Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 03.djvu/401

* BOTTIGER. 353 BOTTLEHEAD. ata (1842-51), and Dante's Divina Commcdia (1840-511. His collectod works appeared at Stcickliolm ( (i vols., 1S5C-81). BOTTIGER, bet'ti-Ker, Karl August (17G0- 1835). A German arclnpologist. He was born .lune 8, 1700. at Reichenhach, in Saxony, and studied in Leipzig. In 1791, chiefly through the influence of Herder, he was appointed director of the gjninasium, and consistorial councilor at Weimar. Here he enjoyed the stimuhiting so- ciety of Herder, Wieland, Goethe, and others. His literary activity at this period was prodigious. He edited several journals, and wrote multitudes of reviews, biographical notices, etc., for the AllytDieiiie Zeitung. In 1804 he was called to Dresden, where he began to deliver lectures on special branches of classical antiquities and art. In 1832 Biittiger was elected a member of the French Institute. He died November 17, 1835. Among his important works are: )<abiii(i odcr Morticiixcciuit im Ptitz^immer eiiicr reichcn Jidmcrin (Leipzig. 1803: 3d cd., Munich, 1878), a study of the household life of the Roman women; Die Aldoirandinische Hochzeit (Leipzig, 1810): Eunstmyfhologie (Dresden, 1811); lor- lesungen und Aufsatze znr Altertumskunde (Leipzig, 1817) ; Ainalihea oder Museum der Kunstmtithologie (3 vols.. Leipzig, 1821-25) ; Idcen :ur Kunstmythologie (2 vols.. Dresden and Leipzig. 1820-36). His minor writings in Latin and German were collected by Sillig and publislicd in 1837-38. Consult: Karl Wilhelm Biittiger, Karl August Bottiger. Eine biograph- ische Skizze (Leipzig, 1837) ; and his Litterar- inche /.ustihide und Zeitgenossen (Leipzig. 1838) ; which lie published from his father's papers. BOTTLE (Fr. houteille, dim. of hotte, houte ; from Low Lat. buticula, dim. of but[t'is, butta, fiask, Eng. butt). A vessel, generally of a round shape, with a narrow neck, for holding liquids. Bottles are now usually made of glass or earthen- ware; but the first bottles were made of the skins of animals, mostly goats. Of this kind were the bottles spoken of in Scripture. Skin bottles are still used in southern Europe for the transport of wine, and by tribes of Africa and Asia for carrying water. The ancient Egyptians made bottles of most elegant form and exquisite work- mansliip, of alabaster, stone, gold, ivory, and other substances. The Italian peasants carry, slung round their necks, bottles made of the rind of the gourd, which, when dry, is as liard its wood. Bottles made of glass will be treated under Glass. BOTTLE -CHART, BOTTLE -PAPERS. A chart which purports to sliow the track of sealed bottles thrown from sliips into the sea. It is a well-known practice, on long voyages, to throw sealed bottles containing some intelligence into the sea, in the hope that these messengers may be picked up, and the information inclosed may reach its proper destination. The frequency of these instances at length led to the inference that by such means the determination of currents might be illustrated. Lieutenant Beecher, an English naval oflicer, has the merit of having con- structed, in 1843, a chart of bottle voyages in the Atlantic, his facts being drawn from the numerous cases that had occurred. The time which elapses between the launcliing of the l>ottle from the ship and the finding it on shore, or picking up by some other ship, has varied from a few days to sixteen years; while the straight- line distance between the two points has varied from a few miles to 5000 miles. Of the actual length of the cuiwed line followed by the bottle, little or nothing is known : but some are believed to have exceeded 8000 miles. The bottle-chart lias been reedited and reengraved from time to time, and pviblislied in the Nautical Magazine; it is marked by several liundred straight lines, each drawn from the latitude and longitude of immersion to the latitude and longitude of the finding. Charts of this sort are now prepared at the United States Hydrographic Office, not for general circulation, but for information of the office; and from the records thus established cur- rent-charts are prepared and corrected. Pajjers printed in several languages are furnished by the hydrographer to masters of ships for the pur- pose of putting in bottles; the paper contains a request for their return when found to the near- est United States consul, who will forward them to Washington, with a statement in regard to the circumstances of their discovery. BOTTLE-FISH, BOXFISH. See Swellfish. BOTTLE-GLASS, See Glass. BOTTLE -GOURD (gourd used for making bottles; see below), Lagenaria. A genus of plants of the natural order Cucurbitaeeae, nearly allied to the Gourd (Cucurbita), in which it was until recently included. One of the most marked distinctions between them is the very tumid bor- der of the seeds of the bottle-gourds, which have also all the anthers separate, and have white flowers, while those of the gourds pi'oper are yellow. The common Bottle-Gourd or False Cal- abash (Lagenaria vulgaris) is believed to be a native of India and other warm parts of the Old World, but is now common almost everywhere in warm climates. It is a climbing, musky-scented annual, clothed with soft down, having its flowers in clusters, and a large fruit, from 1 to even 6 feet in length, which is usually shaped like a bot- tle, an urn, or a club. The fruit has a hard rind, and when the pulp is removed and the rind dried, it is used in many countries for holding water, and is generally called a Calabash. The bottle-gourd, in its wild state, is very bitter, and is said to be poisonous, and even in cultiva- tion some of its varieties exhibit not a little of the bitteniess and purgative properties of colo- cynth. The bottle-gourd appears to have been introduced into Europe about the close of the Sixteentli Century : but it requires for its advan- tageous cultivation a warmer climate than that of any part of Great Britain, where, although it succeeds well enough in a hotbed, it is chiefly known as an ol)ject of curiosity. It is, however, much cultivated in warmer coimtries as an escu- lent, and is an important article of food to the poorer Arabs, who boil it with vinegar, or make a pudding of it in its own rind with rice and meat. It is also used when young as we employ summer squash. This plant is often grown in the I'nited States, where it is know-n as Hercules's- club, sugar-trough, snake, dipper-gourd, etc. For illustratiiin. see Ci'CUmukk. BOTTLEHEAD. or BOTTLENOSE (so named frum the sliape of tlic -nout. or head). A whale ( Itj/pcroiidon rostralus) closely allied to the sperm-whale, frequenting the Arctic and North Atlantic. It reaches a length of 30 feet, and has the snout produced into a beak, as in