Part 42

An excellent sketch of his life and works, by the Rev. R. Harley, F.R.S., is to be found in the _British Quarterly Review_ for July 1866, No. 87. (W. S. J.)

BOOM, a word of Teutonic origin (cf. the Ger. _Baum_, tree, and the Eng. _beam_) for a pole, bar or barrier, used especially as a nautical term, for a long spar, used to extend a sail at the foot (main-boom, jib-boom, &c.). The "boom" of a cannon (note of a bell, cry of the bittern) is distinct from this, being onomatopoeic. In the sense of a barrier, a boom is generally formed of timber lashed together, or of chains, built across the mouth of a river or harbour as a means of defence. Possibly from the metaphor of a breaking boom, and the accompanying rush and roar, or from the rush of rising waters (mingled with the onomatopoeic use), "boom" began in America to be used of a sudden "spurt" or access of industrial activity, as in the phrase "a boom in cotton." Hence the verb "to boom," meaning to advertise or push into public favour.

BOOMERANG, a missile weapon of the Australian aborigines and other peoples. The word is taken from the native name used by a single tribe in New South Wales, and was mentioned in 1827 by Captain King as "the Port Jackson term" (_Nav. Surv. Coasts Austral._ i. 355) It has been erroneously connected with the _womera_ or spear-thrower, and equally erroneously regarded as onomatopoeic--for it does not "boom" but whistles in the air. Two main types may be distinguished: (a) the return boomerang; (b) the non-return or war boomerang. Both types are found in most parts of Australia; the return form was, according to General Pitt-Rivers, used in ancient Egypt; and a weapon which has a close resemblance to the boomerang survives to the present day in North-East Africa, whence it has spread in allied forms made of metal (throwing knives). Among the Dravidians of South India is found a boomerang-shaped instrument which can be made to return. It is, however, still uncertain whether the so-called boomerangs of Egypt and India have any real resemblance to the Australian return boomerang. The Hopis (Moquis) of Arizona use a non-return form. The general form of both weapons is the same. They are sickle-shaped, and made of wood (in India of ivory or steel), so modelled that the thickness is about 1/6th of the breadth, which again is 1/12th of the length, the last varying from 6 in. to 3 or 4 ft. The return boomerang, which may have two straight arms at an angle of from 70 deg. to 120 deg., but in Australia is always curved at an angle of 90 deg. or more, is usually 2 to 3 ft. in length and weighs some 8 oz.; the arms have a skew, being twisted 2 deg. or 3 deg. from the plane running through the centre of the weapon, so that B and D (fig. 1) are above it, A and E below it; the ends AB and DE are also to some extent raised above the plane of the weapon at C; the cross section is asymmetrical, the upper side in the figure being convex, the lower flat or nearly so; this must be thrown with the right hand. The non-return boomerang has a skew in the opposite direction but is otherwise similar.

[Illustration: FIG. 1.]

The peculiarity of the boomerang's flight depends mainly on its skew. The return boomerang is held vertically, the concave side forward, and thrown in a plane parallel to the surface of the ground, as much rotation as possible being imparted to it. It travels straight for 30 yds. or more, with nearly vertical rotation; then it inclines to the left, lying over on the flat side and rising in the air; after describing a circle of 50 or more yards in diameter it returns to the thrower. Some observers state that it returns after striking the object; it is certainly possible to strike the ground without affecting the return. Throws of 100 yds. or more, before the leftward curve begins, can be accomplished by Australian natives, the weapon rising as much as 150 ft. in the air and circling five times before returning. The non-return type may also be made to return in a nearly straight line by throwing it at an angle of 45 deg., but normally it is thrown like the return type, and will then travel an immense distance. No accurate measurements of Australian throws are available, but an English throw of 180 yds. has been recorded, compared with the same thrower's 70 yds. with the cricket ball.

[Illustration: FIG. 2.--Flight in Horizontal Plane.]

[Illustration: FIG. 3.--Flight in Vertical Plane.]

The war boomerang in an expert's hand is a deadly weapon, and the lighter hunting boomerang is also effective. The return boomerang is chiefly used as a plaything or for killing birds, and is often as dangerous to the thrower as to the object at which it is aimed.

See Pitt-Rivers (Lane Fox) in _Anthropological and Archaeological Fragments_, "Primitive Warfare"; also in _Journ. Royal United Service Inst._ xii. No. 51; _British Ass. Report_ (1872); _Catalogue of Bethnal Green Collection_, p. 28; Buchner in _Globus_, lxxxviii. 39, 63; G.T. Walker in _Phil. Trans._ cxc. 23; _Wide World Mag._ ii. 626; _Nature_, xiv. 248, lxiv. 338; Brough Smyth, _Aborigines of Victoria_, i. 310-329; Roth, _Ethnological Studies_. (N. W. T.)

BOONE, DANIEL (1734-1820), American pioneer and backwoodsman, of English descent, was born near the present city of Reading, Pennsylvania, on the 2nd of November (N.S.) 1734. About 1751 his father, Squire Boone, with his family settled in the Yadkin Valley in what is now Davie county, North Carolina, then on the frontier. Daniel worked on his father's farm, and spent much of his time hunting and trapping. In 1755 he served as a wagoner and blacksmith in Braddock's disastrous expedition against the Indians. In 1765 he visited Florida, and in 1767 he first visited the Kentucky region. With several companions, including John Finley, who had been there as early as 1752, he spent two years, 1769-1771, roaming about what is now Kentucky, meeting with numberless adventures, coming in conflict with roving bands of Indians, and collecting bear, beaver and deer skins. He served in Lord Dunmore's War (1774), and in 1775 led to Kentucky the party of settlers who founded Boonesborough, long an important settlement. On the 7th of February 1778 he, and the party he led, were captured by a band of Shawnees. He was adopted into the Shawnee tribe, was taken to Detroit, and on the return from that place escaped, reaching Boonesborough, after a perilous journey of 160 m., within four days, in time to give warning of a formidable attack by his captors. In repelling this attack, which lasted from the 8th to the 17th of September, he bore a conspicuous part. He also took part in the sanguinary "Battle of Blue Licks" in 1782. For a time he represented the settlers in the Virginia legislature (Kentucky then being a part of Virginia), and he also served as deputy surveyor, sheriff and county lieutenant of Fayette county, one of the three counties into which Kentucky was then divided. Having lost all his land through his carelessness in regard to titles, he removed in 1788 to Point Pleasant, Virginia (now W. Va.), whence about 1799 he removed to a place in what is now Missouri, about 45 m. west of St Louis, in territory then owned by Spain. He received a grant of 1000 arpents (about 845 acres) of land, and was appointed syndic of the district. After the United States gained possession of "Louisiana" in 1803, Boone's title was found to be defective, and he was again dispossessed. He died on the 22nd of September 1820, and in 1845 his remains were removed to Frankfort, Kentucky, where a monument has been erected to his memory. Boone was a typical American pioneer and backwoodsman, a great hunter and trapper, highly skilled in all the arts of woodcraft, familiar with the Indians and their methods of warfare, a famous Indian fighter, restless, resourceful and fearless. His services, however, have been greatly over-estimated, and he was not, as is popularly believed, either the first to explore or the first to settle the Kentucky region.

The best biography is that by Reuben G. Thwaites, _Daniel Boone_ (New York, 1902).

BOONE, a city and the county-seat of Boone county, Iowa, U.S.A., a short distance from the Des Moines river and near the centre of the state. Pop. (1890) 6520; (1900) 8880; (1905, state census) 9500 (1334 foreign-born); (1910) 10,347. It is served by the Chicago & North-Western (which has construction and repair shops here), the Chicago, Milwaukee & St Paul railways, and by the Fort Dodge, Des Moines & Southern (inter-urban) railway, which connects with Des Moines, Ames, &c. Boone is an important coal centre; bricks and tiles are manufactured from the clay obtained near by; there is a packing plant for the manufacture of beef and pork products; and from the rich farming section by which the city is surrounded come large quantities of grain, some of which is milled here, and live-stock. Boone was laid out in 1865, was incorporated as a town in 1866, and was chartered as a city in 1868.

BOONVILLE, a city and the county-seat of Cooper county, Missouri, U.S.A., on the right bank of the Missouri river, about 210 m. W. by N. of St Louis. Pop. (1890) 4141; (1900) 4377, including 1111 negroes; (1910) 4252. It is served by the Missouri Pacific, and the Missouri, Kansas & Texas railways. The city lies along a bluff about 100 ft. above the river. It is the seat of the Missouri training school for boys (1889), and of the Kemper military school (1844). Among its manufactures are earthenware, tobacco, vinegar, flour, farm-gates (iron), sash and doors, marble and granite monuments, carriages and bricks. Iron, zinc and lead are found in the vicinity, and some coal is mined. Boonville, named in honour of Daniel Boone, was settled in 1810, was laid out in 1817, incorporated as a village in 1839, and chartered as a city of the third class in 1896. Here on the 17th of June 1861, Captain (Major-General) Nathaniel Lyon, commanding about 2000 Union troops, defeated a slightly larger, but undisciplined Confederate force under Brigadier-General John S. Marmaduke. David Barton (d. 1837), one of the first two United States senators from Missouri, was buried here.

BOORDE (or BORDE), ANDREW (1490?-1549), English physician and author, was born at Boord's Hill, Holms Dale, Sussex. He was educated at Oxford, and was admitted a member of the Carthusian order while under age. In 1521 he was "dispensed from religion" in order that he might act as suffragan bishop of Chichester, though he never actually filled the office, and in 1529 he was freed from his monastic vows, not being able to endure, as he said, the "rugorosite off your relygyon." He then went abroad to study medicine, and on his return was summoned to attend the duke of Norfolk. He subsequently visited the universities of Orleans, Poitiers, Toulouse, Montpellier and Wittenberg, saw the practice of surgery at Rome, and went on pilgrimage with others of his nation to Compostella in Navarre. In 1534 Boorde was again in London at the Charterhouse, and in 1536 wrote to Thomas Cromwell, complaining that he was in "thraldom" there. Cromwell set him at liberty, and after entertaining him at his house at Bishops Waltham in Hampshire, seems to have entrusted him with a mission to find out the state of public feeling abroad with regard to the English king. He writes to Cromwell from various places, and from Catalonia he sends him the seeds of rhubarb, two hundred years before that plant was generally cultivated in England. Two letters in 1535 and 1536 to the prior of the Charterhouse anxiously argue for his complete release from monastic vows. In 1536 he was studying medicine at Glasgow and gathering his observations about the Scots and the "devellyshe dysposicion of a Scottysh man, not to love nor favour an Englishe man." About 1538 Boorde set out on his most extensive journey, visiting nearly all the countries of Europe except Russia and Turkey, and making his way to Jerusalem. Of these travels he wrote a full itinerary, lost unfortunately by Cromwell, to whom it was sent. He finally settled at Montpellier and before 1542 had completed his _Fyrst Boke of the Introduction of Knowledge_, which ranks as the earliest continental guide book, his _Dietary_ and his _Brevyary_. He probably returned to England in 1542, and lived at Winchester and perhaps at Pevensey. John Ponet, bishop of Winchester, in an _Apology_ against Bishop Gardiner, relates as matter of common knowledge that in 1547 Doctor Boord, a physician and a holy man, who still kept the Carthusian rules of fasting and wearing a hair shirt, was convicted in Winchester of keeping in his house three loose women. For this offence, apparently, he was imprisoned in the Fleet, where he made his will on the 9th of April 1549. It was proved on the 25th of the same month. Thomas Hearne (_Benedictus Abbas_, i, p. 52) says that he went round like a quack doctor to country fairs, and therefore rashly supposed him to have been the original merry-andrew.

Andrew Boorde was no doubt a learned physician, and he has left two amusing and often sensible works on domestic hygiene and medicine, but his most entertaining book is _The Fyrst Boke of the Introduction of Knowledge. The whyche dothe teache a man to speake parte of all maner of languages, and to know the usage and fashion of all maner of countreys. And for to know the moste parte of all maner of coynes of money, the whych is currant in every region. Made by Andrew Borde, of Physycke Doctor. Dedycated to the right honourable, and gracious lady Mary daughter of our soverayne Lorde Kyng Henry the eyght_ (c. 1547). The Englishman describes himself and his foibles--his fickleness, his fondness for new fashions and his obstinacy--in lively verse. Then follows a geographical description of the country, followed by a model dialogue in the Cornish language. Each country in turn is dealt with on similar lines. His other authentic works are: _Here foloweth a Compendyous Regimente or Dyetary of health, made in Mountpyllor_ (Thomas Colwell, 1562), of which there are undated and doubtless earlier editions; _The Brevyary of Health_ (1547?); _The Princyples of Astronamy_ (1547?); "The Peregrination of Doctor Board," printed by Thomas Hearne in _Benedictus Abbas Petroburgensis_, vol. ii. (1735); _A Pronostycacyon or an Almanacke for the yere of our lorde MCCCCCXLV. made by Andrew Boorde_. His _Itinerary of Europe_ and _Treatyse upon Berdes_ are lost. Several jest-books are attributed to him without authority--_The Merie Tales of the Mad Men of Gotam_ (earliest extant edition, 1630), _Scogin's Jests_ (1626), _A mery jest of the Mylner of Abyngton, with his wyfe, and his daughter, and of two poore scholers of Cambridge_ (printed by Wynkyn de Worde), and a Latin poem, _Nos Vagabunduli_.

See Dr F.J. Furnivall's reprint of the _Introduction_ and some other selections for the Early English Text Society (new series, 1870).

BOOS, MARTIN (1762-1825), German Roman Catholic theologian, was born at Huttenried in Bavaria on the 25th of December 1762. Orphaned at the age of four, he was reared by an uncle at Augsburg, who finally sent him to the university of Dillingen. There he laid the foundation of the modest piety by which his whole life was distinguished. After serving as priest in several Bavarian towns, he made his way in 1799 to Linz in Austria, where he was welcomed by Bishop Gall, and set to work first at Leonding and then at Waldneukirchen, becoming in 1806 pastor at Gallneukirchen. His pietistic movement won considerable way among the Catholic laity, and even attracted some fifty or sixty priests. The death of Gall and other powerful friends, however, exposed him to bitter enmity and persecution from about 1812, and he had to answer endless accusations in the consistorial courts. His enemies followed him when he returned to Bavaria, but in 1817 the Prussian government appointed him to a professorship at Dusseldorf, and in 1819 gave him the pastorate at Sayn near Neuwied. He died on the 29th of August 1825.

See _Life_ by J. Gossner (1831).

BOOT, (1) (From the O. Eng. _bot_, a word common to Teutonic languages, e.g. Goth, _bota_, "good, advantage," O.H.G. _Buoza_, Mod. Ger. _Busse_, "penance, fine"; cf. "better," the comparative of "good"), profit or advantage. The word survives in "bootless," i.e. useless or unavailing, and in such expressions, chiefly archaistic, as "what boots it?" "Bote," an old form, survives in some old compound legal words, such as "house-bote," "fire-bote," "hedge-bote," &c., for particular rights of "estover," the Norman French word corresponding to the Saxon "bote" (see ESTOVERS and COMMONS). The same form survives also in such expressions as "thief-bote" for the Old English customary compensation paid for injuries.

(2) (A word of uncertain origin, which came into English through the O. Fr. _bote_, modern _botte_; Med. Lat. _botta_ or _bota_), a covering for the foot. Properly a boot covers the whole lower part of the leg, sometimes reaching to or above the knee, but in common usage it is applied to one which reaches only above the ankle, and is thus distinguished from "shoe" (see COSTUME and SHOE).

The "boot" of a coach has the same derivation. It was originally applied to the fixed outside step, the French _botte_, then to the uncovered spaces on or beside the step on which the attendants sat facing sideways. Both senses are now obsolete, the term now being applied to the covered receptacles under the seats of the guard and coachman.

THE BOOT, BOOTS or BOOTIKIN was an instrument of torture formerly in use to extort confessions from suspected persons, or obtain evidence from unwilling witnesses. It originated in Scotland, but the date of its first use is unknown. It was certainly frequently employed there in the latter years of the 16th century. In a case of forgery in 1579 two witnesses, a clergyman and an attorney, were so tortured. In a letter dated 1583 at the Record Office in London, Walsingham instructs the English ambassador at Edinburgh to have Father Holt, an English Jesuit, "put to the boots." It seems to have fallen into disuse after 1630, but was revived in 1666 on the occasion of the Covenanters' rebellion, and was employed during the reigns of Charles II. and James II. Upon the accession of William III. the Scottish convention denounced "the use of torture, without evidence and in ordinary crimes, as contrary to law." However, a year or so later, one Neville Payne, an Englishman suspected of treasonable motives for visiting Scotland, was put to the torture under the authority of a warrant signed by the king. This is the last recorded case of its use, torture being finally abolished in Scotland in 1709. It was not used in England after 1640. The boot was made of iron or wood and iron fastened on the leg, between which and the boot wedges were driven by blows from a mallet. After each blow a question was put to the victim, and the ordeal was continued until he gave the information or fainted. The wedges were usually placed against the calf of the leg, but Bishop Burnet says that they were sometimes put against the shin-bone. A similar instrument, called "Spanish boots," was used in Germany. There were also iron boots which were heated on the victim's foot. A less cruel form was a boot or buskin made wet and drawn upon the legs and then dried with fire.

BOOTES (Gr. [Greek: bootaes], a ploughman, from [Greek: bous], an ox), a constellation of the northern hemisphere, mentioned by Eudoxus (4th century B.C.) and Aratus (3rd century B.C.), and perhaps alluded to in the book of Job (see ARCTURUS), and by Homer and Hesiod. The ancient Greeks symbolized it as a man walking, with his right hand grasping a club, and his left extending upwards and holding the leash of two dogs, which are apparently barking at the Great Bear. Ptolemy catalogues twenty-three stars, Tycho Brahe twenty-eight, Hevelius fifty-two. In addition to Arcturus, the brightest in the group, the most interesting stars of this constellation are: _[epsilon] Bootis_, a beautiful double star composed of a yellow star of magnitude 3, and a blue star of magnitude 6-1/2; _[xi] Bootis_, a double star composed of a yellow star, magnitude 4-1/2, and a purple star, magnitude 6-1/2; and _W. Bootis_, an irregularly variable star. This constellation has been known by many other names--Arcas, Arctophylax, Arcturus minor, Bubuleus, Bubulus, Canis latrans, Clamator, Icarus, Lycaon, Philometus, Plaustri custos, Plorans, Thegnis, Vociferator; the Arabs termed it Aramech or Archamech; Hesychius named it Orion; Jules Schiller, St Sylvester; Schickard, Nimrod; and Weigelius, the Three Swedish Crowns.

BOOTH, BARTON (1681-1733), English actor, who came of a good Lancashire family, was educated at Westminster school, where his success in the Latin play _Andria_ gave him an inclination for the stage. He was intended for the church; but in 1698 he ran away from Trinity College, Cambridge, and obtained employment in a theatrical company in Dublin, where he made his first appearance as Oroonoko. After two seasons in Ireland he returned to London, where Betterton, who on an earlier application had withheld his active aid, probably out of regard for Booth's family, now gave him all the assistance in his power. At Lincoln's Inn Fields (1700-1704) he first appeared as Maximus in _Valentinian_, and his success was immediate. He was at the Haymarket with Betterton from 1705 to 1708, and for the next twenty years at Drury Lane. Booth died on the 10th of May 1733, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His greatest parts, after the title-part of Addison's _Cato_, which established his reputation as a tragedian, were probably Hotspur and Brutus. His Lear was deemed worthy of comparison with Garrick's. As the ghost in _Hamlet_ he is said never to have had a superior. Among his other Shakespearian roles were Mark Antony, Timon of Athens and Othello. He also played to perfection the gay Lothario in Rowe's _Fair Penitent_. Booth was twice married; his second wife, Hester Santlow, an actress of some merit, survived him.

See Cibber, _Lives and Characters of the most eminent Actors and Actresses_ (1753); Victor, _Memoirs of the Life of Barton Booth_ (1733).