the coal mines, denotes the rise of the vein of coal towards the surface of the earth. This is also called by the workmen cropping; and stands opposed to dipping.

Bassi, Laura Maria Caterina, an Italian lady eminently distinguished for her learning and her virtues, was born at Bologna in 1711. On account of her extraordinary attainments she received a doctor's degree, and was appointed professor in the philosophical college, where she delivered public lectures on experimental philosophy till the time of her death. In 1738 she married Giuseppe Verrati, a physician, and left several children. She died in 1778.

Bassia, a genus of plants of the nat. ord. of Sapotaceae. The species are found in India and Africa. B. Butyracea is a tree of 50 feet in height, found in the Almorah hills in India. The seeds afford a concrete oil of considerable economic importance. B. longiflora is also a considerable tree, the seeds of which yield a valuable oil for lamps, soap, and in the kitchens of the poor a seasoning for rice. B. latiflora yields a greenish oil coarser than the last; and its flowers on distillation yield an ardent spirit. The wood of all the species is hard and durable.

Basso-Rilievo, or Bas-Relief, a piece of sculpture where the figures or images do not protuberate or stand out much above the plane on which they are formed. When cut, stamped, or otherwise wrought, so that not the entire body, but only part of it, is raised above the plane, it is said to be done in relief or rilievo; and when the work is flat, or little raised, it is called low relief. If a piece of sculpture, a coin, or a medal, has its figure raised so as to be well distinguished, it is said to be in bold, strong, or high relief, alto-rilievo.

Bassoon. See Music, § Musical Instruments.

Bassora. See Bussorail.

Bassus. See Entomology.

Bastard, bastardus (fancifully derived from the Greek βασαρία, meretriz, but with more reason from the British bastard, nothus, spurious, or from the German bastart, composed of bas, low, and start, risen, Saxon steort, an upstart, homo novus), one whose father and mother were not lawfully married previous to his or her birth, or, as it has sometimes been loosely expressed, one born out of lawful wedlock.

The civil and canon laws do not allow a child to remain a bastard if the parents afterwards intermarry; and this is also the law of Scotland, in which the principle of legitimation by subsequent marriage has been often and solemnly recognized. But herein they differ most materially from the English law; which, though not so strict as to require that a child shall be begotten, yet makes it an indispensable condition that it shall be born after lawful wedlock. Blackstone thinks that the reason of the English law is in this respect much superior to that of the Roman or of the derivative systems, if the principal end and design of establishing the contract of marriage, taken in a civil light, be considered; but this opinion, however natural in an English lawyer, does not seem to be borne out by considerations either of principle or of expediency. For although the learned commentator may be perfectly correct in his estimate of the motives which actuated the parliament of Merton A.D. 1235, when they refused to enact that children born in bastardy should be legitimated by the subsequent marriage of their parents; yet the question still remains whether such an enactment would not have been highly beneficial on grounds of public policy, as well as for the protection of private morals, and whether the experience since acquired has not decided in its favour; points concerning which lawyers, in Scotland at least, have long ceased to entertain any doubt.

Be this, however, as it may, one thing is certain, that all children born before matrimony are bastards by our law; and so are all children born so long after the death of the husband, that by the usual course of gestation, they could not be begotten by him. But this being a matter of some uncertainty, the law is not exact as to a few days; and although the child is born some time after the usual period of forty weeks, this only affords presumption, not proof, of illegitimacy. But if a man dies, and his widow soon after

According to information furnished by the late celebrated anatomist Dr John Hunter, it appears, let. That the usual period of gestation is nine calendar months, or from 270 to 280 days; but there is very commonly a difference of one, two, or three weeks. 2dly, That a child may be born alive at any time three months after conception, but none are born with powers of being reared or attaining manhood before seven calendar months or thereby. 3dly, That he, Dr Hunter, had known a woman bear a living child, in a perfectly natural way, fourteen days beyond the completion of nine calendar months; and he believed that two women had each been delivered of a living child, in a natural way, above ten calendar months from the hour of conception. It is owing to these natural irregularities that the law has been obliged to admit of considerable latitude in the application of the ordinary rule.