north-west from London by the London & North-Western and the Midland railways, and is also served by the Great Northern and North Staffordshire railways. The Trent is navigable from a point near the town downward. The neighbouring country is pleasant enough, particularly along the river, but the town itself is purely industrial, and contains no pre-eminent buildings. The church of St Mary and St Modwen is classic in style, of the 18th century, but embodies some remains of an ancient Gothic building. Of a Benedictine abbey dedicated to the same saints there remain a gatehouse and lodge, and a fine doorway. The former abbot’s house at Seyney Park is a half-timbered building of the 15th century. The free grammar school was founded in 1525. A fine bridge over the Trent, and the municipal buildings, were provided by Lord Burton. There are pleasant recreation grounds on the Derbyshire side of the river.
Burton is the seat of an enormous brewing trade, representing nearly one-tenth of the total amount of this trade in the United Kingdom. It is divided between some twenty firms. The premises of Bass’s brewery extend over 500 acres, while Allsopp’s stand next; upwards of 5000 hands are employed in all, and many miles of railways owned by the firms cross the streets in all directions on the level, and connect with the lines of the railway companies. The superiority which is claimed for Burton ales is attributed to the use of well-water impregnated with sulphate of lime derived from the gypseous deposits of the district. Burton is governed by a mayor, 8 aldermen and 24 councillors. Area, 4202 acres.
Burton-upon-Trent (Burhton) is first mentioned towards the close of the 9th century, when St Modwen, an Irish virgin, is said to have established a convent on the Isle of Andressey opposite Burton. In 1002 Wulfric, earl of Mercia, founded here a Benedictine abbey, and by charter of 1004 granted to it the town with other large endowments. Burton was evidently a mesne borough under the abbot, who held the court of the manor and received the profits of the borough according to the charter of Henry I. granting sac and soc and other privileges and right in the town. Later charters were given by Henry II., by John in 1204 (who also granted an annual fair of three days’ duration, 29th of October, at the feast of St Modwen, and a weekly market on Thursday), by Henry III. in 1227, by Henry VII. in 1488 (Henry VII. granted a fair at the feast of St Luke, 18th of October), and by Henry VIII. in 1509. At the dissolution Henry VIII. founded on the site of the abbey a collegiate church dissolved before 1545, when its lands, with all the privileges formerly vested in the abbot, were conferred on Sir William Paget, ancestor of the marquess of Anglesey, now holder of the manor. In 1878 it was incorporated under a mayor, 8 aldermen, 24 councillors. Burton was the scene of several engagements in the Civil War, when its large trade in clothing and alabaster was practically ruined. Although the abbey ale was mentioned as early as 1295, the brewing industry is comparatively of recent development, having begun about 1708. Forty years later it had a market at St Petersburg and the Baltic ports, and in 1796 there were nine brewing firms in the town.
See William Molyneux, History of Burton-on-Trent (1869); Victoria County History, Staffordshire.
BURU (Buro, Dutch Boeroe or Boeloe), an island of the Dutch East Indies, one of the Molucca Islands belonging to the residency of Amboyna, between 3° 4′ and 3° 50′ S. and 125° 58′ and 127° 15′ E. Its extreme measurements are 87 m. by 50 m., and its area is 3400 sq. m. Its surface is for the most part mountainous, though the seaboard district is frequently alluvial and marshy from the deposits of the numerous rivers. Of these the largest, the Kajeli, discharging eastward, is in part navigable. The greatest elevations occur in the west, where the mountain Tomahu reaches 8530 ft. In the middle of the western part of the island lies the large lake of Wakolo, at an altitude of 2200 ft., with a circumference of 37 m. and a depth of about 100 ft. It has been considered a crater lake; but this is not the case. It is situated at the junction of the sandstone and slate, where the water, having worn away the former, has accumulated on the latter. The lake has no affluents and only one outlet, the Wai Nibe to the north. The chief geological formations of Buru are crystalline slate near the north coast, and more to the south Mesozoic sandstone and chalk, deposits of rare occurrence in the archipelago. By far the larger part of the country is covered with natural forest and prairie land, but such portions as have been brought into cultivation are highly fertile. Coffee, rice and a variety of fruits, such as the lemon, orange, banana, pine-apple and coco-nut are readily grown, as well as sago, red-pepper, tobacco and cotton. The only important exports, however, are cajeput oil, a sudorific distilled from the leaves of the Melaleuca Cajuputi or white-wood tree; and timber. The native flora is rich, and teak, ebony and canari trees are especially abundant; the fauna, which is similarly varied, includes the babirusa, which occurs in this island only of the Moluccas. The population is about 15,000. The villages on the sea-coast are inhabited by a Malayan population, and the northern and western portions of the island are occupied by a light-coloured Malay folk akin to the natives of the eastern Celebes. In the interior is found a peculiar race which is held by some to be Papuan. They are described, however, as singularly un-Papuan in physique, being only 5 ft. 2 in. in average height, of a yellow-brown colour, of feeble build, and without the characteristic frizzly hair and prominent nose of the true Papuan. They are completely pagan, live in scattered hamlets, and have come very little in contact with any civilization. Among the maritime population a small number of Chinese, Arabs and other races are also found. The island is divided by the Dutch into two districts. The chief settlement is Kajeli on the east coast. A number of Mahommedan natives here are descended from tribes compelled in 1657 to gather together from the different parts of the island, while all the clove-trees were exterminated in an attempt by the Dutch to centralize the clove trade. Before the arrival of the Dutch the islanders were under the dominion of the sultan of Ternate; and it was their rebellion against him that gave the Europeans the opportunity of effecting their subjugation.
BURUJIRD, a province of Persia, bounded W. by Luristan, N. by Nehavend and Malayir, E. by Irak and S. by Isfahan. It is divided into the following administrative divisions:—(1) town of Burujird with villages in immediate neighbourhood; (2) Silakhor (upper and lower); (3) Japalak (with Sarlek and Burbarud); (4) nomad Bakhtiari. It has a population of about 250,000 or 300,000, and pays a yearly revenue of about £16,000. It is very fertile and produces much wheat, barley, rice and opium. With improved means of transport, which would allow the growers to export, the produce of cereals could easily be trebled. The province is sometimes joined with that of Luristan.
The town Burujird, the capital of the province, is situated in the fertile Silakhor plain on the river Tahīj, a tributary of the Dizful river (Ab i Diz), 70 m. by road from Hamadan and 212 m. from Isfahan, in 33° 55′ N. and 48° 55′ E., and at an elevation of 5315 ft. Pop. about 25,000. It manufactures various cotton stuffs (coarse prints, carpet covers) and felts (principally hats and caps for Lurs and Bakhtiaris). It has post and telegraph offices.
BURY, JOHN BAGNELL (1861–), British historian, was born on the 16th of October 1861, and was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, where he was elected to a fellowship in 1885. A fine Greek scholar, he edited Pindar’s Nemean and Isthmian Odes; but he devoted himself chiefly to the study of history, and was chosen professor of modern history at Dublin in 1893, becoming regius professor of Greek in 1898. He resigned both positions in 1902, when he was elected regius professor of modern history in the university of Cambridge. His historical work was mainly concerned with the later Roman empire, and his edition of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall, with a masterly introduction and valuable notes (1896–1900), is the standard text of this history. He also wrote a History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great (1900); History of the Later Roman Empire, 395–800 (1889); History of the Roman Empire 27 B.C.–180 A.D. (1893); Life of St Patrick and his Place in History (1905), &c. He was elected a fellow of King’s College, Cambridge, and received honorary degrees from the universities of Oxford, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Durham.
BURY, a market-town and municipal, county and parliamentary borough of Lancashire, England, on the river Irwell,
