BO'RGO, a name given to a number of towns and villages in Italy and the Southern Tyrol, and indicating the growth of the town or village around a castle or castellated rock, the original Borgo. See BOROUGH. Thus B. di val Sugana is a place of 3500 inhabitants, with a castellated hill, in the Tyrol; B. Lavezzano, B. San Dalmazzo, and B. Manero are places of 2000-7000 inhabitants, in the Sardinian territory; B. San Donnino, a place of 6000 inhabitants, in the Duchy of Parma; B. San Sepolcro, a town of 4000, in Tuscany, &c.

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BORING, as a process in carpentry and in the working of metals, is performed in a variety of ways. For boring holes in wood the carpenter makes use of awls, which simply displace a portion of the wood, and of gimlets, augers, and bits of various kinds, these last being applied by means of the crank-shaped instrument called a brace. All these are too familiar to need description. The boring of holes in metal plates for making attachments, is effected by means of drills driven by machinery. The annexed figure shews the essential parts of such a boring machine. The drill is inserted in the end of a vertical spindle, P, which revolves in a fixed frame, and is driven by the bevel-wheels G. The metal to be bored is placed on a table or other support below the drill; and the up and down motion, or end-pressure and off-action, of the drill is effected by the hand-gear, O, N, turning the screw M; which being coupled to the top of the spindle at L, presses it down or raises it, according to the way it is turned. The spindle slides vertically to the collar forming the axis of the bevel wheel, but is carried round with it by means of the pin I, which projects into a groove seen at J.

Boring Machine.

The boring of Cannon and of Cylinders for steam-engines is most conveniently described under CANNON FOUNDING and CYLINDER; see also Lathe.

BORING, applied to the earth and to rocks, has two chief uses. 1. For Draining.-In some districts, owing to the existence, near the surface, of a bed of clay impervious to water, the surface-water is retained in hollows, of greater or less extent. The expense of deep draining has been so great as to induce proprietors to neglect such land; but this expense has lately been avoided by leading drains to the lowest portion of the hollow, and then opening a bore through the clay to the pervious strata of sand or gravel beneath. This is done by a simple instrument, an auger of 24 or 34 inches in diameter, wrought by means of a cross-bar by one or two men.

the mineral contents of the earth.--As the borings for these purposes are performed in the same manner, it is unnecessary to give them separate notices. The object in boring for Artesian wells is to open a passage for the escape of water from water-logged strata. See ARTESIAN WELLS. In the search for minerals, B. is had recourse to as a cheap method of discovering the mineral wealth of a district, and whether the quantity and quality of the contained minerals are such as to make the working remunerative. It should, however, never be undertaken without a previous geological survey of the locality; the neglect of this has caused an immense loss of time and money in futile searches for minerals, as in the innumerable cases of bores driven for coal. B. is also of use even after the presence into Silurian and Old Red Sandstone strata, in search of coal has been ascertained, to determine the most advantageous position for sinking the shaft by method of operating is as follows: The boring instruwhich the coal is to be drawn up. The general ment consists of an iron shank, having a cross-bar at the top and a hollow screw at the bottom; to this all the successive B. instruments are fastened. A simple chisel is first attached to the screw, and one or two men press upon the cross-bar, and at the same time force it round like an auger; while another workman, by means of a lever erected overhead, with a chain descending from it to the cross-bar, gives an up and down motion to the instru ment. When the chisel becomes clogged, from the accumulation of material which it has loosened, it is exchanged for a cylindrical auger, provided with a valve, which scoops out the separated material; and thus by alternate chopping and scooping the work is carried on. The nature of the strata is determined with considerable facility and certainty by examining the fragments brought up by the auger. As the work advances, successive lengths of rod are screwed on at the upper end. Three poles are erected over the well, for the purpose of elevating the rods, to permit the change of the tools.

The cost of B. varies with the material through which the operation is carried on. In strata of moderate hardness, the cost is about 10s. a fathom for the first ten fathoms, and an additional 68. for each 5 fathoms beyond.

A simple method of B. has long been in use among the Chinese, by which the great loss of time arising from the screwing and unscrewing the rods, at each elevation of the chisel or auger, is saved. The chisel and scooping instrument are fastened to a rope, which is alternately elevated and allowed to descend by the simple force of gravity; the instrument thus forces its way through the ground. In the softer rocks of the newer formations this method has been successfully employed in boring for Artesian wells.

A still greater saving in time and money has been obtained by a process invented by M. Fauvelle, and described by him before the British Association in 1846. His apparatus consists of a hollow boringrod, formed of wrought-iron tubes screwed end to end, armed at the lower end with a hollow perforating tool. The upper end of the hollow rod is connected with a force-pump by a flexible tube. By means of the force-pump a current of water is sent down the rod into the bore-hole as it is sunk, and the water coming up again brings with it all the drilled particles, so that, except for the renewal of the perforating tool, the rods do not require to be elevated. M. Fauvelle found, by experience, that when he was passing through gravel, or required to bring up considerable masses of broken-off rock, it was better to inject the water by the bore-hole and

three circular ones, the outer ornamented with 32, the next with 24, and the upper with 16 small domes, each containing a seated statue of Buddha, which can be seen through the open work of their roofs. The whole is surmounted by what must be considered as the pagoda (q. v.) itself, which is now empty, its centre being occupied only by a sunken chamber 10 feet deep, meant originally, no doubt, to contain the relic for which this splendid temple was erected.' Mr. Fergusson considers that the five lower terraces are copied from and represent a Buddhist vihara or monastery; and that the niches containing the cross-legged figures were, in the originals, cells, each occupied by a shaven priest. The structure is thus a compound of a tope (q. v.) with a copy, in durable architecture, of the frail cells of a vihara.

BORODINO, a village of Russia, in the government of Moskwa, and about 70 miles west from the city of that name. It is situated on the Kalouga, an affluent of the Moskwa, and gave name to the great battle fought between the French army under Napoleon, and the Russian under Kutusow, Barclay de Tolly, and Bagration, 7th September 1812. The battle of B. was one of the most obstinately disputed in history, and the loss on both sides was almost equally great. Out of 240,000 men engaged, between 70,000 and 80,000 were killed and wounded. The Russians retreated on the following day, but it was in the most perfect order, and without the enemy venturing to attack them. The Russians, therefore, have always held this battle as a victory, and in 1839 raised a fine mausoleum on the battle-field. To the French, however, certainly belongs the honour, as they not only remained on the field of battle, but in seven days after, they had pushed on to Moscow. The French name it the battle of the Moskwa, from the river of that name, and it gave Marshal Ney his title of Prince of Moskwa.

BO'RON is a non-metallic element present in Boracic Acid (q. v.) and Borax (q. v.). It was discovered in 1808 by Gay Lussac and Thenard in France, and Davy in England. The process followed in procuring B. till lately, was to mix pure and dry boracic acid (BO3) with thin slices of the metal potassium (K), and heat them in a tube, when three atoms of the potassium abstracted the oxygen, forming potash (KO), and set free the boron (B). On cooling and washing the mixture with cold water, the potash dissolved out, and left the B. as a dark greenish-brown powder, which, when heated, burned with a green flame, and was re-formed into boracic acid, by combining with

the oxygen of the air. Recently, however, Wöhler and Deville have obtained B. by heating in a crucible at a high temperature a mixture of pure dry boracic acid and the metal aluminium, when the latter takes the oxygen forming alumina (Al,Os), and leaves the B. as minute crystals interspersed through the earth alumina. These crystals possess great interest from their similarity in properties to pure crystallised carbon, or the diamond, and they are now known among scientific chemists as B. diamonds. They are remarkably transparent, are tinged yellow or red (though the colours may be accidental), and rival the ordinary diamond in their lustre and refractive power. B. diamonds not only scratch glass, but also the corundum and the sapphire; and a real diamond, with which a few B. diamonds were crushed, had its edges worn away. It is apparent, therefore, that the B. crystals possess in a high degree the characters of the ordinary diamond; and though they have as yet only been obtained in minute specks, yet it is not too much to expect that the size will be increased, and the artificial B. diamond come into market as an article of ornament, to rival the natural carbon diamond in its mysterious power of flashing back the rays of light. Indeed, so like are these two kinds of diamonds, that they can scarcely be distinguished by outward characters or signs; and it has been gravely suggested that some of the diamonds which now adorn the brow, the neck, or the arm, may be natural B. diamonds. They are very indestructible, requiring a high temperature to destroy them; and, like the true diamond, heat ultimately forms them into a coke.

BO'ROUGH (Ang. Sax. byrig, burg, burh; It. borgo; Fr. bourg; Scot. burgh). The original meaning of this word, by which we now designate a corporate township, seems to have been a hill, risingground, or heap of earth; and it was probably from the elevated positions on which places of defence were erected, that it afterwards came to signify a fortification or castle, and latterly the aggregate of houses, churches, and other structures, which, in unsettled times, usually gathered under the walls of a castle; together with their inhabitants, and the arrangements which were made for their government. The questions whether we owe our municipal corporations to Roman, or to Saxon and other Teutonic influences, or to both; and if to both, then to what extent they have severally contributed to their formation, have been keenly discussed by constitutional historians. In so far as etymology goes, its authority is pretty equally divided, the term municipal, from the Latin municipalis, and city,

from civitas, favouring the Roman view; whilst B. from the root above indicated, and town, from the Saxon tun or dun, a fortified hill, support the Teutonic. But the discussion forms a branch of a very wide subject, which has divided recent writers into two opposite schools, and of which we can here only indicate the existence. On the Roman side, Sir Francis Palgrave is the most uncompromising, and Mr. Allen, as it seems to us, the more judicious champion. The Teutonic side is espoused by most of the Anglo-Saxon scholars of England, and in general by German writers. But from whatever source derived, that the boroughs of England existed, not as aggregates of houses merely, but as corporate bodies, in the Saxon time, is now generally admitted. The B. system of Scotland is also of great antiquity; 'A Hanse, or confederation of boroughs for mutual defence and the protection of trade, existed, in Scotland, and was known by this name in the reign of David I., about a century before the formation of the Hanseatic League of the continental cities; and the famous burgh laws date from about the same period. burghal regulation,' in Mr. Innes's opinion, though collected in the reign of David, and sanctioned by him, was the result of the experience of the towns of England and Scotland;' and he goes on to shew the very close resemblance between these laws and the burghal usages of Newcastle, and even of Winchester, which seems to suggest their common Saxon origin. Mr. Innes speaks favourably of the B. life of our ancestors; and he considers the burgh domestic architecture, of which monuments remain sufficient to shew that the burgess of the Reformation period lived in greater decency and comfort than the laird, though without the numerous following, which no doubt gave dignity

This code of Scotch

if it diminished food. I am not sure that this class

has gone on progressively, either in outward signs of comfort, or in education and accomplishment, equal to their neighbours. The reason, I suppose, is obvious. The Scotch burgher, when successful, does not set himself to better his condition and his family within the sphere of his success, but leaves it, and seeks what he deems a higher.' In confir

mation of this view, Mr. Innes elsewhere mentions that many of the old citizen-merchants of Edinburgh had studied at the university, and appear in the list of graduates.'

Borough, in England, is properly a city or other town that sends burgesses to parliament a privilege, the nature and extent of which will be explained under PARLIAMENT, and PARLIAMENTARY REFORM ACTS (q. v.); and in this sense it is also called a parliamentary borough. But in the interpretation clause of the Municipal Reform Act, 5 and 6 Will. c. 76, s. 142, the word borough is declared, for the purposes of the act, to mean a city, borough, port, cinque port, or town corporate, and whether sending representatives to parliament or not. See MUNICIPAL B., MUNICIPAL CORPORATION, and MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS ACT.

BOʻROUGHBRIDGE, a town in West Riding, Yorkshire, on the right bank of the Ure, here navigable for small-craft, 17 miles north-west of York. It arose simultaneously with the decline of Aldborough, 14 mile to the east, soon after the Conquest, when the great north road was diverted from Aldborough to this place. Its chief trade is in agricultural produce and hardware. Pop. 1095. Edward II., in 1321, defeated the Earl of Lancaster here. Near B. are three immense Druid stones, called the 'Devil's Arrows,' 16 to 22 feet high.

BOROUGH ENGLISH is a custom that prevails in some ancient boroughs in England, according to

which the youngest son inherits the property within borough in preference to his elder brothers. The reason assigned for it is, that the youngest son, on account of his tender age, is not so capable as his elder brothers to maintain himself. A posthumous son is entitled to this privilege, and dispossesses his elder brother. The right of representation also exists with reference to it, for should the youngest son die in his father's lifetime leaving a daughter, she will inherit the property. This custom obtains in the manor of Lambeth, Surrey, in the manors of Hackney, St. John of Jerusalem in Islington, Hestan, and Edmonton in Middlesex and in other counties. See CUSTOM, Gavelkind, Inheritance.

BOROUGH FUND. This is a fund which is

expressly defined by the Municipal Corporations Act, 5 and 6 Will. IV. c. 76, by which it is declared that the rents and profits of all hereditaments, and the interest, dividends, and annual proceeds of all moneys, dues, chattels, and valuable securities belonging or payable to any body corporate named in conjunction with a borough in the schedules, or capacity, and every fine to any member or officer thereof, in his corporate offence against this act (the application of which has or penalty for every not been already provided for), shall be paid to the which he shall so receive shall be carried by him to treasurer of such borough; and all the moneys the account of a fund to be called 'The Borough fund;' and such fund, subject to certain payments and deductions, shall be applied towards the payment of the salary of the mayor, and of the recorder, and of the police magistrate, when there is a recorder or police magistrate, and of the respective salaries of the town-clerk and treasurer, and of every other officer whom the council shall appoint; and other borough expenses.

con

the property of corporations in boroughs, which, The Court of Chancery exercises jurisdiction over since the Municipal Corporations Act, are sidered to hold their property in trust for charitable uses; and the trusts are applicable as well to the personal as to the real estate. See Grant on Corporations, 1850; and see FUND.

BOROUGH JUSTICES were first created in the time of Charles I. Under the Municipal Corporations Act, 5 and 6 Will. IV. c. 76, these justices consist of the mayor during his year of office, and for one year after it determines; the recorder ex officio; and such persons as the crown may appoint by commission. Their duties cannot be delegated; and before acting, they must make the same declaration, and take the same oaths the recorder does on entering his office. See JUSTICES.

BOROUGH LAWS, in Scottish legal history, was the name given to a collection of ancient laws relative to boroughs or burghs, which have long ceased to have any force, but serve to throw light on the ancient manners and customs of the country. The authenticity of these B. L. is beyond question; they are universally allowed to have been enacted in the reign of King David in the 12th century. See REGIAM MAJESTATEM.

BOROUGH RATE is a rate raised and levied

within borough by order of the council of the same; and it has been decided by the Court of Exchequer that such rate is valid, though not made in public. By the 92d section of the Municipal Corporations Act. 5 and 6 Will. IV. c. 76, where there is a deficiency of the borough fund (q. v.), the borough council is authorised and required from time to time to order a B. R. in the nature of a county rate (q. v.) to be made within their borough, for which purpose the council shall have all the