Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume II.djvu/528

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508 BELLOWS the glass blower's table. In the lower disk a check valve is placed, which allows the air to enter but not to leave the lower compartment. The centre disk has a valve similarly arranged, with reference to the upper compartment. The lower disk can be forced upward by means of a lever connected with a treadle, thereby forc- ing the contained air into the upper compart- ment. The upper disk is continually pressed downward by a spiral spring which compresses the enclosed air, and yields in consequence a steady and powerful blast through a tube which for convenience is placed on the upper surface of the middle disk. The useful effect of the bellows is in exciting combustion, by furnish- ing a continuous stream of oxygen in the fresh supplies of air, and in removing by the force of the blast those products of combustion which ordinarily exclude the approach of the air and impede the continuation of the process. Its power of rapidly exciting vivid combustion and intense heat is well seen in the action of the smith's bellows in common use. Excepting for some small operations for metallurgic purposes, and for other objects not requiring either a large volume or great pressure of air, the an- cient bellows is now for the most part replaced by more efficient apparatus, as the so-called blowing machines and fan-blowers, descriptions of which will be found under BLOWING MA- CHINES. BELLOWS, Henry Whitney, D. D., an American clergyman, born in Boston, June 11, 1814. He was educated at Harvard college and the divin- ity school in Cambridge, where he completed his course in 1837. On Jan. 2, 1838, he was ordained pastor of the first Congregational church in New York, afterward called All Souls' church, in which relation he still re- mains (1873). He was the chief originator of the "Christian Inquirer," a Unitarian newspa- per of New York, in the year 1846. In 1854 he received the degree of D. D. from Harvard university. Of his numerous pamphlets and published discourses, the most conspicuous are his " Phi Beta Kappa Oration," 1853, and his noted defence of the drama, 1857. His occa- sional contributions to the reviews, and espe- cially the " Christian Examiner," are marked by independence of thought and boldness of ex- pression. In 1857 he delivered a course of lec- tures on the " Treatment of Social Diseases" before the Lowell institute in Boston, attract- ing much attention by his vigorous remarks on many subjects of deep interest. In 1860 he published in New York a volume of sermons on " Christian Doctrine," and in 1868-'9 the account of an extended European journey, under the title of " The Old World in its New Face" (2 vols. 12mo). During the civil war he was the president of the United States sani- tary commission. BELLOWS FALLS, a village of Eockingham township, Windham county, Vt, on the Con- necticut river, 53 m. by rail S. 8. E. of Rut- land ; pop. in 1870, 697. The river is here in- BELLOY terrupted by several rapids and falls, the whole descent being about 44 feet. These are the falls concerning which Peters, in his history, relates that the water becomes so hardened by pressure between the rocks that it is impos- sible to penetrate it with an iron bar. The river is crossed by a bridge, 212 feet long, built in 1812. The village contains several mills and manufactories, and is an important railway centre, being the point of junction of the Vermont Central, Rutland and Burlington, and Cheshire railroads. BELLOWS FISH (called also trumpet fish and sea snipe), a spiny-rayed fish of the lopho- branchiate or tufted-gilled order, and genus centriscus (Linn.). In this genus the snout is tubular, with a very small mouth at the end, without teeth ; the body oval and compressed, with small hard scales trenchant on the abdo- men ; a spmous dorsal fin very far back, with a strong first spine and a soft dorsal behind it ; ventrals united. The C. scolopax (Linn.) is common in the Mediterranean ; it is about five inches long, reddish on the back and sides, and silvery on the belly, sometimes with a golden tinge; fins grayish white. The food consists chiefly of minute Crustacea, which are drawn up the cylindrical beak as water is drawn up the pipe of a syringe, or air up the tube of a bellows, the suction power depend- ing on the dilatation of the throat. Its flesh is considered good. It prefers muddy bottoms, in the neighborhood of seaweeds, in moderate- ly deep water. BELLOY, Pierre Laurent Bulrette de, a French dramatist, born at St. Flour, in Auvergne, Nov. 17, 1727, died in Paris, March 5, 1775. He was educated for the bar, but became an actor at St. Petersburg and other places. His first tragedy, Titus (Paris, 1759), failed, and his Zelmire (1769) was redeemed only by the acting of Mile. Clairon ; but his Siege de Calais (1765) was successful, being the first attempt to dramatize French history. Voltaire joined hi the applause of the court and the people, but became an adverse critic after the author's death. His subsequent plays were not equally successful, although his Gaston et Bayard (1771) procured for him a seat in the