Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, first edition - Volume I, A-B.pdf/829

 Button attempted to find out a north-west passage to the East Indies. It lies between 80° and 100° W. long, and between 60° and 66° N. lat„

BUTTRESS, a kind of butment built archwise, or a mass of stone or brick, serving to prop or support the sides of a building, wall, on the outside, where it is either very high, or has any considerable load to sustain on the other side, as a bank of earth, &c.

Buttresses are used against the angles of steeples and other buildings of stone, &c. on the outside, and along the walls of such buildings as have great and heavy roofs, which would be subject to thrust the walls out, unless very thick, if no buttresses were placed against them. They are also placed for a support and butment against the feet of some arches, that are turned across great halls in old palaces, abbeys, &c.

BUTZAW, a town of Lower Saxony, in Germany; it stands upon the river Varnow, on the road from Schwerin to Rostock.

BUXTON, a place in the peak of Derbyshire; celebrated for medicinal waters; the hottest in England, next to Bath.

Buxton-wells. The strata of earth and minerals, in the parts adjacent to Buxton, are peat moss, blue clay, iron, and coal, mixed with sulphur and brazil.

The warm waters there, at present, are the bath, which takes in several warm-springs-, St Ann's well, a hot and cold spring rising up into the same receptacle; and Bingham-well.

These waters greatly promote digestion, unless they are drunk too long, in which case they relax the stomach, and retard digestion; they are well adapted to obstructions of every kind, whence they produce surprising effects in gouty, rheumatic, athritic, and scorbutic pains. As this water is warm, highly impregnated with a mineral steam, vapour, or spirit, it is signally beneficial to cramps, convulsions, dry asthmas, the bilious colic, stiffness, &c.

They advise both drinking and bathing in the use of these waters; only the last is of bad consequence in the gout, inward inflammations, fevers, dysentery, large inward tumours, or in an outward pressure of the body.

BUXUS, in botany, a genus of the monœcia tetrandria clafs. The calix of the male consists of three leaves; and the corolla has two petals: The calix of the female has four leaves; the petals are three; it has three styli; and the capsule has three cells containing two seeds. There is but one species, viz. the sempervirens, or box-tree, a native of Britain. A decoction the leaves and wood has been recommended as a powerful sudorific; but is not now used by practitioners. The wood is of a hard close texture, and is greatly used by mechanics for tools of various kinds.

BUYS, a town of Dauphine, in France, situated on the confines of Provence; E. long. 5° 20′, and N. lat. 44° 25′.

BUZZARD, in ornithology, the English name of several species of the hawk kind. See Falco.

BYGHOF, or Bygow, a city of Lithuania in Poland, situated on the river Nieper; E. long, 30°, and & N. lat. 53°.

BY-LAWS, or Bye-laws, private and peculiar laws for the good government of a city, court, or other community, made by the general consent of the members.

All by-laws are to be reasonable, and for the common benefit, not private advantage of any particular persons, and must be agreeable to the public laws in being.

BYRLAW, or BurLAW laws, in Scotland, are made and determined by neighbours, elected by common consent in byrlaw courts. The men chosen as judges, are called byrlaw or burlaw men, and take cognizance of complaints between neighbour and neighbour.

BYRRHUS, in zoology, an order of insects belonging to the order of coleoptera. The feelers are clavated, pretty solid, and a little compressed. There are five species, all of which are to be found on particular plants, and principally distinguished from each other by the colour and figure of the elytra or crustaceous wing-cases.

BYSSUS, in botany, a genus of mosses belonging to the cryptogamia algæ. The character is taken from this circumstance, that they are covered with a simple capillary filament or down, resembling soft dust. The species are 15, all natives of Britain.

BYSSUS, in antiquity, that fine Egyptian linen whereof the tunics of the Jewish priests were made.

Philo says, that the byssus is the clearest and most beautiful, the whitest, strongest, and most glossy sort of linen; that it is not made of any thing mortal, that is to say, of wool, or the skin of any animal, but that it comes out of the earth, and becomes always whiter, and more shining, when it is washed as it should be.

BYZANT. See Bezant.

BYZANTIUM, the ancient name of Constantinople, See Constantinople.

BZO, a town of Africa, in the kingdom of Morocco,

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