BERGAMOT 



690 



BERING SEA 



BERGAMOT, bur' ga mot, a small evergreen 

 tree whose leaves and flowers resemble those 

 of the bitter orange, and whose pear-shaped 

 fruit has a smooth rind the color of a lemon. 

 The rind yields a greenish-yellow fluid known 

 as oil of bergamot, which is chiefly used in 

 making perfumery. The tree is cultivated in 

 Calabria (Italy) and in France. The name is 

 also applied to a number of different pears, 

 and in America to several pleasingly-fragrant 

 plants of the mint family. 



BERGEN, one of the chief seaports of Nor- 

 way. It is beautifully situated amidst pictur- 

 esque scenery, at the head of a deep bay, with 

 a background of lofty mountains, 186 miles 

 northwest of Christiania. The older portion 

 of the city, founded in 1070, is built of wood 

 and has several times been ravaged by fire 

 and pestilence. The modern town is well built, 

 with wide streets and houses of brick and stone. 

 It has some fine buildings, among which are 

 the cathedral, museum, library and public 

 schools. The principal industries are ship- 

 building and barrel making, and the town car- 

 ries on an extensive trade in dried fish, herring, 

 tar, grain and flour. Although only a little 

 north of the latitude of Petrograd, Bergen has 

 a much milder climate than that city, owing to 

 its sheltered position and the ocean currents 

 from warmer latitudes. The rainfall is unusual, 

 however, averaging annually about seventy- 

 three inches. 



Early in the fourteenth century Bergen be- 

 came an important member of the Hanseatic 

 League (which see). The city was the birth- 

 place of a number of notable men, among them 

 being Ole Bull and Edward Grieg, the musi- 

 cians, and the poet Holberg. Statues of Hoi- 

 berg and Bull have been erected by the city. 

 In January, 1916, a great fire destroyed a large 

 part of the city. Population in 1910, 76,867. 



BERGH, burg, HENRY (1820-1888), founder 

 of the two American societies that strive to 

 prevent cruelty to children and to animals. He 

 was born in New York City and educated at 

 Columbia University. In 1864 he resigned 

 from a position with the American legation at 

 Petrograd, then known as Saint Petersburg, 

 and soon after his return to America became 

 interested in the work of mercy to which he 

 devoted the rest of his life. 



Though ridiculed and opposed, he succeeded 

 in 1866 in having incorporated, under the laws 

 of New York State, the Society for the Pre- 

 vention of Cruelty to Animals, and two years 

 before his death he saw this society estab- 



lished in thirty-nine states of the Union, and in 

 Canada, Brazil and Argentina. In 1874 he 

 rescued a little girl from brutal treatment, 

 which led to the founding of the Society for 

 the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, now 

 established in nearly every state in the Union 

 and the Canadian provinces. These societies 

 have back of them the powerful arm of the law, 

 and can bring about the arrest and punishment 

 of those persons who are inhuman in their 

 treatment of children or animals. Bergh also 

 invented artificial pigeons for the sportsman's 

 gun, and was the first to suggest the use of an 

 ambulance for removing injured animals from 

 the street. 



BERGSON, HENRI Louis (1859- ), a 

 French philosopher whose theories have gained 

 for him a wide following. Intuition and not 

 intellect is to him the trustworthy guide; all 

 former philosophies he rejects, at least par- 

 tially, because intellect had too large a part 

 in their construction. Time to him is the great 

 reality, but he means by time not just what is 

 usually understood. In the ordinary sense of 

 yesterday, to-day and to-morrow time does 

 not exist, according to Bergson, for the past is 

 gone, the present vanishes before one can say 

 "It is here," and the future no one can state 

 positively will ever be. But time in the sense 

 of pure duration, as one feels it in dreams, is 

 the only sure foundation upon which life rests. 



Bergson was born in Paris, of Jewish parent- 

 age, studied in that city, and by 1900 had be- 

 come so well known as a teacher that he was 

 appointed to the chair of philosophy in the 

 College de France. Though he has never 

 striven for general popularity, his doctrines 

 have gained such a vogue that his lecture 

 rooms have been crowded constantly, and peo- 

 ple have been turned away. In 1913 he visited 

 the United States, lecturing at Columbia Uni- 

 versity, and in 1914 was elected to the French 

 Academy. His publications include Time and 

 Free Will, a setting forth of the main principles 

 of his philosophy; Laughter, an essay on the. 

 value of the comic; and Matter and Memory, 

 a discussion of the relation between body and 

 mind. 



BERING, be' ring, SEA, that part of the 

 North Pacific Ocean which lies between Alaska 

 and the eastern coast of Asia. Bering Strait 

 connects it on the north with the Arctic Ocean ; 

 on the south the narrow Alaskan peninsula and 

 the Aleutian Islands separate it from the open 

 Pacific. From north to south it is about 1,000 

 miles in extent, from east to west 1,500 miles. 



