of retorting oil shale, in which by carrying out the operation in two stages, each at the most suitable temperature, most of the fixed nitrogen in the spent shale, which had previously been lost, was obtained as sulphate of ammonia. Between 1881 and 1894 this method entirely displaced the older methods of retorting, and the industry was enabled to hold its own in competition with imported petroleum products. In 1891 Beilby invented and developed a new synthetic process for the manufacture of the cyanides of potassium and sodium, by the use of which gold and silver are recovered from their ores. The cyanides are produced by passing ammonia gas through a molten mixture of the carbonates of the alkalis with charcoal, at a temperature of 850° C. An important British industry was founded on this process, the first factory being opened at Leith in 1891. Beilby was elected F.R.S. in 1906. He was president of the Society of Chemical Industry in 1899, of the chemical section of the British Association in 1905, of the Institute of Chemistry in 1909–12, and of the Institute of Metals in 1916-8. In 1912 he was a member of the Royal Commission on Fuel and Engines for the Navy. During the World War he was a member of the Admiralty Board of Inventions and Re- search. He was knighted in 1916. He published many scientific and technical papers, and also The Aggregation and Flow of Solids (1921).
BELASCO, DAVID (1859–), American playwright and manager, was born at San Francisco, Cal., July 25 1859. After graduating from Lincoln College, Cal., in 1875, he was stage-manager at several theatres and then went to New York where he owned and managed the prosperous Belasco theatre. He wrote or adapted some 200 plays, largely melodramatic, and owing to his mastery of stage-craft he was eminently successful as a producer and stage director. He presented E. H. Sothern in Lord Chumley (1887); Mrs. Leslie Carter in The Heart of Maryland (1895); Blanche Bates in Naughty Anthony (1899); Henrietta Crosman in Sweet Kitty Bellairs (1903); and David Warfield in The Music Master (1904).
Of his numerous other productions may be mentioned: May Blossom (1884); The Charity Ball (1887, with H. C. De Mille); Men and Women (1890); The Girl I Left Behind Me (1893, with Franklin Fyles); Madame Butterfly (1900); Madame Du Barry (1901); The Darling of the Gods (1902, with John Luther Long); The Girl of the Golden West (1905); The Return of Peter Grimm (1911); The Governor's Lady (1912); The Temperamental Journey (1913); The Secret (1914); A Celebrated Case (1915); The Boomerang (1915) and Polly with a Past (1917).
BELCHER, JOHN (1841–1913), English architect, was the son of John Belcher, an architect of some position. He probably derived much of his artistic faculty from his family connexion with William Woollett, the 18th century engraver. Following his father's profession, his education included a couple of years in Germany. He further made a lengthy stay in Paris, studying and sketching modern French architecture, the result of which asserted itself in his first important commission—the Royal Insurance offices in Lombard Street—a French Renaissance building (since pulled down) in which he introduced much sculptured work from the hand of Thomas Thornycroft. Joining his father in the latter's practice John Belcher, Jun., received many commissions, principally, for the next 10 or 15 years, for business premises in the city and elsewhere. Amongst the earliest of these is the well-known block at the corner of Poultry and Queen Victoria Street, a building showing how strongly he was influenced at that period by the Gothic movement of which Street and Burges were the prominent exponents. After his father's retirement in 1875, Belcher associated himself at various times with a succession of partners—J. W. James, Beresford Pite and J. J. Joass. His most important work was that resulting from his partnership with the last, and it evidences a monumental strength and dignity of design to which his earlier achievements had been leading. His intense and always vividly expressed admiration for Norman Shaw was a great factor in his artistic evolution, but even a more powerful one was due to the preparation and study involved in his production of the important volumes on The Later Renaissance in England, in which he was associated with Mervyn Macartney as joint author. His Electra House, Finsbury, and Whiteley's vast store, Bayswater, are admirable examples of business premises based upon plans thoughtfully and practically conceived, and possessing a fine and dignified architectural treatment. Belcher was not responsible for many churches, but his Holy Trinity church, Kingsway (1909), is an interesting essay in the classic manner, and the Catholic Apostolic church in Maida Vale being on very similar lines, may compare with any of the Gothic town churches designed by Pearson. His domestic work—especially that at Stowell Park for the Earl of Eldon—had much grace and charm, and evidenced his sympathy, previously noted, with Norman Shaw's methods. Apart from his profession Belcher displayed considerable gifts as singer, composer and conductor. His talents received recognition in many directions and he was the holder of various distinctions in his own country and elsewhere. He was elected Royal Academician in 1909, and in 1907 received the gold medal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, of which he had been president in the preceding year. Russia, Belgium, Germany, Spain and the United States elected him a member of their several architectural societies. He died in London Nov. 8 1913. (C. H. To.)
BELGIAN CONGO (see Congo Free State, 6.917).—Readjustments of the Congo-Uganda frontier, and the incorporation in 1919 of the greater part of Urundi and Ruanda, increased the area of the colony by some 19,000 sq. m., and its inhabitants by, approximately, 2,500,000 to 3,000,000. The total area of Belgian Congo in 1920 was estimated at 928,000 sq. m. A census was taken for the first time in 1917. It was not complete but indicated that the pop. was little more than 7,000,000. In 1921, including Ruanda and Urundi the estimate was 10,000,000. In 1918 white inhabitants numbered 6,487, of whom 3,307 were Belgians. British numbered (in 1917) 820, of whom 588 lived in the Katanga province. Elisabethville (founded 1910), the capital of Katanga, had a white pop. in 1920 of about 1,600. It had many fine buildings and most of the amenities of a European town.
Trade, Agriculture and Communications.—The most striking development in the resources of the country from 1909 was the exploitation of the copper mines of Katanga. They were worked by the Union Minière, in which British capital was largely interested. Since Dec. 1909 the mines had had a direct outlet by railway to the E. coast at Beira. The output of copper rose from 997 tons in 1911 to 27,462 tons in 1917; it was 22,000 tons in 1919 and 19,000 tons in 1920. The copper-bearing belt is about 250 m. long and from 25 to 50 and more m. wide. The chief mine is at Kambove and has been worked since 1913. The ore is smelted at Lubumbashi, where in 1918 were seven furnaces with a producing capacity of 40,000 tons a year. Up to the outbreak of the World War all the Katanga copper was bought by Germans; thereafter it was sent to Britain. Tin is also mined in Katanga, but up to 1921 little had been done to exploit its iron and gold deposits and diamondiferous areas. Since 1913, however, an extensive diamond field in the Kasai basin along the Angola border has been worked. The stones, averaging ten to a carat, are found in the river gravel or in alluvial deposits. The output was about 90,000 carats in 1917 and over 200,000 carats in 1920. The gold mines at Kilo and Moto, worked since 1905, had an output in 1918 of some 90,000 ozs. The gold is found in placer deposits.
Next in importance to copper mining was the development of the palm-oil industry, which up to 1911 had been practically confined to the Mayumba district. In that year the British firm of Lever Bros, obtained large concessions in the interior to develop the cultivation of the oil-palm and to erect factories on the spot for crushing the oil. The company set to work with energy and the result was seen in largely increased exports. In 1910 the export of palm kernels was 6,141 tons, of palm oil 2,160 tons; in 1916 the figures were 22,391 tons and 3,852 tons respectively. Cocoa, rice and cotton were also increasingly cultivated and the fall in the value of rubber led to a much larger collection of copal, the amount exported, 2,139 tons in 1911, being 8,719 in 1916.
The value of exports, about £6,500,000 in 1910, was over £11,000,000 in 1916. During that period rubber fell from being 77% to 15% in value of the exports of produce of the colony, though the quantity exported—3,000–4,000 tons—was about the same. From 1914 onward copper and palm kernels and oil were the chief exports. A considerable part of the trade, export and import, was in transit, chiefly with French Congo, which had no direct communication with the sea except through Belgian Congo. The value of imports
