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 12 vols. (Stuttgart, 1892–1894), is the best; there is a cheap edition in Reclam’s Universalbibliothek. Bismarck was an admirable letter-writer, and numbers of his private letters have been published; a collected edition has been brought out by Horst Kohl. His letters to his wife were published by Prince Herbert Bismarck (Stuttgart, 1900). A translation of a small selection of the private letters was published in 1876 by F. Maxse. Of great value for the years 1851–1858 is the correspondence with General L. v. Gerlach, which has been edited by Horst Kohl (3rd ed., Berlin, 1893). A selection of the political letters was also published under the title Politische Briefe aus den Jahren 1849–1899 (2nd ed., Berlin, 1890). Of far greater importance are the collections of despatches and state papers edited by Herr v. Poschinger. These include four volumes entitled Preussen im Bundestag, 1851–1859 (4 vols., Leipzig, 1882–1885), which contain his despatches during the time he was at Frankfort. Next in importance are two works, Bismarck als Volkswirth and Aktenstücke zur Wirthschaftspolitik des Fürsten Bismarck, which are part of the collection of state papers, Aktenstücke zur Geschichte der Wirthschaftspolitik in Preussen. They contain full information on Bismarck’s commercial policy, including a number of important state papers. A useful general collection is that by Ludwig Hahn, Bismarck, sein politisches Leben, &c. (5 vols., Berlin, 1878–1891), which includes a selection from letters, speeches and newspaper articles. These collections have only been possible owing to the extreme generosity which Bismarck showed in permitting the publication of documents; he always professed to have no secrets. A full account of the diplomatic history from 1863 to 1866 is given by Sybel in Die Begründung des deutschen Reichs (Munich, 1889–1894), written with the help of the Prussian archives. The last two volumes, covering 1866–1870, are of less value, as he was not able to use the archives for this period. Poschinger has also edited a series of works in which anecdotes, minutes of interviews and conversations are recorded; they are, however, of very unequal value. They are Bismarck und die Parlamentarier, Fürst Bismarck und der Bundesrath, Die Ansprache des Fürsten Bismarck, Neue Tischgespräche, and Bismarck und die Diplomaten. Selections from these have been published in English by Charles Lowe, The Tabletalk of Prince Bismarck, and by Sidney Whitman, Conversations with Bismarck. By far the fullest guide to Bismarck’s life is Horst Kohl’s Fürst Bismarck, Regesten zu einer wissenschaftlichen Biographie (Leipzig, 1891–1892), which contains a record of Bismarck’s actions on each day, with references to and extracts from his letters and speeches. For the works of Moritz Busch, which contain graphic pictures of his daily life, see the article. Further materials were published periodically in the Bismarck-Jahrbuch, edited by Horst Kohl (Berlin, 1894–1896; Stuttgart, 1897–1899). Herr v. Poschinger also brought out a Bismarck Portfeuille. Of German biographies may be mentioned Hans Blum, Bismarck und seine Zeit (6 vols., Munich, 1894–1895), with a volume of appendices, &c. (1898); Heyck, Bismarck (Bielefeld, 1898); Kreutzer, Otto von Bismarck (2 vols., Leipzig, 1900); Klein-Hattingen, Bismarck und seine Welt, 1815–1871, Bd. i. (Berlin, 1902); Lenz, Geschichte Bismarcks (Leipzig, 1902); Penzler, Fürst Bismarck nach seiner Entlassung (7 vols., ib. 1897–1898); Liman, one volume under the same title (ib. 1901). There are English biographies by Charles Lowe, Bismarck, a Political Biography (revised edition in 1 vol., 1895), by James Headlam (1899), and by F. Stearns (Philadelphia, 1900). A useful bibliography of all works on Bismarck up to 1895 is Paul Schulze and Otto Koller’s Bismarck-Literatur (Leipzig, 1896).

 BISMARCK, the capital of North Dakota, U.S.A., and the county-seat of Burleigh county, on the E. bank of the Missouri river, in the S. central part of the state. Pop. (1890) 2186, (1900) 3319, of whom 746 were foreign-born, (1905) 4913, (1910) 5443. It is on the main line of the Northern Pacific, and on the Minneapolis, St Paul & Sault Ste Marie railways; and steamboats run from here to Mannhaven, Mercer county, and Fort Yates, Morton county. The city is about 1650 ft. above sea-level. It contains the state capitol, the state penitentiary, a U.S. land office, a U.S. surveyor-general’s office, a U.S. Indian school and a U.S. weather station; about a mile S. of the city is Fort Lincoln, a United States army post. Bismarck is the headquarters for navigation of the upper Missouri river, is situated in a good agricultural region, and has a large wholesale trade, shipping grain, hides, furs, wool and coal. It was founded in 1873, and was chartered as a city in 1876; from 1883 to 1889 it was the capital of Dakota Territory, on the division of which it became the capital of North Dakota.

 BISMARCK ARCHIPELAGO, the collective name of a large number of islands lying N. and N.E. of New Guinea, between 1° and 7° S., and 146° and 153° E., belonging to Germany. The largest island is New Pomerania, and the archipelago also includes New Mecklenburg, New Hanover, with small attendant islands, the Admiralty Islands and a chain of islands off the coast of New Guinea, the whole system lying in the form of a great amphitheatre of oval shape. The archipelago was named in honour of the first chancellor of the German empire, after a German protectorate had been declared in 1884. (See, , , .)

 BISMILLAH, an Arabic exclamation, meaning “in the name of God.”

 BISMUTH, a metallic chemical element; symbol Bi, atomic weight 208.5 (O = 16). It was probably unknown to the Greeks and Romans, but during the middle ages it became quite familiar, notwithstanding its frequent confusion with other metals. In 1450 Basil Valentine referred to it by the name “wismut,” and characterized it as a metal; some years later Paracelsus termed it “wissmat,” and, in allusion to its brittle nature, affirmed it to be a “bastard” or “half-metal”; Georgius Agricola used the form “wissmuth,” latinized to “bisemutum,” and also the term “plumbum cineareum.” Its elementary nature was imperfectly understood; and the impure specimens obtained by the early chemists explain, in some measure, its confusion with tin, lead, antimony, zinc and other metals; in 1595 Andreas Libavius confused it with antimony, and in 1675 Nicolas Lemery with zinc. These obscurities began to be finally cleared up with the researches of Johann Heinrich Pott (1692–1777), a pupil of Stahl, published in his Exercitationes chemicae de Wismutho (1769), and of N. Geoffroy, son of Claude Joseph Geoffroy, whose contribution to our knowledge of this metal appeared in the Mémoires de l’académie française for 1753. Torbern Olof Bergman reinvestigated its properties and determined its reactions; his account, which was published in his Opuscula, contains the first fairly accurate description of the metal.

Ores and Minerals.—The principal source of bismuth is the native metal, which is occasionally met with as a mineral, usually in reticulated and arborescent shapes or as foliated and granular masses with a crystalline fracture. Although bismuth is readily obtained in fine crystals by artificial means, yet natural crystals are rare and usually indistinct; they belong to the rhombohedral system and a cube-like rhombohedron with interfacial angles of 92° 20′ is the predominating form. There is a perfect cleavage perpendicular to the trigonal axis of the crystals; the fact that only two (opposite) corners of the cube-like crystals can be truncated by cleavage at once distinguishes them from true cubes. When not tarnished, the mineral has a silver-white colour with a tinge of red, and the lustre is metallic. Hardness 2–2; specific gravity 9·70–9·83. The slight variations in specific gravity are due to the presence of small amounts of arsenic, sulphur or tellurium, or to enclosed impurities.

Bismuth occurs in metalliferous veins traversing gneiss or clay-slate, and is usually associated with ores of silver and cobalt. Well-known localities are Schneeberg in Saxony and Joachimsthal in Bohemia; at the former it has been found as arborescent groups penetrating brown jasper, which material has occasionally been cut and polished for small ornaments. The mineral has been found in some Cornish mines and is fairly abundant in Bolivia (near Sorata, and at Tasna in Potosi). It is the chief commercial source of bismuth.

The oxide, bismuth ochre, Bi2O3, and the sulphide, bismuth glance or bismuthite, are also of commercial importance. The former is found, generally mixed with iron, copper and arsenic oxides, in Bohemia, Siberia, Cornwall, France (Meymac) and other localities; it also occurs admixed with bismuth carbonate and hydrate. The hydrated carbonate, bismutite, is of less importance; it occurs in Cornwall, Bolivia, Arizona and elsewhere.

Of the rarer bismuth minerals we may notice the following:—the complex sulphides, copper bismuth glance or wittichenite, BiCu3S3, silver bismuth glance, bismuth cobalt pyrites, bismuth nickel pyrites or saynite, needle ore (patrinite or aikinite), BiCuPbS3, emplectite, CuBiS2, and kobellite, BiAsPb3S6; the sulphotelluride tetradymite; the selenide guanajuatite, Bi2Se3,