in the military art, any place where cannon or mortars are mounted, either to attack the forces of the enemy or to batter a fortification. Hence batteries have various names, according to the purposes which they are designed to effect.

Gun-Battery is a defence constructed of earth faced with green sods or fascines, sometimes of gabions filled with earth. It consists of a breastwork, epaulement, or parapet, about 8 Battery, feet in height, and 18 or 20 feet in thickness, with a ditch 12 feet broad at the bottom, 18 at the top, and 7 feet in depth. The open spaces through which the muzzles of the cannon are pointed are called embrasures, and the solid masses between the embrasures merlons. The distance from the centre of one embrasure to that of another is 18 feet, and this is also the distance at which the guns are placed from each other; consequently the merlons are 16 feet within and 7 without. The genouillères, or those parts of the parapet which cover the carriage of the gun, are generally made 23 feet in height from the platform to the opening of the embrasures; but this height must be regulated by the semi-diameter of the wheels of the carriage and the nature of the gun. The platforms are plank floors made to prevent the cannon from sinking into the ground, and they are generally 8 feet in length, 15 feet in breadth behind, and 9 feet before, with a rise of 9 or 10 inches from the parapet to check the recoil of the guns, and to render it more easy to bring them forward again when loaded.

Mortar-Batteries differ from gun-batteries in this, that the parapets have no embrasures, and the platforms have no slope, but are exactly horizontal; the shells being fired quite over the parapet, commonly at an elevation of 45°.

Open Battery is a number of cannon, commonly field-pieces, ranged in a row abreast on some natural elevation of ground, or on an artificial bank raised for the purpose.

Covered or Masked Battery is when the cannon and gunners are covered by a bank or breastwork, commonly made of brushwood, faggots, and earth.

Sunk or Buried Battery is when the platform is sunk or let down into the ground, so that trenches must be cut in the earth opposite the muzzles of the guns, to serve as embrasures to fire through.

Cross-Batteries are two batteries which play athwart each other upon the same object, forming there an angle, and battering with more effect, because what one battery shakes the other beats down.

Battery d'Enfilade is one that sweeps the whole length of a straight line, or the face or flank of any work.

Battery en Echarpe is that which plays obliquely.

Battery de Recesse is one which plays upon the rear of the troops appointed to defend a place.

Camouflage Battery is when several guns are discharged upon one point at the same instant.

Redan Batteries are such as flank each other at the salient and re-entrant angles of a fortification.

Ricochet Battery, so called by its inventor Vauban, was first used at the siege of Aeth in 1697. It is a method of discharging cannon with a very small charge of powder, and with just elevation enough to fire over the parapet. When properly managed, its effects are most destructive; for the shot, rolling along the opposite rampart, dismounts the cannon and disperses or destroys the troops. Ricochet practice is not confined to cannon alone; small mortars and howitzers may be effectually employed for the same purpose.

Floating Batteries are such as are erected either on rafts or on the hulls of ships.

Fuséine and Gabion Batteries are batteries constructed of those machines where sods are scarce, and the earth very loose or sandy. See Artillery.

Law, is the unlawful beating of another. The least touching of another's person wilfully, or in anger, is a battery, for the law cannot draw the line between different degrees of violence, and therefore totally prohibits the first and lowest stage of it; every man's person being sacred, and no other having a right to meddle with it, in any the slightest manner. Upon a similar principle, the Cornelian law de injuris prohibited pulsation as well as verberation; distinguishing verberation, which was accompanied with pain, from pulsation, which was attended with none. But battery is in some cases justifiable or lawful; Batticaloa as where one having authority, a parent or master, bestows moderate correction on his child, his scholar, or his apprentice. It is justifiable on the principle of self-defence; for if one man strike another, or only assault him, the latter may strike in his own defence, and if sued for it, may plead that it was the plaintiff's own original assault which occasioned it. It is likewise justifiable in defence of goods or possession, and in the exercise of an office, as that of church-warden or beadle; but the person pleading such justification in a civil suit, or in a criminal prosecution, must be prepared to instruct that he has observed the moderatorum inculpato tuete. By reason of these and other grounds of justification, battery is defined the unlawful beating of another; and the remedy is, as for assault, by action of trespass or damages, in which the jury will or ought to give adequate compensation.

BATTICALOA an island within an extensive lagoon on the east coast of Ceylon, in Lat. 7.44. N. Long. 81.52. E. It is of importance on account of the adjacent salt works. The territory of the same name contains a population of 30,000.