488 BORBONTA. 
minerals; it was formerly called sedative salt of 
borax, and Homberg’s sedative salt; it was at 
one time used asa medicine, and is still occasion- 
ally employed in chemical investigations; and it 
is obtained in a separate state, either from the hot 
springs of Italy by evaporation, or from borax by 
driving the soda of that salt into chemical com- 
bination with sulphuric acid. It commonly re- 
tains some water of crystallization, or is what 
chemists call a hydrate; and when freed from 
this water by gradual application of intense heat 
in a platinum crucible, it becomes vitrified, or is 
a hard, colourless, transparent glass, but with 
such affinity for water that, if allowed to remain 
in contact with the air, it imbibes moisture, and 
becomes opaque. In any condition, even in che- 
mical combination with alkaline bases, as in the 
case of borax, it is exceedingly fusible, and has 
long been known in the useful arts as a valuable 
flux. 
Impure borax, in a natural condition, and 
under the popular name of ¢incal, exists in inex- 
haustible or constantly renewing quantities round 
the edges and in the shallows of a lake, twenty 
miles in circumference, in Thibet. The pure 
borax of commerce was formerly obtained by 
purification from the tincal; but is now manu- 
factured by saturating with carbonate of soda 
the boracic acid which is procured from the hot 
springs of Italy. It usually forms into irregular 
crystals, somewhat resembling hexangular prisms 
with superimposed triangular pyramids ; and it 
| has a white colour, no smell, and a cool, alkales- 
cent, styptic taste. It possesses refrigerent and 
detergent properties as a medicine; yet it is not 
administered internally, but is used principally 
as a wash or a cleaning powder, in cases of ex- 
cessive saturation or of aphthous affections of the 
mouth. Nurses have a careless and censurable 
fondness for sprinkling small portions of the 
powder of it in the mouths of infants; most far- 
riers approve of a solution of either this salt or 
alum being used as a wash for the inflamed 
mouths of young horses during the process of 
dentition; and some pharmaceutists think that 
the medicinal use of borax might, with eminent 
advantage, be adopted for some internal purposes, 
and very greatly extended in external applications. 
BORAX. See Borarss. 
BORBONIA. An interesting genus of Cape-of- 
Good-Hope, evergreen, ornamental shrubs. They 
belong to the furze or broom subdivision of the 
butterfly portion of the pea tribe. Nine species 
have been introduced to Great Britain, and three 
other species, once ranked as borbonias, but now 
assigned to other genera, have also been intro- 
duced. Hight of the nine produce yellow flowers, 
—chiefly in July and August,—and vary in usual 
height from three to six feet; and the other spe- 
cies, the heath-leaved, grows to the height of 
about two feet, and produces pink flowers in 
January and February. Five of the species were 
introduced in the course of last century. 
-BORECOLE. 
BORDER. The part of a pasture field situated 
along the hedge; the end part of a ploughed 
field, on which the teams turn; the belts of a 
fruit garden appropriated to the cultivation of 
the choicer fruits ; and the bands, scrolls, figures, 
or plots of a flower garden, appropriated to the 
cultivation of all such hardy flowering plants as 
are not tall or shrubby. But the word, in the last 
of these senses, though the most general in use, 
has almost ceased to have any literal or proper 
meaning. In the old geometric style of garden- 
ing, borders were either straight, circular, or other- 
wise regular, though turned into knots, scrolls, 
voluces, and other compartments, and were capa- 
ble of classification into four kinds. The most 
common kind were continuous belts around par- 
terres, wrought with a gentle rising along the mid- 
dle, and planted with herbaceous flowering plants 
and low flowering shrubs. Another kind were cut 
into even compartments, at convenient distances, 
by small passages, and raised and planted like the | 
preceding. The third kind were made flat, occu- 
pied athwart or along the middle with grass, | 
edged with two smooth and sanded paths, and 
garnished either with flowering shrubs, or with | 
vases and flower-pots placed regularly along the 
middle of the grass. The fourth kind were made 
quite plain, and only sanded as in the parterres 
of an orangery, and occupied with regularly ar- 
ranged cases, with sometimes a yew tree between 
every two cases. 
house, in order that the interior swells and em- 
broidery might not be concealed by the shrubs | 
and flowering plants. “But,” to adopt the words | 
of Miller, “since the modern taste of gardening | 
has been introduced into England, all the French | 
taste of parterres, scroll borders, and fretwork in 
box has been justly banished our gardens: there- 
fore I have only mentioned them here, to expose 
the taste of those architect-gardeners who have | 
no idea of the noble simplicity of an open lawn 
of grass, properly bounded by plantations ; but, | 
instead of this, divide that part of the garden 
near the house into various forms of borders 
edged with box, and sand or gravel walks lead- 
ing about them; by which the ground is cut into 
many angles, scrolls, &c.; which is very hurtful 
to the eye of a judicious person.” See the article 
GARDENING. 
BORD-LANDS. Iands which, under the feu- 
dal system, proprietors retained in their own 
possession for the supply of their board or table. 
BORD-SERVICEH. The tenure of bord-lands, 
which, under the feudal system, obliged tenants 
to find provisions for their superior’s table. 
Some traces of this degrading tenure still exist ; 
but the tenants affected by it pay only a small 
rent in lieu of the provisions. 
BORECOLE, — botanically Brassica oleracea 
acephala. A variety of open cabbage, with tall 
stems, and large, open, curly-leaved head, serving 
for winter greens, and its side sprouts for spring 
In large parterres, the borders © 
were usually discontinued at the ends next the | 
