BOM

470

B O M

is inferior to mooting; and may be derived from the Saxon wordbolt, a house, because done privately in the house for instruc-tion.

Bolting, or Boulting, among millers, the act of separatingthe flour from the bran, by means of a sieve or bolter.

Bolting, or Boulting, among sportsmen, signifies dislodginga coney.

Bolting-Cloth, Bolsteb-Cloth, or Bultixg-Cloth, alinen or hair cloth for sifting meal or flour.

Bolting Mill, a machine used in flour-mills for dressingflour, and separating it from the bran. The cloth round this iscalled the Bolter.

BOLTON, a-town of Lancashire , in England, on the riverCroell, and pretty well built. It is noted tor its medicinal wa-ters, and still more for its manufactures of muslins, dimities,

* counterpanes, and fustians. It has fairs June 29, July 16, andAugust 20 ; with a market on Monday for cloth and provisions.

It lies 11 miles N. W. of Manchester. Lon. 2. 15. \Y. Lat. 53.55. N.

Bolton, or Boulton, Edmund, an ingenious English antiqua-rian, who lived in the beginning of the 17th century. Iiis prin-cipal work is his Nero Caisar, or Monarchic depraved, dedicatedto the Duke of Buckingham, printed at London in 1624, folio, andadorned with several curious prints of valuable medals. And di-vided into 55 chapters, in some of which are introduced curiousremarks and observations. Besides this he wrote, 1. An English translation of Lucius Florus ’s Roman history. 2. [Iypercritica, ora rule of judgment for reading or writing our histories. 3. TheElements of Armories, &c. and some other works.

Bolton, a village in Cumberland, near Ireby.

Bolton, in the Sands, lies in Westmoreland, near Kendal.Bolton, Robert, D. D. was born in Northamptonshire , about4690, and educated at Oxford, where he took his degrees. In1720, he became acquainted with Mr. Pope , and in 1724, with thecelebrated Mr. Whiston, through whose recommendation, partly,he became chaplain to Sir Jos. Jekyll, who introduced him toLord Plardwicke, by whose patronage, in 1735, he was madeDean of Carlisle, and, in 1738, vicar of St. Mary’s, Reading. Hewas a good preacher, charitable to the poor, and beloved by hisparishioners. Though well qualified for an author, he was ad-vanced in life before he published any thing ; his 1st work being,A Letter to a Lady on Card-playing on the Lord’s Day; 8vo. 1748.2. The Employment of time; 8vo. 1750: dedicated to LordHardwicke. 3. The Deity’s Delay in punishing the Guilty, con-sidered on the principles of Reason; 8vo. 1751. 4. A Treatise on

Lewdness; 8vo. 1755. 5. A Letter on Travelling on Sundays ;

8vo. 1757. 6. The Ghost of Ernest, great grandfather to the

Princess Dowager of Wales : with some account of his life; 8vo.7. Letters and ’Tracts on the choice of Company, Sec. He diedat London , Nov. 26, 1763.

Bolton-Percy, a village in Yorkshire , near Nun-Appleton.

Bolt-Rope, in naval affairs, a rope passing round the sail, towhich the edges of it are sewed, to prevent the sail from tearing.

BOLTON1A, in botany, a genus of the class and order syngene-sia, polygainiasuperflua. Receptacle cellular, hemispheric; seedstwo, awned, with a toothed margin; calyx imbricated. Speciestwo, natives of Pennsylvania .

BOLUC BASSI, the chief of a company among the Turks, ora captain over 100 Janizaries .

BOLUS, [Box®-,] a form of medicine, in which the ingredientsare made up into a soft mass, larger than pills to be swallowed atonce.

BOMB, in artillery, a shell or hollow ball of cast-iron, having alarge vent, by which it is filled with gunpowder, and which isfitted with a fuze or hollow plug to give fire by when thrown outof a mortar, &c.; about the time when the shell arrives at the in-tended place the composition in the pipe of the fuze sets fire tothe powder in the shell, which blows it all in pieces, to^he greatannoyance of the enemy, by killing the people or firing the houses,ice. They are now commonly called shells, simply in the Eng-lish artillery. These shells or bombs are of various sizes, fromthat of 17 or 18 inches diameter downwards. The very large onesare not used by the English , that of 13 inches diameter being thehighest size now employed by them : the weight, dimensions, andother circumstances of them, and the others downwards, are as inthe following table;

Powder to

Diameter of the

Weight of

Powder to

burst them in

shell.

the shell.

fill them.

most pjeces.

lbs.

lb. oz.

lb. oz.

13 inch

195

9 A\

7 8

10

89

4 141

3

4

8

46

2 34

2 0

54 Roval

in-

1 14

0

14

44 Cohorn

n

0 8

0 7

Mr. Muller gives the following proportion for all shells. Di-viding the diameter of the mortar into 30 equal parts, then theother dimensions in 30thsot that diameter will he thus :

Diameter of the bore or mortar. 30

Diameter of the shell. . 2 9J

Diameter of the hollow sphere. 21

Thicknesss of metal at the fuse hole. 3 £

Thickness at the opposite part. 5

Diameter of the fuze hole. 4

Weight in pounds of shell empty... tW 1 ^

Weight of powder to fill it. -jfid

Where d denotes the cube of the diameter of the hore in inches.But shells have also lately been made with the metal all of thesame thickness quite around. In general, the windage or differencebetween the diameter of the shell and mortar is ■jtyli of the latter ;also the diameter of the hollow part of the shell is j7 s ths of thesame. Bombs are thrown out of mortars or howitzers ; but theymay also be thrown out of cannon ; and a very small sort arethrown by the hand, which are called gran ados. The great heighta bomb goes in the air, and the force with which it falls, makes itgo deep into the earth. Bombs may be used without mortar-pieces, as was done by the Venetians at Candia, when the’l urkshad possessed themselves of the ditch, rolling down bombs uponthem along a plank set sloping towards their works, with ledges onthe sides, to keep the bomb right forward. They are sometime*also buried under ground to blow up. Bombs were not com-monly used before 1634, and then only in the Dutch and Spanish armies. One Malthus, an English engineer , is said to have carriedthem first into France , where they were used at the siege of Col-liouse. The French have lately invented a new sort of bombs ofvast weight called Comminges . The art of throwing bombsmakes a branch of gunnery, founded on the theory of projectiles,and the qualities of gunpowder. See Gunnery', Projectiles,Gunpowder , &c.

Bomb-Chest, a kind of chest filled usually with bombs, some-times only with gunpowder, placed under ground to tear it, andblow it up into the air, with those who stand on it. It was set onfire by means of a saucisse fastened at one end, but is now muchdisused.

BOMBARD, a piece of ordnance anciently in use, exceedinglyshort and thick, and with a very large mouth.

BOMBARDIER , a person employed about a mortar. Hisbusiness is to drive the fusee, fix the shell, load and fire the mor-tar, and to work with the fire-workers on all sorts of fire-works,whether for war or recreation.

BOMBARDMENT, the havoc committed in throwing bombsinto a town or fortress.

BOM BAR DO, a musical instrument of the wind kind, muchthe same as the bassoon.

BOM BAST, in composition, is a serious endeavour, by straineddescription, to raise a low or familiar subject beyond its rank;which, instead of being sublime, never fail; to be ridiculous.

BOM BAX, in botany, the silk-cotton tree: a genus of thepolyandria order, monadelphia class; natural order, Coluinnifersc.Calyx quinquefid ; capsule ligneous, quinquelocular, quinque-valved ; seeds woolly ; receptacle pentagonous. Six species, na-tives of Africa, Asia, and America ; all of them are exceedinglyuseful on account of the cotton they produce.

BOMBAY, an island of Ilindostan, on the W, coast of Deccan,7 miles in length and 20 in circumference. It has its name fromthe Portuguese Buon-babia,on account of the excellent hay formedby it together with the winding of other islands adjacent. Theharbour is spacious enough to contain any number of ships, andhas likewise excellent anchoring-ground, affording also, by its land-locked situation, a shelter front any winds to which the mouth may