Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume II.djvu/798

 778 BOETIIIUS BOG and philosophy. Its tone is moral and elevated, its style eloquent, perspicuous, and pure, and its arguments are ingenious. It had great fame in the middle ages, and was translated into all the languages of central and western Europe, and also into Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic. The most celebrated of these transla- tions was that into Anglo-Saxon by King Alfred (new ed. by Fox, London, 1864), which has a peculiar interest, both as being one of the earliest specimens of English literature and one of the chief literary relics of Alfred. Edi- tions of the works of Boethius were published at Venice in 1491 (the earliest full collection), at Basel in folio in 1570, and at Glasgow in 4to in 1751. There is an edition of De Gon- solatione Philosophic, with notes and English translation by J. 8. Oardale (London, 1829). KOKTIIII'S, or Boece, Hector, a Scottish his- torian, born at Dundee about 1465, died about 1535. He was educated at Dundee and at Paris, where in 1497 he was appointed profes- sor of philosophy in the college of Montaigu, and formed an acquaintance with Erasmus, who afterward dedicated to him a catalogue of his works. In 1500 he was called by Bishop Elphinstone to the first presidency of Aberdeen college, and was made canon of the cathedral and chaplain of the chantry of St. Ninian. His two most important works were a biography of the bishops of Aberdeen (Paris, 1522), and his " History of Scotland " (Scotorum Histories a prima Gentis Origine, 1526). The latter work contains much that is fabulous, and its author has been charged with plagiarism and with inventing materials and imagining authors for them. It was translated into Eng- lish by John Bellenden in 1536 (new edition, 2 vols. 4to, Edinburgh, 1821). IJOKTIK, Etlenne de la, a French author, born at Sarlat, Nov. 1, 1530, died Aug. 18, 1563. He was celebrated in childhood for his trans- lations, and became a prominent counsellor of the parliament of Bordeaux, but is now chief- ly remembered because Montaigne published some of his works, and recorded in a few touching pages the friendship which existed be- tween them. His discourse on voluntary ser- vitude, a violent philippic against royalty, was written in his 18th year. He died in the arms of Montaigne. BOO, an Irish word, literally meaning soft, applied in Great Britain to extensive districts of marshy land. In Europe these tracts consist so generally of peat, that this substance is there regarded as essential to a bog. True bogs are most commonly found in northern latitudes, and in districts where great humidity prevails. Their situation is not necessarily low, nor their surface level, some of the great Irish bogs presenting even a hilly appearance. In places naturally moist, by the abundance of springs, or around shallow ponds, the mosses, lichens, heaths, and grasses flourish, which by their spread produce the great peat bogs, or mosses. They encroach upon the ponds and fill them up with luxuriant living vegetation and the accumulations of decayed matter. The moss called sphagnum palwtre grows most abundantly, and, like the coral in the ocean, the new growth above leaves the lower por- tion below dead and buried. The famous levels of Hatfield Chase in Yorkshire, which were stripped of their forests by the Romans, were cleared up in the latter part of the 17th century, when vast quantities of excellent timber were found buried beneath the morass. Many of the trees were of extraordinary size, some larger than any now known in Great Britain. Many of them retained the marks of the axe, and some still held the wooden wedges used to rend them. Broken axe heads were discovered, links of chains, and coins of Vespasian and other Roman emperors. The great cedar swamps in the southern part of New Jersey also retain in their peaty soil much valuable timber, the relics of forests of unknown age. An extensive business has long been carried on in extracting this ancient timber and converting it into shingles. The logs are discovered by thrusting an iron rod down through the mud, till one is struck and traced along its length. Some have been found 30 ft. long, and 4, 5, and 6 ft. in di- ameter, and one of 7 ft. They retain their buoyancy, and float with the side uppermost which was in the swamp the under one. Bogs covered with living forests, like these cedar swamps, receive new accumulations of vegeta- ble matters from the continual waste of their foliage and of the smaller shrubs, which grow among the trees. The forests, once swept oft' by fire or other cause, are seldom restored. The waters, obstructed by the trunks and branches, stagnate ; the mosses then take pos- session of the surface, and unless this is drained, the spongy covering increases in the manner already described. In most northern countries bogs are met with of vast extent and in great numbers. They cover such large districts, that they possess a geographical importance, while the materials of which they are composed give them no little geological interest, from the light they shed upon the mode of formation of the more ancient carboniferous deposits of the coal measures. The great peat marsh of Montoire in France, near the mouth of the Loire, is said to have a circumference of 50 leagues. This is somewhat larger than the Great Dismal swamp of Virginia and North Carolina, and but little inferior to the area covered b"y the swamps that make up the Okefinokee in Georgia, said to be about 180 miles in circumference. But the central portion of Ireland is the great re- gion of bogs. Upon a map of the island is seen, between Sligo and Galway bay, a portion on the western coast, projecting into the ocean from the main body of the island. A strip of this width, extended in an easterly direction across the country, includes about one fourth of the area of the island, and in this portion are found about six sevenths of its bogs, leav-