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636 Beer, "Wilhelm

Oct., 1893, she has

managed and

Times," of which she

is

edited the

"Sunday

Mrs. Beer

proprietress.

is

a member of the Institute of Journalists, and also of She has comthe Institute of Women Journalists. posed and published some piano and instrumental music. She married Frederick Arthur Beer, editor of the "Observer," London. Bibliography Jacobs, Jewish Year Book, 1900. j. G. L.

BEER, WILHELM:

Astronomer;

Giacomo Meyerbeer, the composer, and

brother of of Michael

Beer, the poet; born in Berlin Jan.

4, 1797; died there March 27, 1850. Wilhelm shared with his brothers the advantages of a liberal and modern- education. At the age of sixteen he joined the ranks of the volunteers and took part in the campaigns

of 1813 and 1815 against Napoleon. He did not remain long in the military service, hut entered the banking-house of his father, whom he succeeded after the death of the latter in 1826. His leisure hours were devoted to the study of astronomy under the guidance of his friend J. H. Madler, with whose assistance he erected and equipped an

excellent private observatory at his villa in the Thiergarten, Berlin. Beer and Madler together made a number of observations of the planet Mars during the oppositions of 1828, 1832, 1835, and 1837, and published the results of the first series under the title "Physische

Beobachtungen des Mars in der Erdnahe," in 1830. Their most important work was a map of the moon, " Mappa selenographica totam luna; hemisphseram visibilem complectens observata," in four sheets This map was incomparably su(Berlin, 1834-36). perior to anything of its kind previously attempted, being executed with the utmost care and representing years of laborious micrometric measurements. Each landmark discovered on the moon's surface was noted with great precision, and 919 spots and 1,095 determinations of the heights of lunar mountains were measured by the two astronomers, who described the results of their work in " Der Mond nach Seinen Kosmischen und Individu-

Allgemeine Vergleichende with maps, 1837). The map of Beer and Madler which is extremely rare to-day remained for a long time a standard work ellen Verhitltnissen, oder

Selenographie

"

(two

—

vols.,

—

in selenography.

Another valuable contribution to astronomy by Beer and Madler appeared in 1841 namely, the "Beitrage zur Physischen Kenntniss Himmlischer Korper im Sonnensystem." This was the last astronomical work in which Beer participated. His friend Madler accepted a call from the University of Dorpat to take charge of the observatory there and Beer, without altogether losing interest in the science for which he had done so much, gradually drifted into politics. In 1846 Beer was elected to a seat in the Prussian Chamber of Deputies, and published his political ideas and sentiments in a number of pamphlets, among which was " Die Dreik5nigsverfassung in Ihrer Gefahr fur Preussen," Berlin,

1849.

Bibliography

Brockhaus, Knnversations-Lexikon, 14th ed.; Meyer, Konversatinns-Lexikon, 5th ed.; La Grande Encyclopedic Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie. s. A. S. C.

s.v.;



63©

THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

Beeroth

BEER-BING, ISAIAH:

French journalist; died in Paris July 21, 1805. a literary career, and at the age of twenty-five published a French translation of the " Phaedon " of Moses Mendelssohn, under the In 1788 he attracted the title "Traite sur l'Ame." attention of Abbe Gregoire, Mirabeau, Lafayette, and Koederer, by his pamphlets in behalf of the Jews, and especially by his "Lettre," in which he defended his coreligionists against the attacks of Aubert Dubayet. Notwithstanding his various literary occupations, he did not neglect the Hebrew

bornatMetz in 1759; He entered early upon

language, and translated Mendelssohn's "Phaedon" Hebrew, with a preface and commendatory verses written by the poet Hartwig Wessely (BerBeer-Bing was, however, obliged to inlin, 1786). terrupt his literary career, because of the necessity of securing means to provide for his large family, and he obtained the position of administrator of the salt-works in the eastern part of France. into

Bibliography Zeitlin,

Gfratz, Oesch. der Juden, 3d ed., xi. 177, 178; BilMolheca Hcbraica Post-Mendelssuhniana, p. 31.

I.

s.

Br.

BEER ELIM: A

Moabite town mentioned in the lament for Moab (Isa. xv. 8). It is probably to be identified with the Beer of the desert wanderings

(Num. j.

xxi. 16).

G. B. L.

jr.

BEER LAHAI

RO'I

Name

of a well in the desert south of Palestine on the road to Shur (Gen. xvi. 7 et seq.), known as the stopping-place of Isaac (Gen. xxiv. 62, xxv. 11). According to the rather

and not at

all lucid explanation of Gen. the name means " the well of him that In order to find the true etyliveth and seeth me." mology of the word, Wellhausen ("Prolegomena," 4th ed., p. 330) proposes to read "lehi," jawbone (compare Judges xv. 17 et seq.), which among the Arabs is a name given to any prominent crag and In to interpret "ro'i" as the name of an animal. Arabic such a place is found bearing the name " camel's jawbone. " The spring lay between Kadesh and The the otherwise unknown Bered (Gen. xvi. 14). Bedouins worship the spring in Muweilih, twelve miles to the northwest of Kadesh, as the well of Hagar. From this it would appear that the traditional well of Hagar, already mentioned by Eusebius, may be sought here but the exact site of the well, which is thus bound up with questions regarding Hagar'shome, can not be fixed upon such testimony. j. jr. F. Bit.

artificial

xvi. 13 et seq.

,





BEER-SHEBA A

place situated on the southern boundary of Judea (compare Judges xx. 1; II

Sam.

xvii. 11



to the tribe of

I Kings xix. Simeon (Josh.

3)

which was

xix.

allotted

It is referred

2).

to in Gen. xxii. 19 as the dwelling-place of Abra-

ham and

according to Gen. xxi.

Abimelech made a treaty

31,

Abraham and

whence

it derives its well of the oath. " According to Gen. xx vi. 23 et seq., the place derived its name from the fact that Isaac and Abimelech made a treaty there. Isaac also built a shrine at Beersheba and again, according to Gen. xxviii. 10 and xlvi. 5, it was Jacob who sojourned there for a time. As early as the days of Samuel, Beer-sheba was an

name Beer-sheba, the



"

there,