38 THE FARMER AT HOME. 



on his guard, and since its use has been understood, has been the 

 means of saving many valuable vessels and lives annually. It might 

 be of essential service to farmers ; but, as yet has not received from 

 them the attention it deserves, as connected with metereology, a 

 science in which they are so much interested. 



BASIN. A term in geology, used to designate a section of country 

 converging to a point lower than the remainder, which part is most 

 usually occupied by lakes, swamps, or rivers. Thus we speak of the 

 basin of the Hudson north of the Highlands, that of the Mohawk above 

 Little Falls, or the basins of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. The best 

 defined basins of Europe are those of London and Paris. The first of 

 these basins is a bed of clay, in some places 700 feet in thickness. 

 The basin of Paris is formed of chalk, alternating with limestone, 

 marls, and gypsum. 



BAZAAR. Among the Turks and Persians, an exchange, mar- 

 ket-place, or place where goods are exposed to sale. The word is of 

 Arabic origin. Some bazaars are open, others are covered with lofty 

 ceilings or domes, pierced to give light. At the bazaars, or in the.. 

 neighborhood of them, are the coffee houses, so much frequented in 

 Turkey, Persia, and other places in the East, and, as the Orientals 

 live almost entirely out of doors, the bazaars of populous cities, besides 

 their mercantile importance, are of consequence as places of social 

 intercourse. 



The bazaar of Ispahan is one of the finest places in Persia. That 

 of Tauris is the largest known, and will contain 30,000 men. At 

 Constantinople are two bazaars. In the Oriental tales, for instance, in 

 the Arabian Nights, the bazaars occupy a conspicuous place. Since 

 the system of credit is almost entirely unknown in Eastern trade, and 

 all commercial transactions take place in merchandise and money, 

 the places where this merchandise is brought and changed from one 

 to another are, of course, very 'much frequented. 



BEAN. A vegetable, the seed of which is used for food. Among 

 the ancients, many prohibitions were uttered against them by various 

 teachers. The reasons upon which they were thus interdicted, are 

 not clearly understood by the moderns. The precept of Pythagoras, 

 "Abstain from beans," has been variously interpreted. It is gene- 

 rally supposed to have some hidden meaning. Beans were used in 

 balloting for public offices ; and hence some have imagined, that 

 Pythagoras, in reality, charged his disciples not to meddle with the 

 affairs of the state. For whatever reason, beans appear to have been 

 held by several nations in aversion, and even abhorrence. Cicero 

 suggests, that they are unfavorable to tranquility of mind. 



BEE, or APIS. A genus of interesting insects. A hive consists 

 of a queen, several hundred drones, and from ten to twenty thousand 

 workers. The body of the queen is considerably larger than that of 

 the others. The government is a regular monarchy, and if there 



