Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 03.djvu/23

BEURNONVILLE. under Luckner and Dumouriez. In 1793 he was appointed Minister of War, and subsequently, when sent by the Convention as one of the eom- niissioncrs for the apprehension of Dumouriez, was himself taken prisoner and delivered to the Austrians. After his release he was appointed commander of the Army of the Xorth, in 1798 inspeetor-general of infantry, and in 1S05 he became Senator. After Xapoleon's abdication he declared himself for Louis X^^II., whom during the Hundred Days he had accompanied to Ghent. In 1816 he was appointed a marshal of France. BEUST, hoist, Friedrich FEKnixAXD Frei- HEKR vox (1809-86). A Saxon-Austrian states- man. He was born January 13. 1809. at Dres- den, and received his university education it Giittingen and Leipzig, after which he entered upon a diplomatic career. After serving at several German courts and at Paris and Lon- don, he became, in 1849, Minister of Foreign Affairs in Saxony, and in 18.53 was made Pre- mier. He represented the German Confedera- tion at the London Conference of 1864, and was the chief exponent of the German national feel- ing on the question of the incorporation of Schleswig-Holstein with Denmark. An oppo- nent of Bismarck and a friend of Austria, he supported the letter in the crisis of 1866, and ranged Saxony in opposition to Prussia. After the termination of the Seven Weeks' War he was obliged, at the demand of Prussia, to resign his office. He entered (October, 1866) the Aus- trian service as Minister of Foreign Affairs', and in the following year was made Imperial Chan- cellor. It was in this office that his most impor- tant work was done, the complete reorganization of the Empire on a dualistic basis. Besides bringing about the Auspleich with Hungary, he carried through important liberal reforms, and abrogated the concordat with Rome. The diffi- culties of procuring harmony between the Ger- mans and Slav.s, and the opposition of the Ultramontanes to his plans undermined his influ- ence. In 1871 he was removed and the chancel- lorship was abolished. He was Ambassador to England from 1871 to 1878, and to France from 1878 to 1882. when he resigned. He died Octo- ber 24. 1886. Consult his Memoirs, English translation (London, 1887). See At".STBiA-Hu>'- GART.

BEUTENMULLER, boi'tpn-mul'ler. Wil- liam (1864 — ). An American entomologist. He was born in Hoboken, N. J., and was educated at a business college in New York City. He be- came cirator of the department of entomology at the American Museuni of Natural History in 1880. and later president of the New York En- tomological Society.

BETITH, boit, Peter Christian Wilhelm ( 17SI18.53). A Prussian statesman. He was born at Cleve and studied at Halle. In 1801 he entered the Prussian civil service, and in 1810 he was appointed director of the Board of Inland Revenue at Berlin, in which post he did much to improve the condition nf finance and industry. After serving in the campaign of 1813. he became a member of the Ministry of Finance. In 1821 he was appointed member of the Council of State, and in 1844 acting privy councilor. He estab- lished the Industrial Institute in Berlin, and similar institutes in the provinces, introduced improved methods in manufacturing, and in these and other ways did much to contribute to tlie furtherance of Prussian trade.

BEUTHEN, boi'ten (generally called Ober- beuthen, to distinguish it from a smaller town of the same name). A town of Prussian Sile- sia, the capital of a circle of the same name, 50 miles southeast of Oppeln, near the Russian frontier (Map: Prussia, H 3), It has manu- factures of woolens and earthenware, but is best known as a mining centre, with zinc, cala- niin, and coal mines, large smelting-works, and iron-foundries. It has several Protestant and Roman Catholic churches, a gjTunasium, an ec- clesiastical seminary, two orphan asylums, and several hospitals. Beuthen was a Polish town in the Twelfth Century, but passed to Bohemia, and in 1742 to Prussia. The language generally spoken is Polish. Population, in 1890, 36,90.5; in 1900, 51,409.

BEVEL (Fr. hiveau, of unknown origin). (1) In architecture or carpentry, the change of a surface from its normal plane, in order, gen- erally, to bring it into proper relation to a neighboring surface. (2) An instrument by which this beveling is done with mathematical exactness, consisting of two flat-edged legs and a clamping screw. See Splat.

BEVELAND, ba've-lant ('land of the open, or beeves'), North and South. Two islands in the estuary of the Scheldt, forming a portion of the Dutch Province of Zealand (q.v. ) (ilap: Netherlands, B 3). South Beveland is about 22 miles long and 10 miles wide in its widest part. North Beveland is smaller, being only 10 miles long by 3 miles wide. Both islands are thickly inhabited, but have suffered much from inunda- tions of the sea.

BEVEL GEAR. See Gear Wheel.

BEVERAGE PLANTS. Plants from whose products the common non-alcoholic beverages are prepared. The principal beverage plants are the tea-shrub {Camellia thea), the coffee-tree (Coffea arabica), and the cacao-tree (Thcobroma cacao). Another beverage plant of considerable importance is the Ilex Paraguensis, whose dry leaves, known as mate, or Paraguay tea, are very extensively used in many localities in South America. The great commercial importance of the principal beverage plants has brought about the introduction of cheap substitutes, some of which are more or less similar in composition to the true products, while others have an entirely different composition and consequently different properties. Among the substitutes for tea may be mentioned on the one hand. mate, guarana, coffee-leaves, and kola-nut, all of which contain some caffeine (same as theine), and on the other hand, the leaves of the partridge-berry, winch contain no caffeine whatever. Other substitutes are enumerated under Te.'V. The substitutes for coffee include chicory-root and the so-called Swedish coffee {Astragalus ha'ticiis). In some parts of the East Indies, the leaves of the coffee-tree are generally used instead of the seeds. A tree of the genus Gymnocladus {fli/mnorladus Canadensis) is known as (he 'Kentucky coffee tree,' because its seeds were formerly roasted and ground as coffee in Kentucky. See Cacao: Chocolate: Coffee: Mat^; Tea; CiVTFEiNE; Theobromine; Adulteration.