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 safe as it can be, for the monthly dues and the accumulated profits, which give the actual capital of the association, are lent or sold, as it is termed, by the association as fast as they accumulate, and upon real estate or upon the stock of the association itself. The opportunities for embezzlement, therefore, or for shrinkage of securities, are reduced to the minimum, and an almost absolute safety of the investment is secured.

The growth of these associations has been very rapid since 1840, and at the opening of the 20th century they numbered nearly 6000. The Federal government, through the department of labour, made an investigation of building and loan associations, and published its report in 1893. The total dues paid in on instalment shares amounted then to $450,667,594. The business represented by this great sum, conducted quietly, with little or no advertising, and without the experienced banker in charge, shows that the common people, in their own ways, are quite competent to take care of their savings, especially when it was shown that but thirty-five of the associations then in existence met with a net loss at the end of their latest fiscal year, and that this loss amounted to only a little over $23,000. Bulletin No. 10 (May 1897) of the U.S. department of labour contained a calculation of the business at that date, based upon such states’ reports as were available. That calculation showed a growth in almost every item. During the years of depression ending with 1899 the growth of building and loan associations was naturally slower than in prosperous periods.

See Ninth Annual Report of U.S.A. Commissioner of Labour (1893); Bulletin, No. 10 (May 1897), of the Department of Labour; Edmund Rigley, How to manage Building Associations (1873); Seymour Dexter, A Treatise on Co-operation Savings and Loan Associations (New York, 1891); Charles N. Thompson, A Treatise on Building Associations (Chicago, 1892).

BUILTH, or, a market town of Brecknockshire, Wales. Pop. of urban district (1901), 1805. It has a station on the Cambrian line between Moat Lane and Brecon, and two others (high and low levels) at Builth Road about 1 m. distant where the London & North-Western and the Cambrian cross one another. It is pleasantly situated in the upper valley of the Wye, in a bend of the river on its right bank below the confluence of its tributary the Irfon. During the summer it is a place of considerable resort for the sake of its waters—saline, chalybeate and sulphur—and it possesses the usual accessories of pump-rooms, baths and a recreation ground. The scenery of the Wye valley, including a succession of rapids just above the town, also attracts many tourists. The town is an important agricultural centre, its fairs for sheep and ponies in particular being well attended.

The town, called in Welsh Llanfair (yn) Muallt, i.e. St Mary’s in Builth, took its name from the ancient territorial division of Buallt in which it is situated, which was, according to Nennius, an independent principality in the beginning of the 9th century, and later a cantrev, corresponding to the modern hundred of Builth. Towards the end of the 11th century, when the tide of Norman invasion swept upwards along the Wye valley, the district became a lordship marcher annexed to that of Brecknock, but was again severed from it on the death of William de Breos, when his daughter Matilda brought it to her husband, Roger Mortimer of Wigmore. Its castle, built probably in Newmarch’s time, or shortly after, was the most advanced outpost of the invaders in a wild part of Wales where the tendency to revolt was always strong. It was destroyed in 1260 by Llewellyn ab Gruffydd, prince of Wales, with the supposed connivance of Mortimer, but its site was reoccupied by the earl of Lincoln in 1277, and a new castle at once erected. It was with the expectation that he might, with local aid, seize the castle, that Llewellyn invaded this district in December 1282, when he was surprised and killed by Stephen de Frankton in a ravine called Cwm Llewellyn on the left bank of the Irfon, 2 m. from the town. According to local tradition he was buried at Cefn-y-bedd (“the ridge of the grave”) close by, but it is more likely that his headless trunk was taken to Abbey Cwmhir. No other important event was associated with the castle, of which not a stone is now standing. The lordship remained in the marches till the Act of Union 1536, when it was grouped with a number of others so as to form the shire of Brecknock. The town was governed by a local board from 1866 until the establishment of an urban district council in 1894; the urban district was then made conterminous with the civil parish, and in 1898 it was re-named Builth Wells.

BUISSON, FERDINAND (1841–&emsp;&emsp;), French educationalist, was born at Paris on the 20th of December 1841. In 1868, when attached to the teaching staff of the Academy of Geneva, he obtained a philosophical fellowship. In 1870 he settled in Paris, and in the following year was nominated an inspector of primary education. His appointment was, however, strongly opposed by the bishop of Orleans (who saw danger to clerical influence over the schools), and the nomination was cancelled. But the bishop’s action only served to draw attention to Buisson’s abilities. He was appointed secretary of the statistical commission on primary education, and sent as a delegate to the Vienna exhibition of 1873, and the Philadelphia exhibition of 1876. In 1878 he was instructed to report on the educational section of the Paris exhibition, and in the same year was appointed inspector-general of primary education. In 1879 he was promoted to the directorship of primary education, a post which he occupied until 1896, when he became professor of education at the Sorbonne. At the general election of 1902 he was returned to the chamber of deputies as a radical socialist by the XIIIme arrondissement of Paris. He supported the policy of M. Combes, and presided over the commission for the separation of church and state.

BUITENZORG, a hill station in the residency of Batavia, island of Java, Dutch East Indies. It is beautifully situated among the hills at the foot of the Salak volcano, about 860 ft. above sea-level, and has a cool and healthy climate. Buitenzorg is the usual residence of the governor-general of the Dutch East Indies, and is further remarkable on account of its splendid botanical garden and for its popularity as a health resort. The botanic gardens are among the finest in the world; they originally formed a part of the park attached to the palace of the governor-general, and were established in 1817. Under J. S. Teysmann, who became hortulanus in 1830, the collection was extended, and in 1868 was recognized as a government institution with a director. Between this and 1880 a museum, a school of agriculture, and a culture garden were added, and since then library, botanical, chemical, and pharmacological laboratories, and a herbarium have been established. The palace of the governor-general was founded by Governor-General van Imhoff in 1744, and rebuilt after being destroyed by an earthquake in 1834. Buitenzorg is also the seat of the general secretary of the state railway and of the department of mines. Buitenzorg, which is called Bogor by the natives, was once the capital of the princess of Pajajaram. Close by, at Bata Tulis (“inscribed stone”), are some Hindu remains. The district of Buitenzorg (till 1866 an assistant residency) forms the southern part of the residency of Batavia, with an area of 1447 sq. m. It occupies the northern slopes of a range of hills separating it from Preanger, and has a fertile soil. Tea, coffee, cinchona, sugar-cane, rice, nutmegs, cloves and pepper are cultivated.

BUJNŪRD, a town of Persia, in the province of Khorasan, in a fertile plain encompassed by hills, in 37° 29′ N., 57° 21′ E., at an elevation of 3600 ft. Pop. about 8000. Its old name was Buzinjird, and thus it still appears in official registers. It is the chief place of the district of same name, which extends in the west to the borders of Shahrud and Astarabad; in the north it is bounded by Russian Transcaspia, in the east by Kuchan, and in the south by Jovain. The greater part of the population consists of Shadillu Kurds, the remainder being Zafranlu Kurds, Garaili Turks, Goklan Turkomans and Persians.

BUKHĀRĪ [Mahommed ibn Ismāʽīl al-Bukhārī] (810–872), Arabic author of the most generally accepted collection of traditions (ḥadīth) from Mahomet, was born at Bokhara (Bukhārā), of an Iranian family, in 194 ( 810). He early distinguished himself in the learning of traditions by heart, and when, in his sixteenth year, his family made the pilgrimage to Mecca, he gathered additions to his store from the authorities along the route. Already, in his eighteenth year, he had devoted himself to the collecting, sifting, testing and arranging of traditions. For that purpose he travelled over the Moslem world, from Egypt to Samarkand, and learned (as the story goes) from over a thousand men three hundred thousand traditions, true and false. He certainly became the acknowledged authority on the subject, and developed a power and speed of memory