Part 28

Very little is known of the history of Berwick before the Conquest. It was not until the Tweed became the boundary between England and Scotland in the 12th century that Berwick as the chief town on that boundary became really important. Until the beginning of the 14th century Berwick was one of the four royal boroughs of Scotland, and although it possesses no charter granted before that time, an inquisition taken in Edward III.'s reign shows that it was governed by a mayor and bailiffs in the reign of Alexander III., who granted the town to the said mayor and the commonalty for an annual rent. After Edward I. had conquered Berwick in 1302 he gave the burgesses another charter, no longer existing but quoted in several confirmations, by which the town was made a free borough with a gild merchant. The burgesses were given the right to elect annually their mayor, who with the commonalty should elect four bailiffs. They were also to have freedom from toll, pontage, &c., two markets every week on Monday and Friday, and a fair lasting from the feast of Holyrood to that of the Nativity of St John the Baptist. Five years later, in 1307, the mayor and burgesses received another charter, granting them their town with all things that belonged to it in the time of Alexander III., for a fee-farm rent of 500 marks, which was granted back to them in 1313 to help towards enclosing their town with a wall. While the war with Scotland dragged on through the early years of the reign of Edward II., the fortification of Berwick was a matter of importance, and in 1317 the mayor and bailiffs undertook to defend it for the yearly sum of 6000 marks; but in the following year, "owing to their default," the Scots entered and occupied it in spite of a truce between the two kingdoms. After Edward III. had recovered Berwick the inhabitants petitioned for the recovery of their prison called the Beffroi or Bell-tower, the symbol of their independence, which their predecessors had built before the time of Alexander III., and which had been granted to William de Keythorpe when Edward I. took the town. Edward III. in 1326 and 1356 confirmed the charter of Edward I., and in 1357, evidently to encourage the growth of the borough, granted that all who were willing to reside there and desirous of becoming burgesses should be admitted as such on payment of a fine. These early charters were confirmed by most of the succeeding kings, until James I. granted the incorporation charter in 1604; but on his accession to the English throne, Berwick of course lost its importance as a frontier town. Berwick was at first represented in the court of the four boroughs and in 1326 in Robert Bruce's parliament. After being taken by the English it remained unrepresented until it was re-taken by the Scots, when it sent two members to the parliament at Edinburgh from 1476 to 1479. In 1482 the burgesses were allowed to send two members to the English parliament, and were represented there until 1885, when the town was included in the Berwick-upon-Tweed division of the county of Northumberland. No manufactures are mentioned as having been carried on in Berwick, but its trade, chiefly in the produce of the surrounding country, was important in the 12th century. It has been noted for salmon fishery in the Tweed from very early times. There was a bridge over the Tweed at Berwick in the time of Alexander and John, kings of Scotland, but it was broken down in the time of the latter and not rebuilt until the end of the 14th century.

See _Victoria County History, Northumberland_; John Fuller, _History of Berwick-upon-Tweed_, &c. (1799); John Scott, _Berwick-upon-Tweed: History of the Town and Guild_ (1888).

BERYL, a mineral containing beryllium and aluminium in the form of a silicate; its formula is Be3Al2Si6O18. The species includes the emerald (q.v.), the aquamarine (q.v.) and other transparent varieties known as "precious beryl," with certain coarse varieties unfit for use as gem-stones. The name comes from the Gr. [Greek: baeryllos], a word of uncertain etymology applied to the beryl and probably several other gems. It is notable that the relation of the emerald to the beryl, though proved only by chemical analysis, was conjectured at least as far back as the time of Pliny.

Beryl crystallizes in the hexagonal system, usually taking the form of long six-sided prisms, striated vertically and terminated with the basal plane, sometimes associated with various pyramidal faces (see fig.). It cleaves rather imperfectly parallel to the base. The colour of beryl may be blue, green, yellow, brown or rarely pink; while in some cases the mineral is colourless. The specific gravity is about 2.7, and the hardness 7.5 to 8, so that for a gem-stone beryl is comparatively soft. Whilst the gem-varieties are transparent, the coarse beryl may be opaque. The transparent crystals are pleochroic--a character well marked in emerald.

[Illustration: Crystal of beryl.]

Beryl was much prized as a gem-stone by the ancients, and Greek intaglios of very fine workmanship are extant. The Roman jewellers, taking advantage of the columnar form of the natural crystal, worked it into long cylinders for ear-pendants. It was a favourite stone with the artists of the Renaissance, but in modern times has lost popularity, except in the form of emerald, which remains one of the most valued gem-stones. It is notable that English lapidaries of the 18th century often included the sard under the term beryl--a practice which has led to some confusion in the nomenclature of engraved gems.

Beryl occurs as an accessory constituent of many granitic rocks, especially in veins of pegmatite, whilst it is found also in gneiss and in mica-schist. Rolled pebbles of beryl occur, with topaz, in Brazil, especially in the province of Minas Geraes. Crystals are found in drusy cavities in granite in the Urals, notably near Mursinka; in the Altai Mountains, which have yielded very long prismatic crystals; and in the mining district of Nerchinsk in Siberia, principally in the Adun-Chalon range, where beryl occurs in veins of topaz-rock piercing granite. Among European localities may be mentioned Elba, good crystals being occasionally found in the tourmaline-granite of San Piero. In Ireland excellent crystals of beryl occur in druses of the granite of the Mourne Mountains in Co. Down, and others less fine are found in the highlands of Donegal, whilst the mineral is also known from the Leinster granite. It occurs likewise in the granite of the Grampians in Scotland, and is not unknown in Cornwall, specimens having been found, with topaz, apatite, &c., in joints of the granite of St Michael's Mount.

Many localities in the United States yield beryl, sometimes sufficiently fine to be cut as a gem. It is found, for example, at Hiddenite and elsewhere in Alexander county, N.C.; at Haddam and Monroe, Conn.; at Stoneham and at Albany, in Oxford county, Maine; at Royalston, Mass.; and at Mt. Antero, Colorado, where it occurs with phenacite. Beryl of beautiful pink colour occurs in San Diego county, California. Coarse beryl, much rifted, is found in crystals of very large size at Grafton and Acworth, N.H.; a crystal from Grafton weighing more than 2-1/2 tons. A colourless beryl from Goshen, Mass., has been called Goshenite; whilst crystals of coarse yellow beryl from Rubislaw quarry in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, have been termed Davidsonite.

Beryl suffers alteration by weathering, and may thus pass into kaolin and mica. (F. W. R.*)

BERYLLIUM, or GLUCINUM (symbol Be, atomic weight 9.1), one of the metallic chemical elements, included in the same sub-group of the periodic classification as magnesium. It was prepared in the form of its oxide in 1798 by L.N. Vauquelin (_Ann. de chimie_, 1798, xxvi. p. 155) from the mineral beryl, and though somewhat rare, is found in many minerals. It was first obtained, in an impure condition, in 1828 by A.A.B. Bussy (1794-1882) and F. Wohler by the reduction of the chloride with potassium, and in 1855 H.J. Debray prepared it, in a compact state, by reducing the volatilized chloride with melted sodium, in an atmosphere of hydrogen. L.F. Nilson and O. Pettersson (_Wied. Ann._ 1878, iv. p. 554) have also prepared the metal by heating beryllium potassium fluoride with sodium; P.M. Lebeau (_Comptes rendus_, 1895-1898, vols. 120-127) has obtained it in lustrous hexagonal crystals by electrolysing the double fluoride of beryllium and sodium or potassium with an excess of beryllium fluoride. It is a malleable metal, of specific gravity 1.64 (Nilson and Pettersson) and a specific heat of 0.4079. Its melting-point is below that of silver. In a fine state of division it takes fire on heating in air, but is permanent at ordinary temperatures in oxygen or air; it is readily attacked by hydrochloric and sulphuric acids, but scarcely acted on by nitric acid. It is also soluble in solutions of the caustic alkalis, with evolution of hydrogen a behaviour similar to that shown by aluminium. It combines readily with fluorine, chlorine and bromine, and also with sulphur, selenium, phosphorus, &c.

Considerable discussion has taken place at different times as to the position which beryllium should occupy in the periodic classification of the elements, and as to whether its atomic weight should be 9.1 or 13.65, but the weight of evidence undoubtedly favours its position in Group II., with an atomic weight 9.1 (O=16) (see Nilson and Pettersson, _Berichte_, 1880, 13, p. 1451; 1884, 17, p. 987; B. Brauner, _Berichte_, 1881, 14, p. 53; T. Carnelley, _Journ. of Chem. Soc._, 1879, xxxv. p. 563; 1880, xxxvii., p. 125, and W.N. Hartley, _Journ. of Chem. Soc._, 1883, xliii. p. 316). The specific heat of beryllium has been calculated by L. Meyer (_Berichte_, 1880, 13, p. 1780) from the data of L.F. Nilson and O. Pettersson, and appears to increase rapidly with increasing temperature, the values obtained being 0.3973 at 20.2 deg. C., 0.4481 at 73.2 deg. C. and 0.5819 at 256.8 deg. C.

Beryllium compounds are almost wholly prepared from beryl. The mineral is fused with potassium carbonate, and, on cooling, the product is treated with sulphuric acid, the excess of which is removed by evaporation; water is then added and the silica is filtered off. On concentration of the solution, the major portion of the aluminium present separates as alum, and the mother liquor remaining contains beryllium and iron sulphates together with a little alum. This is now treated for some days with a hot concentrated solution of ammonium carbonate, which precipitates the iron and aluminium but keeps the beryllium in solution. The iron and aluminium precipitates are filtered off, and the filtrate boiled, when a basic beryllium hydroxide containing a little ferric oxide is precipitated. To remove the iron, the precipitate is again dissolved in ammonium carbonate and steam is blown through the liquid, when beryllium oxide is precipitated. This process is repeated several times, and the final precipitate is dissolved in hydrochloric acid and precipitated by ammonia, washed and dried. It has also been obtained by J. Gibson (_Journ. of Chem. Soc._, 1893, lxiii. p. 909) from beryl by conversion of the beryllium into its fluoride.

Beryllium oxide, beryllia or glucina, BeO, is a very hard white powder which can be melted and distilled in the electric furnace, when it condenses in the form of minute hexagonal crystals. After ignition it dissolves with difficulty in acids. The hydroxide Be(OH)2 separates as a white bulky precipitate on adding a solution of an alkaline hydroxide to a soluble beryllium salt; and like those of aluminium and zinc, this hydroxide is soluble in excess of the alkaline hydroxide, but is reprecipitated on prolonged boiling. Beryllium chloride BeCl2, like aluminium chloride, may be prepared by heating a mixture of the oxide and sugar charcoal in a current of dry chlorine. It is deliquescent, and readily soluble in water, from which it separates on concentration in crystals of composition BeCl2.4H2O. Its vapour density has been determined by Nilson and Pettersson, and corresponds to the molecular formula BeCl2. The sulphate is obtained by dissolving the oxide in sulphuric acid; if the solution be not acid, it separates in pyramidal crystals of composition BeSO4.4H2O, while from an acid solution of this salt, crystals of composition BeSO4.7H2O are obtained. Double sulphates of beryllium and the alkali metals are known, e.g. BeSO4.K2SO4.3H2O as are also many basic sulphates. The nitrate Be(NO3)2.3H2O is prepared by adding barium nitrate to beryllium sulphate solution; it crystallizes with difficulty and is very deliquescent. It readily yields basic salts.

The carbide BeC2 is formed when beryllia and sugar charcoal are heated together in the electric furnace. Like aluminium carbide it is slowly decomposed by water with the production of methane. Several basic carbonates are known, being formed by the addition of beryllium salts to solutions of the alkaline carbonates; the normal carbonate is prepared by passing a current of carbon dioxide through water containing the basic carbonate in suspension, the solution being filtered and concentrated over sulphuric acid in an atmosphere of carbon dioxide. The crystals so obtained are very unstable and decompose rapidly with evolution of carbon dioxide.

Beryllium salts are easily soluble and mostly have a sweetish taste (hence the name Glucinum (q.v.), from [Greek: glukus], sweet); they are readily precipitated by alkaline sulphides with formation of the white hydroxide, and may be distinguished from salts of all other metals by the solubility of the oxide in ammonium carbonate. Beryllium is estimated quantitatively by precipitation with ammonia, and ignition to oxide. Its atomic weight has been determined by L.F. Nilson and O. Pettersson (_Berichte_, 1880, 13, p. 1451) by analysis of the sulphate, from which they found the value 9.08, and by G. Kruss and H. Moraht (_Berichte_, 1890, 23, p. 2556) from the conversion of the sulphate BeSO4.4H2O into the oxide, from which they obtained the value 9.05. C.L. Parsons (_Journ. Amer. Chem. Soc._, 1904, xxvi. p. 721) obtained the values 9.113 from analyses of beryllium acetonyl-acetate and beryllium basic acetate.

For a bibliography see C.L. Parsons, _The Chemistry and Literature of Beryllium_ (1909).

BERYLLONITE, a mineral phosphate of beryllium and sodium, NaBePO4, found as highly complex orthorhombic crystals and as broken fragments in the disintegrated material of a granitic vein at Stoneham, Maine, where it is associated with felspar, smoky quartz, beryl and columbite. It was discovered by Prof. E.S. Dana in 1888, and named beryllonite because it contains beryllium in large amount. The crystals vary from colourless to white or pale yellowish, and are transparent with a vitreous lustre; there is a perfect cleavage in one direction. Hardness 5-1/2-6; specific gravity 2.845. A few crystals have been cut and faceted, but, as the refractive index is no higher than that of quartz, they do not make very brilliant gem-stones.

BERZELIUS, JONS JAKOB (1779-1848), Swedish chemist, was born at Vafversunda Sorgard, near Linkoping, Sweden, on the 20th (or 29th) of August 1779. After attending the gymnasium school at Linkoping he went to Upsala University, where he studied chemistry and medicine, and graduated as M.D. in 1802. Appointed assistant professor of botany and pharmacy at Stockholm in the same year, he became full professor in 1807, and from 1815 to 1832 was professor of chemistry in the Caroline medico-chirurgical institution of that city. The Stockholm Academy of Sciences elected him a member in 1808, and in 1818 he became its perpetual secretary. The same year he was ennobled by Charles XIV., who in 1835 further made him a baron. His death occurred at Stockholm on the 7th of August 1848. During the first few years of his scientific career Berzelius was mainly engaged on questions of physiological chemistry, but about 1807 he began to devote himself to what he made the chief object of his life--the elucidation of the composition of chemical compounds through study of the law of multiple proportions and the atomic theory. Perceiving the exact determination of atomic and molecular weights to be of fundamental importance, he spent ten years in ascertaining that constant for some two thousand simple and compound bodies, and the results he published in 1818 attained a remarkable standard of accuracy, which was still further improved in a second table that appeared in 1826. He used oxygen--in his view the pivot round which the whole of chemistry revolves--as the basis of reference for the atomic weights of other substances, and the data on which he chiefly relied were the proportions of oxygen in oxygen compounds, the doctrines of isomorphism, and Gay Lussac's law of volumes. When Volta's discovery of the electric cell became known, Berzelius, with W. Hisinger (1766-1852), began experiments on the electrolysis of salt solutions, ammonia, sulphuric acid, &c., and later this work led him to his electrochemical theory, a full exposition of which he gave in his memoir on the _Theory of Chemical Proportions and the Chemical Action of Electricity_ (1814). This theory was founded on the supposition that the atoms of the elements are electrically polarized, the positive charge predominating in some and the negative in others, and from it followed his dualistic hypothesis, according to which compounds are made up of two electrically different components. At first this hypothesis was confined to inorganic chemistry, but subsequently he extended it to organic compounds, which he saw might similarly be regarded as containing a group or groups of atoms--a compound radicle--in place of simple elements. Although his conception of the nature of compound radicles did not long retain general favour--indeed he himself changed it more than once--he is entitled to rank as one of the chief founders of the radicle theory. Another service of the utmost importance which he rendered to the study of chemistry was in continuing and extending the efforts of Lavoisier and his associates to establish a convenient system of chemical nomenclature. By using the initial letters of the Latin (occasionally Greek) names of the elements as symbols for them, and adding a small numeral subscript, to show the number of atoms of each present in a compound, he introduced the present system of chemical formulation (see CHEMISTRY). Mention should also be made of the numerous improvements he effected in analytical methods and the technique of the blowpipe (_Uber die Anwendung des Lothrohrs_, 1820), of his classification of minerals on a chemical basis, and of many individual researches such as those on tellurium, selenium, silicon, thorium, titanium, zirconium and molybdenum, most of which he isolated for the first time. Apart from his original memoirs, of which he published over 250, mostly in Swedish in the _Transactions_ of the Stockholm Academy, his remarkable literary activity is attested by his _Lehrbuch der Chemie_, which went through five editions (first 1803-1818, fifth 1843-1848) and by his _Jahresbericht_ or annual report on the progress of physics and chemistry, prepared at the instance of the Stockholm Academy, of which he published 27 vols. (1821-1848).

BES, or BESAS (Egyp. _Bes_ or _Besa_), the Egyptian god of recreation, represented as a dwarf with large head, goggle eyes, protruding tongue, shaggy beard, a bushy tail seen between his bow legs hanging down behind (sometimes clearly as part of a skin girdle) and usually a large crown of feathers on his head. A Bes-like mask was found by Petrie amongst remains of the twelfth dynasty, but the earliest occurrence of the god is in the temple of the queen Hatshepsut at Deir el Bahri (c. 1500 B.C.), where he is figured along with the hippopotamus goddess as present at the queen's birth. His figure is that of a grotesque mountebank, intended to inspire joy or drive away pain and sorrow, his hideousness being perhaps supposed actually to scare away the evil spirits. In his joyous aspect Bes plays the harp or flute, dances, &c. He is figured on mirrors, ointment vases and other articles of the toilet. Amulets and ornaments in the form of the figure or mask of Bes are common after the New Kingdom; he is often associated with children and with childbirth and is figured in the "birth-houses" devoted to the cult of the child-god. Perhaps the earliest known instance of his prominent appearance of large size in the sculptures of the temples is under Tahraka, at Jebel Barkal, Nubia, at the beginning of the 7th century B.C. As the protector of children and others he is the enemy of noxious beasts, such as lions, crocodiles, serpents and scorpions. Large wooden figures of Bes are generally found to contain the remains of a human foetus. In the first centuries of our era an oracle of Besas was consulted at Abydos, where A.H. Sayce has found graffiti concerning him, and prescriptions exist for consulting Besas in dreams. It has been held that Bes was of non-Egyptian origin, African, as Wiedemann, or Arabian or even Babylonian, as W. Max Muller contends; he is sometimes entitled "coming from the Divine Land" (i.e. the East or Arabia), or "Lord of Puoni" (Punt), i.e. the African coast of the Red Sea; his effigy occurs also on Greek coins of Arabia. It is remarkable also that, contrary to the usual rule, he is commonly represented in Egyptian sculptures and paintings full faced instead of in profile. But the connexion of the god with Puoni may have grown out of the fact that dwarf dancers were especially brought to Egypt from Ethiopia and Puoni.

See K. Sethe in Pauly-Wissowa, _Realencyclopadie, s.v._; A. Wiedemann, _Religion of the Ancient Egyptians_ (London, 1897), p. 159; E.A.W. Budge, _Gods of the Egyptians_, ii. p. 284 (London); W. Max Muller, _Asien u. Europa_ (Leipzig, 1893), p. 310. (F. Ll. G.)