a town of Italy, in the kingdom of Naples, and in the Hither Calabria. It hath a strong fort, a bishop's see, and the title of a principality. It is seated on a mountain near the river Boccona, in E. Long. 16. 40. N. Lat. 39. 37.

BISK or BISQUE, in cookery, a rich sort of broth or soup, made of pigeons, chickens, force-meat, mutton-gravy, and other ingredients. The word is French, formed, as some think, from biscot; because the bisque, consisting of a diversity of ingredients, needs several repeated cokions to bring it to perfection. There is also a demi-bisque, made at a low expence, in which only half the ingredients are used; and a bisque of fish, made of carp minced with their roes and lobsters.

BISKUIT, or BISCUIT, a kind of bread prepared by the confectioners, of fine flour, eggs, and sugar, and rose or orange water; or of flower, eggs, and sugar, with aniseeds, and citron peel, baked again and again in the oven, in tin or paper moulds. There are divers sorts of biscuit; as feed-biskuit, fruit-biskuit, long-biskuit, round-biskuit, Naples-biskuit, sponge-biskuit, &c.

Sea-BISKUIT is a sort of bread much dried by passing the oven twice, to make it keep for sea-service. For long voyages they bake it four times, and prepare it fix months before the embarkation. It will keep good a whole year.

To preserve sea-biskuit from insects, Mr Hales advises to make the fumes of burning brimstone pass through the casks full of bread. Biskuit may be likewise preserved a long time, by keeping it in casks well calked, and lined with tin.

The ancients had their biskuit prepared after the like manner, and for the like use, as the moderns. The Greeks called it αγέλος διανυσσης, q. d. bread put twice to the fire. The Romans give it the name of panis nauticus, or capia. Pliny denominates it velus aut nauticus panis tusus atque iterum coctus. By which it appears, that after the first baking, they ground or pounded it down again for a second. In some middle-age writers, it is called paximas, paximus, and panis paximatus. Among the Romans we also meet with a kind of land-biskuit for the camp service, called buc-cellatum, sometimes expeditionalis annona, which was baked much; but to make it lighter for carriage, and lest liable to corrupt, the coction was continued till the bread was reduced one-fourth of its former weight.