BIENNIALS 



714 



BIGHORN 



BIENNIALS, by en' i ah, in botany, the 

 name given those plants that put forth leaves 

 and roots the first season, remain quiet through 

 the winter, and the next spring or summer 

 bear blossoms, fruit and seed, and then die. 

 That is, their life-span is two years, or prac- 

 tically so. Familiar examples of biennials are 

 the turnip, beet and carrot, which store up 

 food in their roots the first season for the 

 plants to feed upon during the period of flow- 

 ering. Plants that live for one year are known 

 as annuals, while perennials live on year after 

 year for an indefinite period. See ANNUALS; 

 PERENNIALS. 



BIENVILLE, byaNveel', JEAN BAPTISTE LE 

 MOYNE, Sieur de (1680-1758), a well-known 

 explorer who was prominent in the settlement 

 of the French province of Louisiana. As a 

 boy he accompanied his brother Iberville 

 (which see) on his early explorations of the 

 Mississippi, and assisted him in founding 

 Biloxi in 1699. He was appointed governor 

 of Louisiana in 1701, at the age of twenty-one, 

 and founded the city of Mobile, which he 

 made the seat of government, but was re- 

 moved from office in 1707. He continued to 

 be active in the upbuilding of the province, 

 however, and in 1718 was again made gov- 

 ernor, in which year, with the aid of Law's 

 Mississippi Company, he founded the city of 

 New Orleans. This place became the capital 

 of Louisiana province in 1722. Four years 

 later Bienville was again dismissed, but was 

 reinstated in 1733, and for the next ten years 

 worked with untiring zeal for the prosperity 

 of his colony. From 1743 until his death he 

 lived in France. See MISSISSIPPI SCHEME. 



BIERSTADT, beer' staht, ALBERT (1830- 

 1902), a landscape painter whose popularity 

 rests on his pictures of scenes in the Western 

 United States, especially in the Rocky Moun- 

 tains. He was born in Germany, but spent 

 most of his life in America. Though his can- 

 vases do not have the highest artistic merit, 

 they possess a grandeur and impressiveness 

 that make them wonderfully effective. His 

 Sierra Nevada may be viewed in the Corcoran 

 Art Gallery in Washington, D. C.; his Valley 

 of Yosemite is in the James Lenox collection 

 in New York. The Capitol at Washington 

 contains two historical pictures painted by 

 him The Discovery oj the Hudson River and 

 The Settlement oj California. Bierstadt was 

 awarded several German and Austrian decora- 

 tions and was a' member of the National Acad- 

 emy of Design of New York. 



BIGAMY, big 'a mi, in law, the crime of 

 marrying a second time while a first husband 

 or wife is living and not legally divorced. The 

 laws of the Roman Catholic Church formerly 

 regarded a second marriage as bigamous even 

 though the first spouse were dead, the first 

 marriage being a sacrament that was binding 

 on each of the contracting parties for life. 

 That Church does not even now admit the 

 right of civil courts to annul marriages by 

 divorce, but recognizes the right of one to 

 marry again whose first marriage has been 

 broken by death. In most countries the gov- 

 ernment recognizes a properly-granted divorce 

 as sufficient authority to remarry. If a per- 

 son remarrying can prove that he or she is 

 unaware of the fact that a former husband or 

 wife is living, and has had no such knowledge 

 for seven years, the law does not now con- 

 sider remarriage under such circumstances as 

 bigamous. 



In England, until the reign of William III, 

 bigamy was a crime punishable by death. The 

 penalty was reduced in the time of George I 

 to a minimum of two years' imprisonment, with 

 hard labor. In the United States the punish- 

 ment is usually a term of imprisonment, vary- 

 ing from two to five years, accompanied by a 

 fine. Canadian laws concerning bigamy are 

 based on those of England. 



BIGHORN, the name given a wild sheep, 

 native to the Rocky Mountains, and named 

 from the massive horns of the ram, which 





THE BIGHORN 



curve back from the forehead, down and then 

 forward, frequently measuring forty inches. 

 This is also the height of the animal at the 



