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244 BREEDE BREHON LAWS V." His "Interior of St. Peter's" was pur- chased by the Belgian government. BREEDE (Dutch, broad), a river of Cape Colony, S. Africa, which rises in a mountain basin, and breaking through the mountains, takes a S. E. course to the sea, at Port Beau- fort. It is one of the deepest and largest rivers of the country, but navigation is im- peded by a bar at its mouth. BREGKNZ (anc. Brigantiurn), a town of Aus- tria, capital of Vorarlberg, situated at the E. end of the lake of Constance, near the mouth of the river Bregenz; pop. in 1870, 8,686. It is well built, and has considerable trade. Wood- en houses ready made for the Alpine districts of Switzerland, and vine poles for the vineyards on the lake, are exported in large numbers. Not far from the town is the Bregenzer Klause, a pass formerly fortified. The Bregenzer Wald is a spur of the Allgau Alps. The lake of Bre- genz is the name given to the S. E. portion of Bregenz. the lake of Constance. A treaty between Aus- tria, Wiirtemberg, and Bavaria against Prussia, in reference to the Hesse-Cassel imbroglio, was concluded here, Oct. 12, 1850. A conference for the regulation of the navigation of the lake of Constance was held here by the riparian pow- ers in October, 1855. BRE<;i:KT. I. Abraham Louis, a Swiss watch- maker, born at Neufchatel, Jan. 10, 1747, died Sept. 17, 1823. He established a manufactory in Paris, and was appointed chronometer maker to the navy, member of the bureau of longi- tudes, and member of the institute. His pocket chronometers, marine timepieces, sympathetic pendulums, metallic thermometers, and mech- anism of telegraphs, as established by Chappe, attest his skill, n. Louis, grandson of the pre- ceding, born in Paris, Dec. 22, 1804. In 1826 he was placed at the head of the chronometer department of the navy founded by his grand- father. He soon turned his attention toward the application of the physical sciences, and especially to the electric telegraph. The time- pieces constructed by him maintain the repu- tation gained by his father and grandfather. BREH9I, Alfred Ednrand, a German naturalist and traveller, born at Renthendorf, Feb. 2, 1829. He studied under his father, Christian Ludwig Brehm, an eminent ornithologist (1787 -1864). After making zoological collections during five years' travel in Egypt, Nubia, and eastern Soodan, he studied at Jena and Vien- na, subsequently visited Spain, Norway, and Lapland, and in 1862 N. Abyssinia, in com- pany with Duke Ernest of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. He was director of the zoological gardens at Hamburg from 1863 to 1867, when he re- moved to Berlin, where he established the famous aquarium. He wrote Das Leben der Vogel (Glogau, 1860-'61 ; 2d ed., 1867 ; English translation, "Bird Life," by H. M. Labouchere and W. Jesse, 4 parts, London, 1872) ; II- luatrirtes Thierleben (6 vols., Hildburghausen, 1863-'9); and Qefangene Vogel (2 vols., Leip- sic, 1870 et seg.). Among his books of travel are SeisesMzzen am Nordostafrika (3 vols., Jena, 1855-'63), and Ergebnisse einer Heine nacli HabeseJi (Hamburg, 1863). BREHON LAWS, the ancient body of laws un- der which the Celtic Irish lived for many ages, to which they clung with reverence until the beginning of the 17th century in at least one province of Ireland, Ulster, and which very gradually gave place to English laws founded on the feudal system, in proportion as British arms and policy completed the conquest of the island. The Brehon laws were not properly a code, but were simply the whole body of an- cient legal maxims and usages as administered by the brehons, who were the judges of the land. Brehon (breitftamh) signified a judge or professor of law ; and the root is the Irish word breith, judgment or right. The brehons formed a kind of college or faculty ; and each great clan had its own brehons, whose office was hereditary, not in the feudal sense, by descent from eldest son to eldest son, but in the Gaelic sense, in which the chiefs of clans and high-kings, or ardrighs of Ireland, came to their own offices and dignities. Much light has been thrown upon the whole subject within a few years past by the labors of a government com- mission. As early as 1783, Edmund Burke suggested the propriety of collecting and pub- lishing in English or Latin these remnants of a former civilization, but it was not till 1852 that the English government consented to lend its aid to the work. In that year, at the special instance of Drs. Todd and Graves, both Prot- estant clergymen, a commission was issued appointing them and several other scholars " to direct, superintend, and carry into effect the transcription and translation of the ancient laws of Ireland, and the preparation of the same for publication," with power to employ proper persons to execute the work. The per- sons selected by the commissioners were Dr. O'Donovan and Prof. O'Curry, whose discharge of the duties so assigned them ended only at their death. They were succeeded by others, whose labors are not yet ended ; and private