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Ah! alas! "Ay me! I fondly dream `Had ye been there.'" Milton.

ss of; -- as, to back a race horse. To back an anchor (Naut.), to lay down a small anchor ahead of a large one, the cable of the small one being fastened to the crown of the large one. -- To back the field, in horse racing, to bet against a particular horse or horses, that some one of all the other horses, collectivel…

A fire started ahead of a forest or prairie fire to burn only against the wind, so that when the two fires meet both must go out for lack of fuel.

anization of Bible classes of young men; -- so named in allusion to the Hebrew word Berachah (Meaning blessing) occurring in 2 Chron. xx. 26 and 1 Chron. xii.

o, or having the nature of, a basyle; electro- positive; basic; -- opposed to chlorous. Graham.

A kind of mahogany obtained from Campeachy Bay. Sick bay, in vessels of war, that part of a deck appropriated to the use of the sick. Totten.

en. They [winds] beat at the crazy casement. Longfellow. The sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wisbed in himself to die. Jonah iv. 8. Public envy seemeth to beat chiefly upon ministers. Bacon.

The sacred books of the Buddhists in Burmah. Malcom.

In front of; preceding in space; ahead of; as, to stand before the fire; before the house. His angel, who shall go Before them in a cloud and pillar of fire. Milton.

part; as, the belly of a flask, muscle, sail, ship. Out of the belly of hell cried I. Jonah ii. 2.

y the inhabitants of the whole of North Africa from the Mediterranean southward into the Sahara, and who still occupy a large part of that region; -- called also Kabyles. Also, the language spoken by this people.

A salt having two equivalents of arsenic acid to one of the base. Graham.

rather brittle; masses show broad cleavage surfaces when broken across. It melts at 507º Fahr., being easily fused in the flame of a candle. It is found in a native state, and as a constituent of some minerals. Specific gravity 9.8. Atomic weight 207.5. Symbol Bi.

allied to the purslane, but with fleshy, farinaceous roots, growing in the mountains of Idaho, Montana, etc. It gives the name to the Bitter Root mountains and river. The Indians call both the plant and the river Spæt'lum.

A piece of hard wood (as mahogany or cherry) on which a stereotype or electrotype plate is mounted to make it type high.

The peepul tree; esp., the very ancient tree standing at Anurajahpoora in Ceylon, grown from a slip of the tree under which Gautama is said to have received the heavenly light and so to have become Buddha. The sacred bo tree of the Buddhists (Ficus religiosa), which is planted close to every temple, and attracts almost…

r different pressures. For water, at the level of the sea, barometer 30 in., it is 212 º Fahrenheit; for alcohol, 172.96º; for ether, 94.8º; for mercury, about 675º. The boiling point of water is lowered one degree Fahrenheit for about 550 feet of ascent above the level of the sea. -- Boiling spring, a spring which gi…

a forest. The country is bordered by a broad tract called the "hot region." Prescott. Shebah and Raamah . . . border the sea called the Persian gulf. Sir W. Raleigh.

n order to add it to the next lower; -- a term of subtraction when the figure of the subtrahend is larger than the corresponding one of the minuend.

-- On the bow (Naut.), on that part of the horizon within 45º on either side of the line ahead. Totten.