Page:EB1911 - Volume 03.djvu/971

 connexions, e.g. dust-bin, wine-bin (for holding bottles), hop-bin, coal-bin, corn-bin.

 BINAN, a town of the province of La Laguna, Luzon, Philippine Islands, on the W. shore of Laguna de Bay, about 20 m. S.S.E. of Manila. Pop. (1903) 9563. The town is surrounded by an extensive and extremely fertile plain which produces very large quantities of rice as well as a great variety of tropical fruits, and a ready market for these products is found in Manila whither they are shipped by boat. The language is Tagalog.

 BINARY SYSTEM, in astronomy, a system composed of two stars revolving around each other under the influence of their mutual attraction. A distinction was formerly made between double stars of which the components were in revolution around each other, and those in which no relative motion was observed; but it is now considered that all double stars must really be binary systems.

 BINCHOIS, EGIDIUS (d. 1460), an early 15th-century musical composer evidently named after his birthplace, Binche, near Mons. He was esteemed by contemporary and later theorists as second only to Dunstable and Dufay.

 BINGEN (anc. Vincum or Bingium), a town of Germany, in the grand-duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt, 15 m. N.W. from Mainz, on the main line to Cologne. Pop. (1905) 9950. It is situated on the left bank of the Rhine opposite Rüdesheim, at the confluence of the Nahe (or Nava), which is crossed near its mouth by a stone bridge, attributed to Drusus, and certainly of Roman origin, and an iron railway bridge. On a height immediately to the south-east is the ruined castle of Klopp, on the site of a fortress founded by Drusus, and higher still the celebrated chapel of St Roch (rebuilt in 1895 after a fire), where thousands of pilgrims gather on the first Sunday after the 16th of August. Apart from its situation, which renders it a convenient place of tourist resort, the town itself presents but few attractions. There are a Protestant and three Roman Catholic churches, among the latter the parish church with a crypt dating from the 11th century, and a medieval town hall. It has a considerable commerce in wine, grain and cattle, and, new quays and a harbour having been recently constructed, does an extensive transit trade in coal and iron. A short way down the Rhine is the Bingerloch, a famous whirlpool, while about halfway between it and the town rises on a rock in the middle of the stream the Mäuseturm (derived from Muserie, cannon), in which, according to legend, Archbishop Hatto II. of Mainz was in 969 eaten by mice (the legend being doubtless due to the erroneous derivation from Mäuse, mice). Another legend states that the Nibelung treasure is hidden hereabouts in the Rhine.

 BINGERBRÜCK, a town of Germany, in the Prussian Rhine province, at the confluence of the Nahe and the Rhine, lying just below Bingen, and at the junction of the main lines of railway—Mainz-Coblenz and Bingerbrück-Metz. It has an extensive trade in the wines of the district. Pop. 2500.

 BINGHAM, JOSEPH (1668–1723), English scholar and divine, was born at Wakefield in Yorkshire in September 1668. He was educated at University College, Oxford, of which he was made fellow in 1689 and tutor in 1691. A sermon preached by him from the university pulpit, St Mary’s, on the meaning of the terms “Person” and “Substance” in the Fathers, brought upon him a most unjust accusation of heresy. He was compelled to give up his fellowship and leave the university; but he was immediately presented by Dr John Radcliffe to the rectory of Headbournworthy, near Winchester (1695). In this country retirement he began his laborious and valuable work entitled Origines Ecclesiasticae, or Antiquities of the Christian Church, the first volume of which appeared in 1708 and the tenth and last in 1722. His design, learnedly, exhaustively and impartially executed, was “to give such a methodical account of the antiquities of the Christian Church as others have done of the Greek and Roman and Jewish antiquities, by reducing the ancient customs, usages and practices of the church under certain proper heads, whereby the reader may take a view at once of any particular usage or custom of Christians for four or five centuries.” Notwithstanding his learning and merit, Bingham received no higher preferment than that of Headbournworthy till 1712, when he was collated to the rectory of Havant, near Portsmouth, by Sir Jonathan Trelawney, bishop of Winchester. Nearly all his little property was lost in the great South Sea Bubble of 1720. He died on the 17th of August 1723.

 BINGHAMTON, a city and the county-seat of Broome county, New York, U.S.A., in the south part of the state, on both banks of the north branch of the Susquehanna river, at the mouth of the Chenango river. Pop. (1880) 17,317; (1890) 35,005; (1900) 39,647, of whom 4272 were foreign-born; (1910), 48,443. It is an important railway centre, being served by the Delaware & Hudson, the Erie, and the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western railways; and an extensive system of electric railways connects it with the suburbs and neighbouring towns. Binghamton is picturesquely situated and has a number of parks, the most attractive of which are Ross Park of 100 acres, and Ely Park of 134 acres. Among the principal buildings are the city hall, the court-house, the post-office, the Binghamton city hospital, Stone opera-house, the Carnegie library (1904), the central high school, and a state armoury. Binghamton has also some fine office buildings. Among the city’s educational and charitable institutions are the Lady Jane Grey school (for girls), St Joseph’s academy, St Mary’s home for orphans, the Susquehanna Valley orphan asylum, and a state hospital for the insane. Binghamton is a manufacturing centre of considerable importance, ranking twelfth in the state in 1905 in the value of factory products, $13,907,403, which was an increase of 32·0% over the value of the factory products in 1900; among its manufactures are tobacco, cigars, chewing tobacco and snuff (value in 1905, $2,879,217), patent medicines (value in 1905, $2,133,198), flour and grist mill products ($1,089,910), men’s clothing ($833,835), and, of less importance, commercial and computing scales and time recorders, chemicals, distilled liquor, beer, fire-alarm apparatus, overalls, agricultural implements, wagons, electrical apparatus, refined oil, sheet metal, paper bags and envelopes, tacks and nails, window glass, glass-ware, clocks, whips and furniture (especially Morris chairs). In the village of Lestershire (pop. in 1910, 3775; incorporated in 1892), about 2 m. west, and in Endicott, another suburb, are large boot and shoe factories. The municipality owns and operates the water-works. When Binghamton was first settled, about 1787, it was known as Chenango Point. Its site was originally included in the so-called “Bingham Patent,” a tract on both sides of the Susquehanna river owned by William Bingham (1751–1804), a Philadelphia merchant, who was a member of the Continental Congress in 1787–1788 and of the United States Senate in 1795–1801, being president pro tempore of the Senate from the 16th of February to the 3rd of March 1797. In 1800 a village was laid out by an agent of Mr Bingham, and was named Binghamton. In 1834 it was incorporated as a village, and in 1867 was chartered as a city.

<section end="Binghamton" /> <section begin="Bingley" />BINGLEY, a market town in the Otley parliamentary division of the West Riding of Yorkshire, England, on the Aire, 5 m. N.W. of Bradford, on the Midland railway. Pop. of urban district (1901) 18,449. The church of All Saints is good Perpendicular, though considerably restored. The large industrial population is engaged principally in the worsted and cotton manufacture. The neighbourhood is populous, but the natural beauty of the Aire valley is not greatly impaired.

<section end="Bingley" /> <section begin="Biniou" />BINIOU, or, a species of cornemuse or bagpipe, still in use at the present day in Brittany. The biniou is a primitive kind of bagpipe consisting of a leather bag inflated by means of a short valved insufflation tube or blow-pipe, a chaunter with conical bore furnished with a double reed concealed within the stock or socket (see ), and seven holes, the first being duplicated to accommodate left- and right-handed players.

The scale of the biniou is usually <section end="Biniou" />