BRA 
.people, and perform their office of praying 
and reading the law, with several inimical 
gestures, and a kind of quavering Voice. 
They believe, that, in the beginning, nothing 
but God and the water existed, and that 
the Supreme Being, desirous to create the 
■world, caused the leaf of a tree, in the shape 
of a child playing with its great toe in its 
mouth, to float on the water. From its 
navel there issued out a flower, whence 
Brama drew his original, who was intrusted 
by God with the creation of the world, and 
presides over it with an absolute sway. 
They make no distinction between the 
souls of man and brutes, but say the dig- 
nity of the human soul consists in being 
placed in a better body, and having more 
room to display its faculties. They allow 
of rewards and punishments after this life ; 
and have so great a veneration for cows, 
that they look on themselves as blessed, if 
they can but die with the tail of one of them 
in their hand. They have preserved some 
noble fragments of the knowledge of the 
ancient Brachmans. They are skilful arith- 
meticians, and calculate, with great exact- 
ness, eclipses of the sun and moon. They 
are remarkable for their religious austeri- 
ties. One of them has been known to 
make a vow, to wear about his neck a heavy 
collar of iron for a considerable time : an- 
other to chain himself by the foot to a tree, 
with a Ann resolution to die in that place : 
and another to walk in wooden shoes stuck 
full of , nails on the inside. Their divine wor- 
ship consists chiefly of processions, made in 
honour of their deities. They have a col- 
lege at Banara,, a city seated on the Ganges. 
BRACHURUS, the name of a genus of 
animalcules, with tails shorter than their 
bodies, and no visible limbs. 
BRA CH Y GLOTTIS, in botany, a genus 
of the Syngenesia Snperflua class and or- 
der'. Receptacle naked; down feathery; 
calyx cylindrical, simply equal ; florets of 
the disk five-cleft. There are two species, 
natives of the South Sea Islands. 
BRACHYGRAPHY, the art of short- 
hand-writing. See Short-hand. 
BRACKETS, in a ship, the small knees, 
serving to support the galleries, and com- 
monly carved. Also the timbers that sup- 
port the gratings in the head, are called 
brackets. 
Brackets, in gunnery, are the cheeks 
of the carriage of a mortar : they are made 
of strong planks of w ood, of almost a semi- 
circular figure, and bound round with thick 
iron plates ; they .are fixed to the beds by 
'bra 
four bolts, which are called bed-bolts ; they 
rise up on each side of the mortar, and 
serve to keep her at any elevation, by 
means of some strong iron bolts, called 
bracket-bolts, which go through these cheeks 
or brackets. 
BRADLEJA, in botany, so named from 
Richard Bradley, F. R. S. first professor of 
botany at Cambridge, a genus of the Mo- 
Jioecia Monadelphia class and order. Es- 
sential character : male calyx none ; corol 
petals six, nearly equal; filaments three, 
with three twin antlrers ; female calyx 
none ; corol six-parted, three parts inte- 
rior ; germ superior, with six to eight stig- 
mas ; capsules six-celled, six-valved ; seed 
solitary. There are three species, B. si- 
nica, Chinese bradleja, is a shrub with 
leaves resembling the annona, but not of 
a lucid surface. The fructifications pro- 
ceed from the axils of the leaves. The 
fruits or seed-vessels are compressed, small 
or bicuiar, straited and hard. B. zeylanica, 
is a Ceylonese shrub. B. glochidium, is a 
shrub which grows in the Islands of thp 
Southern or Pacific Ocean. 
BRADLEY (Dr. James), a celebrated 
English astronomer, the third son of William 
Bradley, was born at Sherborne in Glou- 
cestershire, in the year 1692. He went to 
ford, and was admitted a commoner ofBa- 
liol College, March 15, 171ft, where he took 
the degree of bachelor the 14th of Oct. 1714, 
and of master of arts the 21st of January, 
1716. His friends intending him for the 
church, his studies were regulated with that 
view; and as soon as he was of a proper 
age to receive holy orders, the Bishop of 
Hereford, who had conceived a great esteem 
for him, gave him the living of Bridstow, 
and soon after he was inducted to that of 
Landewy Welfry, in Pembrokeshire. 
He was nephew to Mr. Pound, a gentle- 
man well known in the learned world, by 
many excellent astronomical and other ob- 
servations, and who would have -enriched it 
much more, if the journals of his voyages had 
not been burnt at Pulo Condor, when the 
place was set on fire, and the English who 
were settled there cruelly massacred, Mr. 
Pound himself very narrowly escaping with 
his life. With this gentleman, at Wanstead, 
Mr. Bradley passed all the time that he 
could spare from the duties of his function ; 
being then sufficiently acquainted with the 
mathematics to improve by Mr. Pound’s 
conversation. It may easily be imagined 
that the example and conversation of this 
gentleman did not render Bradley more 
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