750 



BUEN RETIRO BUFFON. 



Paraguay, Is also carried on through the city. From 

 300 to 400 foreign ships annually enter this port. 

 The climate of B. is mild. There arc very few days 

 in winter in which water is frozen. In 180G 13. was 

 conquered by an English squadron, under the com- 

 mand of admiral Popham and general Beresford. 

 Soon after the inhabitants, having recovered from 

 their terror, attacked the BritMi'by surprise, and 

 made a great slaughter among them. In the follow- 

 ing year Whitelock and Crawford came over with re- 

 enforcements. They were quietly permitted to enter 

 the city, and were then attacked with such fury, that 

 a third part of their number was destroyed, and the. 

 remainder were glad to conclude a truce. 



BOEN KKTIKO ; a royal summer residence, on an 

 elevated ground, near Madrid, built, with much 

 splendour, by the duke of Olivarez, at the beginning 

 of the seventeenth century. It has a theatre, park, 

 end some valuable pictures. In 1808, when the 

 French attacked Madrid, Dec. 5, it was the centre of 

 the conflict, and was plundered. The French after- 

 wards fortified it, and used it as a citadel. 



BUFFALO ; a post-town of New York, the capital of 

 Erie county, situated at the eastern end of lake Erie, 

 at the efflux of Niagara river, and at the west end of 

 the Erie canal ; 296 miles W. of Albany, 240 E. of 

 Sandusky. Population in 1810, 1508 ; in 1820, 2095 ; 

 in 1825, 5140. The village of B. is very advantage- 

 ously and finely situated on a handsome plain, near 

 the entrance of Buffalo creek, or river into lake Erie, 

 on the channel of communication between the Atlan- 

 tic ocean and the lakes. It has been, for several 

 years past, a very flourishing place, and has an exten- 

 sive trade. In 1813 this village, which then contained 

 about 100 houses, was burned by the British, in retali- 

 ation for the burning of Newark, in Upper Canada, 

 by the Americans. Black Rock is a considerable 

 post-village, within the township of B., two miles 

 from the village of B. It is situated at the ferry 

 across the Niagara river, which is here about three 

 quarters of a mile wide. 



BUFFALO ; in America, a name misapplied to the 

 bison, (q. v.) It properly belongs to a species of ox 

 (bos biibalus), found in various parts of India. This 

 species, in the wild state, lives in herds of considerable 

 numbers, frequenting moist and marshy situations. It 

 is naturally fierce ana stubborn, and is with difficulty 

 subjugated. The bellowing of the buflalo is hoarser 

 than ttiat of the common bull. The female begins to 

 breed at four years of age, and ceases at twelve. The 

 term of life in this species is from eighteen to twenty- 

 five years. One variety of this species has horns of 

 vast size and length. This is the ami or arnee. 

 The horns are turned laterally, and flattened in front. 

 They are wrinkled on the concave surface, four or 

 five feet long, and eight or ten from tip to tip. The 

 buflalo is seven or eight feet long, by four in height, 

 and is generally of a black colour. The skin is 

 covered by a harsh and thinly-scattered hair. 



BOFFET ; anciently, a little apartment, separated 

 from the rest of the room, for the disposing of china, 

 glass, &c. Jt is now a piece of furniture in the dining- 

 room, called also a side-board, for the reception of the 

 plate, glass, &c. In France, the principal houses have 

 a detached room, called buffet, decorated with pitch- 

 ers, vases, fountains, &c. 



BUFFON, George Louis Leclerc, count of, one ol 

 the most celebrated naturalists and authors of the 

 eighteenth century, was born at Montbard, in Burgun- 

 dy, 1707, and received from his father, Benjamin Le- 

 clerc, counsellor to the parliament of his province, a 

 careful education. Chance connected him, at Dijon, 

 with the young duke of Kingston, whose tutor, a man 

 of learning, inspired him with a taste for the sciences. 

 They travelled together through France and Itaty, 



and B. afterwards visited England. In order to 

 >erfect himself in the language without neglecting 

 ,he sciences, he translated Newton's Fluxions and 

 Elales' Vegetable Statics. After some time he pub- 

 ished some works of his own, in which he treated of 

 geometry, natural philosophy, and rural economy. 

 He laid his researches on these subjects before the 

 academy of sciences, of which he became a member 

 n 1733. The most important were on the construc- 

 tion of mirrors for setting bodies on fire at a great 

 distance, as Archimedes is said to have done, and 

 xperiments on the strength of different kinds of 

 wood, and the means of increasing it, particularly by 

 emoving the bark of the trees some time-before fell- 

 ng them. B., in his earlier years, was animated only 

 jy an undefined love of learning and fame, but his 

 appointment as intendant of the royal garden, in 1736, 

 ave his mind a decided turn towards that science in 

 which he has immortalized himself. Considering 

 natural history in its whole extent, he found no works 

 n this department but spiritless compilations and dry 

 lists of names. There were excellent observations, 

 indeed, on single objects, but no comprehensive 

 work. Of such a one he now formed the plan, 

 aiming to unite the eloquence of Pliny, and the pro- 

 found views of Aristotle, with the exactness and the 

 details of modern observations. To aid him in this 

 work, by examining the numerous and often minute 

 objects embraced in his plan, for which he had not 

 the patience nor the physical organs requisite, he as- 

 sociated himself with Daubenton, who possessed the 

 qualities in which he was deficient ; and, after an as- 

 siduous labour of ten years, the two friends publish- 

 ed the three first volumes of the Natural History, 

 and, between 1749 and 1767, twelve others, which 

 comprehend the theory of the earth, the nature of 

 animals, and the history of man and the viviparous 

 quadrupeds. The most brilliant parts of them, the 

 general theories, the descriptions of the characters of 

 animals, and of the great natural phenomena, are by 

 B. Daubenton limited himself to the description of 

 the forms and the anatomy of the animals. The nine 

 following volumes, which appeared from 1770 to 

 1783, contain the history of birds, from which 

 Daubenton withdrew his assistance. The whole 

 shape of the work was thus altered. Descriptions, 

 less detailed, and almost entirely without 'anatomy, 

 were inserted among the historical articles, which, at 

 first, were composed by Guenau de Montbeillard, and 

 afterwards by the abbe Bexori. B. published alone 

 the five volumes on minerals, from 1783 to 1788. Of 

 the seven supplementary volumes, of which the last 

 did not appear until after his death, in 1789, the fifth 

 formed an independent whole, the most celebrated of 

 all his works. It contains his Epochs of Nature, in 

 which the author, in a style truly sublime, and with 

 the triumphant power or genius, gives a second 

 theory of the earth, very different from thai which he 

 had traced in the first volumes, though he assumes, 

 at the commencement, the air of merely defending 

 and developing the former. This great labour, with 

 which B. was occupied during fifty years, is, however, 

 but a part of the vast plan which he had sketched, 

 and which has been continued by Lacepede, in his 

 history of the different species of cetaceous animals, 

 reptiles, and fishes, but has remained unexecuted as 

 far as regards the invertebral animals and the plants. 

 There is out one opinion of B. as an author. For the 

 elevation of his views, for powerful and profound 

 ideas, for the majesty of his images, for noble and 

 dignified expression, for the lofty harmony of his 

 style in treating of important subjects, he is, perhaps, 

 unrivalled. His pictures of the sublime scenes of 

 nature are strikingly true, and are stamped with ori- 

 ginality. The fame of his work was soon universal. 



