BEA 
Beam compass, an instrument consisting 
of a square wooden or brass beam, having 
sliding sockets that carry steel or pencil 
points : they are used for describing large 
circles where the common compasses are 
useless. 
Beams of a ship, are the great main 
cross-timbers which hold the sides of the 
ship from falling together, and which also 
support the decks and orlops: the main 
beam is next the main mast, and from it 
they are reckoned by first, second, third 
beam, &c. the greatest beam of all is called 
the mid-ship beam. 
Beam, or Roller, among weavers, a 
long and thick wooden cylinder, placed 
lengthways on the back part of the loom of 
those who work with a shuttle. 
That cylinder on which the stuff is rolled 
as it is weaved is also called the beam or 
roller, and is placed on the fore part of the 
loom. 
BEAN. See Vicia. 
BEAR. See Ursus. 
Bear, in astronomy. See Ursa. 
Bear, in heraldry. He that has a coat 
of arms is said to bear in it the several 
charges or ordinaries that are in his escut- 
cheon. 
Bear, in gunnery. A piece of ordnance 
is said to come to been, when it lies right 
with, or directly against the mark. 
BEAR’S Breech, in botany. See Acan- 
thus. 
BEARD, the hair growing on the chin, 
and adjacent parts of the face, chiefly of 
adults and males. 
Various have been the ceremonies and 
customs of most nations in regard of the 
beard. The Tartars, out of a religious prin- 
ciple, waged a long and bloody war with 
the Persians, declaring them infidels, merely 
because they would not cut their whiskers, 
after the rite of Tartary : and we find, that 
a considerable branch of the religion of the 
ancients consisted in the management of 
their beard. 
Ecclesiastics have sometimes been enjoin- 
ed to wear, and at other times have been 
forbid the wearing, the beard; and the 
Greek and Romish churches have been a 
long time by the ears about their beards. 
To let the beard grow, in some countries, is 
a token of mourning, as to shave it is the 
like in others. 
The Greeks wore their beards till the 
time of Alexander the Great, that prince 
having ordered the Macedonians to be shav- 
BEA 
ed, for fear it should give a handle to their 
enemies: the Romans did not begin to 
shave till the year of Rome 4.54. Nor did 
the Russians cut their beards till within 
these few years, that Peter the Great, not- 
withstanding liis injunctions upon them to 
shave, was obliged to keep on foot a number 
of officers to cut off, by violence, the beards 
of such as would not otherwise part with 
them. 
Beard of a comet, the rays which the 
comet emits towards that part of the heaven 
to which its proper motion seems to direct 
it : in this the beard of a comet is dis- 
tinguished from the tail, which is understood 
of the rays emitted towards that part from 
whence its motion seems to carry it. 
BEARER of a bil ] of exchange, the per- 
son in whose hands the bill is, and in favour 
of whom the last order was made. 
When a bill is made payable to the 
bearer, it is understood to be payable to 
him in whose hands it is after it becomes 
due. 
Bearers, in heraldry. See Suppor- 
ters. 
BEARING, in navigation and geography, 
the situation of one place from another, with 
regard to the points of the compass; or 
the angle which a line drawn through the 
two places makes with the meridians of 
each. 
The bearings of places on the ground are 
usually determined from the magnetic 
needle, in the managing of which consists 
the principal part of surveying, since the 
bearing or distance of a second point from a 
first being found, the place of that second is 
determined ; or the bearings of a third point 
from two others, whose distance is known, 
being found, the place of the third is deter- 
mined instrumentally. But to calculate 
trigonometrically, there must be more 
data. 
Bearing, in the sea language. When a 
ship sails towards the shore, before the wind, 
she is said to bear in with the land or har- 
bour. To let the ship sail more before the 
wind, is to bear up. To put her right be- 
fore the wind, is to bear round. A ship 
that keeps off from the land, is said to bear 
off. When a ship that was to windward 
comes under another ship’s stern, and so 
gives her the wind, she is said to bear under 
her lee, &c. There is another sense of this 
word, in reference to the burden of a ship ; 
for they say a ship bears, when having too 
slender or loan a quarter, she will Sink too 
