BEETLES, CRICKETS, FLIES, ETC.-1-8. Termites. 9. Cockroach. or migratory locust. 16. Earwig. 17. Wood-louse. 18. Water-fly. 19. Ephemera (day-fly). 10. Praying cricket or mantis.. lion and pit. 27. Camel-fly. 28. Camel-necked fly. 29. Scorpion-fly. 30. Xenos. 31, 32. St 38. Turn-bug. 39. Fish-beetle. 40. Short-wing. 41. Club-beetle. 42. Hister. 43. Larva ofe 48. Cucujus. 49. Bacon-beetle. 50. Pill-beetle. 51. Earth-beetle. 52. Cock-chafer. 53. Worn 58, 59. Cebrion. 60. Glowworms: a, male; b, female. 61. Variegated beetle. 62. Byrrhus.

12. Cricket. 13. Mole-cricket.

14. Female grasshopper.

11. Walking leaf. 15. Wandering 20. Dragon-fly. 21. Thrips. 22. Silver-moth. 23. Glacier-flea. 24. Feather-louse. 25, 26. Antructure of coleoptera. 33. Leather-bug. 34, 35. Gold-bug. 36. Sand-bug. 37. Swimming-beetle. earrion-beetle. 44. Burying-beetle. 45. Scaphidium. 46. Glow-worm, cicindela. 47. Colydium. ail, grub of cock-chafer. 54. Pupa of the same. 55. Dung-beetle. 56. Buprestis. 57. Click-beetle. 63. Larva of byrrhus.

look, by flattening the yarn irregularly in an angled manner. This is done by the rising and falling of upright wooden stampers, placed close together in a row, with their square butts resting on a roller over which the cloth passes under them, doubled in a particular way so as to give the yarn an angled appearance when struck. The stampers are worked by the rotation of a horizontal shaft, acting with tapets, like the cylinder of a barrel-organ.

Linen weft is likewise beetled, but by hand-hammering, on a large flat stone, with a wooden mallet, to soften the yarn for easiness of working it, or "getting it on," in the language of the craft, in weaving. Beetling is likewise a process in flax-dressing, to separate the woody from the flexible fibers of the plant. See FLAX-DRESSING.

BEET-ROOT SUGAR. See SUGAR. The sugar obtained from the beet is similar to cane-sugar, but inferior in sweetening power. Beet-root contains on an average about 10 per cent of saccharine matter (sugar-cane, 18 per cent); of the varieties, the white Slesvig beet is the richest. To obtain the sugar, the roots, after being washed, are first rasped down by machines, so as to tear up the cells. The pulp is then put into bags, and the juice is squeezed out by presses. The juice is next treated with lime or sulphuric acid, to clarify it, and also filtered till no deposit is formed; after which it is boiled in large boilers to concentrate it. When it has attained a certain density (25° Beaumé), it is poured through flannel, and is now a dark-colored syrup, which, in order to yield pure sugar, must be deprived of its coloring-matter and mucilage. This is effected by filtering it through animal charcoal or bone-black. The filtered juice is now treated with lime-water beat up with a little white of egg to a lather, till it is slightly alkaline, and is then further concentrated by boiling in copper pans, care being taken to stir and scum it all the while. When sufficiently concentrated, it is put into vessels, and allowed to stand several days in a warm room to crystallize; the uncrystallized part, or molasses, is then drained off, and what remains is raw sugar. This is still further refined by again dissolving and treating it with albumen and blood. In separating the crystallized from the uncrystallized part, centrifugal machines are now much used. Another improvement is the vacuum-pan, which allows the juice to be boiled down without burning. The molasses drained off from beet-root sugar has a disagreeable taste, and cannot be used for sweetening, like cane molasses.

About the middle of the 18th c., Marggraf, an apothecary in Berlin, drew attention to the sugar contained in beet-root; but Achard, the Prussian chemist, was the first who was tolerably successful in extracting it. Still, as only 2 or 3 per cent of sugar was obtained, the product did not pay the cost, until Napoleon's continental system raised the price of sugar, and gave rise to improved methods of manufacturing it. Even after the fall of Napoleon, protective duties kept alive this manufacture in France; and when numerous improvements of method had raised the percentage of sugar realized to about 5 lbs. from 100 lbs. of beet, it took a fresh start (about 1825) in France and Belgium, was revived in Germany, and spread even to Russia. The falling off of the customs duties on the import of colonial sugar obliged the German governments to impose a small duty on beet sugar, which checked the manufacture for a time; but owing to the protective measures of the Zollverein, the trade soon recovered, and is still brisk. Large quantities are annually imported from the continent of Europe, and are used by our refiners mixed with cane sugar, without which it is not successful, for producing the best qualities of refined or loaf-sugar. The imports into Great Britain from the continent, in 1875, amounted to about 240,000 tons.

The production of beet-sugar is an industry entirely of modern growth, taking root first in France during the reign of Napoleon I., and subsequently establishing itself after many difficulties in Belgium, Germany, Austria, Russia, and Holland. The table shows the produce of beet-sugar in these countries in 1876.

.

Austria and Hungary.

Russia...

Belgium..

Holland.

50,000 " .250,000

The development of this industry in Russia has been very rapid since 1864; but, on the other hand, it has been for some years on the decline in Austria, the produce (chiefly Bohemian) of that country having been as high as 180,000 tons of sugar in 1870. All other countries are as yet of minor importance as beet-growers; but in Sweden, Denmark, England at Lavenham, and California, beet-sugar factories have been established with promising results. Several attempts have been made within the last thirty years to make beet-sugar a profitable manufacture in Ireland, but none have as yet been quite successful. The following figures show how rapidly the beet-sugar manufacture has on the whole prospered. Total produce of all countries:

Beggar.

This large annual yield of 13 million tons has been maintained for some years, and forms about one fourth of the sugar now produced from all sources.

An acre of land planted with beet can be made without difficulty to yield at least a ton of sugar, worth from £20 to £24, and there are certain by-products besides. The average percentage composition of the root of the sugar-beet is as follows: Sugar, 101; fiber, etc., 5; gluten, soluble organic compounds, and ash, 3; water, 814; But the proportion of sugar varies much-it being greater in small than in large beets, in dry than in moist climates, in light than in heavy soils, in the part of the root under than in that above ground, and when manure has not been directly applied to the crop.

Crystallized sugar, although by far the most valuable, is not the only useful product of beet-root, as the following list of its products will show: (1) Crystallized sugar; (2) exhausted pulp useful for cattle food; (3) coarse spirit obtained by fermenting the uncrystallizable sugar; (4) potash salts. The fibrous portion of the root is sometimes used to mix with other material for making paper.

The distillation of spirits from beet is largely practiced on the continent, and many good judges maintain that it is really a more profitable business than the manufacture of beet-root sugar. In Belgium and Germany the two industries are frequently combined, an arrangement which possesses the advantage that, in a season when the proportion of sugar in the roots is too small to yield more than a bare profit, the manufact urer may ferment the sugar-containing juice. The spirit thus obtained yields a fair return even when the beets contain only from 5 to 6 per cent of sugar. This manufacture has been tried in England with but little success as yet; but there really seems no good reason why both sugar and spirits should not be profitably made from beet either in England, Scotland, or Ireland.

BEFFA'NA, a corruption of Epiphania (Epiphany), is the name given in Italy to a singular custom prevailing on Three Kings' Day (see BEAN-KING'S FESTIVAL), or Twelfth Night. According to tradition, the B. was an old woman who, being busy cleaning the house when the three wise men of the east passed by on their way to offer their treas ures to the infant Savior, excused herself for not going out to see them on the ground that she would have an opportunity of doing so when they returned. They, however, went home by another way; and the B., not knowing this, has ever since been watching for their return. She is supposed to take a great interest in children, who on Twelfth Night are put earlier to bed, and a stocking of each is hung before the fire. Shortly, the cry "Ecco la B." is raised; and the children, who have not gone to sleep, dart out of bed, and seize their stockings, in which each finds a present bearing some proportion in value to his conduct during the year. If any one has been conspicuously ill behaved, he finds his stocking full of ashes-the method the B. takes of expressing her disappro bation. It was also customary in Italy, on Twelfth Night, to carry an effigy called the B. in procession through the streets amid great rejoicings; but this, which was probably the relic of the celebration of a middle-age "mystery," has fallen greatly into disuse. The word is also used to awe naughty children.

BEF FROI, or BELFRY, was the name of a tower used in the military sieges of ancient and medieval times. When a town was to be besieged, a movable tower, as high as the walls, was brought near it; and this tower was the beffroi. Its use is more than once spoken of by Cæsar in his account of his campaigns in Gaul. Froissart describes, with his usual spirit, a B. employed at the siege of the castle of Breteuil in 1356. At the siege of Jerusalem by the crusaders, a B. was carried in pieces, put together just beyond bow-shot, and then pushed on wheels to a proper position. The object of such towers was to cover the approach of troops. Sometimes they were pushed on by pressure, sometimes by capstans and ropes. The highest were on six or eight wheels, and had as many as twelve or fifteen stories or stages; but it was usual to limit the height to three or four stages. They were often covered with raw hides, to protect them from the flames of boiling grease and oil directed against them by the besieged; and there was a hinged draw-bridge at the top, to let down upon the parapet of the wall, to aid in landing. The lower stage frequently had a ram (see BATTERING RAM); while the others were crowded with archers, arbalisters, and slingers; or there were bowmen on all the stages except the top, which had a storming or boarding party. During the wars under Charles I., the royalists made a B. to aid in the besieging of a town or castle in Herefordshire; it was higher than the defense-works, and was provided with loop-holes, a bridge, etc.; but the Roundheads captured it before it could be applied to use. Ducange thinks that the name of belfry (q.v.) given to a bell-tower, was derived from the warlike machine called the beffroi or belfry.

BEG, or BEY, a Turkish title, rather vague in its import, and commonly given to superior military officers, ship-captains, and distinguished foreigners. More strictly, it applies to the governor of a small district, who bears a horse-tail as a sign of his rank. The governor of Tunis has this title.-"Beglerbeg," or, more correctly, Beilerbegi ("lord of lords"), is the title given to the governor of a province who bears three horse tails as his badge of honor, and has authority over several begs, agas, etc. This superior title belongs to the governors of Rumelia, Anatolia, and Syria.

BEGA, CORNELIUS PIETERSZ. See page 887.

BEGAS, KARL, Court-painter to the king of Prussia, professor and member of the academy of art in Berlin, was b. there in 1794. He had been destined for the law, but