Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume III.djvu/425

 BDHLE BUHRSTONE 419 The Tuwaju or Waju tribes ar8 esteemed as decidedly superior in many respects to their brethren of Boni. Large communities of these people have within the present century been formed in Borneo, in Sumatra, in portions of- Celebes distant from the parent country, and in many small islands of the archipelago. The native entrepot of Bonirati is one of their set- tlements. In Singapore they form a separate and flourishing community. They have not been encouraged by the Dutch to establish settlements in their possessions. Bl'HLE, Jobann Gottlieb, a German philoso- pher, born in Brunswick in 1763, died in 1821. When only 18 years old he delivered a course of lectures on the history and literature of philosophy ; and at the ago of 20 he gained at Gotttngen the academical prize. In 1787 lie was appointed extraordinary and in 1792 or- dinary professor of philosophy at Gottingen. When the French occupied Hanover he was deprived of his professorship, and withdrew to Russia, where he became successively professor of philosophy, history, and literature in the university of Moscow, librarian of the grand duchess Catharine, and councillor of state. He retired from Moscow before its occupation by Napoleon, and drew up a comparison between the taking of Moscow by the French and of Rome by the Gauls. He returned in 1814 to his native town. He published LeTirbueJi der Qeschichte der Philoophie (1796-1804); Lehrbuch des NaturrecJits (1799); Geschiehte der neuem Philosophie (1800) ; Ursprung und Schicksale der Rosenlcreuzer und Freimaurer (1804) ; VersueTi einer kritischen Literatur der rwsischen Geschichte (1810) ; and other works. BUHL WORK, a process of inlaying by the use of the saw, the name of which is derived from a French workman named Boule, who invent- ed and carried it on during the earlier part of the reign of Louis XIV. With him it con- sisted in inlaying dark-colored tortoise shell or wood with brass, cut in flowing patterns to imitate vines and wreaths of flowers. Reisner, who practised the art at a little later period, made use of woods which contrasted well in color ; and the term is now applied to his pro- cess. The general term marqueterie designates in France all the varieties of this kind of work. It consists in cutting out a pattern from two veneers of different-colored woods, which are glued together with a piece of paper laid be- tween them ; and then, after separating the pieces by running a thin knife blade through the paper, the patterns are carefully taken out, and the figure removed from the one is inserted into the cavity of the other, the dust of the wood being rubbed in to fill the interstices. The cutting of the pattern is effected by the use of a very fine saw, of the kind known as a key saw, which can readily be made to run around the sinuosities of the pattern. The suitable designs for this work are continuous figures, like a running vine or the honeysuckle, the saw completing these without the necessity of discontinuing the work to commence anew. When three thicknesses of wood are glued to- gether and cut, the work is carried on more rapidly, and with more variety ; but it is not found expedient to increase the number of thicknesses beyond this. In old work of this kind it has been found that different woods contract unequally, and at last produce a de- fective joint. This is remedied by the use of veneers of the same light-colored wood, one of which is dyed a dark color. In inlaying pearl work by the buhl method, some modifi- cations of the process are rendered necessary by the small size of the pieces, and by greater care required to make a nice joint. The saw in this is run through at an angle to give a bevelled edge, and the lines are filled in with threads of white metal, as tin or pewter. BIHRSTONE, the best material known for constructing millstones. It is a silicious rock found interstratified with the sands, marls, and sandstones of the tertiary formations of the Paris basin, peculiar for its regular cellular structure and hardness like flint, with which it is identical in composition, both being mere varieties of quartz. It is these qualities of ex- treme roughness, derived from its honeycombed structure, and great hardness and strength, that render it the best stone for grinding. The fossil shells of land and fresh-water origin, with which the rock is sometimes filled, are converted into the same hard 'silicious sub- stance as the rest of the stone, and their cavi- ties are often lined with crystals of quartz. The color of the rock is whitish, with a shade sometimes of gray, and sometimes of yellow and blue. The best quality is that about equally made up of solid silex and of vacant spaces. The stones are quarried at numerous localities near Paris, whence they are transported in large quantities into the interior, and to Bor- deaux and Havre for exportation. La Fert6- sous-Jouarre, in Seine-et-Marne, is one of the most important points where they are procured. The quarries are worked open to the day, and the stones, when extracted from their beds, are split with wedges into cylindrical forms. The pieces are cut into parallelepipeds, which are called panes. These are to be hooped to- gether into the shape of millstones, answering the purpose perfectly well, while they are of much more convenient size for transportation than single stones. Good millstones of a bluish white color, and 6J feet diameter, are worth 1,200 francs, or about $250, each. In this country numerous substitutes for the French buhrstone have been found, the most important of which is furnished by the buhrstone rock of the bituminous coal measures of northwest- ern Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio, immediate- ly underlying the principal iron ore deposits of that region. ' This rock has been wrought into millstones ever since the revolution, but the French rock has maintained a decidad preference in all the great markets.