Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume II.djvu/653

 BILBERRY BILE 633 chief seaport of N. Spain, though only small craft can come up to the city, large ones landing goods at Olaveaga, 2 m. below. The registered shipping is between 500 and GOO vessels, and the fisheries are important. The annual value of imports exceeds $13,000,000. The exports of wool, once so important, have fallen off, owing to the preference given to Saxon wools ; and the value of exports, consisting chiefly of wine, lead ore, zinc, iron, corn, and flour, has declined to about $1,000,000. The Bilbao and Tudela railway, completed in 1863, intersects at Miranda the North of Spain line, and places Bil- bao in direct communication with Madrid and with France. There are steamers to Spanish, English, French, and Dutch ports. Bilbao was founded in 1300, was occupied by the French in the Napoleonic wars, and was bravely defended against the Carlist general Zumalacarreguy, who was mortally wounded here in 1835. The province of Biscay is also called Bilbao. (See BISCAY.) BILBERRY, or Blncbcrry, the name of a shrub and its fruit, a species of vaccinium, or whortle- berry. There are two kinds of this shrub : a Bilberry (Vacctntum myrtlllus). taller and a dwarf variety. The fruit of the dwarf shrub in Europe, and that of the taller variety in Canada and the United States, are both called bilberry. BILDERDIJK, Willem, a Dutch poet, born in Amsterdam, Sept. 7, 1756, died in Haarlem, Dec. 18, 1831. He was educated at Leyden, pub- lished in 1779 a volume of poems, consisting principally of imitations and translations of the Greek poets, and the next year gained a prize from the literary society of Leyden. He prac- tised as an advocate at the Hague, attached himself to the house of Orange, and was obliged to emigrate when the French invaded Hol- land in 1795. He visited Germany, remaining two years at Brunswick, where he published various small pieces, a didactic poem on astron- omy, and a translation of Voltaire's Ce qui plait aux dames. He passed thence in 1800 to Lon- don, where he lectured upon literature and jurisprudence, and translated into Dutch many of the poems ofOssian. Returning to Amster- dam in 1806, he was appointed by Louis Bona- parte member and professor of the newly estab- lished institute of Holland ; but upon the king's abdication in 1810 he lost the pension which the latter had given him, and retired to Haar- lem. Though not as remarkable for his artistic taste as for his vigor of thought, his countrymen place him by the side of Schiller and Byron, and he is better known out of Holland than almost any other Dutch poet. Besides smaller poems, translations, and patriotic fragments, he left a number of tragedies, and an epic, "The Destruc- tion of the First World " (De ondergang der eente wereld, Amsterdam, 1820). His histori- cal work on Holland, Geechiedenis des voder- lands, was edited after his death by Tijdemann (12 vols., Leyden, 1832-'9); and his complete poetical works (Itichtwerkeri) were published at Haarlem in 1857-'60, in 16 vols. His second wife (1777-1830) wrote excellent poetry (Dicht- werken, 2-*vols., 1859), besides tragedies. A translation of Southey's " Roderick " into Dutch verse (Rodrigo de Goth) is one of her finest productions. BILE, the green and bitter liquid secreted by the liver. This liquid presents differences in the various classes of animals, although its prin- cipal characters are everywhere the same. Taken from the gall bladder, it is a mucous, viscous, somewhat transparent fluid, capable of being drawn out in threads of a green or brown color, of a bitter but not astringent taste, some- times leaving a rather sweet after-taste, and of a peculiar odor, often having when warmed the smell of musk. It is usually weakly alka- line, often perfectly neutral, and only in disease, in rare cases, acid. It differs from other ani- mal juices in long resisting putrefaction, when the mucus mixed with it has been taken away. The chemical composition of bile is still but little known, the best chemists being in com- plete disagreement in this respect. However, there are some points which seem to be decided. For instance, there is in bile a resinous sub- stance, which is a combination of one or two acids with soda; there is a coloring principle (the hiliverdine), a peculiar fatty matter, the cholesterine, and other fatty substances, salts, and water. According to Demarcay, the bile of oxen has the following composition : Water 87S Choleate of soda 110 Coloring and fatty matters, mucus, &c 6 Salts 10 1,000 Demarcay admitted only one acid in bile, and he considered this liquid as a fluid soap, result- ing from the combination of this acid (cholic acid) with soda. Strecker has found that the cholic acid of the French chemist is a complex one, and he has shown that it is composed of two acids, one of which he calls cholic and the