Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 02.djvu/400

BAALBEK. were built of limestone, in a richly decorated, somewhat fantastic Corinthian style. Besides these, there stands at the distance of 300 yards from the others a circular building, supported on 6 granite columns; style, mixed Ionic and Corinthian. It was once used as a Christian church.

The early history of Baalbek is involved in darkness but it is certain that from the most distant times it had been a chief seat of sun-worship, as its name implies. Augustus made it a Roman colony and placed there a garrison. Baalbek had an oracle held in such high esteem that in the Second Century A.D. it was consulted by the Emperor Trajan prior to his entrance on his second Parthian campaign. Antoninus Pius (A.D. 138-161) built the great temple which the legend current among the modern inhabitants counts a work of Solomon. The platform and substructures are, however, of a much earlier date. This temple is said to have contained a golden statue of Apollo, or of Zeus, which on certain annual festivals the chief citizens of Heliopolis bore about on their shoulders. When Christianity, under Constantine, became the dominant religion, the temple became a Christian church. In the wars that followed the taking of the city by the Arabs, who sacked it in A.D. 748, the temple was turned into a fortress, the battlements of which are yet visible. The city was completely pillaged by Timur in A.D. 1400. Both city and temple continued to fall more and more into decay under the misery and misrule to which Syria has been subject ever since. Many of the magnificent pillars were overturned by the pashas of Damascus, merely for the sake of the iron with which the stones were bound together. What the Arabs, Tartars, and Turks had spared was destroyed by a terrible earthquake in 1759. Baalbek is now an insignificant village, with a population of some 2000, of whom more than half are Christians. The Prussian Government conducted, in 1902, quite extensive excavations on the Acropolis.

Consult: Wood and Dawkins, Ruins of Baalbec (London, 1757); Cassas, Voyage pittoresque de la Syrie (Paris, 1799); Murray, Handbook for Travelers in Syria and Palestine (London, 1892); Frauberger, Die Akropolis von Baalbek (Frankfort, 1892); W. M. Thompson, The Land and the Book, Vol. III. (New York, 1886); Baedeker, Syria and Palestine (Leipzig, 1894); Puchstein, in Jahrbuch des deutschen Archäologisrhen Instituts (Berlin, 1902).

BAARLE, biir'le, or BAERLE, See.

BAB, The name assumed by Kitty, the maid, in James Townley's High Life Below Stairs (q.v.). She has an exaggerated idea of her own breeding, and never reads any books except 'Shikspur.' Her pseudonym is taken from the name of her mistress.

BAB, See.

BABA, bii'ba. A Turkish word (bābā), which signifies 'father.' In Persia and Turkey it is prefixed as a title of honor to the names of ecclesiastics of distinction, especially of such as devote themselves to an ascetic life: it is often affixed in courtesy, also, to the names of other persons, as Ali-Baba.

BABADAGH, bil'ba-dag' (Turk, bābā, father, chief + dagh, mountain). A town in the district of Tultcha (Dobrudja), Rumania, situated in a marshy district, 31 miles southwest of Ismail (Map: Turkey in Europe, G 2). It has five mosques, of which the finest is the one built by Bajazet I., who founded the city. He peopled it with Tartars, and named it after a saint, whose monument on a hill near by is a much-frequented pilgrim resort. Through the port of Kara-Kerman, lying a short way to the south, a considerable commerce is carried on with the Black Sea region. Population, in 1890, 3301.

BAB'BAGE, (1792-1871). An English mathematician and inventor, born near Teignmouth, Devonshire. He early devoted himself to mathematics, particularly its analytical branches, and pursued his systematic education at Trinity College, Cambridge, from which he received his baccalaureate degree in 1814. Two years after graduating he published, jointly with Herschel and Peacock, a translation of Lacroix's Calculus, and four years later they published an excellent collection of mathematical problems. Meanwhile, the idea of constructing a machine for calculating mechanically various tables of mathematics and astronomy had been ripening in Babbage's mind, and in 1820 he undertook the practical execution of this difficult task. The model of his machine was found eminently satisfactory by the Royal Society in 1823, and the Government consented to aid him in carrying out the idea on a large scale. In order to familiarize himself with all the resources of mechanical art, he visited manufactories and machine establishments in Great Britain, and in 1827-28 traveled on the Continent. These investigations resulted in a number of highly valuable improvements in machinery and manufacturing processes, and although the completion of his main task was not yet in view, important service was rendered by the publication of his brilliant work, On the Economy of Manufactures and Machinery, the first edition in 1832, and several subsequent editions and translations into foreign languages. The Government, however, fearing that the construction of his calculating-machine was an impossibility, had refused to give him further aid; and thus Babbage was thrown upon his own resources, continuing his work until 1856, but never completing it. Yet the realization of his machine is even now considered as quite possible, and its inestimable value in case it were realized is appreciated by some of the best mathematicians of our time. While mainly devoted to his invention, Babbage also made a number of important contributions to pure mathematics. He invented a new and important branch of higher analysis, wrote on the applications of mathematics to questions of insurance and gambling, and did much to raise the standard of mathematical teaching in England. In recognition of his services to science, he was made a member of many learned societies, and from 1828 to 1839 was nominally Lucasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge. He was one of the founders of the Astronomical Society, and to his writings was due, in great measure, the founding of the British Association. The list of his works includes as many as eighty titles, but most of his writings were left un-