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mentation Fund). Statements were made to the effect that the last year's accounts of the churches showed an increase of 5,300 members, 30,548 scholars, and 3,427 teachers. A scheme for the constitution of the Union was presented, and laid over to be discussed at the meeting of the body in the spring of 1881.

The receipts of the Baptist Missionary Society during the year ending March 31, 1880, for general purposes, amounted to £45,233, and, including contributions for special funds, to £50,351. The amount of general income was the largest ever received in one year, except in the Jubilee year of the Society. The condition of the missions in India, Ceylon, China, Japan, West Africa, Central Africa (Congo), the Bahamas, San Domingo, Trinidad, Jamaica, Norway. Brittany, and Italy, is reviewed in the report of the Society. In all, so far as was reported, the missions included 82 missionaries, 309 other laborers, 407 stations, 33,805 members, 5,141 day-scholars, 166 teachers, and 4,346 scholars in Sunday-schools. The income of the Zenana Mission amounted to £3,658. Twenty-seven ladies and forty-six native teachers were employed in connection with the mission, about 700 children were instructed in the Zenanas, and 1,100 women listened to the reading of the Bible. A Home for the Ladies in Delhi was ready to be occupied, and £2,300 had been promised toward the erection of a home in Calcutta.

V. GENERAL BAPTISTS.-The General Baptist Conference met at Nottingham, England, June 22d. The Rev. James Maden, of Mac. clesfield, presided. The Secretary reported an increase of 452 members, making the whole number of members in the home churches 24,455, and, including the mission churches of Orissa, 25,449. Petitions to the House of Commons were adopted in favor of the closing of the public-houses on Sunday, and of the abrogation of the enactments by which the opiumtrade between England and China is made lawful. A resolution was adopted approving of the recognition and application by the Prime Minister of the principle that no religious views which a man might have should disqualify him from holding high office under the Crown.

The receipts of the General Baptist Foreign Missionary Society for the year ending in May, 1880, were £8,727, and its expenditures £8,538. Fourteen English missionaries were employed in India, and another missionary had been accepted for service in the same field.

BAROMETERS, WATER. The specific weight of mercury being 13.596, a hydraulic barometer in which a column of water about 10 metres high counterbalances the mean pressure of the atmosphere, instead of the mercurial column of 76 centimetres, shows much finer variations of pressure than the ordinary barometer. The simple contrivance of Babinet, consisting of a long, thin tube of glass inserted in the neck of a tightly closed bottle, in which

the water had been forced up the tube, enabled him to observe the minute variations of atmospheric pressure during a small space of time; but the observations were vitiated by the effect of variations of temperature in vaporizing the water and dilating or contracting the mass of the water and the air. Another French physicist has constructed a permanent water barometer in which all the inequalities caused by temperature are avoided or compensated, and which is, therefore, as precise as it is sensitive. A reservoir of air is sunk in the floor of a closed cellar, in which the temperature is practically the same at all times of the year. In the reservoir is placed a large demijohn, in which a tube is inserted, which is carried up to the chamber in the floor of the building where it is desired to observe the barometric variations. The capacity of the reservoir can be from one to 100 litres or more, and can serve for a number of different barometers if desirable. In the Institute there are three connected with the same vessel of water, of a capacity of 85 litres. The copper pipe which connects with the glass tube, on which the rise and fall of the column of water is indicated by a scale, can be carried up from the demijohn at any inclination. The glass indicator need be no more than a metre in length to allow for the height of the vessel in which the tube terminates, and show the extreme variations of barometrical pressure, which fall within 70 centimetres of the scale. The barometer of the Société de l'Encouragement has a copper tube 16 metres long with an interior diameter of 3 millimetres ending in a glass tube with 8 millimetres' interior diameter. Just 13 millimetres on the scale correspond to the millimetre divisions on the scale of the quicksilver barometer, the deviation from the exact ratio of 13.596 between the specific weights of quicksilver and water representing the allowance to be made for the sinking of the level of the water in the reservoir answering to the rise of the column in the tube and that due to the compression of the air in the reservoir, and also to the increase in the specific gravity of the water by the admixture of glycerine, or sometimes sulphuric acid, which is necessary to keep the water in the pipe from freezing if it is exposed to frost. In the building of the Société de l'Encouragement no preventive against freezing is needed, but a tincture of fuchsine in the water reduces the height of the column about one millimetre. The water is forced up the pipe by successive blasts through a tube inserted in the cork of the demijohn, which dislodge portions of the air in the tube, the globules of air driven out through the mouth of the pipe making way for the ascending column of water which is held up by the pressure of the atmosphere. When the summit of the column has nearly reached the point on the scale corresponding to the reading of a good mercurial barometer, it is brought into exact agreement by pouring into the vessel a sufficient quantity of water, or taking water out if the level of the column

has risen above the point of normal pressure measured on the scale. To guard against evaporation of the water in the reservoir, the outer air may be admitted only through a minute puncture, or, better still, through a capillary tube. The exact degree of atmospheric pressure is indicated by the readings of the water barometer without the necessity of any reduction or calculation of errors. The range of errors does not exceed the variation of pressure measured by one millimetre on the scale of the ordinary barometer, an amount which may be disregarded, since in the usual barometric readings the depression due to capillarity in the mercury-tube is seldom taken account of, while that caused by the tension of the mercurial vapor must exceed one millimetre, and the expansion of the confined air occasions an equal variation. The indicator tube may be inclined to any angle with the perpendicular, and the delicacy of the indications proportionately increased. One which has been put up in the Grenelle Gasworks has a scale on which 70 millimètres correspond to one millimetre on the mercurial tube, and which reveals minute undulations of barometric pressure of which ordinary barometers give no suspicion. The water-barometer can be constructed with little expense. It will afford valuable data for the study of rain and the other aqueous phenomena of the atmosphere. If such barometers were set up in the public places of towns, they would be a useful means of popularizing the knowledge of phenomena attended by variations of atmospheric pressure, and would prove of great practical utility by indicating the approach of rain and storms.

BAYARD, JAMES ASHETON, ex-Senator of the United States from Delaware, died at Wilmington, Delaware, on June 13th, at the age of eighty-one. He was a descendant of a distinguished French family who embraced the Huguenot faith. During the persecutions following the massacre of St. Bartholomew they fled to Holland, where Samuel Bayard married the sister of Peter Stuyvesant, then Governor of New Amsterdam, and his three sons emigrated with their uncle, landing in New York, May 11, 1647. Peter Bayard, the youngest of these three brothers, removed to Maryland, and from him descended the subject of this sketch. He was the second son of James A. Bayard, member of Congress from Delaware, and a leader of the Federal party. In 1812 the elder James Bayard was selected by President Madison as one of the commissioners to arrange the treaty of peace with Great Britain which was signed at Ghent. He was envoy to St. Petersburg at the time of his death, in 1815. His eldest son, Richard Bayard, represented Delaware in the United States Senate until his appointment as Minister to Belgium. He was succeeded as Senator by his brother, James Asheton Bayard, in 1850, who was reelected in 1856, and again in 1862. Mr. Bayard entered public life early, having

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been elected to Congress by the Democratic party as early as 1828. He filled many public offices with unquestioned integrity. The Republican committee of investigation in regard to the Crédit Mobilier, in their report to the House of Representatives, mentioned with praise Senator Bayard's letter in response to an offer of some of this stock, written in 1868, before the character of that operation was known, in which he said, "I take it for granted that the corporation has no application to make to Congress on which I shall be called upon to act officially, as I could not consistently with my views of duty vote upon a question in which I had a pecuniary interest. lawyer Mr. Bayard was eminent. His clear intellect and close logic fitted him for the profession which he chose and adorned. Among other important positions which he filled, he was for a long period chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary of the United States Senate. His opinions on constitutional questions and his reports are weighty and authoritative. Under the Van Buren Administration he was United States Attorney for Delaware. In 1862, on his third election to the Senate, the "iron-clad" oath was required of him. Grown old in the service of the nation, he keenly resented this indignity. After an eloquent protest against its constitutionality, he took the oath and immediately resigned his seat. The Hon. George R. Riddle was elected in his place, but, dying soon after, Mr. Bayard consented to serve through his own unexpired term. son, Mr. Thomas F. Bayard, was elected Senator; and in 1869 both father and son sat in the Senate, the only instance of the kind on record. After his retirement from public life, Mr. Bayard lived in Wilmington.

His

BELGIUM, a kingdom of Europe. Leopold II., King of the Belgians, born April 9, 1835, is the son of King Leopold I., former Duke of Saxe-Coburg, and ascended the throne at his death, December 10, 1865. He was married August 22, 1853, to Marie Henriette, daughter of the late Archduke Joseph of Austria (born August 23, 1836), who has borne him three daughters. The heir-apparent to the throne is the brother of the King, Philip, Count of Flanders, born March 24, 1837, LieutenantGeneral in the service of Belgium, who was married, April 26, 1867, to Princess Marie of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen (born November 17, 1845), and has two sons, Baldwin, born July 3, 1869, and Albert, born April 8, 1875. The oldest daughter, Princess Louisa, born February 18, 1858, was married on February 4, 1875, to Prince Philip, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

The area of this kingdom is 29,455 16 square kilometres (1 square kilometre 0.386 square mile) or 11,373 square miles. The population, according to the census of December 31, 1876, was 5,336,189, and in December, 1878, according to a calculation based upon the movement of population, 5,476,939. The following table

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9,772,000 10,101,000
2,021,360 3,263,160

260,333,560 261,435,260

74,785,815 77,990,229

4,535,808 4,699,475

16,272,349 15,901,169
1,903,535 2,078,110
9,306,278
20,371,424 14,254,599

81,354,359 84.240,352

YEAR.

Number of members in

Chamber of

Senate.

Representatives.

102

95

108

116

124

132

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51

47

66

The most important events of the year related to the discussions of the laws concerning the schools and their operation; to the controversy between the Government and the bishops, ending in the withdrawal of the Belgian legation from the Vatican; to the elections for the renewal of one half the Chambers; and to the celebrations of the fiftieth anniversary of Bel

41.063,000 44,040,000 gian independence.

2,920,000 8,410,000

The Chamber of Representatives met after 15,274,950 15,242,110 the conclusion of the Christmas vacation, Janu1,126,000 1,187,000 ary 21st. The debate on the budget of instruction was taken up and continued till Feb259,606,765 272,344,817 ruary 6th. The budget was adopted, February 17th, by a vote of seventy in favor of it to fifty-seven against it. On the last day of the debate, M. Frère-Orban, the Prime Minister, defended the Government, contending that more liberty was nowhere given to the clergy than in Belgium, and that they were complaining because the Government refused them

Total expenditures.. The members of the Chamber of Representatives are elected at the rate of one member for every 40,000 inhabitants; the members of the Senate at the rate of one member for every 80,000 inhabitants. The number of members of both Chambers is, therefore, constantly varying, as will be seen from the following table:

privileges which it did not grant to anybody else. The Government, he said, would know how to make the laws respected; and the struggle of the Right against the secularization of public instruction-adopted as it was now in all civilized countries--would only expose them to the ridicule of all Europe. M. Malon, the leader of the opposition, announced the intention of his party, in case it should regain power, to abrogate the new law of public instruction and substitute the confessional school subsidized by the state for the neutral and lay school. A proposal was adopted on the 23d of March for the appointment of a Parliamentary commission of inquiry into the state of elementary instruction. A commission of eight Clerical and seventeen Liberal members was selected on the 5th of May to pursue the designated inquiry. The members of the Right declined to serve upon the commission, and the appointinent of members to fill their places was thrown upon the officers of the Chamber. The commission, having been organized, published a statement in June, defining the scope of its inquiry, and inviting all persons who could assist it with evidence to cooperate with it, and proceeded to its work. The question of maintaining the legation at the Vatican was discussed in March. The Premier on the 3d assured the Chamber that no concession had been made, and no particle of the rights of the kingdom had been alienated by the continued residence of its envoy at the Holy See. The Minister of Foreign Affairs declared on the 9th that no foreign government had made any communication to him on the subject, and that it was well understood that the Chamber would have to pronounce upon the matter every year, and that no decision definitely committing the country could ever be made respecting it. The Chamber decided in favor of maintaining the legation by a vote of ninety-seven yeas to eight nays and two abstentions.

Several Liberal members voted for the measure in order to avoid dividing their party.

The bill to prolong the existing law relative to the treatment of foreigners in Belgium was adopted in May, and was accepted by the Senate on the 12th. During the debate upon it, M. Bara, the Minister of Justice, said that the line of conduct of the Government toward the French Jesuits, should they come to Belgium, would be precisely the same as had been adopted toward the members of religious bodies expelled from Germany. The laws of the state would be enforced as toward them. If they did not trouble the internal and external security of the country, no measure would be taken against them; but, if they came to Belgium to do what was forbidden to them in France, the Government would prevent them.

The Cardinal-Archbishop of Malines and the Bishop of Bruges had made provision before the year began for giving religious instruction to the pupils of the communal schools

within their dioceses. The Archbishop of Malines, in his pastoral for Lent, condemned the public schools, and advised the faithful not to send their children to them. The bishops afterward, upon consultation, decided to allow the children to take their first communion, without raising any objections with reference to the schools they might attend, and to instruct the parish priests to further the religious instruction of the children in their parishes. The Cardinal-Archbishop received a letter from the Pope, in April, approving the position which the bishops had assumed, and commending their efforts to open and found new Catholic schools, "in order to prevent, or at least to diminish, the disastrous consequences of the new school law, which is completely opposed to the principles and prescriptions of the Catholic Church." When asked the meaning of this letter, the Pope replied that he had not in it intended any hostility to the Belgian Government. The payment of salaries from public funds to the curates of parish priests, whose nomination had not been submitted to the Minister of Justice for approval, was suppressed. The expressions of the bishops became more moderate, and their opposition to the secularized schools assumed a less decided form after the elections for the renewal of the Chamber in June, and they appeared desirous to avoid the rupture between the Government and the Vatican which was threatened. Orders had, however, already been sent, on the 5th of June, to the Baron d'Anethan, the envoy, to give notice to Cardinal Nina that the Belgian legation to the Holy See was withdrawn. In his letter conveying the orders the Premier said: "The maintenance of the Belgian legation was possible, and even useful, so long as the Pope remained neutral in the conflict created in Belgium by the opposition of the clergy to the laws and institutions of the country, and so long as his Holiness used his influence to mcderate the struggle. The legation, however, became useless from the moment that the Pope encouraged resistance to the laws of the state. After declaring the measures taken by the bishops, with regard to the educational law, to be excessive and inopportune, the Pope, by an unheard-of change of attitude, approves the instructions given by the bishops to the clergy. Under these circumstances the Government considers it to be its duty to recall the legation." The Belgian envoy left Rome immediately after receiving his recall. Notice of the rupture was given to the Papal Nuncio at Brussels on the 28th of June. A memorandum respecting the difficulty was published by the Holy See, which began by stating that the rupture of diplomatic relations had produced so painful an impression on the minds of Catholics, and had attracted so greatly the attention of all parties, that the Pope felt it a duty imposed upon him by his dignity to make a clear and public exposition of the facts which preceded it. The Belgian Minister of Foreign

Affairs addressed a circular, on the 17th of July, to the Belgian diplomatic representatives abroad, in which, on the evidence afforded by letters from the Primate, and a bishop, he accused the Papal Nuncio of having, at a time when it was pretended at Rome that nothing was known of the resolutions of the Belgian bishops, taken part in the framing of political manifestoes containing direct attacks on the Government. He also, upon the same evidence, accused the Pope and his Secretary of State of having approved and praised, but with the most absolute secrecy, the measures which they declared to the Government of the King they were ignorant of and were unable to prevent. Cardinal Nina replied to the circular, July 25th, defending the action of the Vatican, and accusing M. Frère-Orban of having premeditatedly broken off relations with the Holy See. The Premier replied with a review of the course and letters of the Cardinal. The elections to the provincial councils were held on the 24th of May, and resulted on the whole favorably to the Liberal party.

The biennial elections for the renewal of one half the members of the second Chamber were held on the 8th of June. The Chamber, as it was constituted previous to the elections, consisted of one hundred and thirty-two members, sixty-one of whom belonged to the Right and seventy-one to the Liberal party. Of the sixtysix members who were to retire, and whose places were to be filled at the elections, fortythree were of the Right and twenty-three of the Liberal party. The elections, when they were completed, resulted in a net gain of two members to the Liberal party. The single Liberal member from Antwerp was lost, all the candidates of the Right being returned; but two Liberal members were gained in the province of Luxemburg, and all of the fourteen Liberal deputies from Brussels were reëlected. The Chamber having been called in extraordinary session to participate in the national festivals, terminated the validation of the elections, and constituted its bureau, August 5th. M. Guillery was reelected President.

The National Exhibition in connection with the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of Belgian independence was opened at Brussels, on the 16th of June, in the presence of the King, the Queen, and the Count of Flanders. The festivities proper in honor of the anniversary were begun on the 18th of July, when the ten thousand civic guards of Brussels and five thousand civic guards representing the provincial towns, the troops of the garrison of Brussels, and the divisions which had gone through the manoeuvres at the camp of Beverloo were reviewed by the King. A statue of King Leopold I, which was erected with the proceeds of a national subscription that was opened after the death of that King, was unveiled in the new public park at Laeken, on the 21st, by the King. The Minister of the Interior delivered an address, reciting the events which had led to the

erection of the statue, and the Governor of Brabant spoke in the name of the subscribers to the monument fund. On the same day a Te Deum was sung in the church of St. Gudule, Brussels, in commemoration of the forty-ninth anniversary of the accession of Leopold I to the throne. The festivities were continued through the rest of July, the whole of August, and a part of September, at the capital and in the principal cities of the kingdom, with meetings, exhibitions, horse-races, boat-races, shooting-matches, concerts, military festivals, cavalcades, illuminations, fireworks, and flowershows. On the 15th of August both the Legislative Chambers met in the hall of the Chamber of Representatives to receive three of the surviving members of the Provisional Government and of the National Congress of 1830 and 1834. Of the three surviving members of the Provisional Government, one, M. Rogier, was still a member of the Chamber; nineteen members of the National Congress were still living, two of whom, M. Rogier and Canon de Haerne, were members of the Chamber, and one, Baron Nothomb, was Belgian envoy to Berlin. After the reception, the members of the Chambers proceeded in procession to take part in a patriotic festival in the Exhibition building. Deputations attended from numerous associations, from the army, from private societies, and burgomasters and deputations from the councils of every municipality in the kingdom. Several speeches were delivered, after which the King spoke at considerable length, expressing his gratitude to those to whom Belgium owed its admirable Constitution, describing the progress which had been made by Belgium since 1830, and adding that the country could not forget to pay a just tribute of thankfulness to the five great powers. A grand historical cavalcade, symbolical of the past and present of the Belgian nation, took place on the 17th.

Forty-two petitions, demanding the reestablishment of a duty on imports of agricultural products for the protection of agriculturists against the competition of importations from America, were referred by the Chamber of Deputies to the Permanent Commission of Industry. The commission in its report on the petitions advised against the reestablishment of the duty, but called the attention of the Government to various means which might be adopted for the improvement of agricultural industry, such as measures to prevent inundations, and the revision of the railway transport tariff.

An International Congress on Education was held in Brussels in the later days of September. Delegates from France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Russia, Holland, and Chili, took part in the several sections.

The International Congress of Freethinkers met in Brussels at the beginning of September, and was numerously attended. Reports were read on the historical development and present literature of rationalism in various countries. A committee was appointed on the subject of

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