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present. Percy’s Reliques of Ancient English Poetry and Sir Walter Scott’s Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border are famous collections of these old English and Scottish ballads. The ballad of Chevy Chase is probably the most famous in the English language. The story of Robin Hood was also a favorite subject of popular song, and has been sung in various forms.
Bal′larat′, a large Australian town, next in importance to Melbourne, is in the province of Victoria. It owes its rise to the discovery of the goldfields there in 1851, being the oldest but one of the gold fields of the colony. It is in the center of one of the richest gold fields of the world. The largest gold-nugget ever discovered was found here in 1858. It was sold for over $50,000. In 1910 about 16,553 men were employed in the gold fields of Victoria colony, 2,000 of whom were Chinese. Population 50,000.
Balliol (băl′-yŭl) College, Oxford, is at present probably the most important of the colleges of Oxford University. It was founded about the middle of the 13th century. The greatest of its masters in the middle ages was John Wiclif; and, perhaps, in the 19th century Jowett and Caird. Among poets, Balliol College has educated Southey, Matthew Arnold, Clough and Swinburne. The philosophers, T. H. Green and Sir William Hamilton, were men of Balliol; as was the late Archbishop Temple. There are about 600 names of members on the books.
Balloon. See Aeronautics.
Ball’s Bluff, a bluff on the Virginia side of the Potomac, thirty miles from Washington, was the scene of a battle in the Civil War, October 22, 1861. A small force of Federal troops was surrounded by a larger Confederate force. The Federals were defeated, and a large number were killed or captured, among the killed being the commander, Col. E. D. Baker. See Baker, Edward Dickinson.
Bal′moral, a home of the English royal family in Scotland. It is 926 feet above the sea, on a plain that slopes from a height of 1,437 feet to the River Dee, and lies 45 miles west of Aberdeen. In 1852 the prince consort, husband of the late Queen Victoria, bought the estate for $160,000, and built a new granite castle in the Scottish baronial style, which cost about $500,000. The estate now includes about 25,000 acres.
Baltic (ba̤l′ tĭk), Battle of the, a naval battle between the English and Danish fleets in the harbor of Copenhagen, April 2, 1801 The English fleet, under Sir Hyde Parker, with Lord Nelson second in command, was ordered to the Baltic to break up the alliance just formed between Russia, Prussia, Denmark and Sweden. Nelson led the attack, and when Parker gave the signal to stop the fight, Nelson put the glass to his blind eye, and said he could not see the signal. He continued the attack and captured or destroyed nearly the whole Danish fleet. His victory helped greatly to break up the alliance.
Baltic Sea is the great inland sea, bordered by Denmark, Germany, Russia, Finland and Sweden. It is nearly 900 miles long, from 100 to 200 miles broad, and 40 to 140 fathoms deep, and has an area, including the Gulfs of Finland and Bothnia, of 184,496 square miles, over 12,000 square miles being occupied by islands. The great number of islands, the sudden changes of wind and the violent storms make navigation very dangerous. The main gulfs are those of Bothnia, Finland and Riga. About 250 rivers flow into it, which makes the sea much more nearly fresh water than other bodies of salt water. For this reason it freezes easily, so that navigation is interfered with from three to five months in the year. The chief rivers are the Oder, Vistula, Niemen, Düna, Narva and Neva. The shipping-trade is large, the exports of the countries around the Baltic being timber, hides, tallow and grain. The Eider and Gotha Canals connect the Baltic and the North Sea. A larger canal for ships from the mouth of the Elbe to Kiel Bay was begun in 1887 and completed in 1895. It cuts the base of the peninsula of Jutland through Schleswig-Hoistein. It is about sixty miles long and saves a dangerous voyage of about 600 miles. Another projected canal is a Russian enterprise, which is designed to connect the Gulf of Riga with southern Russia at Kherson, north of the Crimea. It will utilize the water ways of the Düna and the Dnieper. The most important harbors on the Baltic are Copenhagen, Kiel, Lübeck, Stralsund, Stettin, Dantzic, Königsberg, Memel, Riga, Narva, Kronstadt, Sveaborg, Stockholm and Karlskrona. A noticeable feature of the Baltic is the slow vertical movement of its coasts downward in the south of Sweden and an upward movement farther north. Its area is said to be gradually decreasing. The Germans call it the East Sea. The Baltic is connected with the Cattegat and the North Sea by the Sound and the Great and Little Belts.
Baltimore, known also as the Monumental City, is the metropolis of Maryland and the largest town on the Atlantic seaboard south of Philadelphia. The city is at the head of navigation on the Patapsco River, fourteen miles from the Chesapeake Bay. It is on the highway of travel between the cities of the east and those of the south and west, being 38 miles from Washington and 97 miles from Philadelphia. Baltimore is an important shipping port, a large railroad center and a rapidly growing manufacturing town. The Patapsco ex-
