Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume II.djvu/648

C28 BIELEFELD BIENNE Feb. 18, 1856. He was an officer in the Aus- trian army, and retired with the rank of ma- jor, lie discovered telescopic comets in 1823 and 1825, and acquired celebrity in 1826 by the discovery on Feb. 27, while stationed at Josephstadt, Bohemia, of a periodical comet visible every 6f years, and which is called after him. Hia most important contributions to as- tronomical science are contained in Schuma- cher's Astronomische Nachrichten. BIELEFELD, a town of Prussia, in the West- phalian district of Minden, divided by the small river Butter into an old and new town, 26 m. S. W. of Minden; pop. in 1871, 21,803. It is a celebrated centre of the flax and linen trade, the renowned Ravensburg flax manufactory having nearly 30,000 looms, including about 5,000 in the branch establishment at Wolfen- buttel. The bleacheries are after the Irish and Belgian systems, and produce annually over 150,000 pieces of linen and 50,000 cwt. of yarn. The ready-made linen factories here employed in 1870 over 2,000 women. There are also manufactories of silk, velvet, glass, machines, and other articles. Bielefeld be- came a Hanse town in 1270, and in the 17th century it passed with the county of Ravens- berg into the possession of the house of Bran- denburg. The neighboring castle of Sparren- burg on the Sparren mountain, formerly a bone of contention in times of war, is at present used as a prison. BIELEV, a town of Russia, in the govern- ment of Tula, situated on the left bank of the Oka, about 155 m. S. S. W. of Moscow; pop. in 1867, 8,123. It has considerable trade, the chief articles of which are grain, hemp, and linseed oil. Two great fairs are annually held. The town has several tallow, oil, and rope factories, a sugar factory, 19 churches, and 3 monasteries. On May 16, 1826, the em- press Elizabeth, widow of Alexander I., died here, and a monument to her memory has been erected. The house in which she died has been converted into a widows' home. BIELGOROD. See BELGOROD. BIELITZ, a town of Austrian Silesia, on the N. W. declivity of the Carpathian mountains, and on the river Biala, opposite the Galician town of Biala, and 18 m. E. N". E. of Teschen ; pop. in 1869, 10,721, chiefly Protestants. It is well built, contains a fine castle and park, and is the seat of a Protestant consistory with jurisdiction over Moravia and Austrian Silesia. t is the principal depot of Galician salt for Moravia and Silesia. Cloth and other articles are manufactured, and the dye works are renowned. The town dates from the 13th century. It was formerly part of the duchy of Teschen, and after having been for some time independent, the emperor Francis I. raised it in 1752 to a principality for Prince Alexan- der Joseph Sulkowski. The neighboring vil- lage of Old Bielitz has over 3,000 inhabitants. BIELLA, a town of Italy, in the province of Novara, Piedmont, on the Cervo and Aurena, in a hilly neighborhood, 12 m. N. E. of Ivrea; pop. about 9,000. It is the seat of a bishopric, and has a fine cathedral with pictures by Ca- gliari, besides other churches, and a college. Its trade is active, and cloth, silk, linen, and paper are manufactured. The neighboring village of Oropa has a famous pilgrim church. BIELOWSKI, August, a Polish writer, born at Krechowiec in Galicia in 1806. He studied at Lemberg, devoting himself especially to litera- ture and history. After completing his stu- dent's course he pursued his literary studies in the same town, and after a time was made librarian of the Ossolinski library there. He published in 1830 a volume of poems and translations of Servian songs under the title Haliczanin. His other principal works are Wyprawa Igora na Polowcbw (" Igor's Expedi- tion against the Polovtzi," Lemberg, 1833), and Wystep krytyany do dziejow PolM (" Critical Introduction to the History of Poland," 1850). He is also the author of a Polish translation of Goethe's Faust, and of numerous articles in Polish periodicals. BIELSHOHLE, a cave in the Bielstein, one of the mountains of the Hsrtz, lying near the right bank of the Bode river, about 6 m. from Blankenburg, in Brunswick, northern Ger- many. It was discovered in 1762, and in 1768 a man named Becker arranged a passage or path by which it might be easily reached. The cavern is about 600 ft. in depth, and its en- trance lies a little more than 100 ft. above the Bode. It contains 11 chambers, besides an upper cave, entered through the roof of the seventh division of the main portion. Stalac- tites of picturesque form and arrangement are the chief feature of interest in the cavern ; in the eighth chamber their masses resemble an immense organ, and in the ninth the stalag- mites take the form of waves. According to tradition, the forest god Biel, a divinity of the old Saxons, was once worshipped in the neigh- borhood of, if not in this cave; and a shrine near by contained his image, which the legend says was destroyed by St. Boniface. BIELSKI, Ilardn, a Polish historian, born at the family estate of Biala, near Sieradz, died there in 1576. He served in the army, and participated in 1530 in the battle of Obertyn. His Kronika s-wiata (Cracow, 1550 and 1564), a universal history, and his Kronika polska, a history of Poland, brought down by his son Joachim to the year 1597 (Cracow, 1597; Warsaw, 1764), w r ere the first historical works published in the Polish language. They were interdicted in 1617 by the bishop of Cracow on account of alleged heterodox statements. BIEMVE (Ger. Biel). I. A town of Switzer- land, in the canton of Bern, pleasantly situated at the mouth of the valley of the Suze (Ger. Schilss), at the E. foot of the Jura, about 1 m. from the head of the lake of Bienne, 16 m. N. W. of Bern; pop. in 1870, 8,113, chiefly Prot- estants speaking the German language, al- though in neighboring villages a French patois