BER 



BER 



separate treatises. And the whole of 

 them were carefully collected and pub- 

 lished at Lausanne and Geneva, 1F42, in 

 4 volumes, 4to. 



BERNOULLI (DANIEL), a celebrated 

 physician and philosopher, and son of John 

 Bernoulli last mentioned, was born at 

 Groningen, February the 9th, 1700, where 

 his father was then professor of mathe- 

 matics. He was intended by his father 

 for trade, but his genius led him to other 

 pursuits. He passed some time in Italy ; 

 and at 24 years of age he declined the 

 honour offered him of becoming presi- 

 dent of an academy intended to have been 

 established at Genoa. He spent several 

 years with great credit at Petersburg!! ; 

 and in 1733 returned to Basil, where his 

 father was then professor of mathema- 

 tics ; and here our author successively 

 filled the chair of physic, of natural and 

 of speculative philsosphy. 



Daniel Bernoulli wrote a multitude of 

 pieces, which have been published in the 

 Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences at 

 Paris, and in those of other academies. 

 He gained and divided ten prizes from the 

 Academy of Sciences, which were con- 

 tended for by the most illustrious mathe- 

 maticians in Europe. The only person 

 who has had similar success, in the same 

 line, is Euler, his countryman, disciple, 

 rival, and friend. His first prize he gain- 

 ed at 24 years of age. In 1734 he di- 

 vided one with his father, which hurt the 

 family union ; for the father considered 

 the contest itself as a want of respect ; 

 and the son did not sufficiently conceal 

 that he thought (what was really the 

 case) his own piece better than his fa- 

 ther's. And besides, he declared for New- 

 'ton, against whom his father had contend- 

 ed all his life. In 1740, our author di- 

 vided the prize, " On the Tides of the 

 Sea," with Euler and Maclaurin. The 

 Academy at the same time crowned a 

 fourth piece, the chief merit of which was 

 that of being a Cartesian : but this was 

 the last public act of adoration paid by 

 the Academy to the authority of the au- 

 thor of the Vortices, which it had obeyed 

 but too long. In 1743, Daniel Bernoulli 

 succeeded his father John in the Acade- 

 my of Sciences, who had succeeded his 

 brother James ; this place, since its first 

 erection in 1699, having never been with- 

 out a Bernoulli to fill it. 



Our author was extremely respected at 

 Basil ; and to bow to Daniel Bernoulli, 

 when they met him in the streets, was one 

 of the first lessons which every father 



VOL. II. 



gave every child. He was a man of great 

 simplicity and modesty of manners. He 

 used to tell an anecdote, which he said 

 had given him more pleasure than all the 

 other honours he had received. Travel- 

 ling with a learned stranger, who, being 

 pleased with his conversation, asked his 

 name ; " I am Daniel Bernoulli," answer- 

 ed he, with great modesty ,- " And I," 

 said the stranger (who thought he meant 

 to laugh at him), " am Isaac Newton." 



After a long, useful, and honourable 

 life, Daniel Bernoulli died the 17th of 

 March, 1782, in the 83d year of his age. 



BERRY, a round fruit, for the most 

 part soft, and covered with a thin skin, 

 containing seeds in a pulpy substance ; 

 but if it be harder, or covered with a 

 thicker skin, it is called pomum, apple. 



BERTIERA, in botany, so named from 

 M. Bertier, a genus of the Pentandria Mo- 

 nogynta class and order. Natural order 

 of Contorts, Linn. Bubiacex, Jussieu. Es- 

 sential character : calyx turbinate, five- 

 toothed ; corol tube short, with a villose 

 mouth ; berry globose, inferior, two-cell- 

 ed, many-seeded. There is but one spe- 

 cies, viz. B. guianensis. This is a shrub 

 six or seven feet in height, the thickness 

 of the human arm : branches opposite, 

 knotty, tomentose. Corolla white, found 

 in the wood of Anonna in Guiana, flower- 

 ing and fruiting in the month of June. 



BERYLL, in mineralogy, a species of 

 the flint genus, divided by Werner into 

 two sub-species. 1st. Precious beryll, 

 which is green, passing on the one side in- 

 to blue, and on the other into yellow ; it 

 is commonly mountain green and sela- 

 don ; from the former it passes through 

 various shades to the wine yellow ; from 

 the latter it passes into smalt, sky, and, 

 in rare instances, into azure blue. Its 

 colours are generally pale, sometimes 

 two at once. It is crystallized in long 

 equiangular six-sided prisms, which are 

 perfect or truncated on the edges and 

 angles. The crystals approach to trihe- 

 dral, and sometimes to the oblique tetra- 

 hedral prisms : they are sometimes heaped 

 on each other, the smaller ones being al- 

 most uppermost, thus forming a shape 

 like a tower : and in other cases they are 

 perforated in the direction ef their axes. 

 It is commonly transparent, but passing 

 to the translucent, and is slightly duplicat- 

 ing. It is hard ; scratches quartz ; nearly 

 equal in hardness to topaz, with which 

 the mountain green variety has often been 

 confounded. Easily frangible : and th* 

 specific gravity is 2.6 or 2.7. Before the 



7, 



