a town of Estremadura in Portugal, about a mile from Lisbon. It is seated on the north side of the river Tajo, and is designed to defend the entrance to Lisbon; and here all the ships that sail up the river must bring to. In this place they inter the kings and queens of Portugal.

BELÉMNITES, vulgarly called thunder-bolts or thunder-flower, are composed of several crusts of stone encircling each other, of a conical form, and various sizes; usually a little hollow, and somewhat transparent, formed of several strata radiating from the axis to the surface of the stone; and when burnt or rubbed against one another, or scraped with a knife, yield an odour like rasped horn. Their size is various, from a quarter of an inch to eight inches; and their colour and shape differ. They are supposed to be originally either a part of some sea production; or a stone formed in the cavity of some worm-shell, which being of a tender and brittle nature, has perished, after giving its form to the stone. They are very frequently found in many parts of England; and the common people have a notion, that they are always to be met with after a storm. They are often enclosed in, or adhere to, other stones; and are most frequent amongst gravel, or in clay; they abound in Gloucestershire; and are found near Deddington in Oxfordshire, where they sometimes contain the silver marcasite.

BELERIUM; in Ancient Geography, a promontory Belerium, of the Dunmonii or Damnonii, the westmost Britons. Belefs. Now called the Land's End, in Cornwall.