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 BESSARABIA BESSEL 591 lachia, Moldavia, and Transylvania. He was assassinated in 1601. Matthew Brancovan, who made an unsuccessful attempt to recover the independence of his country against the Turks, died in 1654. Oonstantine II. Branco- van, waywode in 1688, served and betrayed in turn the Austrians, Russians, andTurks. He was arrested by order of the Turkish government, taken to Constantinople, and executed with his four sons in 1 714. With the death of this prince the Bessaraba dynasty was extinguished. BESSARABIA, a S. W. province of European Russia, bounded N. and E. by the Dniester, which separates it from Austrian Galicia, and the Russian governments of Podolia and Kher- son, S. E. by the Black sea, and S. and W. by Moldavia and Bttkowina; area, 14,012 sq. m. ; pop. in 1867, 1,052,013, comprising Moldavians, Russians, Bulgarians, Jews, Armenians, Greeks, Gypsies, and French and German colonists. The northern and larger part of Bessarabia is traversed by a low branch of the Carpathian mountains, with a succession of wooded hills and vales, and a fertile soil. The lower part of the province consists of fertile but treeless steppes, watered by tributaries of the Dniester and Pruth, and affording rich pasturage for horses, buffaloes, and sheep. Immense quan- tities of wheat, barley, and maize are raised. The vine flourishes, and melons and other fruits grow in abundance. Flax, hemp, to- bacco, dye plants, and poppies are also raised. Coal and marble have been found in the mountains, and saltpetre in the environs of Soroki on the Dniester. The principal rivers of Bessarabia are the Dniester, the Yalpukh, tributary of the Danube, and the Pruth, which forms a part of the W. boundary. The climate is mild and salubrious, but in the southern parts, which are not sheltered by mountains, the winters are very severe and the summers excessively warm. The seat of government is at Kishenev. The only harbor is Akerman. Other important towns are Bender, Soroki, and Khotin or Chocim, all on the Dniester. The primitive inhabitants of Bessarabia were nomadic Scythian tribes. It was nominally a part of the Roman province of Dacia. In the 3d century it was occupied by the Goths, and in the 5th it was ravaged by the Huns. Then followed the Avars, Bulgarians, and Slavs. In the 7th century the Bessi obtained the supremacy, and from them the country is said to have taken its name. In the 14th cen- tury it formed part of Moldavia, and with it, in the 16th, became tributary to Turkey. It soon after suffered a terrible incursion of Tar- tars, and subsequently the horrors of frequent wars between the Russians and Turks. In the peace of Bucharest (1812) it was ceded to Russia. By the treaty of Paris (1856) Russia ceded to Turkey the southern part of Bes- sarabia, which included Ismail, Tutchkov, the district of Kagul, the greater part of that of Akerman, and most of the salt lakes. This was annexed to Moldavia. 90 VOL. n. 88 BESSARION, John or Basil, a Greek scholar, born in Trebizond in 1389 or 1395, died in Ra- venna, Nov. 19, 1472. He passed many years in a monastery, became a prominent reviver of literature, and was titular patriarch of Con- stantinople and archbishop of Nice. Having forfeited the good will of his countrymen by exerting himself with John Palseologus at the council of Ferrara over-zealously, as they thought, for a union of the Roman and Greek churches, he remained in Italy, where Pope Eugenius IV. made him cardinal, and Nicholas V. bishop of Sabina and afterward of Frascati, and legate of Bologna. But for one adverse vote he would have been raised to the papal see, his Greek birth being the chief objection. Sixtus IV. sent him on a mission to Louis XI. to reconcile the latter with the duke of Bur- gundy; but the French monarcli is said to have taken offence at his having visited first the duke, and called him a barbarous Greek, which according to some accounts affected the health of the envoy and accelerated his death. In France and in Germany he instigated crusades against the Turks, after whose capture of Con- stantinople he was very useful to his fugitive countrymen. His house in Rome became a species of academy, attended by Argyropulos, Poggio, and others, whom he aided in their studies. He bequeathed his books to the. Ve- netian senate, and his valuable collection of Greek MSS. laid the foundation of the library of St. Mark's in that city. He left various writings, chiefly translations of Aristotle and in vindication of Plato, of whom he was a dis- tinguished exponent. He wrote in reply to George of Trebizond Adversus Calumniato- rem Platonic (1470), which was one of the first books issued from the Roman press. BESSEL, Friedrieh Wllhelm, a German astron- omer, born in Minden, July 22, 1784, died in Konigsberg, March 17, 1846. His fondness for science was aroused in Bremen, where he was employed in a merchant's office and be- came interested in nautical and other studies. Acquiring some proficiency in astronomy, he re- ceived through Olbers an appointment as assist- ant in the observatory of Lilienthal. In 1810 he was called to Konigsberg, where under his direction an observatory was built and rose to the highest importance, his connection with it ending only with his death. In 1818 he pub- lished Fundamenta Astronomia, a discussion of the observations made upon the fixed stars by Bradley at Greenwich 60 years before, and including dissertations of inestimable value on the method of stellar astronomy. He after- ward published regularly his own observations, measured the distance of the star 61 Cygni from the earth, took a distinguished part in all the astronomical discoveries and geodetic dis- cussions of his day, and was considered one of the foremost astronomers of the world, blending theory and practice with a master hand. His posthumous work, Populare Vor- lesungen uber wissenschaftliche Gegenstiinde,