672 



HREDOVV BREMEN. 



attacked by the army of Pichegm, but did not sur- 

 mider till all Holland was conquered, in the winter 

 of 1794. On tlie approach of the Russian van-guard, 

 mder general Benkendorf, in Dec., 1813, the French 

 garrison made a sally, and the patriotic citizens pro- 

 ited by the occasion, rose en masse, shut the pates, 

 and prevented the French from returning into tin- 

 town. A peace was concluded at 15. between Eng- 

 land and Holland in Hit>7. 



BREDOW, Gabriel Godfrey, professor of history in 

 Rreslau, was born in Berlin, in 1773, of poor parents. 

 He was, for a time, professor at Eutin, and a colleague 

 of the celebrated Voss ; afterwards professor at 

 Helmstadt, nnd, still later, at Frankfort on the Oder, 

 whence he went to Breslau on the removal of the 

 university to that place. He died in 1814. He was 

 distinguished tor his patriotism and his literary works. 

 His ilnndbitch tier alien Geschichte (Manual of An- 

 cient History) has passed through five editions, the 

 last of which appeared in 1825. He is the author 

 of Chronik des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts (Chronicle 

 of the Nineteenth Century), Epistolee Parisienses, (he 

 went to Paris in 1807, to collect all that has been left 

 to us by the Greek geographers), Untersuchungen 

 vber Geschichte, Geographic, wad Chronologic (Re- 

 searches on History, Geography, and Chronology), 

 and of the very useful Historische Tabellen (Histori- 

 cal Tables), which have been translated into English. 



BREECHES ; an article of clothing in use even among 

 the Babylonians, and which, with them, were made 

 so as to cover the foot, and supply the place of stock- 

 ings. In Europe, we find hose first used among the 

 Gauls ; hence the Romans called a part of Gaul 

 breeched Gaul (Gallia braccata). In the 5th century, 

 they had become fashionable in Rome; but the 

 breeches-makers were expelled from the city by an 

 imperial edict, it being considered unworthy of the 

 lords of the world to wear these barbarous invest- 

 ments. The stockings were separated from them 

 some centuries since. Sometimes they were worn 

 small, and sometimes large, as the fashion changed. 

 In some instances, an immense quantity of cloth was 

 put in them. The poor stufl'ed theirs out with such 

 substances as they could procure. Joachim II., 

 elector of Brandenburg, who liad forbidden the 

 wearing of these enormous integuments, made a per- 

 son, whom he saw with a pair, rip them open, when 

 some bushels of bran fell out of them. Osiander (in 

 his Hoffahrtsteufel) and Musculus (in his Hosenteufel) 

 raised their voices against this preposterous fashion. 

 The modern breeches were first introduced during the 

 reign of Louis XIV. 



BREECHING ; a rope used to secure the cannon of a 

 ship of war, and prevent them from recoiling too 

 much in the time of battle. It is of sufficient length 

 to allow the muzzle of the cannon to come within the 

 ship's side to be charged. 



BREEZES, SEA, LAND, and MOUNTAIN. See /finds. 



BREHON ; an ancient Irish magistrate. The office 

 appears to have been hereditary. Each tribe had one 

 brehon, whose judgments were given in the open air 

 on the hill-tops ; many spots are yet called Brehons' 

 chairs. The office was abolished under Edward III. 

 Some fragments of the brehon law are yet extant. See 

 Ledwich^ Antiquities of Ireland, 1790. 



BREISGAU. See Brisgau. 



BREISLAK, Scipio, was born in Rome, 1768, and 

 destined for the church, for which reason he is men- 

 tioned as an abbate in the works of Spallananzi. He 

 was one of the most ingenious geologists of our times, 

 and opposed to the Neptunian system, without, how- 

 ever, implicitly adopting the Vulcanian. He was 

 professor ef natural philosophy and mathematics at 

 Ragusa. He was afterwards professor in the collegia 

 Nazareno, at Rome, made a scientific tour through 



Naples, and went to Paris, where he formed an inti- 

 macy with Fourcroy, Chaptal, Cuvier, &c. Napoleon 

 appointed him inspector of the saltpetre works and 

 powder-mills in the kingdom of Italy. He was also 

 a member of the institute and many other literary so- 

 cieties. The first work, by which lie made himself 

 known to the public as an observer of nature, (e. g. 

 Ins (realise on the so/fatara in the vicinity of Naples, 

 in the neighbourhood of which he lived for years as 

 director or the establishments for boiling alum), con- 

 tains indications of the principles wlii'ch he after- 

 wards developed in his system. The first extensive 

 work, which he published at Florence io- 1798, was 

 the Topografia Fisica delta Campagna (Physical To- 

 pography ot Campania). After some time spent in 

 the examination of this region, he returned to Home, 

 examined the adjoining country in a geological point 

 of view, and confirmed his former opinion, that the 

 seven hills are chiefly the remains of an extinct vol- 

 cano. Leaving his native city on account of political 

 disturbances, he went to France, where he made 

 himself known to the mineralogists, in 1801, by a 

 new edition of the above-mentioned work, (disfigured, 

 indeed, by many misprints,) with additional remarks, 

 supplements, and corrections, under the title Voyages 

 Physiques et Lithologigvcs dans la Campanie, 2 vols. 

 A topographico-mineralogical description of the en- 

 virons of Rome is added to it. It contains the results 

 of twelve years' researches. Till then, there had 

 been no systematic treatise on the mineralogy of 

 mount Vesuvius. Earlier writings on this volcano 

 contained merely the history of single eruptions, and 

 the only mineralogical work on this subject, by Gonni, 

 is nothing but a catalogue. B. was the, first who 

 examinea geologically the regions described in his 

 work. This valuable work has been translated into 

 several languages ; into French by general Pomme- 

 reuil, into German by Fr. Ambr. Reuss (Leipsic, 

 1802, 2 vols. with engravings). B. took advantage 

 of his residence in France to examine the. regions of 

 Auvergne famous for the Puys (volcanic mountains), 

 and his observations there contributed not a little to 

 the formation of his theories on the effects of vol- 

 canoes. In Milan, he wrote his Arte di Salnitrajo, 

 (Art of manufacturing Saltpetre), and, in 1811, pub- 

 lished his Introduzione alia Geologia, (Introduction to 

 Geology), 2 vols., which was, in 1818, followed by an 

 edition in French, almost a new work, under the title. 

 Institutions Geologiques, 3 vols., likewise published at 

 Milan. In 1822, his beautiful geological description 

 of the province of Milan appeared. He died at Turin, 

 Feb. 1 5, 1826, aged seventy-eight. He left his cele- 

 brated cabinet ot minerals to the family of Borromeo. 



BREITKOPF, John Gottlob Emmanuel ; born at 

 Leipsic, in 1719. He pursued, at first, a literary 

 career. During his studies, the works of Albert 

 Durer, in which the proportions of letters ?.re mathe- 

 matically calculated, fell into his hands. He was 

 pleased with this subject, and, during his whole life, 

 laboured with zeal to improve the German characters. 

 An attempt was once made to introduce into Germany 

 the Latin characters instead of those commonly used 

 in that country. B. was one of the most zealous op- 

 posers of the plan. In 1755, he essentially improved 

 the art of printing music with movable characters. 

 His invention of a method of printing maps, pictures, 

 and even Chinese characters, by means of movable 

 types, is ingenious, though less useful than the other. 

 Although the pope, as well as the academy in Paris, 

 testified their great approbation of this invention, yet 

 no practical use has yet been made of it. He was 

 engaged in writing a history of the art of printing, 

 but died in 1794, before this work was finished. B. 

 was a man of great probity. 



BREMEN, on the Weser, situated in a territory for- 



