left the king, and, going to Canterbury, murdered Becket at the altar of the church. He was declared a saint by the pope, and his tomb at Canterbury became a shrine visited by pilgrims from all over the world. But the beautiful shrine was destroyed by Henry VIII, and the cathedral was partly destroyed by fire in 1872.
Becquerel (bēk′rĕl′) Rays. About one year after Röntgen made his beautiful discovery that X-rays could be produced by the use of an induction coil and a vacuum tube, a French physicist, M. Henri Becquerel, found that the metal uranium and its compounds are continually emitting rays which possess almost exactly the same properties as X-rays. This new radiation which is emitted spontaneously by uranium has received the name Becquerel rays. Experiments have shown that these rays possess the following properties:
1. They are propagated in straight lines, as is ordinary light.
2. They affect the photographic plate, as does ordinary light, though in a much less degree.
3. They traverse thin plates of opaque bodies, unlike ordinary light.
4. They are not reflected, refracted or polarized, as is ordinary light.
5. They render the air through which they pass a conductor of electricity, or, as the chemist says, they ionize air.
A full account of this discovery is to be found in Becquerel's papers, which are published in the Comptes Rendus for the first few months of 1896.
Bede or Beda, surnamed The Venerable, an English monk, scholar and church historian, was born in 673, in what now is the county of Durham, and died at Jarrow, at the monastery of St. Paul, in 735. He is said to have been the most learned Englishman of his day, and in the seclusion of his cell he wrote, besides his important Ecclesiastical History of England, which was translated from the Latin by King Alfred into Anglo-Saxon, a number of commentaries, homilies, hymns and lives of the saints.
Bedford, Indiana, is the county seat of Lawrence County, on the Baltimore and Ohio Southwestern, Chicago, Indianapolis & Louisville and Evansville & Richmond railways, 75 miles northwest of Louisville. It has valuable quarries near by, chiefly of a fine, durable oölitic limestone, much in request for building purposes. Its other industries include veneering mills and lumber factories, besides railway shops, etc. It is the seat of Bedford Male and Female College, an academy and other schools. Population, 8,716.
Bed'ford, Admiral Sir Frederick George Denham, G.C.B., K.C.B., C.B., has been governor of Western Australia since 1903. He was born in 1838, the son of
Vice-Admiral Bedford, and entered the royal navy in 1852. His service has been interesting and extensive. He was present at the bombardments of Odessa, Sevastopool and Sveaburg, commanded the Shah in its engagement with the Huascar, organized the Nile flotilla in 1884, commanded the expeditions against Fodi Silah in Gambia in 1894, against Nana of Brokenin on the Benin the same year and against King Koko of Nimbi on the Niger the year following. He was one of the lords of the admiralty from 1889 to 1892 and from 1895 to 1899, taking command of the North American and West Indies station in the last named year and retaining it until he received his present appointment.
Bedford, Duke of. See Joan of Arc.
Bedloe's Island, in New York harbor. In 1800 it was ceded to the United States government, and in 1841 Fort Wood was built on it. Within the fort now stands Bartholdi's great statue of Liberty Enlightening the World, presented by France to the United States.
Bedouins (bĕd′o͝o-ĭnz), meaning “dwellers in the desert,” are Arabs who lead a wandering life. While the desert of Arabia is their central place of abode, they have spread themselves over many countries, and are now to be found from the western boundary of Persia to the Atlantic and from the mountains of Kurdistan to the negro countries of Sudan. In a few regions they have mixed with other nations; but as a rule they have kept their separate character and independence. They now form a seventh of the population of Arabia. They have seldom acted as a united people in the world's politics. They are herdsmen and generally robbers, and recognize little law except tribal custom. One or more families form the core of a tribe, a kind of aristocracy, and from their number a superior sheikh is chosen to lead them and to judge between those engaged in disputes, if they choose to come to him. They manufacture their own woolen clothes, and their food is mainly obtained from their herds, though they also eat rice, honey, locusts and even lizards. Certain tribes, however, live in houses and practice agriculture.
Bee, an insect related to wasps and ants. Bees abound in all parts of the world, numbering about 5,000 species. All when adult feed on sweet juices. There are the solitary bees, each female providing a nest for her young, as the carpenter bee and others; the social bees, so called because many work together to build a common home; guest bees, that lay eggs in the nests of others. The carpenter bees bore tunnels in dead tree trunks, fence posts, even in the joists of buildings. The burrow runs across the grain at first, then at right angles to this a deep burrow is made, and other galleries may be added. These bees are indefatigable
