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BERGSOE. marked originality, an exuberant imagination, close observation, and a delicate touch.

BERGUES, bfirg (probably from Ger. Berg, hill, fort). A fortified town of France, in the Department of Le Nord, about 34 miles north of Lille (Map: France, J 1). It is situated on the Colme, at the foot of a hill, and has facilities for laving the valley under water, as a defensive measure in war time. A canal, which admits vessels of 300 tons burden, connected Bergues with Dunkirk and the sea, and this circumstance, united with its central position, makes it the entrepot of the adjoining country. It has manu- factures of soap, tobacco, and earthenware, and also sugar and salt refineries. Population, in 1890, 4700. Bergues was first walled and forti- fied by Baldwin II., Count of Flanders, and Baldwin IV. erected a splendid abbey, of which two lowers only remain, in honor of Saint Win- noe, who retired here in the beginning of the Tenth Century. Bergues has suffered all the vicissitudes of a frontier fortress; it was finally taken by Louis XIV. in 1667, and Vauban so effectively fortified it that the English found it impregnable in 1793.

BERGYLT, ber'gilt (Norweg. berggylta, from berg, hill, cliff + gylta, low). A European name for the rosefish (q.v.).

BERHAMPUR, bev'ham-poUr'. The name of two towns in British India. (1) A military station and capital of the District of Ganjam in Madras, in latitude 19° 20' N.. and longitude 84° 50' E., 525 miles northeast of Madras, and 325 miles southwest of Calcutta (Map: India, D 5). The cantonments, on a rocky ledge, house 2000 troops, and command on the south and east a plain of considerable extent, on the near edge of which is the native town, noted for its manufactures of gold, embroidered turbans, and tussur-silk cloths. Population, about 23,800, (2) A town of Bengal, in the District of Murshidabad, on the left bank of the Bhagirathi. the first great offset of the Ganges, in latitude 24° 5' N., and longitude 88° 17' E., distant from Calcutta, by land and water respectively, 118 and 161 miles (Map: India, E 4), It was formerly one of the principal military stations in British India. The grand square, inclosing a spacious parade-ground, is particularly striking; and the quarters of the European officers form handsome ranges of brick-built and stuccoed edifices. There are here a college, hospitals, and mission churches. Berhampur is the seat of a civil establishment: and the houses of its chief members, erected in convenient spots in the neighborhood, give the place an air of grandeur and importance. Berhampur, though at one time extremely unhealthy from its low and moist site on the delta of the Ganges, has been so much improved by sanitary measures as to be second to no spot in Bengal in salubrity. The first outbreak of the Sepoy Mutiny occurred at Berhampur in the spring of 1857, Population, about 23,500.

BERIBERI, b,a'ri-ba''r!. See.

BERING, be'ring. Dan. pron. b.i'ring, some- times BEHRING, (1680-1741). A Danish navigator, born at Horsen, in Denmark. He entered the service of Russia, and was employed on the great northern expedition planned by Peter the Great to determine the unknown limits of Asia. On February 4, 1725, he started from Saint Petersburg to cross Siberia, with orders to discover whether Asia and America are connected. After three years of preparation at Okhotsk and Kamchatka, he made a seven-weeks' voyage as far as a point from which he could see no land toward the north or east. This northeasterly point of Asia had already been visited by Simeon Deshnetf. a Cossack voyager, in 1648. Bering went back to Saint Petersburg in the spring of 1730. A year later a vessel commanded by Michael Gvosdeff was driven from Cape Szerde Kamen by a storm across to the Alaska coast, along which Gvosdeff sailed for two days. The Empress Anne ordered Bering to carry out his previous instructions, and in the spring of 1733 he returned to Okhotsk. He delayed there until September, 1740, when he sailed to Petropavlovsk, where he stayed until June 15, 1741. He sailed eastward, and on July 26 his lieutenant, who had separated from the commander during a fog, reached the North American coast near Cross Bay. Bering made land north of Cape Saint Elias, July 29. When he started to return, he was driven about by storms until November 10, when his vessel was wrecked on the desert island still known by his name. He died there of exposure and disappointment, December 19, 1741. His companions built a vessel, in which they returned to Kamchatka with more than $100,000 worth of furs captured on the island. A life of Bering, by Lauridsen, was published in Chicago in 1890.

BERING IS'LAND. A somewhat isolated island west of the Aleutian group, in the northern Pacific, about latitude 55° N, and longitude 166° E. It is the plcce where the navigator, Bering, was wrecked in 1741. It is rocky and desolate; population composed of natives and seal-fishers.

BERING SEA, called also the The extreme northern part of the Pacific Ocean, from which it is partly cut off by the Alaska Peninsula and the Aleutian Islands (Map: The World, West Hem., D 2). It is connected by Bering Strait with the Arctic Ocean, and extends from Alaska to the shores of Asia. It has a north and south extent of about 1000 miles, and an east and west extent of over 1500 miles. It receives from the Alaskan coast the waters of the Yukon River (q.v.). The islands are not numerous, the chief ones being the Pribylov, Nunivak, Saint Matthew, and Saint Lawrence. The northern half of the sea is shallow, with a depth of less than 600 feet (and much of it under 200 feet); but the southern half has a depth exceeding 10,000 feet.

BERING SEA CON'TROVERSY. An international dispute, in which Great Britain and the United States were the principal parties concerned, arising out of the depredations of unlicensed Canadian sealers on the seal-fisheries of the North Pacific.

The Pribylov Islands in the Bering Sea are the largest seal-rookery in the world. The seals congregate upon these islands for about eight months in the year, leaving for a day or two at a time to seek food in the surrounding waters within a radius of 50 or 100 miles. In the winter the entire herd scatters far to the south and west in the Pacific Ocean. For ninety years the seals had been preserved under the supervision of the Russian Government, and this was con-