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* BAMSGATE. 691 BANCAGUA. ranged streets, crescents, and terraces; the older part, situated in a natural depression or cutting in tUe chalk coast, opens out toward the sea. The principal buildings are a Hebrew synagogue and college, a Benedictine monasterv and college, and a small but beautiful Roman Catholic cathedral. The harbors, 47 acres in extent with 3.300 feet of quayage, serve as harbors of refuge for the Downs. Ramsgate is an important steam-packet station, with shipbuilding and fishing industries. Anciently a fishing village, it increased in impor- tance about the beginning of the eighteenth cen- tury, when a successful trade with 'Russia and the East country' was opened up. The chief imports are timber, ice, and stone. The munici- pality, incorporated in 1884, is progres.sive, owns the water and gas supplies, has improved the drainage and provided an iron promenade pier, public parks, and esplanades. On Ossengal Hill, one mile west of the town, are the remains of a Saxon cemetery. Peg^vell Bay, to the west, is the traditional landing place of Hengist and Horsa, and a monolithic cross at Cliff's End marks the landing place of Saint Augustine in 59G. Population, in 1891, 24.733; in 1001, 27,- 693. Consult: Wright, Wanderings of an Anti- quari) (London, 1854) ; Simson, Historic Thanet ib.. 1891) : "Ramsgate Reviewed," in Municipal Journal (ib., 1900). RAMSONS. A weed. See Allium. RA'MtrS, Petbus( Latinized form of. Pierre de la Kamee) (1515-72). A French humanist, phi- losopher, and mathematician, born at the village of Cuth, in Vermandois, the son of a charcoal- burner of noble descent. In his twelfth year he became senant to a rich student at the Coll&ge de Navarre; and by devoting the day to his master, obtained the night for study, and made rapid progress. He was profoundly dissatisfied with the scholasticism and authori- tarianism of the day. and showed his contempt for the idol of the times by maintaining as his thesis for his master's degree in 1530 that all that Aristotle had said was false. Ramus, with two learned friends, opened a special class for reading the Greek and Latin authors, designed to combine the study of eloqtience with that of philosophy. His audience was large, and his success as a teacher remarkable. He now turned his attention more particularly to the science of logic, which, in his usual adventurous spirit, he undertook to reform. His attempts excited much hostility among the Aristotelians, and when his treatise on the subject (Animudver- sioncs in Dialecticam Aristotelis) appeared in 1543. it was fiercely assailed by the doctors of the Sorbonne, who managed to get it suppressed by an edict of Francis I. But Ramus had power- ful friends, through whose influence he was, in 1545. appointed principal of tjie Coll&ge de Presles, which he raised from a condition of decay to the most splendid .prosperity. In 1551, under Henry II., the Cardinal of Lorraine suc- ceeded in instituting for him a chair of eloquence and philosophy at the College de France. He mingled largely in the literary and scholastic disputes of the time, and. on account of his bustling activity, came under the satire of Rabe- lais. He had long been suspected of a leaning toward Protestantism, and he ventured formally to abjure the old faith. The outbreak of the religious wars drove him from France to Ger- many and Switzerland, where he continued his academic activity. L'nfortunately, he returned to Paris in 1571, and was one of the victims of the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew. Ramtis holds a most honorable jilace in the list of intellectual reformers. His assault on scholas- ticism is vigorous, and, on the whole, well directed; in his assertion of reason as the su- preme criterion of trntli, he must be regarded as the forerunner of Descartes and the modern world. His system of logic, by which perhaps liis name is best known, is marked by its lucid definitions, its natural divisions, and its simpli- fication of the rules of the syllogism; but it fails to make any real advance upon the old logic. His followers were a widespread and for a long time a powerful body of thinkers and teachers. Consult: Waddington, Ramus, sa vie, ses ecrits et ses opinions (Paris, 1855) ; Desmaze, Ramus (ib., 1S4) ; Lobstein, P. Ramus als Theolog (ib.. 1878) ; Voigt. I'eber den Ramismus der Vniversitiit Leipzig (Leipzig, 1888). BAHTJSIO, ra-moU'ze-o, Giambattlsta ( 1485- 1557). An Italian compiler, born at Treviso. He was Ambassador of Venice to France, Switzer- land, and Rome, and subsequently until his death held the post of secretary- to the Council of Ten. He published Drllc narigationi e viaggi, etc., a collection of travels and voyages in three volumes (1550, 1559, 1566), of which the third was com- posed of material important for the history of earlv America. The most complete edition is that of 1606. BANC, ril.x, Arthur (1831—). A French politician and author, born at Poitiers. He studied law in Paris and took such a violent part in the Republican activities under the Em- pire that he had to leave France. After the amnesty of 1859 he returned to Paris and con- tributed to the Opinion Xationale, the Xaiii Jaune, and other journals. Because of the tone of some of these articles he was imprisoned for four months. In 1870 he was elected maire of the Xinth Arrondissement of Paris, and joined Gam- betta. who gave him the directorship of police, a post in which he highly distinguislied himself. The following year he was elected to the Xational Assembly, but he voted against the arrangements for peace and resigned from the Assembly to be- come a member of the Commune. The violence of tliak body was contrary to his own views, and he resigned from it also. Afterwards the mon- archist press attacked him and his organ, the Rcpuhlique Fran^aisc, for the part he had taken during the Commune, and after he had been elected from the Department of Rhone to the Xa- tional Assembly of 1873. he was condemned to death in contumaciam. He had escaped to Bel- gium, where he remained until the amnesty of 1879 brought him back to France. He had con- tinued his connection with the Rfpuhlir/ue Fran- (aise, and became director of the Petite Rcpub- lique in 1880. In 1881 he was elected Deputy from the Seine, and in 1891 Senator. He was consistently Republican througliout the Boulanger ditficulties. and he took a leading part in the revision of the Dreyfus case. His works include Sous I'empire. roman de macurs politiqucs et sociales (18721, De Bordeaux i Versailles ( 1877 ), and Le romiin d'une conspiration ( 1868). BANCAGUA, ran-kii'gwi. The capital of the