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BONE.

leaves the earthy salts with the remainder of the gelatine. Besides the marrow (q.v.), a little fat is generally found permeating the entire structure of the B., which can be extracted by throwing the bones into hot water, when the grease or fat exudes and floats to the surface. In some of the larger bones of man and other mammalia, there is a central cavity containing a considerable amount of fatty matter, popularly known as marrow. These cavities are not found in the bones of the young animal, but gradually form as the animal approaches maturity. In the sloth, cetacea, seals, and a few other animals, the cavities are not found. Occasionally, as in man, the elephant, giraffe, etc., the bones in the head have cavities filled with air instead of marrow. The uses of bones of animals, for food, are various. In the cooking of soups, bones form a constant ingredient, supplying gelatine, which gives a body to the soup. Where the soup is required of great lightness, for an invalid with weak digestive powers, the shavings of stag's horns may be employed, and these yield a hartshorn jelly free from oil, which therefore sits lightly upon the stomach. How far gelatine is of itself nutritious, is a question: see GELATINE and NUTRITION. Animals, however, like the dog, which masticate, devour, and digest the entire B., do derive benefit therefrom, in part from the gelatine, and in other part from the earthy substances; and the same remark applies to the use sometimes made of small fish, where, after being thoroughly browned, they are entirely eaten. In times of scarcity in Norway and Sweden, the poorer people eat the bones of mackerel and other fish.

B. is largely used in making the handles of small brushes, the more common table-knives and forks, and penknives, and in manufacture of the cheaper sort of combs (q.v.). Our forefathers, before the metals were known, fashioned fish-hooks out of B., and used the spines in the tail and back-fin of certain fishes for pointing arrows. These uses of B., coupled with the employment of the serrated teeth of sharks as a war-weapon, are still practiced by many uncivilized tribes. The fatty and other organic matters in B. allow of its being employed as a fuel where coal or wood cannot be obtained, as in the pampas of South America and the steppes of Tatary. In these regions, it is considered that the heat evolved in the conbustion of the bones of an ox suffices to cook the flesh.

B. is serviceable likewise in the arts in yielding Bone-ash (q.v.), Bone-black (q.v.), Bone-meal (q.v.), and by the addition of sulphuric acid, Superphosphate of Lime (q.v.), Phosphorus (q.v.), also certain oils and fats (see DIPPEL'S ANIMAL OIL) which are employed in forming Lamp-black (q.v.) and in the manufacture of Soap (q.v.) See also BONES AS MANURE.

BONE, HENRY, R.A.: 1755–1834: b. Truro, Cornwall: English enamel-painter. Apprenticed to a china manufacturer in Bristol, he removed to London, 1779, where he was employed in enamel-painting for lockets, brooches, etc. An enamel-portrait of his wife, exhibited at the Royal Academy,

BONE-ASH-BONE-BLACK.

1780, first attracted public attention; and he soon obtained a position which rendered it no longer necessary for him to continue his drudgery for the jewellers. In 1800, he was appointed enamel-painter to the Prince of Wales, a position which he retained when the prince became king; and he also stood in a similar relation to George III. and William IV. The Royal Acad. made him an Associate, 1801, and a full Academician ten years later. Between this time and 1831, when advancing years compelled him to desist from his labors, he produced a large series of works remarkable alike for their beauty and dimensions; in the latter quality they were unapproached by any former or contemporary artist. The principal are Bacchus and Ariadne after Titian, sold for 2,200 guineas, and now in the national gallery; the Death of Dido; Hope Nursing Love, after Sir J. Reynolds; Venus, etc. He also executed a large number of historical portraits of great merit; and altogether his name is one of the highest, if not the highest in his profession.

BONE-ASH, or BONE-EARTH: obtained by the com. plete combustion of bones in an open furnace, when the oxygen of the air burns away the organic matter or gelatine, and leaves the earthy constituents as a white friable mass, the size of the original bone, but readily reducible to the condition of coarse powder, which is bone-ash. A very large quantity of B. is exported from S. America to other countries. The used bone-black of the sugar-refiner also is employed as a source of B., by being heated in a furnace exposed to the air. B. of good quality contains about 80 per cent. of phosphate of lime, and 20 per cent. of carbonate of lime, phosphate of magnesia, soda, and chloride of sodium (common salt); but it is found occasionally mixed with sand, especially as procured from S. America. B. is employed to some extent as a source of phosphorus (q.v.), and in the making of cupels (q.v) for the process of assaying (q.v.); but the most extensive use is in the manufacture of artificial manures, Dee SUPERPHOSPHATE OF LIME.

BONE-BLACK, or AN'IMAL CHAR'COAL, or I'VORYBLACK: prepared from bones by heating them in close retorts till they undergo the process of destructive distillation, when combustible gases and water, together with the vapors of various salts of ammonia, and oil, are given off, and B. is left in the retort. It is generally reduced to coarse grains from about the size of small peas, down to large pinheads, and is extensively used in the arts for decolorizing liquids, such as the syrup of sugar, and solutions of argol (impure cream of tartar) and of the alkaloids, as also in filters (q.v.), for separating chemical impurities from The general mode of using the B. is to allow the colored liquid to percolate through a layer of the charcoal. when all color is arrested, and the syrup or water runs clear and colorless from under the stratum of charcoal. This power of absorbing coloring matters is also observable in vegetable (peat or wood) charcoal, but not to such extent as in bone-black. The application of heat to the liquids

water.

BONE CAVES-BONE-MANURE.

before filtration greatly facilitates the decolorization, and where the volume of liquid to be operated upon is not great, the most expeditious method is to boil the liquid and B. together, and then strain through filtering-paper or cloth. The composition of B. in 100 parts is 10 of pure charcoal, associated with 90 of earthy salts-that is, in the proportion of 1 of pure charcoal in 10 of the commercial bone-black. The power of absorbing colors appears due to the porosity of the substance, and is not resident simply in the pure charcoal; indeed, the earthy matters (principally phosphate of lime and carbonate of lime) can be dissolved out of the B. by dilute hydrochloric acid, and the pure charcoal thus obtained possesses only about one-third the decolorizing power of the total amount of B. which it was obtained from. Thus if 100 parts of ordinary B. have the power of arresting the color from ten volumes of a given colored liquid, then the 10 parts of pure charcoal which can be obtained from the 100 parts of B. will be found to decolorize only three volumes of the same colored liquid; whence it appears that the earthy matters in the B. influence and increase the absorption of the coloring matter, and thus render a given weight of the charcoal of greater commercial value. When syrup of sugar and other liquids have been run through B. for some time, the pores of the latter appear to get clogged with the color, and the clarifying influence ceases, and then the B. requires to undergo the process of revivification, which consists in reheating it carefully in ovens, or iron pipes inclosed in a furnace, when the absorbed color is charred, and the B. can be of service again as an arrester of color. After several re-burnings the B. loses its absorptive capacity, and is then used for the manufacture of Bone-ash and Superphosphate of Lime (q.v.) B. has likewise a great power of absorbing odors, especially those of a disagreeable nature, and can thus be employed to deodorize apartments, clothing, outhouses, etc., or wherever animal matter may be passing into a state of active putrefaction.

BONE CAVES: see CAVES.

BONE-EARTH: see BONE-ASH.

BONE-GELATINE: see GELATINE.

BONE-MEAL; known also as Ground Bone, Bone-flour, and Bone-dust: bone reduced to fineness by crushing and grinding. It is used as a fertilizer, either directly or, after the addition of sulphuric acid, as dissolved bone (see BONES as manure), or Superphosphate of Lime (q.v.). To facilitate the process of grinding, some manufacturers steam the bones. This reduces the quantity of nitrogen, but the loss is offset by the elimination of fatty matters which would tend to prevent decomposition of the B. in the soil. The gelatinous substances are useful for the manufacture of glue, and, with the fat, nearly or quite pay the expense of steaming. B. from steamed bones contains about 3 per cent. of nitrogen and 20 per cent. of phosphoric acid. It is of special value on moist soils and for root crops.

BONER-BONES.

BONER, bō'ner, ULRICH. one of the oldest German fab. ulists; a preaching friar of Bern, frequently mentioned in documents of 1324-49, at the period when the minnesingers and poets of chivalry had passed away. His collection of 100 fables, or examples,' as they used to be called, was entitled Der Edelstein (The Precious Stone), printed first at Bamberg, 1461. It is marked by purity of style, and by clear and vivid delineation. This book is one of the greatest of all bibliographical rarites; only one copy-that in the Wolfenbüttel Library-is known. It is decorated with wood-cuts. Bodmer and Breitinger published a complete edition of the work, Zürich, 1757.

BONES AS MANURE': valuable adjunct in modern agriculture. They are applied either simply reduced to small fragments or a coarse powder called Bone-meal (q.v.), or, after undergoing chemical preparations of various kinds, as the basis of highly valuable artificial manures: see BONE-ASH: SUPERPHOSPHATE OF LIME. Most of the substances of which they are composed are useful to crops, but it is their large proportion of phosphates which makes bones specially valuable for fertilizing purposes. Phosphoric acid, of which bones contain more than 20 per cent. of their weight, forms part of the structure of all animals and plants, and is indispensable to their life and growth. Though diffused through all soils, it is found only in small proportions and in comparatively insoluble forms. Unless liberal quantities of manure or fertilizer have been applied, land that has been long under cultivation is usually deficient in this element; and on grain and dairy farms, it often becomes so sparse as greatly to reduce the yield of crops in the cultivated fields, and seriously injure the pastures. The application of properly prepared bones to soils from which the stores of phosphoric acid have been drawn in too large measure by injudicious cropping or feeding, often causes great and immediate improvement. By the same means the yield of certain crops, e.g., turnips, cotton, and sugar-cane, which need large proportions of phosphoric acid, may be largely increased in soils which already contain a fair proportion of this element. B. usually give the best results as fertilizers when applied on rather moist soils; but on any kind of land, the readiness with which they act will be largely determined by the degree of fineness to which they have been reduced. If used whole or in coarse pieces, it will be several years before much of the plant-food which they contain will become available for the use of crops; and even when finely ground, both their phosphoric acid and their nitrogen (which forms 3 to 6 per cent. of their weight) are yielded rather slowly to plants. For this reason, B. are more useful for trees and for crops which have a comparatively long period of growth than for spring grains and other crops which are in the ground only a short time. But in order to make them really profitable as fertilizers, B. should in some way be thoroughly pulverized. Where there are no facilities for grinding B., which work requires

BONESET-BONFIRE.

strong machinery and involves considerable expense, other methods of reducing them to fineness are sometimes employed: among these are breaking into small pieces and then fermenting them by packing in heaps of earth moistened frequently with water or urine; or by packing the pieces in fresh horse-manure, or with wood ashes kept moist by frequent turning on of water; or by packing the pieces with quicklime and ashes, and by using a solution of potash. The time required to fit B. for use by these processes varies from a few weeks to several months, according to the degree of fineness to which the bones are broken and the rapidity of the fermentation; the latter largely depending on the kind and strength of the materials employed. By any of these methods, also in the manufacture of Superphosphate of Lime (q.v.), there is some loss of nitrogen which the B. contained, but this is much more than offset by the greatly-increased availability of the remaining nitrogen and of the phosphoric acid. In manufacture of certain commercial fertilizers (see FERTILIZERS) ground bone, bone-ash, or spent bone-black is treated with dilute sulphuric acid. The resultant product is a valuable fertilizer, sometimes called dissolved bone, but in the United States known generally as superphosphate.

BONESET: see EUPATORIUM (THOROUGHWORT).

BONET, boʻnět, JOHN PAUL: 17th c.: a Spaniard, one of the first instructors of deaf mutes. Only one person before him had been at all successful in the art, and B. does not appear to have known of him; so that B. is really entitled to the claim of originality in his method, which consisted in imparting instruction by the sight instead of by the ear-gestures, writing, a manual alphabet, and an artificial pronunciation, being the means employed. His plan is minutely detailed in his vol. Reduccion de las Lettras, y Arte para enseñar a hablar los Mudos, Madrid, 1620. The manual alphabet now in use at almost all deaf and dumb institutions in Europe and America, differs little from that introduced by Bonet.

BONFIRE, n. bon'fir [Dan. baun, a beacon, and fire]: a beacon-fire; a large fire made in the open air as a sign of rejoicing, or for display. The practice of kindling fires of this kind is of so great antiquity in England, Ireland, and Scotland, as to be traced to pagan rites: see BELTEIN. It was customary to kindle one of these fires in token of rejoicing on Midsummer Eve-the evening before June 24, which day was appropriated by the church for the feast of St. John the Baptist. Reference is made to bonfires on this occasion by Googe in his translation of the poet Naogeorgus:

Then doth the joyfull feast of John the Baptist take his turne, When bonfiers great, with loftie flame, in everie towne doe burne; And young men round about with maides doe dance in everie streete,

With garlands wrought of motherwort, or else with vervain sweete, etc.

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