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 BAY CITY BAYEUX TAPESTRY 407 ferent plant, the scales imbricated, oval, point- ed, each containing an ovary with 2 subulate stigmas. The fertile ament ripens into a branch of 4 to 9 dry berries, which are covered with rounded waxy particles, giving out, as well as Bayberry (Myrica cerifera). the entire plant, a fragrant and balsamic odor. This .species is especially prized for its wax (see WAX), but seems to be held in more esteem in Europe than in America; and in certain parts of France it has become perfectly accli- mated. Other species of myrica are known as the fragrant gales, of which a familiar exam- ple is M. gale (Linn.), a dark-colored bush 2 to 5 feet high, having wedge or lance-shaped, scarcely serrated, fragrant leaves, and stiff brown-scaled aments appearing in April, and found in inundated places. A southern species, (M. inodora, Bartram), a shrub with whitish bark and perennial, coriaceous, oblong, obtuse, entire leaves, sparingly dotted, is found on the margin of swamps near the seacoast of Florida. The sweet fern ( Comptonia atplenifolia, Aiton), a very common plant in old and neglected pas- tures throughout the United States, also belongs to the order myricacece. The medicinal quali- ties of the order are astringent and tonic, as in the sweet fern, which is employed in diarrhoea, while in its aromatic bark reside both benzoic and tannic acids combined with a resinous mat- ter. The roots of the bayberry are reputed emetic and drastic. The sweet gale has been used as a vermifuge, and its leaves employed in brewing; it affords a yellow dye, and its stems and branches are used in tanning. BAY CITY, a city of Michigan, capital of Bay county, on the E. side of Saginaw river, near its mouth in Saginaw bay, a part of Lake Huron; pop. in 1860, 1,583; in 1870, 7,064. The city has 9 churches, of which 2 are Ger- man, 6 school houses, 2 large hotels, and 1 daily and 2 weekly newspapers. Within its limits are 16 saw mills, which produce daily about 1,000,000 ft. of lumber. Most of these have salt wells and salt factories attached to them, which produce annually from 80,000 to 100,000 barrels of salt. The annual export of lake fish, white fish, trout, pike, and herring is from 50,000 to 60,000 barrels. There is also a large manufactory of gas and water pipes, and one of buckets. Six lines of passe'nger steam- boats and more than 1,000 vessels touch at the port ; and there is railroad communication with Detroit, Jackson, and Chicago. Bay City was first settled in 1836, was incorporated as a vil- lage in 1859, and as a city in 1865. BAYER, Johann, a German astronomer, born in Bavaria about 1572, died in Augsburg about 1660. He was a Protestant preacher, so distinguished for ability that he was called Os Protestantivm. His principal work is Uranotnetria (fol., Augsburg, 1603), afterward enlarged under the title of Codum Stellatum Christianum (1627; new ed., Dim, 1723), with an astronomical atlas of 51 plates, in which the stars of each constellation were for the first time designated by the first letters of the Greek alphabet. His grandson, GOTTLIEB SIEGFRIED (born in 1694, died in 1738), was pro- fessor of Greek and Eoman antiquities at St. Petersburg, and author of Museum Sinicum, containing a Chinese grammar, &c., and of vari- ous other philological and archseological works. BAYEUX (anc. Sajocai, or Civitas Bajocas- sium), a town of Normandy, France, in the de- partment of Calvados, on the river Aure, 5 m. from the sea, and 15 m. N. W. of Caen; pop. in 1866, 9,138. It has a commercial college, a public library, a Gothic cathedral, extensive manufactories of lace, damasks, calico, serges, cotton yarn,, a large porcelain factory, paper mills, many tanneries, and dyeing and printing establishments, and an important trade in but- ter. During the wars between the dukes of Normandy and the kings of England with the kings of France, it often changed masters. It was captured by Henry I. in 1106, by Philip of Navarre in 1356, and finally retaken from the English by Dunois in 1450. During the religious wars it was alternately in the posses- sion of the Huguenots and the league. BAYEl'X TAPESTRY, a piece of pictorial needle- work, supposed .to have been done by Matilda, wife of William the Conqueror, and the ladies of her court, representing the events connected with the conquest of England. It is worked like a sampler in woollen thread of different colors, is 20 inches wide and 214 feet long, and has 72 divisions, each with a Latin inscription designating its subject. It is of great historical value, since it not only exhibits with minute- ness Norman customs and manners at the time of the conquest, but pictures events of which no other record exists among others, the siege of Dinan and the war between the duke of Normandy and Conan, earl of Brittany. It re- mained in the cathedral of Buyeux, in Nor- mandy, for which it was probably wrought, till 1803, when by order of Napoleon it was taken