BIS 
BIS 
palm of excellence is due to the moulder, 
the marker, the splitter, the chueker, or 
the depositor ; all of them, like the wheels 
of a machine, seeming to be actuated by 
the same principle. The business is to de- 
posit in the oven seventy biscuits in a mi- 
nute ; and this is accomplished with the 
regularity of a clock ; the clack of the peel, 
during its motion in the oven, operating 
like the pendulum. 
The biscuits thus baked are kept in repo- 
sitories, which receive warmth from being 
placed in drying lofts over the ovens, till 
they are sufficiently dry to be packed into 
bags, without danger of getting mouldy ; 
and when in such a state, they are then 
packed into bags of a hundred weight each, 
and removed into storehouses for immediate 
use. 
The number of bake-houses belonging to 
the victualling-office at Plymouth are two, 
each of which contains four ovens, which 
are heated twenty times a day, and in the 
course of that time bake a sufficient quan- 
tity of bread for 16,000 men. 
The granaries are large, and well con- 
structed; when the wheat is ground, the 
flour is conveyed into the upper stories of 
the bake-houses, whence it descends through 
a trunk in each immediately into the hands 
of the workmen. 
The bake-house belonging to the victual- 
ling-office at Deptford consists of two di- 
visions, and has twelve ovens, each of 
which bakes twenty shoots daily (Sundays 
excepted) ; the quantity of flour used for 
each shoot is two bushels, or 112 pounds, 
which baked produce 102 pounds of bis- 
cuit. Ten pounds are regularly allowed on 
each shoot for shrinkage, &c. The allow- 
ance of biscuit in the navy is one pound for 
each man per day, so that one of the ovens 
at Deptford furnishes bread daily for 2,010 
men. 
BISCUTELLA, in botany, a genus of 
the Tetradynamia Siliculosa class and or- 
der. Natural order of Siliquosas Cruci- 
f'ormes. Essential character; silicle com- 
pressed flat, rounded above and below, 
two-lobed ; calyx, leaflets gibbous at the 
base. There are 6 species ; of which B. auri- 
culata, in a wild state rises about a foot in 
height, but, in a garden, grows nearly two 
feet high, dividing into several branches; 
the flowers are produced at the end of the 
branches, in loose panicles, and are of a 
pile yellow colour; the nectareous gland 
is very large, and, consequently, the calyx 
is bagged out very much at bottom. Native 
of the south of France and Italy. 
BISERRULA, in botany, a genus of 
the Diadelphia Decandria class and order. 
Natural order Papilionacce, or Legumino- 
saj. Essential character; legume two-cell- 
ed, flat ; partition contrary. There is but 
one species; viz. B. pelecinus, bastard hat- 
chet vetch, an annual plant, which grows 
naturally in Italy, Sicily, Spain, and the 
South of France. 
BISHOP, a prelate, or person conse 
crated for the spiritual government of a 
diocese. 
Whether the distinction of bishops from 
mere priests or presbyters was settled in the 
apostolical age, or introduced since, is much 
controverted. It is certain, that in the New 
Testament the names of bishops and priests 
are used indiscriminately ; but tradition, 
the fathers, and the apostolical constitutions 
make a distinction. From this last consi- 
deration bishops are conceived as the high- 
est ecclesiastical dignities, the chief officers 
in the hierarchy, or economy of church-go- 
vernment, as the fathers and pastors of the 
faithful, the successors of the apostles, and, 
as such, the superiors of the church of 
Christ. 
Upon the vacancy of a bishop’s see in 
England the king grants his conge d’elire 
to the dean and ’chapter, to elect the person 
whom, by his letters missive, he hath ap- 
pointed ; and if they do not make the elec- 
tion in twenty days they are to incur a pre- 
munire. The dean and chapter having made 
their election accordingly, the archbishop, 
by the king’s direction, confirms the bishop, 
and afterwards consecrates him by imposi- 
tion of hands, according to the form laid 
down in the Common Prayer Book. Hence 
we see that a bishop differs from an arch- 
bishop in this, that an archbishop with 
bishops consecrates a bishop, as a bishop 
with priests consecrates a priest ; other 
distinctions are, that an archbishop visits a 
province, as a bishop a diocese; that an 
archbishop convocates a provincial synod, 
as a bishop a diocesan one; and that the 
archbishop has canonical authority over all 
the bishops of his province, as a bishop has 
over the priests of his diocese. 
The jurisdiction of a bishop of the church 
of England consists in collating benefices, 
granting institutions, commanding induc- 
tions, taking care of the profits of vacant 
benefices for the use of the successors, con- 
secrating churches and chapels, ordaining 
priests and deacons, confirming after bap- 
