208 
BAS 
BAS 
BAS 
trench, being filled with earth. They are 
about a foot and a half high, about a foot and 
a half diameter at the top, and eight or ten 
inches at bottom ; so that being set together, 
there is a sort of embrasure left at their bot- 
toms, through which the soldiers lire without 
exposing themselves. 
Baskets are made of rushes, splinters, or 
willows, which last, according to their manner 
of growth, are called osiers and sallows. 1 hey 
thrive best in moist places; and the pro- 
prietors of such marsh lands generally let 
what they call the willow-beds to persons 
who cut them at certain seasons, and prepare 
them for basket-makers. To form an osier- 
bed, the land should be divided into plots, 
six, eight, or ten feet broad, by narrow 
ditches ; and if there is a power of keeping 
> water in these cuts at pleasure, by means of a 
sluice, it is highly advantageous in many sea- 
sons. Osiers planted in small spots, and 
along hedges, will supply a farmer with hur- 
dle-stuff, as well as with a profusion of all sorts 
of baskets. The common osier is cut at three 
yearn, but that with yellow bark is permitted 
to remain a year longer. 
When the osiers are cut down, those that 
are intended for white work, such as baskets 
used in washing, are to be stripped of their 
bark or rinds while green. This is done by 
means of a sharp instrument fixed into a firm 
block; the osiers are passed over this, and 
stripped of their covering with great velo- 
city. They are then dried, and put in bun- 
dles for sale. Before they are worked up, 
they must be soaked in water, which gives 
them flexibility. The basket-maker usually 
sits on the ground to his business, unless when 
■the baskets are too large for him to reach 
their upper parts in that position. 
Hampers and other coarse work are made 
of osiers without any previous preparation 
except soaking. It requires no great capital 
either of money or ingenuity to exercise the 
business of a basket-maker. Some expert 
workmen make a variety of articles of wicker 
manufacture, as work-baskets of different 
descriptions, table-mats, small baskets used 
for fruit at desserts, &c. 
The ant ient Britons were noted for their in- 
genuity in making baskets, which they export- 
ed in large quantities. They were of very- 
elegant workmanship, and bore a high price. 
Martial takes notice of them : 
“ A basket I, by painted Britons wrought, 
And now to Home’s imperial city brought.” 
Basket, as a measure, denotes an uncer- 
tain quantity ; as, a basket of medlars is two 
bushels, of asafcetida from 20 to 30 lb. weight. 
BASON, in mechanics, a term used by r 
glass-grinders for a dish of copper, iron, Ac. 
in which they grind convex glasses, as con- 
cave ones are formed on spheres ; and by 
batters for a round iron mould, in which 
they form the matter of their hats; and also 
for a leaden one for the brims of hats, having 
an aperture in the middle, of a diameter 
sufficient for the largest block to go through. 
Bason, sale by the, at Amsterdam, is a 
public sale made by authority, over which 
presides an officer appointed by the magis- 
trates. It is so called because, before the 
lots are delivered to the highest bidder, they 
commonly strike on a copper bason, to give 
notice that the lot is going to be adjudged. 
BASS, in music, that part of a concert 
which is most heard, which consists of the 
gravest and deepest sounds, and which is 
played on the largest pipes or strings of a 
common instrument, as of an organ, lute, &c. 
or on instruments larger than ordinary for 
that purpose, as bass-viols, bassoons, bass- 
hautboys, Ac. The bass is the principal 
part of a musical composition, and the foun- 
dation of harmony ; for which reason it is a 
maxim among musicians that when the bass 
is good the harmony is seldom bad. 
Bass thorough, is the harmony made by- 
the bass-viols, or theorbos, continuing to 
play both while the voices sing, and the other 
instruments perform their parts, and also 
filling up the intervals when any of the other 
parts stop. It is played by cyphers marked 
over the notes on the organ, spinet, harp- 
sichord, Ac. and frequently simply and 
without cyphers, on the bass-viol, and bas- 
soon. ^ , 
Bass, counter, is a second or doubln&ass, 
where there are several in the same concert. 
BASSET, a game at cards, said to have 
been invented by a noble Venetian, for 
which he was banished. The persons con- 
cerned in it are a dealer, or banker ; his as- 
sistant, who supervises the losing cards ; and 
the punter, or any one who plays against the 
banker. # 
BASSIA, in botany-, a genus of the dode- 
candria class of plants, and monogynia order, 
the characters of w-hich are; the calyx is 
quadriphyllous ; the corolla octofid, with the 
tube inflated; the gtamina are 16; and the 
drupe is quinquespermous. There. are three 
species, natives of Malabar and the South 
Seas. 
BASSOON, a musical instrument of the 
wind sort, blown with a reed, furnished with 
eleven holes, and used as a bass in a concert 
of hautboys, flutes, Ac. 
BASSORIA, a genus of the pentandria 
monogynia class and order. The ess’ential 
character is: calyx five-cleft, spreading, with 
a short tube ; berry ovate, knobbed, and 
many seeds. There is but one species, an 
herbaceous plant of Guiana, of little note. 
BASSO-RELIEVO, or Bass-relief, a 
piece of sculpture, where the figures or 
images do not project or stand out far above 
the plane on which they are formed. What- 
ever figures or representations are thus cut, 
stamped, or otherwise wrought, so that not 
the entire body, but only part of it is raised 
above the plane, are said to be done in relief, 
or relievo ; and when the work is low, flat, 
and but a little raised, it is called low relief: 
when a piece of sculpture, a coin, or a me- 
dal, has its figure raised so as to be well dis- 
tinguished, it is called bold, and we say its 
relief is strong. 
The origin of basso-relievo is thought to 
have been described in the story of the Maid 
of Corinth, related by Pliny; who says that 
Dibutades, theSicyonian potter, her father, 
invented a method of taking likenesses in the 
following manner : His daughter being in 
love with a young man who was going on 
foreign service, she circumscribed the sha- 
dow of his face with lines upon the wall by 
lamp-light; her father took the impression 
in clay, and baked it among his vases. 
BASS-VIOL, a musical instrument of the 
same form with that of a violin, but much 
larger. It is struck with a bow as that is, 
has the same number of strings, and has eight 
stops, which are subdivided into semi-stops : 
its sound is grave, and has a much nobler 
effect in a concert than that of the violin. 
BASTARD, one who is born of any wo- 
man not married, so that his father is not 
known by order of the law. A bastard, by 
our English laws, is one that is not only be- 
gotten, but born, out of lawful matrimony . 
As all children born before matrimony are 
bastards, so are all children born so long 
after the death of the husband, that by the 
usual course of gestation they could not be 
begotten by him. 
If a man marry a woman grossly big with 
child by another, and even within three days 
afterwards she is delivered, the issue is no 
bastard. 1 Danv. Abr. 729. 
If a child is born within a day after mar- 
riage between parties of full age, if there be 
no apparent impossibility that the husband 
should be the father of it, the child is no bas- 
tard, but supposed to be the child of the 
husband. 1 Rol. Abr. 
If a bastard die without issue, though the 
land cannot descend to any heir on the part 
of the father, yet to the heir on the part of 
the mother (being no bastard) it may; be- 
cause he is of the blood of the mother, but he 
has no father. 2 Roll. Abr. • If a bastard 
die intestate, leaving neither widow nor issue, 
the king is intitled to the personality. 
2 Black. 505. 
The incapacity of a bastard consists prin- 
cipally in this, that he cannot be heir to any 
one, neither can he have heirs but of his own 
body; for being nullius filius, he is therefore 
of kin to no one, nor has he any ancestor 
from whom any inheritable blood can be de- 
rived. 3 Salk. 66. 
A bastard may be made legitimate, and 
capable of inheriting, by the transcendent 
power of an act of parliament. 1 Black. 459. 
If any single woman be delivered of a bas- 
tard-child which shall be chargeable or likely 
to become chargeable ; or shall declare her- 
self to be w ith child, and that such child is 
likely- to be born a bastard, and to be charge- 
able ; and shall in either of such cases, in an 
examination to be taken in writing, on oath, 
before one justice of the peace of the county, 
Ac. where such parish or place shall lie, 
charge any- person with having gotten her 
with child, it shall be lawful dor such justice, 
upon application made to him by the oyer- 
seers of the poor of such parish, or one of 
them, or by any substantial householder of 
any r extra-parochial place, to issue out his 
warrant for the immediate apprehending 
such person so charged as aforesaid, and for 
bringing him before such justice, or before 
any r other justices of the peace of such county, 
city, or town corporate; and the justice, be- 
fore whom such person shall he brought, shall 
commit him' to the common gaol or house of 
correction, unless he shall give security to 
indemnify such parish or place; or shall enter 
into a recognizance, with sufficient security, 
upon condition to appear at the next general 
quarter session, or general session of the 
peace. 6 Geo. II. c, 31. 
Though a bastard child is prima facie 
settled where born, yet this rule admits of 
several exceptions: as where a bastard is 
born under an order of removal, and before 
the mother can be sent to her place of settle- 
ment ; or if a woman be delivered on the 
road in transitu, while the officers are con- 
ducting her, by virtue of an order of re- 
