BATTLEFORD 





BAVARIA 



ick and forth over the net. It is usually 

 played by four persons, two on each side of the 



BATTLEFORD, a town in Saskatchewan, at 

 the confluence of Battle and Saskatchewan 

 rivers, on the Canadian Northern and Grand 

 Trunk Pacific railways. It is ninety miles 

 northwest of Saskatoon and 254 miles east of 

 Edmonton. Bat th ford was one of the first 

 settlements in the Northwest, and from 1876 

 to 1883 was the capital of the Northwest Terri- 

 It is now the center of a judicial dis- 



:.d of a district of the Royal Northwest 

 Mounted Police, and has a Dominion lands 

 otlice and meteorological office. The court- 

 house; the town hall and the high school are 

 conspicuous structures. The Battleford dis- 



- noted for mixed farming, and is also 

 popular for hunters, duck and prairie chicken 

 bring abundant. Population in 1911, 1,335; in 

 191G, estimated, 1,500. 



BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC, a 

 stirring popular hymn, much sung on national 

 or patriotic occasions in the United States. It 

 was written by Julia Ward Howe in 1861, to the 

 music of the old song John Brown's Body, and 

 the author herself has told how she happened 

 to write it. She went, during the War of Seces- 

 sion, to watch a review of the Union troops, 

 and later described her return to Washington in 

 the following words: 



"The road was so filled with soldiers that 

 our return from the parade grounds was very 

 "tedious, and to pass the time away we sang 

 John Brown's Body. Some of the marching 

 regiments took it up and it was passed along 

 the road until the echoes reverberated for miles. 

 My pastor asked me why I did not put the 

 spirit of the song into some gracious and ex- 

 < words. I told him I had tried. One 

 morning soon after that I awoke suddenly, and 

 the lim-s I wanted were running vaguely through 

 my mind. I arose and put them down. They 

 were published in the Atlantic Monthly, and the 

 ditor (James Russell Lowell) named it "The 

 I'.attle Hymn of the Republic." 



The first stanza runs as follows: 



seen the glory of the coming 

 of the Lord ; 

 He is trampling out the vintage where the 



M of \vr:ith ;ire stored ; 



He has loosed the fateful lightning of his ter- 



riMc. swift sword 

 His truth is marching on. 



BATTLESHIP. See WARSHIP. 



BATUM, or BATOUM, ba Loom' , a Black 

 Sea port belonging to Russia, to which it was 

 given in 1878 by the Treaty of Berlin, with the 

 condition that it should not be made into a 



naval station. That condition was later can- 

 celled, and in 1SS6 Batum became an important 

 naval and military depot, for its harbor is one 

 of the most spacious on the eastern shore of 

 the Black Sea. Its trade is very large, and it 

 is t he chief point of export for vast amounts of 

 petroleum, wheat and manganese ore from 

 Transcaucasia. Its population is about 40,000. 



BAUCIS, baw' sis, AND PHILEMON, /;/'< 

 mon, an :iged couple who, according to the old 

 myth, were wonderfully rewarded for their 

 kindliness and hospitality. One evening Jupiter 

 and Mercury, who had been wandering about 

 the earth in disguise and had been driven from 

 a village by its unkind inhabitants, came to the 

 cottage of Baucis and Philemon. The old 

 couple, not recognizing their visitors, kindly 

 received the gods and gave them the best from 

 their frugal store. While they were at the table 

 Baucis and Philemon were amazed to see that 

 the milk pitcher was no sooner emptied than it 

 was filled again. Realizing that they were 

 entertaining divine and not mortal guests, they 

 fell on their knees in worship. Their little cot- 

 tage was then changed into a beautiful temple., 

 of which they were made priest and priestess, 

 and -years later, when they were very, very old, 

 they were changed into two graceful trees which 

 stood beside the temple gates. 



BAUXITE, bo'zitc, a clay-like, non-crys- 

 tallized mineral which is the source of alumi- 

 num. It is usually found mixed with iron oxide. 

 In color it varies from white through yellow 

 and brown to red. Eighty per cent of the Amer- 

 ican bauxite comes from Arkansas, and Ala- 

 bama, Georgia and Tennessee produce the bal- 

 ance. There are large deposits in Ireland. The 

 American deposits are excellent for the pro- 

 duction of aluminum, and alum, the salts of 

 which are used for dyeing. Another use for it 

 has been found in the manufacture of fire 

 bricks and crucibles. See ALUMINUM; ALUM. 



BAVARIA, with the exception of Prussia, 

 the largest state of the former German Km- 

 pire. It was a kingdom and consisted of 

 two distinct parts, Bavaria proper, on the ex- 

 treme southeast of the Empire, with Austria- 

 Hungary on the east and south, and Western 

 Bavaria, or the Rhine Palatinate, which lies to 

 the west of the Rhine River. The latter por- 

 tion is only about one-thirteenth of the former 

 kingdom, which has a total area of 29,293 

 square miles, but it has almost one-seventh of 

 the entire population of 6,887,201. South Caro- 

 lina is a little larger, with about one-fourth the 

 number of people. 



