular, which 

 amounted to fourteen feet. It has since, however, 

 been reduced to one third of its former height, from 

 precaution. B. has always been famous for cheap 

 living, and has been chosen as a residence by many 

 literary men. Gounnands praise it as the native 

 country of excellent maccaroni, sausages, liquors, and 

 preserved fruits. The schools for training animals 

 enjoy, likewise, some reputation. The pilgrimage to 

 the Madonna di S. Lucca, whose church is situated 

 at the foot of the Apennines, half a league distant 

 from B., and to which an arcade of 640 arches leads, 

 annually attracts a great number of people from all 

 parts of Italy. 



BOLTON, GREAT, or BOLTON-ON-THE-MOORS ; a mar- 

 ket-town, parish, and township, in the hundred of 

 Salford, and county of Lancaster, situated among the 

 moors, eleven miles N.W. from Manchester, and 

 197 from London. By far the larger part of the 

 town is of modern origin, and it includes the town- 

 ships and chapelry of Little Bolton, which is only 

 divided from it by the small river Croal. The town 

 was taken by prince Rupert in 1644, and the earl of 

 Derby was executed in it by the republican party in 

 1651. So early as the reign of Henry VIII. this 



town and its vicinity were celebrated for producing 

 what Leland calls cottons, which were however 

 woollens, the vegetable cotton not being introduced 

 until the reign of James I. Velvets entirely made of 

 cotton, were first made here in 1756, and muslins and 

 cotton quiltings in 1703. A few years afterwards the 

 spinning-jenny was brought gradually into general 

 use by Sir Richard Arkwright, the. original patentee, 

 then a barber and a resident of Bolton, who carried 

 the invention into Derbyshire and realized an im- 

 mense fortune. Here also Mr Samuel Crompton, a 

 weaver, invented the machine called a mule, which 

 combined the powers of the spinning-jenny and water- 

 frame ; and for which piece of ingenuity parliament 

 decreed him a reward of 5000. Spinning factories 

 succeeded but only on a small scale, owing to a 

 scarcity of water, which difficulty being superseded 

 by the introduction of the steam-engine, Bolton rapid- 

 ly arose into its present state of consequence. At 

 present the muslin, quilting, and dimity branches, 

 seem most to prevail, and bleaching is carried on to 

 as great an extent. A large proportion of the cotton 

 fabrics manufactured here are bought up by the Man- 

 chester merchants. The principal streets of Bolton 

 unite at the market-place, and the houses being for 

 the most part modern, are regularly built and hand- 

 some. The canal from Manchester, a branch of 

 which runs to Bury, has added materially to the pros- 

 perity of the place ; and it has been further benefited 

 by a new rail-road, affording facilities for a more 

 cheap supply of coal from the neighbouring collieries. 

 Each of the townships of Great and Little Bolton 

 has a separate police, consisting of a borough-reeve 

 and two constables, with inferior officers; and the 

 parochial concerns of the two townships are as dis- 

 tinct as their municipal affairs. The parish of Bolton 

 contains no less than fourteen populous townships, in 

 addition to the two which form the town ; and al- 

 though the soil is sterile, the plentiful supply of coal, 

 looking to the manufacturing character of the vicinity, 

 forms an ample compensation. The population of 

 the entire parish of Bolton in 1831, was 63,034 ; of 

 which number Great Bolton made 28,299, and Little 

 Bolton 12,896. 



BOMB ; a large, hollow, iron ball or shell, formerly 

 often made of cannon-metal, and sometimes of an 

 oval form, with a hole in which a wooden fuse is 

 cemented, and with two little handles. Bombs are 

 thrown from mortars. They are filled with powder 

 and combustible matter (which consists of equal 

 parts of sulphur and nitre, mixed with some mealed 

 powder), and are used for setting fire to houses, blow- 

 ng up magazines, c. The charge in bombs of 

 seventy-four pounds contains from five to eight 

 pounds of powder, and one pound of the other com- 

 position above mentioned. In bombs of ten pounds, 

 it amounts to one pound of powder, and from two to 

 ;hree ounces of the mixture. The fuse, which is hol- 

 .o\v, and filled with powder and other inflammable 

 ingredients, sets fire to the charge. The length and 

 the composition of the fuse must be calculated !n 

 such a way that the bomb shall burst the moment it 

 arrives at the destined place. Bomb-shells are gene- 

 rally cast somewhat thicker at the bottom than above, 

 that they may not fall upon the fuse and extinguish 

 the fire ; yet they are, at present, often cast of an 

 qual thickness in every part, because it has been 

 bund that the fuse remains at the top notwith- 

 i landing. 



As early as the seventh century, balls, filled with 

 jurning matter, were thrown from vessels of clay, 

 ;hen from machines called blydes or manges, or with 

 land-slings made of a small net of iron wire. In 

 1238, James I., king of Arragon, used, at the siege 

 of Valencia, a kind of large rockets, made of four 



